Guild Wars 2

Hi guys wondering if any of you could help me out. Ive just started the game with 2 friends. Im a guardian, they are an elementalist and a thief. Basically we are dying A LOT. By a lot i mean up to maybe 5 times each in an hours game play maybe. Playing the game 8 hours a night adds up to quite a bit. Im just wondering if this is normal for the game or do we just have serious learn to play issues.
If anyone could give me some hints as to how to get us setup to survive a bit better that would be great. We have just unlocked our traits and myself as guardian am looking for as much a support/healing build as possible to keep the others up. Tips on which weapons and offhand combos for myself would help too.
Thanks in advance for any help

Cheers lance

If all three of you are leveling together, then yes, you have L2P issues. An experienced team of three probably wouldn’t be dying at all. That said, you’re new. You’re expected to have L2P issues!

This forums gets posts like this at least once a day, so I recommend just browsing back a few pages and looking at similar threads. It will be faster than waiting for everyone to type the same thing…again. Also, check out this thread if you haven’t already for a bunch of helpful tips.

For class advice, I would point you all to your individual class forums. There’s actually a stickied guardian guide that should give you all the basics.

Learn to evade attacks, guardian has a lot of healing skills, also staff has healing attacks. And don’t forget to use the skills that grant aegis as they block attacks. You could also use scepter and focus or mace and shield as it has some regeneration and a block skill. There are other weapons that have that too but I can’t remember them all as my main is a warrior. And make sure you don’t go up against mobs that are like 3 levels above you to be safe.

Survival boils down to three parts: stats, skills, and movement.

I hate having to say something as trite as, “Defensive stats increase your survival!” But I notice a lot of players haven’t figured out just how much it matters to incorporate a defensive stat. A little vitality or toughness can go a long way.

After stats, your next line of defense are your skills. This includes mitigation skills (blocking and barriers), control (stuns and knockdowns), debuffs (blind, weakness), boons (protection, aegis), and condition removals (though you probably are too low level to see a lot of incoming condition damage). It always helps to have at least one accessible defensive skill, either on your weapon or on your utility bar. The difficult part is learning when to best use the skill (aka, don’t use it really early).

Speaking of defensive skills, a tip for healing: heal early, heal often. Don’t wait until you’re down to 25% hp before you heal. Use it when you’re at 75%.

Finally, movement. Movement is the holy grail of survival. Movement, positioning, and dodging. There’s a lot to talk about here, so I’ll try to keep it short and sweet. Never stay still. Save movement buffs/debuffs for kiting or to help pull aggro off your squishy friends. Keep an eye on enemy and friendly aoe placement, position accordingly. Pay close attention to enemy animations, they always telegraph their attacks. Use those telegraphs to time your dodge rolls.

When you keep on the move, dodge roll out at critical moments, and properly kite mobs, you’ll save yourself from taking a whole lot of damage. Not only is this the most important part of survival, it’s also the one I see new players have the most trouble getting used to. It will take time, but pay attention to how you move and position yourself and you’ll survive a whole lot better.

Remember this is still a tab target game.. so even if u see a projectile coming and u run of move away , it will change its course and hit u unless u use the dodge mechanic.

With limited traits and boons dodging can be very limited in a short period of time, 2 usualy. So the best thing to do is pick ur fights, know how many u can take on at once, and use ur dodges for only the most hard hitting of attacks.

Keep ur gear up to date, if ur using blues dont let them get any more than 3 levels behind ur actual level, if ur using greens 5 levels, and golds(rares – start at lvl 35) 10 levels max.
Stat combinations are also important, at very low lvls u only get to choose 1 stat, so i would sugest precision or power.
Once u get into dual stat gear i would choose power or precision + vitality or toughness.
when u finaly get into 3 stat gear u can then go power + precision + vitality or toughness.

Weapon wise i found a guardian most easy with a 2h Greatsword, u can then have ur second weapon set as mace + shield or what ever floats ur boat.

Moving and dodging is really key to survival. Lots of enemies have heavy hitting attacks that quite often have some CC (knock down, daze, etc) and avoiding these can mean the difference between taking almost no damage and getting killed. Look for signs of a big attack incoming, often e.g. glowing rays around the mob, and you will soon learn when to dodge. Circle strafing around an enemy can often be the most effective method, especially if the mob has some form of AoE cone damage since they will often do a quick pause before using it and stop turning to face you.

SolarNova.1052:

Remember this is still a tab target game.. so even if u see a projectile coming and u run of move away , it will change its course and hit u unless u use the dodge mechanic.

Actually, that’s not true. Projectiles don’t lock on (I guess some rare ones might but I can’t recall any) to you but rather predict where the target will be. This is easiest seen by alternately quickly tapping strafe right and left and is very useful for soloing some champions that only use ranged attacks. Keep in mind that if the projectile speed is too fast it will almost always hit you unless you’re really far away (and in some cases this is longer than the attack range and some attacks like the stones thrown by the frost worms have an AoE component that can still hit you)

Ok so they may not be 100% locked on ..but they are not completly free flying ether. Not like an action combat game with manual targeting and such.

They r like semi guided , they wont do a 180 to hit u or turn around a 90 degree corner. .but they will still track u somewhat.

Still not quite accurate. Technically, nearly any ranged attack that includes a separate projectile (ie: laser beam type skills don’t count) are completely free flying. One exception is a projectile which bounces between targets (Thief shortbow, for instance). Again, technically, the projectile doesn’t follow you, but sometimes a sidestepped projectile will trigger a ‘bounce’ midair and will, in fact, shift direction back towards the target. And a few mob projectiles really do just track you (Damnedable imps), but that’s extremely rare.

For the vast majority of projectiles, no tracking occurs. (Video proof!) Granted, the projectile hit-box is fairly generous, and most projectiles fly much too fast to strafe unless you have the advantage of range, much like Rainu has pointed out, and as the video shows. So the dodge mechanic is the only reliable method to avoid projectiles.

And since you’ve brought it up, you can actually play GW2 as an action combat game using only manual targeting (again, lasers don’t count). All but a select few projectiles can utilize manual aiming, and when done properly will connect with their target as if you had the target selected. Obviously it’s not a reliable way to play the game, but it’s possible.

For survivability in a group, first of all, be aware that everyone more or less needs to look out for themselves. Each person may need some points in a defensive stat (and traits will help with that a lot since you up a couple of your basic stats with each trait point spent; check which ones you’re getting!), and/or an ability to dodge, and/or some tricks of their own. For example I play a short-range elementalist with power/precision stats, so I die really easily. That just means I have to be careful with movement, dodge a lot, and have tricks – I get downed easily, but I can get myself rallied again most of the time.

What other advice can I offer… you’ll get it with time; the longer you play a class the more you’ll see what you can do with it, so give it time. As I said, traits will help a lot (they open up some of those tricks I was talking about). As you play, watch for the specific problems you’re having and see if you can use traits to fix them (that’s why I put so much effort into rallying myself when I get downed). And help each other! Friends and allies are the best thing to have when you get downed.

One other note—events scale up based on the number of players participating. While roaming the world, doing things for the hearts, it should be easy to survive. Events should also be doable, but if you’re used to roaming around with 3 people, the Events will be more difficult than general roaming around.

This is by far one of the most gear sensitive games I’ve played. I notice a huge difference if I keep my gear upgraded near or at my level. Of course I don’t buy every single level, but every 5 to 10 I’d make sure you upgrade. It doesn’t even have to be rare gear, it can be green or even blue and you’ll notice a difference.

Jayne.9251:

This is by far one of the most gear sensitive games I’ve played. I notice a huge difference if I keep my gear upgraded near or at my level. Of course I don’t buy every single level, but every 5 to 10 I’d make sure you upgrade. It doesn’t even have to be rare gear, it can be green or even blue and you’ll notice a difference.

Also .. you have sockets in you armor-slots where you can drop in the jeweler crafting mats, that will also give you some nice extra-stats.

And dont wait for gear drops, you can buy a lot very cheap in the trading-post.