Guild Wars 2

Hi just picked up two copies of GW2 so my girlfriend and I can join some friends that play. We both played WoW for ~5y and I played GW1 and EotN. We’re only level 12 but GW2 seems quite different then GW1 so I have a few questions if someone wouldn’t mind answering them.

1) Is there a dedicated healer class? GW1 had monks, and possibly another class you could hire (it’s been a while). My girlfriend has max level healers of every class in WoW and she wanted to play a healer if she could. She’s playing a Mesmer now and enjoying it.

2) Is there a dedicated tank class? I’ve primarily played tanks in WoW but in GW1 I played a MM necro and tanked/pulled instances with a long bow. Do dungeon groups need a guardian or can you do dungeons without one? Can warriors tank?

3) What level do dungeons start?

4) How do necros, mesmers, and guardians stack up on DPS meters? We don’t need to be top DPS (Warriors?) but I’d like to know in advance if our choices will put us at the bottom or make it difficult to do dungeon runs down the road.

Thanks!

I see you are not very well informed about GW2 at all. The game doesn’t have a trinity, and that means that both classes and dungeons are more flexible, and that there’s no dedicated healer & tank classes. Instead we have a “soft trinity” which is damage, support and control.

There are no taunts or aggro-dropping skills so controlling aggro is quite difficult, and no class can “tank” a difficult boss full time by just standing there. You WILL be required to use your dodges, CC and kite even on the tankiest guardian. Having a lot of DPS isn’t that required either as there are no enrage timers or bullkitten like that. Support doesn’t mean “healbot” and in fact no class has spammable heals to keep health bars filled up.

Just stick with the classes you enjoy and you can run pretty much every dungeon with almost every party composition. However, some classes are definitely stronger than others and generally more welcomed in parties, especially for speedruns. Warriors and Guardians do pretty well in all departments, Rangers Engineers and Necros are considered somewhat weak.

Sorry for the terrible formatting.

1) There is none.

2) There is none

3) Level 30

4) I believe Mesmers and Guardians are pretty well stacked, but classes are customizable so it might differ from player to player. No idea about Necro, don’t play one.

1) There are some known support specs that can help fullfill the “healer” role, though they all go about it in different ways. Rangers have their spirit spec, Warriors have their shout spec (with gear procs), Engineers have their elixer gun spec, Elementalists have their water spec, and even Thief has a some through their venomous aura spec. (I’m sure that there are more, but I can’t think of any right now.) Having said that, there is no such thing as a devoted healer spec. Though a water focused Elementalist using combo field procs would be the mostly like candidate for the title of “healer”.

2) While no one can survive being a full time “tank”, it is very possible to off-tank if you’re built right. These builds tend to focus on defensive effects to prevent incoming damage, using various skills that have a built in dodge mechanic, having access to various forms of self-healing, and stacking up lots of Toughness (which is a multplier that raises the effectiveness of the Armor value that you’re wearing). Your most typical tanky builds use either a Guardian or Warrior. However other classes can also do similar things. My own Thief is built to act as an off-tank as needed and can tie down Champion level trash mobs during large public events (though I’ll never kill them on my own).

(As a general FYI, people have discovered that having a high Toughness score does increase your inherent threat generation. Even when a mob aggro wipes, it is more likely to go after Toughness builds that are doing significant dps and debuffs. This is basically what my Thief does, which is why I end up having aggro from time to time.)

3) (Already answered)

4) From a dps perspective, it really matters if you’re talking about large Group Event grade dynamic events or if you’re talking about instanced dungeon content. The issue is that there is a damage dot cap of x25 stacks for Confusion and Bleed. At the same time, adding stacks to Poison and Burn only increase the total duration and the highest dps player source will always be pushed into the front of the damage duation. What this means in layman’s terms is that it really sucks to be a dot build when you have to compete with other players’ dot attempts. Currently dynamic event rewards are based on the net dps that you did in an event. Due to the dot mechanics, your average Necro dot build will probably only get Silver or Bronze rewards (instead of the usual Gold rewards that every other person will receive). I’d assume that a Confusion focused Mesmer might run into similar issues, though few other classes can produce Confusion effects as much as a Mesmer.

If you’re running a pure Power / Precision damage build, then you won’t have to compete with your fellow players when it comes to getting personal rewards. Though at the same time, the largest dynamic event bosses (aka dragons) count as objects that can’t be critically hit. Therefore Precision does have occassional situations where it’s not that useful.

Wiser with Age.3714:

1) There are some known support specs that can help fullfill the “healer” role, though they all go about it in different ways. Rangers have their spirit spec, Warriors have their shout spec (with gear procs), Engineers have their elixer gun spec, Elementalists have their water spec, and even Thief has a some through their venomous aura spec. (I’m sure that there are more, but I can’t think of any right now.) Having said that, there is no such thing as a devoted healer spec. Though a water focused Elementalist using combo field procs would be the mostly like candidate for the title of “healer”.

2) While no one can survive being a full time “tank”, it is very possible to off-tank if you’re built right. These builds tend to focus on defensive effects to prevent incoming damage, using various skills that have a built in dodge mechanic, having access to various forms of self-healing, and stacking up lots of Toughness (which is a multplier that raises the effectiveness of the Armor value that you’re wearing). Your most typical tanky builds use either a Guardian or Warrior. However other classes can also do similar things. My own Thief is built to act as an off-tank as needed and can tie down Champion level trash mobs during large public events (though I’ll never kill them on my own).

(As a general FYI, people have discovered that having a high Toughness score does increase your inherent threat generation. Even when a mob aggro wipes, it is more likely to go after Toughness builds that are doing significant dps and debuffs. This is basically what my Thief does, which is why I end up having aggro from time to time.)

3) (Already answered)

4) From a dps perspective, it really matters if you’re talking about large Group Event grade dynamic events or if you’re talking about instanced dungeon content. The issue is that there is a damage dot cap of x25 stacks for Confusion and Bleed. At the same time, adding stacks to Poison and Burn only increase the total duration and the highest dps player source will always be pushed into the front of the damage duation. What this means in layman’s terms is that it really sucks to be a dot build when you have to compete with other players’ dot attempts. Currently dynamic event rewards are based on the net dps that you did in an event. Due to the dot mechanics, your average Necro dot build will probably only get Silver or Bronze rewards (instead of the usual Gold rewards that every other person will receive). I’d assume that a Confusion focused Mesmer might run into similar issues, though few other classes can produce Confusion effects as much as a Mesmer.

If you’re running a pure Power / Precision damage build, then you won’t have to compete with your fellow players when it comes to getting personal rewards. Though at the same time, the largest dynamic event bosses (aka dragons) count as objects that can’t be critically hit. Therefore Precision does have occassional situations where it’s not that useful.

Thanks everyone for the replies and detail on how the game works. For my necro I was planning on playing MM again (power/toughness build). I hear the pet AI is pretty bad but after progression raiding in WoW for a few years we are just looking to take it easy and have some fun. And it doesn’t get much better then roaming the hills with a personal army

I’m already impressed by the in-game community in GW2. The attitude and willingness to help in low level zones is night and day compared to WoW.

If you want necro advice hit me up or one of the many other necros on the forums. MM works just fine and I think you’ll enjoy it. I have a few versions of MM builds if you would like to try them out, and there are other necros around that are more experienced with minions than me too. The good thing about necro is, you can be a support role pretty much on the fly and still be able to swap back to your previous role. I play all classes so if you have other questions feel free to hit me up. Use my forum name to whisper me in-game or just PM me here. Have fun!

Nay of the Ether.8913:

If you want necro advice hit me up or one of the many other necros on the forums. MM works just fine and I think you’ll enjoy it. I have a few versions of MM builds if you would like to try them out, and there are other necros around that are more experienced with minions than me too. The good thing about necro is, you can be a support role pretty much on the fly and still be able to swap back to your previous role. I play all classes so if you have other questions feel free to hit me up. Use my forum name to whisper me in-game or just PM me here. Have fun!

Here’s a video from the necro forums on a minion master build. Nemesis knows his necro, and there are links in the video to other builds if you want to explore necro possibilities. I’ve been using a variation of his tank build, which is quite durable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_197030&feature=iv&src_vid=y_bIqwtB-fw&v=t4yhRIiBdEI