Guild Wars 2

Howdy Boys and Girls!

I’ve recently made the fantastic decision to dust off the ol’ account and get back into the game again after a long hiatus (started playing during launch and a while afterwards, but a marriage, devorce, etc got in the way) and just need some friendly advice to help me jump back into the game!

My old character is a lvl80 Engineer, main question here is whether it is worth stick with him or put him aside and create a new main from scratch.

If so, what is a good recommendation for a new character for a player looking at PvE and casual group activities?

Thirdly, as an Australian player which world would be a good place to base myself to prevent latency related issues?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Welcome back.

First of all, if it’s been a long time since you’ve played (and it seems like it has), starting a new character would be a nice way to freshen up a bit and get used to the game again. Jumping right in with a max level character can work, but it can also be quite overwhelming. I did this in Lord of the Rings Online, jumping right back in with a character level 50ish (of 60 max) after a few months, and I had forgotten just about everything about the dozens of skills I had avaliable. True, I did get back into the game, but I ended up starting a new character to get the feeling for the game again. When I returned to GW2 after the expansion was anncounced, I just as well started from scratch with a new account. (the game was on sale anyway.)

Two, my highest level char’s are only 27. They are engineeer and mesmer, and of those, I strongly prefer mesmer. It might seem weak at first with only light armor, mostly ranged skills and focusing on clones, illusions and stuff like that, but trust me, once you get the hang of it, it’s brilliant fun. (and yes, that was a whole lot of commas. Sorry! Hehehe.) The mesmer is pretty good in PvE and casual grouping. My advice, though, is to stick to two weapon sets. This is crucial for my playstyle. Not just so I can swap around when I feel like a change, but because swapping weapons mid-combat can make some skills much better. For instance, I use a staff to cast an AoE that hurts enemies, then swap to a sword and rush in for close combat, while the AoE hurts the enemies. Works pretty darn well.

The servers aren’t important anymore, other than for WvW. It’s all mega-server now.

Engineer is probably a good start to get back into the game with. Engineers don’t really have a specific role to play in group play like other classes (ie. Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist, and Thief)

The beauty is that Engineers are pretty versatile because of all their utilities, which means that no one would say no to an Engineer in their party. They are a very good source of burst/stable damage, a source of AoE stealth, source of spamable blast-finishers, and source of AoE support/pressure.

Their only downside is that they have a high skill cap to them. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t take much to learn and play the profession and have fun. But to “master” the class, takes a bit of dedication and tears of unrelenting pain. But that’s not a problem if you’re only going play it casually.

If you do go for a different profession, I’d strongly recommend NOT one of the classes that are expected to fill a specific role in group play (even with casual play) like the Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist and Thief. It can be daunting when everyone expects you to fill those roles and you just want to lounge around and auto-attack.

And I’m not to sure about the latency for Aussies. Your best bet to find an answer IS to go into WvW during oceanic peak hours (which should be 7pm-10pm your time) and ask in map chat. You can also ask, in WvW for an active-casual PvE OXC guild to join, someone will respond. OXC stands for ocanic time zone, which is when Aussies play (normally)

Since you just came back to the game i suggest start a new character and it alway good to have more than 1 character so here is my suggestion

For very casual PvE and grp activities ( with friends )

1/ Warrior easy at everything strong and straight forward, offensive way
2/ Guardian easy like warrior but low hp, deffensive way
3/ Ranger Jack of all Trades fun with some ppl but not everyone like it
4/ Above all Mesmer can provide you a ton of fun just like engineer and very good in both pvp/pve.

Engineer is good in fact they are master class but not anyone can master it hard to play like ele they are both the hardest – seriously and you may not be welcome at some places if you are an engineer.

Expansion is coming you should check out Anet review clips about class elite specialization so far we have already known

Mesmer – Chronomancer
Guardian – Dragon Hunter aka Dohvakiin
Necromancer – Reaper < you must have this class no matter what reaper is so cool.

Just don’t delete the Engineer. Although we have a traits revamp coming some time soonish (on a scale of months), right now any newly created alt has to deal with the New Player Experience in which the starter zones have been vastly simplified, some game aspects such as doing skill challenges don’t unlock until a few levels in, and traits either cost gold+skill points or you have to do unreasonable things in the world to unlock each one. Alts created before April 2014 are grandfathered in to full trait unlocks.

When the new system arrives you’ll want to have done as many skill challenges in maps as you can. Those will be your source of points to spend on traits and skills.