Guild Wars 2

The Bubble is having fun but is lost. I have not left the same area for days. Now this is partial due to trying to find a class for my style of play but since the “3 standard roles” are non existent I do not know what to do. I am used to be a healer. I like standing back and saving lives and not worrying about DPSing. Now I find my self feeling in inadequate cause I do not dps all that well and feel like its my fault when other player die during an event. yet Have not found a class/combo to help people. I heard Water Elemental with staff is good. Is this true or what is a good class that can kind of stay in the back and lazily heal/buff or have the least amount of responsibility?

Now I love the game and craziness is a feature I just to find a class that is a little slower as I adjust to these new MMO concepts that you young ones like.

So Far I have tried Engineer, I liked it but seems like a lot of switching around to play the class well. I am now trying a hunter. I am on Tarnished coast. Until I find my main all the class I try will be Asura(cause I like playing smaller races) and will be named Bubblerum Gummp. So if anyone wants to say Hi, or give me advice feel free to.

Go for a staff guardian, you can heal/buff/protect and still smite the ever loving crap out of your foes. What server are you on? I’m more than willing to join up with you and lend a hand getting you into the flow of things and helping you figure out what might work best for you. Look me up in-game, even if we can’t party up I can whisper you and link things I think might interest you. I play all classes and have a few of them 80 already so any questions you might have I can either answer myself or find someone who can.

<——— Use my account name to PM me

Thank to everyone who contacted me and answered all my question and helped me out with some confusion I was having. Nice to play an MMO with a community where I did not get one negative whisper or reply.

Welcome to the madhouse.

I totally understand what you are saying. I think considering the problems you have that you have to let go of your role as a healer. DO NOT PLAY WATER ELE OR GUARDIAN. Or atleast not till your more experienced.

Cause the 3 standard roles are banned, the replacements are very hard to play and more for skilled, experienced and (younger) players.

I would in your case accept this faith atleast untill you mastered gameskills like dps and tank.

Your logic question would be then what profession to pick then. My answer would be either ranger or warrior. They are considered the easiest classes to play with as a starting playing (and cause your role is going to be difficult from everything you know so far you are a starting player). Warrior is melee, based around tanking and dps. you have a huge health so healing is offc course important but lesser then other professions. Rangers are (mostly) ranged classes with a pet trying to tank for you (and doing it reasonable good if you expect they will die often and not go, ‘ow no they killed my tweety’) and you can cocnentrate on dps and keeping yourself alive.

Please do not give up, but do see your own limitations that you have to learn everything from the start instead of trying to build on old skills where you actually know they are useless in this game.

I used to play a healer too in GW1. The engineer can be adapted into an ‘off-healing’ class with some healing gear, elixir and elixir gun specializations and maybe ‘heal bombing’ though the healing capability will amount to little more than say having 3 stacks of regen in a localized area which works great for mob surviability but won’t help much in situations where you or your party is getting hit by a lot of high burst damage attacks (e.g: bosses, lots of vets/silvers). You can augment area healing with nades if you prefer to stay at the back.

From my personal experience as a healer, engineer is fun to play, particularly turret-oriented engies up to level 40 or so (turrets are more early useful on, but dont scale as well at higher levels) then becoming a grenade oriented engie (or flamer) with additional healing and elixir buffing abilities. Doing AoE while applying 25 stacks of weakness on your enemies while adding a little bit of heals/buffs to the party makes the engie a nice all-around support class at high levels when you have enough trait points to spec grenadier (power 30 trait) in addition to your preferred support/survivability traits.

For other classes, you could try water ele (squishy) or guardian if you want to second as an area-buff applying tank. I’ve heard of altruistic healing builds which use the guardian’s attacks to also provide a constant stream of self and area heals. Haven’t tried it (yet) but from what I read it seems to be sort of 55-monk’ish but perhaps more tanky.

I too would suggest trying a guardian.

I’m like you and used to prefer the healer role in other MMOs but that role doesn’t really exist in GW2. It’s up to each individual player to try and keep themselves alive, through avoiding damage and using their self-heals, rather than assume that someone will do it for them.

Guardians can heal a bit, help reduce and block incoming damage, and buff their allies. They’re also quite hard to kill which can be helpful when soloing. A staff guardian can stay a bit back from the action but still be effective with healing, buffing and some dps too as Nay said. My main is a guardian.

I’ve also played an elementalist a bit too. Elementalists work best when you’re switching attunements throughout a fight and if you stick to just one, like water to heal, you’ll be reducing your effectiveness. They’re also quite squishy and I certainly died more on my elementalist than my guardian.

I wouldn’t worry about people dying during an event – it’s common place. In fact people will enter the downed state first and helping to revive them before they actually do die is important and you’ll help a lot by just doing this. You can revive them once dead but it takes so much longer.

Guardian should work well! I am also an older player (47) without console game twitch reflexes. I also enjoy cloth caster support in other games. And I adore my Guardian, for all the reasons others have listed above.

I’m on Tarnished Coast too! Feel free to add me to friends and ping me for aid. Sometimes I have a lot of RP or PvE going on, sometimes I’m asking in guild chat if anyone wants me for stuff and if not I’m just doing filler activities, and at the latter times I’d love someone to call on me for help with stuff.

ya I am trying out the guardian, man that class has a lot of weapons he can use and mix and match. Time for some fun trying them all out Thanks again everyone. Now to decide on weapon and crafting classes. Gotta love it. watches as time flies by and next thing he knows its 2014

What I do early on with every new character is use the drops to learn all the weapon skills. Including underwater. Then later on, I am free to paick any weapon I want and not have to start learning them at a high level.
Guardian directly benefits from armor smith and weapon smith as well as cooking. The last is beneficial to any character, as long as one remembers to eat.

Yeah, a guardian setup with proper traits, runes, sigils, weapons, etc will probably feel most like a healing class of another game. Elemental is good too, but doesn’t feel like a healer in the traditional sense, and same for Engineer.

It’s a bit off-topic but I find it amusing that people who don’t like the trinity like to claim it’s all “younger” players who didn’t play/don’t know about games from before WoW who like it and want it back. Now apparently it’s younger players who are pushing new mechanics.

Back on topic I’d recommend playing a guardian if you want a support class since they have the most support skills. You can’t use them as straight healers but you can do a combination of healing, buffs and blocking/protective skills. Water eles can work too but to play an ele effectively you need to switch between all the elements so you can’t focus exclusively on support skills.

If you want something simple to get you used to the game mechanics I’d recommend a warrior. They’re basically straight damage dealers, but good for getting you used to the combat mechanics.

actually by younger, it was meant more towards me being and old dog set in his ways, and not as young and malleable as I used to be.

One thing I forgot to mention, I do not like to lead. As a guardian are people going to be looking to me to lead them through dungeons, quest, ect, ect?

In my guild, at least, it’s the person who knows the dungeon best that leads, whether they be warrior or ele or thief. We haven’t had any issues. I’ve also led some Fractal and AC runs myself, as an ele, and things went well.

I don’t know who you’ll be running with, but if someone pushes the role of lead on you just because of your class, chances are they haven’t gotten the memo.

Another question, I know I am sorry, but does GW2 suffer from what other MMOs have and that is influxes of too many of one class. Cause I see a guardian every time I turn around. I assume no since thee “Role” things is done away with so it wouldn’t matter if a group was all the same class. Well that’s what I am hoping for.

See I worry to much which is why I always played a healer in other MMOs. So much easier to just sit back , keep people alive and always have people need you.

Bubblerum.6015:

Another question, I know I am sorry, but does GW2 suffer from what other MMOs have and that is influxes of too many of one class. Cause I see a guardian every time I turn around. I assume no since thee “Role” things is done away with so it wouldn’t matter if a group was all the same class. Well that’s what I am hoping for.

You see lots of Guardians around because at the moment they are the best prof to play if you want to get more used to the combat system. With a Guardian (and Warrior) you can achieve what other profs achieve without worrying much, even by simply standing still. Of course where it matters, high end PVE-Dungeons-PVP-WvW the Guardian needs to be like all other profs, it’s only the simple everyday PVE grinding/farming/mining that they have it a bit easier than others.

Ah I see. So more class questions. Which class gets all the ladies!

Well…I’m a lady and I play currently Necromancer, Guardian, Ranger, Elementalist, Mesmer and Engineer. Planning eventually to expand to Thief and Warrior too. So, all classes get this lady.

On a more serious note, it doesn’t matter if there are lots of people playing any particular class. There will still be variations due to weapon and trait choices.

Bubblerum.6015:

See I worry to much which is why I always played a healer in other MMOs. So much easier to just sit back , keep people alive and always have people need you.

That statement is the crux of what ANet did in GW2. They took away the “need” for any particular class over another in completing anything.

Some folks don’t like that. I think its a breath much need fresh air in games like these. Somehow, there is always a way to complete almost any task with almost any party make-up.

But to be Devil’s Advocate here, Now instead of people complaining we do not have x amount of x class. We are going to have to deal with X person does not have Super Uber Sexy Build/Items X. Which is what always happens with MMO skill systems. The promotion from the devs is build and play how you want, but if you want to do, usually the end game things to get sexy uber item x, you build and gear the same as everyone else. Now this is coming from someone with a character at level 7. Like I said just playing devil’s advocate. I most likely am wrong I dunno. But from my 14 years of MMO experience it tends to always happen in the top raiding guilds. Which is why I love RP. In an RP guild you play what ya want and what happens is the will of the gods So if ya get plowed over and over you go the pub and drink it away. Ok I am rambling now, um bye.

Bubblerum.6015:

Another question, I know I am sorry, but does GW2 suffer from what other MMOs have and that is influxes of too many of one class. Cause I see a guardian every time I turn around. I assume no since thee “Role” things is done away with so it wouldn’t matter if a group was all the same class. Well that’s what I am hoping for.

The best thing about this game is that the holy trinity (tank, healer, dps) is dead. You can group with any combination of classes and have a reasonable expectation for survival. You can run a dungeon with five guardians, or five elementalists, or any combination of classes, etc …. Just focus on what you enjoy playing. I too played healers on most mmos … In gw2 I went elementalist first because it does have a heal component and can be played from a ranged damage. Get beyond the mental block of that holy trinity and try each class out until you find one that suits you …. All of the classes in gw2 are fabulous and have something to offer. The fun is in discovery.

lol, thoroughly enjoyed reading this thread. : )) Bubble, glad you’re enjoying this game so much! i main a Guard as well and absolutely adore him. i’ve tried multiple builds and currently practicing one that actually utilizes healing power + boon duration. i may not hit as hard, but when i am able to outheal most of the dmg i’m taking, and just avoid the big hits in general. i went with hammer + mace / shield. both have great defensive capabilities and i don’t feel at all i kill any slower. and by consatntly keeping my allies under protection, regen, and healing them through symbols or the mace, they’re able to stay in the fight longer, kite less, and do more dmg. so it works out in both solo and group settings.

it’s quite fun and a quick change of pace as i used to be more focused on crits. i neve rplayed a traditional MMO where they had defined roles, so this works for me. : ))) don’t worry about people who tell you to change the way you play or you’re not doing it right. as long as you’re most comfortable with it, just play the way you want to. i did a dungeon once and was told to change my weapon (hammer) because i kept putting light combo fields down, and some guy said i was taking all the might stacks away from the group (fire field + blast finisher = AoE might). so i just changed my weapon to avoid having to do a complete dungeon run with someone super bitter.

there will always be people like that. i want to say they just aren’t adaptable and need to put the blame on someone else when they are not performing up to par. that’s of course cynical generalization of mine. @Jayne put it quite well – all of the classes in gw2 ARE in fact very fun. i just love the Guardian the most. and figure out what you can do best, and enjoy doing most and stick with it! and keep improving yaself. ; )))

have fun and see you in Tyria XDD

Very warm welcome to the game, Bubblerum and I hope your adventures go well and you’re getting to grips with the game and how it’s different from those other MMO’s.

BTW, I’m also new to this game as only been playing 6 weeks or so and an older player (Like Donari, also) and on Tarnished Coast server (like Donari, again) so if you fancy visiting TC server it would be great to have new friends to ocassionaly team up with, chat, gear swap or get guidance from.

Your choice of Guardian sounds a very good choice. I’m an Altaholic with 4 a Ranger, Engineer, Guardian & Elementalist between 20-40 and loving each of them for their individual style and gameplay. Guardians are certainly tough and do great in any role it seems.

Wherever you end up, best of luck and keep having such fun Must confess, never had so much fun as exploring and finding a “secret” area with a jump puzzle or a nasty beastie guarding a horde or treasure.. long may it continue.

Cheers