Guild Wars 2

So I bought GW2 to play at launch with all of my friends. Since then all my friends have played it on and off and each time they go back for a patch… I’m left behind because I’ve only ever gotten to level 30… and find this game really, really boring. Now I don’t mean to hate on the game I think it has a lot of good design it’s just… well the combat (at least on my Mesmer) is just dull and repetitive. So back to the question and my problem. I need help getting into this game and getting to high level so I can not worry about leveling anymore and just get into the end game stuff (the patch events etc.) The huge issue is that I only tend to like playing healers in MMOs and there is no trinity in this game… I can’t seem to feel like I’m reacting to what’s happening as much as I’m just repeating a rotation… or playing whack-a-mole with cooldowns. It seems as though the developer’s solution to the trinity problem was forcing everyone to be a DPS… not a solution. I actually like playing the PvP in this game (NOT WvWvW) but that doesn’t level you last I checked and won’t let me play with my friends as far as PvE content is concerned. I’ve tried several classes (Thief, Warrior, Engineer, and Ranger) got them to around level 20 and just couldn’t take the grind anymore. How do I have fun while leveling? What do people like about this game? Why do people like being forced into one role instead of having 3? What can I look forward to? What class should I pick? etc…

TL;DR: How do you have fun in this game, whilst gaining levels? What class has the least rotation feel? And Is their a way to avoid the whack-a-cooldown combat?

This is not an easy question. I think personally I don’t pay that much attention to what buttons I push or in which order. More important is what I am trying to do at the moment instead of how.

I look around and if I see something interesting I go investigate. I talk to and listen to the NPCs. Sometimes they make me laugh, sometimes I feel sorry for them. Sometimes I can help them out of a bad situation. I set out to do a task instead of gaining a level, the levels happen on their own. I don’t grind, I am in not that much of a hurry. (I have 13 characters at lvl 80 and some on the way.)

Switching weapons/attunements does bring variety to the fight although most fights don’t really take that long. You could even carry extra weapons to try out every once in a while. Also, try going to a bit different areas. See different environments and meet new adversries.

Also, you apparently can buy stuff with glory that gives level for PvE. Sorry, I don’t know more about that, nothing is getting me into PvP torture.

Why are you asking us?

If you don’t like the game, do something else.

Because this is a social game, that I would like to play with all of my friends… and I just feel that I am approaching it wrong. Or that perhaps I’m playing all the wrong classes… or don’t know enough about it. Surely if all of my friends who like the same games as me like it then there must be something about it that I can like?

Have you gotten into your toon’s personal story? That’s a good way to level up, and if your level is not high enough for your next story step, do some heart quests or the Queensdale champ train to level up.

Once you are higher level, you’ll be able to play with your skills and traits to get whichever part of the “trinity” you hope to play. While there is no “holy trinity” in this game, you can spec your toon for different roles. My mesmer is traited so that phantasms heal in a close radius, helping to mitigate damage to myself and my party. I can also trait for DPS or tanking. My guardian can also be traited in a similar fashion.

I’d say pick a toon you like best and level it up enough to have all your skills unlocked and play around with your traits. There are also a lot of forum posts dealing with specific builds that you could check out.

Garambola.2461:

This is not an easy question. I think personally I don’t pay that much attention to what buttons I push or in which order. More important is what I am trying to do at the moment instead of how.

I look around and if I see something interesting I go investigate. I talk to and listen to the NPCs. Sometimes they make me laugh, sometimes I feel sorry for them. Sometimes I can help them out of a bad situation. I set out to do a task instead of gaining a level, the levels happen on their own. I don’t grind, I am in not that much of a hurry. (I have 13 characters at lvl 80 and some on the way.)

Switching weapons/attunements does bring variety to the fight although most fights don’t really take that long. You could even carry extra weapons to try out every once in a while. Also, try going to a bit different areas. See different environments and meet new adversries.

Also, you apparently can buy stuff with glory that gives level for PvE. Sorry, I don’t know more about that, nothing is getting me into PvP torture.

I agree with this.

I’m not a role-player or anything like that, but a degree of immersion definitely makes any game more fun. When you think of it as exploring the world and helping out people you meet along the way, or even just playing a game rather than checking points off a list in order to gain XP and levels it becomes much more fun and you’ll feel like you’re levelling up much quicker.

It’s esspecially important in a game like GW2 because the “end game” isn’t really any different to what you do while levelling up. You’ll still be exploring zones, doing dynamic events, fighting champions or groups of enemies, doing dungeons, getting achievements etc. The only differences are that you can do it in whatever order you like because you don’t need to worry about being too low level and the XP you get is meaningless (unless you need extra skill points).

On a related note most of the Living Story up-levels you so you could go and play it with your friends now, and you’ll get XP for it so you’ll level up as you’re going along. You won’t be as poweful as a genuine level 80 character but you’ll be able to participate meaningfully.

Thanks for all of the answers I’ve finally started to have fun in this game thanks to some of the suggestions! One of the best communities other than the overprotective-ness some of the players have over the game.

You mentioned feeling locked into skill rotations and I think that may be part of the issue. While there are certainly ideal rotations to deal max DPS with any specific skill/weapon setup, there is no reason in the majority of this game (I’d say 85%) that outputing maximum DPS is EVER required.

I guess my suggestion is that you quit thinking about the mechanics of playing the game at maximum efficiency and play at role-playing the game a bit. If you are a min/maxer that just can’t stand not outputing the maximum DPS possible at all times, then leveling certain classes in this game IS going to get repetitive and boring.

Hope this helps.