Guild Wars 2

For those newbies looking for a class to play, I made a short video detailing which classes are most beginner friendly. You can try out these classes while you get a hang of the games mechanics.

I think it’s much more important for new players to choose a profession they find fun and will enjoy playing than one which is easy to use.

I’ve been given this advice before and I’ve found it makes it much more likely I’ll get bored with the game. I don’t mind a game being difficult, or even confusing at first, but if it’s boring I have no incentive to keep playing.

As always with class choices it should come down to what they, the player wants to play. If they like ranged classes they are a few from pure bow and arrow ranged to magic wheilding ranged. For the one’s who enjoy being the tank there’s like two ( three if you count the elite reaper class) really fun classes to play. With guildwars there’s so much variety as well as race’s to choose. Each class has it’s upsides and downsides but they are all fun!.

I do agree with those points, but guild wars 2 can taken newbies by surprise. We are all used to how World of Warcraft does things that GW2 mechanics can leave us confused. My suggestion is to try out these classes since they have good survivability so they can get a handle on how to game works. They can be more forgiving to play than the other professions. When they do finally understand how the mechanics work, then try out something that speaks more to them.

invaderzam.8765:

I do agree with those points, but guild wars 2 can taken newbies by surprise. We are all used to how World of Warcraft does things that GW2 mechanics can leave us confused. My suggestion is to try out these classes since they have good survivability so they can get a handle on how to game works. They can be more forgiving to play than the other professions. When they do finally understand how the mechanics work, then try out something that speaks more to them.

But if the easy classes leave them bored because those aren’t the classes for them, then they may stop playing the game all together.

I had never played an MMO at all before GW2. My first character that I spent any length of time on was an Elementalist. because it wasn’t as forgiving of mistakes than other professions. So I would not learn bad habits.

One size fits all starting professions don’t work. Everyone has a different requirement for what will make a game fun when they are first starting. Some need the easier professions. Some need the harder professions. Some need professions with interesting mechanics.

But at the same time, if they choose a class that is hard to play, they may feel overwhelmed by all the mechanics thrown at them that they might be discouraged to try any other profession and quit playing.
I’m glad you found a class that jives with you immediately, I can relate being a Mesmer main myself. But some people aren’t sure what they want and the description of the classes may not properly convey what the playstyle is. Given our expectations of Necromancers, would you expect the class to be have a tanky, secondary form with some resource management?
I’m not saying they should stick with these classes. I’m suggesting try out these classes so they can figure out how the game works. If they like how the class plays, fine, continue. If they dont, then they can delete and try out another one, now with a better handle on how the game plays.
Everyone has a different play style, of what makes a game fun for them, but experience is something that everyone benefits from.

But telling them that they should use one of the easy classes first just because of that is wrong. They should look at videos and read up on all of the classes and choose the one that THEY think they’ll like the most. Not just a portion of the classes because those are the easier classes.

They should look at all of the available classes and choose the one they think is right for them at the start.

And no one but them can determine which class that is.

Every class is the correct class for a portion of players. There is not a single class that absolutely no new player should play with at first. There just isn’t. And telling new players to just look at a portion of them because they are easier and that they shouldn’t look at the others is wrong.

invaderzam.8765:

We are all used to how World of Warcraft does things that GW2 mechanics can leave us confused.

No we are not. I know this is hard for some people to grasp but there are many, many people out there who have never played World of Warcraft. Even me in spite of (or rather because of) being a big fan of the RTS games.

But more generally the reason I disagree with advice like this is I’ve fallen for it before. When I started playing Baldur’s Gate I was told my first character had to be a fighter and I should not play another one until I’d completed the game on them because otherwise I’d find it too complicated. Admittedly I was a child at the time and I wasn’t very good at RPGs (although I’d played a few) but I think I’m extremely lucky that in that game you have to control your full party anyway, because I learned very quickly that I much preferred controlling the casters. In combat I’d mostly leave my character to do her own thing (because there’s not a lot else you can do with fighters) and I’d focus on which spells the wizards and clerics were casting.

I was told the same thing by a different person when I started Ultima Online – no matter what character you want to make start off with basic melee combat skills (UO didn’t exactly have classes) so you can learn the game. Except learning melee combat was absolutely no help at all for playing the mage/tamer I wanted. It was basically a complete waste of my first few weeks in the game, giving me the illusion that I knew how it worked so I had to start over from scratch with the added confusion of false confidence.

I understand the thinking. I was literally biting my tongue when my husband, who had played very few RPGs before, picked an elementalist and then a mesmer for his first characters because I had the same concerns. But he really enjoyed playing them and that made him stick with them and learn to play them. He did try making a warrior because I kept bringing it up as an alternative when he found it difficult, got to about level 8, decided they can’t really do anything except spam generic attacks and went back to his mesmer.

Yes people will make mistakes, especially when they’re new to the game. No they may not know exactly what they want at first. But I think it’s far better to let them learn for themselves (including learning from their mistakes) than to tell them what they should want and hope it’s just fun enough to keep them going until they get to actually enjoy themselves.