Guild Wars 2

My wife is not the best gamer, let me state that now. Her favorite game was World of Warcraft, around the end of Burning Crusade/beginning of the Frozen Throne era. Even she thinks the game is too easy and “Fiser Price’d” now. She and I have been looking for a new MMO to play together for a long time now. We liked Rift, but it’s story was weak and failed to pull is in, so we dumped that. The Secret World was interesting, but the poor community killed it for her, and she’s not that into modern style games anyway. The Star Wars MMO was good, she liked that one, but she doesn’t really get into SciFi, so it failed to hold her interest.

So now I’m here. I like this game. I think it’s very interesting. But the lack of the “Holy Trinity” worries me a bit.

You see, my wife loves being the Tank. She also loves being the Healer. She is under the impression that she is not a good DPS because she doesn’t have the best reflexes. She likes to do more than just mash a combo as fast as possible until things die. If we were to play this, would it be possible for her to fulfill a role as a “Tank” or “Healer”?

She loves a game with a good story that will keep her running along. She found WoW’s story cheesy at times, but generally liked that it always had things going on and usually had her rushing along to learn what happened next. One quest, involving an Orc that yelled “Smell what the Lok’Tar is cooking” or something like that, had her in tears because of how a character in the questline died.

So I would like to know if this game, one without “WoW-like” quests would still have a story that she can get pulled into. She loves exploring, I should add. (I’m also curious how you know when you’re done with a particular area if there’s no quests or something similar to guide you to the next area.)

Those are my questions to you, good forum people. Can you help me?

It depends what she wants to do in the game. Honestly, she probably won’t like it.

PvE dungoens don’t have a slot for tank/healer. It’s all about DPS.
WvW involves a little more group comp. She may like WvW as it doeesn’t require extremely fast reflexes.
sPvP actually has tank/healer roles in the form a bunker build. You mainly just try to stay alive while holding a point. However this requires great reflexes and timing.

With that being said, DPS doesn’t revovle around twitch reflexes. DPS in dungeons is usually about stacking the mobs up, sharing might/fury, and beating the crap out of the enemy.

TL;DR She can’t tank/heal, but DPS doesn’t require twitch reflexes.

The storyline/characters here will cause her confusion not sadness, so that’s a plus, I think. Other than that, Ethics summed up a few things nicely. There’s a world to explore, the Heart objectives are little little quests. Does she like gear progression, farming/grinding champions/materials?

Teege.4623:

The storyline/characters here will cause her confusion not sadness, so that’s a plus, I think. Other than that, Ethics summed up a few things nicely. There’s a world to explore, the Heart objectives are little little quests. Does she like gear progression, farming/grinding champions/materials?

She does like gear progression. One issue she had with Rift was how most gear looked the same as last thing she just had, so she didn’t have a strong feeling of getting stronger.

She’s fine with grinding. In fact, her favorite thing to do in MMO’s is to work the Auction House. I’ve seen her make tens of thousands of gold in a single day in the WoW auction house, all while cackling madly.

You can tell you’re done by opening the map and seeing the 100% figure on the left side. Not that that means you’ve seen everything — there will still be hidden areas, NPC chatter, events you’ve missed. Nothing says you have to stay in the zone, though, just look at the level suggestions and head for zones that match your current level. You’re never really done. You can go back whenever and see new things, and you are downscaled enough that you aren’t facerolling the place (though better gear and more unlocked skills do make a notable survival difference). Exploration is one of the most fun things this game offers! She can easily get the game’s price worth just moseying around to see all the pretty places and hidden nooks.

I liked being a healer in WoW. I really like being able to do everything in GW2. Your wife might want to try a Guardian traited to defense, support, and healing, though. Mine is my go-to for dungeons because she lasts so long and saves everyone’s butt a lot. She also rocks the Tequatl fights.

As noted above, you don’t have to be a twitch gamer to do well in dps fights, either. I’m certainly not one, I grew up before consoles taught kids those kind of reflexes. I do find a Naga HEX very handy since I can do all my movement with the mouse and save keyboard stuff for firing off skills.

Sytakan.8596:

Teege.4623:

The storyline/characters here will cause her confusion not sadness, so that’s a plus, I think. Other than that, Ethics summed up a few things nicely. There’s a world to explore, the Heart objectives are little little quests. Does she like gear progression, farming/grinding champions/materials?

She does like gear progression. One issue she had with Rift was how most gear looked the same as last thing she just had, so she didn’t have a strong feeling of getting stronger.

She’s fine with grinding. In fact, her favorite thing to do in MMO’s is to work the Auction House. I’ve seen her make tens of thousands of gold in a single day in the WoW auction house, all while cackling madly.

You should have said this initially =) She will absolutely love this game then.

Playing the TP is a game in it’s own.

My wife plays and she also played wow for a long time. The nostalgia of wow is hard to beat for some but I think GW2 is what she would have to go to if not wow. The quality of the game and design is enough for you guys to forget about holy trinity, plus you get dodge role which my wife thinks is so cool. There is sort of a blurred holy trinity and you get plenty of proffesion customization. Plus the last event Twighlight Arbor had an end boss which made me almost feel like I was playing wow again. You do want the tanky proffs trying to get aggro and there are plenty of mechanics for heals.The auction house is great although it seems a lot harder than wow to me, which your wife might like. It does take time to get used to I think but since launch the game has grown on me even more.

Sytakan.8596:

You see, my wife loves being the Tank. She also loves being the Healer. She is under the impression that she is not a good DPS because she doesn’t have the best reflexes. She likes to do more than just mash a combo as fast as possible until things die. If we were to play this, would it be possible for her to fulfill a role as a “Tank” or “Healer”?

Well, the thing is, in Guild Wars 2, the bigger things hit really badly. In the worst case, you’ll be oneshot regardless of how “tanky” you are. The actual gameplay centers a lot around dodging attacks and moving around the mobs. So a tank doesn’t really exist in this game.

As for a healer, that’s also a no. But a lesser no, as instead of a typical healer, where you keep everyone alive, you can build for support. Things like providing your party with a passive regeneration or giving them occasional heals are all over the place.

She loves a game with a good story that will keep her running along. She found WoW’s story cheesy at times, but generally liked that it always had things going on and usually had her rushing along to learn what happened next. One quest, involving an Orc that yelled “Smell what the Lok’Tar is cooking” or something like that, had her in tears because of how a character in the questline died.

Honestly, I wouldn’t listen to a word that people say about the quality (or lack thereof) of the story. Most people are kitten ed off because in the Personal Story (a kind of story mode), a character other than yours gets to be the Supreme Commander of the army. The basic layout for a Personal Story is that when you make a character, you pick a few options, one of them relating to your character’s backstory. That determines which race-specific Personal Story you do from level 1 to about 25ish. After that you meet three different factions that battle the dragons. The last part of the storyline deals with the Elder Dragon Zhaitan.

So I would like to know if this game, one without “WoW-like” quests would still have a story that she can get pulled into. She loves exploring, I should add. (I’m also curious how you know when you’re done with a particular area if there’s no quests or something similar to guide you to the next area.)

Exploration in GW2 is a whole sport in itself. The in-game map keeps data of all of your exploration and shows accurate details of your exploration for every single area.

She does like gear progression. One issue she had with Rift was how most gear looked the same as last thing she just had, so she didn’t have a strong feeling of getting stronger.

The actual statistic gear progression isn’t a big thing in Guild Wars 2. However, you can customize the look of your armor a lot. You can use essentially any armor skin of the same weight (light, medium, heavy) and you can get up to 400+ different colours to dye your armors with.

She’s fine with grinding. In fact, her favorite thing to do in MMO’s is to work the Auction House. I’ve seen her make tens of thousands of gold in a single day in the WoW auction house, all while cackling madly.

There’s a saying in Guild Wars 2: “Trading Post is where the real PvP happens.”

While there isnt really a healer or tank per se certain classes can fill support rolls better than others. Guardians make for a great party support class for instance so that might be the place to start .

I always played a healer or tank in WoW/Rift/SWTOR/Aion… Warhammer.. every game up until guild wars 2.. AND.. it does take some getting used to. The biggest difficulty for me in this game was settling on a class. I noticed that I didn’t really have a preferred ‘style’ of DPS, since I had never really played a DPS class before. However, once I figured out a class I began enjoying myself more.

As far as story goes.. I don’t think it is THAT amazing.. but with Living Story content coming out regularly there is at least new content to look forward to fairly often – usually that has some kind of backstory.

All and all, I really feel like GW2 is a good buy. I mean, with no subfee.. you can pick it up and play it whenever you want and not feel too bad if you find another game that catches your interest for awhile. So.. if you don’t have anything else you’re itching to play right now, I’d say definitely give it a go!

I’m impressed with how helpful everyone has been! Thank you all for your advice so far. I think I will be getting the game for my wife soon.

I wanted to ask how one goes about joining a dungeon or pvp. Do you just sign up for it and get teleported there, or do you have to hoof it old-school?

Sytakan.8596:

I wanted to ask how one goes about joining a dungeon or pvp. Do you just sign up for it and get teleported there, or do you have to hoof it old-school?

PvP is a whole different game in itself. The gear, levels, etc is different from the rest of the game. Gladly, you get all of it for free. There is a button that opens up the PvP menu, where you can teleport to the PvP area. In that area, you’ll find NPCs that sell the gear (for free) that you’ll be equipping. You can join the PvP matches from the same menu that you used to get transported there.

As for dungeons, there is an LFG tool in the game for making parties, but other than that, it’s the standard fair: you gotta port to the dungeon on your own.

Sytakan.8596:

I’m impressed with how helpful everyone has been! Thank you all for your advice so far. I think I will be getting the game for my wife soon.

I wanted to ask how one goes about joining a dungeon or pvp. Do you just sign up for it and get teleported there, or do you have to hoof it old-school?

Olba covered sPvP. The other form of PvP, WvW, is also accessible through the menu at the top. In WvW, you keep your PvE progress, but all non-80s are scaled up to level 80. Real 80s are noticeably more powerful than upscales, but upscales can still contribute by pitching in with supply ferrying, siege building, and other logistical things.

There is a LFG tool in-game, but all it does is let you see who wants what and lets you join their party. You still need to get to the dungeon’s zones yourself. At that point, if one member enters the dungeon, everyone will be able to join via a prompt if they are in the zone.

I would recommend going into dungeons with groups you know. PUGs can be a toss-up- you get good, nice players, but also unaware players who sit in fire, players who demand that everyone be a certain build, players who don’t explain anything and rush, players who demand max gear and level 80 (since you can do the dungeons at level 80 and still get full rewards), etc. Going in with people you know is a lot of fun, though, and usually goes smoother than with randoms.

In any case, a late welcome to you and an early welcome to her. If you guys play on an NA server, please feel free to hit me up in-game anytime if you have questions or want someone to run with. My in-game name is Falunel, and I mainly run elementalist, so I can give some pointers on that class if you decide to roll it.

EDIT: Also PMed you in-game, but I think the chat restrictions might keep you from replying.

Sytakan.8596:

I’m impressed with how helpful everyone has been! Thank you all for your advice so far. I think I will be getting the game for my wife soon.

I wanted to ask how one goes about joining a dungeon or pvp. Do you just sign up for it and get teleported there, or do you have to hoof it old-school?

To do a dungeon you need a party of 5 and all be in the same zone as the dungeon . You may have seen door icons on certain maps , these are where the portals to dungeons are . At first you will only be able to do story mode for a dungeon but once that’s complete you will be able to do the explorable version which has several paths . Explorable paths will also give you tokens which you can turn in for armors or weapons for that particular dungeon which you can preview in Lions Arch.

Falunel.7645:

Sytakan.8596:

I’m impressed with how helpful everyone has been! Thank you all for your advice so far. I think I will be getting the game for my wife soon.

I wanted to ask how one goes about joining a dungeon or pvp. Do you just sign up for it and get teleported there, or do you have to hoof it old-school?

Olba covered sPvP. The other form of PvP, WvW, is also accessible through the menu at the top. In WvW, you keep your PvE progress, but all non-80s are scaled up to level 80. Real 80s are noticeably more powerful than upscales, but upscales can still contribute by pitching in with supply ferrying, siege building, and other logistical things.

There is a LFG tool in-game, but all it does is let you see who wants what and lets you join their party. You still need to get to the dungeon’s zones yourself. At that point, if one member enters the dungeon, everyone will be able to join via a prompt if they are in the zone.

I would recommend going into dungeons with groups you know. PUGs can be a toss-up- you get good, nice players, but also unaware players who sit in fire, players who demand that everyone be a certain build, players who don’t explain anything and rush, players who demand max gear and level 80 (since you can do the dungeons at level 80 and still get full rewards), etc. Going in with people you know is a lot of fun, though, and usually goes smoother than with randoms.

In any case, a late welcome to you and an early welcome to her. If you guys play on an NA server, please feel free to hit me up in-game anytime if you have questions or want someone to run with. My in-game name is Falunel, and I mainly run elementalist, so I can give some pointers on that class if you decide to roll it.

EDIT: Also PMed you in-game, but I think the chat restrictions might keep you from replying.

Thanks for the info! I saw your messages in the game just a moment ago, I was just busy setting up my wife’s new account, so sorry about that!

Sytakan.8596:

Falunel.7645:

Sytakan.8596:

I’m impressed with how helpful everyone has been! Thank you all for your advice so far. I think I will be getting the game for my wife soon.

I wanted to ask how one goes about joining a dungeon or pvp. Do you just sign up for it and get teleported there, or do you have to hoof it old-school?

Olba covered sPvP. The other form of PvP, WvW, is also accessible through the menu at the top. In WvW, you keep your PvE progress, but all non-80s are scaled up to level 80. Real 80s are noticeably more powerful than upscales, but upscales can still contribute by pitching in with supply ferrying, siege building, and other logistical things.

There is a LFG tool in-game, but all it does is let you see who wants what and lets you join their party. You still need to get to the dungeon’s zones yourself. At that point, if one member enters the dungeon, everyone will be able to join via a prompt if they are in the zone.

I would recommend going into dungeons with groups you know. PUGs can be a toss-up- you get good, nice players, but also unaware players who sit in fire, players who demand that everyone be a certain build, players who don’t explain anything and rush, players who demand max gear and level 80 (since you can do the dungeons at level 80 and still get full rewards), etc. Going in with people you know is a lot of fun, though, and usually goes smoother than with randoms.

In any case, a late welcome to you and an early welcome to her. If you guys play on an NA server, please feel free to hit me up in-game anytime if you have questions or want someone to run with. My in-game name is Falunel, and I mainly run elementalist, so I can give some pointers on that class if you decide to roll it.

EDIT: Also PMed you in-game, but I think the chat restrictions might keep you from replying.

Thanks for the info! I saw your messages in the game just a moment ago, I was just busy setting up my wife’s new account, so sorry about that!

No worries, I’ll be back in-game soon. We can talk then.

ok great advise here. just my two cents. This game doesn’t have regular healers and tanks like other games. But you can get close. However, the game mechanic asks actually the reflexes your wife is afraid she doesn’t have. DPS-playstyles are considered easy and even OP while good healers/bunkers are less common and are many times the more skilled players.

So I would strongly advice your wife to just try dps in this game. Warrior and Ranger are excellent for that and have some good extra control mechanisms to make things less forgiving.

When picking warrior you have an OP class that only has the limitation to be a DPS class from start to finish. A ranger is as easy to play, but can be used very well for support (if the build is right). the class knows a good amount off players that are ok, but less then good. This means that for end game you need prove yourself more then others.

If she really likes the game and want a challenge I think the guardian will suit her playstyle. It is melee range healer. it requires healing and buffing your party while you fight at melee range (and can almost tank). But it takes some experience to know when to dodge away. If you are melee you need to safe yourself and your party at the same time (and you deal a lot more dps when melee so thats a plus). so it take a good bunch off experience to know how long you can stay melee and when you have to dodge away. That makes it a challenging class, but most guardians are good and some are awesome!

Sytakan.8596:

You see, my wife loves being the Tank. She also loves being the Healer. She is under the impression that she is not a good DPS because she doesn’t have the best reflexes. She likes to do more than just mash a combo as fast as possible until things die. If we were to play this, would it be possible for her to fulfill a role as a “Tank” or “Healer”?

Why choose? In GW2 you can be a tank and a healer at the same time.
However you can’t really be the traditional tank because mobs tend to go after whoever they feel like and there isn’t much you can do about it. A tank can’t survive everything(there are attacks that hits for over 60k) but it’s also not for nothing. It does make some situation easier.

A tank and healer are not necessary but neither is DPS really necessary. That doesn’t mean the game can just play itself. It does mean that you can go in with any combination and it will still work. Some combinations will be easier than others and some will clear things a bit faster but unless you are in a hurry or treating everything as a race then it doesn’t really matter.

A thing to keep in mind is that in GW2 even when specced heavily into support a character can still solo a lot of things, it might be slower but no where nears as kittenome other games. Also support is not the same as healer. Healing might be one of the things provided but that doesn’t mean you’ll be standing around doing nothing but using heal skills when they are off cooldown. There are at least a couple of ways where you can heal your allies by attacking the enemy.

As mentioned by other people above DPS does not require fast reflexes. In fact spamming your skills too fast can decrease your DPS in some situations. Dodging damaging skills may require decent reflexes but for many fights a tankier build can compensate. Support actually requires faster reflexes but that isn’t really an absolute either. Depending on the class you can also do some things pre-emptively.

She loves a game with a good story that will keep her running along. She found WoW’s story cheesy at times, but generally liked that it always had things going on and usually had her rushing along to learn what happened next. One quest, involving an Orc that yelled “Smell what the Lok’Tar is cooking” or something like that, had her in tears because of how a character in the questline died.

So I would like to know if this game, one without “WoW-like” quests would still have a story that she can get pulled into. She loves exploring, I should add. (I’m also curious how you know when you’re done with a particular area if there’s no quests or something similar to guide you to the next area.)

Those are my questions to you, good forum people. Can you help me?

You are never really “done” with an area but each map has a map completion thing. Doing so will give you exp, 2 piece of gear(rarity depends on the max level of the map), some crafting materials(depends on the max level fo the map) and either a black lion key, a transmutation stone or transmutation crystal.

Getting map completion doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve explored everything on the map though. There are still jumping puzzle, mini dungeons or just a plain old chest that is sitting there waiting for you to go open them.

Sytakan.8596:

My wife is not the best gamer, let me state that now. Her favorite game was World of Warcraft, around the end of Burning Crusade/beginning of the Frozen Throne era. Even she thinks the game is too easy and “Fiser Price’d” now. She and I have been looking for a new MMO to play together for a long time now. We liked Rift, but it’s story was weak and failed to pull is in, so we dumped that. The Secret World was interesting, but the poor community killed it for her, and she’s not that into modern style games anyway. The Star Wars MMO was good, she liked that one, but she doesn’t really get into SciFi, so it failed to hold her interest.

So now I’m here. I like this game. I think it’s very interesting. But the lack of the “Holy Trinity” worries me a bit.

You see, my wife loves being the Tank. She also loves being the Healer. She is under the impression that she is not a good DPS because she doesn’t have the best reflexes. She likes to do more than just mash a combo as fast as possible until things die. If we were to play this, would it be possible for her to fulfill a role as a “Tank” or “Healer”?

She loves a game with a good story that will keep her running along. She found WoW’s story cheesy at times, but generally liked that it always had things going on and usually had her rushing along to learn what happened next. One quest, involving an Orc that yelled “Smell what the Lok’Tar is cooking” or something like that, had her in tears because of how a character in the questline died.

So I would like to know if this game, one without “WoW-like” quests would still have a story that she can get pulled into. She loves exploring, I should add. (I’m also curious how you know when you’re done with a particular area if there’s no quests or something similar to guide you to the next area.)

Those are my questions to you, good forum people. Can you help me?

If she gets interested she will get better regardless.

I am not “the best player”, indeed I am one of the worst players in GW2 and I am a woman.

I am not bad because I am a woman – I am not as good as others because I lack others to teach me more. The only way I learn is by example and by-rote doing it myself over and over until I get it “right”.

Rotations will help her if she gets key happy.

Ranger and Necro are two of the easiest levelers – both have “pets” – the Ranger’s being fun to go “find”.

If she is interested in gaming AND chatting, this is prob a game should would enjoy.

Being in a non-judging guild would certainly help, especially when you aren’t around to help.

It all comes down to her interest and your non-judging attitudes – I went through three guilds before I found one that doesn’t seem to be as judging as the others.

Good luck, let us know what happens.

I’m a woman and I love this game. My husband and one of my best friends (also a woman) plays with me.

As far as story lines go, I teared up when I lost my companion (Tybalt) at Claw Island. Then again when I had to break the news to an Asuran lady that she was now a widow because of a mission I was leading. My girl friend that plays is really into the lore.

My opionion As far as creating a character goes, I think Asura is the easiest to play if she likes world completion (vistas etc…) and jumping puzzles (sssoooo much fun ). Norn and Human are best if she likes to play dress up (which I love to do).

Profession wise, I normally recommend Ranger as a first profession for brand new players. It’s fun to find and collect all the pets, it’s very easy to play as a profession, and allows players to get their feet wet with the game. However, since your wife has some experience with gaming and she has a particular play style, she may like the Guardian. My husband has a Guard build that is very tanky (as in it can take a lot of hits) and does a lot of support like giving boons, healing, & takes away conditions from near by players. If she is interested, I would have to ask him the exact build he has going on.

There is so much to do in this game, I can’t imagine her not being able to find something enjoyable. The problem my husband and I have playing together is that we like doing different things. He likes to do boss runs (dragons, etc…) and dungeons, and I like jumping puzzles, achievements, and WvW.