Guild Wars 2

Hi, I’m a WoW player, and I’m looking for advice on what Class would best fit my play style.

In WoW, I play a Restoration (healer) Druid as my main toon, with a Protection Paladin as my 1st Alt.

Which class would best suit the play style above? I like the two classes above in wow for their Utility and the ability to fill multi-able roles in a pinch.

Guardian, easily.
However, remove yourself from the dedicated healer/tank mindset or you will be disappointed.

Thanks for the advice, Ozymandias, I’ll give it a try

You might also enjoy the elementalist, with their range of attunements you have the opportunity to do massive aoe damage, plus support with water and protection from earth attunements. Plus there’s also control with air.

Guardian is probably the closest you are going to get to a Paladin play style. Just remember there’s no threat mechanic and you can’t actually tank indefinitely. You also can’t heal like a Paladin but there is a nice elite that can let you feel like a healer for a short period of time.

biggest advice for ex-WoW players is to forget everything you know about WoW.

I’d recommend heavily against melee heavy classes like warrior and guardian. Melee in this game is just a massive headache of death after death. Enemies have no cast bars, so you’ll never know when to interrupt or dodge an incoming attack besides trying to judge it based on the movements and timing of your enemy. Which becomes nigh impossible when there’s 20+ people attacking it.

Guardian does have access to ranged attack support/healing weapons but their damage is so low that during events you’ll have hard times getting gold. (Apparently healing isn’t important enough)

You might as well throw healing out the window too cause out of every class I’ve played has horrible healing abilities, but every single one has an aoe heal ability that can easily be slotted instead of a self-heal. (Your 6th slot) Which means every class can help heal a little but far as I’ve seen no such thing as a great dedicated healer.

I found Thief really easy to learn and did great damage, but got boring due to a very simple damage roation. (Auto-Attack + press 1 button… use utility skills when they aren’t on cd)

I’m maining Mesmer atm and it’s great fun, not as fun as Mesmer was in GW, but still good. It has a lot of support skills, good damage, and a endless supply of quickly summoned pets that you can explode to do special things. He has some good aoe heals as well, constantly giving regeneration to allies.

I can’t really compare him to any class in WoW, cause Mesmer as far as I know is one of the most unique classes in GW and MMOs as a whole as far as I know. (Hard to kill support class with good damage output, great buffs and clones he constantly summons during combat)

hi Aceman, glad to see you join gw2 as I’m a fellow wow player. Now the thing about gw2 is there is no “holy trinity” like in other mmos (no dedicated tanks, healers, or dps only professions/talent builds) From personal experience I can tell you that you could check out a guardian with a mace and shield for a healing and party protection combo. Or a necromancer that has a “wells” build with any weapon combo. I prefer a staff with a Axe/dagger MH OH swap. Take a look at each profession individually at your own leisure in-game or on guildhead.com

I’ll second both sugestions.

The closest in spirit to those two classes you mentioned would be a Norn Guardian, I’d think. Guardian is a little bit like a paladin in general, while the Norn shares a lot with WoW druids in the sense of comuning with animal spirits, and even get some limited shapeshifting as their racial elites.

The elementalist would also be close, not to the style, but to the idea of being able to fill multiple roles quickly (don’t compare them with WoW mages). Most classes can do that in this game, but the elementalist excels by being able to switch elemental attunement on the fly.

Nokturnal has a point, even at higher levels if you get swarmed by 4+ enemies as a melee based class you will eventually die without proper skill usage.

I too played WoW for quite a while. I played a Resto Shaman, and a Protection Paladin. I made a Guardian and honestly I don’t think I could bring myself to play any other class.

Check out the thread I just made on my defensive/Support Guardian build:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/My-Melee-Guardian-Build/first#post27416

To those saying you die easily as melee, it really comes down to knowing your class and learning to play. This is by no means meant in the typical condescending manner in which it is used, but genuinely. GW2 is designed around being familiar with the tools at your disposal and knowing when to use them. It is impossible to ‘outgear’ anything in this game, so even as a mighty lvl 80, you can still get schooled by a lvl 10 mob.

Think the Legend of Hogger, but in a Guild Wars setting.

I play a guardian. I currently fill a tank/support role in how i play. As for this melee bs. As a guardian if i time everything correctly i rarely have to move due to constant hp regen and almost unlimited aegus (Block’s) which lets me flat ignore those one hit wonders. If you want to focus more into a support role there are a few different options. You could go staff for pure healer delight. If you want more support but still want ranged switch to scepter/focus for healing or scepter/shield for more defensive abilities. If melee is your thing theres mace/focus for the melee range aoe healing or mace/shield for a more healer/tank set. If you like tanking i would point you to sword/board for the channeled blockskill aoe arrow protection and fast recharging teleport. In tank role i also use a greatsword as it has decent aoe retaliation which reflects damage and a aoe bind that lets you pull targets it hits to you. Great for grouping up mobs. This is only some of what a guardian can do. And if it interests you but you need some help getting going. Add me ingame an ill see if i cant help ya some or message me here on the boards.

ozymandias.5317:

To those saying you die easily as melee, it really comes down to knowing your class and learning to play. This is by no means meant in the typical condescending manner in which it is used, but genuinely. GW2 is designed around being familiar with the tools at your disposal and knowing when to use them. It is impossible to ‘outgear’ anything in this game, so even as a mighty lvl 80, you can still get schooled by a lvl 10 mob.

Think the Legend of Hogger, but in a Guild Wars setting.

I agree 100% with this statement. As a Guardian it took me several days of trying out different builds and gear to find out how to stay alive in melee range. This is especially true in dungeons where even the trash mobs can kill you quite quickly!

Melee do more damage than ranged classes, this has been stated by developers. To offset this difference melee classes are required to take quite a lot more defencive skills. Even with all those defencive cooldowns you still need to know when to back out of melee and wait for your cooldowns to move back in. This is where weapon switching to a ranged weapon is vitally important.

Knowing when to weave in your shields, heals, block, and boons is also key. You need to pay attention to when a boon expires so you know when to pop your next ability. I generally use a Sword and Torch as a Guardian. The sword has several ranged options with 600-900 range, which is enough to get out of melee range and still do damage.

Nokturnal.8973:

I’d recommend heavily against melee heavy classes like warrior and guardian. Melee in this game is just a massive headache of death after death. Enemies have no cast bars, so you’ll never know when to interrupt or dodge an incoming attack besides trying to judge it based on the movements and timing of your enemy. Which becomes nigh impossible when there’s 20+ people attacking it.

Guardian does have access to ranged attack support/healing weapons but their damage is so low that during events you’ll have hard times getting gold. (Apparently healing isn’t important enough)

You might as well throw healing out the window too cause out of every class I’ve played has horrible healing abilities, but every single one has an aoe heal ability that can easily be slotted instead of a self-heal. (Your 6th slot) Which means every class can help heal a little but far as I’ve seen no such thing as a great dedicated healer.

I found Thief really easy to learn and did great damage, but got boring due to a very simple damage roation. (Auto-Attack + press 1 button… use utility skills when they aren’t on cd)

I’m maining Mesmer atm and it’s great fun, not as fun as Mesmer was in GW, but still good. It has a lot of support skills, good damage, and a endless supply of quickly summoned pets that you can explode to do special things. He has some good aoe heals as well, constantly giving regeneration to allies.

I can’t really compare him to any class in WoW, cause Mesmer as far as I know is one of the most unique classes in GW and MMOs as a whole as far as I know. (Hard to kill support class with good damage output, great buffs and clones he constantly summons during combat)

I main a Warrior and I have very little trouble gaining a Gold rank during events. I switch between dual Axes and Greatsword and between the two, I can put out massive damage. I quite enjoy it.

Best advice, is don’t give up on WoW for GW2. GW2 is a shiny new toy, but it is rather quick to lose its luster as there is absolutely no PvE end game aside from grinding out skins, which most people are not going to care about more then one set. PvP likewise is better done in WoW.

That being said, I also play a restoration druid on live WoW servers. There is nothing at all like that in this game.

I am enjoying the mesmer class right now, its quite different, you may enjoy that. Its more mage like, but hey.. you can always log onto WoW for the resto druid experience right? =)

There is infact tons of endgame if you actually take off those very narrow glasses… Endgame does not mean wheres my shiny loot. Hit h go down 5 tabs to achievements and pick a spot to start. Those of you who rushed by the content to 80 to complain really need to learn that due to the way GW/ANET approaches endgame you infact have WAY more content. You just refuse to see it as theres no shiny piece of gear with uber stats.

Advice for WoW players: buy this game now and stop wasting monthly fees for a gaming experience that is lackluster. You won’t understand until you play GW2 how good it is in comparison.

Just a quick note for WoW players: Legendary weapons have the exact-same-base-damage as exotic gear bought on the auction house for 2 gold. It’s not about gear, your skill can actually matter all the time instead of only when you’re fully geared and about to buy the next panda-expansion.

SiNoS.2147:

There is infact tons of endgame if you actually take off those very narrow glasses… Endgame does not mean wheres my shiny loot. Hit h go down 5 tabs to achievements and pick a spot to start. Those of you who rushed by the content to 80 to complain really need to learn that due to the way GW/ANET approaches endgame you infact have WAY more content. You just refuse to see it as theres no shiny piece of gear with uber stats.

I know what is there, and those achievements are not fun like the WoW achievements are. Not to mention GW2 entire achievement system is invalidated by the fact that achievement points can be earned by dailies and monthlies. Which means that in GW2, someone who only did dailies for a long time could have more achievement points then someone who actually did all the actual achievements. Achievement point gain should never be repeatable, it wrecks the system.

My glasses are not narrow, I am not talking only about loot, but I know when there is no real character prorgression to be bad, and here there is not.

There is NOT in anyway more content in GW2 then there currently is in WoW. Sorry but there is not. That was just anets marketing. Endgame does not start at level 1. As for me rushing.. really? Just wait two weeks, you will see loads of people at 80.

I’m also a former WoW player and so excited to start playing GW2. I hated WoW’s gear dependency and the idea of manual dodging, playing a melee class at range, and the thought that a level 10 mob can kill a lvl 80 PC is a wonderful concept to me. I’m so excited to start my journey in GW2 (unlike my grind through WoW) in a couple of days when I have the bandwidth to patch the game (I have a 5GB/month Cap).

Like others posted. Some classes have support heals. Guardian being the main one. They don’t have big player heals really, since there is no healer class. But they have a virtue which can give a heal to players nearby. As well as a trait that players standing in your symbol will get healed. They also have self healing upon a swing with greatsword as a trait. As well as and profession that gets “Sigil of Water” attached to their weapon, has a 30% chance to heal nearby players, I believe. The elementalist and I believe necormancer has some spells that also heal nearby players too.

Razamis.1062:

SiNoS.2147:

There is infact tons of endgame if you actually take off those very narrow glasses… Endgame does not mean wheres my shiny loot. Hit h go down 5 tabs to achievements and pick a spot to start. Those of you who rushed by the content to 80 to complain really need to learn that due to the way GW/ANET approaches endgame you infact have WAY more content. You just refuse to see it as theres no shiny piece of gear with uber stats.

I know what is there, and those achievements are not fun like the WoW achievements are. Not to mention GW2 entire achievement system is invalidated by the fact that achievement points can be earned by dailies and monthlies. Which means that in GW2, someone who only did dailies for a long time could have more achievement points then someone who actually did all the actual achievements. Achievement point gain should never be repeatable, it wrecks the system.

My glasses are not narrow, I am not talking only about loot, but I know when there is no real character prorgression to be bad, and here there is not.

There is NOT in anyway more content in GW2 then there currently is in WoW. Sorry but there is not. That was just anets marketing. Endgame does not start at level 1. As for me rushing.. really? Just wait two weeks, you will see loads of people at 80.

Endgame by definition is the content that is available to you at max level and still viable. So since infact level 1 area’s are viable to you it infact does start at level 1. There is way more content by this definition. In wow you cant go back and do old content without just totally facerolling it meaning it is not viable. In gw2 all content is viable at max level. That in its own right is true endgame content. As for the achievements you are looking at it totally wrong. Total points dont mean anything other than what you could have given to your guild. The true achievement comes from what % of it have you completed. The total points really is just for guild status. You infact do have a very very very narrow view of things. More so than i had even though.

Razamis.1062:

SiNoS.2147:

There is infact tons of endgame if you actually take off those very narrow glasses… Endgame does not mean wheres my shiny loot. Hit h go down 5 tabs to achievements and pick a spot to start. Those of you who rushed by the content to 80 to complain really need to learn that due to the way GW/ANET approaches endgame you infact have WAY more content. You just refuse to see it as theres no shiny piece of gear with uber stats.

I know what is there, and those achievements are not fun like the WoW achievements are. Not to mention GW2 entire achievement system is invalidated by the fact that achievement points can be earned by dailies and monthlies. Which means that in GW2, someone who only did dailies for a long time could have more achievement points then someone who actually did all the actual achievements. Achievement point gain should never be repeatable, it wrecks the system.

My glasses are not narrow, I am not talking only about loot, but I know when there is no real character prorgression to be bad, and here there is not.

There is NOT in anyway more content in GW2 then there currently is in WoW. Sorry but there is not. That was just anets marketing. Endgame does not start at level 1. As for me rushing.. really? Just wait two weeks, you will see loads of people at 80.

And your here playing GW2 why? WoW and the panda’s want you back bad!!!

Both your posts in this thread are littered with misinformation at best. I find it offensive you wanna even call WoW fun. Hows that make you feel? Hopefully much like i felt reading your posts.

KTHNXBYBY!

Reeddog.9132:

Razamis.1062:

SiNoS.2147:

There is infact tons of endgame if you actually take off those very narrow glasses… Endgame does not mean wheres my shiny loot. Hit h go down 5 tabs to achievements and pick a spot to start. Those of you who rushed by the content to 80 to complain really need to learn that due to the way GW/ANET approaches endgame you infact have WAY more content. You just refuse to see it as theres no shiny piece of gear with uber stats.

I know what is there, and those achievements are not fun like the WoW achievements are. Not to mention GW2 entire achievement system is invalidated by the fact that achievement points can be earned by dailies and monthlies. Which means that in GW2, someone who only did dailies for a long time could have more achievement points then someone who actually did all the actual achievements. Achievement point gain should never be repeatable, it wrecks the system.

My glasses are not narrow, I am not talking only about loot, but I know when there is no real character prorgression to be bad, and here there is not.

There is NOT in anyway more content in GW2 then there currently is in WoW. Sorry but there is not. That was just anets marketing. Endgame does not start at level 1. As for me rushing.. really? Just wait two weeks, you will see loads of people at 80.

And your here playing GW2 why? WoW and the panda’s want you back bad!!!

Both your posts in this thread are littered with misinformation at best. I find it offensive you wanna even call WoW fun. Hows that make you feel? Hopefully much like i felt reading your posts.

KTHNXBYBY!

Epic Reeddog. I was trying to be slightly nicer in how i said that but spot on correct.

Just a quick comment about “no cast bars” on the enemies. Enemies do telegraph their attacks, you just have to pay attention and it takes some practice to recognize it. Guild Wars is a lot more actiony than your typical WoW-like.

I’m finding the combos fun and effective. If you can learn to recognize certain field types you can choose your attacks to get an extra bonus, like leaping through a fire field to get a fire shield.

There’s really a lot more to the combat than it seems at first glance.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Just a quick comment about “no cast bars” on the enemies. Enemies do telegraph their attacks, you just have to pay attention and it takes some practice to recognize it. Guild Wars is a lot more actiony than your typical WoW-like.

I’m finding the combos fun and effective. If you can learn to recognize certain field types you can choose your attacks to get an extra bonus, like leaping through a fire field to get a fire shield.

There’s really a lot more to the combat than it seems at first glance.

Ill add on the telegraphs. With melee the raise there weapon high then normally start to glow yellow to gold. They might look like there smoking as well. If you see this dodge back or to the side. Or in my case of being an aegis machine pop that and you ignore the attack most of the time. Stupid adds…..

I’m sure o.p. is long gone, but I also played a WoW druid for the flexibility, and I’m playing a ranger in GW2 for the flexibility. Different approaches but similar flex, shapeshift and heal abilities.

Norn Guardian Druidy paladin.