Guild Wars 2

hello all I don’t know if this is the right place to post this or if it has been asked before but as it says I’m somewhat new to MMO’s kinda played the first guild wars it was ok but never rely got into the world and atmo (from a story POV). they have done a much better job this time and I feel I can realy get into it properly this time.

Anyway onto my question I have spent the last week getting an engineer up to level 20 I know still early days but I have found that I have been pouring almost all that I can into health and defence and I’m starting to struggle. so should I start an new toon like a warrior (going by what I have done with the engineer) or is it ok to build the Engineer with health and defence in mind?

if I do start a new toon what is the best one for servivability and solo play?

sorry to ramble on and thanks in advance.

Maybe give us some info on what you are struggling with on your engineer? What is your playstyle with it. Are you dodging out of stuff? I’m also leveling an engineer at the moment and haven’t had much problems with solo play, so maybe I can give you some tips if you can give some info.

If you are putting everything into Vitality and Defense you will have problems unless you really have a specific build in mind you are trying to do.

Power effects how much damage you do with your skills.
Precision effects your Critical Chance and Crit Damage.

Without one of these two you will be lucky if you kill anything and they will just keep pecking away at your health until you die.

Engineer seems to require quite a bit in terms of dodging and situational awareness – you do have to keep moving and thinking about your movement in order to stay alive, you can’t just take hits. If you’re new to MMOs (what kind of experience do you have with other video games?) you might want to start with something a little less demanding – although I will say, I have found that I get better at a class with practise, you definitely learn some tricks as you start working on traits and such!

If you want something which can take a few hits without just dying and lets you barge into combat in a more straightforward way, I can recommend warrior. It’s still good fun, expecially since there’s a lot of weapons with cool skill-sets to choose from!

The other one that usually gets recommended for new players is ranger – your pet can take some damage for you while you loiter around the edges of combat, although don’t expect it to do your job for you (it won’t). Either warrior or ranger is easy to get your head around, but you can still do some nifty things at higher levels.

Slark.1263:

If you are putting everything into Vitality and Defense you will have problems unless you really have a specific build in mind you are trying to do.

Power effects how much damage you do with your skills.
Precision effects your Critical Chance and Crit Damage.

Without one of these two you will be lucky if you kill anything and they will just keep pecking away at your health until you die.

Just to clarify this, increasing precision does not increase critical hit damage, it only increases your chances of getting a critical hit. Critical damage is a separate bonus.

thanks for the reply I tend to play RPG like Mass effect and the witcher as for play style I tend to go with something simple I like the ranged combat of the engineer but find that I quickly get overwhelmed when fighting mobs at the same level. I’m not struggling on one thing I just don’t think I’m building my engineer in the right way and just whanted some advice on maybe a better class for my style if you get my drift?

sorry if this is starting to sound stupid but thanks for your pacince

Well for a purely ranged you could either roll a warrior with rifle/longbow or go for a ranger, just try them out abit and see for yourself.

Engineers aren’t that great as purely ranged characters, they use alot of different tools that mostly work best at mid to close range. Only grenade kit has good ranged dps.

GW2 is more focused on mobility and preventing/avoiding damage than most other MMOs. No matter how much Toughness and Vitality you stack, you’re going to go down if you just stand in place and shoot, especially at lower levels.

Instead, you have to actively avoid/prevent damage. Dodge rolls simply prevent all damage during the roll animation, even if you’re rolling through fire. As an engineer you have blind (from pistol or grenade) to make enemies miss and nets to keep melee mobs away from you. Turrets can distract mobs for a bit too and bombs provide smoke cover.

With that in mind, the game turns into a race: Can you kill enemies before you run out of defenses? That’s why you should focus on Power over other stats, it greatly improves all your attacks. Especially for group situations (where you can usually stand at a distance and lob grenades in the waves of mobs) Power beats any other stat by a mile.

First thing is to make sure you keep your gear up to a reasonable level, running around at level 20 in level 5 gear will make you very weak.

Ranger is a good option for ranged as you can use a pet to take most of the damage for you (bears are the way to go for that). Using a rifle as a warrior is another good option.