Guild Wars 2

as my topic title says… i’ve been playing GW2 off and on now for maybe a couple weeks… not very seriously. got a mesmer up to 16 and a ranger up to 10. in the same amount of time my husband has reached 60th, but he’s been playing much more actively than i have.

i’m having trouble getting into it. i just… die. alot. and i mean… alot. i know i’m probably doing something wrong, but i just seem very weak with whatever i try, and its just not fun.

anyone have any “must know” knowledge they can impart to help me out? (i know how to dodge, by the way, but i probably need to work on my timing)

In the early levels you will die, quite a lot most likely. Especially as a mesmer. You should start to shine around level 40 as a lot more traits start to become available. Since you said you’re new, I’m sorry if I offended you by telling you something you already know.

You should be utilizing weapon swapping. As a mesmer I would start off with a GS for long range attacks, hit your #2 and #4 to pop out illusions and take some aggro off you. If they get in close either kite or switch to say a sword/pistol to do some melee damage. You should be able to use utility skills like the stealth one which makes you stealth, and replaces your position with an illusion to help you buy time.

Make sure you also buy your training manual from the trainer. You can start that at level 11 and each level you get one trait point to make you stronger.

In early levels I always pick power weapons/armor because I think power is pretty OP early on. Also make sure your stuff is current. Don’t just wait for armor/weapons to drop. Talk to karma/heart vendors after you complete the heart. Some will have accessories to buy that will give you +3 or +5 power.

Don’t go to high levels too fast. There are 5 starting areas, 1 for each race. If you have completed queensdale go to celadon forest or plains of ashford to comfortably level while you figure out your class.

Also don’t be afraid to stick around to another low level in the area. Partnering up helps an insane amount, instead of trying to solo stuff.

Feel free to PM me in game or on the forums if you have more questions or want me to clarify anything.

Hey, not sure if you have read this, but I am sticking the link here anyway. Hope you get lots of help.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/OMG-If-you-only-knew-this-tips-for-new-players/page/4#post901763

lol… i read that post literally right before i posted this one. definitely some good stuff in there.

how do i kite? O.o i’m quite familiar with kiting in DDO, but i move so SLOW in this game! with that, i didn’t think it was possible to kite! it just seems no matter where i go or how much i circle/strafe/run things still just rip me a new one in record time. only actual dodging saves my hide.

my mesmer is already using a GS and sword/pistol combo. i do like the power it seems to have, but if anything manages to REACH me i’m toast. and the ranger is waffling between longbow, shortbow, and … i dunno.

to kite, you just strafe away from them. They are forced to chase you before they can attack again, decreasing how many attacks they will get in in the same time. sometimes you can decrease this all the way to 0, but not always.
as a mesmer, use your illusions and clones as decoys
do you dodge? to most it seems elementary, but I do know people that simply don’t know how to. after that, it’s just learning what enemies look like before they attack so you can dodge and not get hit.

i turned off double-tap and mapped dodge to a key i can quickly and easily press, and have been making good use of it.

i guess i’ll just have to practice more, cuz it seems that even with strafing and dodging i still get owned

Practice definitely. Got to keep those bad guys at a distance!

There’s lots of discussion about Long vs Short bow. All boil down to the situation.
Carry both – longbow for events, sieges (if you WvW); shortbow for roaming, farming, soloing.
After using the shortbow to level my ranger, I cannot return to the longbow without feeling like I am shooting through Jello… rate of fire seems so slow. I still like the weapon skills on longbow, especially knockback.

Re: mesmer.. what you and everyone have said is right – stay at range with GS, clone up and stay on the move, use sword+pistol when feeling bold and dangerous. That class can feel weak until the 30s. For me it was wonderful until 70. Then progress slowed for me (probably lack of interest). Anyway he is finally 80 and parked away farming ori nodes.

Ranger is my favorite class and I have re-discovered the Asura. They just feel speedy.

Good luck and enjoy the game; come here often, the community is quite helpful.
Or feel free to message in game if some issue arises.

(fyi, 6-80s, 2-40s and the rest 20s).

Doh:
last thing… get a bear pet for max protection while you get used to the class and movement.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_pet_locations

Money tips:

1. Buy harvesting tools. Harvest everything you see.
2. Focus on completing your dailies at low levels (below 35).
3. Don’t craft, sell your crafting materials. Later in the game you can think about crafting (35+).
4. Sell everything on the trade post that you can (right click an item). Only sell items to vendors if you can’t get a better price on the trade post. Don’t bother with salvaging until you hit level 35+.
5. Sell things that don’t have a large supply a few copper below the lowest seller. Sell things that have a lot of supply for as much as the highest buyer will give you
6. At level 35 run Ascalon Catacombs (AC) for money. Spend the Ascalonian tears to buy gear and salvage the gear for rare materials to sell.
7. Check the price of dyes before using them. Sell the expensive ones and use a similarly-colored cheap one for yourself.
8. Stay alive. If you die you lose money on the repair bill.

Leveling Tips:

1. Join a guild for XP bonuses.
2. Always hunt with food XP bonuses.
3. Complete dailies until level 35.
4. Do AC with XP boosters at level 35+.
5. Get gear every 5-10 levels. Use karma to buy trinkets and earned money to buy armor and weapons from the tradepost. Keeping up on this is cheap.
6. Stay alive. If you die, you aren’t killing things.

Karma tips (since it was brought up):

1. Do dailies for Karma jugs and save them
2. Use them with karma boosters, guild banners, ice cream and the outmanned wvw bonus for up to 7,875 Karma instead of 4,500. (Thanks Esplen.)

Enjoying it Tips:

1. Build Vitality and and Toughness at low levels. Worry about Power later.
2. Read your skills’ tool tips and practice using them on easier mobs before running into the thick of it.
3. Play with other people (your guild or your boyfriend and his friends).
4. Stay alive, dying sucks. Run away to fight another day.
5. Try different professions until one clicks.
6. Don’t give up on a profession until after level 20ish.

Survivable Professions (without need for a specific build):

1. Guardian = melee, great survivability
2. Warrior = melee/ranged, decent survivability
3. Necromancer = spellcaster, good survivability using death shroud (just don’t use minions), great survivability once you get elites (lvl 30)
4. Ranger = melee/ranged, decent survivability (but nobody will want to play with you in difficult end game content)

Other professions (that you will specifically have to build for survivability):

1. Mesmer = The most difficult profession at low levels. Suffer through it until you can get some elites. Even at higher levels it is still one of the least survivable professions.
2. Thief = Can only survive by using stealth and dodging. Has poor heals.
3. Engineer = Pretty much the gimp profession, skip it for now.
4. Elementalist = Great survivability when built for it but low survivability for the first 30 levels.

Some of this is probably just common sense but some of it may be helpful.

Lol… always complete your daily. You don’t have to go that far out of your way to finish it, and it gives you 10% of your level upon completion (not including each achievement giving you experience). Additionally, you get a jug of karma (4,500 without using any boosts) and a Mystic Coin (~15s on TP).

Let me add that to my list…

1. Don’t use your karma jugs unless you have a karma booster.

Uhh, you can also stack that with Outmanned, Guild Banner, and Ice Cream!

How do you get the outmanned bonus? I’ve never gotten it.

Outmanned is gotten in WvW. however, I believe it currently doesn’t give what it claims according to the wiki. But now that they have ice cream for that extra 5%, you can get 7875 as mentioned above instead of the 7650 from that 70% boost.

Mesmer is rough, I leveled mine up after I already had four 80s and it still was just rough at first, and so slow.
Ranger might be better off for you at first, unless you really want to stick to mesmer, just don’t let it make you give up.
If you do play ranger, just go find a bear of any kind as a pet and use shortbow, its boring, but it is extremely efficient and safe. make sure you still strafe with shortbow to the side at least so you are stacking bleeds on targets.
Mesmer you pretty much gotta keep weapons up to date every couple of levels and when using greatsword, which is probably best at those levels, make sure you start at absolute max range and just back pedal while channeling autoattack. saves your cooldowns for when you actually need them. If you want otherwise just rush in with number 2 GS, so it bounces back at you and grants might stacks, number 3, number 5 for knockback, and autoattack. next mob same thing, except 3 and 5 are cooling down, so use number 4, things will die fast, just alternate your cooldowns each mob etc.
Stick with it, everything gets easier the more levels you gain.

Never played a mes, but very familiar with ranger.

Have you un-locked all the ranger weapon skills yet?? If not, I strongly suggest doing this, as rangers have access to a lot different weapons that you might find more suitable to your play style. Also, do not forget your underwater weapons – you need to un-lock those skills as well,

I always preferred longbow with greatsword as my second weapon while leveling. I never used shortbow very much until I started doing dungeons after I hit lvl 80. Axe/warhorn or axe/torch are also good second weapon sets.

There are 41 pets for you to charm in the game with many different strengths and weakness and functionality to match your play style and situation. Most are very easy to find in the starter cities (no combat required) and in the various starter maps (lvl 1-15). Then the rest are in mid-level maps, Going out to find them all will level your ranger to around 50, if you fully explore/complete each map you visit. One pet is in a lvl 80 map, so you won’t complete the set until you can survive there.

The key to surviving with a ranger is to max the damage from your longbow. This means staying at max range from the mobs when opening attacks. Use all the skills to slow or knockback the mobs as they advance and kite. When they get in melee range, swap to your greatsword to finish them off.

Also, pull individual mobs from groups 1 or 2 at time and avoid aggro’ing too many at once. Use the terrain to your advantage, and plan your tactics beforehand with an escape route in mind. All this will help you to deal with the more difficult content yet to come .

I like an abundance of clone options, e.g. cloning when dodging, which probably explains why my DPS isn’t as high as it could be, but I feel like I can take on a crazy number of mobs at the same time and just condition-’em-down while an army of me laughs at ’em.

When showing off I even like to do a /sit mid-combat and watch a phantom (specced for more HP) chissel down the mobs while they’re running after my clones.

After trying every combination I settled on greatsword / staff, and since then I had no trouble juggling three or four mobs two or three levels higher than me (when still leveling), and I’m not even close to using my shatters efficiently. At 80 the survivability of my mesmer is excellent.

Blink is a great lifesaver too, and awesome too because it’s a little bugged so you can landsurf after you blink (the animation doesn’t engage unless you change movement)

Edit: and one more thing someone probably mentioned: keeping your gear at level is very important for a mesmer. Since I don’t craft and so got a ton of cash to spent I upgraded him every five levels to greens. Three levels would be better, it really makes a big difference.

Try a staff with your GS as a mesmer.
Chaos storm is an awesome defence as well as offense- if you drop it on yourself and hit nr two you will get out of range so you can swap to GS, the combo will give you chaos armour.
Nr 2 staff also pops a clone to take aggro away from you.
With a GS/ staff you can have max clones up very easily to use for shatter damage, both phantasms do a lot of damage as well.

I play a GS/ staff Mesmer as a main and she is great at surviving and getting out of sticky situations

I love my mesmer and survivability is way better than my elementalist or even my ranger. As others said, clones are the way to go. Using weapon/utility skills that grant extra clones/illusions and specing traits for clones with higher health and and damage makes me really tough to defeat. In dungeons, my clones take lots of boss hits for the team. In PvP, mesmers are hated and feared because opponents will hit illusions with big skills, essentially wasting them while you can call up another round of cannon fodder.

Try using any clone skills first. When the clone hits first, it grabs the mob’s attention giving you the freedom to call up more clones or just destroy the mob yourself while it’s busy chewing air.