Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the continued feedback everyone! I’m still reading & listening.

Just been super-busy lately, but I’m slowly squeezing in 1-2 hours each night to try out different Profs with the PvP 80 boost in HOTM. I know that’s a far cry from a real group experience, but it helps provide context to what you’re all saying. ^^

I just want to thank everyone again for the links to DNT, class guides on here, Metabattle, etc. It’s incredibly helpful to go from this deer-in-headlights feeling staring at about 100 skills that all look good, to “Oh, okay, take this this & this — so that’s the actual playstyle”.

Like, I have stopped imagining myself supporting dungeons as a Staff Guardian with Tome of Courage and now understand it’s Hammer Time™ with a touch of Greatsword. Progress!

@Tom Yzf, TY for those links to DNT and the Thief explanation. It gave me a lot better context for what’s actually being played vs. all the really wrong stuff I’ve been imagining as a newbie while messing around in HOTM.

Veydar.5017:

It really depends on how you are planning on playing these classes. Staff Ele is among the highest personal DPS in the game right now. You said you hated playing DPS classes though.

“Hate” might be a little strong ^^ but I do get bored really fast with just pushing bigger DPS numbers (objectively, I don’t think doing good DPS is easy or boring, it’s just me personally — I’m too defensive / nurturing).

Like, see, it sounds like Engi helps the group a lot by stacking Vuln? But that doesn’t interest me, because it’s on monsters. But Elementalist sounds interesting because they put buffs on allies that make people feel happy and play better.

I know — I’m weird.

Veydar.5017:

One thing I would like to add: If you ever want to join speedruns, by which I mean the casual PUG speedruns, you will have to get out of your comfort zone. No one will take you if you don’t bring meta gear/builds/skills. This is just a heads up, since it’s the way it is. Not meant in a negative way.

That’s okay. This is why I asked in this forum rather than more general areas, I wanted to go into my first character with realistic expectations and not well-meaning but misleading sugarcoating.

Tom Yzf.5872:

In contrast, Guardian is by far the easiest class (if you had to pick 1) to carry a group through the dungeon, especially when played correctly. …

Ah. Ha. That sounds great — that’s me. I like being able to compensate and watch out for other players so everyone gets through alive and happy, even if they don’t quite realize why. ^^

When considering the other side of support, buffs to party members that increase damage, a good option to consider is your Meta non-staff Ele. …

After reading this, I went over the Ele guides by DNT a little more closely and I get what you’re saying — Ele sounds like the Offensive heavy-buffer counterpart to Guardian’s heavy Defensive focus.

Hmm…

I think I’ll play around in HOTM with both Guardian and Ele a little more, armed with all the builds and instructions I’ve learned today. This has been really eye-opening and helped me understand the game from a much better perspective. ^^

Thanks guys. ^^

I do understand you can’t play the traditional Ranged Healer type in GW2. Or, well, you can, but it’s apparently really pointless and probably causing more deaths than it prevents. :p

@Tom Yzf’s reply is more what I meant, I was curious what the best “real” playstyle would be for someone who’s used to doing the Support / Ranged role in other games.

Being an actual, useful Support is much higher priority for me than camping at range, if I have to pick.

So if I’m understanding Tom Yzf’s post correctly, you’re saying that Grenade Engi & Staff Ele are best classified as “Not Entirely Useless Ranged”, as opposed to actually being “Ranged Support”? (I know we’re being a little blunt / crass here but that’s ok, I want to learn)

Whereas Guardian is more like “Accepted Useful Playstyle with the most emphasis on Group Support out of all the usable options”. (if so that sounds about right ^^ )

When I asked someone else who plays the game (but not really with a Group emphasis), they mentioned that Thiefs running OH Pistol / Shortbow were also useful support because of their debuffs. Is that overexaggerating? :p

I am new to the game, and since Group PvE is always my focus in MMOs, I’d like to start with a Profession that fits my group playstyle.

In MMO PvE, I like to:

• Be at range, with an overview of the battlefield
• Be in a Support-oriented role, healing / buffing / protecting / otherwise focused on keeping everyone else bolstered and strong (I play Monk in GW1, for example)

And I do not like:

• Being in the chaos of Melee range
• Being in a DPS / damage-focused role

Annnnd from everything I’ve read about GW2 PvE, it is almost entirely about:

• Fighting in Melee
• Doing max DPS

XD

That’s OK, though — I honestly don’t mind adapting to this game’s style. But I would also like to play something that matches my play personality as much as possible, without being dead-weight to groups.

What would be the best compromise for me to start with?

Hi guys. =) I’m currently running a system which is way below what GW2 needs in terms of CPU power. I’m going to be upgrading & replacing it in a few weeks, so I’m not worried about running GW2.

Instead, just for shiggles, I decided to install GW2 “early” on my current system just to see what happened. Honestly, I wasn’t even expecting the game to run. And I was sort-of expecting an explosion to occur at some point. I was actually surprised!

Here’s what I’m currently running:

That’s really bad by any standards, lol.

So, performance. I think “playable” is a very strong word, let’s not go crazy here. But it does actually run and in quiet enough locations, I can actually explore, interact, and do some content.

With all settings (including audio) on absolute bare minimum lowest they can go and running 1280×1024 resolution:

• Tutorial zones: 15-25 FPS
• Heart of the Mists: 20-40 FPS
• Exploring the world: 10-40 FPS, depending on how much stuff is on-screen
• Lion’s Arch: 8-15 FPS
• Big crowded world events/dynamic stuff: 3-5 FPS
• WvW: Is negative FPS possible?

I’m surprised/impressed because I honestly wasn’t even expecting to make it past character creation. So, hey, if your system’s really old but you’ve got a lot of patience maybe you should give it a try.

That said, with my experiment over, I think I’ll hold off on seriously playing the game until I’ve got my new build running. =)