Guild Wars 2

BlueSoda.6297:

You’re not being a jerk,lol. And you have a point, if I don’t like it, I don’t have to play it. But my point is that when anet adds more content that is suppose to be more challenging, it also needs to be more fun. They have made a habit out of this, so just asking if anyone else agrees/disagrees…

And please, as long as you’re respectful, feel free to have the opposite opinion of me XD It’s important that anet hears what everyone has to say about every subject so that the majority can get what they want.

Firstly, kudos on your second paragraph.

Secondly, different strokes for different folks. I haven’t killed Teq, but I find the fight a LOT of fun. It feels epic, massive, exactly like what fighting a dragon should be like, and the possibility of failure adds to it. Even if I don’t get material rewards for it, I’d still show up for the fight and give it what I can. I just did the fight on my home server, and people seem to agree with me- everyone was excited even though we failed, thanking the turret gunners, talking strategy about the next go-around, and yelling light-hearted threats at Tequatl.

At the risk of sounding abrasive, your opinion is not universal, and the devs are not required to tailor all content to your personal preferences. Again, I don’t say that to be trollish- it’s just the best way I can word it, sorry.

What is your server?

There are no plans to change it, and you will likely never be able to WvW for a server you guest to. Spying, griefing, rigging, bandwagoning, and in-battle trashtalking would simply be too much of an issue.

Welcome back!

I have played every class to some extent, and I find them all fun. It’s pretty much a matter of personal taste.

Guardian is primarily a group class, so it may feel lacking solo. In groups, though, they provide great support. Thief is more of a solo, damage-oriented class. I’d recommend you to try any class that catches your fancy, but if you want:

-A strong solo class: Elementalist. Though they’re frail at first, in endgame, they’re one of the more independent classes. They have the lowest base health pool and base armor, but also perhaps the best self-recovery abilities, and are capable of soloing many group enemies when played and built right. Ele requires you to switch attunements rapidly and adjust quickly to situations to survive, so it’s a fast class with lots of button presses and memorization, and a steep learning curve.

-A strong damage class: Warrior. Warriors have the highest damage of the classes when geared and played right, and therefore are in high demand for speedruns. They start out newcomer-friendly due to their high armor and health, and can plow through most open-world content, but in more challenging content in later levels, they require good dodging skills due to their poorer self-recovery abilities.

Those would be my suggestions, but again, try any class that catches your fancy.

Prydz.8752:

A long time ago, when i’ve played WoW, when you’d reach the level cap, you do the dungeons to gear up. Then you move to the heroics. Then 25-man. And so on! I would like something like this to follow, you know?

To be fairly honest, there’s nothing really like that here in GW2. There is purposely no gear treadmill- Ascended items are a long-term way to round out your character, but you can stay in exotics if you’re not interested and still do perfectly fine. Neither Ascended nor exotic are particularly hard to get, nor do they depend on RNG drops. After you’ve geared yourself to your satisfaction, you’re free to do whatever you want.

The previous posters have explained how to get exotics. After that, if you’re interested in Ascended, here’s how you get it:
-Keep doing your daily and monthly achievements for laurels. You can trade laurels at laurel vendors for Ascended trinkets.
-If you do Fractals and get to level 10, you will have a shot at an Ascended ring drop from the daily bonus chest you get by killing the Jade Maw at any level past 10. The chest also awards Pristine Fractal Relics, which can be traded for Ascended rings if you don’t get a drop.
-If you are in a guild that does guild missions, you can purchase Ascended items with the Guild Commendations awarded for doing the missions.

Past that, what you do is up to you. Make a legendary weapon, challenge yourself by getting to Fractal level 48 for the heck of it, explore the world and see all the events off the beaten path, seek out and help newer players, follow the Living Story, master a class in PvP, become a WvW commander, solo dungeons not meant to be soloed… there are many things to do that don’t involve stat crunch.

drifter.8453:

Elementalist are fun, but reports had been said they fold in half very quickly when hit. Meaning – Very Squishy.

Not when specced and played right, they don’t. And I don’t even mean 30 in both Earth and Water with full defensive gear and a staff- I’m double daggers, 10 Air/30 Water/30 Arcana, with a balanced gearset, and can hold my own against five normal Risen and a veteran in Orr, and outsurvive other classes in dungeons. It’s just a different, more active kind of survivability.

Pretty much every single MMO out there requires you to pay money in order to transfer characters from one server to another.

Solutions have already been suggested- guest, or delete your characters and transfer (that’s not a troll suggestion- it actually works). Explanations can also be offered- everyone’s out farming the invasion events, the Pavilion, dungeons, or champ trains in Frostgorge/Orr, and if you show up on those maps, you’ll see dozens (hundreds for the invasions) of people running around. You might/will even get pushed into an overflow with more hundreds of players.

Clearly, you just want to complain about things not being handed to you, though, rather than solving the problem, so I’ll leave you to it with this piece of advice from a similar thread:

OP. So far everyone on here has been doing their best to answer your original question- Am I Screwed?

Overwhelmingly the answer was no, and many people took the time to explain things that you can do in game in order to keep using your fancy new skin. Clearly though this is just another rant thread. You are not interested in solutions, only to complain. Next time feel free to indicate that in you original post, it would have saved these people’s time.

Many thanks,

What runes are you using?

EDIT: I think this is it- http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Pack

1.) Place a timer on how long one player can be on a cannon.
2.) Give players a “turret cooldown” so they can’t immediately jump back on the turret.

The reasoning behind this:
-Placing a timer on how long one player can be on a turret prevents people from going afk on them and locking them up, while giving enough time for contributing players to fire off skills.
-While I have nothing against newbies, this also prevents an uninformed player from taking a cannon and using the whole fight to shoot krait.
-Implementing a turret use cooldown prevents players from trolling by staying perpetually on a cannon. Once their time is up, they can’t use it again for a certain time, allowing other players to jump on.
-Assuming that turret CDs are NOT shared across players, this would encourage rapid passing of the cannon from player to player. Each player could use the skills, which could be faster than one person waiting on cooldowns. This is, again, assuming that turret skill CDs are NOT shared and there are enough people around/the turret CD is low enough to make rapid switching worthwhile.

Possible issues and things to consider:
-Length of the turret use duration and cooldown. Shorter cooldowns and longer use durations make trolling/akitteng easier, but longer cooldowns and shorter use durations make it difficult to use turrets in situations with fewer people.
-Tag-team trolling. Highly unlikely (many trolls are just too lazy), but would be offset with long cooldowns and short use durations. However, this results in the aforementioned issue with fewer people by the cannons.
-How important will skill 1 be?
-Players will have to pay extra attention to turrets to see if they are vacant/occupied- maybe make a clearer mark to show status?

As it stands now:
-It is actually pretty hard to hoard a turret for the entire duration of the fight. While controlling a turret, I got smashed from behind by an abomination and drenched in poison (twice- the first time, I panicked and forgot I couldn’t dodge while using a turret, and the second time, I dropped the turret ASAP and got out). Whether this changes when people coordinate better (no one was defending the turrets in my overflow) remains to be seen.

Clarification is good.

If you’re referring to the event I believe you’re referring to, the one located in Hellion Forest in the Iron Marches, where you must kill Bria’s shadow fiend in order to save the cubs, it was also bugged on Tarnished Coast. The courtyard was empty, and the door was walled off by black mist. The health bar of the shadow fiend, under the event notifier, was empty, as if it had been killed but the game hadn’t recognized it. A shame- I’ve wanted to lay a beating on her ever since I heard about this event.

This was about a day or two ago. I haven’t been back, so I don’t know if it’s been fixed or not.

Formerly, Weakness did not affect critical hits. This has been changed so it now reduces all attacks, including critical hits.

The people who blaze to 80 in a matter of days are the people who get burned out and whine about there being no content, when in fact, by powerleveling, they blew by it all. Or they’re the people who don’t learn their class and get wiped over and over, and choose to blame the game.

If this is your first character, take your time. Explore the world, find events, and learn how to play your class. Find friends to level with. The leveling process is part of the endgame in GW2.

If you’ve already explored the game and already have a character at 80, then yeah, crafting, when done properly, is the fastest way of leveling. Look up some guides and be prepared to spend a lot of gold.

Buy a backpack set (not skin, set) off the TP. It should come with a white backpack base you can use.

The difference in stats between ascended and exotic weapons is minuscule, pretty much 9 stat points or so. It’s hardly noticeable and you’ll do just fine with exotics, if not even better than a sucky player in Ascended- you’re not going to get locked out of content. It’s not a requirement, just a way to round out a character over time or something to do for those who like min/maxing. I myself ran difficult dungeons (Fractals 10+, Arah, CoE, TA) in rares/masterworks for the longest time and didn’t have any issues.

Also, the materials needed to craft Ascended items are acquired just by playing the game normally, unlike in other MMOs, where you had to dedicate every evening to raiding. If it’s not your thing, again, stay with exotics and it won’t matter.

Thief, from what I hear, can be as bad as elementalist in terms of difficulty/reflexes required to stay alive. Try warrior or ranger- both tend to be more forgiving, and though the ranger’s a medium armor class, a good tanking pet like a bear can add a lot of survivability. As for guardian… it seems to be on the fence, from what I hear. Lots of blocks and heavy armor, but a low HP pool. I think the best thing you can do is to try all of those classes and see what suits you best.

That’s pretty much the model of the game- the absence of the progression hook is deliberate, given there’s no subscription fee to milk out of players. No gear carrot means you can leave and come back whenever you want without worrying about falling behind- you play because you want to, not because you have to. In that way, I guess you can liken it more to a single-player RPG like Skyrim than to WoW or WoW imitators.

Molch.2078:

Since you’re using the forum to ask a question, I think you might want to hear some opinions. Therefore I’ll cut out all the “play how you want, it’s important you’re having fun bla bla” and give you my opinion on shamans gear, okay? Okay.

Remove it from the game.

Here you go. Vitality is a bad stat. Healingpower is not that great, too. No toughness to protect this big hp pool. And conditiondamage is useless in PvE. Probably the worst gear you can get.

I hope you don’t mind the harsh tone too much, but I just can’t stand answers like the one from DreamyAbaddon.

Narrowminded much? Maybe it’s not optimal in PvE, but Shaman’s is a nice set in PvP. I personally know a player who has used it to make a regeneration warrior who mixes direct damage from swords and condition damage from bleeds, and he’s used its close twin, Settler’s gear (toughness instead of vitality) to make a mightstacking/Diamond Skin ele that fights with conjures. He’s killed lots of people as both characters, including a rank 50 who said “I’ve never seen an ele fight like that.” In the hands of a clever, creative, and openminded person, “useless” stats are quite useful.

Also, it’s none of your business what someone runs in PvE, especially if you’re not running with them. If you want to run zerk only, go right ahead. Make your own groups. No one’s complaining. If someone decides to run another set and has their own group for it, why do you care? To each their own.

nearlight.3064:

I feel kinda pathetic I even posted this. Something so great and valuable should be earned, not handed to. I’m sorry to everyone who rolled their eyes when reading this, its depressingly hard trying to get a legendary, and with the rising T6 mat and precursor prices, I feel like I’ll never get a legendary.

If I knew how to delete this thread I would, but I do not know how to.

Work on what you can. Set little goals. It’ll trickle in bit by bit as long as you stick to them.

I worked on getting the RNG aspect out of the way first. I finished my clovers, then WvW exploration. I was one of the few lucky enough to land my precursor (The Bard), but long before that, I decided I would either save up the gold or wait for craftable pres- in either case, it would eventually come and I made my peace with it.

I did little steps- when I ran into hearts while getting from point A to B, I finished them. I also grabbed vistas and PoIs. That gave me less to do when I did systematic map completion. I made it a point to get the boring or difficult maps (Orr, the Kryta areas in my opinion) out of the way first so I could save my favorites (Ascalon) for last. If I realized I was burning out on a map, I switched off my world completion icons and just went exploring rather than completing- I got a lot done while having more fun, and it wasn’t a hassle to go back and pick up the last bits. I saved up my karma and always used boosts before drinking them, and didn’t spend my karma on anything if I could help it. I also stopped selling T6 materials and ectos and shelved my Ascended backpiece goals for later.

Regarding T6 materials for Gift of Fortune, I set a goal for myself. I aim to buy 20 Powerful Bloods every day, and I don’t let myself purchase anything else until I do so. Once I finish Bloods, I’ll move to the second most expensive T6, and so on. I do a variety of activities- some Pavilion farming, some invasions, but if I get tired, I rest. I make sure I have time to do the things I like in the game so I don’t burn out, and always keep in mind that it’s just a skin in the end. I go to my bank often to look at my steadily growing stack of T6, and often the sight alone is enough to make me feel encouraged. I remind myself that as long as I keep buying bloods, even if the price increases, I’ll get there.

However, I think the most important thing is that I’m not doing any of this alone. I explore maps with other people, newbies and friends, whenever the opportunity presents itself- it’s much more enjoyable than doing it solo. I have a great friend who I chat with over voice while I play and who I spamlink my T6 stacks to daily (and who keeps encouraging me along). We do dailies/LS achievements together, and run dungeons with other close friends in a semi-static group, and breeze through them with ease- even putting our own twist on them by duoing and trioing paths in less time than a full five-man group. Or sometimes we take newbies along and teach them in a friendly environment.

Overall, I take a relaxed approach to things- not actively farming, but doing a variety of things I like in a way I like, and just letting stuff come in at a slow but even pace while saving up and splitting things into small goals. Taking a “it will come” view. Again, though, it’s a much easier and enjoyable process with company. Maybe you can find other people working on a legendary and collaborate- form a static group to do regular runs, chat during map completion, and so on.

Here you go, attached.

Hey, RedAnders, and greetings from a resident of the unofficial NA RP server.

I’m not in a RP guild myself, nor am I a formal RPer, so I can’t give you personal recommendations. However, if you haven’t already, I recommend giving http://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com a look. They have a listing of RP guilds there, and it’s a good way to get to know people.

Best wishes!

Daywolf.2630:

Falunel.7645:

Rangers are stigmatized because they are too often played by poor players. If you’re not doing absolute min/max speedruns,

See? people will defend them, but still the class gets left out, bottom line, even from casual pugs. Nothing to do with the above. Now someone will tell me I don’t know how to play ranger etc etc etc.

I’d hardly say that “absolute min/max speedruns” are “casual PUG” material, given that many of the PUGs I run with spend a generous amount of time dirtnapping because they stood in red circles. It’s not a very efficient run if your DPS is dead.

Yes, as a ranger, you face a stigma created by bad players. But playing a ranger doesn’t mean you’re some lazy autoattacker who may as well not be there, or that a run will take hours longer because you’re there. You can be effective in runs and contribute if you play well. If ranger is your class, if it fits you like a glove and you feel driven to master it and play it well, then play it.

EDIT: Directing you here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1o80i5/should_i_reroll_from_ranger/ and to this post in particular.

In addition, be sure to eat food and use a utility consumable (such as a sharpening stone). Those will give you a stat boost and a boost to monster kill exp.

This is going to sound harsh, but you should keep practicing no matter what class you play. After a certain point in the game, not dodging will lock you out from content. You could play the toughest class with the tankiest build and the best defensive gear, but you will still die again and again against many of the bosses in the dungeons if you do not dodge.

Also, I played TF2 myself and got nailed by spies/crockets/etc all the time, yet here, after months of painful learning, I dodge well enough to stay alive. Don’t sell yourself short on the basis of other games.

Thanks, guys!

@Dietere: I think I’ll be lumping the DEs in with the general GW2 terms, but good call on those, and on WvW as well. Unfortunately, I don’t WvW that often at all, so it’ll be a while before I can get those up.

@Nels: Very true. I wrote this up so everything would be in one place, where new players could easily see it (assuming they come to the forums, that is…). I should probably make a wiki page for these, for those who do know about the /wiki trick.

@Culwenimos, Lexy, Bvhjdbvkjf: I’ll be including those in a separate post, seeing how the GW2 forums are allergic to long posts. Thanks for the reminder!

-General MMO abbreviations:
AoE: Area of effect- either a spell that heals multiple friendlies or damages multiple enemies.

Aggro: Refers to the likelihood that an enemy will attack a given target. To “get aggro” is to become the focus of enemy attacks; to aggro an enemy is to induce them to start attacking. Mechanics of GW2 aggro can be found here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

BiS: Best in Slot

BRB: Be right back

BRT: Be right there

C/O: Current offer (for an auction)

DC: Disconnect

DoT: Damage over time

DPS: Damage per second- also refers to any class whose main purpose is dealing damage.

ETA: Estimated time of arrival

Gank: To get overwhelmed and killed by a large group of enemies

G2G: Good to go/Got to go

HoT: Heal over time

LFG/LFP: Looking for group/party

LFM: Looking for more- sometimes with the specific number needed, i.e. LF1M, LF2M, etc

Mobs: Random monsters

Nerf: When the game developer makes a given aspect of a game weaker in power with the intent to balance gameplay.

PvE: Player vs. Environment. Refers to game activities that don’t involve fighting other players- e.g. killing monsters, running dungeons, general questing, etc.

PvP: Player vs. Player. Refers to activities which involve fighting other players- e.g. sPvP, WvWvW.

PUG: Pick-up group- refers to random parties formed with players you don’t know, often assembled through map chat.

QQ: Crying/complaining/whining

SMH: Shake my head/So much hate

Tank: The party member who absorbs the attacks of enemies, leaving other, squishier members free to attack without harm. Part of the “Trinity” of healer/tank/DPS used in most other MMOs, but not in GW2- though there are “tanky” classes and builds, there is no true tank. Can also be seen as a verb, in which “to tank” refers to catching enemy aggro and enduring it while the rest of the group gets a breather.

WC: Wrong chat

WTB: Want to buy- also can be phrased as B>

WTS: Want to sell- sometimes S>

WTT: Want to trade

(reserving this post)

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.

Honestly, most people aren’t going to care what class you play as long as you play it well (e.g. for ranger, don’t sit at max range autoattacking with longbow). Try out all the classes, and if it turns out that one of the “hotter” classes is the class of your dreams, play it, and more power to you. But by no means force yourself to play a class you find boring or annoying just because some arbitrary stranger on the Internet said you should. You’ll only make yourself miserable and a poorer player in the end.

I was told many times to play a guardian instead of an ele at launch. I ignored them, and learned to play ele better than anyone else around me. I did things they said eles couldn’t do. I outlived every other class in dungeons and soloed down the bosses of several explorable paths while the rest of my party lay dead on the ground. I found uses and synergies for skills they said were useless, discovered a meta build independently months before anything was written about it.

Eventually, I did get curious and rolled a guardian. I hated it- how slow and dull and lifeless it was- and though I’ve brought myself to understand it somewhat more and found my own take on the class, it’s still my least favorite of my alts and usually collects dust while I play my eles.

I probably could have been a decent guardian, and there were some things it provided that I wish my ele had (party stability, for one). But I was extremely unmotivated to progress beyond “decent” to “great,” to the point that the entire game started feeling dull and I considered a hiatus. Only when I played ele again did I get my energy and love for GW2 back.

tl;dr play a class that you love, that excites you and makes you want to master it. For me, it’s ele. For my best friend, it’s warrior. For some other people, it’s guardian (I won’t claim that because I dislike a class, everyone should dislike it) or engi or mesmer or necro. If none of the classes light a fire, then at least play one that you enjoy enough to play well rather than half-heartedly spamming skills.

(because character limits suck)

Strafe a lot, bring condition removers/stun breakers, and try to dodge the pull he does. Otherwise, group up. If you can’t find anyone and are on a NA server, I can help you out.

All right, I’m going to share more of my experiences here.

I leveled an ele in the early days of GW2, when people had little experience with the class and thought it inferior because of its low health and armor. Common consensus then was that an ele could not solo anything, and its rightful place was at the back of a group with a staff; and even then, eles got told to reroll a guardian or ranger.

I believed them at first. I didn’t even look at my other weapon choices- I went right for staff because I thought it was the “right” weapon for a caster. I put all my trait points in fire because hey, if I’m a backline fighter, why should I care about defending myself? I sat in fire attunement all day hoping to kill stuff before it killed me and also didn’t kite properly, just backpedaling and dodging at the wrong times. I died a lot.

Then one day, I switched over to daggers and decided also to rework my traits by putting points into water and earth. To my great surprise, I found that I not only survived well (I could kill groups of enemies where I previously died to one) but killed much faster. It was freeing, and I decided to see what else I could do. I fought a lot of enemies just for the sake of fighting, and enjoyed it, and learned a little more from each battle. I figured out how to cycle my slows to keep enemies from reaching me and learned to move in battle.

Then, at level 45, I did what people kept saying was impossible for an ele- I soloed a champion. I was wandering around Ebonhawke when I saw the Separatist Leader break out. There wasn’t anyone else around, so I thought, What the heck? It can’t hurt, and maybe I’ll learn something. There were a few rough patches at first, but I killed him. With no help and no deaths.

I’ve had a defiant streak ever since then. Shortly after killing that champion, I killed three more in the same map. In one case (and in many cases after that), I had another class race in to help, only to get flattened in seconds. I decided to learn everything I could and spent time just reading over my skills and thinking of situations I could use them in. A month before daphoenix posted his thread about the infamous bunker D/D ele, I came up with the same build on my own. Later, I soloed AC story, the Champion Nightmare Vine and a horde of silver spiders in TA while the rest of my team was still running back from the waypoint, and many other challenges.

A few months after I reached 80, I decided to try a guardian. Right from the beginning, the class lacked the thrill that ele had, but I stuck with with it, telling myself it was just because I was new to it. I made myself stick with it all the way to 80, telling myself things would get better once I had all of my traits to play with. It didn’t. I got twitchy, felt horribly slow, got bored of leveling and avoided fights I would have chased as an ele. I dropped my guardian once she hit 80 and instead leveled another ele.

The point of that wall of text is not to brag that I’m a godly player- quite the opposite, as I’ve screwed up countless times and still have a lot to learn. Nor is it to say that ele is the best class- it has its limitations, and there are classes who will, while weaker in one category, outperform it in another. The point is to play a class that you love.

You know how people always say to get a job you like, rather than the one that makes the most money? It’s the same principle here, only the playing ground is more even and you don’t have to worry about starving to death. Find the class that inspires you, that makes you want to learn everything you can and try every challenge. Play the class that makes you enjoy tough fights and the game itself. And if there isn’t a class that inspires you, then play a class you just enjoy playing.

If that class happens to be a warrior or guardian rather than an ele, more power to you.

If you play an ele, like it, and then try a guardian, absolutely love it, and decide to switch, more power to you.

If you play an ele and think to yourself, “I like this class, but its damage is a tad too low for me. I think I’ll check out some others,” then more power to you. What matters is that you make the decision, because you want to. Just please, please do not force yourself to play a class you don’t enjoy just because someone else said it was better or easier, and make the game nothing but a rat race to get a bunch of pixels faster than the other person.

I’m writing this post not only for the OP, but for every new player who asks what class they “should” play. When I say the best class is the class that you like best… I essentially mean everything I say in this post, condensed into a single line. I can tell you which classes have the highest damage, which classes are easiest on beginners, which classes excel at such-and-such field… but ultimately, only you can tell what class fits you the best.

It’s a personal thing. Elementalist was my first main class (played a mesmer for a few days at launch, but it didn’t click for me and I dropped it) and after the first few levels, I fell in love with it, to the point that I began seeking out (and completing) challenges like soloing champions, just to see how far I could take the class. Over a year later, I am still maining elementalist (and in fact have two fully-geared level 80 eles), and though I dabble into other classes on the side, I always drift back to my eles and can’t bring myself to main anything else.

I do feel like having ele as my first class made me a better player- to this day, I’ve seen and ran with many guardians/warriors/rangers who don’t know how to dodge or counter attacks. With those three classes, you can get away with standing in place and not dodging for much open-world content- however, ele forces you to learn how to evade, watch enemies, apply (not spam) skills, and move in combat from the onset. You get somewhat more leeway at level 80, when you have your traits, but at early levels, playing carelessly will get you killed. (On the flip side, though, the godliest player I know was a warrior from the onset and still wrecks challenges left and right. Individual success is more about how much initiative you have when learning rather than the class itself- it’s just easier to develop bad habits on warrior/guardian/ranger.)

Overall, again, it’s a personal thing. I would recommend playing any class that catches your eye, regardless of what someone says about it. If you find yourself having an unbearably hard time, you can switch to an easier class until you get the hang of basic combat mechanics.

First of all, thank you for making this thread. It’s very reassuring to see this kind of transparency and I for one strongly appreciate it.

Regarding elementalist, this man said it better than I could:

Bsgapollo.5364:

I’ll talk about elementalist since I’ve been playing it since beta.

The things I will mention are the things I disagree with, everything els is fine.

• Water V – Cleansing Wave: It’s one of the very few condition removals an elementalist has. And for it to be effective he still has to put a lot of points into arcana for it to be good. Even after the buff to the elemental cooldown it would mean you can only remove 1 condition every 13 seconds. Which is not extremly great for a master tier trait.

• Arcane V – Elemental Attunement and Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina: Yes 1 should be moved to a master tier but not both, each one of those traits are almost an essence to have on an elementalist. My suggestion would be to put Arcane VI into the master trait, that way elementalists still have the choice to pick between a slightly less effective endurance regen traits such as Arcane VII ( vigorous scepter ) if they would only put 10 points into arcana.

• Earth VII: I would honestly put this into the adept trait tier. Elementalist has very little ways to deal condition damage, for it to work they have to stack into toughness for it to be effective, meaning they would lack a lot into vitality and other departments. There are a lot of better traits to take into earth and personaly I would never take that trait, not even if it was in the adept trait line.

And here are my two cents:

On the note of Renewing Stamina, I feel it would be better left in the Adept tier to match up with the options guardian and mesmer have- five points in Honor or Dueling respectively give access to vigor-on-crit.

On the note of vigor in general- this is kind of a “out there” suggestion, but if permavigor is taken away, then the base endurance regen should be changed (at least in PvE) to reduce reliance on vigor. For example, increase base endurance regen by 25% while reducing vigor’s regen by 25%.

I say this because currently, you pretty much need some way to boost endurance regen in PvE- a 50% passive boost from a signet or trait, a Sigil of Energy (assuming you swap a lot), or vigor. There’s a number of situations in dungeons that would be either very annoying or just deadly without enhanced endurance regen. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is the champion troll in AC. His normal lightning attacks hit strongly, interrupt (especially annoying if I’m trying to rez someone), and cannot be mitigated by anti-projectile skills. Use up too many of your dodges for the lightning hits and you got onehit by the shockwave. Likewise, use up one too many dodges against P2/3 Alpha in CoE and you’re very likely to be taking a dirt nap, and it’s very hard to get up again. Then there’s a number of champions that use heavy-hitting skills very frequently- the champion Eye of Zhaitan at the crypt in Cursed Shore and the legendary wizard at the Gates of Arah. That’s to say nothing for soloing, where you call in /map for help with a champion you run across, get /crickets for an answer, and have to deal with a hard-hitting, fast-attacking champ on your own.

While I can understand wanting players to time and prioritize their dodges better, and perhaps put more emphasis on other aspects of staying alive, I do feel that restricting endurance regen options ultimately harms more than it helps. The less endurance regen you have, the less situations you can handle without having to eat some hits. Non-bunker elementalists (the class most lacking in raw defense) and balanced-glass builds (where gear and most traits are offensive, but some traits and skills are allocated for active defense) suffer most, as they require players to avoid as much damage as they possibly can since the little hits aren’t so little and stack up fast. Rather than encouraging more thoughtful and balanced play, I could see it strengthening the “rush this boss and kill it before it can kill us” mindset.

And (again, at least in PvE), having high endurance upkeep doesn’t make you unkillable. You still have to dodge at the right times, and dodging recklessly will still drain you and leave you vulnerable in no time. Permavigor also requires players to stack precision and/or boon duration, so it comes with a cost greater than the trait points.

That being said, thank you again for posting this and letting us weigh in, and apologies if I sounded caustic at any point in this post. Keep up the good work!

What level are you? You are able to enter WvW anytime and are scaled up to 80, true, but true level 80s will have an advantage in gear, traits, and, most importantly, experience.

Also, a large part of doing well in WvW is getting over the shakes. It could be that you’re okay with the class in PvE, but freeze up or go blank in PvP. If you don’t want to spend money on repairs, go to sPvP and throw yourself into random matches over and over. Whether you win or how many times you die is not important- the important part is being desensitized to fighting other players (and the prospect of being beaten). You’ll also start picking up on some of the habits and tricks people use.

Finally, in PvE, solo champions or difficult areas (the maze skillpoint in Cursed Shore, for example). Run dungeons often and pay attention to what you can bring to the table. Train yourself to play actively and plan out your attacks instead of pressing 1-2-3 to deal damage. Fighting the AI isn’t the same as fighting an actual person, but even if you get beaten horribly, you’ll figure out some tricks and creative ways to stay alive and deal out damage that you can apply to PvP.