Guild Wars 2

New living story is out and it's pretty damn good. Their writing has gotten much better this expansion.

Yeah, be sure to log in soon to get the episode free. After a week or so they make you buy them.

Got to play a bit more today and the story is really interesting, not far in but it's intriguing. This game does a good job with adding mystery to their world.

Picked this game up for the first time last night and it looks pretty good, been reading and watching videos on my work down time and to say it's overwhelming is quite an understatement but I think having a "brand new to me" mmo to play is just what I need.

My question is, since I've been raiding and playing MMOs for far longer than I admit to people in real life...

Should I play an "easy" starting class like my warrior and use my 80 boost on a harder class or level up one of the harder classes.

In wow for instance, there's a ton of abilities but for the most part you play a Max level class for a few days and nobody knows the difference.

The difficulty in classes comes from playing them well and understanding all the skill interactions, not the actual leveling. Playing a class that has a lot of skill combos, like say and Elementalist, from 1-80 would probably be better. Though, I haven't played in quite awhile.

I would say if you are mostly PvE oriented, you can not go wrong with a Necromancer if you want to breeze through open world content on your way to level 80. 5 minions specced for toughness, damage and healing you, and then off course the Shroud to save your butt in so many instances, while doing great damage. Shroud is your F1 ability: you accumulate Life Force through killing mobs and using weapon and utility skills and can pop into your shroud when you want, basically giving you a new Hitpointbar for the amount of the Lifeforce you had accumulated. There is even a trait that lets you regain some regular HP when in shroud so once your lifeforce is run out(runs out slowly on itself, through damage you take and by using skills), you come back to a higher HP pool. And off course in shroud you can either deal huge damage or get away from that pickle you got yourself into. It is also great how your minions will take mobs of your back while you harvest for instance.

Damage is done easily without complicated combo's or setups and survivability is also easy through ample use of F1/shroud. In shroud you can actually do burst damage, out of shroud not so much though your minions will steadily eat through mobs, while you quickly accumulate enough Lifeforce to go into Shroud again. I have to say that the Shroud you get from the Elite spec from the HoT expansion is the best(Reaper)but your regular Shroud (core class) is still wonderful.

I am convinced that Warriors and other classes well-specced will outburst you by quit a bit, but I have never managed to make that *easy* for myself with other classes other then Necros and Condi rangers(I have a level 80 of each class). Seems to need more skill/awareness/tactic/preparation then just popping traps, shrouding or letting your pets do the work. I guess I am a rather lazy player and not that skillfull.

Zog said:

Picked this game up for the first time last night and it looks pretty good, been reading and watching videos on my work down time and to say it's overwhelming is quite an understatement but I think having a "brand new to me" mmo to play is just what I need.

My question is, since I've been raiding and playing MMOs for far longer than I admit to people in real life...

Should I play an "easy" starting class like my warrior and use my 80 boost on a harder class or level up one of the harder classes.

In wow for instance, there's a ton of abilities but for the most part you play a Max level class for a few days and nobody knows the difference.

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Leveling up in GW2 is a lot of fun and pretty mindless. Did it a few times before the boosts came around. Doesn't really take that long and there are usually plenty of players in every zone (megaserver). Only downside now is the fact that you aren't earning xp towards master ranks until you reach level 80.

Your idea of leveling the warrior is good. Warriors stomp PvE content and are a joy to play. Easy too. They rarely get nerfed much, so are usually viable in raids, pvp and wvw also. Strong class.

Leveling really isn't necessary to learn the game though. Use the level 80 boost to try out different classes. It isn't permanent until you specifically tell it so. Necro is fairly easy to play, ranger also. Mesmer, engineer, elementalist have a bit of a learning curve but it isn't that bad once you learn the mechanics of the game.

The combat system is pretty deep, but for open world pve you can pretty much face roll it with any class. Same thing with unranked pvp and wvw. Learning about combo fields, etc is only necessary for high end raiding, ranked pvp and tight GvG in wvw. Same thing with gear. Level 80 exotics are cheap and good enough to do anything. You don't have to wait to gear up before enjoying the end game. Ascended is only a little bit better than exotics. Every little bit helps but this isn't a gear treadmill game. Your gear will be good when the next expansion comes out.

So since BFA didn't cut it for me I decided to load GW2 up again the first time since .. 2013 or so.

Is anyone still playing that can maybe give me some directions about what I should be focusing on? I mean not in general, but rather specific.

Currently I am working through the HoT questlines (slowed down by trying to find all POIs/etc in the new zones). And replacing my guardian's Soldier/Cleric Draconis gear with Berserker one as I slowly get enough gold to do so, as apparently Guardians are dps now.

Depends on what you want to do. Endgame PvE is raiding, fractals or just event farming. There is PvP or WvW (and of course fashion wars). Each tends to have their own builds to work on. If you haven't already found it, Metabattle.com is what most people use to get started on builds and then improvise from there.

Guardian is one of the classes that I never played much. So can't help you with that but the players generally figure out what works pretty quickly after a patch. We had a recent patch that changed a few things up balance wise. The gw2 class forums are actually fairly helpful if you skip the standard crying about nerfs, etc.

I know you were asking for specifics but there are general things that are good to get out of the way early. The base game mastery that lets you auto loot is important. Also gliding masteries from HoT. Mounts from PoF are incredibly helpful, and they have their own masteries. The griffon has all kinds of uses and really does change the game, it will cost you 200 gold though.

As I said it depends on which area you will be playing in. I don't raid or do fractals. Pretty much only do WvW and some PvP. Atm I'm focused on getting legendary armor. It's a very long and expensive process but it gives me a path. Before that it was getting more ascended gear and doing PoF elites for all of my toons.

Damn, thanks for pointing out advances Logistics. Wasn't even aware I need to grind that out

Wellp, guess that settles goal #1

Shadow of the Mad King - the Halloween festival starts today. This and the Wintersday festival are pretty good. And usually a good way to farm xp and gold. Plus the unique skins, etc.

Sneaky said:

Damn, thanks for pointing out advances Logistics. Wasn't even aware I need to grind that out

Wellp, guess that settles goal #1

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I'll probably be logging on here more soon, played BFA a bit and it flopped pretty hard for me. I'll PM you my name later.

I'd be willin to help you in HoT, if you play a squishy class you can get destroyed pretty easily if you're not careful. I'd also be willing to do world bosses and fractals. The halloween event is also live which will give tons of stuff.

The halloween event is great for making gold if you are poor and don't want to donate any real money. Doing the labyrinth is also a great place to level up, especially if you can get an experience booster buff. It is mind numbingly boring to level up in labyrinth (it's just a loot map grind), but it's quicker then doing open world maps just because you'd be killing a ton of mobs. Pro tip for labyrinth look up a build that can do a lot of AoE and tag a lot of mobs, so you get credit for as many kills as you can. There is a thread on reddit for each class. Labyrinth builds for every class : Guildwars2

Needless said:

I bought PoF yesterday because im god awfully bored of every other game atm and my buddy still plays after a million years.
Fuck i forgot how complicated the classes can be, specially now that after like 4 years of not playing all the classes have elite specs n shit now. Wooowie is this a learning curve trying to learn how to play a Scourge necro lol

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Also the story missions will jam your butthole if you're a glass cannon and you don't have your Dodge timings down.

They really outdid everyone story wise this expansion.

Hekotat said:

Also the story missions will jam your butthole if you're a glass cannon and you don't have your Dodge timings down.

They really outdid everyone story wise this expansion.

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Might be time to get back in, still haven't picked up any of the expansions. Next sale for sure.

Hatorade said:

Might be time to get back in, still haven't picked up any of the expansions. Next sale for sure.

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HoT is a Utopia of ass ramming as a elementalist rolling around solo. I got my gliding and got the fuck out.

PoF is just amazing all around due to the mounts and how they work with the maps.