5761

haha alright, maybe that’ll be my alt. Sounds like a cool move. We’ll see if its cool enough to base an entire character around.

5762

Tom you’ve never played a thief?!!?!?! In like 1000000 hours of GW2? How is that even possible.

5763

carltonbauheimer.8130 is my account name.

5764

After tonight’s run I see what the fuss is about fractals. Those were pretty rad. And thank you to the 4 80s who were willing to take a mere upscaled 46 along. I even felt like I contributed reasonably well, considering.

5765

I wouldn’t recommend a thief or a mesmer for your first character. They can be tough to level in the early going, especially when you don’t have a firm grasp on the game mechanics yet. Neither of those classes really pick up and come into their own until 40-60 imo.

5766

I was just coming to say the same thing. Thief is interesting, but hard work after about level 20. Mine stalled at about 40, and I have had no desire to go back to her. If you don’t mind the deaths (which have little penalty in this game), you can work your way through the game as a thief, but it will probably be a frustrating experience.
Warrior, ranger, guardian are all easy to learn the game with. Engineer never clicked with me, but Necro is lots of fun and highly survivable. Mesmer is, as mentioned, a complicated class to learn. Unlike the thief it does become absurdly powerful once you get to higher level (40+) and get a hang of the mechanics.

5767

Man, I guess I picked the wrong class to have as my first toon.

They’re not wrong though, thieves do die a LOT. We’re pretty absurdly squishy. Lying on the ground and desperately flinging daggers at mobs will become a fact of your thiefy life.

OTOH, it’s pretty much a blast to play. There’s a lot of fun stealth mechanics and you do get to fly over people’s heads and stab them in the back while they’re still trying to figure out where you went. Good times.

5768

Warrior is pretty much the king of kings when it comes to PVE. I’d start with that. Get some greatsword and stab mans.

5769

Necro guardian warrior ranger and engineer are all good starting classes. Once you learn the importance of dodging and get used to reading enemy tells other professions become a lot more fun.

5770

It all depends on what you’re interested in. Melee? Ranged? Magic-user? One keypress or several to do the same job? Busy and concentration/timing dependant or blindly button-mashy? PvE or PvP?

If you want to win out of the box in PvE and have good reflexes, and you like straightforward, powerful-feeling melee gameplay, Warrior is the one to go for. If you want to win out of the box but your reflexes are shot from years of self-abuse, and you also like your gameplay a bit more fiddly, Guardian is the one to go for. Those two are the safest bets, for sure.

If you want to be feared in PvP, the current meta is Necromancer and Engineer (both of which are quite fiddly classes, so again, if you like fiddly, they’re great). If you love pet classes, Ranger is a great pet class. If you like stealth-based gameplay, Thief obviously (and it’s well implemented). Mesmer and Elementalist are comparatively more unforgiving in the early stages - but to compensate, they have fun, spectacular fx and are very powerful and loved in teams, later in the game. And of course as befitting magic users, they have uber fiddly, busy playstyles, highly dependent on good timing and familiarity with the dodge mechanic for their survivability.

Generally speaking, PvE is forgiving enough that you can blindly button mash for quite a while and do ok - then eventually some sense of what you’re actually doing will emerge from the mental fog (read the tooltips!), and you’ll discover some headroom and depth, to get more efficient in.

I went straight for Mesmer and never regretted it (I also enjoy Warrior, Guardian and Ranger for occasional breaks). Yes it was a bit tough up to about lvl 40 or so, but it did teach me to dodge and use the Mesmer’s very active form of defence. Plus, the fx are superb, and just scream “magic-user”; splashy and big, which is extremely gratifying (nobody is ever in any doubt that a Mesmer is on the scene!) Plus, Mesmer can be the trolliest of trolly classes in PvP, even trollier than a Thief - always a big plus :)

5771

Warrior is super boring, though, and pretty weak in PvP. I recommended thief because it’s a really active and fun class – dodging in and out of battle, switching weapons and teleporting everywhere. I actually had a pretty easy time as thief in PvE, although I agree warrior is easier (and boringer). 1000 blades! 1000 blades! 1000 blades! 1000 blazzzzzzzzzz.

Guardian is a much more interesting melee class.

Engineer really does take till level 20 or so to get interesting, but when it does, it gets very interesting.

Elimentalist is also very fun.

They’re all good, really, some are just more active than others, and I like having stuff to do.

5772

haha so fall damage is apparently a THING in this. Decided to take the quick way down some stairs. Almost died.

5773

If you’re willing to give up boring DPS, then you can do some pretty interesting things with a warrior. Sword/sword builds are great for DOT, although all DOT builds in GW2 have intrinsic limitations in PVE. Lately I’ve been playing with a hammer build that is aimed at disabling opponents, and it requires careful gameplay. Mace, especially with a shield, can also open up a lot of tactical play.

5774

Yeah, if you play warrior as nothing but a greatsword wielding 1000 blades monkey, then you haven’t really been playing the warrior. I understand the path of least resistance and all that, but warriors have a lot of variety in their weapon choices.

5775

Personally I recommend trying to find someone to run around with. Depending on class soloing can be pretty frustrating and adding just one other person dramatically increases survivability, combo potential, and your ability to just casually join in on events, which is an important part of enjoying the game imo. The guild events on Fridays got me back into playing the game regularly, but when I finally convinced my friend Jesse to pick the game up a couple weeks back my frequency of play and enjoyment went way up.

5776

Crap. Sounds like it’s time to buy another character slot and roll my sixth alt!

5777

I fell down a cliff during a fractal run last night and took 418K damage. My max health at the time was 14K.

5778

Just a quick note there are no ranged or melee classes in gw2. All professions can do both. All professions can go bunker (tanky), support, control or dps or some combination of the former. Some professions more easily fall into roles but half the fun is finding new functional builds. My thief for example is all about controlling enemies with blinds and using stealth to safely Rez pugs.

5779

Thanks for that, I’m all signed up and have the game downloaded and ready to go for Friday. I almost had my wife convinced to pick it up and get going, until her co-worker mentioned the free trial this coming weekend shakes fist. Then it didn’t help that GW2 went from 25% off up to full price on Amazon this weekend. It went back down Sunday night, but it was too late by then. I’m hoping for a good discount over the anniversary but we’ll see.

5780

Guild Wars 2 is $37 on Greenman right now… just a hair over 25% off.