Guild Wars 2 PlansFollow

I played a Human Mesmer in the beta. One thing I really love about the Mesmer is the mobility they have - between their short-cooldown blink and their illusions (amongst other fun tricks), PvP becomes a game of deceiving your opponents. I recall being able to escape from a mob of a dozen or so players that kept hunting me down, just because I was able to blink/stealth away. Fun times.

An alternate route you can go as a Mesmer is a buff/debuff mesmer. A lot of mesmer spells have the secondary effect of debuffing an enemy or buffing an ally with a random buff/status effect. Equipping a Staff even gives you a really cool chain lightning-like ability that bounces between allies and enemies, giving each a random buff and debuff, respectively. It's all short duration, but since it's able to be autocast continuously, it starts to add up.

I can't say I played too many of the other classes. The char area is kind of cool, and Engineer can be fun.

Already got the game ordered and loaded up, just waiting on the servers to come online.

Edited, Aug 13th 2012 12:37am by IDrownFish

I've actually never said that about any other MMO. I was excited for TOR, and it looked like it made some really interesting new game mechanics as far as questing and story lines went, but I feel like GW2 is taking it a huge leap farther. Combat in TOR wasn't anything new really, where as combat in GW2 looks very different from anything I've ever seen in an MMO before.

But yeah, other people have said the same thing about several other MMO's. So I get your point.

I've become a total GW2 fangirl, I'm afraid. Have loved all the beta weekends and am very excited for launch. I even, um, read the books, something I never did for WoW. (They're horribly written, by the way, but I was interested in the lore.) But then, I'm not playing anything else at the moment so I was ripe for a new obsession. And several of my WoW guildies will be playing as well which is a huge bonus.

I loved the theme and idea of the mesmer, so I kept beating my head against a wall trying to like it as much in practice, but in the end it just did not click with me and I couldn't make myself enjoy it. Which doesn't mean it's a bad profession, because it isn't, it just wasn't what I was looking for. The trickster playstyle I was seeking fit very nicely with the thief in the end, and that will be my main.

Another thing I learned about the professions is that for me it's as much about the weapons as anything else: find weapons you like and you can always find a build (or more than one) that suits them, but if you don't like the weapon sets, no build is going to make you like the profession.

The panty starting armor the scholar classes wear was also a bad first impression for me, but a lot of people love it. You can, um, actually see her underwear when she runs. I did not find this to be badass.

I'll be playing mostly humans, despite the appalling lack of a single ponytail option, simply because I love their city. So my five character slots will look like this:

Human Thief (main)
Norn Ranger
Sylvari Elementalist
Human Mesmer (still have to have one in there somewhere :))
Human Guardian

I'm going to put my main in the Durmond Priory, but I'll end up having someone in all three orders in the end.


edited because I can't get used to calling classes professions

Edited, Aug 13th 2012 8:38am by teacake

Try the guardian. That's all I'm saying as I'm not biased at all. Nuh uh. Honest.

I'm amused the "aggressive feline race" is known for their "unbreakable bonds of loyalty."

I will prolly take a looksie at this game at some point, if only because an mmo with no sub fee (and no hobbling from not having said sub fee) intrigues me. This also reminds me I should uninstall warhammer and LotR since I haven't played them for ages.

Am I hearing "Alla guild" somewhere in this thread?

Some info that might be relevant to that: you can join guilds that are not on the same server as you, and I believe you can even join multiple guilds. You can also group with people who aren't on the same server as you for everything except WvW. Names are unique across the game, not by server, so it's easy to find people and add them to your contacts. There's also no loot drama as everyone gets their own separate chance at loot. So they make it pretty easy to play with people.

iam gonna make a sylvari thief. He shall be red and blue and i shall nickname him beetroot.

<3

Okay, after taking a gander at this, I've changed my mind about my set up. I really don't care for the cultural light armor for the Asurans, which makes me sad. However, I think the Norn and Sylvari cultural light armors are amazing, and I rather like the medium armor for the Asurans. So my set up is going to be thus:

Norn Mesmer (because I think this combo will be pretty rare)
Sylvari Elementalist
Asura Engineer
Human Ranger

I've done a fair bit of looking into the Necromancer, and I just am not convinced that I'm going to like it. About the only thing I DO like about the Necro, is that you can summon as many of your minions as you want. So you can have a veritable army of undead minions all out at once. That said, if I decide I don't enjoy the ranger, I'll try the necromancer, and if I don't like that, I'll try a guardian I guess. The idea of breathing out fire does sound pretty cool.

Either the Elementalist or the Mesmer will be my main, more than likely.

I second that, although I wouldn't necessarily do it with WvWvW. I highly recommend going into the Mists to try professions out. Just hit the PVP button on your hero pane and click Enter the Mists (or similar, can't remember exact wording). You'll have to go through a short tutorial first, then you're put on an island - you're leveled to 80 and all the standard equipment is free from the vendors there.

You can try as many weapons, builds, and gear variations as you like, and there are practice NPC's on the island (without having to go into a sPVP map) if you don't like actual PVP. Great way to get a feel for the different professions.

Doing PVE to level 10 or so I was sure mesmer would be my main. Then I tried one at max level in the Mists and couldn't find a single build I had fun with, whereas I had fun with every build for the thief. Made the decision easy.

What kind of play style are you looking for?

High survivability, high margin for error, smash faces: warrior, guardian. Guardian is the more supportive of the two and shines in team situations.
Pet class: ranger, necro.
Tricksy, also squishy, but only if you can catch them, must l2dodge: thief.
Condition damage juggernaut, steampunky style: engineer.

That's in no way definitive, of course, and others may have more/better input. You've got ranged and melee options with pretty much every profession (yes, you CAN be a melee hunter! ). Interestingly enough, the thief is the only one who has a resource pool (such as mana, energy, or rage in WoW). Everyone else is cooldown-based.

This may also help!

I think it's possible there will be another stress test next week despite how close we are to launch, if the new NVIDIA drivers drop on the 21st.


Edit: or you could just do what I did and what you seem to have partially done - narrow it down by coolest armor and go from there.

Edited, Aug 18th 2012 7:13pm by teacake

I agree, but supposedly those are the light introductory versions of DE's and by the time you get to Orr it's total insanity. I believe there will also be world bosses (similar to the dragons in WoW) so there should be a few things for larger groups/guilds to do together besides WvW. Also, dungeons always scale to your level and there are four different paths or something, right?

That said, I agree with you that if you don't like dress-up (why not? ) or crafting or alts, burnout is a valid concern. Especially since they keep saying "the game is the endgame" which is great at level 1, but then you might be over it by the time you're 80. On the other hand, if you think you'll get the same amount of enjoyment out of it you would from a console game or a single player game like Skyrim, it's worth the price of the box, and you don't have to pay another dime. Or you can take long breaks at any time and just use it as filler for when you haven't got another game to play, or pick it back up again when there's new content to see.

I'm going to try to complete the zones, craft as I go, and basically take a really long time to level my main, while trying to see as much of the game as I can. I reckon that alone will take me long enough to get my money's worth. Then I've got four alts to experience some of the other branches in the personal story, join different orders, etc.