Guild Wars 2 quick start guide

Hello this is Rolfson from MMO-Mechanics and today I will do my best to give you enough board information to get started in Guild Wars 2. I will briefly touch on several very important topics that will help you get started faster.

Classes:
Guild Wars 2 has eight unique classes, including five from the previous Guild Wars. New classes introduced with GW2 are the Thief, Guardian, and Engineer to fight alongside the familiar Elementalist, Necromancer, Ranger, Warrior, and Mesmer. The neat thing with GW2 is that the so called “holy trinity” of dps, heals, and tank roles with classes is gone. No longer will you stick around for hours waiting for a monk to heal, or someone to tank for you. Each class has self heals, defensive cooldowns, and the ability to rock your world with damage, albeit in very different yet effective ways. Of course, different specs will lean a bit towards one role or another (Water Elementalist has several heals for party members while Earth Eles can get some serious defense up) but they will still all be able to perform quite well. Check out our posts on each class over at http://mmo-mechanics.com/guildwars2/forums/Forum-Profession-Mechanics to see exactly what you will be capable of in the game.

Weapons:
Weapons in Guild Wars 2 are unlike any system integrated in an MMO before. Instead of the traditional role of skills being augmented by weapons that are simply there to look cool and boost your skills, Guild Wars 2 takes a whole new approach to the system. Half of your skills are based specifically on which weapon(s) you have equipped. The first 5 actions on your action bar are designated by what weapon you have equipped. For example, an Elementalist with a trident equipped will have access to an entirely different skillset than if they had a staff equipped. Not to mention that for Elementalists, they have different elemental attunements that further differentiate the skills. So this new system leaves room for incredible amounts of skill customization, the likes of which you’ve never seen before!

There’s more information on the weapons here, http://mmo-mechanics.com/news.php?article=weapons-in-guild-wars-2

Combat:
Alright, alright. You got through choosing a class, making a character, figuring out all this weapon stuff, and now you’re in the world ready for action! Let’s discuss how you actually kill things. The GW2 combat system is pretty awesome, bringing an action-based combat into the series. You now don’t tab-target enemies – rather, it’s based on you aiming instead of having a set target that your skills automatically hit. Also introduced here is dodging which you can do by double-tapping any directional key. You have an energy bar that contains enough energy for two dodges back to back while the energy continually replenishes. Dodging enables you to avoid attacks, escape from hairy situations, and even utilize terrain to your advantage in difficult fights. Like all MMOs, line of sight is very important in combat. By popping in and out of sight, you can avoid projectiles and other spells while casting your own.

PvP:
There’s two main types of PvP in Guild Wars 2, the World vs World vs World massive (~2000 players, 2 week long matches) events and “hot join” pvp matches. You can level up through both of them, so if you want to just forgo the PvE leveling system, by all means do it! The hot join matches are standard pvp, going from 1v1 all the way up to 10v10. Tournaments can be setup on your own provided 8 teams are available, but there are also pickup, monthly, and yearly tournaments to showcase the absolute best of the best on your home server. The other PvP type, WvWvW, is another unique feature for Guild Wars 2. Essentially three home servers slug it out against each other for up to two weeks in a single game and 2000 players at the same time. Each server will have a castle for a base that can be upgraded both defensively and offensively through resources that can be gathered from the surrounding areas. The overall objective is to capture the other two servers’ castles, but this is a monumental undertaking. Siege equipment is necessary to even begin to breach the defenses, but assaults are incredibly difficult due to the insane amounts of defenses that the castles are equipped with – not to mention that this is still an open PvP zone, leaving you open to slaughter at any point. There’s a fantastic section in this guide, http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1058358-Guild-Wars-2-Mass-info-for-the-uninitiated.-READ-ME , about the WvWvW and you should absolutely check it out if you’re interested.

Leveling / Questing:
Quests in Guild Wars 2 are once again not like anything you’ve encountered before. The PvE leveling system is wholly based on dynamic events that completely alter the landscape and enemies around you. One example given in the trailer is that when a certain dynamic event depicting a centaur attack happens, you actually see the centaurs charging into the village, destroying huts and slaughtering all in their path. It is up to you to vanquish the enemies, and in the process, you gain a significant amount of experience. There are also quests called “hearts” that are more static-type quests, giving you a certain objective to complete on the map. Your story quests will frequently bring you near the heart quests and dynamic events also occur in the near vicinity of these hearts, so picking them up won’t be a challenge. NPCs with a telescope icon above their head are in each map, giving you a preview of what there is to do on that map as you progress through it. Use these NPCs to find the heart quests or dynamic events and figure out the most efficient path through each one to level up quickest.

Crafting:
There are eight different crafting disciplines in Guild Wars 2, following a fairly standard pattern to normal MMOs. The disciplines are weaponsmiths, huntsmen, artificers, armorsmiths, leatherworkers, tailors, jewelers, and cooks. Each one should be fairly self-explanatory, the lone ranger being huntsmen that make ranged weapons. You can have two active disciplines at a time and pay a fee to switch to others. You do not lose progress on a discipline if you drop one to pick up another, so that when you switch back to your original skill it still has the progress you gained. Your discipline level is governed by a points system, going up to 400, where 500 experience in that discipline is equal to one skill ‘point’. There are a couple ways to gain experience, such as the obvious crafting items, gaining bonus experience for crafting stacks of items, as well as discovering recipes. Also when crafting multiple items, the individual crafting time of each item is decreased significantly so that making a stack of items is far more efficient than making individual items multiple times. As you level up in your discipline, you gain access to more recipes although some can only be found in loot or be bought.

Hopefully I have provided you with information that will get you started in Guild Wars 2 quickly. As always, if any of the information needs correction please leave me a comment below.

Reminder: MMO-Mechanics will be on the Fort Aspenwood server this weekend. You can read about joining us here.