Guild Wars Guru

WoW player planning on starting GW - Need class advice.

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L
Lowsanity
Pre-Searing Cadet
• #1
First of all, hello .
Well im a hardcore World of Warcraft PVE player, but i got kinda bored recently as i've done basically anything possible in this game already.
I've been waiting to play GW for a long time and now ill probably be finally starting.
Ill be buying Classic, Factions and Nightfall.
I got "two" questions.
1) Is it still worth to start playing at this time? I've read that GW2 is on it's way and that i'd need around a year or so to get to the "acceptable" skill of a player.
2) I play on WoW as a retribution paladin who like to mainly DPS(do damage) and to Tank, so as i've read there's many classes that can tank, right? I tough the warrior of GW would be similar to a paladin in WoW. If not, what class is decent at damage dealing(that a good player can put on more damage than people do on pure damage classes) and good at tanking?
Healing classes is out of question. I don't like making people stay alive by healing em.
TalanRoarer
TalanRoarer
Krytan Explorer
• #2
I'd say that starting Guild Wars now is still a viable option for any new player.

As far as the classes go; I have no idea about WoW. But if you're looking for a damage dealing class; none beat Necromancer. Most people will tell you that elementalists are the best damage dealers in the game but they're pretty useless once you get towards the end content.

Plenty of classes can tank in Gws; mainly Assassins (Through 1 OP Skill) Warriors and Elementalists.
L
Lowsanity
Pre-Searing Cadet
• #3
Quote: Originally Posted by TalanRoarer View Post
I'd say that starting Guild Wars now is still a viable option for any new player.

As far as the classes go; I have no idea about WoW. But if you're looking for a damage dealing class; none beat Necromancer. Most people will tell you that elementalists are the best damage dealers in the game but they're pretty useless once you get towards the end content.

Plenty of classes can tank in Gws; mainly Assassins (Through 1 OP Skill) Warriors and Elementalists. Hmmm, so Necromancer you say? Sounds good to me, i like being top damage haha. Thanks for the answer, Talan
Lakdav
Lakdav
Academy Page
• #4
hmmm. I would say warrior is your best pick. True, a necromancer outshines most DPS later when you reach Hard Mode, but he will never tank in the traditional sense. He can tank with minions, but minions need corpses, but thats gameplay mechanics that i guess are pretty unclear for you yet...

Assassin can tank, yes, but only with the Shadow form Elite skill. He does better damage in PvE i think than a warrior, but without that elite skill, you will sooner feed a necromancer with your own corpse than tank...
Assassin is needed to start in Factions too, which has the shortest learning part, i dont know if this is good or bad for you.

Elementalist Is a DPS class in PvE but only until you reach Hard Mode. In HM you are reduced to tank or support more, becouse the classic healer class Monk can outshine your damage at this part (You think im kidding? Monks can smite with armor ignoring holy dmg, while fire/cold/earth/air are effected by armor which is much more in HM).

Even monks can tank and do dmg here, though a monk is mainly expected to heal and/or protect. Smiting is getting more acceptence with Ray of Judgement (Elite) but thats all.

It is said that most ppl should start with warrior, and i guess you should too. Helps to learn the basic mechanics of the game, along with a unique Adrenaline system (not true, Paragons can use adrenaline too). A warrior has enough skills of his own to tank so that he shouldnt even need the secondary class to do the job, and they are natural DPS as well.
C
Chrissie Quickdraw
Academy Page
• #5
Just forget everything you know about tanking in wow while you're in gw, and you'll do fine

(Coming from a tankadin, trust me, there's no "threat" like you know off in gw)
a
awry
Krytan Explorer
• #6
If you're looking at pure damage, i would say assassin going critical scythe. The only catch is that the A/D combination requires quite a bit of skills to set up from 2 campaigns so it's not really something that you can establish right away. But once you do... one hit from you and your enemies lose roughly half their hp right away and you do aoe damage... You can tank with critical defenses on an assassin which basically blocks 75 percent of physical damage. Granted on hm you are suspectible to enchantment removal which is the core of this build, but that is what cover enchantments are for.

With that out of the way, let me just say that playing warrior has its merits, but imo the most useful class to play when you're by yourself is necromancer as it is the most versatile class you can play. I don't think anyone here can really argue that the necro's primary attribute "soul reaping" is not the best of all the primary attribute lines as it literally gives you infinite energy. . Now depending on whether or not you get eye of the north, this will change how you utilize that energy. Personally I devote half my skill bar to create minions, and the other half to damage. In my party set up, i can tank with minions, spam dmg (necrosis), spike with fh, interrupt and snare with ymlad. And that setup i've made could get through most of the hm vanquish content fine by myself. If by chance i run across something i cannot beat with that build, i can go hexes, i can go healing n/rt and I can go n/mo and run some extra protection (ps) to even allow myself the ability to tank as a last resort. Necromancer=versatility
TalanRoarer
TalanRoarer
Krytan Explorer
• #7
It doesn't take much to pick basic skills in this game up. I wouldnt recomend that you pick a proffesion that will 'help you learn the mechanics of the game faster'.

just pick one you like the sounds of and have fun.

You can find basic information about each proffesion here:

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Just type in the name of the proffesion into the search, and you'll get plenty of information on it.

Don't think about it too hard. I played each and every proffesion to a certain depth before deciding on my main; even now I still use 4/5 chars daily.
kupp
kupp
Jungle Guide
• #8
Quote: Originally Posted by Lowsanity View Post
First of all, hello .
Well im a hardcore World of Warcraft PVE player, but i got kinda bored recently as i've done basically anything possible in this game already.
I've been waiting to play GW for a long time and now ill probably be finally starting.
Ill be buying Classic, Factions and Nightfall.
I got "two" questions.
1) Is it still worth to start playing at this time? I've read that GW2 is on it's way and that i'd need around a year or so to get to the "acceptable" skill of a player.
2) I play on WoW as a retribution paladin who like to mainly DPS(do damage) and to Tank, so as i've read there's many classes that can tank, right? I tough the warrior of GW would be similar to a paladin in WoW. If not, what class is decent at damage dealing(that a good player can put on more damage than people do on pure damage classes) and good at tanking?
Healing classes is out of question. I don't like making people stay alive by healing em. 1) Yes.
2) Warrior can tank, but tanking is a waste of a warrior. They're the biggest damage dealers in the game and can provide immense party support as well in different ways, mainly through a +100 armor points skilled called "Save Yourselves!" and knock-locking foes with skills like Earthshaker. However if you want tanking, you might want to look into Assassion since with Shadow Form they're the best tanks in the game.

Still... Tanking in GW is unnecessary unless you're doing with it pugs, where it becomes a somewhat idiot-proof method of doing PvE. I main a warrior too and I've never tanked one day in my life, and on the extremely rare occasions I pug, if one of them asks me to tank I either find another group or they find someone else to tank. And you'll find that GW isn't anything like WoW in gameplay. I just don't see hardcore PvErs converting to GW, but hey, do give it a go.

If you want to get a connection between GW2, you'll need the Eye of the North expansion to have acess to the Hall of Monuments.
kupp
kupp
Jungle Guide
• #10
Explain that warriors can have the highest DPS of all 10 classes, pve and pvp?
Skyy High
Skyy High
Furnace Stoker
• #11
Well, in PvP that's undeniable. In PvE, a buffed warrior with Hundred Blades + Whirlwind Attack and Mark of Pain (courtesy of the necro) is by far the biggest AoE damage explosion you can get. Whether that's the necro's damage or the warrior's is up for debate, but neither could do it without the other.

Anyway, to the OP: pick warrior. They make stuff die, they can take the biggest beating of any class (without any "tanking" skills), and being a melee profession it'd be the closest to a paladin that you could get, I think. The real "paladin" class is the dervish, since they do spells and melee attacks together; warriors can take a monk secondary and do kinda the same thing, but that's generally considered a bad (read: newbie) thing to do. You can't use too many energy skills on your warrior, they just don't have the energy pool or regen for it, so you shouldn't be using too many spells from your secondary anyway.
C
Chrissie Quickdraw
Academy Page
• #12
Quote: Originally Posted by kupp View Post
I just don't see hardcore PvErs converting to GW, but hey, do give it a go. Does it have to be a conversion ? Enjoying both is possible.

Killed LK heroic a month or 2 back on my wow char, and that's pretty "hardcore". But I still enjoy gw and now I'm waiting for content to come to the other, I spend more time in this game meanwhile. But offtopic.

Don't look at gw like another mmo tho, it's more like magic:the gathering (quoting someone else here), you're not progressing by gear. But by the "deck" you build. Having the strongest cards does not mean having the strongest build. etc etc.
a
awry
Krytan Explorer
• #13
Quote: Originally Posted by Skyy High View Post
Well, in PvP that's undeniable. In PvE, a buffed warrior with Hundred Blades + Whirlwind Attack and Mark of Pain (courtesy of the necro) is by far the biggest AoE damage explosion you can get. Whether that's the necro's damage or the warrior's is up for debate, but neither could do it without the other.

Anyway, to the OP: pick warrior. They make stuff die, they can take the biggest beating of any class (without any "tanking" skills), and being a melee profession it'd be the closest to a paladin that you could get, I think. The real "paladin" class is the dervish, since they do spells and melee attacks together; warriors can take a monk secondary and do kinda the same thing, but that's generally considered a bad (read: newbie) thing to do. You can't use too many energy skills on your warrior, they just don't have the energy pool or regen for it, so you shouldn't be using too many spells from your secondary anyway. Situational, won't work with all enemies, needs many enemies to work, mostly a farming tactic, etc, you could also argue the same for splinter barrage, which is sufficent for most cases. Not to mention you can forget the warrior and just arcane echo ebon sin +mop
Skyy High
Skyy High
Furnace Stoker
• #14
Quote: Originally Posted by awry View Post Situational, won't work with all enemies, How the hell not? It's armor ignoring damage. Basically the only time it won't work is if you can't ball the enemies, which is almost always possible. If you can't, well, see below.
Quote: needs many enemies to work That's why I said "biggest AoE damage explosion", which it is. If you don't need the massive AoE, or you can't ball the enemies up into one mob, it's obviously not the best option. Warriors also do some of the highest single-target DPS (behind stuff like crit scythe sins), so the OP should be happy with smashing face normally too.
Quote: mostly a farming tactic No, it's an organized team tactic. There's a difference.
Quote:
you could also argue the same for splinter barrage Splinter is great, but the numbers simply do not compare, especially with larger mobs. MoP gets better as the number of monsters increases, Splinter stays the same.
Quote:
Not to mention you can forget the warrior and just arcane echo ebon sin +mop That's not even remotely close to the same damage. HB + whirlwind triggers MoP way more than any echoed sins are going to do.
kupp
kupp
Jungle Guide
• #15
Quote: Originally Posted by Chrissie Quickdraw View Post Does it have to be a conversion ? Enjoying both is possible.

Killed LK heroic a month or 2 back on my wow char, and that's pretty "hardcore". But I still enjoy gw and now I'm waiting for content to come to the other, I spend more time in this game meanwhile. But offtopic.

Don't look at gw like another mmo tho, it's more like magic:the gathering (quoting someone else here), you're not progressing by gear. But by the "deck" you build. Having the strongest cards does not mean having the strongest build. etc etc. Yeah but you got my point, people used to the typical MMOs don't always take up GW.

Quote:
Originally Posted by awry View Post
Situational, won't work with all enemies, needs many enemies to work, mostly a farming tactic, etc, you could also argue the same for splinter barrage, which is sufficent for most cases. Not to mention you can forget the warrior and just arcane echo ebon sin +mop Still the Warrior has the highest sustained damage output in general gameplay. D-Slash + FGJ topples anything in single target, and if you want AoE a scythe build will give you higher damage than a dervish with it. The only thing missing is pure AoE skills like the elementalists but you'd still need perfectly balled up mobs to make the most of them. And I still doubt it has higher DPS than the a Warrior. Also take into account the easiness the Warrior has on applying Deep Wound wich is king on any confrontation imo.

Skyy High said it better.
L
Lowsanity
Pre-Searing Cadet
• #16
Quote: Originally Posted by Chrissie Quickdraw View Post
Just forget everything you know about tanking in wow while you're in gw, and you'll do fine

(Coming from a tankadin, trust me, there's no "threat" like you know off in gw) Haha, so no mages/rogues who don't trick aggroing from you

@kupp, that's exactly WHY i want to play GW, different from the common MMO . I killed lich king 25 heroic some time ago, so WoW is just farm to me atm.

After all that comments, ill end up focusing on warrior then, as they do good overall damage and can "tank"(ill discover how that works later haha). Ill probably get to lv 20 and get a necromancer friend to help with.
Thanks for all the answers, they have helped me a LOT on which class im going to choose as my first.
Zodiac Meteor
Zodiac Meteor
Imma Firin Mah Rojway!
• #18
You should forget tanking all together because tanking in Guild Wars doesn't work well because the AI is a bit brighter.

1. Foes can switch targets if their not dealing enough damage. This is really bad because they will ignore you and go straight for the monk.

2. Warrior, Assassins and Dervishes are frontline attackers, but they also the best damage dealer classes.

3. Tanking is only good with tank-n-spank builds in GW. No one uses them much because they are very slow.

When it comes to huge busting damage, Necro can fill that role followed closely by a Mesmer. Elementalists are hands down the best class that can play any role, from tank-n-spank to healer and everything in between, however, how well it works mostly depends on the player.
Glints Bane
Glints Bane
Krytan Explorer
• #19
Quote: Originally Posted by Lakdav View Post Assassin can tank, yes, but only with the Shadow form Elite skill. I lol'ed.


TBH. If you want damage and the ability to tank I'd go with warrior or assassin. Assassins have Loads of spike dmg and can have decent armor rating. with the use of a few prots from heros or people (protective spirit, SoA) sins are beast. + their crit abilities can be used for other weapons like a scythe for semi-AoE effect.

Warriors have lower dps then a sin most of the time but can take lots of damage without a lot of dependency on prots. Warriors are good for snaring or AoE frontline dmg, while the sin is mostly single target spikes (ofc you can add splinter weapon or death blossom)

If you are willing to move away from tanking then I would go necromancer. They have a large output of dmg and supporting skills that will buff a teams effeciency.

Elementalists are also high dmg dealers but they are overpopulated and as some mentioned they lose their effectiveness in Hard Mode and end game content.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zodiac Meteor View Post

3. Tanking is only good with tank-n-spank builds in GW. No one uses them much because they are very slow. This isn't true for the most part. Most people in GW dont have a sense of tanking like other games because it is harder in GW. But since you have a lot of experience (I'm assuming a few years) tanking all it takes is the ability to ball em up then AoE and move on. my guild H/Hs "tank-n-spanks" faster then most speed clear (you'll learn the terminology) groups can.


When it comes to your timing of starting up--this is a fine time for the most part. If you can get into a good learning guild that will teach you most lingo you should be able to catch on quickly. Just watch out with what everyone says. Like shadow form is the only way to tank with sin and its impossible to ball anything with a tank. Or you will be stuck where those guys are with a single-minded view of gameplay when the options are many in numbers.
JimmyTyme
JimmyTyme
Frost Gate Guardian
• #20
Quote: Originally Posted by TalanRoarer View Post
I'd say that starting Guild Wars now is still a viable option for any new player.

As far as the classes go; I have no idea about WoW. But if you're looking for a damage dealing class; none beat Necromancer. Most people will tell you that elementalists are the best damage dealers in the game but they're pretty useless once you get towards the end content.

Plenty of classes can tank in Gws; mainly Assassins (Through 1 OP Skill) Warriors and Elementalists. while yes i agree with talan that starting now is viable (and the more stuff u add to hall of monuments benefits u in GW2) but... I disagree with any class being overpowered/underpowered during your first time through and its just a matter of taste and personal style (yes such a thing exists) so it's simply best to look around sites see what everyone does and just play the game get a feel for your own style and see what ya like all classes are pretty much even (in NM, once you get to HM there are classes who fall short but are still entirely viable) ... oh and for the most-part since you new try to avoid PvXwiki till you've beat the game at-least once (it'll just ruin the game for ya)