Simplest class/advice on how to learn WvW?

I am not a skilled player at all, that added on top of my high ping makes classes like Engineer which I love dearly or Elementalist feel like they're impossible for me to play. What more, whenever I get into group fights it feels like my brain shuts off seeing the writhing mass of floating health bars, player names, and effect particles.

I know I should join a voice channel to follow a commander's orders, but even when I do that I have a difficult time understanding the rapid fire commands, and it gets worse for me if there's others talking at the same time(lieutenants?) to call out incoming enemies or skill cooldowns.

Basically, are there any suggestions on how to overcome these personal issues I have? Like, any advice on how to start to begin to understand group fights under all the particles and clutter or what my commander is saying when they speak at a hundred miles a minute?

And what is a good "beginner friendly" class to learn WvW on with, because I've been getting melted when I try to play my Engi in EBG with my limited game mode knowledge and mechanical skill. I figure that if I can learn the basics of WvW on something less mechanical first, I'd have an easier time then transitioning back to my favorite class. which I am not good at but I enjoy it so much.

If we are talking about zerging, its scourge without a doubt thats the simplest. All you do is spam every button. You dont really need to learn how to bomb on command, just put circles on enemies and stay glued to the commander. It also helps that the meta scourge is flexible and can do ok even on its own or smallscaling while facerolling the keyboard. So its an economic beginner class, you can focus fully on it. A meta firebrand might be "easy" but its full minstrel and totally worthless outside the the zerg.

My 2 cents: Level a firebrand. Find out your servers builds and in the absence of that, start on Meta battle..

Explain to any coms (via whisper) that you are new to FB and working in trying to be better. Don't ask for but He might put you in a party with someone who can, over time explain some things to you.

Follow tag..., stay on them. Learn the key skills they want, and try to be as ready to do those main things.

Start with being focused on the tag. As you get experience, the commands start to make more sense... And will usually be repeated.

If one of you the guilds is recruiting, I would send them a whisper saying you'd like to join because you need help getting better. But make sure they are worth their salt.

Most commanders care that you want to get better. That you understand you aren't without effort to improve.

Also, being willing to play a key class really helps.

Spellbreaker.Call outs-->drop winds, spam counterblow. stay on zerg for heals. dont need to worry about keeping your group alive, just worry about yourself.

@Dawdler.8521 said:If we are talking about zerging, its scourge without a doubt thats the simplest. All you do is spam every button. You dont really need to learn how to bomb on command, just put circles on enemies and stay glued to the commander. It also helps that the meta scourge is flexible and can do ok even on its own or smallscaling while facerolling the keyboard. So its an economic beginner class, you can focus fully on it. A meta firebrand might be "easy" but its full minstrel and totally worthless outside the the zerg.

Yeah.. @Dawdler.8521 makes some excellent points. Might be the easiest way to get into WvW, contribute and not present a liability.

@"Eddie Royale.9605" said:I am not a skilled player at all, that added on top of my high ping makes classes like Engineer which I love dearly or Elementalist feel like they're impossible for me to play. What more, whenever I get into group fights it feels like my brain shuts off seeing the writhing mass of floating health bars, player names, and effect particles.

I know I should join a voice channel to follow a commander's orders, but even when I do that I have a difficult time understanding the rapid fire commands, and it gets worse for me if there's others talking at the same time(lieutenants?) to call out incoming enemies or skill cooldowns.

Basically, are there any suggestions on how to overcome these personal issues I have? Like, any advice on how to start to begin to understand group fights under all the particles and clutter or what my commander is saying when they speak at a hundred miles a minute?

And what is a good "beginner friendly" class to learn WvW on with, because I've been getting melted when I try to play my Engi in EBG with my limited game mode knowledge and mechanical skill. I figure that if I can learn the basics of WvW on something less mechanical first, I'd have an easier time then transitioning back to my favorite class. which I am not good at but I enjoy it so much.

Scourge would probably be your best bet. Then as you get more confident in your player abilities try out your engi again.

If you like your engi, throw together a set of marauder gear, spec holorifle, and learn to zerg surf. If you position poorly, you die. Since you're new, you're going to position poorly quite often. Ergo, you're going to die quite often. But you're going to learn where to be when, and that is probably the single most important skill in large-scale WvW.

But yeah, if you can't stomach dying every time you oops, scourge is a good choice. It's pretty dang forgiving for zerg play.

@Eddie Royale.9605 - you need to think about it differently. You don't really need to follow the mindless meta to enjoy the game and contribute. If you like engineer, stick with it. Play scrapper build for zerg fights. You can be very useful there.Many will say firebrand is just better. Don't listen to that. It may be better in many ways, but scrapper can also contribute well.In terms of positioning, as a frontier, stay close to your commander; but do remember to dodge out of red circles below you. Especially the big warrior winds bubble.

Play Zerker Soulbeast and Pin Snipe. Ranger ftw!!

@"Dawdler.8521" said:If we are talking about zerging, its scourge without a doubt thats the simplest. All you do is spam every button. You dont really need to learn how to bomb on command, just put circles on enemies and stay glued to the commander. It also helps that the meta scourge is flexible and can do ok even on its own or smallscaling while facerolling the keyboard. So its an economic beginner class, you can focus fully on it. A meta firebrand might be "easy" but its full minstrel and totally worthless outside the the zerg.

How is that meant to teach anyone if the whole point is to spam buttons?

Id say play the things u love untill u get the hang of wvw as a whole. Its gonna be so much harder if u play stuff because others tell you to.Back in the day I leveled 3 engies in wvw and only played the old mortar elite because it was incredibly fun. In the process i learned why I sucked and what the more efficient skills of the egni were.

hi friend. just be persistent and avoid doing what previously got your team killed and repeat what you did right.

its a bit of trial and error.

if in the case you need assist, talk to the com and ask for tips. most coms i know love to share their tactics to server mates.

if you want to know how we do it, is simple.

1. regroup - buffs
2. engage - going to the intended area
3. bomb - cast skills to kill

repeat.

despite all the noise, it is like so. =)

save your dodge, unless com calls, or at your own discretion.

this advise is universal and applies to any class. - try and er.

Play Warrior/Spellbreaker. Or scourge. Those classes pretty much just play themselves.

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:

@"Dawdler.8521" said:If we are talking about zerging, its scourge without a doubt thats the simplest. All you do is spam every button. You dont really need to learn how to bomb on command, just put circles on enemies and stay glued to the commander. It also helps that the meta scourge is flexible and can do ok even on its own or smallscaling while facerolling the keyboard. So its an economic beginner class, you can focus fully on it. A meta firebrand might be "easy" but its full minstrel and totally worthless outside the the zerg.

Op asked for the simplest, thats how you play it the simplest. Can you become good with it? Of course. Good scourges are hard to bring down. Even better scourges go reaper and roflstomp you. As you play you learn what to do and what not to do. But at the beginning... spam away and still be hella effective.

If you try to apply this to any other class in any situation you will notice they dont quite perform the same. Most classes actually become useless once you start skill spamming.

Hell I can play a minstrel firebrand and be less tanky than a mirage because I have no idea what I'm doing. I know they can be insanely tanky - I can down a zerker anything in seconds on that mirage, I literally cant kill a decent meta minstrel firebrand cycling heals. But when I play it I'm dead weight and can barely survive a ranger pet sneezing on me. Compare this with a scourge. Its. So. Easy. Anyone can jump in and just spam away. You dont actually need to know what anything does. If anyone says bring a zerger... thats what I bring.

Warrior is pretty straight forward and very easy to play. I wasnt really into gw2 till I played warrior then the game started to become fun.

Scourgesessesss tag all the things

Scourge is good for tags and relatively simple, but if you misposition in harder fights you'll die.Don't go spellbreaker if you're new, you won't get bags nor be very useful.Melee-style revs are similar to scourge : easy to learn, good self-sustain and stunbreaks, positioning is simple (you can stay close to tag and hit) and still tag just about everything.Guard is simple to stay alive, more difficult to tag and actually quite hard to play well.

Either way, each class has a MUCH higher skillcap than people state. Especially the players posting here, who are mostly playing WvW for thousands of hours but are still barely worth taking as pugs.

Pick something ranged and don't worry about the meta for now. When you feel you get the idea of sticking to a commander, can feel the enemy movement so you can adjust accordingly, then maybe grab something like a FB and support.

Or scourge is a good shout right now. Can take a hit and sit pretty mid range. Quite forgiving but effective.

Also learn what the commands MEAN. For about a week I thought 'shade forward' meant 'go forward slowly' as opposed to the commander asking for the SKILL.

It's also helpful to learn the map. Garri bay hills net smc ebg home bl.

Although I swapped to a new class for wvw it might be easier to stick with something you KNOW to learn the rapid fire commands and then swap, not to an easier class necessarily but to one the group comp needs.

Definitely let the commander know you're new. I've found they are people too and pretty understanding. Yes they can sometimes fuss at folks(why are you guys way over there dying instead of living on pin??) but if you're new you generally get a 'window' of forgiveness. ?

DEFINITELY be in voice though.

Scourge, Spellbreaker or Druid. The former two are pretty overpowered and basically play themselves (especially Scourge) while the last one pretty much just can't die unless you run head-on into a zerg.

@yusayu.3629 said:Scourge, Spellbreaker or Druid. The former two are pretty overpowered and basically play themselves (especially Scourge) while the last one pretty much just can't die unless you run head-on into a zerg.

But the last one is useless if you dont provide support, which is weak and gimmick to begin with. You can also do much more on tempest/ventari rev with 3 buttons, no matter how skilled druid you are.

@steki.1478 said:

@yusayu.3629 said:Scourge, Spellbreaker or Druid. The former two are pretty overpowered and basically play themselves (especially Scourge) while the last one pretty much just can't die unless you run head-on into a zerg.

Also the OP wanted something simple for group fights (ie zerging), picking a class thats actively shunned by commanders isnt helpful. Not that its not simple, rather its not what you should start with if given the choice.

Despite what some others are saying, it's not Scourge at all (or any necro class for that matter), they are slow, have next to no mobility and are easily picked off. One of the things I'm finding now in zerg fights is the necros are getting killed off before they can even engage. People finally learning Rangers have an actual use, but with that said, Ranger isn't your answer either.

Realistically for ranged, a glassy ele will teach you the quickest how to be effective because you will have to quickly learn about how to position yourself properly. If you want a melee class, go warrior, that class is about as an easy mode as you can get. Spellbreaker warrior is always wanted in zerg fights.

as you have problems with bigger fights you could try the roamer way engi is pretty strong you could train in spvpif you really want to do zerg fights turn on Effect LoD and dont use post processing you could turn of name plates completly or use the color iconsalso helps a little bit with fps in bigger fightsand target the commander / the red circle is much better visual as the commander icon

I can't recommend a profession, everyone has their own opinion about what's best or easiest.What I can say is its best to play what you're familiar with, just be careful not to blur the "love" lines, because wvw has a way of turning a profession you love into one you desperately hate.

As far as visual clutter, there are many options under the general tab and graphics tab that could improve your brain freeze in fights and make all the stuff a little less distracting, you should mess around with those options and find a setup that works best for you.