New adventurer in Tyria seeking advice.

[Vande.8549]

Hello!

As the title says, I'm new in Tyria and I'm looking for some guidance. I leveled up a Mesmer as first character, but Im having a hard time with him, so Im considering leveling another one with smoother learning curve.

I did a bit of research, and all I can see is that the recommended ones for "newcomers in Tyria" are Necromancers, Warriors and Rangers.-Necromancer seems fun, Im into damage over time playstyle, but Im also reading everywhere that although they are one of the best classes to go solo through the world, nobody wants a Necro in group play.-Warriors... well, I never looked at them in MMOs since their "non magic fantasy" doesn't appeal to me, but I'm open to read more about them.

And finally, Rangers:-Im reading that Ranger isn't in a good spot right now and the comments about the latest balance changes seem to make it worse.-I am open to try Druid for healing, but as far as I read, it seems that they are rejected in favor of Firebrands, Tempest or Scourges.-Since I have also Path of fire, I would like to know how the playstyle of a Wildbeast is. I don't understand completely how the "merge" with the pet works.

Thank you for your time and kindness, the more info you can give me, the better (weapon choices for leveling, crafting choices, etc).

^^

[Speedylord.2798]

So basically, when you merge with your pet, your physical pet will "dissappear" and you will become one with the pet. This will give you some unique pet skills and some attribute bonusses based on pet archetype (for example merging with a pet from the "ferocious archetype" will grant you attribute bonus to power and ferocity, merging with a "supportive" pet will grant you more vitality and more healing power to heal allies.)

So to sum up real easy:

1. Based on the archetype you're merging with, you'll get a nice boost to your stats as long as you stay merged.
2. Based on the family (canine, feline, ursine etc etc) of your pet, while merged you will get two new skills and you will also get one "beast ability" skill based on the pet archetype (for example, merging with an arctodus will give you 2 ursine skills and 1 beast ability, named "wordly impact" which is unique to the ferocious archetype).

Because you have 2 pets, you can have two archetypes to switch to, which can be very handy when played thoughtfully, you can have a dps focused archetype (deadly when going condi dps, ferocious when going power dps) and a more defensive option when survivability is a bit of a problem. --> Soulbeast has a great toolkit for survivability:)!

After you've unlocked soulbeast, you will have access to "stances", these are special skills that can be used for boosting your own damage (moa's stance, which grants fury but also regen and stuff, one wolf pack which will let you trigger another attack after you did a succesful attack etc etc) but also for some more survival (stability on dolyak stance, bear stance as heal + condicleanse for example). These stance can also be traited with the soulbeast trait "leader of the pack" which will improve personal boon duration of the stances as well as sharing those boons for a shorter duration to allies.

So with the basic mechanics of soulbeast out of the way, let's talk weapon choices :D!First, you should decide which path you wanna go for dps, do you want to go for power dps (power precision ferocity --> berserker gear) or do you want to go condi dps (power condition damage expertise --> viper gear)?

For power, Greatsword is one of the biggest damage dealers, especially the 2 5 2 combo, maul (2) does great damage and skill 5 will recharge your maul which makes it a very powerful option. Also skill 3 is a leap and skill 4 is a block. You'll definitely want to give this weapon a chance! The new patch changed some aspects to it, skill 1's autochain had an evade on the third attack of the chain but now that's removed and replaced by 15 endurance. Also skill 4, the block skill got some changes as well regarding crippling throw (which throws your gs and cripples your foe so they can't run away, very handy in PvP), if I recall correctly criplling throw got removed and after a block you can do "kick" optionally now.

An offhand axe combo is also very strong when going power! Skill 4 on offhand axe is a nice CC skill and skill 5 does a very big amount of damage to foes while also reflecting damage (basically a big no u). Be aware, you can't change movement when doing "whirling defense" (skill 5).In your mainhand, sword will provide biggest burst, a leap attack and an evade but I haven't tried the new changes to sword yet so I can't talk about how the new sword plays, in PvE it's a good offensive option tho. Another mainhand option can be dagger. While being a rather condi based weapon, it still has some okay sustained damage (+ 2 leaps), you can also trait it with one of the soulbeast specialization traits Life siphon I believe it's called which will let your dagger steal some health from the foe while attacking.The third mainhand option is axe, while not being a very good option dps wise, it is a ranged option which won't push you to go full melee if you want to run GS/X+ Offhand Axe.

For condi dps, shortbow is recommended as well as dagger/torch I think (you can also run dual shortbow, easy learningcurve and also fun). Condi soulbeast is quite strong, I don't go a lot of condi dps myself so for further advice on that I suggest to ask other people:)!

Longbow is kind of a weird weapon, it's a power dps weapon and will find most of its ise in pvp/wvw because it has a lot of utility going for. Many people will argue that it doesn't do a lot of damage (especially compared to gs), and it doesn't have a lot of sustained damage for sure, but it has great range (up to 1500 units) and using quickening zephyr/"sic-em" while merged (using sicem while in beastmode will give you a big damage modifier, very handy for power dps soulbeast) in combination with skill 2 (rapid shot) will create a very nice burst still. Lb can be used to create distance and to let your pet pull aggro while doing damage from afar yourself, but it gets outperformed by the melee options by quite a lot in terms of damage.

Hope this helps a bit:D!

[Speedylord.2798]

Also, if you want to do WvW, marauder armor/weapons + berserker trinket stats are recommended for power dps.

The handy thing about soulbeast overall, is that you can easily build in some survival, you have a lot of options to balance damage/sustain:)!

[Vande.8549]

Omg I loved your post @Speedylord.2798 thank you so very much.

Hum, power damage feels smoother at least for leveling up, so I think I'll try out Greatsword/Axe-Axe (to have some ranged options).

Then, should I discard Necro and Warrior?Which crafting skills are recomended for Ranger? Leatherworking and Weaponsmith?How about Druid specialization? Norn aesthetic feels amazing for this.

Thank you!!

[Tukaram.8256]

My Longbow Ranger is #2 favorite avatar. Easy to fight with, the pets are fun, the longbow has some good damage output and useful AOE. My 1st favorite is my Necro/Minion Master. He can outsurvive and outfight any of my other characters - but it probably varies from player to player - according to your playstyle. I mostly solo and both the Necro & Ranger are great. I do not join groups often, but have never had a problem with either of them being invited into groups.

[Speedylord.2798]

@Vande.8549 said:Omg I loved your post @"Speedylord.2798" thank you so very much.

Hum, power damage feels smoother at least for leveling up, so I think I'll try out Greatsword/Axe-Axe (to have some ranged options).

Then, should I discard Necro and Warrior?Which crafting skills are recomended for Ranger? Leatherworking and Weaponsmith?How about Druid specialization? Norn aesthetic feels amazing for this.

Thank you!!

You're welcome:D

I don't think you should discard necromancer and warrior per se, I mean more professions is always more fun, but I think you will have a great time going ranger! Necro has a lot of survivability as well (it basically has a second health bar) and warrior is very usable and effective in every gamemode, you can't make a wrong choice in that regard! (Collecting pets can be fun tho if that's your cup of tea haha)

That weaponchoice should serve you well in open world!! You can experiment a bit with it, in some scenario's you will prefer how a certain weapon combination plays so it's always handy to have some extra weapons in your inventory as well:)! By going ranged you can swap more easily a defensive utility skill (if you're using one) to an offensive one without having a lot of survival loss compared to when you're full melee if you're comfortable doing so:)

I run Leatherworker for medium armor, it's definitely worth leveling this up to 400 or 500 (there are efficient crafting guides on websites as gw2crafts to help you with this). For the secondary one, Weaponsmith should be a good option as well, with the ability to craft greatswords:D! (Also I suggest to make at least one of your characters a chef or an artificer, can be useful later on)

Ah yes, Druid is good, but has most of its use in group/instanced content like dungeons, fractals and raids. I think for open world soulbeast will serve you better than druid, but if you do sPvP a support druid build can help out your team! Also druid has been since a long time a very good specialization for raids in terms of healing and support, as rangers have access to spirits (for raids these spirits are very powerful as they apply their effects to the entire squad).

Druid is a solid healing/support class, they are also good at burst healing because they can become a "celestial avatar" for an amount of time when a certain bar is filled up and this celestial avatar does a lot of healing in a short timespan! The burst healing got a bit of a hit in one of the patchnotes a while back but druid is still great for helping out your friends in group content!

When leveling up druid, you will unlock "glyphs" which are supportive skills, basically when going druid you have one big supportive toolkit which will help yourself and teammates to stay alive:). It's important as a druid to stay alive, as your team ofen will be dependent on the support you give them!

Also I think Staff is a fun weapon to use as druid:D (one tip if you want to go druid, don't camp your staff as this isn't necessary).

Yeah, norn druids can be fancy B)!

[Vande.8549]

Thanks a lot to both. I'll give Ranger a try, then. My biggest concern was being put apart from groups because of the "newbie energy" and class choice combination.

The more info and tips, the better, so if anyone wants to add anything, feel free to do so.

<3

[Revolution.5409]

Try to get xpac pets as soon as possible :)https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/85r6tx/ranger_pets_must/On the snow crows and metabattle website you will find the best builds currently for the profession, even with videos dedicated to gameplay.

The only game mode in which rangers have no place is the zergs groups in WvW, on the other hand it is strong as a roamer or in small groups.

[Vande.8549]

Thanks for the pet tips @Revolution.5409 <3

PD: Omg the forum is full of doom and gloom about the balance patch.

[Durzlla.6295]

@Vande.8549 said:Thanks for the pet tips @Revolution.5409 <3

PD: Omg the forum is full of doom and gloom about the balance patch.

Yeah, the forum like to complain, in PvE the changes are pretty much exclusively buffs, and in PvP I’d say you’re probably going to find only positives with the changes since the nerfs were really on to high tier play, and being new you won’t notice them too much!

Also just wanted to mention for the pets on that Reddit post, the Bristleback is a very high dps pet too, and is found in HoT. Also you may change your pet up a lot more than that reddit post suggested, EX don’t be afraid to run a Krytan Drakehound for its high AoE immigrants uptime, or a brown bear when condi removal is mandatory etc, ESPECIALLY, as a Druid, since you’re a support so your damage is always secondary to the utility you’re bringing.