Should I return to GW2 ("boomer" warning)

[LordWSagarus.8596]

Hello everyone.

 

This is my first time making a post in GW2 forum, so please forgive me if I'm writing in the wrong place. Do tell which is the correct place to put such questions.

When I started GW2, everyone was talking crazy about how hard heart of thorns was. I loved this game with all my heart. Everything about it. The voice over, the colors, the classes, the world, the lore. Then I went through some of the harshest financial troubles of my life and couldn't afford internet for a while (or food for that matter). World turns around and now I have a great job and a nice pay.

I tried returning earlier for the path of fire expansion, but the game was so... different. I couldn't recognize it with all the mounts and everything. I still gave it a try and made an engineer. I worked all the way up to 80 and then worked to get the photon smith class... and didn't like it. Which crushed me. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with the class, nothing wrong at all. It's just a high risk high reward playstyle and it wasn't anything like the engineer I spent 80 levels leveling up. Please be aware that I've read the class and watched videos and checked the meta at the time, I wasn't going in blind. But it didn't "feel" the way I thought it would.

My main was a Revenant of Glint's, sword and shield and hammer. Optimized? No. Fun? Absolutely. The sheer pleasure of reversing damage and having untouchable moments from bosses allowed me to get my (only) legendary glider Ad Infinitum, my greatest conquest in game, which probably may sound minor to some of you, but I'm so proud of it.

I have yet to buy the latest expansion and the game has gotten so big, so... overwhelming. I had so much trouble memorizing the paths of the jungles, the game is HARD and unforgiving at some points, which really adds to it. You gotta "git gud", there's no "farming and come back later". I'm... afraid, I guess.

What I want right now is this: I want to stay at long range and shoot the enemies. The less I move and the less buttoms I press the better. I want to activate this and that buff and gatling gun foes to dust (so power build, I guess, I have pink items zojja theme stats thingy). Is there such class/specialization? Should I even return to the game or is it so completely different that I must forgo my previous account and make a new one from dust and check it out as a brand new game?

Thank you for listening to me, and for your answers and suggestions, I really appreciate it. I want to play it, I really do, I just feel like I'd not be good at it, because I have a job and a family and a house and I get to play around 1 hour, maybe 2 hours per day or like 3 on the weekened. I appreciate your input, thank you.

[Ashen.2907]

Buy the latest expansion and unlock Mechanist for your engineer. Mechanist with a rifle has good defense and good damage at long range. It also has a mechanical pet to take aggro for you (kind of like a ranger with a pet).

Also, longow ranger can be very effective in open world content.

Finally, the Virtuoso specialization (also from the End of Dragons expansion) does very good damage at long range.

[Jukhy.2431]

Good suggestions from Ashen.
I recommend to try the rifle mechanist, been a long time since I had as much fun playing any class. You can swap to some marauder's gear for more hit points, but to try keep the combined crit chance near 100%

[LordWSagarus.8596]

I appreciate the suggestion! I'm downloading the game now and I'll check out that build 🙂
Thanks a lot!

[Ashantara.8731]

Just a quick side note: no need to add a "boomer warning" -- you're not the only one! 😁

[PhantomKitty.6520]

Also, check out some Low Intensity builds online for different classes and specs.  Some of them also allow for what you're talking about too, so you're not constantly button mashing or having to learn how to do some fancy maneuvers either.  There's at least 1 site I know of that specializes in LI (low intensity) Builds, and sometimes Metabattle has some too.

https://accessibilitywars.com/ is the main one I go to when I need a LI Build because my arthritis is getting the better of me.  Some of these are actually quite decent in terms of damage for many playstyles and needs.

[Valisha.8650]

No. The balance is awful, and anet still did not address discord leaks.

[GODh.3892]

I still enjoy my Reaper (necromancer) with Axe and Warhorn (ranged attacks). Using all armor, weapons, trinkets with Berserker stats (Zojja) and Mighty infusions (from WvW, but the power stats also work in PvE, but the bonus is useless in Fractals (no AR)). Played me through all expansions and LW with very little problems.

[Fueki.4753]

The developers don't care about treating the professions fair and proper (they even seem enamoured with actively making certain professions much worse on purpose).

They also refuse to engage with the player base in any appropriate manner (and no, top down "talk" from forum moderators, not-so-secret Discord groups and "social" media do not count).

The major bugs they fix are few and far between.

The art teams continues flooding the game with needlessly overblown particle spam.

The combat is far less about enemy interaction, strategy and player skill. It's more about spamming your most effective abilities as quick as possible. It'll likely continue going down the spam train, instead of returning back to its once great gameplay.

If you are ok with all of these, you may want to come back. If any one point of these is not to your liking, you might want to reconsider coming back.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Good news, the Engineer you abandoned is now the most powerful ranged class in End of Dragons.

 

Also, learn about a feature called "action cam" which allows you to play like an FPS--just aim and shoot. The target you're aiming at will automatically be chosen for skill use. You can go through all of Tyria like you're playing Doom or Quake, blasting everything to bits.

 

If you don't want to buy the expansion, then Ranger is what you're looking for, specifically Soulbeast, which has the ability to delete everything from max range.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Tinker.6924]

Knowing where to find an answer > knowing the answer.

 

Gw2 has a fairly extensive wiki and it doesn't bother me to flip back and forth from game to browser to look up stuff.  Or sometimes just simply googling how to get items.  

The wiki plus gw2timer.com are 2 pages I always keep open while I play.

[kharmin.7683]

43 minutes ago, EmmetOtter.8542 said:

The wiki plus gw2timer.com are 2 pages I always keep open while I play.

Me, too!!

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

15 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Me, too!!

You can also just type "/wiki et" into chat and it will pop up the wiki's event timer.  Just a handy tip if you're in a hurry and don't have gw2timer open.

To the OP:  I haven't tried it, but, a couple of guildies have stated Quickness Herald is extremely good in some of the raids and strike missions.  So, if you are inclined in that direction, it sounds like you may be pretty close to a good setup for some of the end-game content, though you are going to have to press more than a few buttons.  🙂

Mechanist is a super choice, and stupid easy.  I ran just power rifle mech last night in a strike and was doing 20k dps while completely messing up the rotation, stowing the mech by accident, and forgetting to press the mech buttons off cool-down.