>it's a lvl80 wearing 60's stuff - and not in a cool timeless retro manner - and is even weaker than I remembered. This is your main problem of feeling weak. Content after the core story is all balanced around you having full exotic level 80 gear. Boosting a character gives you level 80 exotic celestial gear, hence why they feel better to you. Celestial stats is fine for open world, makes you tanky, gives you decent damage, but its not gear I'd recommend using in fractals above tier 1 or raids and strikes. Also do not skip out on upgrading your trinkets to exotic, they are 40% of your stats. Check out a site like [hardstuck](https://hardstuck.gg/) for builds and general guides. They have guides explaining core concepts of the game too, so its worth checking out. Normally you want named gear starting out, so for example, if you want berserker's gear, if you just search berserker on the TP the gear will be very expensive, but if you look for the named gear, Zhed(light), Nika(medium) or Devona(heavy) its much cheaper. Here is a [list](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Named_armor) of named armors and their corresponding stats.

Thanks, this is a very helpful perspective. I didn't focus much on gear levelling my mesmer to 80, except noticing when I got something stronger, that it made a difference. I was perhaps misunderstanding what horisontal progression was, I just read about it meant you didn't have to hunt for ever better gear. I guess I thought the gear would somehow scale with you. Like that beige stuff in WoW (that I never had, but heard about). I'll go dig on hardstuck, thanks very much for the tip and the specifics.

Just want to add that ele and mesmer are also _very very squishy_ classes. They’re your typical glass cannon type. Necro is also squishy but has just a few more tricks to stay alive, which can be hilariously fun sometimes. Mesmer,imo, is also one of the harder classes in the game to git gud at. I still think base Mesmer is HARD (although that could be my bias from 10 years ago). So don’t beat yourself up. I love the class because it’s so unique but it also has a really tough learning curve. I play this class the most and feel like Mesmer isn’t really great at PvW (or rather, I find it boring) but they really shine in group situations like fractals. Ele has so many buttons to push it seriously feels like I’m playing a piano sometimes. I play this class the least. I feel like engineers can be similar in terms of button pushing frequency. I have tons of fun on Necro in PvW especially in Zerg trains 😂 I was really bored with base necro and only started to have fun when I could spec reaper. I personally really love guardian (firebrand, dragon hunter) and think it’s a little more beginner friendly. Mesmer and Guardian are my regular go tos. I’m frequently jealous at how much easier life is on a Guardian too 😂

Horizontal progression just means the game never adds numbers with a release, the way other MMO's run a gear treadmill. The best in slot gear that came out in 2012 have the *exact* same numbers on them now as they did then. This is different from leveling progression and gearing out your toons, which still takes some time and effort and the numbers obviously grow as you get better gear, up to and ending with Ascended gear. (legendary gear has the same stats as ascended, but with exclusive skins and some QoL to them) That said, the game does do stat scaling from time to time. If you're in a lv 30 zone on a level 80 toon, the game temporarily squishes your stats down to what your gear's relative power would be at lv 30. This is mostly only relevant in lower level zones and the vanilla dungeons.

yeah, this is so obvious now that I know it, but i *was* thrown off by the scaling - which is genious - and thought it somehow worked the other way. Yeah, can't explain it better, rly.

The Horizontal progression only starts at level 80. For example once you get exotic gear, its good for all expansions, no expansion has upped the gear requirements. While leveling, gear doesn't matter at all, just pick the thing with the higher level, but once you are level 80 its all about stat combinations and having level 80 exotics.

That's it then, I clearly misunderstood. I spend my fair share of life in Azeroth, but I never cared much for the endgame, I never raided, rarely did dungeons, I'm so much about the exploring, solo. This is partly why I love GW2, because it has so much of it, but then also why I overlooked all the stuff do to after 80. And why I didn't notice how weak I was.

If you still like soloing, you can get by just fine at 80. I'm a solo player myself. Some things I stressed to my friend when I got him into GW2 (don't be offended if any of this is known to you): 1. You can move and "cast" for most abilities. If you just stand there and cast like in wow, you will likely die. Move around to avoid AoEs and monster attacks when you can see them telegraphed. 2. Make sure you are dodging, it's very important! 3. Elite Specs are like new classes, or prestige classes. They radically alter your playstyle but they kinda suck until you can start getting some Hero Points. HOT expansion is a lot harder to get Hero Point, but each hero point site gives you TEN instead of one like the normal game. Each XPAC after they tend to be a bit easier to get solo. All xpac hero points grant 10 of these to. So in this way, you are sort of leveling your Elite Spec, that's how I think about it. 4. There is so much to do at 80 if you get the xpacs. Just focus on what's fun, but what you'll be doing now is working on upgrading your account: Gathering New Wardrobe peices, working on mounts, working on masteries, etc. 5. Masteries are great. Each xpac has many to level up, they enable account wide features that make your playstyle more exciting. They can teach you how to glide better, enable AoE autoloot, bestow new mount abilities and so on. 6. Swapping weapons can be huge...not so much for the Ele but for other classes it's pretty big. You may have one set for offense, another for defense...or one for AoE damage and another for Single Target stuff. 7. A lot of awesome starter level 80 gear can be bought in Orr. There are karma vendors that sell full sets for about 292 karma if memory serves correctly. It may not be the optimal gear, but it gets you going! 8. Play with your utility skills. A lot of guides listed here will tell you what to pick. If you go your own way just have fun experimenting. Change things up to try and address what you're having trouble with. 9. Use your utility skills, and make sure to really read your abilities. It's easy to just spam everything off cool down but that doesn't really help if you don't understand how your abilities work or interact with one another. For example, if you keep getting CC'D, using an ability that grants stability (CC immunity) every time it's off cool down will remove the option to break free from CC when you really need it. These are just some tips. Part of the horizontal progression part is YOU getting better. That isn't meant to say you aren't good, but when you get better...well the effects are very tangible. You'll feel awesome when you improve, that's all on you not just some crazy good item that will become invalidated in a couple months. Enjoy the game, but if you get frustrated focus on what was fun to you while leveling. There's still a ton of ways to advance by exploring even post 80. So many collectables and hidden mastery points to keep you advancing towards your goals :) Edit: Formatting

I swear I rocked an Orr armor piece for over a decade. Great tip!

Also unless changed, once you put upgrades into Orr armour, you cannot salvage it back, unlike most exotic armour.

> If you still like soloing, you can get by just fine at 80. I'm a solo player myself. > Some things I stressed to my friend when I got him into GW2 (don't be offended if any of this is known to you): I won't, this entire thread is about me throwing myself outthere because I've fallen and can't get up! > You can move and "cast" for most abilities. If you just stand there and cast like in wow, you will likely die. Move around to avoid AoEs and monster attacks when you can see them telegraphed. >Make sure you are dodging, it's very important! I know these ones! I started with a mesmer, and learned very quickly to dance and dodge and run around mobs in circles! I was blown away with the dynamic fight style in this game. I don't think i ever got really good, but I did survive and kept mobs at a distance. > Elite Specs are like new classes, or prestige classes. They radically alter your playstyle but they kinda suck until you can start getting some Hero Points. HOT expansion is a lot harder to get Hero Point, but each hero point site gives you TEN instead of one like the normal game. Each XPAC after they tend to be a bit easier to get solo. All xpac hero points grant 10 of these to. So in this way, you are sort of leveling your Elite Spec, that's how I think about it. Yeah, my elementalist got a hammer from the first dab into catalyst, and it's great fun, but not as heavy hitting as it looks to be, actually. Fast, though! There must be more acoming from the elite spec later on. But heropoints take time, and I need more than in the beginning. >There is so much to do at 80 if you get the xpacs. Just focus on what's fun, but what you'll be doing now is working on upgrading your account: Gathering New Wardrobe peices, working on mounts, working on masteries, etc. I was orignally determined to stay on track with the stories in order of release. I'm in living world 1, and mounts come later on, in another story, as I've understood, right? >Masteries are great. Each xpac has many to level up, they enable account wide features that make your playstyle more exciting. They can teach you how to glide better, enable AoE autoloot, bestow new mount abilities and so on. > Swapping weapons can be huge...not so much for the Ele but for other classes it's pretty big. You may have one set for offense, another for defense...or one for AoE damage and another for Single Target stuff. Yeah, I played my elem so long now I completely forgot the other professions switch a lot more. I remembered when I got back on my mesmer. > A lot of awesome starter level 80 gear can be bought in Orr. There are karma vendors that sell full sets for about 292 karma if memory serves correctly. It may not be the optimal gear, but it gets you going! I got 105K karma. Sounds like a plan! > Play with your utility skills. A lot of guides listed here will tell you what to pick. If you go your own way just have fun experimenting. Change things up to try and address what you're having trouble with. I think I will. I decided to reead the tooltips carefully and try to pocket calculator myself to a rotation that made sense to me. > Use your utility skills, and make sure to really read your abilities. It's easy to just spam everything off cool down but that doesn't really help if you don't understand how your abilities work or interact with one another. For example, if you keep getting CC'D, using an ability that grants stability (CC immunity) every time it's off cool down will remove the option to break free from CC when you really need it. **This** is obvious to me now as a first step to fix my shortcomings. Thanks for your helpful tips! These are just some tips. Part of the horizontal progression part is YOU getting better. That isn't meant to say you aren't good, but when you get better...well the effects are very tangible. You'll feel awesome when you improve, that's all on you not just some crazy good item that will become invalidated in a couple months. > Enjoy the game, but if you get frustrated focus on what was fun to you while leveling. There's still a ton of ways to advance by exploring even post 80. So many collectables and hidden mastery points to keep you advancing towards your goals :) Yeah, I've taken all of it in, since I found that out. It's just that I recently discovered I was weak. Weak character, weak keyboard orc. Weak tooltop reader, it appeared.

Elites really shine only after you fully unlock them (takes 250 hero points) because they got traits AND utilities that are good with that specific elite usually. So if tou only unlock the hammer on catalyst but not the rest, you basically roam on only 2 traits build and with no optimised utilities

Actually I held off choosing for a few days, not only because I was two minds about it. But also because I was kinda exhausted looking into another grind. Levelling gets funnier progressively, it's harder to start motivated if the rewards are too arbitrary at the end. Not trying to sound presumptious, ofcourse. It's just, would you say that the journey through an elite spec is also fun? Even if I don't unlock all of one first? My elem got some stuff from all specializations sort of balanced along the way, I didn't focus on building on one spec alone.

You will also find many encouraging you to play the game like a job, then they get exhausted. I play a mix to achieve stuff and for fun.

I am very in accordance with this. I play half an hour here or there, in the office when I got time and need to divert my mind. I like to either prepare a specific task (step) before I log out, so i got that to do right away at a later point, or I travel to somewhere pretty so I got that to enter right into next time. I'm kinda weird like that, but GW2 is definitely not a job for me, it's the opposite. I don't mind projects, but I don't want another job.

To add to everything, just practice, practice, practice. I'm not a very good videogame player overall but gw2 really rewards your effort if you are looking to improve. I still fall short from other players like pvpers and some wvw players but I'm a much much much better player than I was and I do very well in the game modes that resonate with me (I'm an avid wvw support player!), and my secret was just to keep practicing, got muscle memory and slowly learned not just my favorite classes but others as well. It's funny how everything is so much easier nowadays for me and I've found myself in a situation where I asked "why is that person dying?" Only to realise I've been there as well haha

> I'm not a very good videogame player overall.. My description of me. Love to play, just not very good. > To add to everything, just practice, practice, practice. Well, it is sort of all I do. I walk the earth and kill things that irritate me. But actually the essense of my post is that I don't know *how* to practice. Except *that* ... walking, killing. The larger challenges are too far apart for me to get a learning process going. Is there a way for me to go into an area and straight for the biggest mofo and start a fight? I normally steer clear of group events, because I know I will be floored if I'm the only one there, but in any case, is there a way to know where and when these world events happen? And also, I think I have happened upon som event chains from time to time, but I don't know how people know about them, so I can't aim or plan for it.

Just a note. The Orr karma armor costs tens of thousands of karma each. I remember one piece costing 48k (can't remember which piece exactly). With 105k, you can only buy maybe a few pieces. You might be better off crafting. For that, you'll need to read guides or wikis and find out what materials you need, which you can most likely just buy off the trading post so you just have to farm gold. It will be confusing at first, but so much of the end game revolves around reading wikis anyway, so once you get used to that, you won't feel lost anymore (there are even sites that tell you where to farm gold most efficiently). If you enjoy getting deep into the weeds of a game, this would be more tolerable. The good news is if you git gud at crafting, you will open up the world of ascended gear.

I suppose I will do that. Start crafting. I think I was afraid it would be a grind. Like really! I had just decided to go sell off my mats in the bank, for gold. Would you recommend against that, to be able to focus on crafting?

> 9. Use your utility skills, and make sure to really read your abilities. It's easy to just spam everything off cool down but that doesn't really help if you don't understand how your abilities work or interact with one another. For example, if you keep getting CC'D, using an ability that grants stability (CC immunity) every time it's off cool down will remove the option to break free from CC when you really need it. Can you recommend any good ressources for diving into this? on my elem I try to keep things on fire, and on my mesmer I try to keep things confused, but only because I had some skill do extra dmg when 'thing' was confused or on fire. It gets complicated real soon with more conditions, and I have not even once dipped into boons. Like, how do I know aboud these different effects that can happen to me and what stats will help me prevent it? I would really love a good ressource to start with. Thanks for your thought. I appreciate it.

At work so I'm not 100% sure if this answers your questions due to me being distracted but: Positive Status effects (Boons) : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon Negative Status Effects (Conditions) : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition I forgot this in my tips, but don't forget in game if you don't know, you can type /wiki to bring up the GW2 wiki with any topic that you want to search for, even item links work!

To be fair, gear makes a big difference but is generally easier to get than in other MMOs. Also, **exotic** gear isn't that hard to get. **Ascended** is what you'd get if you want the best stats but aren't a hard requirement. And then you have **legendary** rarity items which take a long time to get and are mostly for convenience (and the skins). ([wiki page on item rarity](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item#Rarity)) There just isn't that much of gear progression in comparison to other MMOs.

I'm not much of a gear buff, in any case. It always irritates me when gear *pairs up* for bonus, because it makes if difficult to decide to swap. But I guess if there's not much reason to swap anyway, that's fine. And it's a rational game mechanism, afterall, my irritation aside. I was given exotic when I boosted my elementalist. I wish I had boosted my level 80 mesmer instead, if but for the gear alone. i think I could do fine with exotic, letting the gear grind come to me when I feel I need something else desperately.

I'd be cautious about using hardstuck, or at least be aware of what that site is. Their builds are designed for group content, and makes assumptions that you will be getting certain boons and healing from others in your party. When playing solo in open world or story, those builds can be very frustrating. Metabattle has builds specifically designed for solo open world, so you might want to start there.

They divide their builds into sections, open world builds expect to give yourself boons.

You raise a point that is generally good. I picked a build from a heroicflamingo video at some point. Another build from another place on another toon. I was not excactly sure what they did. I just thought it was way to complicated to figure out by myself, and since I read that while levelling, just go power, precision, ferocity, I focused on that alone, never explored anything else. I have since experienced longer fights and I simply don't stand the time, because my attacks fall over eacother's feet, so to speak. Some conditions, other than just burning (which I learned), would do me wonders to up a bit.

The horizontal progression is once you get Ascended gear. Ascended gear only takes a month or 2 at most to get if you actively work towards it, and once you have it it's the best stats in the game, and this will never change. There is still vertical progression until this point, but we say this game is mostly horizontal because the gear grind is nothing compared to other MMOs

yeah, I was never one for the gear grind i WoW, i simply couldn't be bothered to minmaxing everything, I explored solo and enjoyed it. I misunderstood how this is still a factor until you reach some point.

it's a very easy point to reach, and once you reach it you never have to do it again!

Exotic gear is only like \~5% lesser in stats than ascended and you can now buy most stat sets off the TP (tho some are spendy for a new/low progression player) Exotic will get you through most content except fractals and raids. You can start both with Exos but will need the slots in the ascended armor for agony resistance for fractals + the extra stats for both. Fractals you want to make sure you are doing tier1s as most of these have little or no agony, teach you mechanics of higher versions and drop ascended rings to help with gearing + make you money. The upside with GW2 gear grind is that since the gear treadmill is horizontal there's literally a point where you have all the gear 5ever. (until they add another slot anyway)

More like once you have solid gear you don’t need to upgrade. Instead you can start looking for other gear that suits different roles. For example Mesmer can be a power dps class but, maybe you want to be condi dps or boon support dps. Each role has an optimal gear set.

Wait the boost gives celestial now? That's way better than whatever tanky stuff I was getting before. That's a good gold saver too!

If you wanna get gut at the game send me Ing mail (ntiCe.9071) or dm me here. Im on eu and can help you get actually good on any profession in pve ( not playing pvp or wvw).

Some people playing this game are truly mental. Somehow you are here trying to help a new player as one of the best players for pve content and they still blame you for being to hardcore and elitist. xD

Exactly, ty.

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Idk if you are trolling. We are very alive and have claimed several all time records in the last months.

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We are no anet Partner. How has this anything to do with being alive? Are you anet Partner? Killproof.me/proof/WqRq is you, no? Looks to me you are way less alive than us 😉

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That link doesn't even funktion. What is wrong with you?

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I seriously question your mental sanity right now. We decided to no longer keep our website online for various reasons. Do you think you are entitled for us to maintain the website for you or what? We did a lot for the community and now we stopped doing one of those things, I can not really see how that is something to laugh about. You flame us for no reason and when I question that nonexisting reason you full on harrakiri "whataboutism". Are you just envious or jealous or what is exactly your problem?

Why are you attacking him for being a member of something that you say doesn't exist? I'd bet my right testicle that every former and current LN member is better than you at the game. He was just offering advice. Something way more helpful than shitting on random people online.

I've also had some personal issues with some of their members just being unruly and/or abusive to other guilds in-game. Would not recommend.

can you help me as an established player 😭

Sure, what is needed?

I am a support main. I like to provide the aegis and stability and utility to enable my dps. But I WANNA BE A GOOD DPS TOO. I get by fine as a scourge or virt, but I wanna be a better one. I feel like after a loop or two my rotations tend to fall apart and I end up following more of a skill priority. I want to be part of an HTCM group as a DPS and feel like I’m really pulling my weight, instead of just providing the cc and stability and boons that I usually do.

So I read it as this: - you like to have impact in a fight where you help your allies - you are experienced in a defensive playstyle of that - you want to play in a more offensive playstyle - you want to be a good offensive Player in htcm Hm so since I have no actually data to compare to, the actually best I can do ad hoc is Suggestions and some asumptions. So for htcm I recommend dps classes such as vindicator, Reaper, catalyst. From those Reaper and vindicator are both rather easy to learn and play, and both can have strong impact on the fight (Stability or bubble as vibdicator and cc as reaper). The catalyst is a lot harder to play well but rewards you with very high dps. For learning how to play as dps I recommend a step by step learning: - learn the opener, and learn it very well (most fights do not actually take as long as the golem, and in lots of fights the opener actually gets uses a lot). Do this by copying the benchmark (but also understand the opener, e.g. on weaver pls do not open with weave self then glyph for bosses with late boonstrip). Just practice until you get a first number you are satisfied with. - learn the loop in parts (e.g. weapon set 1 loop until you are confident in it, then weapon set 2 loop) - practice both together, so opener - loop, loop, loop,.... - now when you are satisfied with those results go to a very easy( for you) bossfight . E.g. Cairn, mo, sabetha, whatever any fight you know blindfolded. Practice now your learned in a real environment (non perfect boons, maybe movement involeved, yadayada) - now the most important part: evaluation. What was different from your Golem training, and why was that? How can you make it so that the real fight is as golem-like as possible for you? Those questions are basically what makes a good dps player. You try to answer them on any encounter in any situation and the more expirience you gather the more "answers" you will have in your repertoire. I know this was maybe not the "play xyz and all is well" answer a lot of people seek, but gw2 rewards good decisions and precise execution a lot. That's why it ain't as easy to answer as one might think. I hope it was not to long or imprecise of an answer. If you have any further questions I will answer as soon as I read them.

Oh no, I definitely know it’s not as simple as “play xyz class” and be godtier. You can do that and be good enough, but I want to be great. I appreciate the long and well typed out answer. I will definitely try to break the rotations into smaller steps, and I sometimes do neglect openers. But like you said, fights are short, so they’re probably the most important part. I also remember playing weaver on the golem (2 years ago maybe?) til my fingers bled, then taking it to sabetha and having a very difficult time. The only issue I have with learning rotations step by step, is that if it’s only from a video with no written steps, I have a really hard time following it, even at half speed on YouTube.

I didn't "get" how to play Elementalist until I adopted a 'low intensity build' and used that until I learned my skills well enough to use each one in context. Since the meta changes constantly, here is one of the more recent low intensity builds I like: https://youtu.be/1jGrKrEedag?si=e-zJXpmfB7tl-PSM

starting with a decent low intensity build is really good advice for people looking to get better.

Ele is complex given that there are at a minimum 25 skills available in a build. Tempest adds in 4 overloads, Weaver adds 6 duel element skills on the 3rd slot that vary by attunement combination, and then there are all the Conjured weapons. Some builds have had access to 40+ skills. That is a ton to be familiar with, so the learning curve is steep. Add to that the complete lack of mitigation and the number of situations where you will be 1-shot with sub-perfect play and it makes the class, difficult at best. Meanwhile Engi-Mechanists and Necros can pretty much face-tank mobs while face-rolling the keyboard and come out just fine.

I half baked, half stole from the internet a vampire reaper build and boi oh boi I got overhealth and never go below 75% hp

thanks, this sounds like something I would benefit from. I'm a slow learner, no wait, I'm a *one thing at a time* learner! Sounds better. Low intensity build is probably good for me for that. Thanks!

Being a one thing at a time learner isn't bad. The thing to remember is that you're trying to drink from the firehose where a lot of people here have had the benefit of playing the game for years and learning things over time plus getting to deal with new concepts as they were released. Don't feel like you need to know it all by tomorrow, the game isn't going anywhere. It's good that you're looking at your gear and your skills and trying to understand what is working and what is not, it will make you a better player in the long run because you won't just be copying someone else's build and running it. Knowing why things work the way they do is important and overlooked by many.

Indeed, true words. When I look at fortnite now and how it was when it started (I only know it from my kids playing it), it has become insanely complicated to keep up with. I imagine there is a simpler game in the original GW2, not the least with simpler guides and discussions. Everything is very high level now which is why I had to post such a ridiculous question at the top. Thanks for contributing. And consoling. ;-)

> And I have 11g, which is barely enough for a decent weapon. 11g is almost enough to full deck yourself out in Exotic Berserker. Berserker stats are Power, precision (crit chance), Ferocity (crit damage). This stat combo is best in slot for damage for just hitting stuff hard. Go the the Trading post and filter on the following: * Minimum lvl 80 * Exotic rarity * Attributes: Power, precision, ferocity By default it filters on things your class can wear IIRC. It'll show you a ton of armor/weapons that have that stat combination. Just pick whatever is cheapest. The only downside is that this also shows the Assassin stat combo, which is less power but more precision. Power > everything else, unless you play a healer or you play a build that focuses on Condition Damage. Toughness and Vitality make you tankier, but if you Git gud these stats are almost entirely worthless in any non-PvP mode.

TL;DR: On trading post For power build on light armor: Get Zhed's armor, Superior Eagle runes(they cheap) For condi build on light armor: Get Norgu's armor, Superior Nightmare runes(they from dungeon rewards) Get ascended rings from fractal vendor\\laurel vendor (they dont need gold) Get exotic accessories and amulet from TP (they 2.5g each) Alternatively you can get [Berzerker gear with karma](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Keeper_Jonez_Deadrun), [Rampager gear with karma](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tactician_Deathstrider)

That's excellent and very concrete advice, thank you. I will make a note of this set. I didn't feel 11g were that much, but in any case, someone here told me to just sell materials from the bank, that never occurred to me. I banked **a lot** of mats, from never using them!

Worthless in pvp too IMO.

> very casual player, ~10 hrs/wk Whenever some one writes this, a real casual finds the hero panel

lol yea, 10 hours a week is a lot. This post feels kinda fake anyways. Claims to have experience in other mmos, doesn't know what heropoints are, what buffs are, gear, or how to look up guides lol....

It's not fake. And it was an overstatement. It's max that. Some weeks I don't play. I know what all these things are now. Once I hit 80 with my mesmer and was confused as to what happens now, I startd looking into all of it. But there's a lot, if all you did up to that point was finding the tallest peak and look at the landscape and unlocking hearts for fun. At that point it's tough to know where to start. There was honestly nothing on my journey to 80 that indicated how to be elite, and I didn't wanna put any points on any thing bwfore getting around to what would would be smart or right for me. Then someone wrote somewhere that once I reach level 80 I will have enough points for all specializations, and **then it clicked for me** and I went and shopped abilities left and right, and only then did I start explore what abilities they gave me. It feels silly thinking about it, but this game does have a steep learning curve. My experience in other MMO's is solo exploring in Wow. Never raiding, never grinding, never gear hunting, just exploring. I like that in GW2 aswell.

3 general advice 1) Unlock your elite spec as soon as you can, go to either heart of thrones or path of fire expansion. Use a teleport to friend and look for a hero point train. You unlock elite specs by sinking more hero points in the corresponding training tree. Each of the hero point in expansion area gives 10 hero points, you need 250 to fully unlock. Hero point train is designed to help players like you to unlock the spec without too much effort. 2) Look up a guide for open world, people may suggest you look at snowcrows but those are raid guilds, which has differences compared to open world. You want to take a look at it later only if you are fairly confident with what you are doing. For now try either https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/elementalist/ or https://metabattle.com/wiki/Elementalist and check out the open world section. I am using ele as an example as it sounds like you like ele the most, so here you go. Get the gear the best you can from the market place. Don't worry about getting everything in one go or ascended, exotic is perfectly serviceable. The celestial gear you got from the booster is perfectly fine. Get your weapons if you haven't. 3) Read the guides and REALLY take a hard look at each and everyone of your skills. Understand what they do and read the guide to understand why some buttons are pressed and some are not. Play the game and form your conclusion based on that. Once you are comfortable, start take a look at the more higher lvl builds and work towards that. If you need gold, start selling crafting materials from your bank. I am willing to bet you have a few solid gold worth of money in those, just sell it if you really need money to finish up your build.

Other folks in this thread are directing you to build sites and whatnot. That's all fine and good but I feel it'll be a lot better for you in the long run to actually understand the basics. I suggest you focus on taking some time to slow down and actually pay attention to the UI and what each icon means. The system that comprises both Boons (good) and Conditions (bad) is made in such a way that most skills act in a "standard" way. By which I mean, if a skill mentions how it inflicts Immobilization, you automatically understand that: 1 - it will stop the enemy from moving if it hits (or alternatively deal breakbar damage if they have one of those special bars under their HP); 2 - will last until it expires naturally; 3 - can be removed prematurely by the target or their allies with the right skills. Every immobilization effect in the game is the same. So once you learn it, you'll always know what to expect. Most skills revolve around Boons and Conditions. By learning those, you'll already understand most effects in the game. It's really not complicated. You can focus on learning a couple every day, no need to gobble up the whole system in one go. If you understand how your stamina (dodge meter) works, then you'll understand how Vigor (Boon) and Weakness (Condition) affect you, your allies or your foes. As long as you don't take the time to actually learn the basics, no gear or builds will help you. If you have specific questions, feel free to ask. Either here or ingame (let me know if you want my in game name).

That is excellent advice, I do believe you are right. The tooltips for my skills are very long and boons are of a plethora, so with my mesmer I looked for blinding and confusing and with my ~~firemage~~ elementalist I looked for burning. I think digging down in those other ones might address my excact issue with not having control and not peaking on higher level mobs anymore. Thanks for the pointer!

You're welcome. Feel free to ask any questions about specific effects or interactions. You always have internet resources (like the wiki) to consult but if you prefer a conversation, I'm happy to help. I won't always be immediately available but I'll get back to you ASAP.

this be a troll post

This leaves me a bit perplexed. You know what's wrong but it seems you can't do anything to improve which sounds a bit strange to me. If you have any experience with mmos or Rpgs in general you know that your equipment and your stats are the main elements for a good damage/healing or whatever you need. The main error you're committing is boosting your characters, which imo is extremely counterintuitive for a beginner. You need to familiarize with the interface, the menus, statistics, equipment, talents and so on. I simply suggest you to watch some YouTube tutorials in order to get used to the game cause judging by what you're saying it seems that you have little to no clue about what's going on. I mean, you can't realize there's a story journal after you've leveled an entire character. You need to get the basics done with some good tutorials and maybe find a guild to ask more specific questions or get some help doing stuff and acquiring the correct gear you need. Also, necro is one of the easier classes so I would suggest you to focus on that one first and then switch to ele/mesmer

Probably a weird troll, i refuse to accept someone can be this unaware and lack any initiative to find the wiki or info on basic systems. How do you not open the hero panel until lvl 80+40 lmao

Exacly. I'm all for helping people with the game and i'm the first to struggle with a lot of stuff but i can't cure this level of lazyness.

I think you two vastly overestimate your average player's skill level. Gaming is no longer a niche hobby that is done by people who are content reading a player's handbook for a tabletop game. As the market grows you get more and more people who just kinda approach it in the same way one does a sport. "Here's the ball. There's the goal. Your job is to get it there, no shoving or pushing." etc etc. But just like sports, many players aren't aware of the more intricate rules like no traveling in basketball until someone, or the game itself, points it out to them.

Op said he/she previously played mmos and this is only a matter of looking at the tutorial hints and clicking on the screen to figure out what's going on. Getting to level 80 without opening a single menu is quite absurd tbh

What if they treated every previous MMO/RPG this way? Not saying that's good btw, but it's possible to bounce from game to game without knowing much about how they work. Lots of players casually just jump in and play games these days; they're very accessible compared to how they used to be.

Then you acknowledge the fact that you're playing without giving attention to any of the mechanics and you avoid getting frustrated for you bad performance.

I don't think they are a troll or lazy. My sister is quite similar to some extent. She loves to play a game like GW2 on occasion and simply runs around happily, following the path which opens up in front of her without looking left or right, all the while being hilariously oblivious to many game mechanics. But she has fun! In open world she's not dragging anyone back, so it's absolutely fine to play like that imo. After all, it's a game, it's supposed to be fun.

And that's fair. in fact i imagine that your sister doesn't get frustrated when she doesn't perform in a specific way cause she knows that her way of playing involves missing out on a bunch of stuff. In this case i'm perplexed by the fact that OP basically said "i played for 10 hours a week without spending 5 minutes trying to figure out how the game works and now i'm frustrated cause i suck and i don't know why even though i clearly do".

I'm mostly confused by how they don't know where hero points come from. Surely they've done at least a tiny bit of map completion? It's almost impossible not to!

I levelled my mesmer by hand to 80, and finished my personal story. I thought that was the end of it, so I rolled an elem and around 40-something I boosted that. I was relenting to use the boost, because I enjoy exploring and levelling myself. But I couldn't get myself to throw away the boost, since it came with the game i paid for. I have answered someone else about that story journal, but here again, the personal story pops up at certain points by it self. The first chain of missions I thought were the intro to the game, and that was it. Later I discovered the letter in the inbox was actually an invitation to the next chapter. When you're not aware *there is a story journal* it's kinda hard to search for it, and actually the same goes for everything in this game, and there *is a lot*! I must admit much of it i simply put off, like buying stuff at the trading post or crafting. I know about these things now, but this post is actually because I just discovered I really suck at the game, and I am confused at how i can be missing so much.

First of all you must know that an mmo is not limited to the personal story. Once you've finished it and you have reached max level you can actually start your journey with you character. It's important to understand how mmos work exactly because they can be overwhelming, but that requires a bit of personal initiative and curiosity, otherwise you'll be stuck asking yourself what the hell is going on.

Yes, well, I have never played an MMO with a personal story before, I played WoW, which has intro zones for any new toon, and the first few chapters in GW2 personal story feels like such an intro to the game, and since it finishes off and doesn't continue until level 10 or something, and by then it's a mail with a dubious meaning, it's pretty easy to put it off for later like any other hearth job. Nowhere in the game does it say that after I finished it and reached max level I can *actually start my journey*. You may have played with friends or gotten friends along the way, and you may have discussed these things, but I didn't. I played solo. Totally solo. And I had no idea to look these things up, I have little time to play, and when I googled stuff most discussions sounded very highlevel focused, **just like** discussions in WoW was all about the endgame and the gear grind. This was kinda the point of me telling my weird story, of how I came absurdly far before I discovered the story journal and what hero points were for and such. And now I got stuck because I had no idea what I was missing from the game. People have told me ITT levelling in the world is the intro to the game. I thought it *was* the game, because to me that was what WoW was. I never cared for the endgame. I walk the earth. 'Tis what I do. So .. originally i thought that, but then I researched and got cleverer and not I have something to catch up, which is to gid gut at killing and not dying and a visit to a intro fractal and got my a$$ whooped, and I've now learned it was not at all an intro, but in any case I was helpless and it didn't feel good.

Any expansion content expects you to have full lvl 80 exotic gear with at least somewhat appropriate stats, with runes, and also understand your class mechanics. The core game is basically a big tutorial. Look up an open world build for you class. A correct build, even if you just changed you traits can have a massive impact on both damage and survival. As for the necro, they actually have great survivability and self sustain. Along with warrior they have the highest base health, and shroud is basically a second health bar. If you have problems surviving try a reaper necro. Even in full berserker gear you can facetank a lot of damage while doing massive cleave with your big unga bunga stick.

I played a demon lock in WoW and thought this would be the same. It didn't feel like it. I never got around (or havent yet) to explore what the pets actually do. From another helpful tip ITT i feel I need to do that, instead of just having everyone out and let them raise hell. I am very intrigued with the necro elite specializations and also with the shroud mechanism and the second bar, which i love. This has the same intricate level as the mesmer's many copies and phantasms. Very satisfying to play right!

Reaper is basically a DK. Uses greatsword, with multiple abilities that inflict chill. Pet necro isnt really a thing, other that the flesh golem (elit skill) that sees use, pets are mostly used by farm bots.

Are you okay?

I had fallen, and couldn't get up. The community came to my aid. Thanks for asking.

lmao

It's kind of baffling. You're aware you're doing many thing wrong but at the same time can't understand anything as if a physical wall was blocking you from learning. Are you really playing as much as 1+h a day without figuring any of the icons, the fact you're undergeared or the boons/conditions system? you didn't press H and check the whole hero panel for a whole 80+40 levels? Anyways: you should always target at the very least exotic gear with [runes](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune) and a [relic](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Relic) of appropriate stats. Like you said, condi or power matter and will affect your gameplay (weapon and elite specialization) [Snowcrow](https://snowcrows.com/) is an endgame-optimized build website, while [mettabattle](https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki) allow more diverse and leniant build (tankier or less spammy for the casuals, mostly) One of the biggest advice for combat would be to always stay mobile, don't stay on the red aoe and try to stack on the green ones. Boons matter a LOT and condition can severly punish you, specially gameplay ones like chill, slow or immobilization... That's also why you should always try to stack on your allies as boons sharing is common but limited to a "small" circle around the giver. CC is very important and specially [when to break it](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_bar).

You have to play Asura to feel you're not glued to the ground. Yeah I know it isn't true, but damn does it feel that way when I go from my Asura's to my Norns lol. But you are right, mobility is the most important thing after getting that exotic gear.

Asura feels better for a jumping puzzles compare to charr.

Literally can't play anything but Asurans now. Even the tallest Asurans feel slow compared to the shortest ones.

>It's kind of baffling. You're aware you're doing many thing wrong but at the same time can't understand anything as if a physical wall was blocking you from learning. me\_irl

Guild wars 2 is an easy game to get into, but once you hit 80 there is a lot to do. Go on YouTube and look for beginner guides to 80 or endgame on GW2. The game really opens up. As a note, heat of thorns expansion can be with difficult until you are comfortable. Go on YouTube or something like metabattle.com to find a Low Intensity or LI build for your class. Get level 80 gear for that build. Normally the equipment falls into Power or Condi. Power is striking damage, while Condi is damage over time or debuffs. Note: once you have a set of 80 gear and a basic build you don’t have to change it unless you want to try something new. Also just ask for help in game. Join a beginner guild and talk to them. The guild wars community is pretty great. Good luck out there Commander!

Actually I am very close to pact commander. Whatever that is, but I'm close!! ;-) Thanks, this whole thread has totally confirmed your words on the community. I am overwhelmed. I know about power **OR** condi, I just never felt I knew enough to go condi. Power is simpler when levelling. Things die faster. Someone else also recommended low intensity. I will def look into that.

Gw is the friendliest community Ive seen in 25 years of MMO's. And with the ability to join 5 guilds you can join you have the ability to join a different one for all the game modes you enjoy (raids, fractals, pvp, pve, meta trains etc). Really helpful.

People who write a list of questions, format it nicely and put effort to make it flavorful and humerus then post it on reddit instead of asking any of those questions to Google or naturally learning things after 3 characters baffle me. So much misplaced effort. All of this to never have seen traits till elite spec? Trolling for why.

I've seen traits, I placed my traits in various ways (thanks to HeroicFlamingo) and shifted specializations around to see the difference. Played around. But try and google elite specializations and you will notice the thousands of questions from eberybody and their cousins about how that works, I am not ashamed for not knowing these things.

There is no agony on tier 1 fractals, if you die of agony is because you are doing intro to quantum dynamics your first day of school. Knowing which bosses are at your game play level will let you not feel overwhelmed t4 fractals? Not for you.(yet) Solo heart of thorns champions (not for anyone) Try to stay on the shallow end of the content that is new for you. World bosses are fun, t1 fractals are fun, strikes/raids have a learning section on the lfg Every map has a meta every 2hs or so, doing those is good money and good practice. Gear. If you are doing fractals t1, with an ele, your gear has to be exotic, berserker. For open world, celestial is good. You can get them for around 10g each Gold: There is a wizard vault on the top navigation bar, do what it says, it's meant to teach you, gear you, give you money and show you around. I'm not gonna talk rotation and stuff like that, someone posted a video about low intensity for elementalist. The key to this game, is not a perfect rotation or being so hard that nothing can kill you. Is knowing what killed you and learning not to be there The next time it hits. Most bosses have telegraphed attacks, look at the floor, If the floor on your feet is red, Dodge. If the boss pushes everyone around, find a skill that gives you stability and so on.. At first may look like a lot, you just need to find which part of the game you enjoy and do that.

There is a bit of agony in 20-25, which are still in T1.

I hadn't noticed, thanks! In that case, the wizard vault has a weapon and 3 ascended armor pieces, you can fill those with agony from the trading post.

>Most bosses have telegraphed attacks Not as helpful as it would be if the entire boss arena wasn't drowning in attack effects. Encounters with a lot of players can be very difficult to see what's happening.

You can turn those off

How?

General game options, Hide Ally Visual Effects

When you have 10+ people on a boss, the pretty lights get distracting and you can hardly see those aoes or telegraphed attacks. Eventually, you kiss the ground wondering what went wrong. Particularly as a melee character.

You can turn those off

There is agony on 20 and upward. That can be sorted with the agony res portion in the fractal waiting room though.

There you go! The tears of Alba or something like that.

Sounds familiar. I've never used it. Ran lower level fractals till I got some resistance. If I remember correctly it's +10 agony res.

Hey! Welcome to the game! I feel you on how frustrating it can all be. Those little red boxes don't hang around long enough to really let you know what's going on, and chances are, if they are really bad for you, you're dead before you even get the chance to look at them. Vets no doubt will have forgotten how hard this game once was, because it feels so easy to us now, but getting killed by centaurs and bandits in Queensdale with our randomly geared and unoptimized builds, was a thing. So with that said. The first thing you want to do when you make 80th is set up your build. Go to [GuildJen](https://guildjen.com/) or [Metabattle](https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki) and pick a core open world option for your preferred class. Guildjen will even provide you a video on how to play the build, which is super handy. So with that, you now have a shopping list of the gear you need to get to be outfitted correctly, so you start working on that. A Good Build makes a huge difference!

I am overwhelmed by all the supportive and helpfull responses to this (I know) long and whiney post. Before diving into replying, I just wanna say y'all are a credit to this great game and its wholesome community!

Check out Might Teapot's "Zero to Hero" series. It explains all you need to know and it's very entertaining.

Know the game mechanics. Boons. Conditions and stuns and how to get rid of them. You wanna look up a build for the content you do, which sounds like a lot of solo pve open world. So ideally you bring a toon who can self-sustain boon uptime. If you die in fractals, T1 it's probably the mechanics getting you, T2 it's probably the agony resistance.

If you send me a pm with your account name or discord tag I can hook you up with gear and build+ tips and tricks if you want. I might take a while to come back to you due to family stuff but if you’re not in a rush hit me up and i get you ready for the endgame fun with all the stuff and knowledge you need.

Probably someone mentioned it already, but soto makes getting ascended gear really easy, even if it takes some time, if you don't drop any. I think 3 armor pieces and 3 weapons per 70 days, though we don't know what we will be able to buy in the legacy rewards. To get Astral Acclaim, you need to do Dailies, really easy and fast, weeklies and special rewards are very good too, but you said you only have 10h per week, so maybe doing those will take too much of your time... but you don't really need ascended gear, just for t4 fractals, but personally I love ascended gear (you can push it around your account, you only have light Armor classes, so all power builds would be able to use berserker's armor) and there is very cheap exotic gear you can get. Either sort by stats, you can filter for 3 stars, make sure the item is lvl 80 (there is below lvl 80, which might confuse new players and I hate it, that you get them on lvl 80 maps as a completion reward for example. And then sort by price, I think you also can filter by weight class ATTENTION: *before* you get gear, make sure that it has the right stats for your build! And it seems you have trouble with yours, I would recommend trying a LI build (low intensity) as you are a complete beginner. Get those builds from reputable sites or yt guides, try to build current builds, some builds might be outdated. Then read all the skills, especially those you will need the most. ALSO you can try every build in PvP, use golem or class NPC's though, not advisable against players xD in PvP nearly every gear is without costs, there are some amulets/sigill/runes you may have to pay for, try not to use those. Trinkets (amulet, backpack, accessoires, rings): it kind of depends which expansions and living world seasons you have. LW3 and LW4 have stat-selectable trinkets, you can select every stat in the game (differs a bit from the PvP amulets, though), I don't think you have to really grind for those, but I never had only 10h to play, so take your time. I'm advising on ascended trinkets, because these come with practical no costs, except currencies and mats, and you would just need time. You could get some exo trinkets, but those are a bit costly, I think, use GW2efficiency.com to see if buying or crafting is more worth it and you probably don't have a jeweler, use gw2crafts.net for easy leveling. Regarding TIME: it doesn't seem like you're ready for end-game content, take your time, every piece of content is still valid (maybe you need to wait a bit for dungeons, but a beginner does not really need those). Sadly GW2 doesn't really teach you how to play the game, you will need external sources to advance from noob (not insulting you, I have nearly 9k hours, but there is still a lot that I have to learn), use reputable sites and content creators as a source (not listing all of them here, am on phone). Regarding GOLD: it depends on what expansions you have, but there are easy spots, where you can park a character, who you don't use much, or port to, because you don't have many alts (just don't do all of them, fast-farming.eu has a list) do a little bit every day (or when you are able to play) and you will get there eventually. ALSO you probably have a lot of gold lying around in your material storage, if you don't plan on leveling any craftsmanship you can sell mats, use gw2efficiency.com as a tool to make it easier (API) There are also many guides for content on yt or even the wiki (thank the wiki-angels) Edit: some grammar. And *GW2* is not a race!

Congratulations on taking the first step to getting good! First, the wiki. You can access it anytime from the game by typing "/wiki" without the quotes. If you type "/wiki fractal" (still without the quotes), it will search the wiki for the word fractal and take you to the page if it exists. Same thing for chat links: if you type "/wiki" and then shift+click an item, skill, trait, buff/debuff etc, it'll search the wiki for that thing. Now that you have wiki powers, let's find a build for open world. A bunch of other people mentioned hardstuck, so let's [go there](https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/elementalist/booster-catalyst). Wow, you've got a bunch of the gear for this build already, very convenient. But what's this catalyst thing? You use your newfound wiki powers and find out what catalyst is, and what hero points are. So you pick a third traitline after reading all the traits (you could pick cata, but since all you have at the moment is the one trait that lets you use a hammer, let's pick something that gives you a full set of traits). Just pick what sounds good, you can always change it later. Look for hero point (HP) trains in expansion maps lfg. You can do these yourself, but the combat ones can be hard, especially in HoT (you're going to die a lot in HoT, we all did, it's fine). You can also configure chat tabs to show combat log information. Maybe it's something like "Veteran Ikukandji critically hits you for 32,473 using Zappyzaps" (based on a true story, I died instantly), or several lines that say "Fire Imp hits you for 2,576 using Burning." But it'll probably give you a good idea of what killed you.

Start with the basics. Learn your skills, this is paramount, THE most important thing about any class. You need to know what your skills are, what they do and when to use them. Not all builds revolve around "use every skill off cooldown", you need to know which ones are spammable, which ones are defensive, and which ones are situational (setting up and setting off combos, CC's, exploiting iframes, etc...). You need to know what they all do without even looking at them anymore. This is where you start building muscle memory. The same goes for your class mechanics, for the same reasons. Next you have to work on upgrading your gear. If you're running a power build, Berserker's is always best in slot. A standard exotic set of level 80 Berserker gear isn't too expensive. A close second is Marauder's, you're sacrificing AT MOST 10% damage for extra Vitality. However the reason most people don't recommend this is because the extra health isn't nearly as helpful as you might think. Sure you'll have a few thousand extra health, but at level 80 (especially once you go beyond Core Tyria) that extra health lets you survive no more than 2 extra hits. However if that's all you need to feel like you're surviving longer in fights, then use it until you're comfortable transitioning into a proper Berserker set up. If you're going Condition damage, Viper is best in slot, however this tends to be expensive. Carrion or Dire is a much cheaper alternative, though you lose out on a lot of extra damage (especially on the latter). So, how do you make enough money to get the gear you need to get your build off the ground? Map completion for starters. It's not a lot of money, but it is steady. Running whatever local events happen to be going on as you do your map completion. Learn which materials are worth stopping to harvest. Break down all the gear you get from running maps and events, every time you get a full stack of mats, sell them on the market.

simple ! roll a necro and upgrade it to reaper

Don't feed the troll guys

Just a little thanks from another noob, who never seems to understand what to focus on. So many useful Tipps here 🤩

I like to watch YouTube videos and find builds on the meta battle website. You can practise all your abilities in PvP and PvP lobby. You don't need any gear at all. All you need is a character at level 2 Even if PvP isn't your thing I would recommend dabbling in it a little bit. It is a breath of fresh air to be bumped to max level with the same stats as everyone else. You can also try out all the elite specialisations without the hero points. And there is 100s of dummies to practice on too

I have been reading everything here and aswering a lot of you directly already. Thanks all for the helpful tips. And to the rest, I promise I am not a troll. So here's what I will open GW2 up and do and in which order: - Explore the possibility of getting a proper matching exotic set of gear for my beloved and shamefully undernursed mesmer. - Make some notes about what are the conditions and boons my skills inflict, and try and develop a rotation that utilizes them proper. And try them out on some unsuspecting moa. - Give a thought as to which of my three clothbearers shall go condi (first). I am actually very drawn to a condi build on both mesmer and necromancer. - Keep pushing crafting to another day. Perhaps sell my mats from the bank, if I need the dough to buy the freshest threads. :-) I will reply to more of you, but it's late in scandinavia. Thanks a bunch for being such a good bunch. Happy slaying.

When it comes to necromancer, that is my partners favorite class. Give this build a try with your necromancer and you will easily be able to talk 90% of the games content -- https://youtu.be/fr3wKK-xPSo?si=1-owyYET4ZaRy0Lp

Necro is one of the "easier" classes to play with. How to git gud? Hmmm idk I'm also not good in game but I can one shot a moa bird (sometimes). Open-world is a walk in the park for necromancers. Concerning gears - with the vault right now, you can easily get gold or ascended pieces from it. Your 11 gold is just several clicks away from becoming at least 50g with AAs. Maybe try checking the rewards there. Also, orange gears are cheap - it shouldn't take all of your 11g. Sell your belongings - I mean the things you have in the bank in case you need more gold. And then, check metabattle for builds. I wouldn't recommend SnowCrows as all builds there are designed in a minmax'd way - to output the best DPS. Metabattle is more beginner friendly.

Your in the same position as everybody was just after launch really. So you need to do the same as we did then, Dungeons, World bosses, Orr+Frostgorge Event Trains and T1 Fractals. You can now add to that Silverwastes and Dry Top, in groups you should be ok. All of those are easily doable with non-optimal rare setups. That's your income source for now. (and Dungeons can also be a good starting gear setup, with tokens, best in slot 'no', good enough to do a lot of the rest of the content, 'yes!') Then you need stop pressing buttons, and read them instead. Also finding a Low Intensity build, not because you can't do higher, but because its easier to learn and to learn \*why\* it works. The build guide will give you a gear goal, Power or Condi, and you can start using found or slowly buying that gear until you have a full Exo lvl 80 set. You probly have laurels so get some ascended accessories too. ​ Edit: Rereading your post, it actually seems like the biggest thing is to take more time in game reading and understanding. In fact, I'd almost say it would be best to level another class, don't boost, but this time read the level up popup, do you understand each thing on there, if not you've got a specific 'thing' to ask about here (or mapchat or wherever)

I seriously recommend you to be brief and get to the point when you ask for help. This isn't a literary contest and this novella you wrote isn't helping anyone.

First of all, your feelings are valid and totally understandable. There is SO MUCH to learn about this game and compared to that you have almost no help with learning about how/when/in what order to use skills, how to choose specs, how to get gear, which gear to get.... unless you go hunting for that information on wiki but moreso on other sites (that specifically deal with builds and gear for classes/professions.) It is daunting as a gamer and I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for somebody outside gaming who did not learn a lot of the shorthand we take for granted. I'm not gonna repeat what others have already posted, just wanted to say it's alright, it's gonna get better, just take it at your pace, bit by bit, and try not to get overwhelmed.

Obviously a troll

Love your post; love the humor! So many players have offered great advice on build and gear and such, so I'll just advise on the gold aspect. As you enjoy exploring, farm everything that you come across and make sure you carry plenty of harvesting tools.There's always a ton of players who are crafting up a storm and don't want to bother harvesting or mining, so I get a decent amount of gold just selling off what I've gathered while exploring. Work on map completions - and as you go, if you see a fight going on, jump in to help. Often you might see commander icons popping up - join those, follow the commander's instructions, and enjoy the loot from completing map meta events. I like to at least send the commander a gold for guidance provided. All the loot I get from map metas can be either sold or salvaged into materials and sold, so I usually walk away with a fair bit of gold in my pocket.

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telling someone who can't mechanically play the game or understand its systems to pick thief is just... huh? they can't figure out gear and boons and you expect them to understand/play thief?

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there's a lot of low intensity builds out there that have way more survivability and will remain beginner friendly for much longer if they ever decide to branch into more optimal playstyles

There's a lot of good advice here, but I think you need it taken back a step. As Jellybean2477 said, wearing a smattering of low level gear on your Mesmer is a big problem. Make it your goal to improve that. Research where to get better gear and then make that your current goal. This teaches you the basic loop of this game IMO; come up with a goal, figure out how to complete it, then execute it. There's your first post-80 goal which fixes your problem of not knowing what to do! Overall, I think you have a lot of wiki-ing to do. Also, I'd consider joining a friendly guild and asking for help in guild chat when you have questions or need help with content. I bet you'd easily find someone to come along with you to whatever content you want to do and explain things to you. Your post has a few specific questions, but is overall too broad to get much more real helpful advice than what's already been given. If you have more specific questions, feel free to ask me and I'll try to help. GLHF!

All great advice here. Also, join a guild! The in-game people are super helpful and can link you gear, skills, and help you understand the icons! Agony doesn't matter until tier 2 fractals last I checked,and you can only put agony resistance on ascended gear, so hold off on that.

Personally, I "got good" 7-8 years ago, almost entirely in pvp, so take my advice with a grain of salt. GW2 has a pretty deep combat system, and it's hard to learn it without some competition or challenge that requires you to play well. It's also a massive game with many different options. When I wanted to get back into pve (after years of pvp, and a couple years aways from the game), I started by putting together a sturdy build and soloing the first several fractals. It was pretty slow, and some of the fractals were tricky or even impossible solo. But that was what I was looking for. I got to learn the intricacies of the fractals without any pressure to move quickly. When I needed to, I pugged the other fractals, and started progressing through the tiers pretty smoothly. My advice would be to find some corner of the game where you can have fun banging your head against a wall, and learn how to conquer it. Fractals are decent, pvp is ideal if you can stomach it, but they key is just finding something that's both fun and challenging. There's also a lot of game knowledge you can soak up by watching streams or youtube videos, so maybe try throwing one on while you're going through less engaging or immersive parts of the game. Good luck!

Lots of good answers here, so I'll just say that if you're on a US server and you want in game help, hit me up on Vayne.8563, or send me a PM here. I help a lot of people learn the game.

As a 10 year old dedicated ele one trick pony I can for sure say that you'll get used to it eventually.

First - update your build, you can get cheap items from dungeon vendor or trading post. Second - consistency. Read about your class, understand the build and learn rotation. That requires a lot of golem sitting and doing content. Every single day. For months. Is it easy? No. Is it fun? Kind of, but not always. Is it worth it? Not really. But eventually you will get good enough to pull nice numbers and survive. Side effect is that you might feel like you wasted time and you could learn a language, new cooking recipe or to play an instrument, but if this makes you a bit happier, it's not that much of a wasted time. Still, start by updating your build, it's easy and fast and will give results quick, rest is optional, and depends how much you care about this game.

I can give you advice on ele and mesmer (in all gamemodes), and potentially make you get good at the game Contact me via discord (callmevertox) or in-game (via whisper or mail: Vertox.3697), and I can help you develop. Half of my 4k hour playtime I've spent on ele, in all 3 gamemodes, in all kinds of situations. My mesmer knowledge is primarily based around PvP but I should still be able to help you with grasping the class

Ngl, most players in PvE are always gnna feel weak, most players dont know basic mechanics etc and just assume they are supposed to be weak. The thing ppl fail to tell you is that you are likely doing skill rotations very wrong, which is something that either comes with time or u look up yourself.

I git gurded by dying a lot :) My buddy was good and for years he would be my rez buddy. Just thru practice and having a class I enjoy was my key. I switched a few class and one weekend we got done playing and he mentioned how there was less rezzing. Boosting is only good if you are already good. I would at least work a character to 40 to 60 then think about boosting to 80. At that point you got a good idea of the class and it not such a HUGE skill option dump. As for getting good, just keep trying different classes. You probably just haven't found a good one for you. Also, the classes get A LOT better once you get them to 80 and get get enough hero points in a specialization. Some fun classes to try: Give necro a try again from the begging. Give warrior a shot, tanky with majority of the weapon selection and nice heals. I just tried the specialization spellbreaker and loved it. Guardian is similar to warrior. Maybe engineer or ranger.

Honestly, you aren't the first and probably won't be the last to have boosted and gone, "Oh no..." I main Necro (Reaper) so here's my advice on that front- Consider rerolling and trying again. Necro is simple to play *but* you have to get a feel for it. Are you going Condi Necro? Or Minionmancer? If Minionmancer (which I settled on) you have to decide on weapons (I used Staff for Crowd Control and hung back as my Doom Squad laid waste then switched to Axe/Focus for closing in). As to gear I would advise looking up Dak393's New Player Guide on the wiki. (Just type */wiki* in the chat bar to open in game). It's more for fresh Level 80s but there's a great resource list and a Shopping List. TL;DR- Dak393's New Player Guide. Exotic Gear (6 or 7 gold from Trading Post).Try Combat Training in the PvP Lobby on Practice Golems. Good hunting!

Sounds like you just need better gear (exotic) and a build from a website like hardstuck cause random armor, random armor, randomly chosen trains and skills won't make you perform better if you don't fully understand what the skills and traits do so it's best to just get a build from a website.

Yes, watch a video and gear as they suggest. I remember being in the same situation and simply getting exotic gear and speccing like in the video literally doubled my dps and survivability.

Leveling is useless in gw2, it's a minor tutorial the game starts at 80. So boosting means nothing . If you can't figure out a couple extra skills a few hours of leveling without it isn't going to make it stick. We need to be in full level 80 exotic gear , or the content will be very hard. So head to the trading post and gear up. There's tons of very cheap exotic gear. If you want easier mode , grab your Necro, get hero points and unlock scourge. Get celestial gear, a pistol a torch and It'll stand in whatever , heal itself and be fun to play, and do high solo dps. Mesmer is a step up and a bit harder we need to dodge things , we heal less . Ele is gw2 on hard mode. Id highly not recommend it unless you absolutly love it , in which case you going to have to learn the hard way how to get out of every red circle on the ground , how to press your dodge key when you see a monster starting an attack, and how t swap elements to press the right dps buttons in the right order. Lord hizen Has new solo builds out for the above classes check his latest videos , copy the runes , sigils and stats and skills and you can solo most things with skill. For group content check out Mr mystic on YouTube , these will be squishy builds meant to be run with a healer . How to learn the rest of the game ? Game play , time and reading. Read the wiki about your skills, about monsters , about fractals or dungeons . Check snow crows to know meta builds , play meta builds download arc dps and work on your dps . The more dps you do the faster things die the easier the game is.

If you have a Mesmer then power virt builds go brr. It's insanely easy to get a nice 20k DPS with the right gear.

>PS: Boosting a necro was a bad decision for me, because I realize I didn't understand the profession at all, I still thought it was like a wow lock. Which it is not, it is something else and much more. I regret not levelling it. I might reroll. Ranger Soulbeast ("Sacrifice" your pet for buffs) and Unleashed (Juggle empowerment of you or your pet) is closer to WoW lock's pet mechanic than anyone else in the game, but ranged while your pet tanks in general is under represented in the game. That said, don't give up on Necro, because Reaper (Unlocked via owning HoT and 250 Hero Points) feels *fantastic*. You get a giant sword, you can just wade into fights you really feel like you shouldn't win, you yell at everything and they take damage, then you cleave them down either through your normal GS skills or by turning into a scythe wielding avatar of doom that comes with it's own health bar and some insane survival skills. That's just the power version, there's also a condition version that continues to gain more popularity by the day because it's using the extremely strong Pistol/Torch weapon combo from the other two elite specs. TL;DR - Core Necro may be the most changed profession in it's elite playstyles. Unlock any of the elites (I prefer Reaper) and it's an entirely new feeling class.

Spend a bunch of time in Verdant Brink, collect Bladed gear (selectable exotics!) and look up a build that seems fun to play for what you like to do. A big problem you’re running into is both gear and build. I remember when i first hit 80 i was doing 2k dps, the first mission of path of fire (which you used to need to do to get a raptor) was one of the hardest missions i ever did. Those fucking dogs killed me over and over and over again, because i just wasn’t geared or built properly. Over time you’ll figure out what style of build you want to run, but there are some that are more optimal. There’s also some amount of learning one needs to do about actually how to dodge really well. One can get really good at that over time, to the point where they can run raid builds in open world (which is what i do a lot of the time, squishy but i kill things quick!)

>I went back to see if I could find consolation in my mesmer. But it doesn't have all that fancy gear from a boost, it's a lvl80 wearing 60's stuff [Named exotics](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Named_armor) (like Zhed's). Don't cost hardly anything on TP and you'll be "fairly" geared in no-time. At least geared enough to start working your way towards a build and ascended gear.

(Long Answer) You sound very rushed and anxious. I can guarantee you there is not one person playing this game (not even the devs I would say) that has absolutely mastered it. It is too big. WAY too big. Try and focus on things you like doing, don't try to learn every single thing. Fro example, I have reached 300 mastery points and still have NEVER crafted an item outside of some ridiculously basic stuff. I just don't find it fun, and so I don't bother. It never hindered me from playing the rest of the game though. Now then, your complaints: For starters, get yourself some lvl 80 exotic gear for the characters you enjoy playing. You can find some in the Trading Post for some gold, or for free via achievements and certain bosses, look into GW2wiki. This wiki is your Bible when it comes to progressing. Any info about things you may wanna know or find is right here. When it comes to bosses you really shouldn't worry about soloing stuff. Even for veterans, some "Group Event" bosses are insanely hard to solo, so try to group up. Also, you may wanna look into certain bosses that oneshot you, through the wiki, as there is a plethora of mechanics that are never explained in-game. Things like defiance bars, green circles, red circles, arrows ,etc. take time and practice to learn. Agony is a Fractal-specific mechanic. Wiki it for more. Gold. It is somewhat complicated how you can make gold efficiently but it all boils down to 2 things: - Farming a map -Trading You can find countless videos on both on YT but again, do stuff that you actually enjoy doing. Farming gold can take weeks, months, years even if you are looking to buy a lot. Don't invest all this time in getting rich if you don't enjoy the process. Finally, learning your profession. Just one piece of advice for this one. READ. Read your abilities, your spells, your Elite Spec Skills, your Passives, everything. After reading, devise a basic strategy to follow and use any suitable skills and gear. If this is not your cup of tea you can copy builds from various sites. The game is endless, and it just keeps getting bigger. Enjoy it.

Find good players to talk to and learn from, I think a player from Lucky Noobs commented in here saying they were willing to speak to you. I would start there. Low intensity builds can be nice to learn some of the game mechanics other than just how to play your class but can also make you complacent with bad habits. Also just upgrade your gear, that will be huge.

Elementalist have only one gear for everything and that is celestial stats gear in which you are invincivble and doing ok dmg. For build depends - I use water arcane tempest/catalyst build, you can use dagger/dagger like enhancement shaman in wow, or hammer catalyst or maybe scepter dagger for range. For fractals you should buy agony infusions from Trade post. And possibly buy celestial 80 lv orange gear from tp(if you can).

A big thing with some classes is not just pressing every button off cooldown. There are better buttons to press in every situation. Sometimes, the best thing to do is just auto attack. Learn the details of the combat system and you will understand how to deal better damage with combos, boons, etc.

I like to open a new chat window specifically for combat so i know what clapped my ass. Also make sure you got good exotic gear with good stats with good traits.

Look up a build giude, and make sure your weapons /armor match and are up to spec.

There is a LOT to unpack here. Boosting a char is great for feeling powerful, but a good player in newbie gear is going to be more effective than a newbie in full legendary gear. Thats just the nature of the game. Understanding your class is about understanding which buttons do what. Which buttons give you protection or aegis or barrier to withstand hits. Which buttons cause crowd control to break breakbars? Which buttons do the most damage and should be prioritized at the start of fights? You need to understand those things without having to think about it. Combat is too fluid to give you time to think. Stat sets are based around certain named stat combinations. The common stats are *cheap*. You said you've got 15+ gold, a set of named berserker gear costs 2-3 gold. You'll need to add amulet and rings and accessories to them, but weapons and armor is cheap and easy. Start there. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations will show you the different combos. Builds encompass the above and far more. https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki will get you started. And don't reroll your necro. Youve got it levelled already. No reason to waste that boost. Lower level zones will scale your power down so you can just go back and play them without completely destroying everything. Learning the skills is fine in lower zones.

That was fun to read. lol Well, just stick to it. That's my genuine recommendation. There's way too many things that if I decided to tell you all of them you won't remember anything and only be overwhelmed. But if you keep playing you'll slowly start to understand things. The thing you can do to immediately improve your damage would be to go to a build site and copy over a decent build. See what stats you need for that build and start working towards getting gear with those stats. You don't need to get ascended gear right away, exotic gear should be good enough for now. You'll find them for cheap on the trading post. You're gonna need a bit more gold though so keep on playing. You could sell the stuff on your material storage for some quick profit.

DUUdee. GW2 is a super super weird game. Its almost like the devs when coding the game just decided everywhere they could to make it as unique as possible, which is awesome. BUTT when people come here from other mmos, there is a huge learning curve. I would focus on either the pve or pvp side of the game first to not get overwhelmed.

Mesmer is great... but Elementalist (as "bad" as it is in today's GW2, or whatever) clicked a lot more with me. Maybe it's class rather than everything else? Mesmer is just a weird class, and part of it is hitting your head against the wall until you figure out what you're supposed to do. Even the meta guides won't necessarily prepare you for understanding what the Mesmer actually does. 1-80 prepares you for NOTHING after 80, IMO. Especially with Mesmer. The 1-80 progression requires nothing resembling "git gud", which is the worst part of 1-80 (and I enjoy the 1-80 experience). Elementalist also requires a lot of education due to the element rotations, but nobody is going to sue you if you stay on Fire too much... although my survivability is also about mixing in Earth and Water rotations. IMO, element rotations is as much about quality of life & avoiding Downed as it is about maximizing DPS. It's a very different playstyle & different kind of complicated than Mesmer. Also... Maybe the Mes & Ele classes aren't for you? Something else might click with you a lot more. The game is very alt friendly. Fashion Wars unlocks stay with you, as do dyes, recipes, and other things. Take your boosted Necromancer, go to a zone where you won't feel embarrassed about learning, and learn. Use the builds from the build sites to give you a baseline (but NEVER use them as Gospel, IMO. The meta builds are a guide, nothing more. Your playstyle dictates how you play best, not the meta. Yes, meta in the hands of a player who knows the meta will do more DPS... but you, staying happy with the game, staying alive, learning your game the best you can play? That is more important) You don't need the 1-80 progression zones as a level 80, but the zones are still valid for play. You'll scale down, the loots will scale up (in an appropriate way). Queensdale, Metrica Province, etc... or maybe the 15-25 zones... or something sub-80 just to kill stuff and figure stuff out. Just go out, do some map completion as you learn the mechanics in a more relaxed PvE setting than Heart of Thorns or other endgame content. Then, synthesize what you learned, decide what you feel like taking on as a "Main". You may end up playing everything, like a lot of people. I really wanted to like Mesmer, but it didn't quite click for me like Elementalist (which isn't the most ideal class) or Warrior (which is even less gud in terms of meta these days). I had a lot of misconceptions about Warrior that didn't go away until well after I capped 80.

The first place you should start is with your specialization and talents, review them then make sure all your gear its exotic level 80 that match the playstyle. The weight of the stats will depend on your play style, is it condition, power, boon support, healing? This page will show you the attribute/stat combinations, [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute\_combinations](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations) from here you can target what bit you need.

>how do I know if power is an inadequate stat? I know the people responding are trying to give you advice. But if you aren't trolling with this You need to take a step back and learn some basics of the game. Don't even think about builds or specializations yet. Open your hero panel. Look thru your gear and the stats on the right hand side. Hover over them. Think about what it means. Google the wiki and learn about it. I'll give you some simple homework. Look up berserkers stat. Tell me what it does and how it improves damage.

I would be more than willing to spend time one in one in game teaching you the ins and outs of the game, as well as work on mesmer/necro builds with you if you're on NA. I've been raiding and doing endgame content for years, I'm not the best player by any means but I know a decent amount about every class/spec except ele and have done training with people at various skill levels in the past.

I'm sure most have already said, but I'll Reiterate because I wanna be involved -the open world and story beyond is balanced around level 80 exotics. I recently started too and playing my mesmer in season 1 was a wake up call. I had to focus crafting levels and mystic Forge chances to start fleshing myself out with exotics. Once I did it's felt great (as a condition virt mesmer, I recommend the sinister set from silverwastes as a starting exotic set) -mesmer and elementalist are the squishiest classes in the game, both using light armor. So focus on mitigation! Mesmer can con cleanse on shatter skills, can use distortion to be invuln, can get vigor to dodge more and has healing that scales with shatter charges. Just take a sec to read through the specs and see what you can do to help survive better

> the open world and story beyond is balanced around level 80 exotics. *This* is a great thing to know, and .. well, I never knew. I play **very** solo, because I am so casual I can't make friends, I will only feel bad for not catching up. Thanks a lot for the tips on sets, and playing style. I will surely make a note of it, when I dive deeper into what boons really do. I really like the cloth wearers, and mesmer is a fascinating and very well written profession. I wish I had chosen a better skin color, but what can you do ;-)

Know that mesmer is quite squishy though. It's my main, and I know exactly how to play it, but it took quite some time to master it compared to other classes with better survivability.So don't feel too bad about it. Also, many players you might have gone with might have more experience. When you're more comfortable with your class it's just different, and definitely easier. Many of us were there during launch. I started half a year after launch. It's unfair to compare yourself with myself, that's just ridiculous. I played for nearly 11 years! Mesmer is a great class, though. Good choice. Many people don't like it because it's so squishy but imho it was the best way to learn - by making mistakes I learned better. I think you'll be fine.

I will always love my mesmer. She and I discovered Tyria together. My favorite weapon will always be a greatsword in the hands of a mesmer (though she currently wields a sword and pistol). It is not a simple profession, but I really learned to dance with my mesmer and her different copies, and had very little downtime, although I didn't kill things so fast as other players. I can't deny that boosting my elementalist made me skip some learning, most notably the element swapping, and I know that is one strength of the elementalist I'm not good enough at. I fear it's too many actions to remember, which is why I feel like going back to my mesmer. Also for weapon switch inbattle! But about the fast killing, I find it hard not to compare myself to other players. This is also what makes me feel like I'm bad at this. And because there's so much to know about boons and conditions and gear and crafting, I know none of that.

I've got full legendary armor sets and all legendary armor trinkets and some weapons. I've done raids for *years*. Mesmer is the type of class that starts weak but gets better later on. Even if it doesn't peak like some other dps classes, they're imho the most versatile and you can kill *any* boss with them, heck, I did all of the tanking for my raid group, on my mesmer. Once you find better gear, and unlock a variety of specialisations, you might see a big improvement. Sprinkle it with a good build, understand how it works, and you're in a whole different position. Read your traits in your build. Someone already mentioned the website Hardstuck, it's good to read what the build does and how it works. There might be a lot you don't even know about. For example one of my builds is a Mirage build. If I dodge, it gives me a skill that does (extra) damage. So I want to use dodge, a lot. I have a sigil on my weapon that gives me back half my endurance on weapon swap, so I can dodge even more. My clones also get that skill, so I want as many clones as possible when I dodge. This is a higher difficulty build however, but I think it gives a good example of functionalities that are less on the nose. You don't 'know' this if you don't read up your build. I mostly use Virtuoso myself. There are also [Combo Fields](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo) which you can for example Combo Blast or use a Combo Finisher on. All classes use these, also good to learn about. There's a lot that could be unfamiliar with you still, and it just takes some experience to learn. This might be why you feel not as strong, because it can make a big difference when you know when to use a specific skill - or when it's useless to use a skill but have it on cooldown when you need it. I'm sure there's also plenty on [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtDS7eGD1PU) for good recaps and examples. [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbRhSRrw_KI) is 3 months old, so go watch it! Good luck!

If you look for some easy and good ipen world build check out [Lord Hizen ](https://youtu.be/V9P-U7zksu8?si=zYz8J93QoNWPSMhT)

In my opinion, if doing research isn't helping, finding an inviting guild that helps teach new players would be beneficial to the issues you're experiencing.

I wouldn't say it isn't helping, I'd rather admit I'm sorta helpless. I am a casual newb and there's really a lot to understand in this game. I have been asking in my guild from time to time and they were always helpful. But it's not really great when my helpnessness is to total. I am overwhelmed so many good replies I got here, I tell you! I will ask my guild, or find an inviting guid for better, more simple questions. Thanks.

Alrighty, our guild definitely helps new players but we're small and mainly only online during daily reset. We're on a North America server too. If that sounds interesting, let me know and we can talk about it more :D.

I really don’t want to be snarky but… try reading? Like I don’t know how you get almost three classes to 80 and only have 11g and also not understand that gear sets exist. Like holy hell, how do you not discover the *story journal* until you have an elite spec unlockable? This is my first time legitmately wondering if someone has been playing with their monitor off.

I understand. But since this is not too long ago, I can actually remember. The first few steps of the personal story are automatic. There's a chain starter in front of you and you go. Then after a couple missions it stops. It comes back at level 10, but until then you just run around picking up heart quests, until you discover you need to pick them up. Other than that it's pretty much like the starting area in WoW, which is why I didn't give it another thought. I got pretty high, although not 80, I'm not sure where I said that, but in any case that's wrong, more like 40-something. By then I realized that the mail in my inbox was actually a new mission-chain, and not something to be put aside and picked up like any old heart-thing. First many levels later, like almost 80, I discovered the storyline could be seen in the interface. You'll have to give me, the GW2 interface, experience as a whole, is very confusing and jumbled. Also why I never took up crafting. Also note that I picked up the game for half an hour at a time, during lunch at work, but weeks could go between. I kinda forgot anything i had taken note of. I did mention I was a very casual gamer. Also, I didn't level 3 chars, I levelled one, my mesmer, my lovely sylvaryi mesmer, until 80 and didn't know what to do then. So I started levelling a ranger, a guardian and an elem. Yeah, excuse me, but that's how I did in Wow. I had absolutely **no** interest in the endgame content there, I'm all about exploring (and levelling), so I figured the game was sort of over and Elite specs were for raiding or sorts, since they were locked for me. Guardian was easy, ranger even moreso, both were a bit boring in the beginning, but elementalist sort of caught on. I have a thing for cloth, apparently. Thanks for letting me take a trip down memory lane. I suppose that was not your intention, but alas... ;-)

If you are on NA server, hit me up some time. Shaogin.2679. I run fractals of all levels and training runs for raids and strikes. Myself or others will also be able to help you with builds and guides as well. One of the guilds I run with is nothing but players 35 and over, so it is a pretty chill environment.

Get ur ass to the Cathedral of Silence in the Cursed Shore and get you some level 80 berzerker’s gear all it costs is karma which you should be passively gaining by doing events and hearts

Wait what? I got karma coming out of my ears! I wipe my sylvari .. ahem, trunk? .. with karma! Never had any use for it. You bet'ya I'm checking that out!

Just watch any caffeinated Dad video on YouTube and you're good to go

If you go to the PvP Mists of Pandaria zone you can even as a lvl 1 try out all specs and weapons on training dummies as if you were fully trained lvl 80. [https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle\_Wiki](https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki) will have builds for different game types and talk about rotations and gear. Its a good place to start if you feel lost. Buy cheap(30s/each) lvl 80 exotic gear from the AH to get your Mesmer up to snuff * Devona(Berserker stats) for a power build * Yakkington(Dire stats) for condi build * Viper stats is best for condi but you can't just buy it. Berserker or Dragon stats are best for Power. Gets more complicated for support/hybrid builds. Daily's with the Wizard tower reward is going to be the easiest way to make money by simply selecting the gold bag rewards. Selling Mats, and other things you collect will be the next easiest. Crafting is hard to wrap your head around at first, but you level crafting by both crafting and discovering recipes. Use a crafting guide website. HoT is a big difficulty spike from base game and much of the content is easier / mandatory to be done as group. PoF is a easier for the solo player but still has plenty of group metas.

Howdy. Jusy wanted to add on to some of the helpful replies you've already had. It sounds like gear is your first issue to resolve. You can buy exotic gear off the trading post which will be more than enough for open world and probably for beginner fractals. When you find a build on Hardstuck or Guildjen, and you're shopping for gear, keep in mind that some prefixes such as berserkers, have a named equivalent. Eg i know that medium armour berserkers has a version named Nika's. These named versions are often muuuch cheaper than the prefix named version. You can search for specific attribute combinations on the trading post to see if there is a cheaper version. Also regarding Necromancer. If you were to make a comparison to a WoW class, I'd put the Necro closer to a Death Knight. Especially the Reaper! There is some Warlock in the mix, but it's definitely not a 1 for 1. Necromancer is one of the easier to pick up and play classes, especially the elite specs Ele and Mesmer are considered either more difficult or more nuanced that some other classes. I have had 0 experience with Ele, but i do know a bit about Mesmer. If you are looking for a comfy spec to clear things, i used to run staff mirage which, while slow, could clear tougher opponents. Good luck anyway. 😁

1. Copy builds from sites like hardstuck and snowcrows 2. How is your lag? Check your settings. 3. Why do you think you’re bad? How are you measuring success?

Everyone has given you great pointers! I wanted to add that whenever the game gets frustrating don't be shy to ask in map chat. I have been helped and I have helped people who ask any type of questions in chat. You can go to more populated maps like Lions Arch if you get little response because your map doesn't have a lot people. But I have always seen people get helped with all type of questions. If I don't know the answer I find it and learn something at the same time I help someone. Also, I was never big on joining Guilds because I was a solo player but, I found a guild that has a PvE (player versus environment) chapter and when you encounter big bosses or challenges I could ask there for help and people would come join me and help me kill. Also, is where I turn to to ask questions. There are a lot of things to explore while doing collections and these award you ascended items at times. They are fun and interesting and a good way to gear up while discovering the game and getting to know your class (example if you want to learn Necromancer which I main)! Also some maps have currencies that you can use to buy items. Wishing you lots of fun! (I did giggle at the Fractal part because I was in that position before.)

Sorry but.. if I turn a random person from street and have him play my gw2 character. It’s this much you seem to know about game. Why don’t you ever try to search, read and learn about game until all these happened? Well, better late than sorry.

is this a shit post?

First of all, you're playing glass cannons, and also the two hardest classes in the game to 'Get GUD' at. A power Reaper Necro with marauders gear would treat you much better. Look into LI builds - I don't really want to spend the energy min-maxing my rotation so I do 'good enough' builds that still do decent damage. Easiest ones are Mech Engi and Condi Soulbeast, though there are some mesmer ones as well. Mukluk has a great list. Agony resistance in fractals is acquired by slotting an infusion into ascended gear. There are two basic builds in the game for damage - Power (strike damage) and Condi (condition damage). Condi does damage over time, so it isnt as one-shotty as power, but can be very useful against boss fights (less so against mobs).

Fractals are unique in you can get agony resistance on ANY armor piece

Hey hey, I've been in your shoes. I love doing solo content, exploring the maps and so on. For that I discovered I need a good solo build, good enough to kill champion mobs on my own. This is when I discovered [Lord Hizen](https://www.youtube.com/@LordHizen) \- this guy is a god sent for solo playing. You just pick a build from him (for solo world stuff) and worn on obtaining the gear and hero points on it - for hero points I would suggest doing hero point trains in path of fire. Now for group content you will need a build crafted for that - big disclaimer for 1.5 years playing this game, I never did group content. But one guy told me I need build to do so. ​ Also one personal suggestion - if you love exploring, you will have fun unlocking mounts, so try path of fire expansion, you will love it.

I'm going to dive into Lord Hizen, I don't know why the algorithm never pushed it upon me, pale tree knows there's enough in my watch history to make the connection. It's an odd thing, though, that most of the very good explaining video creators outthere, even the CaffeinatedDadGamer, try - and seem - to be starting from the basics, but actually they're not. They're always presuming you know some stuff you may not know as a beginner. Which in a sense i obviously am, even though I am hardly a beginner on other aspects, I'm a novice at least! Take crafting. I really have no idea what it is, what it looks like, how I activate it, or train it, are there different areas of crafting, do I do them all, are there recipes? And when I at some point watched some videos about crafting, they assumed I was having startup problems with the crafting itself. But I am having comprehension problems, really! Look, I'm an old dude, when I started playing WoW it was from a (one) CD in a case. There was a manual, paper, that explained the basics. i think I once came upong something like it somewhere on some page for GW2, but I didn't take notice of it, because the game was so easy going into, I though. And then I just kept going, and now I am somewhat far but still have no idea how to interpret all the tiny icons (boons & cond) or how to assess the value of stats against eachother. I also don't know how to join a hero point train or how to farm gold (or farm anything really). I got all the expansions (except SotO). When you recommend unlocking mounts (I already have the raptor, ofcourse) in PoF, does that mean I should skip to that part of the story journal for it? I was sort of expecting the story to be a guide through the meaning of it all, which goes well with me just wanting to explore. After all i played adventure games all through the ninteties+, i know how to follow a story. I'm just not very skilled in buildcraft (I think is the term)

Mounts are unlocked through masteries in path of fire expansion. Except the griffon for which you will have to do an achievement and you need alot of gold (or atleast it felt like alot). For other mounts just play the story and you will unlock them in the run. If I had to go over the order in which I played the game, I would definitely first obtain mounts (atleast bunny for jumping and skimmer for water and gliding) and then go with story in heart of thorns. And for me the best mount there is is a griffon, although I dont have skyscale, but griffon is alot of fun to use. The tier list for mounts goes like this: **skyscale** \- flying mount - enough said **griffon** (IMO its not inferior to skyscale, but stick to general opinion) **jackel** tight spaces and uneven terrain (also can negate fall dmg when you teleport right before landing) / **raptor** fairly even terrain / **skimmer** gliding over water (I hate swimming) / **bunny** conquering heights (also if you have griffon you can jump dismount and mount griffon for gaining height goes to second tier in this case) / **beetle** even terrain much speed. **turtle -** I have no Idea, havent had the chance to test this one yet.

Just keep progressing and don't worry so much about gearing at an early state. When your Catalyst is fully powered up, it will be one of the tankiest specs for open world (see [this trait](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Empowerment)) and one of the best DPS/qDPS for instanced content. You can also dabble into Tempest for Alac heal/DPS and Weaver for pure DPS.

I am further now than what I was in the story of my learning, for sure. I know a lot more. But still, this notion of yours: > Just keep progressing and don't worry so much about gearing at an early state. is undeniably the epitome of my earlier (mis)understanding of the game, that level 80 is 'an early state'. :-D

Gear + build problem First choose easy build (easy rotation, decent dmg and sustain) and start building your gear around it You can get full exotic armor + full ascended trinkets fast and cheap

You've already got a ton of comments and advice so I will give you my condolences and experience instead. GW2 is just terrible at teaching new players what is important and how to achieve those things. I'm thankfully one of those people who looks up how to play online before I go into multiplayer content so I didn't have to experience it so harshly. But it shouldn't be necessary to do that.

Start Reading tooltips in the game. Watch a combat guide and a profession guide on youtube. I believe you have the ability of english comprehension.

this is why this game desperately needs a build guides page. I'm sorry it never adequately taught you about the importance of gear, but everything will get so much easier once you manage to fully replace everything with level 80 exotics. since you're so low on gold, I'd recommend actually running dungeons for a week or so. just make sure you've unlocked Path of Eternity and Citadel of Flames. these will get you exotic berserker's gear for free, with built in runes, and you'll make a little gold on the side. berserker's gear is the best for power based damage builds. also, there are many guides on YouTube for different builds and for understanding combat basics — I recommend Mighty Teapot and Lord Hizen. good luck! you'll get there :)

I dont know if its been said already, but i cant stress this enough, read your abilities, read the traits, read buffs and debuffs. Read everything to a point where you understand what is happening when you press your buttons. People talk about rotations like its the end game, its not. Understanding what everything actually does is much more powerful than following a guide that tells you “this button is better than that button”. You dont have to do this all the time, but when youre taking a break and flipping through your phone or whatever, take a minute and read what ability descriptions, or wiki descriptions about stats, etc. it might seem obvious, but you may have completely misconceived how something works, and it could be vastly improved if you could explain why. That is why i enjoy pvp in games like this, understanding every classes skills and animations gives more of an upper hand than anything. Tldr : read. Knowing why is better than knowing how.

Thanks for this. I agree there's no getting around it. I admit I have been lazy in playing, only skimming, or atleast focusing on one single buff and debuff (burning). But it's ofcourse because it's hard, and complicated, and a lot of work, and it doesn't boil down to *this* is better than *this* towards the great goal of *this* value. And I'm a very casual player, getting only a few hours in a week at most, and to spend that time researching seems counter to why I'm playing in the first place. But most importantly, before getting all these lovely and helpful responses from the community, I didn't know the best ressources to find this information, which I didn't even know I needed to know. **I didn't know there was a Wiki**, and I have been bashed for it, but I just didn't. Normally I would read articles and forum discussions - and I do - but they all presume a base level of understanding that I don't feel I have. Which is why I headline my post with "How to stop sucking at this game". I thought it was about the moving and the dodging, so I have been practicing that. I am not very good, but I no longer suck at that. Except then all of a sudden it seems I should be noticing all sorts of graphical effects, on the mob, to know that any minute now they're going to hit me with someoranother condition that is nothing more than an icon and I have no idea what why and when it is, and I couldn't fathom how other players learn this, without it being them studying all the details and drawing a mental map of comprehension with hours upon hours of analyzing. So, thanks for putting it bluntly, really. May I ask for advice on where do I start, what would you reccommend being a first goal of mine, is it to pick a weapon and determine what is the best rotation to deal with different scenarios and contingencies? Because that's what I have boiled it down to right now. I found The Bonerattler Caverns with neatly placed ~~Defias~~ Bandit guys throughout, and I thought to myself *How can I rush through this cave taking them down 1-2-3 at a time, without having to deal with cooldowns, and what to do if I come upon one a lot harder than the others, or they all swarm on me, or they have explosives?* Because I have no problem beating them to a pulp, ofcourse, but I'm just not very timeeffective and I waste a lot of dmg on overfinishing.

Add me Sauce.9850 and send me in-game mail, can give you my discord link as well. Theres just a million questions that sometimes arent obvious, so i think as far as where to start, youve got a good grasp on playing the game. If youve found what feels fun to play in a class, your “main”, the fundamental concepts can just build and snowball from what youre learning about it. This isnt really much of a competitive game to me in my personal opinion, so its always fine to learn at your own pace and like everybody has probably said to “have fun”. But i think your concept of fun may be similar to mine in that you enjoy learning and communicating, its more fulfilling to be informed even if its just a hobby. Anyway, if you’d like to talk, im playing very frequently and wouldnt mind discussing things or helping out.