Is GW2 Noob friendly? Contols / Abilities

[zurgs]

In terms of controls / keybinds it is nice and easy, you generally have less skills than most MMOs (though still more than certain face roll classes use in some MMOs, especially those that have ezmode macro systems), and even the professions with more skills (engineer & Ele) largely swap in skills to the 1-5 weapon slot. so you don't need any extra keybinds. There is dodge, bu tthat is only one extra keybind.

However to be any good at it, especially in PvP, requires more, you need to know the combo fields & finshers (there are 36 combinations), positioning and movement are generally much more important, you need to be much more aware of range, because in most MMOs, if you are out of range, the skill won't fire, in GW2 it does, so you've just wasted a cooldown, you'l also have to deal with cooldowns that you can't see and that there are no addons to play the game for you.

[theredviola]

Guild Wars 2 dose have a learning cerve but its not a hard one. Once u get use to dodging and weapon swamping the rest comes easy. I will say if you play a melee class make ur other weapon a range for when u need to kite things at a distance.

And, don't forget about your cross profession combos that you can perform by yourself. For example: a thief can throw down a smoke field then use heart seeker (a leap finisher) to go stealth. This opens up 1 of 3 powerful main hand abilities from stealth. Experiment with your prof and your own combos if you find a quest, or a mob, is killing you.

[lilatia]

Learning to strafe well is the only real keyboard skill you need for gw2. Your main attacks and heal are all on the 1-6 keys and weapon swap is the tilde key. For movement it's the same setup as wow. You can keyboard turn and strafe or mouse turn and move as to your preference

[Methias]

Speaking from a PvE standpoint, I would say it's "n00b" friendly to get into myself. I will however also mention that certain classes WILL make it harder as the leveling process goes on. The Elementalist, for instance, will die like a rampaging whore if you don't play it correctly and you're alone. So will all the other classes, but Elementalists in particular aren't too forgiving. I hear the same about Mesmers too (I've only played one for a little while, but as strong as it is errors can seemingly get you killed). Warriors on the other hand you can quite effectively face tank as long as you're not fighting excessive amount of mobs. The difficulty will come in how well suited you are for your class, in all honesty, and how well you can get out of the "Holy crap I'm gonna die" attacks. In any case, I enjoy the game. Difficulty irrelevant. You can't really go wrong for a buy which doesn't even have a subscription fee.

On the clicking front, my uncle leveled a Necro to 80 and got him mostly... Oranged... Up. He himself is a clicker so it certainly is possible, albeit now he is using the keyboard a lot more. I'd say give it a try and it'll eventually click for ya. And don't be afraid to try out all the classes! Long story short: Easy to get into, certain professions will be more difficult than others however. The game can be done by a clicker. Have fun ^^

[Salech]

In normal PvE, outdoor events and other things, you can play any class that way. Most of the time I don't even keep my left hand on the keyboard because...well, you just don't need to. =/

It's to the point where I play every night in a "The Thinker" pose. I wish I had to interact more, but the more I interact, the more and more trivial it becomes.

I just don't believe you, unless you are a ranged proffession and only doing hearts, which is not even a good measure of what to do. Let us see you use 1 hand only when fighting the Fire Elemental in Metrica Provinse, or 1 of the numerous others that requires you to be on your toes.

[Bovinity Divinity]

Let us see you use 1 hand only when fighting the Fire Elemental in Metrica Provinse, or 1 of the numerous others that requires you to be on your toes.

Fire Elemental is the only outdoor boss that I've found to be interesting, and I've said so many times on this board.

Sadly, all people in Metrica do day in and day out is whine about how it's dumb and impossible and unfair, so I expect a nerf.

[Kelesti]

Fire Elemental is the only outdoor boss that I've found to be interesting, and I've said so many times on this board.

Sadly, all people in Metrica do day in and day out is whine about how it's dumb and impossible and unfair, so I expect a nerf.

It is a bit ridiculous in only one regard: The average player won't have (or seeing as it's a beginner zone, even know they should have) both a stun break and short cooldown self-condition removal.

If more things hit like the fire elemental did, hard, no telegraph, and requiring split second responses or you're going to die after it, well, Explorables might be a bit more interesting. Two manning the five phase Flame Shaman meta event gave a similar feel to the Metrica Fire Elemental, and that's disregarding the fact that the Flame Shaman turns into one himself.

[Bovinity Divinity]

If more things hit like the fire elemental did, hard, no telegraph, and requiring split second responses or you're going to die after it, well, Explorables might be a bit more interesting.

The Fire Elemental is an interesting study into just how overpowered players really are in PvE. Here you've got a monster that drops meteors on players heads. Big firey meteor things that do enough damage between the impact and fire AE to kill anyone.

Yet between immunities and dodges and self-heals and whatnot, it takes several failures for someone to actually die to being hit by one, and even then they're still not really dead! It often takes ANOTHER meteor on their head to finish them off, and even then they're sitting there invulnerable and just seconds away from being healed back up if people can get to them.

It's why I believe that PvE content is going to be insanely hard for A.Net to balance in the end. Players are simply too powerful. Dodge is an insanely strong mechanic that counters everything, the downed state is basically like Ardent Defender with no cooldown for every class, and being dead is really more like just a long duration incapacitate than actually being killed.

[Merendel]

The Fire Elemental is an interesting study into just how overpowered players really are in PvE. Here you've got a monster that drops meteors on players heads. Big firey meteor things that do enough damage between the impact and fire AE to kill anyone.

Yet between immunities and dodges and self-heals and whatnot, it takes several failures for someone to actually die to being hit by one, and even then they're still not really dead! It often takes ANOTHER meteor on their head to finish them off, and even then they're sitting there invulnerable and just seconds away from being healed back up if people can get to them.

It's why I believe that PvE content is going to be insanely hard for A.Net to balance in the end. Players are simply too powerful. Dodge is an insanely strong mechanic that counters everything, the downed state is basically like Ardent Defender with no cooldown for every class, and being dead is really more like just a long duration incapacitate than actually being killed.

I disagree with your assessment. From my experience with that fight if you fail to dodge the metor and go down to the AOE your just a couple seconds from full defeated. Yes allied players can try to revive you but unless you droped on the edge of the field they either have to blow an immunity to try and revive you or they are just going to join you on the floor. If they wait out the AOE so they can help you up safely you've already died to the AOE. Going down only grants you a second of immunity from damage before you start takeing it agian.

While I can somewhat accept the coralation of downed to ardent defender its still only a potential save from one shot mechanics. IF whatever killed you decides to finish you off and your allies cant get it off you your still dead. It also does have a CD, you can burn it a couple times in a row but if used too often you just go strait down and each of those sucessive times you have a narrower window to be saved. Same deal with dodge, its powerful but burn it too often and it isnt there when you need it. Frankly an argument could be made that Healers in other MMO's are too powerful as the healer mechanic counters nearly everything that could kill you. the main difference here is everybody involved in an encounter must take active responsibility vs a few takeing most of the load with the rest just haveing to not stand in bad stuff for too long.

[Elite Peon]

Noob friendly and also repetitive and boring ...uninstalled at 80

[Bovinity Divinity]

I disagree with your assessment. From my experience with that fight if you fail to dodge the metor and go down to the AOE your just a couple seconds from full defeated. Yes allied players can try to revive you but unless you droped on the edge of the field they either have to blow an immunity to try and revive you or they are just going to join you on the floor. If they wait out the AOE so they can help you up safely you've already died to the AOE. Going down only grants you a second of immunity from damage before you start takeing it agian.

While I can somewhat accept the coralation of downed to ardent defender its still only a potential save from one shot mechanics. IF whatever killed you decides to finish you off and your allies cant get it off you your still dead. It also does have a CD, you can burn it a couple times in a row but if used too often you just go strait down and each of those sucessive times you have a narrower window to be saved. Same deal with dodge, its powerful but burn it too often and it isnt there when you need it. Frankly an argument could be made that Healers in other MMO's are too powerful as the healer mechanic counters nearly everything that could kill you. the main difference here is everybody involved in an encounter must take active responsibility vs a few takeing most of the load with the rest just haveing to not stand in bad stuff for too long.

Naturally it's not a completely perfect comparison, but surely you get the general idea.