{"id":133758,"date":"2012-08-24T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-24T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jbsgame.com\/your-guide-to-guild-wars-2\/"},"modified":"2012-08-24T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T20:00:00","slug":"your-guide-to-guild-wars-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jbsgame.com\/your-guide-to-guild-wars-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Your guide to Guild Wars 2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With the Guild Wars 2<\/em> headstart beginning tomorrow, many of you will be playing the game for the first time. Some of you may still be on the fence about whether to purchase it or not (hint: you should). If you haven’t played in any of the beta weekends, or even if you have and just didn’t have much time to explore, there are a number of things about Guild Wars 2<\/em> you need to know that aren’t directly apparent.<\/p>
We often joke about a “right way” and a “wrong way” to play games, but it’s a concept that I truly believe applies to Guild Wars 2<\/em>. It may look similar to other MMOs — you’ll see a few quests, some hotbars, traditional MMO classes — but the fundamental mechanics stray significantly from most other games in the genre.<\/p>
Unfortunately, the game itself doesn’t exactly hold your hand. If you try to play Guild Wars 2<\/em> like World of Warcraft <\/em>or the Old Republic<\/em>, looking for connect-the-dots quest chains to grind out, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself confused, frustrated, and wondering what the big deal is.<\/p>
Don’t worry, I’m here to help.<\/p>
<\/p>
If you have any familiarity with other fantasy MMOs, here’s the most important thing you need to know when selecting a character: the Trinity is dead.<\/p>
There are no “tanks,” or people whose job it is to soak up damage and manage aggro and threat, no dedicated “healers,” and no classes whose purpose is to dump out damage and do nothing else. This seems to be the number one biggest thing that people don’t understand, even when I explain it to them, so I want to reiterate: the Trinity is dead. Everything you know about tanks, healers, and DPS is wrong.<\/p>
When I say that, I should be clear about what I mean. It’s not that there is a “different kind of tanking.” There is no tanking. Monsters can and will regularly attack everyone in the party, and everyone has a responsibility to mitigate or avoid the damage. There’s not a “different kind of healing.” Everyone has a self heal, and can spec to also have some weak group heals on long cooldowns, but healing is not and will not be a central focus of your gameplay, beyond your own responsibility to occasionally heal yourself.<\/p>
Every class is capable of dealing serious damage, and every class has the ability to act in a support capacity, throwing buffs (positive status effects) on their allies and debuffs (negative status effects) on their enemies (called “boons” and “conditions” in Guild Wars 2<\/em>). And most classes have the ability to hand out some minor healing or regeneration to allies. Despite the notion of everyone being able to do “everything,” each class feels quite different from one other because of the weapons they are able to use and their unique mechanics, so the best thing for you to do is read up on the classes and pick which one sounds most interesting<\/a>.<\/p>