Feeling Overwhelmed in Guild Wars 2?

A mess of cables coming out the back of a patch panel

It’s common for new Guild Wars 2 players to feel completely overwhelmed. Don’t worry. This is normal and understandable! Every player has felt that way, at one time or another.

Personal Story

Have you done all the Personal Story you can? New chunks of GW2 Personal Story unlock at every 10th level. If you haven’t done “story,” go do it now!

Personal Story is designed to help guide you through the game. It’s also a great way to get new gear, tons of rewards, and the XP you need to level up.

Overall Strategy

Pick the thing you like to do the most, and do it. Ignore everything else for now.

  • Hate crafting? Ignore it for now.
  • Not enjoying Personal Story? Skip it.
  • Love exploring out maps but hate doing map completion? Run around unlocking waypoints. That way, you can come back and do the rest when you feel like it.

There’s no wrong way to play Guild Wars 2!

Choosing Gear

Confused by all the options available for weapons, armor, and upgrades (sigils and runes)? It’s a lot. Also, every time you ask someone for advice, you get a different answer.

Option 1: Decide not to worry about it! Just get gear that’s appropriate for your character’s level, and don’t sweat the details of stats and buffs and all that. Particularly in PVE, if you look at the big picture, the difference between the “best” and the “worst” gear is minimal.

Option 2: Get Berserker’s everything. This loadout is known as “full zerk,” and it’s been a valid, winning strategy since the earliest days of the game. Berserker’s gear lets you kill enemies quickly. Yes, you’ll be a little less durable. However, the consensus is that the best strategy is to kill your enemies as quickly as possible, so you don’t get hit.

Option 2A: If you die too much as “full zerk,” swap in a few pieces of Soldier’s gear. Adding some Soldier’s reduces your power, but makes you more durable.

Option 3: Look up a build, and use the recommended gear. We recommend the SnowCrows and MetaBattle builds.

Setting Up a Build

Every class has an exhausting list of skills, traits, and weapons that you can use in seemingly infinite combinations. How do you choose what build to use?

Option 1: Don’t worry about it. Unless you’re doing raids, builds aren’t as big a deal as some people make them out to be. Any “grar” you see about builds in dungeons is entirely out of date. Power creep has made dungeon builds irrelevant. Anyone can faceroll anything in PVE or dungeons these days.

Option 2: Look up a build, and learn how to use it. We recommend the SnowCrows builds.

Finding and Joining a Guild

Are you thinking of joining a guild? Not sure where to start? I wish I had some advice for you. Guilds can be a great way to make friends, socialize, learn more about the game, and find people to do missions with you. They can also be a source of drama, aggravation, and frustration.

There’s no real way to find or evaluate a guild up front. If you’re curious about joining a guild, keep an eye on map chat for recruitment messages, and respond to any that look interesting.

Find Help

We specialize in helping new players get sorted in Guild Wars 2. Check out our articles on subjects from crafting to holiday festivals. Follow us on Facebook to get notified when we publish new articles.

Photo by John Barkiple on Unsplash

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