Guild Wars 2 Elite Specs Gave Me a Headache 

To be honest. I think you're making a mistake by trying to grasp it all at the same time. There is indeed a lot of information, i think it would help for you to focus on one thing. Since you started with necro, just play with it, level it up and get one elite specialisation unlocked, look into builds and gears. Once you've seen it on one character, I will become a lot easier to grasp it for other classes.

1. You don't NEED to use the weapon that is paired with the elite spec, you can mix and match however you want. Build diversity in this game is by far the craziest of any MMO out there. There are SO many variations of weapons, specs, traits, skills, gear stats, runes, sigils, and relics and every single spec has multiple great builds that feel very different to play. 2. Elite specs are a bit like advanced classes, so they're usually stronger than the base class, but that doesn't mean you can't be viable with your base class if you like it. Elite specs do feel a lot more fun to play for the majority though, base classes haven't changed much besides balance since 2012. 3. If you play the game for the forseable future, chances are you'll max out atleast one of each class. Most ppl are altoholics and will change what they play depending on what their group requires, and gearing multiple characters is very easy.

the person that explained gw2 to me the best was mighty teapot's zero to hero series where he starts from scratch and walks you through the thoughtprocesses of from the beginning to being a raid master and farming gold, and all the meta stuff in between

I'd recommend just playing, hitting 80 on 1 class, picking a spec that seems fun, and going from there. You don't need to understand everything all at once, and you can't make a wrong choice since you cam eventually unlock everything.

I think a lot of people who come from other MMOs struggle to understand that Profession in GW2 isn't their role, but rather the character's theming. Like Necromancers are edgy goths, Elementalists are the Avatar, Warriors are meatheads, Engineers are tinkering nerds, and Rangers are nature lovers. But what determines your role is your build, not your class. So a Necro can be power DPS, condition DPS, or healer based on their choices in weapons, armor stats, traits, and utility skills. Elite specs are a big part of the build and kind of pushes you into certain roles while also slightly modifying the theme- like mashing two professions together. Reaper is kind of like a Necro that becomes possessed by a Warrior in their shroud. Harbinger is like a Necro that dropped out of Engineering school, but still remembers their potion mixing alchemy class.

Don’t let anybody discourage you by saying you’re making mistakes or overthinking things 😅 I think the path for every Guild Wars 2 player looks something like this: 1. Realize how huge the game is 2. Go down an obsessive rabbit hole consuming content to try to get the best start 3. Realize that it’s more than you could ever hope to grasp without experience 4. Acceptance and growth 5. Revisiting the content a year later after you have some hours under your belt, and having it be reframed in your mind and suddenly make sense Happy trails with the greatest MMO ever made!

wait till he finds out about combo fields 😂

"does anyone have this game mastered" Bro I've been playing this game since launch, I have over 4000 hours into it, and I still learn new things every day.

I went into GW2 blind. And picked Ele. Of all things to pick, I picked Ele. EDIT: At 28:00 You mentioned that no amount of videos will teach you how to play these elite specs. You are correct. You have to actually be in game and play them to actually feel if you like the class or not. It's kind of hard to see that "it" factor if you're just processing the information in your head. 29:45 Lord Hizen, probably lol. That guy plays most of the multiplayer content solo and has broken some builds to the point that they were nerfed.

I hope he gets to see teapot's "Guild Wars 2 Ultimate Beginner's Guide Episode 2: Combat" which could be more relevant to new players still in the leveling process.

(Paraphrased): "Do people still play the core classes without specializations?" Yes. I mean, there are many I see but the beauty of this game is that you can choose to use specializations or not as you like. I main a ranger, and love the core class... but I've switched to Druid now and then because it can offer a light bit of healing in cases where healing people close to a target is needed. ("Do not let this NPC ally die!" "Got it. Healing staff don't fail me now!") There's no wrong way to play your class in PvE, unless you're playing it in a way to actively try to screw up events. It's PvP (or WvW) where things change. What's those? Don't worry about it yet. Anyway, the specializations? That's simple in a way while being complicated. You can equip three families of "Traits" which affect how your skills work. Ranger has trait trees which let bows pierce, or spirit allies function better. Each specialization is a separate tree, so you can "plug them in" and just work with them. And in some cases those don't even have to change how you play if you don't use those skills. (For the Ranger is feels like you don't LOSE anything by specializing, just get another option.) So outside of combat you can just flip things around and... basically redo your whole build if you like. The only thing stopping you is maybe that annoying skritt which just poked you into combat mid-swap.

So happy to see a new video on GW2 from you, you have no idea how fast I clicked xD To try explain in a simpler way without further giving you worse headaches: 1. The reason why people still do play core specs (rather than all just going elite): As a general example, imagine if a class has 5 different trait lines: DPS increase, crit chance, better defense, more heals, more buffs You can only choose 3 trait lines to equip at any one time, so you pick DPS, Crit and Defense, making you a super survivable, hard hitting character. You then unlock an elite spec and you want to use it. Because an elite spec IS a new trait line that you _have to equip_ in order to use it, that means you now have to pick _which one of the existing trait lines to replace._ So are you keeping DPs and Crit and replacing Defense, so you're now super hard hitting but less survivable? Or are you keeping Dps and Defence and sacrificing Crit so you still retain survivability? It basically sacrifices a trait slot for you to be able to become that new elite, so in a sense you gain some new mechanics and lose some original traits. This is why Core specs is still used (and even meta for some endgame content!), because sometimes you still want all of the original core traits. 2. A new elite spec isn't locked to the new weapon (e.g. dragonhunter with bow), nor is it necessarily the best weapon for that elite either; it just makes that new weapon now useable by your class (which wasn't originally) and you gain some new skills that you didn't previously have. You are not locked to the new weapon and don't have to use it, and depending on the class and playstyle you pick, sometimes it's not even recommended to use it. 3. Not all elite specs _entirely_ change the mechanics of the core class. Within each class, there's almost always one elite that's "the same but with more OOMPH", and another that's "somewhat in a different flavor", and then maybe one that's "so different it feels almost like an entirely new class". For example: the warrior's elite spec Berzerker, is basically 'warrior, but angrier', while the other elite, the Bladesworn, completely changes your warrior into a steampunk samurai. This system is actually amazing because it allows people who didn't previously like a certain playstyle or aesthetic to find something they do like. Myself for example, I am not interested in the classic barbarian/warrior class, or the thief/assassin class. But I absolutely fell in love with the Bladesworn and the Deadeye (thief elite spec that turns you into a sniper), and these have now become two of my staples next to my mesmer main :) Keep these videos coming, you're on a roll!

Guild Wars 2 is about exploring. That includes not only the world and the story but also your character and you class. Honestly, if you enjoy necro, stick with it until you feel like trying out something new. You will have plenty of time exploring all classes and specs because content won't run away from you. Don't stress yourself too much. Also 1 thing about how the specs work - your base class (or profession if you want to use the gw2 term) is kinda like a subject your character studied. That's their bachelor degree. You will be able to clear/do every content with it. The elite specs are, as the name states, specializations. It's when your character decides to do a master degree after their bachelor and further pursue a special field within their subject. I highly recommend playing the base profession while leveling up to get to understand the fundamentals of it. They will always stay the same throughout that profession. The elite specs just utilize those fundamentals in different ways, making them unique for their sub-field. But you won't understand what you are doing in your master degree, if you haven't built your knowledge around the fundamentals in your bachelor first. Profession -> determines your basic class fantasy Elite Spec -> supports your preferred playstyle of that class fantasy Build and Equipment -> determines your role in specific content and what your character is better at within your playstyle (for example if you are dealing more damage of focus more on healing)

When Secrets of the obscure expansion released all elite spec weapons became usable on all other elite specs for example dragonhunter now can use willbender swords and willbender can use longbow etc. for this to work u also need that expansion purchased

Tanking is a thing, but it only exists as a mechanic for certain raids and strike missions. Most content doesn’t require a tank role. For most endgame content these are the 3 roles required. DPS- they just hit stuff… BOON DPS- (DPS while providing alacrity or quickness) BOON HEAL- (Heals while providing alacrity or quickness) Boons and healing only extend to 5 people, so when organizing 10 man content, people look for 2 boon DPS, 2 boon healers, and 6 pure DPS characters.

>me giggling at the start when you thought the mesmer spec you wanted to play was elementalist lol

I love watching this guy fall in love with the game.

It's so funny and at the same time so good to see @RubesCurbeus talking so passionately about Gw2, even after being almost 2 weeks reluctant to start playing. That's it Boys, we won, he's one of us.

My suggestion (and many other's I'm sure) would be to narrow down your scope. The main questions I would ask myself in your shoes would be "where do I stand right now on the build spectrum?" Do you wanna do damage, provide boons and do damage, or just straight up support? From there I would pick 1-3 classes that interest me (in your case that appears to be necromancer, thief, and elementalist) and start with those and ignore the rest for now. There is more than enough within those 3 classes to keep you occupied for a long time.

In the end game generally, groups are split into 5 each. Each group will have 1 Boon HEAL, 1 Boon DPS (either one providing alacrity or quickness to boost the 3 main DPS damage) and 3 DPS Important to note is that ALL classes can do ALL of those 3 things. It just depends on the elite specialization chosen For example: Reaper is mainly DPS ~43.2k DPS Scourge is either a DPS or ALACRITY Healer (though the DPS doesn't reach as high as reaper or harbinger YET) ~39.6k DPS (May receive a buff which we will never know) Harbinger is either a DPS or QUICKNESS DPS ~44.3k for DPS and ~36.3k for QUICKNESS DPS Data provided are from snowcrows website which are tested in a perfect setting. They can also be found on youtube by searching gw2 benchmark The exception will be Chronomancer as it can provide either QUICKNESS or ALACRITY and be either BOON DPS or HEALER or DPS since its other 2 elite specialization are mainly DPS classes like reaper Just to generalize what the classes do and make it easier for you to understand Hope you get to read this and be less confused about the classes

Welcome to altaholics anonomous. It's a game and fun is not a dirty word.

There is no such thing as holy trinity in this game.

To give a bit of validation here, yes GW2 has a lot of depth to character customization, but any player can still play pretty much whatever they want in open world PVE. What you talk about with how you are building/playing your necro is exactly what players, in my opinion, should do. -Read the tool tips -Experiment with different setups -Do what is fun for them After getting to 80, popping on some lvl 80 exotic gear and weapons, setting up three specs you like, finding some synergy. (Don’t take the staff buffing trait if you don’t use staff). Then ask: do I know how boons and conditions work? In organized PvE group content late game there are basically 3 roles: boon heals, boon dps, and pure dps. Every profession has at least one build that fills these roles. Boon support is divided into two categories based on the most powerful boons “quickness” and “alacrity” any build can only really apply one of these to the group along side the staples of might, fury, swiftness, regen, protection, etc. One complaint about GW2 that I have heard for the last 12 years is that everything boils down to: -stack in a ball -avoid or fully skip/ignore mechanics -keep boon/dps uptime -win.

When using an elite specialization you still have access to the entire base class set of weapons and abilities you just get a new set of skills/weapons that can only be used when that specialization is equipped. Base classes are still entirely viable just think of the base class as its own elite specialization and you can swap to any one of the 3 others or back to the original at anytime to change up your playstyle.

Mukluks channel has a video series called “low intensity” builds they’re great highish dmg for little effort. I used them as springboards before complicated stuff

To your question as to if anyone uses the base specialisations at all, I actually run a Core guardian build on my main as my primary build for general PvE. There are actually a number of good builds around using just the core traitlines for every profession. This means an elite specialisation isn't mandatory, it's just lots of players like to use them because they like the way a specific elite specialisation changes-up the playstyle of their character :) Edited to add: Actually it's easy to tell if someone is running an elite spec and which is it, as their profession icon on their namebar (top of your screen when you've clicked on them) changes to the icon for that elite spec.

In short, elite specs unlock: - A trait line (spec) you upgrade with hero points. Always the last trait line in your build panel ui. - A weapon for your class, which pairs well with the trait line. - New profession skill(s). (F1 - F5 keys) - New healing skill, utilities, and elite skill. Essentially all skills on your bar are replaced. Every class is 4 classes.

Elite specs are often, but not always better. I still play core Axe Necro w/ Blood/Spite/Soul Reaping build w/ Wells and Spectral skills. It's not as focused as Elite specs can be (IE I can't AoE nearly as well as a Reaper) but has solid all-around offense, defense, healing, and crowd control.

I really really love how interested you are and how dedicated you are towards understanding everything. This will take you a long time to really grasp everything but like you said, that's what really pulls you in. Keep up the awesome videos and content! Looking forward to seeing more

39:42 those are not hero points, they're Mastery points, basically used to unlock account-wide stuff. They become relevant starting at the first expansion. (Technically the number is the number of Mastery points you've spent so far, the bar is your mastery XP)

until the SOTO expansion, every elite class gave access to an extra weapon to your core class that was exclusive to it. With SOTO, you can unluck the capacity to use those exclusive weapons while not being that specific elite class. You can still use whatever weapon you want with whatever core class skills, just know that many elite class were build around using the exclusive weapon to some degree. For example; Dragonhunter adds Longbow and Traps so some passive skills will be about giving an extra oumpf to trap skills or reduced cooldown on longbow skills, but you can totally chose not to use either.

7:40 The funny thing is, that they have a Greatsword skin in the shop that looks like the sword of Guts

Every class can be DPS or some form of Support or even some hybrid.

It would be hilarious seeing Boots bad builds break your brain. Most of these builds are totally outdated, but it showcases how creative you can be about stuff to build around. It features two content creators, Boots (the creator of said builds, kind of a mad scientist) and Wooden Potatoes (the rational ultra knowledgable teacher that tells Boots why these builds wouldn't work in reality) and the interesting part is that they explain the puzzle pieces of the builds and try to convince the other that the build works/doesn't work. This gives a nice insight into what goes on under the hood of Guild Wars 2 build crafting. I would maybe recommend something like '[GW2] Bootts' Bad Builds: WAR-HAMMER 40K'

Im sorry for spamming comments, I just comment as I watch the video. 42:41 There are totaly people who can play whatever class and whatever build, but they probably still don't know evry nuance. One of the said experts, MightyTeapot, has a great explanation for difference between GW2 and, for example, WoW. In WoW you have low skill floor for classes. Every class is kinda simple to understand and performs certain role. You have your rotations, you know what spell or ability to use at any given time, and its combat is generally slower paced. It allows developers to concentrate on more difficult and interesting boss fights in dungeons and raids. GW2 have higher skill floor in most cases, and extremely high class ceiling. Before you even begin to tackle specific class mechanics or builds, you need to learn when to dodge, when to jump, how to position properly in fights, how to use aoe skills and skillshots, even how to use camera efficiently. Then you learn your class skills, weapon skills, when to switch weapons, what weapons are better for what function. Then you have elites with its mechanics and skills. Then you have traits that can drastically change how you play and what skills you need to use. It is complex and fun to learn, but it means that most players maybe have a good grasp on a couple of classes, or even builds. For example, I like power dps berserk (he hits hard) and I played it a lot, but I have no idea how to play condi dps berserk (he damages with DoTs), I have no idea what skills are optimal and what traits should I slot, and what rotation is good. I also should note that while there are "optimal" builds (most dps, most healing, best support or tanking), if you feel that this particular skill and trait combination doesnt suit you, you should change it and play how you are comfortable. Not only because it will be more fun for you, but also because there are less chances that you mess up in the fight. I've seen numerous cases when people went for optimal builds and perform on them maybe at 40% efficiency, while people who play what they like and know very well perform close to maximum efficiency and have easier time in fights. In the end of the day success in raids (or any other content for that matter) comes more from your personal skill and less from your build.

The main reason people don't say they're a "healer main" is because of how alt friendly the game is. It's easy to level and gear alts, so the only thing you need to be flexible enough to fill every role in a party is a bit of gold and willingness to figure out different builds. Even within a single character, you can swap around gear and traits to go from dps to tankier and more supportive builds. So you're not really stuck with a single role unless you want to (most new players only know dps by default, and branch out if they feel the need to). For example, I main Thief. I play my thief for most open world activities and for the story. However, thief was notorious for years for not really having supportive options. If it were for that, I'd be a dps main, but at some point I decided to roll some alts for more build flexibility. So, I now play Mechanist or Firebrand if I need to be a healer, Revenant if I need an offensive support (I'll let you get into Raid Comp meta some other time, but team comp is what made me fall in love with GW2), Scourge if I need Condi Dps (some encounters favour that), or Daredevil if I want Power DPS. I've NO CLUE how to play DPS as an engineer, for example. I just know Heal Mechanist. ----------------------------------- As you say, every class can play DPS, and the balance and design decisions lately have been pushing for every class to be able to play some supportive roles. Some are better than others, though, which is what shifts the meta around. People wouldn't want me to play healer or tank as a thief for example, although there's some tools in the kit to allow me to scuff that into reality. But it's not like if you're a Guardian you're stuck as a Tank or Healer. -------------------------- For what you said about there not being "masters" of the game. Yeah, it sounds about right. People like Mighty Teapot might be the closest to that, tbh. He seems to be able to play every class at high level. And probably a lot of less well known hardcore players. Not to mention that the mastery of WvW, PvP and PvE is very different, because every game mode favours different types of builds. Thing is, the meta shifts around a lot from patch to patch. I took a break for a year or so, and some of my builds feel a bit outdated in terms of what weapons they use, how the rotation looks, etc. All of a sudden Heal Mech uses shortbow in some encounters, Power Daredevil uses Axe and Pistol as a secondary, Thief Condi builds use the Spear (which is really hard to use, wtf), Power Revenant builds shifted to Greatsword (and Condi Spear is BUSTED rn), my runes and sigils SUCK ASS now apparently, etc, etc, etc. Point being, things are balanced by a thread, it seems, so a small change can make the optimal play for a specific spec change completely, because now of a sudden it gets 3000 more dps in this alternative way.

When it comes to raids and instanced content, you usually go for an organized group, 2 healers, 2 boon dps and 6 dps. in open world, everyone just does whatever mostly :p

World vs. World might be the game mode for you. You make your own build, roam around and fight other people one -on-one or small groups. Best way to express yourself in the game, IMO.

57:30 Yes there's tanking, mainly in Raids and Strike Missions. However the way tanking is handled differs from boss to boss. Sometimes it's the person with the highest toughness, sometimes it's the first to attack the boss ro the person furthest away, sometimes you become the tank by picking up an item etc. Not rarely it's the healers who also do the tanking.

We do need healers in most endgame content. In fact healers and boondps builds are by far most powerfull builds in the game. A party of 5 people is mostly 3dps players 1 boondps player and 1 healer. The healer and boondps cover 2 most important boons quickness and alacrity(one each) +most other boons. And for tanking. Healer does that..the healing builds are so powerfull that it allows us to compress roles that much.

I learned engineer, one of the most complicated looking professions in the game specifically to unlock Holosmith because the spec weapon skin unlock is a sword that looks like a lightsaber.

23:00 The best advice I can give you is just start with whatever seems the coolest to you thematically. I tend to like tanky or support/healer types so I started with Warrior and Guardian but eventually you will most likely end up playing most if not all the classes anyway. I for one play every class now, sure I have my favourites but I still play all the classes here and there depending on my mood and the content I do. If I had to order them in a List it would probably look like this now: Guardian > Mesmer > Necromancer > Ranger > Warrior > Revenant > Engineer > Elementalist > Thief

Most important lesson in Guild Wars 2 was for me that your weapon setup is completely independent of your specialization. While the specializations are often advertise with specific weapons like the bow for Dragon Hunter (Guardian), you can also use a great sword or any other weapon if you like. With the SOTO expansion you can even enhance the available weapons. Without SOTO, you can only use for example the bow together with the Dragon Hunter specialization. But when you bought the SOTO add-on and you do the advanced weapon training, then you have access to all weapons in all specializations. Also the core Guardian (no speciailzation) is able to use them all. So you can take a axe from the Firebrand specialization and use it in your Dragon Hunter specialization. It's a lot of fun!

This one guy called Lord Hizen feels like he’s got it all fully figured out. I could be wrong, but his level of play is still exceptionally high across multiple (maybe even all) classes and specs.

To simplify, weapons are 100% optional, by default all elite specs have specific weapons tied to them but secrets of the obscure expansion(SOTO)allows you to use any weapon on any spec, even the base class. An example of this would be reaper unlocks greatsword and is the only necromancer spec by default that can use one without SOTO's weapon master training. If you have weapon master training, even your base class can use greatsword but it can't use reaper skills or traits. For profession mechanics the function more or less remains the exact same but the theme changes, for instance necromancer's death shroud, no matter what spec or build of necro you play it'll always use death shroud in some way, core necro's f1 loses the ability to use weapons and transforms into a slow ranged aoe condition style that shoots a single bolt from 1 hand, reaper transforms into a melee aoe style that no longer shoots bolts but uses a scythe to cleave, scourge no longer transforms and instead uses sand as its shroud to affect the surrounding area up to 4 places at once while retaining the ability to use your weapon skills at the same time, harbinger transforms and shoots bolts from both hands but doesn't have a 2nd health bar. As long as you grasp the core mechanic (f1 up to f5), the elite specs for the class will utilize that mechanic in some relatable way.

This is the new player guide I give friends (once they hit 80): Roles in GW2: DPS and healers. DPS is either power (berserk/maurader gear) or condi (condition) (viper gear)based. Helears often end up being tanks due to mechanics focusing players with highest vitality or toughness If you don't know what to gear for use Celestial. It evenly gives all stats so you can try out any role before choosing a focus. There are only 2 buffs that really matter Alacrity and quickness. Alacrity reduces cool downs, quickness speeds up atks Roles in a 10 man squad are aheal (healer w/alacrity), qheal (healer with quickness), adps (dps with alacrity), qdps (dps w/quickness) and 6 dps. The you just need 2 quickness users and 2 alac users so you can have 2 qheals if you get 2 adps and vice versa. Warrior- You know what a warrior is -Berserker- warrior on fire has access to Quickness (med-high intensity always hitting burst) -Spellbreak- Counters and hates other people having buffs (low-med intensity) -Bladesworn- Gunblade with alacrity (medium intensity) Guardian: Paladin -Dragonhunter: Trapper solo longbow (low intensity) -Willbender: Paladin on his assassin arch w/alacrity (low-med intensity) -Firebrand: Zealot burn the hertics w/quickness (low-high intensity) Revenant: invokes legends to fight for them -Herald: pulse boons to everyone perma swiftness, fury and might can heal has Quickness (low intensity) -Renegade: Summon warband totems to fight has alacrity (med intensity) -Vindicator: Dragoon dodge is now your strongest attack (low intensity) Thief: steal items then use them -Daredevil: Lots of dodges super nimble fighter (low-med intensity) -Deadeye: sniper for power, Axe butcher for condi has quickness (low-med intensity) -Specter: Thief pretending to be a necromancer has alacrity (med-high intensity) Ranger: You get pets and you can collect more -Druid: Celestial avatar form for healing or dmg. healer form gets alacrity and dmg form is condi based (med intensity) -Soulbeast: Merge with pet to buff stats versatile dmg builds (low-med intensity) -Untamed: Can 'hulk out' yourself or your pet has quickness (med-high intensity) Engineer: explosions! -Scrapper: Perma super speed, combo field quickness (med-high intensity) -Holosmith: forges weapons out of light versatile dmg builds (med-high intensity) -Mechanist: Engieer wanting to be a ranger. Can heal and has alacrity (low-med intensity) Necromancer: steal life force and become death for extra abilities -Reaper: literally become death reaping enemies in melee range (low-med intensity) -Scourge: uses sand to make barriers support team and do dmg can heal has alacrity (med intensity) -Harbinger: alchemist reduces max hp to buff dmg has quickness (low-med intensity) Mesmer: illusionist summon close and warp around -Chronomancer: rewind time and do it allpower/condi dps, heal, quickness and alacrity (low-high intensity) -Mirage: ambush dodge mechanic great survivability has limited access to alacrity (low-med intensity) -Virtuoso: Summon magical daggers instead of clones versatile dmg builds (low-med intensity) Elementalist: weild the four elements plays like a battle mage unless you use spear or staff then its a more traditional mage -Tempest: Overload an element to increase its power has alacrity can heal (low-med intensity) -Weaver: use 2 elements at once to create new spells (pvp healer) (high intensity) -Catalyst: aura and combo field focused ele has quickness can heal (high intensity) Before 80. Try things out and try to make 1 character for each class. It really is worth trying every profession/specilization out at somepoint.

Guy just got his mind blown. Reminds me of the olden days when I was scouring the internet for build guides but there were none.

when you get to max level, you first use experience to unlock masteries. after you get all the masteries, you start getting spirit shards, which is a currency mostly use for legendary crafting.

About Specs and what Elite Specs do: Specializations in GW2 are the core part of a build. Each class gets multiple sets of thematic skills and traits that they can change at any time out of combat. The Elite Specs gives you a new specialization line that upgrades or changes your F skills and opens up a new thematic skill set. Warrior's elite specs unlocks an F2 skill to push which can change the F1 skill or transform them. Guardian's F1/2/3 skills are passive effects which use a different effect while pushed, their elite specs enhances those three skills to have a new effect like throwing a chain. About weapons: Any core weapon available to a class can be used with any elite specialization. You just have to change your equipment and choose specific spec options that make the most of those weapons with your skills. In Secrets of the Obscure, they added a new feature unlock that lets you use any weapon ever available to a class on any of their builds. About going into world bosses and raids: Most open world content can be done without having dedicated healers, but some players go in with support to help make it go faster and minimize deaths. Raids and Strikes you should have 1 or two players dedicated to healing and giving boons/buffs to allies so they can focus on damage and mechanics rather than survival. Some dps builds even provide boons to others. About hero points and mastery points: Leveling up to 80 gives you hero points to unlock all your class skills, but you can get hero points in the maps to get there faster and save up for unlocking Elite specs in the expansions. You can save leftover hero points to get a head start to new elite specs. If you have the expansion purchased you don't need to get into it to start unlocking it after getting to 80, just use your hero points. While Mastery points is unlocked by doing collections, story, and doing achievements. These are used to get account wide abilities that all your characters can use, like mounts.

A good way to not get overwhelmed is to focus on your class first, then roll a few alts to feel them out as well. Once you are comfortable with core systems in the game (AKA, reach 80), pop into the PVP lobby with your alts and get a feel for the elite specs and build-crafting with them (read traits, test skills on target dummies, etc.)

"How do you choose what you want to do in this game?" This is the main reason why I have 15 characters :-)

Maybe MightyTeapot might have this game mastered. I've seen him recognize most skills at a glance for every class. Edit 1: After you get to max level (80) your exp bar becomes you mastery bar, and that number in the bottom left changes from being your level number to being your total mastery level. When you unlock masteries your exp goes towards leveling the one you have set to active. You have to level up a mastery and then spend mastery points on it before you can get the benefits from that mastery. Masteries are the very last tab in the hero panel (H by default), right under the achievements tab. Edit 2: There is no real tank in this game, however, world bosses, raid boss, etc. will usually focus on the player with the highest amount of "toughness" (a stat in gw2). You can see your stats in the hero panel under equipment.

ok a simple explanation I was given when I started was that in this game you won't see "LF tank" as much as you will see "LF 2 alacrity, 1 fury" because here you need to keep boons active as much as you can, in openworld it doesn't matter as much as is hard to coordinate with random people doing the same objective but in large groups they subdivide in groups of 5 and each has to have 1 of each roll, it can be all necros that give different boons but as long as you have at least the "essential ones" you are good to go (i.e. alacrity, fury, quickness, Might, ) some clases/builds give 2 or more boons and sometimes is as easy as changing 1 trait to give the buff you need. this mmo is VERY boon oriented because some bosses are almost impossible to defeat unless you use Stability or Aegis for an attack, and another advice I can give you is to go as soon as you are 80 to do some content with a commander (veteran player that lead an event, usually they have a arrow in their heads known as commander's tag).

When I play instanced 10-man content, we usually have 2 dedicated healers. 99% of the time, we make sure to set up the group beforehand. The 10-man groups are split into 2 groups of 5 (because most boons in the game only effect 5 people) and they generally go like this: in group 1, one guy is the healer and providing alacrity or quickness and one dps provides which ever boon the healer isn't (aka if the healer is providing alacrity, 1 dps has to provide quickness and vice versa) then we do the same in group 2 :D There are the rare groups where we have 2 dps provide quickness and alacrity and the healer just provides raw healing, but that's a unicorn. Very very rare.

halloween event goes off too, wicked jump puzzle that'll make you wanna tear your hair out

glad the algorithm pushed you at me, I always enjoy hearing the perspective of newer players, particularly someone very engaged like you. GW2 is interesting in how... the people who say it's a casual game just do what you want etc are not wrong, that is viable for a lot of the content, the game has a very shallow entry point and is good at making you feel powerful and good about your choices in the early game, but then it also has this insane skill ceiling and depth that you talk about. It's very hard even for a master to boil it down because there is just so much there - I definitely think this game is learnable, but it's also definitely too much to learn every single class, spec, and role all at once. I encourage you to keep experimenting and trying to learn - there are optimal builds out there, benchmarks, rotations, builds specific for each game mode and role - but I think taking that shortcut is not helpful to you where you're at now and is likely detrimental to both your understanding/ mastery and longterm enjoyment.

Man i have nearly 500h now in GW2. Started playing a year ago and i still get overwhelmed by videos like this. I feel like in order to understand how a class oder elite spec works you have to play it and try it yourself. otherwise it is just and overload in information :D

Simple guide here : Elite Specializations in terms of WoW are like super talent trees. In addition to powering up existing skills like talents in wow do, they also allow each class the use of one new weapon, change the unique class mechanic, and grant you 5 new utility skills. Ultimately this allows for a different play style while using the original class as a base. The easiest class to explain this on would be Guardian. Guardian at base is like a mix of a holy, prot, and ret paladin. Dragon Hunter is basically like going full Ret and Firebrand is like going full Holy. Willbender I haven't tried yet, Im a few expansions behind. On Elementalist on the other hand it makes very little difference. Tempest and Weaver provide a very similar experience. The difference is that on tempest you are locked into a single element for a longer time while on weaver you constantly shuffle through elements. Any Warrior elite spec can use Great Sword, whether you want to use it though is more reliant on if there is a build in which it's powerful right now and not exactly the elite spec. For instance people going into elementalist probably want to use a staff. Unfortunately, many years ago Anet decided Elemantalist staff will be bad for the rest of the game's life cycle. It used to be really good, it used to make you feel like a wizard, was useful in every elite spec. Now it's bad no matter what you are doing with it.

Ah yesterday updates ..... Heart of fire and path of thorns

Idk if someone already answered but since you asked at 31:10 whether people go into combat willy nilly with their builds - in open world content, essentially yes. Some big bosses benefit from team composition coordination but most stuff doesn't need that. In harder endgame content like raids you absolutely need/want dedicated people who heal, tank, give boons or deal damage. And yes, in raids or fractals you do need to swap out certain things per encounter - maybe it needs a reflect, a certain boon, more condition cleanse, bonkers big cc, etc. The beauty of this game is that you can choose: if you wanna do random or wacky builds you can have the best time in open world. If you want the traditional coordinated group content from MMOs, you have that as well. Also I do play every class in raids fairly regularly and I am having a blast on all of them I'm glad you're having fun on your journey. I guarantee you, the longer you play the more everything falls into place. A lot of confusing things will make total sense once you experience it yourself and not just thru a video.

About your warrior fantasy. Berserk with greatsword is what you need. Every specialization can use greatsword, but I think Berserker shines the most. I don't think this video format can display just how ridiculous berserker builds can get when pushed to the limits. Huge dps, very fast, very satisfying. And in open world you basically can forget about second weapon set. In end game instances not so much, axes are usually weapon of choice for dps builds. And yes, elite specializations are not tied to new weapons for the most part (there are some exceptions). For example, berserker got torch, but it is for DoT build, so if you just want to hit things it's not very useful.

12:20 I play base guardian alot. Base classes are still viable.

Oh man can't wait to see you meet the frog and vamp in verdant brink. If he sucks you croak.

About the Support that you have listened so much about in the video, actually are divided in two types, offensive support (Someone that deals damage but give boons to increase damage and protection) and defensive support (this is well...the Healers, they heal you and give boons that also increase damage and protection) this is what he means, in a group of 5 people, you will have 3 DPS, 1 Ofensive Support (Also called Boon DPS or Buffer) and 1 Healer (That is the defensive support)

I feel like one thing that might be making elite specs harder for you to comprehend is the separation of various types of skills: weapon skills are different from profession skills are different from utility skills. Those three sub-categories of skills are what constitute a full "build" of active skills your character has access to. When you unlock an elite specialization, it unlocks a number of ways to customize your character, but only one of the skills sub-categories is FORCED on you: profession skills. Sometimes the profession skills don't change much (i.e. daredevil basically retains "steal" but it can give slightly different stolen abilities) while some completely change (i.e. Scourge losing shroud to gain sand squalls). Elite specs also unlock the ability to wield a new weapon, but that weapon is not forced; it's your choice whether you want to use the elite spec weapon or not. The other new options you gain are elite-spec-specific utility skills which, again, are not forced on you if you don't want to use them, but opens new options for you to choose from if you do want them. I think as long as you're thinking about these categories and how they impact the gameplay within GW2, it might help you wrap your head around the various mechanics you encounter. I think it will also help you understand how to play just about EVERY profession better, because you'll understanding what to look for, what options exist, and help you better wrap your head around how elite specs impact the base class. :D I hope this helps!

"Class envy" as you call it is definitely a thing in this game, especially early on. Every class *can* technically do everything, it's *how* they do it that is different. The elite specializations of a single class all share that class's core mechanics; Reaper, Scourge, and Harbinger for example are all equally Necromancers. You can switch which of them you want to be anytime out of combat, and the game gives you presets/templates to help facilitate that. Building your character is not a one-time thing, you'll switch things around very often on the same character, both during leveling and at max level, and you will adopt very different playstyles along the way. You'll have your favorites and you'll have your most optimal, and they can both coexist. Once you have reached max level on a character and unlocked decent gear, it's very easy to start a new character on a different class and have that one catch up in a fraction of the time. You'll find the class you enjoy the most based on feel more than anything else.

A quck note on group comps- typically you run 3 full dps, 1 support who either brings quickness or alacrity and acts as the healer (and does dps when they can), and 1 support dps who provides the quickness or alacrity that the healer didnt bring. As far as other boons like might, protection etc... they can mostly be given out by the two support players but the 3 dps might incidentally give some. GW2 endgame is all about boons, they can make you like 2-3x more powerful if you have them all. Also there are tanks but only a few fights require them. The "tank" role defaults to the person with the most toughness stat, usually the healer will perform this role if needed

I definitely suggest looking up videos that specifically breaks down each class so you can have a better understanding of what makes them strong, and what makes them weaker or more difficult. 'Cause I feel like these videos aren't doing these classes much justice. EDIT: LOL I just got to the end of your video. If you're interested in Virtuoso, I suggest checking out WvW videos of people breaking down what they do. Even if you're not going to play WvW, to me it's one of the best ways you can truly understand both the difficulties and benefits of playing the class. Something to note: More skills doesn't necessarily mean higher difficulty. I won't say that any of the classes with more skills are cake walk, because that won't be true either. However, it'd be misleading to proclaim that classes with less skills are easier or more skills are harder because (as you've been finding), combat in this game is more nuanced than that. Fore example: Take the Untamed, which Kyosika rated as Hard. As someone who plays ranger in WvW, this was confusing to me. The extra skills and the ability to constantly switch between modes of unleashed makes it look difficult. In reality, those options actually makes the game easier, as you now have more control over your pet. This means that your pet actually reaches its destination for once, instead of attacking a random deer rather than your actual target. The modes give you more damage, healing, and damage reduction. In short, those options have made you more powerful along with more survivability, and all it takes is a bit of familiarity with them to make use of them well. More skills mean more options. The more options you have, the more you're able to deal with a variety of situations. What I've found with playing this game is that, things become more difficult when you don't have as much access to things that will help you. It's like how people view games like Dark Souls as difficult. It's not because you have such a huge amount of skills to juggle, but instead, you're left with the bare essentials and you have to rely on your own senses and reaction time in order to beat the bosses. Just something to keep in mind while watching these videos. I think you have a really good start by realizing that these guides can only give some insight, but that insight can either be incomplete or can be very wrong. Like the mesmer mobility comment from the video. Mesmer has one utility that allows for the traversal of a distance of 1200, and it's called Blink. It has a 20 min cooldown, and that's all the class has. It still has weapon skills with some mobility tied to them, but they're not more copious than what's available for other classes.

elite specs unlocks a new weapon to use while using the elite spec tied to it and you don't have to use the unlocked weapon and keep using the weapon you enjoy using. now later on you unlock all weapons from each elite spec for any build you want which opens more options freely. its a lot but the more you play it starts to make sense.

Remember that if you started playing at original launch you had several years to learn your core professions before there were even elite professions added. Then, there was only one elite profession for each core profession after HoT was launched, so you had several years to learn that elite profession before the next was added in PoF, etc. So, I can see why it seems so daunting for a new player in 2024, with so many choices now. Pick one or two that look interesting to you and run with it.

The boss fights organization for support players is a bit different in GW2: it's not much about healing quantity, but more about what type of buffs you bring to the table for the team, so usually you re-spec based on what the group needs, and some time weave the group on the go

Some important things to note coming from somebody with 2k hours and still learning: 1): For the standard equivalent of literally any other RPG there's the Tank, DPS, Range DPS and Healer. But for GW2 there's DPS, BoonDPS and Healer. This game is very centric around BOONS. Most importantly BoonDPS provide the two "OP" Boons known as Alacrity and Quickness- which are game changers out of all the boons. While Supports provide the majority of the rest of boons as well as raw Healing. 2): Guild Wars 2 combat is extremely in-depth and fast paced. You can always click your buttons better. But to start, learn the skills you're using first and gather an understanding what purpose they serve whether that's: raw damage, packets of raw damage (Multiple hits on the enemy), Condition application (Bleed, Burning, Poison which are DOTS), Crowd Control, Healing or Boon Application. Knowing the purpose of your Skills further extends your knowledge of; "I should be using this because this will do alot of crowd control and I can follow up with a big hit of this Skill" 3): Elite Specs are essentially sub-classes. Taking in the basics of every single Elite Spec is simply too much imo. Because even the basics missout on key details. As a direct example for the Bladesworn - You still have to fill-up a bar mid combat via attacking just like a standard Warrior, but when pressing Dragon Trigger (The button that's, "I wanna do big fucking damage") - You deplete your Warrior Adrenaline to gain Bullets which are = to damage output. More bullets, more damage with your single use dragon trigger skills. That's just one instance of what this video simply missed, but is understandable why. I recommend sticking to one class, then when you're comfortable moving from the Base Class to the Elite Spec - it'll feel more comfortable because you know what's been modified & changed.

Up until the SOTO expansion, you could only play that elite spec with only that weapon they introduced with it, like a the Elementalist - elite spec Catalyst you got hammer but if you switched your elite to Tempest elite you now could not use the hammer too. Once they introduced SOTO(Secrets of the Obscure expac) and you played through the first part of the story, then you were able now to pair any of your weapons that you unlocked with the profession to play and doesn't matter what elite spec you put in your build. This opens up more customization, really any build you want to create.

Each profession gets 5 specializations by default. The elite add a weapon and change the way the class plays. You get to choose 3 specializations, including one elite, but you don't need the elite. My main Ranger usually stays just a longbow ranger. So the elites are something you can do after playing your toon for years. Now you can play a slightly different style with the same character. And since I have leveled every profession to 80 manually, having a change of pace at 80 is refreshing.

Hey man I know you’re a little overwhelmed but I want you to look into the combo field and combo finisher system. It’s another thing to consider while playing and it’ll add a layer to how you interact with other players.

When the game first launched, the devs wanted to create a game that didn't rely on the holy trinity when choosing a profession. At first, this was a good idea. However, as time went on and end-game content was added to the game, players quickly found that not having roles to play in a role-playing game was not a good idea. Instanced content boiled down to everyone being DPS pre-Heart of Thorns. In Post Heart of Thorns and eventually with the launch of raids, ANet started adding the holy trinity into the game. However, they had a lot of catching up to do since the game was not built around it. Even to this day, they are still trying to fix and build on what they currently have. What GW2 has today is a soft trinity for group content. Group composition today boils down to providing two vital boons for your DPS players: Alacrity and Quickness. One of these boons is provided by the Healer/Tank (if an encounter requires a person to play a tank, it is usually the healer that fills this role). The other boon is provided by a DPS that can provide the boon. These days, every profession can fill any of these roles: Healer/Tank, Support DPS, and Pure DPS through their elite specializations. Some professions will fill these roles better than others, as there are technically "best in slot" options. However, if someone plays their role proficiently, most people don't care about the "best in slot" option. I always recommend that its just best to play what is most fun and cool to you in Gw2, and with enough time and effort eventually you will master a profession regardless of how hard it is.

At max level, your experience bar now fills your "mastery" level experience instead of your character level. You'll start seeing masteries when you hit 80. Masteries make things behave in a different way.

Every class can do every role by 2024, that's the beauty of it. Some can tank better than others, some can heal better that others, and some can dps better than others but there is a build for every spec/elite specialization that can do every role! I know it is confusing but that was Anets answer to balancing every class Major roles: 1) staright dps 2) boon dps (boons are buffs that increase the effectiveness of the group) 3) boon support (support are healers that also provide boons) THE TWO MAJOR BOONS: QUICKNESS AND ALACRITY, when you do raids/strikes these are the two boons you want in each sub group of 5 people. So a subgroup would usually have: - 1 boon support (alac or quick) - 1 boon dps (alac or quick) {you want one of each hence why there is 1 boon support/dps in each group} - 3 DPS ^^ so you need the two subgroups of 5 to do that in a squad of 10 which is the required number of people to do a strike/raid Tanks are only needed for a few encounters to move the boss, usually the boon support would tank as well (based on toughness the stat) Message me if you have questions i am more than happy to explain

Hey, I just recently found your videos on GW2 and I'm loving them. I've been playing since early access and I just want to say, I have several necromancers, I don't play any of them the way you do, and the way you play sounds awesome. The concentration you're putting on pure uptime sounds very interesting and a legit play style.

31:18 General group combat has effectively evolved into three main roles based on subgroups of 5: 1 x Defensive Support (Boons, heals, ie. QHeal Berserker) 1 x Offensive Support (Boons, some damage, ie. ADPS Bladesworn) 3 x DPS (Condi or Power, carries most of the CC, ie. power Spellbreaker, Condi Zerker, Power Core) That said, you could for instance have a team of 5 Warriors that fulfil all of these roles. Different engagements will require different approaches to the fight and specific tasks for the team members.

True, very few people have the _complete_ understanding of the game. In most of the content, there is no "best" build - different people prefer different playstyles, and will build accordingly. This changes in high-level instanced content, like harder raids, strikes and fractals. For those, there are some few people who research builds, eking out the largest possible damage (or support) that a class is capable of, and post to sites such as SnowCrows or Hardstuck. Similar sites exist for WvW and PvP, but the builds are very different. These optimal builds get regularly reviewed and updated, as patches and expansions change the landscape of the skills and traits. Of course, there are still people who use their own builds, but most of the community that plays the harder content is content to use one of the builds built by the experts. And when I say experts, it is mostly people who know one or maybe several professions inside-out; it would be quite a feat to know and stay up to date on all of them. On the other hand, I believe anyone who is good at PvP (which emphatically does not include me) must know all the important mechanics and skills of all classes, otherwise they will _not_ be good at PvP. They will not only need to deduce the weaknesses of the people they go up against, but also watch the enemy animations to figure out which skills to dodge, or otherwise mitigate. The reason why no-one says "I am a healer" is because the builds can be hot-swapped at any time you are out of combat. This does not mean people minimax every trait for each encounters. Usually, a stock build is enough for most encounters, and it is at most one or two traits, or one or two skills, that get changed, per the needs of an encounter. A typical instanced party will have one healer and four DPS people, with healer bringing one of the god buffs (quickness which speeds up skills, or alacrity which speeds up recharge, both of which were originally exclusive to Chronomancer but ArenaNet relented later), and one of the damage people bringing the other ("boon DPS"). Double this for raids, since they involve 10 players, not 5. The healer is usually also the tank, should tanking be required (which is in most raids, and some strikes, to answer your question). But e.g. a DPS Virt (the mesmer spec you like) can become a heal Chrono at a press of a button, so it makes no sense to declare "I am a healer" when a lot of the time I play a different build with the same character. As to fiddling with the builds, usually, a healer is a healer, a DPS is a DPS. a boon DPS is a boon DPS -- any will do. For some specific encounters, though, you will need specific tools that only some classes could provide. Specifically, here are the common healers in the game: Druid (a Ranger spec - the first healer the game got, with Heart of Thorns), Firebrand (a Guardian spec, often nicknamed "Healbrand" to differentiate from the scorchy kind), Mechanist (an Engi spec, "HAM", for Heal Alacrity Mechanist, as similarly to Firebrand, Mechanists are often DPS), Herald (a Rev spec), Chronomancer (a Mesmer spec), Scourge (a Necro spec), Tempest (an Ele spec) and Spectre (a Thief spec). Any of them could also be DPS instead. Warrior also got the ability to heal recently, but it is tied to a weapon (staff), not a particular specialisation; and I don't think I have seen Warrior healers nearly as much as any of the other professions. This means, as of the previous expansion, all professions have an access to a build that could act as a healer, though, as you say, in very different ways. Some are more bursty, good for encounters where the enemy has huge attacks; some are good at sustained healing, best suited for oppressive environments; some don't heal much, but prefer to prevent damage in the first place. We call them all healers though. BTW. Vindi's "meteor" that you were missing was mentioned at 28:58, and shown at 21:50 - their dodge is replaced by leap, and you do damage when you crash down onto enemies.

Yeah usually I think about the fight or boss that I'm gonna be in an change my skills or even my elite specialization before engaging in the fight. Also i.e. in fractals often groups will not take healers on specific bosses or entire fractals because they know they can dodge the boss abilities that deal the most damage. And when everybody is on dps the fight is over quicker. Just lovely to see you fall in love with the game ❤ I wish I could have that experience again

number in the bottom left is Mastery level, basically it's how many points you've already spent to unlock different Masteries, like Gliding

For Raids and strikes there are group combinations you go for. You have 2 five Player groups, with usually a healer, a support dps and 3 dps each. Most of the times one of the healers is also the tank. So you plan ahead to fill these roles.

Bare in mind that you can fully try out the specializations of your chosen class (without having to be lvl 80) in the PVP lobby. Theres dummy golems and enemy NPCs of each class around the place to test em out. The specs themselves are revamps to how the core class functions, to the point that even the weapons they come with are kinda inconsequential in some respect. Which is to say that the weapons you use pre-spec can have greater use than the spec additions themselves. For instance Mesmer at its core is a minion spammer that sacrifices them to deal more damage, stun or evade incoming damage more. Chrono Mes adds wells to minion explosions that do support stuff, Mirage Mes changes your dodge and gives you dodge attacks that can stack loads of damage all at once, and Virt Mes changes clones into blades that stack overtime in and out of combat while reducing the cds of the changed shatter skills and including a new one. Some weapons work very well in each of these specs even in the absence of the accompanying spec weapon; Mirage staff for instance, whose dodge attack throws a piercing ball that throws conditions on enemies hit like crazy. Friendly reminder that staff is a weapon used by default on Mes. Tldr, you can have Berserker Greatsword, Spellbreaker Greatsword, and Bladesworn Greatsword; although the latter has you replacing it with a gun-sword as its adrenal skill by default honestly. Do take your time with your chosen class though. It is a game after all, not a race.

Hey. First time watching your vid. Don't worry about the size of the game. It's massive, and very deep in terms of customisation. You've chosen necro I think? Enjoy the levelling, do the story, get to 80, keep levelling your crafts, open up all the maps in the base game. You will probably need to 100 per cent the world's base maps anyway if you eventually want to make a legendary (1st and 2nd generation ones) - you'll get two 'gifts of exploration' for 100 percenting the world, and you need that as a base ingredient for a legendary. When you get to 80, either spec into one of necro's 3 professions and run the expansion maps, unlock your mounts (and dragon) ,do a raid or two, just explore, all while keeping your crafting going :) Or, you could use that level 80 booster and play that thief (as all real men should), pick a profession, and so on. You can't play all of the classes straight away. Way too much. I've been playing since launch and I have still not made a warrior (don't like them). So, one bit at a time, one dungeon, one map, and so on. After a while, you'll see someone do some amazing shit on a character that makes you go 'oh', and you will find yourself making that instead. Play some pvp or wvw if you want to mix things up a bit. You'll get beaten up a lot, but both modes are very good ways of learning your character's possibilities, and learn them quickly. PS - You can tell what someone is playing by clicking on their profile - you'll see a little symbol which denotes thier profession. You just need to learn which symbol denotes what :)

I wouldn't focus too hard on which specialization uses which weapon. Since this video came out we got 2 more expansions, one of which gave us weapon master training (unlocks every elite spec weapon for every class to be usable while not using the elite spec), so even if you play willbender with this weapon master training you could use a longbow if you wanted. Every class also got new weapons in both of the last expansions, so we got even more options (like ranged weapons for guardian -> pistol and spear, or warrior -> spear).

"How do you choose?" You don't. You play them all lol

if you ask a gw2 player what class they play they will tell you they play the literal profession and why it looks good on a certain race and what story they chose. but if u ask them what role they play they will tell u if they play as dps, a boondps or a boonhealer. instanced content and sometimes the hardest open world content needs 3 role each subgroups of the squad. you need 1 quick or alac healer, 1 quick or alac dps, and the rest are dps. for raids for example you need 2 healers and 2 boon dps 10 people in a raid, 2 subgroups, 5 player on each since the skills have 5 player limits and it prioritize your subgroups. theres a reason why gw2 is considered an alt friendly, because you need to have more than 1 role to participate in hard endgame content, having a necro isnt always a good choice on some fights. and for the mastering the game, ive been playing for a long time, you cant master everything, you just gain knowledge and then you just use what your capable around what knowledge of the game u have

Bro, your channel is blowing up! I love this content, and your personality!

About knowing everything : as a community, pretty much everything has been discovered; but even at the top of the mountain, people tend to specialize in specific domains (be it classes or game mode). You won't find someone that knows everything about all the classes and all the game modes at the same time. They will know enough in all domains to provide help to most people; but will only really shine in their preferred subjects. And even with most of the info already being on the wiki, they're some truly precise stuff you'll only find by asking the right question to the right person. I believe that one of the reasons very few people are so knowledgeable is that you basically don't need to be for GW2. One of the reasons why players say that GW2 is a casual game is that you can (and many players have) get through the complete story (core game and all expansions) and do the vast majority of the game's content by randomly hitting keys with a slap-dashed build and gear you randomly picked up along the way. Guild Wars 2 is not very demanding, and as long a you have a basic understanding of your class, you can make-do and pick up extra nuggets of wisdom as you play. Raids, Strikes and high tier Fractals are of course more demanding, but in the grand scheme of things, not played a lot compared to the Open World; this result in a lack of need for knowning everything, and fewer people try to know everything than other MMOs.

Re: the Vindicator Meteor: yes, he did talk about it! It’s the dodge. Your character jumps into the sky and slams back down- it’s basically a dodge that does strong damage, and looks like a meteor 😅 it’s unique to that spec

Power Berserker uses axe/axe and greatsword Core classes aren't viable in PvE, you'll wanna use an elite spec

The roles in this game are unique. Every Class Elite can be DPS and support (some do better in one role, some in other). - If take necromancer as example, if you want to be DPS, you choose all traits that give you more dmg and pick Gear with stats that dmg oriented. - If you want to support, than you take traits that focus on buffing and Gear stats that have healing and more sustain, armor( Supports are Tanks, because Raid bosses agro person with most Armor). - Each profession has 3 elites (look at them as toolkit that provides certain buff). Some of them are more efficient as pure DPS (Reaper, no support buffs), some hybrid (Harbinger gives Quickness) and hybrid/pure support (Scourge gives Alacrity). - In End game, the team composition relies on 3 boons (buffs): Regeneration (healing) Alacrity (shorter cooldowns) Quickness (faster casts). No class can provide all 3 in same time, so you need to split them. So anyone can play any Profession as long they bring the Elite Spec that provides missing buff. - So classic End Game 5 player party composition: 1 - Defensive Support (Healer that can provide Regeneration + Alacrity or Quickness) - tanky armor with healing, traits focused on supporting not dps 1 - Offensive Support (provides Alacrity or Quickness + DPS) - hybrid stats , provide missing buffs, and do some dps 3 - DPS Dealers (Pure dmg , crowd control) - pure dps stats , focusing just on doing as much dps as possible - A squad composition is basically the copy of several 5 player Parties.

Every profession has a place and a use, even the base versions, not just the elite specialisations. If you want to play a core warrior or mesmer, you can. And if you play a specialisation, you don't have to use the new weapon available, there are no limitations or requirements to play a profession or specialisation a certain way with specific weapons, it is completely up to you and your play style. Also, to add complexity, just almost every class/specialisation is capable of playing as any type of role with varying effectiveness. As a warrior, you can make a build that deals massive damage, with little defence and healing, or you can play as a tank, where you deal average damage with little/no team benefits, but you are very hard to kill, most raiding groups who want a tank, want a warrior tank because they are the best, even though other classes are capable of tanking and doing it well, it's just that warrior is the best. Also, warriors can be used in support roles with the use of their banners. But for support, the most effective classes are the Ranger/Druid, Gardian/Specialisations, or the Herald. In my opinion, the most versatile Class/Specialisation that can be used in almost every role to some degree, is the Elementalist/Specialisation. For high DPS, you will focus on your Fire and Air attunments, with power stat gear. For healing, you will focus on Water with a little bit of Earth, with healing stat gear. And if you want to tank more, you will focus on Earth with a little Water, with Toughness and Vitality stat gear. And for Damage Over Time, you will focus on Fire and Earth with Condi Damage and Expertise(Condi time) gear. But the downside is that the Elementalist is complicated to play. It makes trying to compete with other Professions for certain roles very hard. I have found the easiest and least complicated builds are Damage Over Time builds (Condition Builds). Unfortunately, if you want to try Raids with a Cond Build, you will be turned away most of the time. For me, I play mostly PvE, and a Condi Build for an Ele, I find, is the easiest to use and, if built right, can be very effective in PvE. But that's just me. P.S. Also the Elementalist also have similar skills to the Engi's Weapon Kit skills, with their Elemental Weapon skills. These allow Elementalists to summon a specific elemental weapon with different skills from you regular weapon skills. These are the Fire Axe, Ice Bow, Lightning Hammer, Earth Sheild and Firery Greatsword. Bear in mind, for the most part, skills are mostly just niche skills, but they can be fun and quite effective if use right. Also bear in mind, the Devs hate Elementalists, so they are constantly nerfing them into the ground, so bear that in mind.

You can think of elite specializations as specs in other games like WoW for example. It expands upon your base class flavor. Like with Dragonhunter, you CAN use a bow, but you're not required and a lot of builds involve greatsword which is a core Guardian weapon. You also retain everything from your core class as far as abilities and most builds also mix in core and elite abilities. Weapon skills never change, so the way they're expanded is by adding a new weapon they can use to the elite spec. Another example is core Guardian can't use pistols, but in Secrets of the Obscure, they can train pistols to use with core Guardian and every one of it's specializations. Also, there is a "HEALER" role in GW2, but it's mostly for end-game group content like WvW, PvP or Raids/Strikes/Fractals. Majority of builds for open world will be dps or boon ("buff") support dps.

The recent goal of the game has been enabling any “role” (alacheal/damage, quickheal/damage, or dps) for each profession in the game. For example ranger can do boon dps on untamed, boon heal on Druid, and outright dps on soulbeast (there are additional builds such as outright dps for untamed and Druid but the point is that each class should have the ability to do any role in this current philosophy) This is specifically pertaining to endgame PvE. Competitive modes, *generally* have specializations that are much better than others. Another example, weaver in PvE is good damage but in pvp, it’s too squishy and will die (not worth bringing unless you are very very very experienced on it and the game mode)

When you talk to GW2 masters, and you start to think you know something they don’t; is true mastering GW2

33:55 you can actually tell what someone is by just looking at their profession/class icon when clicking on them. Each base class and elite spec has a different icon so they can be easily identified. Fun fact : it wasn't always like this and many years ago you would have been right! Back in the day only the base class icon was shown regardless of selected elite spec, so you had to guess based on the weapon and skills used!

As a berserker, you can still totally play with a twohanded weapon, so you're not tied to the axe/torch combo. The mechanics stay the same, but the burst skill changes depending on what weapon you wield.