[GUIDE] Guild Wars 2 beginner/starter guide.

In this thread, I will be explaining in detail how to start your first character correctly. A lot of the times players choose a wrong profession or race. It has a great significant influence in your playstyle and game fun. Some professions are a lot of fun at the beginning of your adventure but might be boring once you are advancing in the game, while other races are very boring in the beginning but can be very fun and nice to play once you reach the max level which is currently 80 (HoT). We'll also talk about the expansion pack: is it worthed or a waste of money? If you're a beginning player than this guide is definitely for you.

1. Introduction
2. Table of Contents
3. Every profession and their information
4. Every races and their information and specialties.
5. Tips & Tricks

First of all, we need to know the professions out there in the game. There are many professions you can choose from so you need to select one very carefully. You cannot switch professions after the character has been created, so watch out before choosing. Your professions are thus locked and soulbind to your character. However, you can delete and create more than one character. Here is a list of all professions in the game:

Guardian

Guardians are the masters of protection. Their special ability is the use of three virtues; Virtue of Courage, Justice and Resolve, which enhance their attacks and defenses until they are used to aid allies. The guardian's play-style has a flexible feel and is adept at supporting their allies or damaging their foes.

Revenant {HoT only}

A profession that was introduced in the Heart of Thorns expansion, Revenants manipulate the Mists in the battlefield. Capable of channeling legendary figures to have access to different skills, Revenants use a special resource called Energy to cast their abilities. They have enough flexibility to play multiple roles during a battle, depending on their Legend of choice.

Warrior

Masters of martial combat, warriors have access to a wider selection of weapon types than any other profession, allowing for a multitude of play styles. Warriors' unique resource, Adrenaline, is built through sustained attacking and can be spent to unleash powerful burst attacks during combat.

Engineer

Masters of mechanical mayhem, engineers deploy device kits, weapon kits, and turrets to mix up the battlefield. The engineer's profession mechanic is the tool belt - each healing, utility or elite skill adds a skill to this belt, providing them with added utility when it is needed most.

Ranger

Rangers are masters of their natural surroundings, and use a versatile set of skills to hunt their enemies. The Rangers are also accompanied by their trusted pets, fighting in unison with their own set of pet skills to pick off their enemies one by one.

Thief

Thieves use their initiative to fuel their weapon skills, dishing out quick chains of damage before slipping away into the shadows. The other part of their speciality is stealing - each enemy has a number of items which provide stolen skills to the thief to turn the fight.

Elementalist

Elementalists can adapt to any situation by attuning to one of the four elements: Fire, Water, Air or Earth. Each attunement changes the five weapon skills on the skill bar, depending on the Elementalist's equipped weapon set, and essentially gives the Elementalist more skills to use than any other profession.

Mesmer

Mesmers can create illusions to fight by their side, which they use to harass enemies with phantasms or mislead them with clones. Illusions can also be shattered, destroying them and causing secondary effects, such as confusion, a powerful condition which damages foes as they continue their assault in vain.

Necromancer

Necromancers use a special resource called life force which is gathered each time a creature near them dies, or additionally by using certain skills. Its main function is to fuel necromancer's Death Shroud. While in Death Shroud, the character's health is temporarily replaced by accumulated life force, and has access to new skills and traits, such as using fear as a weapon.


Asura

These alchemagical inventors may be short in stature, but they're intellectual giants. Among the asura, it's not the strong who survive, but the clever. Other races believe they should rule by virtue of their power and strength, but they're deluding themselves. In due time, all will serve the asura.

Charr

The charr race was forged in the merciless crucible of war. It is all they know. War defines them, and their quest for dominion drives them ever onward. The weak and the foolish have no place among the charr. Victory is all that matters, and it must be achieved by any means and at any cost.

Human

Humans have lost their homeland, their security, and their former glory. Even their gods have withdrawn. And yet, the human spirit remains unshaken. These brave defenders of Kryta continue to fight with every ounce of their strength.

Norn

The race of towering hunters experienced a great defeat when the Ice Dragon drove them from their glacial homeland. Nevertheless, they won't let one lost battle - however punishing - dampen their enthusiasm for life and the hunt. They know that only the ultimate victor achieves legendary rewards.

Sylvari

Sylvari are not born. They awaken beneath the Pale Tree with knowledge gleaned in their pre-life Dream. These noble beings travel, seeking adventure and pursuing quests. They struggle to balance curiosity with duty, eagerness with chivalry, and warfare with honor. Magic and mystery entwine to shape the future of this race that has so recently appeared.


Making a lot of money

• Completing daily achievements doubles your reward for different activities each day.
• Get equipment from personal story and loot drops rather than buying from merchants or at trading post until reaching level 80.
• Trading Post if you buy low, sell high and are patient.
• Selling Gathered resources on Trading post.
• Beginning at level 15, World bosses appear on a regular schedule and at level 30, do Dungeons.
• At level 80, Champion farming. Lower level champion farming has been retired. Lost bandit chest train.
• Doing major events such as the Tarir event in Auric Basin also gives a lot of rares and exotics in chests, which can be salvaged for ectos or sold.

Leveling up

• Work on your personal story. Every level or two there is a new episode with appropriate rewards. A new chapter is unlocked every 10 levels beginning at level 10 and continuing through to level 80.
• Complete Renown Hearts in starter areas.
• Participate in dynamic events when they are announced.
• Crafting
• Keep your equipment upgraded to maximize your power.
• Adventure with others in a party. You receive the same rewards as when you go solo, but completing tasks is faster when you work together.
• Using a Tome of Knowledge will instantly grant you one level.
• Using a Writ of Experience gives a small amount of experience (5% of current level).
• Summoned allies may increase effective DPS and distract hostile NPCs.
• Join a guild that maintains the +5% kill experience buff and other benefits.
• Use as many inexpensive experience boosters as you can:
• Food: Strawberry Ghost 15% for 45 minutes
• Utility boost: Powerful Potion of Slaying Scarlet's Armies 15% for 60 minutes
• Firework that grants Ram's Reward or Lunar animal's Gift 5%
• Ascended Amulet infused with Experienced Infusion 20%
• Laurel Experience Booster (masterwork) 50% for 1 laurel
• Beginning at level 18, adventure in WvW. At level 30, do Dungeons and use your Trait points.
• Stay in areas just below current level and remember there are similar low level starter areas for each playable race.

Mastery leveling

• To raise your Mastery level, you will need to collect Mastery Points. First levels require small amounts of Mastery Points but the more you advance the more you need.
• In Central Tyria only way to acquire Mastery Points is to complete specific Achievements which have red Mastery icon after them.
• Heart of Maguuma Mastery Points can simply be collected around the Heart of Maguuma maps (similary to hero points) & like in Central Tyria earn them by completing specific Achievments which in this case have green Mastery icon after them.

World v World leveling

• World versus World experience (WXP) is separate from normal experience.
• Learn the basics while following a zerg.
• Complete WvW events.
• Complete WvW daily achievements.
• Get WXP upgrades with World Ability Points.
• Use WXP Consumables and Boosters.
• Purchase WvW infusions from a Laurel Merchant (WvW).

Storage management

• Press hide/show bags to hide the names of the individual bags, to make it appear as one bag instead of separate bags.
• To split a stack you drag the stack to another slot while holding down the Alt key. You will get a pop-up in which you can enter the number of items to split.
• You can move your bags around to organize your inventory easily. Just drag your current bags into different slots. Items within the moved bag will remain.
• Certain types of bags have useful special features.
• Upgrades
• To upgrade your bags, simply drag the new (bigger) bag over the smaller bag. Any items inside the previous bag will automatically transfer to the new bag.
• You may add new bag slots for individual characters by purchasing a Bag Slot Expansion.
• You may get a Free (almost) 20-Slot Bag

Gathering

• Purchase your gathering items as soon as possible. A pick, an axe and a sickle only cost a few coppers each and allow you to loot resource nodes.
• You don't need the bank to access your bank items. Any crafting station functions as a bank, too.
• You can do every single crafting profession in the game. You can have two active at a time. It costs some coin to switch them out and the fee depends on how many recipes you have. You don't lose the recipes you have when you switch. To save money, it is therefore cheaper to create a total of 4 different characters, maxing two disciplines per character to avoid this fee altogether.
• Try not to pass up on a harvesting spot. It takes a few seconds, it's free experience, and you never know if you'll want to take up a discipline that uses it later. You can also sell the materials at the trading post. Mid-level materials are especially valuable as fewer people visit mid-level zones.
• When you start crafting, be absolutely sure to discover recipes that your materials allow after mass-producing one item. When a refinement is new to a crafting level, it generates a lot of experience, whereas in later stages this experience is minimal. At that point discoveries of levels close to your current level will progress the discipline's level a lot faster than refinement will.
• You can craft bags that will make their contents invisible to vendors, will not allow their crafting materials to be deposited via the cog icon, and will not be affected by automatic sorting when you use "compact" to push your items into the first available slots. If you have trouble with accidentally selling gear that you actually want to use, get yourself one of those bags to avoid these minor frustrations. Also remember that every vendor has a buy-back option, which will contain all the items you have sold to a vendor within the zone, as long as you don't log out, change characters, or zone out.
• Better salvage kits give you a chance to get the runes or sigils on Masterwork and higher quality gear, including Rare, Exotic, and Legendary. It is not possible to salvage Ascended materials without an ascended salvage kit. Fine and Basic items are more abundant and can serve was quick salvage items or sold in bulk to merchants if the resulting materials are not desirable.
• Refer to the trading post if you want to see which materials are worth the most and least.

Combat

• There's an option "Melee Attack Assist" that prohibits you from walking through enemies (this makes it easier to stay in melee range). It might be better to turn it off, depending on your preference.
• The very first skill on your skill bar is your default auto-attack. This means your character will use the skill on cooldown (the first weapon skills do not have a cooldown). Most skills can be designated as your auto-attack, but will still respect their individual cooldowns before activating again.
• If you're being chased by a ranged enemy, you can use another enemy (a neutral one (these have yellow names) like a boar would work well) to obstruct the projectiles. This will anger the neutral monster towards the enemy attacking it, which causes a fight between the two. This lets you escape more easily.
• There is a range indicator on your skills. There's a red bar below the skill if you're out of range.
• When you're downed, try to select a target with low health (you can also use the Tab key to shuffle through available targets in your field of vision), as it'll give you a better chance of rallying before you are defeated. Don't spam your dodge, as you will have 1 second of invulnerability whenever you rally or are resurrected. You want to avoid incoming damage at all costs until your healing skill is off of its cooldown. If you happen to be defeated, don't immediately travel to a waypoint, either. Waypoints cost you coin, and other players can still revive you. If the area's busy it might be quicker to wait for someone to come along than to walk back from the waypoint.
• However, during WvW or difficult boss fights and events, you will notice a lack of players resurrecting you. This means that they expect you to either wait the end of the battle or waypoint (reviving from defeated state is long and basically neutralizes another player, and in most cases will cause the reviver to get downed/defeated himself as both players and AI react aggressively to reviving).
• Holding down the Ctrl key + clicking an enemy will call them out to your group, putting a targeting reticle over their head. If someone else calls a target, T will target that enemy so your team can focus on particular enemies first. This feature is usable even without a group.
• When fighting a champion or other strong enemy, a good strategy is to hit some of the enemies nearby, bringing them to low enough health for easier rallying when you are downed. Similarly, when fighting in a group and you see someone near you who is downed, killing a monster they have hit before will also rally these downed players. This ensures both the rally and the damage that would've been lost if all players had started to rally this downed player directly.
• In WvW fights, focusing on defeating downed enemies can both ensure that your downed allies will rally and that these enemies will not; provided you are not downed yourself in the process.

User interface

• When playing on a foreign client you can instantly translate any game-text into English by pressing the right-hand Ctrl key.
• You can adjust your mouse turning speed with the slider in the general options (first or default tab in the options menu). Adjust your camera rotation speed to very high to remove any sluggish experience when you turn your camera.
• There are no mail boxes. You can send items away with a right-click, and collect them through the mail icon in the top left of your UI.
• You don't need to go to the trading post NPC unless you are picking up bought items or coin. You can sell items, browse the trading post, and buy items from anywhere by pressing the O key.
• Hold Alt and click any spot on your map to place a personal waypoint. Alt-click it again to remove it.
• Hold shift and click on the map to ping points for teammates or draw lines on the minimap like you did in Guild Wars.
• You can turn the default double tapping of movement keys to dodge off when you want to do a jumping puzzle. You can also bind dodge to a key if you want, which can make it feel more natural when you use it, since you won't have to pick up the key you're using to move.
• Holding down the Ctrl key highlights all enemies (including friendly and neutral enemies, and gather nodes) in the direction you are facing.
• It is suggested to turn on auto loot in the options. This will skip the loot window when looting items, and will place all the items directly into your inventory (unless your inventory is full, which will trigger a loot window). If you don't like autoloot you can press F twice and it will pick everything up (that way you wont miss any upgrades and always know what you have picked up, without checking the icons to the right-hand side).
• You can even bind a key to AoE loot on keyboard settings, with this you can loot all mobs within your AoE with just a key and without having to walk near the mobs in order to loot. Very useful in big and rushed events with several mobs, like Ulgoth per example.
• You can switch the A key and D key with the Q key and E key respectively to allow for easier strafing (if you prefer). You can also use the default settings and hold down the right mouse button to strafe with A and D.
• You can dye your armor in your hero panel by clicking the pipet (dropper) icon for free. The more dyes you unlock, the more dye options you will have. Dyes are activated per account.