Got the game for free so I jumped on it for the first time over the weekend during the head start.
My first impressions were disappointing. Typical theme park mode mmorpg... head to this camp complete task, head to this camp complete task, etc etc... While you're doing this you may encounter events. The NPCs will interact with you asking you to help fend off some raid on the camp. These are sorta neat at first but they repeat so often you realize they are not too important, just part of the theme park. Anyhow this is all low level stuff so I don't have too much to share regarding group dungeons or raid events at this time.
The good stuff... the environment, at least for these 'plant people' is some good eye candy and can be rather immersive. As for controlling your character in fights, this is my favorite part of the game. I play a Thief and it can get rather technical.
Basically you get 5 weapon attack skills based on the weapon(s) you're holding. If you're using a pistol in mainhand and dagger in offhand than you get 2 mainhand pistol attack skills, 2 offhand dagger attack skills and one attack skill that is unique to dual wielding those two weapons in that order. You don't just have these weapon attacks skills... you also get to slot 3 'skills' which basically add synergy to your attack skills, one healing skill (no pure healers in gw2, every class heals), and an epic skill. So you have 10 skills to use in fights all with different functions, some skills change based on your position of your target or whether you're in stealth or not... Oh wait not done... you can weapon swap to a different set of weapons whenever you like. Now you have 5 new weapon skills to use. Want to AOE? Swap to short bow from your pistol/dagger for those weapon skills and then swap back when you want to. By the way the Thief can't tank and dies in like 3 hits... so you have to use manual dodges, shadowsteps, stealth, and always be moving around the mob to avoid dieing. In other words it can get tough to manage all this as fast as you can especially in PvP but the challenge is fun and to me it's the best part of GW2.
Then I come back to p99 and stand face to face with a mob while my autoattacks swing... yay fun!
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