Perfecting ACTION COMBAT and TAB TARGETING in Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 has action combat and tab targeting options which allow a lot of freedom and versatility in battle, but learning all of the techniques can take some time. Here is a guide to the most important mechanics to improve the aim, flexibility, and convenience of your skills.
Guide to Mobility: • The 5 MOST ESSENTIAL G...
0:00 - Intro
1:00 - Tab Targeting
2:43 - Detargeting
4:45 - Retargeting
7:43 - Ground Targeting
11:08 - Action Camera
#gw2 #guildwars2 #mmorpg #actiongames
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[@gabrielpelegrini6135]

I know that action camera hinders my potential but goddamn it feels way better to play with it

[@Oryyyt]

As a casul open-worlder this is the best way to play for me.

[@Velakor9150]

limits movement way to much feels awful, really don't get how people play with it. that being said BDO did it perfectly

[@TheCooderix]

@@Velakor9150 BDO feels absolutely awful regardless of how you play it.

[@BeyondTheWall_Gaming]

Superb Content. Despite the game being out for over 10 years, this knowledge can still be hard to come across. This is a great video to share with new players and even some older players that have formed their own habits.

[@sseetthh]

I think this is the most comprehensive while still being concise guides I've ever seen for any video game. you summed up gittinggud amazingly

[@fortpyjamas]

Vallun, its like you read my mind and make a video on the exact topic I'm thinking about. As a lover of GW2 and an aspiring game designer, your videos have been a gold mine of information and perspective. Kudos to you man, love the work as always! :D

[@xxxsmoke4lifexxx]

These are so important to cover. I feel many new players could improve upon this! great guide as always :)

[@traveling.down.the.road56]

Great video! I’ll have to watch this video a few dozen times to get the most out of it and it will take a while to change my play style and improve.

[@dennissantiago9107]

Thank you so much Vallun for this! Ive been looking forward this since you said it on stream that youll make one. As always awesome guides and content.

[@twigagawizard]

Thank you!!! Especially for the detargeting key bind. I appreciate this video so much.

[@DemethVLK]

Thanks for the in-depth explanations Vallun!

[@westlane0926]

here it is! thank you vallun

[@92tpeter]

Fabulous video. Just a note on action camera. Sometimes I play with a controller, and for that, action camera is a must. I have a toggle set up on my controller in order to swap between action camera and regular mode.

[@JJ6282-h8y]

Keep up the vids i love your work and pvp content

[@alexwallin6401]

Great video, great tips. As a returning player I for some reason feel extreme pressure in this game to be DPS efficient, which really sours my experience. So I've recently started from the beginning with a focus on enjoyment and quality of experience over high performance gameplay.

[@Euniceiscool]

A few additional tips: -Ground-targetable skills have a red crosshair beneath their icon. -When in action mode and disengaged (meaning no hash marks around the crosshair on your screen) your character will always turn when you wasd, giving you full movement speed. This is great when doing something like a bullet-hell or Dhuum greens. -In action mode you can target things by right clicking with the crosshair on something. You can de-target by right clicking off.

[@May10th]

Is there any disadvantages for playing in action mode? I am currently playing only on action mode bc I really can't get used to free camera mode, but I wanna know if I should change my habits before I get more used to action mode.

[@Euniceiscool]

@@May10th There are, but if you strictly play PvE I don't think they will matter for you. Aside from obviously having the awareness that comes with a free camera, your skill usage can only go forward, and whether or not that's a problem is situational. For example, the Warrior skill Bull's Charge will go forward if you don't have anyone targeted, otherwise it will go towards your target. If you're in action mode and you are not looking towards your target with your reticle, it will not go to your target and instead go forward. If you're trying to use it as a movement skill to escape, this is OK. If you're trying to stun your target, you've just fumbled your CC. Ground targetable skills can also be used behind you with a free camera. If you were using Engineer's grenade kit, you could run away from an enemy and throw grenades behind you as they chase you, for example. I started the game with action cam and was able to do raids, strikes, and fractal CMs no problem. But when I started to reach the higher divisions of PvP, action camera felt very limiting. When I switched, it only took like a week to figure out. Hope that helps.

[@May10th]

@@Euniceiscool Thank you very much for detailed explanation! I am also interested in pvp so I guess I need to get used to free mode.

[@Euniceiscool]

@@May10th No problem. It's very satisfying when you get good with it.

[@diablioscortes862]

Had no idea about the target locking on action mode, thank you for sharing! I've been playing GW2 on and off since vanilla but never enjoyed free cam and tab targeting, probably because I'm used to the much more static form of tab targeting from wow and ffxiv. But action cam has made me fall in love with the game's combat system and feels so much more immersive. I've been doing strikes and fractals fine using action cam but sometimes the difficulty is staying on moving targets with my mouse. Hopefully the target lock will resolve that issue

[@banxel92]

Good man, ty

[@demianpelos]

Gw2 tab targeting / action is amazing best o e out there

[@svencark9192]

11:37 you CAN target enemies with your mouse cursor (well crosshairs/dot in this case) by aiming at them and right clicking

[@Vallun]

right but you turn your character when you move mouse, its a sacrifice

[@DerHuan1]

i have a dedicated toggle key for action cam because it allows me to freely "turn" my character when being immobilized. when hit by immobilize, i can toggle action cam and precisely aim my rocket boots jump. when cc'ed i can toggle it and aim skills like riposting shadows or roll for initiative as well. i find it very useful.

[@DesenhoBoy]

How exactly single target skills work? I'm having trouble understanding if my Staff Slot 1 attack (Guardian) is actually going on my selected Target or just moving straight foward. If it goes toward the target, can I look in a different direction and my character still attacks the target?

[@yunakatzen9621]

coming from FFXIV, but also play GW2 for 4 years, I wish GW2 have "Legacy Movement" option like XIV does. basically the strafe left/right like in action-cam while you're in tab targeting mode, and when you press S to go backward, your character will automatically face backward instead of slow back-walking. I really can't get used to GW2 non-action-cam because of this... it's stressing me out because sometimes reaper's form 2nd skill can pass through the boss's body in action cam (V_V)

[@RaptorJesus.]

I've gotten used to playing with a controller now and can never go back to mouse and keyboard, it just feels SO GOOD with a controller, action targetting and over the shoulder camera, like I'm playing Witcher or something :D

[@lorenzohamburger]

How do I get the hp bars for the enemy like that

[@Leandril]

I used to swap to action cam via a hotkey to land skills on stealthed targets

[@woof3065]

2:50 the reason I key-bound the "lock autotarget" is because when your character is running and you left click on the ground to loose target; it for me very often happened my mouse click would drag for just a little bit, failing to de-target, and in hairy situations where you want to escape with your movement skills, you don't get a second chance.

[@Houtube-ii2hw]

Hi Vallun, thx for ur vid ! So useful for my gameplay ! Will u do a video about movement and how to manage cam etc .. ? :)

[@Vallun]

there already is :) check the top 5 tips for improving mobility

[@JamesJohnson-ie8tr]

"But i wouldn't suggest you do that, would I?" So funny lol

[@woof3065]

11:30 actually, action cam can be used in rare situations for rangers (any class fighting ranged) ; where normally your ranged abilities hit the centre of your targets hitbox; when this is obstructed and you can't get around it, you can use the action cam and hit their hitbox on a different place avoiding the obstruction. now this might be hard to pull off in a fight where everyone is running around (for example when an enemy is behind a fence you could aim him a bit higher on his hitbox) and you have to suddenly have a perfect aim. But it did allow me to destroy ballista's on walls with longbow ranger (so it was too high up for any other class to hit with aoe) that would normally be obstructed by the action cam allowed me to hit it on the small part that was sticking over the structure it was placed on.

[@Rulestormer]

That's cool! I never knew that.

[@GBS4893]

Someone put hints to those on the beginner guides, i played so much with the default version of these that's painful x)

[@blastmanutz7798]

What I would love for starters (for my personal taste) is if I were able to set "tab to nearest player" only in a frontal cone shape - because right now it works so that it will find the nearest enemy in a 360 circle and it just doesn't work out in a real combat.

[@Vallun]

if you detarget, tab will always start at the neatest target in front of you

[@Howluffu]

what is that specter build that uses s/d? It looks awesome

[@Vallun]

condi specter on guildjen.com

[@dhoff82]

So haven't played in 8 years what would u recommend for dps main class. Leaning Warr, Rev, ranger or guardian

[@Vallun]

rev

[@waveyzen]

I was told in rated pvp you should never use action camera, is there any classes/situations where you would?

[@Vallun]

you could on things like warrior where most of your attacks are melee

[@Psoewish]

I play with action cam and frankly I disagree with the very widely spread point of it being bad or for beginners. It's just a different way of playing but the game gives us tons of options to be able to do things we want to do, usually even with both a hold and a toggle variant. It's extremely competitive and I strongly feel that the only reason it's so frowned upon is just because people are more used to tab targetting, have their impressions of action cam and just decide it's limiting without properly diving into the settings and actually practicing with it. I promise I can do every single thing you showed in this video in action cam, it just requires a little bit more setup beforehand through binding things that aren't bound by default.

[@Vallun]

where did my video say its bad for beginners? I said its good for beginners

[@flavioromano8754]

@@Vallun he said "I disagree with the very widely spread point of it being bad OR for beginners." i agree with what he said, i use action camera too and it is great! also another person also commented some other pros of action camera. ppl are too used with hold right click to move camera kinda of playstyle and when they tried action camera, for being something new for them, it felt worse so ppl say its bad but actually they didnt give it a proper try.

[@Vallun]

@@flavioromano8754 oh my bad, missed the "or" and yes the reason why people don't like action camera is because they learned the game before it was implemented. However, it still limits you with specific builds. I can't imagine trying to play a thief with action cam because you can't quickly target with mouse to port.

[@flavioromano8754]

@@Vallun can target just as fast, with action cam, tab to target and clicking to target still works the same way also targeting ground aoes also works the same

[@traveling.down.the.road56]

It all depends on how players learn the game and how hard it is for them to change their play style. It’s harder for some than others.

[@OleMonkeyBoy21]

hi someone once told me that people in your subgroup could see the "personal target" orange thingy but was that guy wrong? (this thing 7:25) I stopped using it because of this but really liked it... for example when playing heal mech to easily see where my mech was in big pve groups. btw love your vids bro i learned so much from them

[@Vallun]

nope no one else can see it, but the red one they can

[@OleMonkeyBoy21]

@@Vallun TY!

[@susulemons]

hey Vallun, Diablo 4 took a lot of nice inspirations from GW2(cc/pulls/invul/boss stun bar ..etc) , maybe a game you would like too! (and make videos on xDD

[@Vallun]

lmao i aint got the pockets for that, I also don't really like ARP gameplay where you insta kill tons of mobs, I like more strategy.

[@susulemons]

@@Vallun fair enough, thanks for replying, cheers!

[@traveling.down.the.road56]

Don’t be trying to pull one of GW2’s best content creators away from our favorite game! LOL

[@vidaliver1447]

Wonderful videos explaining stuff, loving it! Sadly can't walk away from action cam because the fingers hurt too much rolling the camera around. I was going to dump the game when i was ~40 hours in or smth because my hand started to really suffer and i realized i won't be able to go on no matter how good the game is. Thank the Six i found actioncam... i know it limits me but there's simply no other option. Wish it wasn't like this :(

[@Vallun]

All good, my opinion is that action camera is great for those want an easy option, but I often am faced with backlash for criticising action camera from people who say its better, which is just blatantly wrong, and I need to sternly hold the ground there to be accurate. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play with action cam, it's just that there needs to be no delusion what the optimal way is, even if the optimal way isnt needed.

[@vidaliver1447]

@@Vallun yeah, i totally knew it hinders me even before this video, now i know it's even worse than i thought. People who say action cam is better... do they bring any arguments to such ideas? Because i have a hard time imagining what actioncam is better at (outside of not abusing your hand ofc).

[@Vallun]

@@vidaliver1447 its just easier like training wheels basically, they don't know its better until they finally can get off of them if they ever do

[@vidaliver1447]

@@Vallun here's a real question: which class (or at least a spec) would you recommend for a person who HAS to play with action cam in order to lose as little potential of it as possible? (it is still possible to move/strafe backwards while looking behind your back, but if you start shooting the character turns... insta targeting becomes much more focused as you aim with the marker, but at the same time you can't target somewhere your character doesn't have a direct vision of...)

[@Vallun]

@@vidaliver1447 warrior probably

[@ruinition737]

Do you hve a video that explains and teaches pvp?

[@Stterling21]

Are you for real dude?

[@smolitachi2608]

yo val, are you leif valiant?

[@despair1225]

No Vallun path!

[@camdogg]

wait im fairly new like 200hrs but u can target with tab???? my god im a dumbass. I recently got into wvw and loads of classes tp and u lose target cause of it and all this time ive been trying to click on them to target. welp good to know i guess....

[@Vallun]

well i assumed everyone knew that, but good to know being thorough helped someone lol

[@cio1789]

Maybe if Anet start banning cheaters in wvw then it would be a good game. But when u see same dudes using teleport hacks for years... IDK m8 it's frustrating. If game dont ban cheaters it's not worse ur time

[@Gawdzilla96]

you don't lose the ability to look where you want with action camera... look behind you and press s... same concept applies to all directions.

[@Vallun]

you do if you want to aim in a direction that isnt the way you want to be looking

[@Scott_Silver]

If people are not playing this game with a proper mmo mouse in 2023 they are not playing it rihgt, good video though! Edit: I forgot about instant ground targeting thanks a lot for reminding me!

[@chudbo8751]

o/

[@Snabader]

action cam = chad everything else = virgin

[@Vallun]

yup thats the kind of tunnel vision action cam can give you

[@kroxx.]

I have all my gw2 playtime with action camera and i can certainly say its cool but you are nerfing yourself. It could really use a rework, there is many times you go through the enemy or miss skills just because the cursor wasnt exxxxactly looking into his face and some bosses (specially Deimos w4), even if they are giant, the hitbox for your action camera to not go through him is really small. I died few times on Deimos and some others just because i was looking at the boss, but not at his butt (where the action camera detects the hitbox), but if you look at his butt, you dont see his hands, so cant see the mechanic coming. Its a general pain to be honest, i wish Anet would rework it. If you are new i recommend just play with free camera and get used to it tbh. On the long run you will thank me...

[@SuperYrch]

The tab targeting in GW2 is horrendous. Literally the worst of any tab targeting game.

[@sloppiipapi5648]

I used to play a lot of eso pvp for a very long time and I realized that eso pvp took heavy inspiration from gw2 pvp and made it complete shit.

[@user-sf5mi7xv8u]

I'm disappointed. When I read the title of the video, I was expecting to discover the ability to switch instantly via a shortcut between tab target mode and action combat (mode "fps" shooter) for greater combat efficiency, but in reality it's nothing of the sort. In GW, tab target is always superior to action combat, whatever the situation.

[@loci2552]

guild wars 2 feels to clunky to me. everthing is so slow and then this chars like thiefs hast 100000 dahes. nope im out haha