The MOST CRITICAL SKILL To Improve At Guild Wars 2!

Guild Wars 2 could certainly be described as a game which is easy to learn, and hard to master. It's not all that difficult to splatter enemies in the open world, and yet trying to figure out how to step it up and reach the upper echelon of what your profession can achieve can be a very tricky puzzle indeed. There are a lot of different ways to improve, but if I were to give one general piece of advice, it would be this...
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[@R3s0n4te]

A degree in fashion design.

[@bobiboulon]

In the movement subject: An error that I made a lot, is dodging out of an aoe when I have plenty of time for just running out of it. Learning to dodge only when necessary (and not always panic-dodging for no reason) was a major skill improvement that became even more usefull when I started pvp.

[@Midaspl]

Yep. Especially on encounters where dodging is sometimes necessary, like Q1 or Q2, it on class like renegade (where you get a lot of crit for having dodge full from talent).

[@Relhio]

Honestly, Lost Ark teaches you this lesson the best since on a lot of classes you only have one dodge available.

[@jgsource552]

Ok so how do u even do that in this game. The effects are so huge on the boss that it's hard to even see what they are doing.

[@bobiboulon]

@@jgsource552 Ofc, sometimes you have to dodge. But sometimes you don't. Know when I can avoid using a dodge is what I'm talking about. Depends on where you are in the aoe, the size of it, how quick the hit will come.

[@jgsource552]

@@bobiboulon actually im fine with the aoe attks cause at least they give u somewhat of an indication of when to dodge. My problem is knowing when a boss is about to do something like a spin attk(which has no aoe indicator). It's hard to see and learn the bosses telegraphed attks with all the effects going on in the scsreen. Cause you mentioned "Learning to dodge only when necessary" and knowing what the boss is about to do is probably a vital thing to learn for this?

[@TheMormonatorChannel]

As someone who regularly dies to Reaper shroud 2 in any raid/strike content that involves no walls, this video felt like a call-out.

[@stevnated]

I know exactly what you mean haha

[@Bzk--]

Coming from wow and being used to having abilities cooldown near the center of the screen through addons usage, I've been playing for a few weeks and it's been hard to adjust to the ui in combat. I used to look down all the time to check skills cooldown / buffs uptime and would get hit by a lot of mechanics. After a month or so of sticking to the same class tho, now the CD timings come almost natural and i barely have to look at the action bar. So if you're struggling with this, just stick with it, keep playing and it's gonna get a lot better the more comfortable you become with your class.

[@d03n3rfr1tz3]

8:00 omg yes! when I started recording my gameplay years ago, this was shocking. I mean, I can clearly see my progress, but it still happens. I'll regularly give the advise to record your gameplay (amongst others of course) to people asking me, how to get better at something, because that was the most helpful thing for me and still is.

[@gofastpops]

my most difficult problem has been (and is) placing ground targeting skills while moving (Engineer Grenades is a good example). It's probably due to poor keybinds using my mouse to move while also trying to drop ground targeting skill.

[@traveling.down.the.road56]

Can you please talk about targeting, because moving away from the games targeting assist and being able to target the enemies I want to target is probably the hardest skill for me to learn and I think it’s essential for progressing from an average player to a good player.

[@SeeHang]

i would recommend not being dependent on the tab targeting. over the course of relearning the game i’m of the belief you need to be reclicking infront if your character if you’re fighting a mob. depending on auto target and tab target usually moves you off the target you’re eying

[@traveling.down.the.road56]

@@SeeHang The problem with that is with all of the visual clutter in the game, it’s hard to even see the mouse pointer during an intense fight with more than a few players or npc’s.

[@whoa9432]

@@traveling.down.the.road56 Bind assist to a "back" button of your mouse.

[@dachrai]

@@traveling.down.the.road56 there is an option now where u can have low and high contrast cursors! since they added it it’s been so hard for me to lose my cursor now! i’m quite certain it’s in general options :)

[@LLPTV]

There's a keybind you need to set for targeting the closest mob, helped me immensely

[@rjsmith5339]

What I never liked about this game is it tricks people into thinking it's mostly a casual experience when in fact it's quite the opposite since most of your time will be spent doing endgame content and the jump in skill required to play that is huge. the game does a terrible job at grooming players for that jump as well. Also gameplay can be kind of janky in some regards. Movement and positioning is so dire that using attacks for movement instead of attacks, targeting far off mosquitos to teleport away and animation canceling can be mandatory for success sometimes. Targeting in general is really really bad. I think if I could pick one problem that is bigger than all the others (at least for me) it would be the nature of the targeting system.

[@Rufups]

What really helped me is using a mouse with multiple programmable buttons. Left hand for movement and dodge right hand for skills

[@brayanmadera2160]

big facts on boneskinner q.q I would love to be able to be able to know how many blades I have as a virtuoso without having to look down

[@TKBadMoon]

GW2s lack of UI customizability is the biggest reason none of my friends will continue playing it and one of the biggest reasons it took me 10 years to really start digging into it. And even after clearing several raid tiers it's still a massive pain point and stops me from turning the game on a lot of the time.

[@Qydric]

This and performance issues are a real problem in this game.

[@aquapendulum]

The only 2 skills I truly excel at: - Press 1. - Type /gg really fast.

[@faizkuntoro2126]

Is this new elementalist rotation?

[@theeldritchtruth852]

Average power rifle Mech enjoyer

[@henril872]

Looking at skills is going away as soon as the rotation is flawless and cooldowns are in the head. Low intensity builds never make me look at the skills while in a fight as long as i get the utilities im supposed to. Fun fact im always holding right click down, always

[@azurechan]

ABC = Always Be Casting!!! Never any pauses!!! :D

[@despair1225]

A certain gooseman in song told me to "Get a better build.", solid advice.

[@shollral]

i really dont like the "aboutface" thing in the game :c

[@Draconicrose]

GW2 would benefit from letting people have action camera movement with the normal camera.

[@glittergoat91]

Still occasionally looking down at my skill bar - guilty. However only just started playing, still learning firebrand skills and there's SO many of them 😅

[@derpzone7425]

glancing at your skillbars is fine even pros do it. its more a lesson of not developing a habit of tunnel-vision.

[@manictiger]

I've been playing awhile and it's really easy to get lazy. I know the most important movement skills by heart on Vindicator, but I started realizing that I'm probably not crit-capping all the time when soloing, which... Is terrible. In groups, I'm sloppy, but it doesn't matter, but I need to put myself in difficult situations to train up my effectiveness. I know I can do way better.

[@TheRaydiation]

turning off combo fields really helps with visual noise

[@Silvarin33]

Such a great video for people who want to improve!

[@HardcoreCasualGW2]

This is great stuff. It seems so simple, right? How can you expect to properly deal with mechanics if you always have your eyes on your skill bar? But if you never thought about it, chances are you're making that mistake all the time and it makes the game a lot harder than it should be.

[@Neox999]

How do you manage your keybindings? My biggest problem when playing different specs were the keybindings and the incredible lack of customization the game offers. Like for some specs you use the F3 to F5 skills all the time but on others you don't even have a skill on them. So unless you use some third party addon (which usually breaks after an update) or change the keybindings all the time you need to go with some compromise.

[@fireblac]

This is a huge bother for me too. The only way I get around it is by making custom keybind profiles on my gaming peripherals, but even then I dislike having to do that as I like swapping chars and elite specs a lot. I've pretty much settled on just 1 layout now, still custom, that has everything up to "f5" somewhat easily accessible, but I still have to compromise.

[@arneca6783]

I have a Custom Keybinding Profil for every Spec im playing. So when i switch the Spex, i switch the Keybinding Profile.

[@DrZaius3141]

12:20 As an absolute noob who has mastered other MMORPGs in the past, I deeply related to this. For the most part leveling, my elementalist simply stayed in fire form, but when I found myself soloing a group event I just rotated all 16 spells. Did I realize that F2-3/4/5 (with a staff) were heals/buffs? Of course not. It still worked well enough - and what's more, it made me look up what those spells actually did so I can adjust my rotation according to my needs. Still a bit scared of post-80 content, but oh well.

[@DugFromTheEarth]

This is a UI/UX problem, and one that exists in most mmorpgs. Its why weakauras is so popular in WoW. The game has its own elements that are challenging, players shouldnt have to fight the UI as well. Id much rather the devs be able to balance challenges around actual boss mechanics without having to factor in things like players fighting against a horribly laid out UI that allows for zero customization.

[@manub9750]

Before even going to pressing buttons and position, take time to have good, effective keybinds and shortcuts. And get rid of bad keybinds which can screw you at the wrong moment. I was so much guilty of having crap keybinds that half of my skill bar were shortcuts, and the rest was mouse-clicking, in most MMOs I played since GW1. The game that taught me to have ordered and practical keybinds is FFXIV. Because pretty much every job (class) has like 30+ active skills in that game. So you HAVE to have good and ordered keybinds, or you're screwed. Took me about a month or two to get the hang of my new keybinds, but it was really worth the time invested. That said, GW2 is pretty different, there's way less active skills, but you really have to be quick to activate them as fast as possible, as you said it in the video. So, the challenge here is to find really easy keybinds that you can activate really fast, for now, I still struggle with that, but I'mworking on it.

[@AderonRaven]

Oh yes, as an elementalist, I can't express enough how much of a quality of life for me was rebinding my attunement change buttons from F1-F4 to ALT+1, ALT+2 etc. Also, I moved autoattack from 1 to C to be able to use my thumb for it. And all the non-weapon skills are mapped around WSAD so I can press them immidiatelly without moving my hand to unusual area of keybord. That's good for training muscle memory - the less hand's movement, the better.

[@Alexkris6666]

I still click skills with mouse in pvp :D got my legendary heavy armor in 7 months of extremally casual playing

[@SigFrid1985]

I fully agree with Teapot, the problem arrises when we play various characters - it is simply too much to handle :O

[@MysticleMonster]

The high apm thing is still true. If you press all the heavy hitters quick enough you are going to do enough dps on every build in the game.

[@HelloFellowMellowMarshmallow]

This is why I wish we can edit our UI even if it's just at the basic level. Let us have the ability to drag, resize, and opacity change the ENTIRE status/skill bar if they're so adamant about keeping that "GW2 identity". The damn thing is just out of periphery which is why we get caught off-guard by staring at the skill bar. Yes, yes, yes, there is the git gud and skill issue thing, sure, sure, of course. If we can maybe, perhaps, possibly (idk other synonyms) you know, yoink it from the bottom of the screen, and maybe just shimmy the thingy slightly closer to the middle of the screen then lower its opacity so we can see the cooldowns in our periphery while still being able to perceive threats happening without too much eye movement, that would be rad.

[@youreyestell4977]

This was really helpful! Thanks! :)

[@SeeHang]

😂 funniest thing about learning to maneuver in gw2 is when you try to apply those knowledge base to mounts. seige turtle is by far the most challenging mount to learn how to maneuver around corners and hills without wasting time and energy lol

[@IsadorCz]

How do you move towards thr camers without slowly moving backwards

[@ryltair]

Excellent points Teapot, thanks for this. In fighting games replays are ESSENTIAL to get better. Watching the matches you lost can be painful, but extremely insightful.

[@nellone]

the most important thing is..... DPSSSS!!!!!! XD

[@skycastrum5803]

>In the middle of pvp >Furiously reading skill descriptions

[@DrZaius3141]

I'm not a PvP person (I abhor it, in fact), but after hitting level 80 (yes, very new) the dailies talked about PvP - and not even winning, just playing. So I thought I'd just pop in for a 1v1 (description didn't say otherwise), stand there and be whacked down. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't 1v1 and I couldn't even slack. Of course I sucked, because I didn't make a PvP build but at least I supported a bit and got carried by my team mates. So I wasn't technically reading skill descriptions, but it was comparable.

[@skycastrum5803]

@@DrZaius3141 If you’re brand new to PvP, it’s understandable to be lost. Especially when it comes to PvP specific things, like how the game modes work. Heck, though I’d expect someone to at least know what the skills they used in PvE are, PvP builds can be different as well, and it takes time to get used to everything. (Though hopefully you do travel up the learning curve if you continue. Also, it still surprises me that certain things, like clicking skills instead of using hotkeys, are a thing.) Just got to get past that initial barrier to entry. Helps to put things in perspective, like that dying isn’t the end of the world and you’re going to do it. A lot. Especially at first. Totally up to you, but PvP can provide some of the most hype moments in the game. I’m still pretty new to GW2 PvP. Mostly doing WvW. But it’s great to feel like you’re contributing, or getting away with something crazy. Heck, just yesterday had one of those moments. I main thief (which means I’m trash, since I’m new and the learning curve on it is steep as hell). Was taking a camp and got jumped. Downed the guy, but then a horde of the other team came and downed me. Got the kill from down on the first guy, rallied, and managed to shadow port away. Then tele’d back to base and noticed that I somehow managed to flip the camp.

[@jadethejaded.3703]

I guy thought I was toxic when I say this. People kicked me out of raids because I play low intensity builds before streamers talk about them. I'm kinda thankful that popular streamers are saying this but fuck me I wanna fucking scream.

[@Draconicrose]

Which stream were you learning virtuoso on? I'd like to watch the VOD.

[@tpa3437]

Combat is just too fast and choatic in this game for me, I would say for most people lol. There is nice depth of mecanics and stuff but its just too fast and hard to see

[@funnyanimalworld7579]

no need to impove, just play and have fun

[@fortpyjamas]

Ngl, as a new player to GW2 one of the biggest things that I'm struggling with is the simple act of moving the character + moving the camera + attacking (basic attack). It is so hard to reprogram my brain from clicking left mouse to use basic attack. Do you guys always press 1 for basic attack or do you have to bound to some other key which is easier to reach? And do you turn on auto-attacking or keep it off? It's so confusing ;_;

[@tisen1241]

You can turn action combat mode by going to the key bind settings and setting a button to trigger that mode, with that mode on you can move your camera by moving your mouse and you can use your base attack with left click

[@fortpyjamas]

@@tisen1241 I've been using acton cam so far but then I started watching GW2 youtubers and they all recommended free cam for better control so now I'm trying to retrain myself to it haha

[@DavidWoodMusic]

What's the 1516 in the corner?

[@Kidame]

What if ur really good with Action cam, better stick with it?

[@okgut2033]

Small correction: if your skills cancel cause you push buttons too fast, your in the point you might slow down there. Its a pitty the game doesnt really challanges outside of selfset once like speedrun pve or speedrun 99,9999% of players and not get stomped by the rest. even worse the game itself doesnt help to get to get halfway maybe not even a third to the point of putting the theorie to practise. yes i know there will always be gabs but atm it feels like a huge hole instead of a small scratch. We have players that push buttons and players that do so faster. But we are far away of players knowing why they do so and why other things are worse/better. Its mostly a gut feeling and has nothing to do with math and/or deep understanding of the game. On pvp on top most dont know when others do push buttons what buttons you push to get the upside and even what to do in outside of duel situations. Also maprotations, kite are far from ok. And the last skill that is for players beyond good isnt even in reach, not even a glance seen on our top players. I mean the point to help all teammates to be more usefull then they normally are (and make enermies worse then they should be) eg. by "bodylanguage" force them to move better/ faster or that one small skill that does the damage needed to reach breakpoints so the 1v1 is in that players favore and then move on and do your next insane move like blocking a +1 engage and flip the next fights. Im ok with casual, the thing that make me cry rivers is the tools given to us players, esp the learnexperience. Its close to non existent and you really need to want more as a player to get anything out. Just looking at every other game makes you feel there are better skilled players just on the nature of the game and dont get me wrong, i see the huge Potential gw2 has as a game and how much its just never used. ... Im sorry i wanted to stay positive on my beloved game.

[@loopyq1209]

Wtf is this kid saying

[@JacoKruger.]

I would like to know how you manage to press 13 to 15 skill buttons with only 4 fingers, or 3 fingers lol, 5 fingers with 2 doing movement and 3 to press all the skill buttons, sure you can bring them down to 8 buttons by alt+skill button, still 8-9 buttons is alot to press with only 3 fingers, if you use 5 fingers you lose movability completely, unless you use auto run, I guess running around like an idiot is what needs to happen then lol

[@HardcoreCasualGW2]

You are only using one or two skills at any given time due to the time required to cast them.

[@azurechan]

mouse buttons also help

[@aignite]

Use at least Q and R to bind 9 and 0 skills, you dont need to reach so far

[@FlowerBot]

alternatively, learn to play the piano

[@lisaparker271]

LOL that is literally the same skill as playing high level content in destiny 2, wow, ff14, eso, it is a skill you bring to multiple MMOs lol.

[@orack6355]

And that why I don't like spammy class.

[@naskorar]

Mate like your video but that is complete trash The Most Critical THE KEY cmonnn Control 😂😂😂

[@MightyTeapot]

It's actually true

[@arzensolorit1937]

A guide to how to do nothing in many words

[@kevingumfory]

Glamour game. Theres no point in gear. Real gear is useless. Gw2 is straight up lgbqt. If your looking for a game that is actually competitive, don't look at gw2 or ff14. Both are glam.

[@kingvonderwelt5090]

Gear being meaningless doesn't mean a game can't be competitive. I think it's actually pretty lame to be better than somebody else just because you have better gear.. It feels much better to know you're better because you're just better.

[@serenagray9469]

I'm lgbqt as fuck so I definitely have to give this game a shot! Thank you for the recommendation

[@jgsource552]

you are high on something and i need more of it

[@quick2bud]

12:15 for all us casuals who still wanna do good dps. Big Brain plays

[@BeenThereBefore_UK]

Soooo... what are your keybinds? I use WASD for movement and the mouse for skills...but I have to watch where I click to do that which is not good according to this video. What's the best setup? The video tells us what we need to do but not how to do it 🫤