Guild Wars 2

So well im fairly new to the game and i just hit 80 on a warrior and wich class should i play as now? i dont mind

( If you don’t mind, why are you asking?)
Ele is the most powerful class right now in pve, necros are in a weak spot, mesmers as well. What game mode do you want to play, what role do you want to achieve, and what mechanics are attractive for you?

Mesmer has been repeatedly crippled and many of the traits don’t work as advertised. In some cases they don’t work at all. I bring a knife to a gunfight ( playing Mesmer ) in PVP because I like the class certainly not for any advantage.

If you want to PVP, play a water traited Ele… massive tanking and massive damage.

Necro has some mean builds as well. Fearmancer and Minion Master are both strong.

For strictly solo open world pve necromancer is great. Save warrior for dungeons. If you plan on doing dungeons then mesmer. People also state mesmer us better wvw which may be true but the way your expected to play isn’t fun.

Overall i like my necromancer much more. They do great damage with d/d build and can survive well. I do a well build. 20/30/0/20/0 and have a blast in pve

Some pve thoughts..

Just keep in mind that leveling ele or mesmer might be not the biggest fun experience after leveling a warrior. Necro should be no problem at all.

As much as I love my mesmer main it was nearly painful to level, but it got better once you have more points to trait. Right now the mesmer has heaps of bugs which aren’t fun either.
Leveling my ele was similar, but better than mesmer.
Compared to them my necro was easy and fun to level.

If you want to farm events and get decent loot, don’t use mesmer. Too slow and too few aoes. ^^ (necro is great for loot, especially with staff; ele with two daggers is also pretty fast to get decent loot)

If you like being purple and splashing around butterflies, take mesmer.

I love mesmer, I should be praising and advertising them, I just can’t at the moment. -.-

Ele is the best light class across the board, while mesmer is considered niche and underpowered in all 3 game modes. Necromancers are only considered great in large scale WvW and GvGs, but they can work well in spvp and small scale if you know what you’re doing.

For pvp: For, ele it’s either go undying water arcane tank/ celestial might stacking machine, or a glassy AoE death machine or burst magical assassin (scepter builds). Because ele has poor base surviability, you either have to max out surivability stats and traits, or mitigate damage through bursting your enemies before they can kill you. Note that staff is only advisable in coordinated teams.

For mesmer, literally glassy 4/4/0/0/6 shatter with staff/GS is considered decent. It focuses on burst damage from range and team support through boon removal and portal.

Necro uses burst AoE and high powered autoattacks on power builds, and burst condition pressure (spite signet and corrupt boon) and fear chaining on condition builds. Very strong in team fights but goes down fast if focused because the devs thought that having death shroud was enough to justify having no active defense or significant sustain. I love necro but right now it’s far more burst than attrition.

Elementalist if you PVP / WVW / PVE Equally.

Mesmer if you PVP more than you PVE/WvW. [Note: If you hate thieves, go Elementalist. A good thief vs. A good mesmer = A good warrior vs. a bad Ranger.]

Necro if you PVE/WvW more than you PVP, PVP but like skyhammer, or can tolerate melting under focus with the tradeoff of being magnificent in support roles/when you are not focus.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Elementalist if you PVP / WVW / PVE Equally.

Mesmer if you PVP more than you PVE/WvW. [Note: If you hate thieves, go Elementalist. A good thief vs. A good mesmer = A good warrior vs. a bad Ranger.]

Necro if you PVE/WvW more than you PVP, PVP but like skyhammer, or can tolerate melting under focus with the tradeoff of being magnificent in support roles/when you are not focus.

Except that necro is considered the worst pve class as far as dungeons and faptals go.

Pick Elementalist. It’s useful in every area of the game, doesn’t require you to collect tons of different weapons of armors, is okay engaging to play and not that kittence you catch the main idea.

Mesmer is… maybe just not my type of profession. Mind blasting and other stuff is fun, but butterflies and pink stuff maintains the distance. Gameplay-wise I think it’s okay in every game mode, but doesn’t excell as year or two years ago.

Necromancer… on paper may be easy and has some fun stuff, but when you reach certain areas of gameplay, you’re treated as an enemy by speedrun groups and most fun things turn out to either have no place on your bars (because certain skills are almost required) or be useful as a paper knife in a gunfight (*cough*siphons*cough*)

Mesmer is a pain to level, Necromancer is frowned upon by PUGs, but Elementalist is actually in a really good spot.

Mesmer is really strong in pug PvE and non-speedrun organized groups because they offer a ton of utility and have better single-target DPS than guardians, but current FGS meta means that guardians tend to be preferred for the same roles since they can burst better both in support and damage, albeit they can’t sustain as well.

At the very least wait until they announce what the Septermber changes will be before ruling them out, mesmers get tons of buffs pretty much every patch so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re due for some pretty significant buffs this one too.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Mesmer is really strong in pug PvE and non-speedrun organized groups because they offer a ton of utility and have better single-target DPS than guardians, but current FGS meta means that guardians tend to be preferred for the same roles since they can burst better both in support and damage, albeit they can’t sustain as well.

At the very least wait until they announce what the Septermber changes will be before ruling them out, mesmers get tons of buffs pretty much every patch so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re due for some pretty significant buffs this one too.

Mesmer literally hasn’t got a single buff in over a year.
Honestly if you want the most solid caster pick ele. Bad pugs have a problem with necro’s and Mesmers are broken as hell.

Easily Ele – very versatile

Absolutely amazing in WvW if you want to zerg around with staff and drop AOEs like crazy
Or even roam with a small group

Great in pve – amazing DPS and utililties. Takes a lot more skill to survive than Mesmers and necros though.

Fantastic and pretty strong in sPvP as well (DD celestial ele + might runes is tough to beat if you know your rotations well and actively time your dodges/stabilities)

Overall, Ele is a winner IMO…the only other light class I’ve tried is necro though so I am a bit biased haha. Necro just seems a few steps behind Ele in terms of everything. Can’t speak for mesmers other than they are great for roaming in wvw or 1v1 duels in sPvP… kinda useless in PvE outside of time warping stuff and some other gimmicky utilities like stealth or portals

Neptune.2570:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Mesmer is really strong in pug PvE and non-speedrun organized groups because they offer a ton of utility and have better single-target DPS than guardians, but current FGS meta means that guardians tend to be preferred for the same roles since they can burst better both in support and damage, albeit they can’t sustain as well.

At the very least wait until they announce what the Septermber changes will be before ruling them out, mesmers get tons of buffs pretty much every patch so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re due for some pretty significant buffs this one too.

Mesmer literally hasn’t got a single buff in over a year.
Honestly if you want the most solid caster pick ele. Bad pugs have a problem with necro’s and Mesmers are broken as hell.

i would beg to differ. mesmer did get one buff. PU.

Other than that, anet practically nerf this class

Necros: Someone else said this best – “Nobody ever complains about having too many necros in wvw.” On the flip side – “nobody likes necros in pve”.

PvE: I pretty much always swear when a mesmer joins my pug group. Not because the class is bad, but because the players almost never know how to play them usefully. Necros are like “meh, at least they probably won’t die”, and eles are “ok, there’s a chance they will be good”.

So I would say, ele is all round a good choice. For WvW, necro is also good. For PvE, if you’re an elite gamer then consider mesmer, otherwise please choose something else.

Don’t listen to these people saying, "x class is “best” across the board" when it comes to pvp.

Necro can counter Ele, ele can also counter necro (depending on build)

Shatter mesmer can wreck peoples face, they can also be countered with insane bunker strats.

Thief can make people QQ, thief also might QQ them selves when they get wrecked by X build from ele or warrior or (insert class here).

In pvp there is no “best”. You’ll always eventually run into someone with a build that counters yours, or maybe you just get outplayed by that one guy with thousands of hours of play time spent mastering their class, although this will almost “never” be the case because if you win then you’re “OP”.

I’d personally look up meta builds for necro, ele, mesmer and try them all out. All those classes can wreck equally as hard, although some builds may take more skill than others.

well now this is my cup of tea.

Ele and Mesmer my two main classes, with Necro being a class I love but im nowhere near as good with.

Ele, as of right now, is possibly the best overall class besides Warrior. Actually, at a high level id go as far as saying Ele is the best class period. Ele hits like a truck even with defensive stats, can stack might for the team, heal the team, stay mobile and stay alive quite easily ONCE YOU KNOW WHAT YOURE DOING. At start, Ele will seem like it cant survive at all due to light armor and lowest hp, but eventually youll see that the ele is literally a mobile tank, and I dont mean tank as in absorbing damage, I mean tank as in rolling out and blasting the enemy. In PVE, Ele is wanted for its might stacks, Ice bows, Fiery Great Swords (which is being nerfed) and aoe. the constant aoe heals and, regen and condi cleanse works in your favor as well. As amazing as all this sounds, there is an extremely high learning curve. Also, Ele is a beast from range using staff. In WVW Ele can hold his own one on one using daggers against just about any build or class out there. Staff in group fights can decimate a large part of a zerg.

Ahem, onto the Mesmer. Mesmer has been my main since… about 5-6 months into the game. Let me start by saying I absolutely hated the Mesmer while I leveled it up, the only class I hated more was the Ranger (which I love now). Mesmer is extremely unique; its large hp pool and weapon selection make it quite an attractive selection. Heres the confusion… Mesmer is actually a melee class. While it has 3 ranged weapons (GS is ranged for mesmer, Scepter, and Staff) you wont find the real strength of the mesmer unless you use a 1 handed sword. Mastering the 1hs mesmer is difficult and will take some time. Cooldowns on your offhand weapons is something you will have to get used to. Mesmers have versatile builds though most people run one very, very similar, I have used an aoe healing zerk mantra mes since I started. The April 15th patch actually nerfed my build but I still use it effectively. Mesmer is NOT a class I would suggest for PVE at first, however if youre willing to learn and are looking for a class to invest in I think Mesmer is the perfect choice. While Ele is in a better spot, I think Mesmer will eventually (september?) get its feet back under it. Mesmer is by no means BAD in pve, its the lack of AOE for events and regular map clearing that make it somewhat annoying to use. For WvW its a mixed bad, its not TOO helpful in large scale fights but can dominate in 1 on 1 scenarios. Same goes for PVP, while Mesmer isnt popular in PvP, this is more of the fact that people stopped theorycrafting and started sticking to “meta”…. atleast, thats part of it anyway. Overall Mesmer is a love it or hate it class, I def think its worth the time and effort, its more of the… “experts” class, so to speak.

Finally we have the necro. Necro is the class I actually had the most fun leveling up. Ill make this one short. To be brutally honest, ive been using my necro for pve and dungeons lately after 2 years of hearing how bad they are at it, and I have to say…. no. Necro is just fine. They wont stack might, give ridiculous regen, or reflect projectiles like a Mesmer, but they hold their own just fine. That there though is the problem, its a selfish class. If playing with other good players, necro is a ball because how the class operates both from melee, mid, and long range is awesome, it just needs to be understood. Players that dont know necro or havent been playing long and just believe the hype will think Necro sucks and want you to switch to war or guardian. Dont be one of those guys. For WVW Necro is the kitten. They CAN have some serious problems in one on ones, ive seen it happen, but at the sametime in groups, or even small groups (2 on 2 or so) they can and will wreck your face open. Their only weakness is lack of vigor/ protection / stability. The huge upside is Necro is one of the few classes, maybe only class (imo) that has advantage over really really good engis. (A GOOD engi will make anyones life hell!). in PVP Necro is a mixed bag. I think necro is great in pvp, some people with meh, it really depends on the group for this one. Overall its a great class, just dont fall into the “SUCKS IN PVE DONT USE” category. PVE is more than just dungeons, its tagging mobs and getting loot, which the necro is great at.

With all that said, roll all three to level 10 and see which is best for you.