Guild Wars 2

Hey,

I have a thief up to 80, and as much as I love him, I’d like to have another character to bring to the table as well since my friend is a thief as well that I run things with on a daily basis.

I really am only interested in doing dungeons (including fotm but all in general)

I am stuck on what alt to make and have narrowed it down to Guardian or Mesmer. I do enjoy the idea of support/tank/heal, though, I know that this game runs different than a true ‘healer’ which is what has me between the two. I know mesmers can be useful as well, just in different ways.

I was curious to get insights from others who might have both of these or have had the debate themselves. I did make both and attempt to play in the mists a bit, but it doesn’t give me much of a taste for dungeons since they are completely different.

Any input would be amazing!

((If I do go guardian, it will be vit/tough support for sure, though the lack of range is stumping me a bit))

I really like my guardian for dungeons, I am pretty much unkillable on him while putting out decent dmg. I also love my mesmer and your team will love you for bringing Time Wrap but if I could only bring one of them into dungeons I would pick my guardian.
Me and my firend have duo’ed all the paths in AC, TA and CM, me on my guardian and my firend as an ele. We have also done done some paths in SE and HotW and plan on doing more sometime in the future.
So yea I defenetly recomend guardian for dungeons

guardian. unless you wanna spend a lot time mastering mesmer.

If your dungeon group doesn’t already have one, then my vote is for the Mesmer. Don’t get me wrong, the Guardian is godly and I really love mine, but a Mesmer’s like a swiss army knife in any dungeon run. Into the Void groups enemies up against a wall for AOE and melee cleaves, Time Warp is good for DPS or emergency revives, you can start thinking in Portals, Feedback reflects projectiles, Staff is great for run sections, etc etc etc.

Guardians are RAELLY fun. great utility. can take a beating. and you’ll see big numbers pop still (probs not as high as your thief though). but like a few have said, mesmers add their own set of unique abilities to the table as well! love having mesmers in my group. i’ll probs never play one cause it’s not my type of play.. but worth a shot too.

more than one guardian in a group: great, consta aegis – and 20% more dmg while under aegis ;-)
more than one mesmer in a group: dude, where’s my dps?

I love to have a mesmer in a group, but two or three? guardians you can never have too many (if they did gear properly ofc, not some ‘tank’ who doesn’t do anything for the team).

also.. leveling a guardian was pretty smooth and easy (always going for strong/mighty/zerker stuff, as you have so many survivability options). I’m trying the same with mesmer currently – not quite so easy. nearly as bad as engi was. you can kill vets/champs pretty soon, but 5 easy mobs at the same time and you’re toast (at lower levels at least, when you don’t have the useful traits yet).

Usually more than one guardian means twice as long bosses fights.

haviz.1340:

Usually more than one guardian means twice as long bosses fights.

how changing 20% of party can drop damage output by 50%? ;o (well unless he was the only one stacking 20might or smth)

In case you haven’t noticed, both are good choices.

Mesmer does take a little bit more time and effort. Leveling is a bit of a pain until 30 or 40. Also, their powers are awesome but situational and so you will be swapping out weapons and utilities based (and sometimes even traits) on what is coming up (there are some good “default” settings, but as you learn various paths you’ll want to use some of the better setups for each situation). However, it is worth the effort. . .and they have style

You’ll come to have a love/hate relationship with Portal. Cause it’s awesome when you can help your team legitimately bypass a hard part . . .but that often means you have to be good at getting past that hard part without portal, like the Lasers in CoE, and your team may come to expect you to be able to do this kind of thing for them.

haviz.1340:

Usually more than one guardian means twice as long bosses fights.

Hmm. Tanky guardian + berserker warrior/thief + 3 afk players.
Berserker warrior changes to tank guardian, fight duration doubles.
3 afk players stay afk?

Sounds reasonable.

That being said and letting (her/)him to think about what (s)he – both of them are nice. Mesmers bring their utility to group and shine in some areas, but guardians stack way better and have their own pros (and cons too, like every class should have). That being said, you’ll probably find guardian easier to play and level – maybe even master – and will find yourself welcome pretty much everywhere at any time.

The real question is, why not level both of them? You have 5+ character slots. Artificier/Cooking/Jewelry will give you 30 levels to both of them fast, cheap and easily while going trough skill challenges(160+ of them at least, orr and WvWvW can be troublesome) alone will net 10-15 extra levels. That’s over halfway to levelcap and can be done in single day (per character).

Keyword “usually”.

@OP

I have a guardian (AH) and mesmer (Phantasm/Glamor) running dungeons fairly often.

With guardian, ranged options are limited but melee is strong. You can go melee in dungeons in most cases. With AH, I run shouts mainly with some consecrations (WoR) and spreading boons keeps my HP high and my group stacked with boons. Runes of Soldier keeps conditions off my party. I use just about every weapon except for sword and torch in different situations.

With mesmer, you offer very unique utility. Portal is one of the most unique group utility you can offer. Timewarp is one the most powerful group buff in the game. Signet of Domination is also very interesting to use. Feedback, Mass Inv… the list goes on. Mesmer also got strong boon stripping with Mind Stab(both sword and GS) and Null Field.

The 2 for me are played very differently. A guardian can take alot of punishment, to an extent so that your party members don’t have to. A mesmer (in particular TW and SoD) can be treated like a party performance multiplier. Both have good survivability in different ways (guardian endures while mesmer escapes). Depends on my mood. But I play my mesmer more often as I find its more interesting.

Funny that you didn’t mention elementalists. I don’t have one personally but they can be very useful and supportive in dungeons too.

It’s hard to pick between guardian and mesmer but I would recommend guardian. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing you can just slot in 3 shouts, press whatever, faceroll and you’ll probably get by just fine. You can’t do the same with the mesmer. Obviously ‘press whatever’ isn’t the ideal playstyle but what I mean is you don’t really have to master the class to still be very useful to your teammates.

I pretty much have enough time to get on GW2 everyday to do just the daily and one dungeon (usually FotM), so I enjoy dungeoning too, and yeah. I actually think 2 mesmers in a party isn’t a big deal. Double the time warp and whatnot. But when I ran FotM with 3 guardians and we got the Shaman fractal, practically no one died because wall of reflect/shield of the avenger was up all the time. So I guess people are more willing to keep 2+ guardians in a party compared to 2+ mesmers.

Personally I went with a Guardian for my 2nd alt. It’s just nice to have in a group when there’s none, they can carry a team pretty well. I like playing with my necro more, but if I see a group full of light classes in a pug I def switch out to my guardian just to make sure we finish the dungeon without problems.

A mesmer of course is nice if you run with an experienced group and there’s no mesmer, it will speed up your run greatly to have one.

FWIW, my Guardian has never been turned away from a group. My Mesmer has.

LegatusLeaf.5934:

You’ll come to have a love/hate relationship with Portal. Cause it’s awesome when you can help your team legitimately bypass a hard part . . .but that often means you have to be good at getting past that hard part without portal, like the Lasers in CoE, and your team may come to expect you to be able to do this kind of thing for them.

This is why I never do CoF 1 on my Mesmer these days, something in my brain is broken when it comes to that rolling rocks bit and I cannot ever do it on the first try. I understand perfectly how to time it, but I’ve thoroughly psyched myself out by now and every time I make an kitten of myself.

Anyway for the OP, do you have a mostly static group or is it just this thief friend + PuGs? If the former and you don’t already have a Mesmer, roll one of those. If the latter, I’d say guardian because it and the thief work better as a pair than mes/thief and PuGs will always be eager for another Guardian. Still both are good choices and you’ll be happy with either in any dungeon.

Both are great choices. Both provide amazing utility and support to any party, no matter what the circumstances are. I would rather have 3 guardians in my party than 3 mesmers. However I would rather have 1 mesmer in my party than 1 guardian. Not going into it anymore than that lol.

The only other thing I’d like to mention is that guardian will be a lot easier to understand and I’m pretty sure stays strong at all levels. Mesmer, complicated and doesn’t hit great potential until 40 or so.

thief if you actually like having fun. If not then go guard, war, or mes

Nikaido.3457:

lujate.5432:

FWIW, my Guardian has never been turned away from a group. My Mesmer has.

Did those groups already have a mesmer? It is very unlikely for a mes to be turned away if there is none inside said group, much, much less likely than for a ranger or necro. If those groups didn’t already have a mes, chances are, you probably dodged a bullet by NOT grouping with those guys.

I don’t know if they already had a Mesmer or not. A guildie and I answered a LF2M shout in LA. They asked “what professions?”, we answered “Ranger & Mesmer” and they responded “No Mesmers”.

haviz.1340:

Usually more than one guardian means twice as long bosses fights.

But also greatly increases group survivability.. Fast boss fights are great til your group of glass cannons is wiped and you have to start over.

randomfightfan.4091:

thief if you actually like having fun. If not then go guard, war, or mes

Hahahaha, nice one. Wait… are you serious?

I’d put a guardian ahead of mesmer as a “needed” part of a dungeon group. Usually the 1 guardian, 3 warrior, 1 mesmer is brought up when talking about the ideal group for dungeons. So if your totally against playing a warrior then I’d recommend going guardian. You really can’t go wrong there. I play a mesmer and its a big benefit to a group as well. So I guess the question might be “do you want to tank or do you want to range?” A guardian can range or dps but to me thats not what its best at. Both professions are flexible.

Thanks for all the input. I do plan to eventually roll both, but for the time being I’ll be bringing my guardian up. I am not very worried about having to learn ‘difficulties’ of a profession (mesmers being harder to master) not to say I am a pro, cause I most definitely am not, but I don’t mind spending the time to learn to be better. However, I think since I have a thief who is more glass cannon build right now, might be nice to have a more tanky character to bring to the build.

Also yes, it’s a myself+ friend thief and then pugs for my dungeons mostly. I appreciate all the input on this ^^ I’ve been up in the air for a while on what to make as an alt.

I did consider ele, but I have read a lot about them being underpowered and the support not being as high as a guardian. I personal prefer a mesmer or guardian in group over elementalist. While I do love the class, I’d rather play the other two in the end.

Eiken.6821:

Hey,

I have a thief up to 80, and as much as I love him, I’d like to have another character to bring to the table as well since my friend is a thief as well that I run things with on a daily basis.

I really am only interested in doing dungeons (including fotm but all in general)

I am stuck on what alt to make and have narrowed it down to Guardian or Mesmer. I do enjoy the idea of support/tank/heal, though, I know that this game runs different than a true ‘healer’ which is what has me between the two. I know mesmers can be useful as well, just in different ways.

I was curious to get insights from others who might have both of these or have had the debate themselves. I did make both and attempt to play in the mists a bit, but it doesn’t give me much of a taste for dungeons since they are completely different.

Any input would be amazing!

((If I do go guardian, it will be vit/tough support for sure, though the lack of range is stumping me a bit))

Make both, then switch your main to one of them.

You will not regret it…

Eiken.6821:

Hey,

I have a thief up to 80, and as much as I love him, I’d like to have another character to bring to the table as well since my friend is a thief as well that I run things with on a daily basis.

I really am only interested in doing dungeons (including fotm but all in general)

I am stuck on what alt to make and have narrowed it down to Guardian or Mesmer. I do enjoy the idea of support/tank/heal, though, I know that this game runs different than a true ‘healer’ which is what has me between the two. I know mesmers can be useful as well, just in different ways.

I was curious to get insights from others who might have both of these or have had the debate themselves. I did make both and attempt to play in the mists a bit, but it doesn’t give me much of a taste for dungeons since they are completely different.

Any input would be amazing!

((If I do go guardian, it will be vit/tough support for sure, though the lack of range is stumping me a bit))

If you have a thief, I’m assuming you have learned to dodge many mechanics. If this is true, why make a PVT guardian? that’s gimping yourself and party dps. Go at least Knight set and slowly flow into more dps/less defense gear (zerker, rampager) as you get more familiar with your guardian.

go guard… (or warr)
everyone loves heavies in dungeons

Be a guardian so you don’t have to mesmer portal everyone that screws things up.