Guild Wars 2

Hey folks, have gotten busy recently but have leveled guardian engineer and warrior to 20 and would like more information before I commit further. My buddy is a necromancer and we were wondering what professions excel/synergize well to make dungeons and high-end pve content a better experience. From what I’ve seen it seems like guardians are the class that aggros/ “tanks” the mobs making them somewhat valuable? What professions are “preferred” for dungeon content or what professions are sorely needed for better runs. Thanks for opinions and I apologize if this question is nubbish, but I am having trouble commiting to a class.

TL;dr: If you want dungeons, go Guardian.

Despite people saying there are no ’tanks", it is guardians who do most of the pulling and crowd control. They also heal allies.

Guardians dont ‘tank’. They help the group most because they can keep a good level of boons, group healing, condition removal, CC/Area denial and dps going without much of a problem and have abilities to make some fights trivial.

Engineer can do some of this like slight cc, boons, condition removal and healing but not as much.

Nearly every dungeon i’ve done with a guardian in it has seemed easier.
You can complete them with any class combo without much problem though so just play what you like.

guardians can make good tanks if they know how to strafe and dodge well.once did twilight arbor with a guardian that tanked the 4 bosses.spider boss was so much easier without having to kite

Aye. Guardians make dungeons easier due to their ability to give important boons like Aegis, which allows your party to block the next attack. It is especially helpful against knockdowns.

It means the other four members of your group spend less time having to time dodges and run away from knockdowns if their defensive cooldowns are not up and more time doing damage or controlling the fight in your favor.

As for damage, elementalists and warriors stand out. All professions do a respectable amount of damage, but, against large targets, elementalists and engineers do very good damage. Warriors do a lot of damage consistently.

However, pick a class you want. I am a Mesmer, and I have enjoyed dungeoning far more by simply exploring my class and fine-tuning my builds to encounters. All classes can be viable, if that’s your concern.

Though, some bosses are not affected by conditions and some actually heal off conditions, so you might not be the best for certain encounters. Except, if you are able to find a power, precision, crit damage build for your profession, you can take that anywhere.

Not a Mesmer. I regret it

miya.5160:

As for damage, elementalists and warriors stand out.

Playing an elementalist, I can say that I’ve observed warrior’s damage consistently higher than my own and without the waifyness.

I honestly can’t find anything the elementalist does that the other classes do better.

General PvE is far too /faceroll to give any indication how your character will perform in dungeons. That “play as you want” crap doesn’t apply to dungeons.

Every explorable can be done by any class. Just put 5 people in a dungeon that know how to play well and play together and the rest takes care of itself.

Rolo.9248:

miya.5160:

As for damage, elementalists and warriors stand out.

Playing an elementalist, I can say that I’ve observed warrior’s damage consistently higher than my own and without the waifyness.

I honestly can’t find anything the elementalist does that the other classes do better.

General PvE is far too /faceroll to give any indication how your character will perform in dungeons. That “play as you want” crap doesn’t apply to dungeons.

elementalist can lay down and proc combo fields better than any other class. At least fire ones for sure (which imo are the most useful, because 3 stacks of might is gooood)

Zenyatoo.4059:

elementalist can lay down and proc combo fields better than any other class. At least fire ones for sure (which imo are the most useful, because 3 stacks of might is gooood)

Necro is pretty amazing with the ability to have 15 sec uptime of dark combo field and 10 sec uptime of light combo field, area blindness/lifesteal, and area retaliation/romove condition. Plague form 20 secs of constant blind = amazing. Add to that i spec for healing/toughness and mobs have a grudge and choose to beat on me constantly even when the entire group is pummeling them and I just use well of suffering once, I become an amazing tank.

If your friend is a necro and you plan on running with him constantly, get him to use wells, any of the classes you listed you want to play will synergize sith the constant upkeep of combo fields/enemy debuffing a necro can apply.

Rolo.9248:

miya.5160:

As for damage, elementalists and warriors stand out.

Playing an elementalist, I can say that I’ve observed warrior’s damage consistently higher than my own and without the waifyness.

I honestly can’t find anything the elementalist does that the other classes do better.

General PvE is far too /faceroll to give any indication how your character will perform in dungeons. That “play as you want” crap doesn’t apply to dungeons.

I tank with mine and I have so many shields and escape methods it’s crazy.

Zenyatoo.4059:

elementalist can lay down and proc combo fields better than any other class. At least fire ones for sure (which imo are the most useful, because 3 stacks of might is gooood)

True if:
- You only play staff
- You stay alive through the ire of those in your AoE
- There are enough hostiles in the AoE to rack up the damage
- Enough teammates finish the combo and you don’t have other teammates dropping combo fields concurrently (they don’t stack; only one takes effect)

Drew.1865:

Rolo.9248:

I honestly can’t find anything the elementalist does that the other classes do better.

I tank with mine and I have so many shields and escape methods it’s crazy.

But a guardian or a warrior can do it better whilst dealing far more damage, which was my point.

@ rolo

I play double dagger
I can proc 3 fire field + burst combo’s by myself in ~8 seconds.

I’ve also never had a problem surviving to proc my combo’s, even in explorables.

@ sjarch, yeah, necromancer dark fields are great. Blindness is just so nice for those shenanigan 1 shots. But ive found that giving 9-12 stacks of might to 5 people really speeds up the trash clearing, which is IMO the worst part of the dungeon.

Elementalist is great for group play, you just have to know how to play WITH classes you are grouped with, not just beside them or competing with them. This isn’t WoW folks or any other “parse my dps” game, theres more to it than whether or not you can out dps another class.

Neither a gaurdian nor a warrior can play combos like an Elementalist can.

Zenyatoo.4059:

@ rolo

I play double dagger
I can proc 3 fire field + burst combo’s by myself in ~8 seconds.

I’ve also never had a problem surviving to proc my combo’s, even in explorables.

@ sjarch, yeah, necromancer dark fields are great. Blindness is just so nice for those shenanigan 1 shots. But ive found that giving 9-12 stacks of might to 5 people really speeds up the trash clearing, which is IMO the worst part of the dungeon.

Also When wielding the staff we also get the poison AoE field, great for putting weakness up on an entire group of mobs. With my spec being focused for Healing/toughness and the Vitality and Power, I can actually tank mobs relatively well since necros do share the highest base health in the game with warriors. All of the ways I can constantly mitigate damage by hampering the foes ability to dish it out, and keep a practically 100% uptime of some form of gaining health while doing it a good necro can bring a lot to the table in terms of overall group success.

If you’re looking to min/max:

DPS: Overall Staff Ele #1, Ranger/Necro/War can sometimes beat it on STDPS.
Tank: Mesmer if you have a Thief for weakness, Thief if you don’t.
Support: Staff Ele #1, Guardian runner up.

The other thing you need to look at is range. Classes that can deal great damage at range are usually at an advantage in most instances. Necros/Wars do amazing melee damage but subpar max range damage. Staff Ele/Ranger both deal their highest damage at 1200 range.

Forgot about engi. Engi nade or bomb kit is the best vuln stacker in the game, so they definitely have a spot on a maxed out team.

Sjach Darasv.3729:

Zenyatoo.4059:

@ rolo

I play double dagger
I can proc 3 fire field + burst combo’s by myself in ~8 seconds.

I’ve also never had a problem surviving to proc my combo’s, even in explorables.

@ sjarch, yeah, necromancer dark fields are great. Blindness is just so nice for those shenanigan 1 shots. But ive found that giving 9-12 stacks of might to 5 people really speeds up the trash clearing, which is IMO the worst part of the dungeon.

Also When wielding the staff we also get the poison AoE field, great for putting weakness up on an entire group of mobs. With my spec being focused for Healing/toughness and the Vitality and Power, I can actually tank mobs relatively well since necros do share the highest base health in the game with warriors. All of the ways I can constantly mitigate damage by hampering the foes ability to dish it out, and keep a practically 100% uptime of some form of gaining health while doing it a good necro can bring a lot to the table in terms of overall group success.

Ive never really found tanking trash mobs to be a concern (outside of a select few shenanigan types. cough grenadiers and gunners cough
It’s always just been how slowly they die, and how draining that is for a party, so I try and maximize DPS partywide without going full suicidal mode.

Zenyatoo.4059:

Ive never really found tanking trash mobs to be a concern (outside of a select few shenanigan types. cough grenadiers and gunners cough
It’s always just been how slowly they die, and how draining that is for a party, so I try and maximize DPS partywide without going full suicidal mode.

That’s my point exactly with my necro, I can pretty much hold all mobs attention, and usually once I put myself in combat all the mobs agg to me anyways, so being able to keep a constant blind up for 25 seconds effectively on the entire pack of mobs drastically reduces the damage output the rest of the group takes. The only problem I really have is generally the ranged mobs with a knockback. With the only reliable source of stability in my build coming from the elite, if the ranged mobs aren’t downed within the 25 grace period I give the groups free damage to kill them, things start to become a nightmare.

Have you tried to run a dungeon with 3 or 4 warriors with For Great Justice to spam? Let me just say that is one way to handle a dungeon no matter your class.