Guild Wars 2

I hope this is the right section. This is the pve section right?

From what I understand is that you can kinda start right away for pvp (instant 80), but for pve you need to lvl, which can take roughly 50 hours for a new player.

So choosing a profession in pve has to be done with more consideration, because of investing time in the lvling process.

I want to choose a profession to lvl to 80 and I am not sure which one yet.
Hopefully you experienced players can help out a bit.

I lack a picture of what I should imagine from pve instances like dungeons and such.
Can you reflect bosses and high lvl mobs their projectiles with reflect spells?
Do you need to interrupt them?
Can you hide behind a player who takes hits (with block for example) and that teammates hide behind the teammate who uses block, avoiding an attack too?

Is stuff like these elementalist spells useful?
Magnetic wave (reflects projectiles).
Swirling winds (destroys projectiles).
Ring of earth (blocks missles). Are projectiles and missles the same?
Engineer spells like Magnetic shield (reflects projectiles and pushes back foes on release).
Pull spells like engineer Magnet.

I want a bit of an idea of what to picture from pve.
Can you shed a bit how pve plays out?
What is wanted from the different members in a team.

That will help me choosing my profession.

First of all, imo, the first class you level to 80 should be your favorite, regardless of its usefulness. After the first one, it’s pretty easy to level others too.

In dungeons, the top 4 classes are Ele, Thief, Guardian and Warrior. If you play any of those and use a meta build, you pretty much guarantee yourself a place in the PvE scene.
As for others, you can find groups, but the players looking for really efficient clearing probably won’t accept you.

You should know, however, that dungeons and low level fractals are quite easy and you can find casual groups no matter what class and build you’re using. If you’re interested in more “serious” dungeon running, however, stick to the meta.

EDIT: A few more details.
Basically, the general strategy in dungeons is do as much DPS as possible while mitigating as much damage as possible. For that purpose, blinds/reflects/blocks/etc are valuable. Depending on which role you play, you’ll be mainly focusing in either personal DPS or party support (but generally do both).
CC is a bit more situational, since it usually requires coordination. We mainly use Elementalist’s Ice bow #5 to CC a boss and DPS it down quickly. Other than that, you usually don’t need to hard-CC mobs because you LoS them and AoE them down either way. Blinds like Elementalist’s Glyph of Storms(earth) are very useful, though.

This is what each meta profession mainly offers:
Elementalist – DPS, Ice bow and party buffing
Thief – DPS and stealth
Guardian – Damage mitigation through reflects/blinds
Warrior – DPS and Party buffing

Axelwarrior.9084:

First of all, imo, the first class you level to 80 should be your favorite, regardless of its usefulness. After the first one, it’s pretty easy to level others too.

In dungeons, the top 4 classes are Ele, Thief, Guardian and Warrior. If you play any of those and use a meta build, you pretty much guarantee yourself a place in the PvE scene.
As for others, you can find groups, but the players looking for really efficient clearing probably won’t accept you.

You should know, however, that dungeons and low level fractals are quite easy and you can find casual groups no matter what class and build you’re using. If you’re interested in more “serious” dungeon running, however, stick to the meta.

EDIT: A few more details.
Basically, the general strategy in dungeons is do as much DPS as possible while mitigating as much damage as possible. For that purpose, blinds/reflects/blocks/etc are valuable. Depending on which role you play, you’ll be mainly focusing in either personal DPS or party support (but generally do both).
CC is a bit more situational, since it usually requires coordination. We mainly use Elementalist’s Ice bow #5 to CC a boss and DPS it down quickly. Other than that, you usually don’t need to hard-CC mobs because you LoS them and AoE them down either way. Blinds like Elementalist’s Glyph of Storms(earth) are very useful, though.

This is what each meta profession mainly offers:
Elementalist – DPS, Ice bow and party buffing
Thief – DPS and stealth
Guardian – Damage mitigation through reflects/blinds
Warrior – DPS and Party buffing

Thanks.

Yeah a class being most to my liking is indeed more decisive in my choice, than how wanted it is.

Stuff like:
Is stuff like these elementalist spells useful?
Magnetic wave (reflects projectiles).
Swirling winds (destroys projectiles).
Ring of earth (blocks missles). Are projectiles and missles the same?

Engineer spells like Magnetic shield (reflects projectiles and pushes back foes on release). Pull spells like engineer Magnet.

The above elementalist spells are often used in pve too? The reflecting and blocking?
I saw you didnt mention stuff like block/reflect in the elementalist list.

Are those engineer spells often used?

Do you do meatshielding in pve?

Timing on Magnetic wave is tough for reflect, but yes it is (it’s also a blast finisher which is huge). Swirling Winds is great. Ring of Earth just like magnetic wave takes more precise timing but is solid as well.

Engi magnetic shield is a bit easier in that there’s very much a visual cue (bubble around you) it’s more similar to Ele’s Magnetic Aura (staff skill).

As for Meat shielding, you can body block projectiles, but you can not body block standard strikes/AE’s. And, in general you go very glassy stats in PVE because the content is build to allow you to actively defend yourself through the reflects/blocks/evades. So the body blocking/shielding is a lesser used tactic only in a few specific areas basically.

As for Engi, you don’t use a shield much, generally jsut for extra blast or very dangerous fights. You’re swapping a lot of kits and before you equip shield you’ll likely grab toolkit and use the shield in there if defense is needed.

Reason reflects aren’t mentioned much for Ele is in PVE people have different strengths/weaknesses. Even if you can do everything there are general roles people slot different professions into as they are especially strong in that area. Reflects are left to guards/mesmers and most others leave it at that unless help is needed, every profession except necro can help, including Ele.

Yashuoa.9527:

Magnetic wave (reflects projectiles).

It’s useful, but more so for the blast finisher than the reflection. Staff is more common than focus (lately), so you most likely won’t be using it anyway. You will be using it, however, out of combat to stack might/stealth.
One of its main problems is that it’s personal reflection, so it doesn’t easily protect party members unless you manage to bodyblock a projectile in time, which is unlikely.

Yashuoa.9527:

Swirling winds (destroys projectiles).

Much more useful for projectile defence than magnetic wave. Again, though, you’re unlikely to use focus (It’s possible and nobody will scream at you for using it, but Staff is more efficient)

Yashuoa.9527:

Ring of earth (blocks missles). Are projectiles and missles the same?

Same as swirling winds, but less effective. Projectiles and missiles are the same, as far as I know.

Engineer spells like Magnetic shield (reflects projectiles and pushes back foes on release). Pull spells like engineer Magnet.

Pull is not really useful. The only pull skills that are useful are the ones that pull multiple foes at once, like Guardian GS #5, as they help stack enemies when LoSing isn’t possible. Pulling 1 enemy is meaningless in PvE. What Jerus said about Magnetic shield.

Yashuoa.9527:

The above elementalist spells are often used in pve too? The reflecting and blocking?
I saw you didnt mention stuff like block/reflect in the elementalist list.

Basically what Jerus said.

Yashuoa.9527:

Are those engineer spells often used?

To be honest, I’m not very familiar with Engi in PvE, but they mostly use Rifle for its damage, not Shield. Toolkit is useful, but not for the pull, for reasons mentioned above.

Yashuoa.9527:

Do you do meatshielding in pve?

What Jerus said.

By the way, once you start doing dungeons, you should take a look at gw2dungeons.net
It’s an extremely useful website with detailed dungeon guides. You could also take a peek now to see what tactics are used in encounters and what role each profession plays.

Ele master race. Fun to play, a lot to learn, the most complex class in game alongside engie, maybe. You’ll be doing everything.

Warr master race. Not fun to play, easy to learn, boring, but very good. You will carry banners for your team, press #2 and sometimes even dodge.

Guardian is really good, can’t really think of a thing guard can’t do. Very good class overall, a bit more complex than warr, you’ll be playing a babysitter for the team.

Thief has simple DPS rotation, but very high single target DPS. You’ll be stealthing your team. Stealth in this game isn’t a gimmick, you can skip practically everything, provided you have a team that can blast.

Honorable mention goes to engie – really good and fun class. Complex, has access to pretty much everything, but pugs dislike em. Get into a good guild, if you want to run fast dungeon runs on engie.

Mesmers are also really good for utility, but pugs can’t utilise them properly, so they’re usually not used due to low personal DPS.

Take ranger or necro if you like being hated and kicked.

fracture.9754:

Ele master race. Fun to play, a lot to learn, the most complex class in game alongside engie, maybe. You’ll be doing everything.

Warr master race. Not fun to play, easy to learn, boring, but very good. You will carry banners for your team, press #2 and sometimes even dodge.

Guardian is really good, can’t really think of a thing guard can’t do. Very good class overall, a bit more complex than warr, you’ll be playing a babysitter for the team.

Thief has simple DPS rotation, but very high single target DPS. You’ll be stealthing your team. Stealth in this game isn’t a gimmick, you can skip practically everything, provided you have a team that can blast.

Honorable mention goes to engie – really good and fun class. Complex, has access to pretty much everything, but pugs dislike em. Get into a good guild, if you want to run fast dungeon runs on engie.

Mesmers are also really good for utility, but pugs can’t utilise them properly, so they’re usually not used due to low personal DPS.

Take ranger or necro if you like being hated and kicked.

Actually from what I’ve seen on my tours it’s actually better to take mesmer over guard in many dungeons since their dps is actually better! In addition sinister ranger using axe/torch is pretty strong, though most pugs are ignorant and will kick you if you use that build (and sinister sets are annoying to get anyway). If you do plan on playing ele OP you can always shoot me a pm or mail ingame (note I’ll be on vacation for the rest of the week unable to log gw2).

fracture.9754:

Warr master race. Not fun to play, boring, you will carry banners for your team, press #2 and sometimes even dodge.

I take this as you didn’t play GW2 since the huge specialization patch. Warrior has actually became much more complex since then. It remains true that it’s easy to just “play” warrior and survive thanks to its tankiness, but if you want to do optimal DPS, you’ll have to take care of much more than that. There’s a huge amount of damage modifiers and skills you need to incorporate into the rotation (plus it depends on the battlefield and your positioning), if you lose focus even for 1 sec you lose on a good chunk of your DPS. Still nowhere as complex as engi, of course, but much more fun now than it used to be.
Embrace The Bold.7619:

Actually from what I’ve seen on my tours it’s actually better to take mesmer over guard in many dungeons since their dps is actually better!

Dunno where you got that from, but it’s not true. Mesmer’s DPS is very situational, but in 90% of the cases guard does better. Since it takes a long time for a mesmer to build up his phantasms, it’s very likely that the boss will already be down by the time mesmer is ready to begin doing damage. For coordinated groups, mesmer is a huge boost thanks to its portals and other utilities, but mostly in casual runs and pug runs you see guardian, because that’s much easier to pull off. So if you happen to know a good mesmer, it’s better to take him, but otherwise it’s easier to find a decent guard than finding a decent mesmer.

Sure I did, but the added pre-heal, keeping your dodge bar low and using burst skill in your DPS rotation is not something I would call “interesting” or “fun”.

Prestacking solo 25, precasting and swapping to another weapon set while casting, going invuln on focus to easily cast meteor shower in the middle of a swarm, etc. however IS fun.

fracture.9754:

Prestacking solo 25 … however IS fun.

Are we playing the same game?

Also a good warrior will be pre-stacking and swapping weapons whilst casting, among other things.

Are you arguing the fact that ele has more micro management than warrior? Swapping from axe/mace to sword warhorn and sometimes longbow for additional blast finisher is nowhere nearly the same as what a good ele can do.

Just from the point of view how elemental attuning doesn’t cancel the cast and weapon swap does, shenanigans with blinks which warrior doesn’t have access to and what exactly is worthwhile casting while changing weapons? Because I can name meteor shower, obsidian flesh, swirling winds, … and I can’t really think of anything for warrior. It’s 3-4 signets vs a set of utilities and 20 weapon skills vs 10, I can’t see how this is even a question.

fracture.9754:

Are you arguing the fact that ele has more micro management than warrior?

No I’m not, although the rest of your post does make it pretty clear that you are inexperienced, bad, or both at warrior, so you should probably refrain from making such sweeping statements. I bet your oversimplified views apply to even your dear elementalist and you only ever use the same 3 weapons, 3 utilities and 9 traits.

Aside from that even, comparing the complexity of classes in GW2 is incredibly pointless, as no class is truly difficult or complex, and combined with the trivial and shallow PvE content even the most involved and high skill ceiling classes will do about as much as the least involved classes.

We really arguing what’s more complex and fun between staff ele and warrior? I miss D/F

Warrior is much more active and fun in combat and requires significantly more micromanagement than elementalist. I agree with Tarasicodissa.7084 in that regard because that specializations patch changed warrior from having one of the most basic rotations out of all classes to suddenly having no genuinely optimal and repeatable rotation due to the fact that every next skill to use is dependent on multiple factors.

This includes endurance level, adrenaline level, which weapon is currently equipped, which attack the boss will use next, the health of the boss, etc. Elementalist rotations have barely changed since the update and as a result seem a lot less fun to me than warriors do, as their build diversity was shot along with there being basically nothing new added to the class.

However, out of combat it’s another story of course.

Elementalist has more traits to swap between fights and has might prestacking rotations and swiftness to blast. This is true, but now that staff builds are basically the only things elementalists use there isn’t a ton of attunement dancing mid-fights. Most things tend to die pretty fast anyways if we’re talking group play.

Jerus.4350:

We really arguing what’s more complex and fun between staff ele and warrior? I miss D/F

Yea wish D/F and S/D were still good ;_;

Ah Tom, reliably here to derail the thread to kitten, again. Sorry, I don’t sink to that level. Do you have my profile bookmarked or something?

Anyhow, sure elementalist’s rotation changed with the update. Warrior play style did too, that’s undeniable, but I still think ele has more to do and more to choose from. It’s definitely more fun to me, at the very least.

EDIT: I’d argue you swap attunements more now than before the patch.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

fracture.9754:

Warr master race. Not fun to play, boring, you will carry banners for your team, press #2 and sometimes even dodge.

I take this as you didn’t play GW2 since the huge specialization patch. Warrior has actually became much more complex since then. It remains true that it’s easy to just “play” warrior and survive thanks to its tankiness, but if you want to do optimal DPS, you’ll have to take care of much more than that. There’s a huge amount of damage modifiers and skills you need to incorporate into the rotation (plus it depends on the battlefield and your positioning), if you lose focus even for 1 sec you lose on a good chunk of your DPS. Still nowhere as complex as engi, of course, but much more fun now than it used to be.
Embrace The Bold.7619:

Actually from what I’ve seen on my tours it’s actually better to take mesmer over guard in many dungeons since their dps is actually better!

Dunno where you got that from, but it’s not true. Mesmer’s DPS is very situational, but in 90% of the cases guard does better. Since it takes a long time for a mesmer to build up his phantasms, it’s very likely that the boss will already be down by the time mesmer is ready to begin doing damage. For coordinated groups, mesmer is a huge boost thanks to its portals and other utilities, but mostly in casual runs and pug runs you see guardian, because that’s much easier to pull off. So if you happen to know a good mesmer, it’s better to take him, but otherwise it’s easier to find a decent guard than finding a decent mesmer.

Yeah, building up phantasms is the problem with mes, but I run with really good mesmers. Overall, guards are better for average players and many dungeons will be better for guards(and some fractals). I think it really comes down to the team coordination. I will say that yes, warrior has gotten better, but it’s still boring. Warrior soloing is lots of fun (and easy) so if OP ever wants to try soloing warrior wouldn’t be a bad choice (though all classes can solo some are just better suited for certain paths).