Ranger or Guardian
For the best answer, I think you’ll need to answer a few more things.
What are your interests?
– Do you aim to do serious raiding?
– Do you want to do high end fractals?
– How important is open world content to you?
As far as the professions go, I would also ask what your thoughts are on potentially playing as a full healer. Currently, rangers are mostly utilized in raids as purely healers and their dps builds are a bit less popular/desired by groups. However, few classes can really perform their best without at least periodically dipping into melee.
Finally: What are your thoughts on having a pet? As a ranger, you’ll always be tied to your pet, so don’t choose this class unless you’re a fan of that mechanic. Otherwise, you may grow frustrated when you lose a source of your damage and utility because the AI that can’t dodge gets killed or has to take a long, weird path to reach an enemy. Fortunately, pets take a lot less damage in PvE than they used to, so they don’t die off as much.
Open world content is not so important. And yes i would i would like to do serious raiding and high end fractals. And about pet, well i could play with it, but i am not very happy with that kind of mechanic ;/.
So, here’s the current state of end game for these two professions. Note that this is a reflection of the meta and it’s possible for something outside of this to work, but finding a group who will support that may be difficult.
Raids
Rangers are generally in the role of healers for raids with the Druid elite spec. This involves using staff primarily, so this does allow for a lot of play at ranged. You still have your pet, but they play a relatively minor role for healers. However, the primary DPS weapon tends to be sword mainhand, which has a mechanic that can make it hard to dodge (you can’t dodge during the leap animation of the autoattack). Sword isn’t really mandatory though and many druids use Axe mainhand or Longbow.
Most groups will have 1 druid to fill their healer slot and there’s not much competition with other professions since druids provide so many offensive buffs while filling the healer’s role.
Guardians aren’t the most popular class for raids, even though they can be great in other content since there aren’t currently any bosses where the specific benefits of a guardian, such as stability, reflects, blinds, and aegis, come into play. They’re not as unpopular as something like thieves, but they’re not really sought after much either. The Dragonhunter elite spec is pretty much best for all roles a guardian plays right now. Guardians can do a good job of tanking in raids, but they’re not particularly renown for this.
Fractals
Rangers aren’t particularly noteable for Fractals, but they still work well. A full healer isn’t needed here, but rangers still tend to run as druids for the buffs that the glyphs can provide.
Guardians tend to really shine in Fractals and many groups swear by having at least one in the party. This is because of how helpful reflects, stability, blinds, and aegis is for clearing this content.
It’s possible that when the next wing of raid content is released, there will be mechanics that make Guardians wildly popular like they are for Fractals.
As it stands now, if you wanted a profession that played a range DPS role and was really useful in raids, your best bet would be a condition warrior. However, this is a relatively new spec and warriors historically have been most prevalent playing a power melee role. Also, in 5 person content, groups will usually want a Phalanx Strength warrior more than a condition, ranged warrior.
Hopefully that helps explain things a bit. Again, this is only a reflection of the popular meta. Groups have shown that playing an exact meta build with perfect gear is not required to clear the current raid content, even though meta builds will generally make it easier to succeed.
Both are bad. I would level herald.
Low quality trolling since launch
Seafarer’s Rest EotM grinch
Seafarer’s Rest EotM grinch
Fractals
Rangers aren’t particularly noteable for Fractals, but they still work well. A full healer isn’t needed here, but rangers still tend to run as druids for the buffs that the glyphs can provide.Guardians tend to really shine in Fractals and many groups swear by having at least one in the party. This is because of how helpful reflects, stability, blinds, and aegis is for clearing this content.
It’s possible that when the next wing of raid content is released, there will be mechanics that make Guardians wildly popular like they are for Fractals.
As it stands now, if you wanted a profession that played a range DPS role and was really useful in raids, your best bet would be a condition warrior. However, this is a relatively new spec and warriors historically have been most prevalent playing a power melee role. Also, in 5 person content, groups will usually want a Phalanx Strength warrior more than a condition, ranged warrior.
Hopefully that helps explain things a bit. Again, this is only a reflection of the popular meta. Groups have shown that playing an exact meta build with perfect gear is not required to clear the current raid content, even though meta builds will generally make it easier to succeed.
B-buttt It doesn’t feel like guards are really viable in fractals, all they do can be done by a mesmer even better (in most fracs), while ranger is pretty viable in high lvl fracs, as their condi dmg is really good and they buff the group very good.
Soooo, @OP, guard is in a pretty bad situation in PvE atm, and tbh I am kinda sure this won’t change that much even after balancing, I would recommend using ranger.
Roul [SC]
YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCXhVSyj7F7zIkQzcISynA7A
YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCXhVSyj7F7zIkQzcISynA7A
Fractals
Rangers aren’t particularly noteable for Fractals, but they still work well. A full healer isn’t needed here, but rangers still tend to run as druids for the buffs that the glyphs can provide.Guardians tend to really shine in Fractals and many groups swear by having at least one in the party. This is because of how helpful reflects, stability, blinds, and aegis is for clearing this content.
It’s possible that when the next wing of raid content is released, there will be mechanics that make Guardians wildly popular like they are for Fractals.
As it stands now, if you wanted a profession that played a range DPS role and was really useful in raids, your best bet would be a condition warrior. However, this is a relatively new spec and warriors historically have been most prevalent playing a power melee role. Also, in 5 person content, groups will usually want a Phalanx Strength warrior more than a condition, ranged warrior.
Hopefully that helps explain things a bit. Again, this is only a reflection of the popular meta. Groups have shown that playing an exact meta build with perfect gear is not required to clear the current raid content, even though meta builds will generally make it easier to succeed.
B-buttt It doesn’t feel like guards are really viable in fractals, all they do can be done by a mesmer even better (in most fracs), while ranger is pretty viable in high lvl fracs, as their condi dmg is really good and they buff the group very good.
Soooo, @OP, guard is in a pretty bad situation in PvE atm, and tbh I am kinda sure this won’t change that much even after balancing, I would recommend using ranger.
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter for Fractals. Considering that most groups just farm the easy Fractals for rewards, group comp doesn’t make much of a difference.
If you do actually try to do all the levels of Fractals though, Mesmer and Guard play a similar role. Mesmer is better for a speed run with teleports and such, but guard is more forgiving for tough fights due to aegis and such. Neither are exactly DPS powerhouses, but they’re both kings of reflects.
They’re not as unpopular as something like thieves
Thieves are better than guardians for any of the bosses in the raids, guardian is the least useful class by far.