Guild Wars 2

Ok ok , please read before flaming me . I know there is no formal tank buuuut… Im looking for a class that can handle heavy fire situation or be helpful to the group.

Ive been playing Gw2 since bwe2 , bought up to 8 slots for one of each classes , made most of them up to 50 or around but cant stick with any, not because they aint powerful but because im trying to pick my main and cant find the perfect apple, they all got something really nice and a weakness (which is good too but i don’t know which one i want to deal with )

I played mmo for over 13 years now, always been a tank in every games, main tank for raids etc. I play with my wife which is a staff elementalist kind of jack of all trade style.

Which would be toughest or the one to survive the Armageddon and why?
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Here ill describe my feeling over each classes, perhaps someone could help me find my rare gem? I would be forever in your debt that’s for sure

Thief
I thought i was settled on my thief but i just cant like to black powder and auto attack. The steal buff to allies is cool but shes often out of range to receive it and when i go in stealth, she get all the aggro. I love the frantic action of the thief though , always moving and slashing is awesome.

Mesmer
Loved it for the most part but felt i was not enough in melee. I feel too much is emphasized on the phantasms and not enough on myself or if i could trait to be able to dish the biggest portion of the damage by myself. Some of the random factor of getting boons and doing conditions was getting to me a little bit as if i didn’t know if i would get swiftness or not etc.

Elementalist
I played most of my time (up to lvl40) as a D/D since i couldnt enjoy the staff, not enough action , low dps, boring!! I like the frantic. What i didnt like is i felt like all the 4 elements were mostly the same, all about attacks with a subtle difference. I was succesful in pvp with it, was fun but at the same time i found myself switching from fire to earth just because i was on cooldown, not because it was more tanky or i did need the bleed. I wanted to be able to support a bit with water or being an electrical mage (some weird fantasy i know). But ultimately it didnt feel like what i wanted.

Engineer
It still roam my mind, i cant let go of it but at the same time i dont know, the only thing i can say negatively is i lack melee combat and there is nothing epic on this class. What i mean by epic is some kick kitten move. We all got different taste but for exemple , 100b combo on a warrior is pretty epic. Lashing electrical whip or transform in a ball of thunder and just flash away is pretty epic. The engineer is terribly funny but nothing that make me do “Wow! this is baddass, i wanna play this class for this!” Its strong but i just cant hang on to it so far, perhaps im missing a piece

Ranger
Almost never played it to say the truth, one of the class that is lvl 5 -_-’

Necro
Pvp’ed with it, felt like i was only dropping circles and wells. Most of my attack with axe or daggers dont shine , i felt like i was a rogue , i couldnt tell i was doing necro move whatsoever. I was trying to toy with a life steal build to get a tanky necro but didnt manage anything succesful. I like the dark vibe though.

Warrior
Hes 49 , did a full signet build and was just rushing in with my greatsword and just 100b then everything is dead , rinse and repeat for many hours… i got a bit fed up.

From what I understand, warriors have a larger base health than guardians do. I usually do dungeons on my warrior that is traited for banner healing. I run around with a hammer and shotgun. I usually don’t die in a dungeon unless I do something stupid.

However, there really are no tanking classes because there is no reliable way to hold threat. We don’t have any taunts of any kind. You can rush in there and smack them but they may run past you to smack down someone else for whatever reason. That’s partly one reason why I ran the hammer build.. I can at least interrupt them and hopefully protect my friends that way.

You’re asking which is a better tank? You’re kidding, right? Guardian.

Actually, almost all classes mitigate damage better than a Warrior can. That’s why Warriors are given so much more health – because they have such a hard time avoiding being hit. Most of the other classes can create builds that either can take hits for quite a long time through protection, blocks and so on, or they can simply mitigate by warping around through clone use, stealth or what have you.

As the innate armor values between the three ALs isn’t that big of a difference, most tanking ability in GW2 is associated very closely to skill utility. As Warriors lack that, in comparison, they’re the worst “tanking” (damage mitigation/avoidance) class. The only thing keeping them alive usually is the high health, which obviously most other professions can burn through in a couple of seconds. Hence why they’re favorite targets in mist PvP modes – they’re pretty easy to kill, if you focus fire them, as they can’t do a thing about it other than hope their extra 10,000 health (about two or three extra seconds of life against some classes) saves them. It won’t.

So, uh… yeah. Guardian.

Neither one can tank since dedicated class roles do no exist in GW2. Both are good at staying alive.

I’ve had many occasions where my sword ranger is much better at staying alive while distracting a big mob than warriors and guardians in my party. There’s meatier classes out there, but ranger sword skills get lots of free evade, a move to quickly get a lot of distance between them and the target for kiting, every 7 or so seconds(5 with trait) and many pets like armor fish, or bears can soak up a lot of punishment.

May not be tanking in the traditional sense, but a ranger played right can keep something busy for a very long time.

The difference, in my eyes, is that the Guardian has better group-wide abilities and the Warrior is mostly self sustaining.

I like my Engineer though for group support. Snares, control, condition removal, area healing, and you can be pretty “dodgy tanky” if you spec right.

Plague.5329:

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I don’t think you gave a serious shot at a defense warrior? With mace+shield they can block more often then even a guardian, Defy Pain, a lot of regen traits, and then depending on spec, they can go in Tactics and gain heals on shouts, go in Strength and have a free dodge on burst usage, etc, etc, etc.

My warrior focuses on defense and survivability and although we don’t match guardians (their defense is overpowered) we’re easily #2 if traited for it. In fact, I find that if you have a defense/support guardian on your team and you’re a tankish warrior, you become even more survivable then him because his buffs complements your traits/health/skills awesomely.

On a guardian a staff elementalist is not your favorite teammate, as the guardian does better with teammates who are in the mix, or at least have pets/minion/clone in the mix.
For that reason I think the duo would go better with a warrior. Certainly kill speed will be faster.

Nyar just wanted to say a year later lt if you have the highest armor among your party you will get the agro that’s all i know just wanted to say that because people say u cant agro and St not

I have no idea but as my staff condi mesmer I end up tanking and things and bosses just chase me around for whatever reason. Best way to tank in this game is to have a little bit of CC and to stay alive.

I’d say give hammer guardian a go. With all the combo fields a staff ele puts out, you’ll get a lot from hammer ability 2. You can just interrupt your auto-attack chain to prevent the light combo field whenever you want to hit another field.