Suggestion #1: Pick a profession and STICK IT OUT until level 20-30. You will have quite a few skills unlocked and you can START to play with different builds. If you make a bunch of characters, level them to 10 and decide you don’t like them .. well, that’s not good enough. It’s like walking by a restaurant, peeking inside and deciding you wouldn’t like anything there (people do it.. but it doesn’t make it right).
Let me point out some of the positives of each profession, maybe get you inspired a little bit:
Warrior: Giant weapons, heavy armor, face-smashing awesomeness. Although many choose to play a warrior with a bunch of passive signets, you can run with shouts and banners, adding great utility to an outstanding damage profession. You can easily use both melee and ranged weapons. Truly an awesome profession.
Guardian: A phenomenal as seen by the sheer number of guardians in the game. You shouldn’t let this dissuade you, however, because it’s an MMO and if you pick a profession based on what others pick, you’re not going to pick anything. Able to use heavy smashing weapons or magic weapons, you can play guardian in a variety of ways. Your survivability is through the roof and you can easily switch from heavy damage to support at a single weapon swap.
Ranger: Not just for bow wielders. Ranger has a truly diverse set of skills that allows
them to adapt to many situations. You can choose between long range, medium range, and short range, all while maneuvering around the enemy to avoid getting pummeled. Although I was initially turned off to pets, I found them to be a great asset and fun to use.
Thief: The ultimate hit-and-run king. Stealth, in past games, has always been a fairly boring mechanic. You sit invisible, waiting for the perfect moment to strike someone. If it goes poorly, you can sometimes just stealth away. Here, stealth plays a much more interactive part in combat. Your stealth comes in short bursts which can be activated at the right time for both offensive and defensive glory. Traps and teleports add to the fun factor of this profession. You can also wield guns and bows to switch it up and their weapon combos (main hand/off hand) are incredibly fun.
Engineer: A bit of an odd duck profession that I feel still hasn’t reached its prime, but the potential is limitless. Weapon kits allow you to adapt and react to any situation. The engineer is given the tools to control combat and explode those who don’t like it. It is easy to be discouraged with this profession, but if you stop worrying so much about it, it makes it much easier to enjoy it.
Elementalist: Master of elements. Similar to the engineer’s kit swapping, the elementalist will be swapping to different elements fairly consistently based on the need. I don’t have a lot of experience with this profession as I’ve only played it to 18 or so, but I did find it very enjoyable to master the elements, know when to use each one and how the combos between each element are utilized.
Necromancer: A very awesome profession that I’m glad ANet decided to implement. Not a typical ‘sit back and nuke class’, the necromancer plays with many different styles of abilities, many focused on ground-targeted AoE. The weapons choices are pretty awesome and you can choose to play the necro at a distance or melee range. Pets are not required for this profession, although they are absolutely an option. A very diverse profession that has very fun mechanics.
Mesmer: Level 1-10, this profession may feel very clunky as you get used to the idea of illusions. After you’re comfortable with them, this profession really starts to shine. They have some pretty amazing weapon choices and easy to use combo fields. Although the illusions are a pretty big part of this profession, as you level you do not need to focus directly on them. Also, this profession gets some pretty awesome skills. Being able to create portals, go stealth, give your whole team stealth or quickness.
Why don’t you tell us what professions you’ve tried to what levels and why you didn’t “love” them?
No one can tell you what to play, but if you start questioning yourself at every turn, making a new character every day hoping that one day you’re going to love every single aspect of it at level 1 .. you’re not going to play this game.
Suggestion 2: Don’t create a character, enter the mists, and try to PvP to figure out the profession. It works for a select few people. For the rest of us, we get frustrated and hate the profession.
Suggestion 3: Stop reading the forums. People come here and just kitten ENDLESSLY. In every profession forum you will have 80% of the population claiming the profession sucks and all others are better. If you still want to read the forums, stop taking what everyone says so seriously. People exaggerate way too much here. Take it all with a grain (or a pile) of salt.
