Guild Wars 2

Hello!

I am wondering if some of the more experienced players can share what they find to be the easiest profession(s)? I have a friend who would like to start playing and I would like to help him choose a profession.

Currently I play Engineer and I feel that would be way too difficult.

Thanks

I know it’s… very debatable, but medi guard (traited) is the easy mode for me. You have an entire bar of healing skills that also do stuff!

Ranger or MM Necro is pretty easy to pick up due to the pets if you’re just talking about open world type stuff. Warrior or Guardian if they want to get into running dungeons and whatnot.

I agree with Shaogin: Necro is a breeze to level. Ranger would be second, in my opinion.

Warrior, Ranger, Guardian and Necromancer are all new-player friendly.

I would say Ranger or Necro, their ranged and have pets.

I think Warrior is probably the easiest to learn to play and actually get good at. Ranger is very easy if you only do open-world PvE but to actually be good at the game in general there’s a very steep learning curve.

However I would strongly recommend you let your friend choose a profession they enjoy instead of pushing them towards the easiest. I think warrior is easy but I also think they make combat very dull and as a result I’ve never been able to get one to level 80 because I get bored playing them. If someone had pushed me into playing a warrior when I started I might have concluded the game was boring and moved on to something else quickly. (In fact the worst piece of advice I was ever given for RPGs was to always play a human fighter class first and only consider something else after finishing the game on that. Fortunately I was starting Baldur’s Gate at the time, where you have to control your whole party anyway so I got to play as everything.)

I had to literally bite my tongue when my husband started and decided to play a Mesmer and an ele. He’s not the best RPG player and I knew he’d struggle with whatever he picked and that was just making it harder. But he really enjoyed it and hated both a warrior and a guardian when he tried them, so pushing him to pick the easy option would have been a big mistake.

Probbably necro because of shroud that will extend your life and make you durable.
2nd would be ranger since it has pet that will tank your mobs, while you are killing them from distance.

Necro -> Reaper is awesome, and easy to level

Also – ranger (pet tanks for ya), and warrior are pretty straight-forward.

…and mesmer is interesting to play, but doesn’t do as much damage as some other classes.

any class you’ve played for a while is easy… at least it was for me, with exception of engineer. Still do not understand it after 4 years.

I would say a ranger. You get the pet, it’s less complicated and you get a 2nd weapon set. The bow does decent damage for a starter character. I would suggest a sword and war horn as alternate weapon. The only thing that bugs me about the ranger and probably other characters is that using a bow generally means you would have an advantage on the high ground but not in GW2 unless your pet is at the lower area with your target.

I prefer female norn characters. I tried to run a char once and all the huffing and puffing along with the sluggish movement drove me nuts. He jumped to his death off the lighthouse in LA and was resurrected as a female asura engineer.

A better question would be “best starting profession?” since none of them are truly easy when you get to high end content.

I’m going to say Warrior. Ranger has the simplest possible gameplay (longbobow + pet and pew pew) but that’s actually something you want to avoid, since it will teach bad gameplay habits. Warrior is straightforward and easy to understand, yet still puts you in a situation where you need to learn active play and damage avoidance. It’s a great starting point. Axe or GS are the best starting weapons.

If your friend really wants a caster, go power Axe/Warhorn minion or well necro as a second place recommendation. It’s also straightforward, and has a lot of room to expand into more complex gameplay with other specs.

Necro by far, then war.

Definitely guardian. Speed boost from level 6, run into or away from combat on demand. Excellent heals, greatsword speaks for itself, it’s absolutely a great sword and it’s the only profession you can add “of the galaxy” to the end and it be topical.

As someone who has mained both Necro and Warrior over the last 3 years, I’d say Necro is by far the easiest, and then warrior. Necro is easier because it has a significantly lower skill-ceiling in all game modes to be elite, and a fairly low skill-floor to be effective.

Warrior’s skill floor is slightly lower, meaning it’s easier to play at a very basic level, but quickly ramps up in terms of skill needed regardless of game mode you play. Being an elite warrior requires significant expertise in the game, not only of your own class, but of other classes in PvP and good knowledge of bosses/monsters in PvE. You eventually need to be able to recognize and react to players and monsters based on the animation of their attack and then decide to evade that attack or take it. Many other classes do not need to make this distinction. Warrior is given a slightly larger health pool because of it, however.

I can’t speak on the rest of the classes because I don’t have intimate knowledge of them. I enjoy the themes and playstyles of both necro and warrior, and the simplicity of them is just a fortunate by-product for me.

Instead of looking at what would be easy to get into, try to find something that he would enjoy playing at higher skill levels. Much of the game becomes second-nature after awhile, and your friend will learn whatever class he chooses well enough. Find something he likes the aesthetics of, the theme of, and the playstyle of. Every class plays very differently from one-another, and there is no jack-of-all-trades. Remember, at the end of the day, you’re staring at your character for hours a day and potentially thousands of hours over time – find something you like to look at.

I am just a regular player with mediocre skills. After so many games I figured out I can’t strive for the hardcore stuff (or the attitude that comes with it) so my aim is to get a balance of “fun/easy gameplay” and “result”, meaning that I want to play classes that are not too easy and not too hard to get damage that is not too low and not too OP.

I love Engineer.

Or long story short: I don’t see why this profession is considered to be difficult. Having all conditions up is like a minigame: Switching trough all the weapons we get on hand (well, at least up to 4 because of the skillbar lock during combat) is great fun gameplay and should reward the player who likes this. So if Engineer is considerd as “not so easy”, what is up with the other classes mentioned? Holding one button and win?

MM necro gets my vote, followed by staff guard

Please don’t pick a profession for your friend based on ease of use. You could end up doing them a huge disservice. Unless of course they specifically request it as we’ve seen in the past for a variety of reasons (generally injury/disability related).

What you could do is provide your friend with as much info as possible about the various professions as possible, and let them chose for themselves.

It’s been brought up in the past when choosing a first profession that one shouldn’t simply go for the easiest to play, but the one that will keep you playing. It’s probably more likely that someone will get bored of the game playing an easy profession someone else chose for them than someone will leave the game out of frustration due to difficulty level of a profession they chose themselves and may have some attachment to due to an affinity for a specific mechanic or theme.

Let them choose and find out for themselves.

But if they really want somewhat advice; pick main classes – Guardian, Mesmer, Elementalist (‘hard’, skill level may increase faster), Warrior. Engi is fun but complicated (and I don’t really play it)

Also, since the OP mentioned playing Engineer, I too main an Engineer (currently Scrapper) and I’m probably far from having mastered the profession despite having played it on and off since launch. I have an 80 of everything else aside from Mesmer (not for lack of trying. I just can’t get I to it) and Revenant (somewhat limited play time lately has made me reluctant to start up a new toon), and despite taking a break to play other professions periodically I always come back to the Engineer/Scrapper because the mechanics and theme unique to the profession are the most enjoyable for me. It has very little to do with level of difficulty.

Most of the gameplay is fairly repetitive over the long term.

Factor in things like buying bag slots and time taken to get through LS and other content and the idea of running more than one main can be difficult, and I understand totally the need to find a single profession.

My advice may ring close to some of the others above, pick what’s fun. That can be gameplay itself, thematic elements (i.e. does he like hulk smash type fighting, nimble dodgers or the subtle deadliness of magic, etc.), direct damage vs. damage over time (DoT) conditions, or even power game meta.

So have your buddy decide what type of fun he likes, then pick a character that’s appropriate. For my part, I started way back when the game first came out on an Elementalist, and have mained that character ever since. I leveled up a few alts including a Guardian and Mesmer for the party/guild needs at hand, but I always go back to my Ele for myself. It has the perfect combination of fun and fast gameplay, awesome theme (master of the elements) and is usually at the top of the metagame in every mode, although I didn’t consider that when I first picked it.

Similar to the Elementalist would be the Engineer, what with kit swapping. The Engy is more condition (DoT) and crowd control (CC) focused, and to keep up the optimal rotations requires very good manual dexterity.

Revenant or Guardian, both top tier pve classes which are easy to play

Ranger is the easiest,engener,ele and mesmer are maybe the ’’hard’’ class.

Killface.1896:

[…]engener,ele and mesmer are maybe the ’’hard’’ class.

So?

branden.1985:

Currently I play Engineer and I feel that would be way too difficult.

Why?

Animism.9803:

Engi is fun but complicated (and I don’t really play it)

How?

Zedek.8932:

Killface.1896:

[…]engener,ele and mesmer are maybe the ’’hard’’ class.

So?

branden.1985:

Currently I play Engineer and I feel that would be way too difficult.

Why?

Animism.9803:

Engi is fun but complicated (and I don’t really play it)

How?

?

:)

Not sure how people are getting confused about Engineer being complicated for some players, especially when compared to other professions. Optimal rotations for an Engineer are insanely more complex than say for a Guardian, Warrior, or Necro. Speaking in terms of dungeons and raids of course.

Sure it may be easier for us current Engineers, but let’s not act like newer players are crazy for thinking Engineer is complicated to play, that’s just rude. ;-P

Let them play what attracts them, you will be better at what you enjoy playing then trying to play what everyone else thinks is easy.

Easiest to play in PvE as a new player and get a feel for the game: Ranger
Easiest to play in sPvP: MM Necro/Reaper
Easiest to play in WvW (blobbing): DH, hammer Revenant
Easiest to do well with across multiple formats for what the profession offers: War/Berserker, MM Necro/Reaper

It’s kind of subjective, though. I personally find the thief very intuitive, but that comes with experience playing glass cannons and assassins for 10+ years, even on tabletop games. It might not be strictly the “easiest” but approaching the skill cap for me was easier than on others (for example, I am the worst ele and guard in my guild).

As a first character, he should probably just do what interests him the most. Ultimately, being challenged (and dying) but enjoying the game and the class for what it is not only makes the experience more fun, but makes one a better player and teaches improvements and good habits before settling for what’s easy, which may lead to some bad habits.

Shaogin.2679:

…

Sure it may be easier for us current Engineers, but let’s not act like newer players are crazy for thinking Engineer is complicated to play, that’s just rude. ;-P

It really depends on the player. A friend of mine sampled several professions when starting, and found the engineer the easiest for him to play, with thief and mesmer being the two most difficult for him by a mile. He said the controls and kits were similar to some other game he played before, so it seemed intuitive, and he liked having the fairly cut-and-dry rotations/combos and simple ways/logic to respond to certain threats. The APM is up, but some people are used to that and like that style of play.

Really, though, it should be all about fun-factor. I think engi and necro are horribly boring to level up, and I’d have probably quit early if I didn’t do my homework on the thief (and was playing when I could trait Hidden Killer at level 10).

branden.1985:

Hello!

I am wondering if some of the more experienced players can share what they find to be the easiest profession(s)? I have a friend who would like to start playing and I would like to help him choose a profession.

Currently I play Engineer and I feel that would be way too difficult.

Thanks

The one I found the easiest is the Necromancer. They are very resilient of all the three casting classes, and with the new Viper stats, they serve me better.

I would recommend trap guardian and just spamming traps. Makes things very easy in pve