Guild Wars 2

I’ve been struggling as of late to pick up a new class. I know I want one, I just don’t know which. I currently have a lv 80 thief, and haven’t really played much of anything else.

I want some complexity with my class. Something that is difficult to master (easy to pick up is fine, being easy to pick up, like say, Warrior, doesn’t necessarily mean that it can’t have it’s difficult bits).

So, what would you say are the hardest and easiest to play classes, and why?

I’ve always imagined that Elementalists would be the hardest to play since they’re based on stance dancing.

Also, Engineers seem like they’d require some extension of difficulty, though these are just my speculations.

Hardest i would say would be an angi and easiest necro and its aoe spam. Some may also put ranger as the easiest class (“auto attack some more NERD” is all i get in spvp and its funny as kitten) and with all their passives its kinda true BUT its much easier to be a useful nec than a useful ranger

As someone who has and plays every class: Engineer. By far. Second being elementalist.

Simply put, while no class is “hard” to master in the sense that, say, for example, it is hard to fully master a character in Street Fighter or King of Fighters (different genres and games to be sure), these two offer the biggest level of complexity due to all the different tools they have available.

Engineer specifically have no cooldowns on their kit switching, and have a “second layer” of utility skills in their tool belt kit, while, at the same time, not having a weapon switch because some of their utility skills are actually, basically, weapon switches. In practice this means that you have a ridiculous amount of tools at your disposal at any one time.

It’s also the class that offers the most varied styles of play at the same time. The very same build can have, for example, at the press of one button, a full high damage melee kit with blocking and pulling (Tool kit), a very long range ground targeted damage and utility AoE (Grenade Kit) and a close to medium range rifle (normal weapon). And a “normal” utility skill rocket jump… And a second set of utility skills directly linked to your choice of utilities in the toolbelt kit…

The very nature of the skills available to the engineer allows a ridiculous amount of variety, from static “area of denial” turrets, to kits that switch your weapon set entirely into anything from bomberman style bombs to flame throwers and melee wrenchers, to “normal” skills that grant a variety of effects when used.

The absurdity of options available to the engineer at any one time can be quite frustrating and confusing to new players, but it also grants a level of “depth” (in a way) no other class can have.

Elementalists come second because they, essentially, while only using one weapon set (like engies) have twice as many weapon skills as most other classes, since they have 4 skill sets per weapon (instead of two weapons with one skill set each). The thing is that, unlike Engineers, Elementalist attunements depend on their weapon selection, and, as such, all follow the same theme of the weapon selected. Staff is all geared towards ranged support and “artillery”. Mainhand Dagger is all geared towards melee, etc. Additionally Elementalists have cooldowns on their attunement switching, so you generally get in a “rotation” of sorts. While the difference between a good and a great Ele often lies in their ability to know the class and, if needed, break their rotation, at least there is some sort of “central guidance”, some guiding line, a lighthouse if you will, to the whole thing that you can follow in a moment of panic.

Engineer has no such lifelines. You’re freestylin’. All day every day. A really good engineer is the one that knows all the weapons they have available, manages all their cooldowns in their heads, and can quickly, fluidly and naturally pick the right tool from their many toolboxes on demand and without breaking their flow. If you can do that though, you have more tools available at any one time than any other class in the game. If there is such a thing as very difficult class to master in GW2 is it, without a doubt, the Engineer. And I guess that’s what’s attractive about the class too.