Guild Wars 2

How would you rank each profession in terms of how easy they are to level? Of the four classes I’ve played so far: Necro is somewhat easy, Guardian is super easy, Ele and Mesmer are both fairly difficult. So for me it goes Guardian > Necro > Ele >= Mesmer.

I felt the same way about Ele and Mesmer.

Leveling guardian is so boring it becomes hard.

I am trying so hard to like my Warrior, Guardian and Engineer but they are so darn slow without having to dump points into traits and such and having to spam swiftness just to travel faster. So I’m sticking with the ones that have a 25% swiftness skill because I feel like being able to travel faster decreases the time it takes me to level.

So for me so far Ranger, Thief, Elementalist. I just started a new Thief and as I am much better at the game now than I was, I have been leveling him pretty fast.

Warrior and Guardian are the easiest hands down.

Hardest will be either Ranger or Mesmer. Ranger has kitten all damage and is ball and chained to the stupid kittening pet, while Mesmer is super squishy till they get their traits rolling.

Was going to say “Thief”, then remembered that no, I just decided to do mine the hard way – undergeared, with a crap PvE build and no sword. Sword and Pistol make it easy enough.

Ele and mesmer hard, guardian easy, rest somewhere in between.

I didn’t have that much trouble with my ele, but when I tried lvl my mesmer in pve.. oh. my. god. That was painful. lvling my thief was almost as bad until I found out blackpowder

leveling a mesmer I.S. P.A.I.N.F.U.L., so SLOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

with that said, I didnt have a hard time with my ele, but that was back in release, first champ, so i dont really remember. Im currently leveling a guardian and not having perma mobility sure is painful too, but im managing.

Mesmers worst by far

I have two level 80s (Mesmer and Ele) and am in the process of leveling my other 6 alts. So far, I find difficulty depends on how survivable the professions are during the leveling process.

Therefore (from easiest to level to hardest): Ranger > Guardian > Engineer > Necromancer > Warrior > Mesmer > Thief > Elementalist

Access to “pets” helps a lot in my opinion, for leveling anyway.

Strictly leveling:

Guardian=Warrior>Mesmer>Ranger>Elementalisit>Necro=Thief=Engineer

None of them is particularly hard to level. Some though, depend on achieving level ~40 or so in order to begin coming together as a profession, making them somewhat harder.

I’m kinda surprised that people found Mesmer difficult or slow.. I found that with a GS-S/F build it was great leveling. Pistol is better, but Focus is nice for getting around the map.

I have all classes at 80. Ranger for me was the easiest. I had an easy time with mesmer, warrior, necro. Thief was a bit harder, guard too but that was my first character so that’s to be expected. I’m levelling another guard and finding it to be pretty easy. The only one that was really hard for me was ele. I actually ended up crafting 30 levels. I love her at 80 but getting her there was painful and full of deathness.

The first 40 levels on mesmer are worst. By around 40 you have enough traits to get the big gamer-changer traits. Few other classes have such a long “larval” stage where they can do little more than wriggle vigorously at their foes.

This has only been made worse by the recent patch that shunted Illusionist’s Celerity from Adept to Grandmaster, effectively increasing mesmer’s cooldowns almost universally by 20%, further slowing down the gameplay

Once you get the traits things get easier quickly.

In order of easiest to hardest for me.

Guardian (Though I still had 100 deaths at 80 because I got the "I’m invulnerable mentality and tried to do stuff like solo 5 champions)

Ranger

Warrior

Necromancer/Engineer

Mesmer

Elementalist (was very hard since this was my second character and still very noob at the game)

Thief (Hardest for me because I wasn’t very good at the class till I started playing more at level 80 and now it’s my second favorite and Warrior is my favorite)

Engineer was the roughest for me.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Warrior and Guardian are the easiest hands down.

Hardest will be either Ranger or Mesmer. Ranger has kitten all damage and is ball and chained to the stupid kittening pet, while Mesmer is super squishy till they get their traits rolling.

Was going to say “Thief”, then remembered that no, I just decided to do mine the hard way – undergeared, with a crap PvE build and no sword. Sword and Pistol make it easy enough.

I rolled D/D and full conditions on my thief while leveling, I don’t see your excuse :P

Guardian=Ranger=Warrior>Necromancer>Engineer>Elementalist=Thief=Mesmer.
Something like that, from easiest to hardest.

Ranger was super easy because my pet would tank everything while I stayed back and dropped tons of aoe. So simple :P

From what I’ve seen levelling all my chars:

Easiest:
Ranger because of pet tanking, ranged attacks, fast kill.
Warrior because of high dps and resistance even alone.
Necromancer because if you’re in need you have death shroud, lots of minions, and the highest HP a character can have from starting.

Normal:
Guardian, it can easily do everything, but you’ll need a build focused on Greatsword or you’ll need days to kill mobs. At least you can survive and you’re always wanted in farming groups, dungeons etc
Elementalist,if you play alone you need 1000 eyes to watch around you. If you play with someone else, it’s really easy and enjoyable due to the many spell you can choose. It’s very useful in parties

Hell: Mesmer. I didn’t even levelled it till 80. It’s pain even with greatsword and even playing it with another person. I would love to play it but seriously, made me so sick! And I absolutely hate the sound of GS skill no.1 =_=

I didn’t try Thief or Engineer so I cannot tell you anything about

Enjoy !

Rigth now I level an Elementalist and i think it is the ‘hardest’, but I am quite undegeared, still they seem very squishy and imo the concept of most weapons are ground targeted, which means either you stay on place while they hit you, or you kite, but then the ground targeted skills won’t hit them. Only if I have the Greater Earth Elemental up, it’s super easy, since it’s a great Tank. None are really hard, but while I leveled Mesmer the first, then Guardian, Necro and Ranger to max, they were all relatively easy. Also Warrior, although the healing isn’t the best. I also maxed the Engineer. Thief is easy only because of Shadow Refuge – are you in trouble? Use it and run away or regain some health etc :-)

My first 80 was a Mesmer back when the game launched and it took ages but wasn’t hard.

Easiest I think would be Engi and Ranger- both of those pretty much leveled themselves and I was shocked at how easy/quick it was compared to my Mesmer.

I find Elementalist impossible- Thief quite hard, but I’m better at Thief now than I was originally so it might get easier.

I can’t level Guardian or Warrior because I can’t get them past level 10 without dying of boredom and hitting the delete button.

Saw someone in this thread say ranger was hard…Idk what you were doin man, but you weren’t doin it right.

Now I started playing an ele got it to about lv 40, then started my ranger which became my main and is my only 80. I also have a necro around 40. So I don’t have a lot of experience with the different classes, but I do think ranger is a pretty easy class to level. I mean leveling ranger, you can just use your pet as a tank while you kill stuff. I wouldn’t recommend this as an endgame playstyle, but it works pretty well for soloing in open pve maps as you’re just leveling and getting used to the class. Plus rangers do have some nice aoes that you can use against groups when you’re leveling.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I rolled D/D and full conditions on my thief while leveling, I don’t see your excuse :P

What excuse? If you’re leveling with daggers (and conditions especially) it is one of the hardest professions to level. Sword/pistol is so much easier it’s not even funny. Still kitten easy, but that’s because leveling in this game is kitten easy. Which is a good thing, cause leveling is hardly the most interesting part of any game.

Genavelle.9516:

Saw someone in this thread say ranger was hard…Idk what you were doin man, but you weren’t doin it right.

Now I started playing an ele got it to about lv 40, then started my ranger which became my main and is my only 80. I also have a necro around 40. So I don’t have a lot of experience with the different classes, but I do think ranger is a pretty easy class to level. I mean leveling ranger, you can just use your pet as a tank while you kill stuff. I wouldn’t recommend this as an endgame playstyle, but it works pretty well for soloing in open pve maps as you’re just leveling and getting used to the class. Plus rangers do have some nice aoes that you can use against groups when you’re leveling.

I’ve said it and I maintain it. Again, it’s not about it being hard, just harder than most. Which it is. Pet tanking is nice and all, but that only works against small numbers. If you compare it to, for example, the heavy classes that don’t even need the pet to tank, while still doing higher damage (and for the most part better AoE), it’s hard to say ranger is on even ground.

I guess Necro can have some issues as well, given that they lack cleave in all their weapons, so until a bit later when you can roll some wells, you’re kinda lacking AoE for that quick area clear.

when fistrted the game i made a sylvary ele, and i was conviced that staff was the choice to be made.
made this choice because i tought that race was going to make difference in performance, but i died like 1000 times in caledon, and i really hated the “Happy” apearance of silvary males.
got to lvl 10 and moved to another char.
had thelession of happy sylvary apearance, i did a charr warrior, super easy leveling, become my main char istantly, now i run it in zerky build and can do everything, my main choice for harder content.
for second i leveled an asura thief…. what a pain lol thief are so squishy and needs to build up the action to be effective, toke really ages to level up but is one of the most enjoyable gamplay i found.
third well the hardest imho, another ele, whith knowledge from thief was a bit less of a pain but still.. leveling solo is really hard, ele really need a tanky buddy in most pve situations.
long cast time and no mobility (yes, for me ele can is staff,) but along comes the wanderfull support, healing and whatever he provides.
imho is the most powerfull and versatile class in the game, (well thos guardianns lol), now is 80 and full exo (zerk gear ad staff is huge sustained dps, combo fields, healing, boons…).
one advice i can give for eles is to find a good leveling buddy to help you out, possibly a guardian or a warr, do dungeons whenever you reach x5 lvl to level up faster (1lvl per run almost) and craft. did 3 full crafting on mine and is like 30lvls.
last i’m still leveling (75) is a mesmer, and i don’t really understand all these complaints, sure is non noob profession and can get you frustrated if done wrong, but hey is still the old go zerk and melt’em..!
what can be hard about it is the lack of aoe (but never like thief d/d lol) and the need to build the action and not just facetank.
what i used mostly is gs, whhic is imho a bit underpowered, staf and sword/focus.
what makes pve mesmer hard is that the enemy seems not to care about illusions and keeps on targeting you regardless, unlike ranger pets.
nex to be leveled os guardian, then will be ranger (till lvl 30) and necro (if ever).

this game has no hard mode, but if you are new to tis kind of game, starting with an ele, mesmer or thief is like beginning a game in hard mode.

tl:dr
from easyest to hardest:
warr→guard→ranger→mesmer→thief→ele
engi and necro have no idea and never will probably (maybe necro lol)

5/8 so far.

• Ranger was super easy, nothing much to say
• On Elementalist I shafted myself and played with staff, so that one was on me.
• Thief was medium, some things where more difficult.
• Mesmer, as said before, it’s hard up until 40. After that it does a 180 and is medium to easy.
• Engineer I thought was easy, got a lot of nifty tools at your disposal.

Currently leveling Guardian, but at level 10 only, so can’t say. It’s supposed to be easy anyway :p

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Viking Jorun.5413:

I rolled D/D and full conditions on my thief while leveling, I don’t see your excuse :P

What excuse? If you’re leveling with daggers (and conditions especially) it is one of the hardest professions to level. Sword/pistol is so much easier it’s not even funny. Still kitten easy, but that’s because leveling in this game is kitten easy. Which is a good thing, cause leveling is hardly the most interesting part of any game.

Genavelle.9516:

Saw someone in this thread say ranger was hard…Idk what you were doin man, but you weren’t doin it right.

Now I started playing an ele got it to about lv 40, then started my ranger which became my main and is my only 80. I also have a necro around 40. So I don’t have a lot of experience with the different classes, but I do think ranger is a pretty easy class to level. I mean leveling ranger, you can just use your pet as a tank while you kill stuff. I wouldn’t recommend this as an endgame playstyle, but it works pretty well for soloing in open pve maps as you’re just leveling and getting used to the class. Plus rangers do have some nice aoes that you can use against groups when you’re leveling.

I’ve said it and I maintain it. Again, it’s not about it being hard, just harder than most. Which it is. Pet tanking is nice and all, but that only works against small numbers. If you compare it to, for example, the heavy classes that don’t even need the pet to tank, while still doing higher damage (and for the most part better AoE), it’s hard to say ranger is on even ground.

I guess Necro can have some issues as well, given that they lack cleave in all their weapons, so until a bit later when you can roll some wells, you’re kinda lacking AoE for that quick area clear.

I guess. I did come to ranger from ele, which I had a lot of problems with. And any good eles out there can call me a sucky ele if you want, I’m sure it’s true. Anyways ranger was a lot easier for me and I haven’t had much experience with the heavy armor professions. I’ve tried leveling my warrior and guardian but they both kind of bore me.

tl;dr

Have 5 chars, leveling from easiest to hardest:

Ranger>Warrior>Necro>Mesmer>Ele

Ranger, Necro and Mesmer r lvl80
Warrior and Ele r lvl55

I was happy i already leveled my mesmer way past lvl40 before the nerf to Ilusionary Celerity.
Leveling Ele became to much a pain, and my warrior is not a primary char for me.

I find guardian boring, but Ive managed to get it to level 41. My elementalist is stuck cause I die all the time. Mesmer sucks, atleast in my hands.

War was definitely the easiest. Guardian might have been equally easy, but it was my second char, and i wasn’t then fully used to the game yet. Ranger (my first char) was a bit dfficult at the beginning, but turned out okay later on. The last of the four “easy” professions would be necro.
Mesmer was extremely hard at the beginning, and took a lot of effort until i learned to adapt my playing style to that profession’s strength and weaknesses. After that, it became much easier, though. Engi is generally weak, and sometimes doing the simplest things is hard, but playing him is great fun. Running around burning everything in my path with flamethrower, or raining grenade death on surroundings can be a wonderful stress reliever.
At the bottom of the pile are ele and Thief. Especially ele was an undisputed pain in the posterior the whole way up to 80.

ele was never hard for me that might have been because i mastered that class in pvp and then started doing pve with it. My one and only lvl 80 char is an ele. Mesmers on the other hand though is something else. So freaking squishy.

Comes down to enjoyment as well. My first to 80 was hunter so it was a learning experience. For me mesmer and ele where fun and so where ‘easy’. Theif and guard where not really fun so where not ‘easy’. Necro was a meh class for me as well.

at 80 is hunter, ele, guard, mesmer, theif, and necro leveled in that order.

Necro warrior and guardian were easy due to good survivabilty + aoe. I found thief, ele and mesmer quite difficult at the time, but I now know I could have done way better on my mesmser (which has become my main).
I think people have a hard time with mesmers because they stick to GS, which is not that good for solo play since it has no decent aoe and the #1 at close range is meh. I still do agree that they’re very trait-dependant, which makes early lvls really hard

I don’t feel Mesmer is hard to level to 80 with the right build, weapon and armor selection.

I leveled my Mesmer fairly easy with Staff and Dual Swords. I put 20 on power, 10 on precision, 20 on toughness and 20 on health and vitality. From there I ran PVT on trinkets, PVT on armor and ppc ( power precision condition damage or crit ) on weapons with the major sigil of bloodlust. Also used Major sigils of the dolyak for extra survivability.

Running that lineup leveled me to 80 in no time with little to no deaths in the process. Now surviving on Orr ? welllllll, not sure about that yet, but I have seen Mesmers running around on Orr seemingly holding their own alone.

There’s the easy/hard scale and there’s the fun/boring scale.

Warriors, Guardians, and Rangers are easy to level. They’re also very boring.

Engineer was easiet for me, but that’s because it was so much fun. 10 trait pts and I’ve got perma-swiftness.

Necro was harder for me, seemed like endless kiting. Mesmer a little worse because of no swiftness and so trait-dependent.

No idea about Ele or Thief. Haven’t gotten them about 12 because their squishiness frustrated me.

For me:

Warrior, thief, ranger easy.

Engineer, Necro medium.

Mesmer hard.

Ele very hard.

Guardian easy-ish but boring as all hell. Motivation was the hard part.

Warriors and Guardians are probably the easiest as everyone says. High armor, high damage, lots of utility

The light armor ones are terrible until lvl 40 imo. Afterwards, they get really strong

I didnt have problem with medium armor ones. Not easy, not hard

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I guess Necro can have some issues as well, given that they lack cleave in all their weapons, so until a bit later when you can roll some wells, you’re kinda lacking AoE for that quick area clear.

necro is king of aoe in terms of leveling. Keywords are “marks” and “wells”

I found the Ranger levelled really quickly – I was shocked at how fast I gain levels with the Ranger.

Warrior and Guardian are pretty fast.

Engineer and Elementalist are agonisingly slow for me unless I do a circuit of large group events, but even then, they’re pretty slow. Not hard, just slow.

Mesmer is slow (at first, anyway), but not difficult. I didn’t find the lower levels too tricky at all.

Necro is pretty average. Not too fast, not too slow, but not that interesting until a bit higher level and you get access to interesting traits. But my Necro is my main and my fave.

Thief, well, I just take a long time to level with this profession, apparently. Lol.

Afya.5842:

ProxyDamage.9826:

I guess Necro can have some issues as well, given that they lack cleave in all their weapons, so until a bit later when you can roll some wells, you’re kinda lacking AoE for that quick area clear.

necro is king of aoe in terms of leveling. Keywords are “marks” and “wells”

Marks do kitten all damage (conditions suck in PvE too), and Wells have a lot more cooldown, even after the buff, than most other character’s options.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Afya.5842:

ProxyDamage.9826:

I guess Necro can have some issues as well, given that they lack cleave in all their weapons, so until a bit later when you can roll some wells, you’re kinda lacking AoE for that quick area clear.

necro is king of aoe in terms of leveling. Keywords are “marks” and “wells”

Marks do kitten all damage (conditions suck in PvE too), and Wells have a lot more cooldown, even after the buff, than most other character’s options.

Damage isn’t important, you only need to do enough to get the experience, but you don’t have to kill the mob.
With trait, you have good enough CD and you can alternate WoC & WoS between each wave of enemy.
The AoEs necro have can tag 5 mobs instead of 3 from cleaves.

That’s for event chain farming. For roaming, get a dagger w/ wells or dagger w/ minions.

I’ve leveled everything except the Warrior to 80, and here’s how it was for me:

Necro > Ranger > Guardian >> Engineer = Thief >>> Mesmer > Ele.

I ran minions on my Necro and leveling her was just faceroll. Ranger’s not a whole lot harder. Once you get your basic pet micromanagement down, you pretty much just sit back and watch everything die. My Guardian wasn’t a whole lot harder to level just because Guardians are so strong and have so much battle sustain. My Engi and Thief weren’t bad. Not super easy, not super hard. Mesmers have it rough because their builds are so trait-dependent and they, more than most professions, really need to have their build together to have a coherent playstyle. I had the hardest time leveling my Ele since they don’t get much in the way of built-in damage mitigation.

Ultimately, though, leveling isn’t ever really that hard. It’s really just a matter of how easy it is.

I’ve only done a few classes and only ever capped one, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I found Ele to be fairly easy and I leveled pretty quickly (capped the ele)
I found Mesmer to be slightly easier than Ele and am leveling at about 130% of the Ele’s rate (currently 52)
I found warrior to be way too easy. I got to about 30 and deleted it because it wasn’t challenging. Perhaps the later levels get harder.
I tried theif and it was a pain in the butt lol It was extremely hard to level. I may just craft it or something…so in summary from easiest to hardest: Warrior-Mesmer-Ele-Theif

I leveled Guardian and then did a Legendary on him, after which I had tons of crafting mats. So then I just leveled Mesmer solely via crafting to 80, and then figured out how to play her.

Kind of a shortcut but after world completion and everything else I was pretty burned out. And it took kind of a while to learn to play Mesmer afterwards, during which time I looked like a complete idiot to anyone who happened by.

mesmer is easy to level. alternate between phantasm damage and shatter damage

I’ve had the hardest time with Thief, heck even melee Warrior I have a bit of a rough time.

I’m better with ranged stuff. Always have been. So I don’t find Ele or Mesmer very hard. Ele was probably the easiest for me, just because of the variety of skills. Mesmer is a little harder then Ele, takes a bit to get used to how to use your skills effectively though.

Guardian is not so bad, its pretty hard to suck at Guardian totally I think. They have a lot of great surviviability and skills.

I can’t say I feel sure that Necro may be easy or hard. I have leveled a Necro to 51 and I’m still mixed feelings about it.

I have found Ele quite easy with double daggers, at first I went for the staff but learnt very quickly it wasn’t good for solo play. Ranger is a dream with a bear pet.

I lvled two ele to 80 before my Mesmer hit 30. Ranger and guardian were super easy. My warrior will forever be lvl 15 cause it’s so boring. My necro was easy to lvl also once I figured out the mechanics. My thief was a bit rough.

For me, personally, based on ease of play, survivability, and general fun:

Necro (easiest)
Ranger
Guardian
Engineer
Warrior
Elementalist
Mesmer
Thief (hardest)

I’d say warrior and Guardian easiest to level. Elementalist and Mesmer hardest, however I never really tried leveling thief so I don’t know how hard they are.

Interesting topic but why necro it?

Necro’s are the easiest… There conditions are so OP in PVE…. Killing mobs with a lot of hp like Elietes and Boss’s is so easy.. SO many conditions… Bleeds and kill things so easily..

Ele is hard from lvl 1 to 9… Once I got to lvl 9 i died over and over trying to kill same lvl mobs.. I looked at my gear and noticed my gear sucked.. I went to the market/Trader and bought all lvl 9 gear that had Power and bought upgrade pebbles/ect with power… I then went and fought those mobs and they were killed so fast.. Fire blast burst dmg is crazy…. Sceptor/Dagger is the best for solo… Just use Fire blast combo (4-2-3 should be dead by now but not dead then use 5).. The burning dmg is crazy…
Ele is very gear dependent when lvling.. I was able to kill lvl 15 mobs at lvl 10 with my ele after I geared up in power… I bet other professions are the same…