Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I’m starting this game with my friend today and mainly going to be playing PvE. He is playing as a necromancer. I have played a lot of Support roles before but do not prefer it. Any recommendations as to what profession I should play?

I was thinking Ranger(downside I am reading is pets do all your work…you just stand there…) or Thief (apparently they don’t offer much in group fights/harder to level)?

Thank you in advance for all the help!

If you don’t know what to pick I would say elementalist. You can build it around many familiar themes.

Try the professions and see what you like. It’s important to note that the weapon you use changes your skills, so that can change the whole feel of a profession. Also, a ranger whose pet does all the work is a dead ranger. Thieves are a bit hard to level, due to having a rather small health pool, and they don’t really buff a party, but they have excellent group utility in some areas, depending on weapon set. Stuns, blinds, interrupts and group stealth. It is probably my favorite profession.

Just experiment until you find something you like.

My first character was a Guardian… I have played him over 1000 hours (and have every class in game).

Guardian… and never look back. They are semi-support, but have high survivability and can dish out some dps (use Zerker gear)

I’d counsel not starting with Elementalist. It takes a lot of “stance dancing” to be effective and is the squishiest profession. Until you have a good feel for game play, you’ll take way more dirt naps than is fun. At least that was my experience at launch. Engineer also takes a lot of keyboard work. Ele and Engie are the two professions that don’t get weapon swap as an option (they use attunement and kit changes instead) which ends up making them feel more rigid in a fight to me.

Thief is next squishiest, though it gets a ton of dodge and evade, and offers the least group support. Common wisdom is Thief is much more awesome in PvP than in PvE.

Ranger (not Hunter ) doesn’t mean just standing there. Your pet does some work, but you have to pay attention to managing its position and health; it will die fairly easily, and it gets one special ability used when you trigger it.

What you find fun will be very individual to you. For me, Mesmer and Guardian were the surprise “wow this is way more fun than I expected” professions. Mesmer clones and phantasms aren’t so much pets as fire-and-forget persistent spells that you can choose to dispel with useful consequences at good moments for it. Guardian is full of group support and self-sustaining power; it takes more work to tweak it to do dps but it’s the least squishy out there.

Before beta I put Guardian at the bottom of my list of interesting professions, not being much of a Paladin player. Then I found out how it plays in this game, and was hooked.

Kalap.5843:

Hello,

I’m starting this game with my friend today and mainly going to be playing PvE. He is playing as a necromancer. I have played a lot of Support roles before but do not prefer it. Any recommendations as to what profession I should play?

I was thinking Hunter (downside I am reading is pets do all your work…you just stand there…) or Thief (apparently they don’t offer much in group fights/harder to level)?

Thank you in advance for all the help!

totaly false about the Ranger , in gw2 the ranger don’t follow the typical MMo hunter set up though the pet is always with you , your damage is considered from all sources You/pet/crit bleeds/utility.

if your pet (aka damage source can’t reach its target you the ranger fills that slot untill it can by providing the pet with Support crowd control) you can buff the pet using the trait line but it is not required to get good use from it, though without some form of Care or support the pet will die if you don’t keep a eye on it.

Rangers in gw2 are not just Ranged attacks they deal in one or melee or both at the same time while providing the Best Crowd control set ups in the game currently .

able to ether give a high up time of immobilise + chill(increases the cooldown of skills , may lead to the target not being able to escape as quickly or attack as often) cripples slow down general movement (it counters swiftness) Rangers do this so easily compaired to other classes.

the start is easy but when you want to push the class to its limits later on it can become Difficult to Balance those Damage sources without giving something else up and in most cases people forgo the pet because it does die without some form of support .

but don’t listen to most of the stuff written on the fourms those that bad mouth pets are usally poor at controling them (with the limited options we have and don’t bring any support for ether pet or team) normaly only focus traits on powering up the ranger itself Rendering one of our Damage sources usless.

give it a try i’d say this for all the classes and form your own knowledge and opions , only use what people say as guide lines rather than the “you must” or " this does great " then you end up copying the build and find out its not for you.

its your charater build it how you will , as most say haha those are only guide lines and some of the top gw2 players have broken those guide lines then formed the new meta or a different meta each time, thats progression.

Just Enjoy yourself

My advice would be to read up on them and choose the one that sounds like the most fun. The easiest to play are probably Warrior, Guardian, and Ranger. Though with a little practice all are quite manageable. The wiki has tons of great info on everything: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Profession

Guardian is a solid choice for learning the game.

Elementalist, engineer, and mesmer have the steepest learning curve IMO.

I main a Mesmer, it’s a lot of fun, and I just love messing with my enemies minds, while teleporting and messing with time and space spells.

My apologies I did mean Ranger not Hunter XD. Thank you everyone for the quick responses! Keep it coming if you would like to chime in and I really like the friendly community of Guild Wars!

OP, all the professions are great. If you can’t decide where to start, I recommend reading about each profession’s skills and watching some youtube of gameplay. None of the professions are stuck in a support role; they can all be played various ways.

As for ranger, the pet AI has some problems, yes. But the pet doesn’t do all the work. Rangers can be a lot of things – they can use melee, focus on support or cc, buff allies (and themselves) for increased damage. They’re pretty versatile, as are all the professions.

The first character I made was a thief, followed by mesmer. I had a terrible computer and terrible lag, so those weren’t fun for me at the time. I rolled a ranger and was pretty happy with that. Once I got a better rig, I revisited thief and mesmer and loved them. Ranger has a low skill floor (meaning I could play it and stay alive with terrible FPS), but it’s capable of very intricate combat.

I main engineer these days, but I have all the professions and they’re all great.

Just get a few levels of every profession(not sure what level exactly unlocks the mists spvp icon on the top left of your UI, I believe it’s lvl2) and teleport to the Mists. Your character will be boosted to lvl 80 w/everything unlocked, and weapons a few silver each. It should help find the playstyle you enjoy.

Make one of evry class and go in pvp loby (think thet is stil posible on lv1 if not ~10 i think)
when you get in loby you will have evry skill unlock and you can try out em its nice way to see what skill do what.
But if you dont go wit engi :P they are nice and funy class you can do a lot of suporting wit ther heal turet (relly nice aoe heal) but you can be full dps and stil be suport wit em , they got nice mix of king of hill skils (wit turets and nice cc) but have goot dps and cc (if you go wit belt skils ).
But dont forget gw2 dont have dps-tank-sup evry class can be evrything just some are beter then others (but not too much beter)

Warrior or Guardian – solid, easier play, good learning characters, always welcome in groups.

Rangers – some builds are powerful, some aren’t. Not always welcome in PUGs.

Elementalist, Engineer – Squishy, hard to learn, hard to play well, but flashy. Expect to die a lot and deal with people complaining about your class, you’ll be called OP and too weak at the same time.

Necromancer – no idea. Haven’t played it enough. Not a controversial class.

Thief – Expect hate in WvW due to stealth, except from people using thief stealth themselves. Divisive class but fun to play.

I love my elementalist, but they are definitely the most work just to complete content. Warrior or Guardian are easy mode, but can be nice and more relaxing.

Jump into the mists on each trying out the weapons. Damage/Survivability is a combo of skill gear and traits, but the weapons are going to define how you do it.

Level 1 I think offers the mists(crossed swords top corner menu).
If not it will be level 2 when you finish the ‘tutorial’.

Selver.1307:

Jump into the mists on each trying out the weapons. Damage/Survivability is a combo of skill gear and traits, but the weapons are going to define how you do it.

Level 1 I think offers the mists(crossed swords top corner menu).
If not it will be level 2 when you finish the ‘tutorial’.

This is exactly what I would suggest, go give each class a try, look at the attacks and skills for each and pick what you like.

90% sure the NPE (New player experience) Has negatively impacted this… You need to be level 20 or 22 to enter the mist from the crossed swords. (This means you must have a level 20 or 22 character on your account, after that you can just enter it any old time). I believe the work around is… The portals in Lions arch will allow you to enter right away. Simply jump in your main cities asura portal to LA then from LA to the mist.

Personal suggestion go Mesmer, it’s the most funnest class EVAR (obviously 100% opinion)

Selver.1307:

Jump into the mists on each trying out the weapons. Damage/Survivability is a combo of skill gear and traits, but the weapons are going to define how you do it.

Level 1 I think offers the mists(crossed swords top corner menu).
If not it will be level 2 when you finish the ‘tutorial’.

It doesn’t unlock until level 12 i believe. The NPE changed it. I wouldn’t suggest going there either, because it can be confusing for a new player, since they would get a pop up on the SPvP template, etc.

When It comes to raw details about what is best as a newer player, I’d say Warrior, Ranger and Necromancer (You can also put Guard in there aswell) They all have an easy time dealing with things.

As for classes that aren’t new friendly. Ele is considered one of the hardest, they have the lowest base health and can have quite a learning curve with Attunements for newer players.

My personal opinion… Try them, play what you ENJOY.