Guild Wars 2

What do you guys think is the hardest class to play atm in GW2? And what class do you main?

engi, nothing more to say.

If you’re talking for PVE then the hardest class for me so far has been the Elementalist. The class is fine and all, I just didn’t play it well. I preferred staff build since I’m terrible at Dagger/Dagger and leveling was tough.

My Main is a Ranger who I love. Leveling Ranger is almost too easy sometimes. I have also leveled up a Warrior, Guardian, and am working on a Necro and all were pretty easy to level. Might try Thief next, but I ended up deleting my Ele because I just don’t like the class.

It’s really hard to say, as it depends on what game mode you play, and what build you play. The profession I’ve found the hardest to level up is the Thief. And the profession that I’ve had the most trouble finding a viable build for in sPvP is the Necromancer.

From a profession design perspective, I would say the Thief is the hardest to play, with initiative, low health, and next to no boons.

Really depends on the build. Depends on the person and what you like playing, what you have experience playing etc. For example I play an HGH condi nade engi and it’s pretty simple imo but there are engi builds which require a lot more kit swapping and counterplay.

I usually find ranged classes to be easier to play than melee because when I play ranged I generally have a better view of the fight and I can play with distance to avoid damage. When I play my guardian I feel like I have a harder time keeping track of the whole fight.

Warrior. Hard to play because hard to focus. Boredom of spamming 1 and 2. lol

jk

I’ll vote for Engi and Thief. I suck at Thief that I abandoned it all throughout.

Swaping engineer and minion necro. I’m leveling my mesmer now, and so far he needs a lot of attention to survive, but I read it’s one of most laziest class at the 80 so I’m not counting him in :P

voting for ranger!
cause you are playing two things!

Warrior, because for me it’s almost impossible to turn my brain off.

I had the most painful PvE experience with a thief. Can’t comment on PvP.

PvE -> Elementalist.

Still dont get, or want to get, the current stupid Attunement swapping mechanism.
Oh, and Ele also seems to have worst combo of low health and low armor.

id say ele mainly cause with that class i have no clue what i should be doing atm and ive tried it over and over, ele was my favorite class in gw1 but i just dont grasp it yet. i find guardian ranger and warrior too easy. engineer is clunky to me but not hard to play. dont have much experience thief but doesnt look too hard. mesmer can be hard but fun. necro is easy but i havent gotten far with one yet

I have all the leather and iron professions maxed.

Just cannot play Ele to save my life. I’d vote for this being the hardest.

dagrdagaz.4913:

PvE -> Elementalist.

Still dont get, or want to get, the current stupid Attunement swapping mechanism.
Oh, and Ele also seems to have worst combo of low health and low armor.

And low range if you are using D/D

:|

dagrdagaz.4913:

PvE -> Elementalist.

Still dont get, or want to get, the current stupid Attunement swapping mechanism.
Oh, and Ele also seems to have worst combo of low health and low armor.

Look at it this way: Fire=power/burn, Water=healing/chill, Air=critical hits/speed, and Earth=toughness/bleeding. Putting each attunement in these categories makes them a lot more manageable. Fire is great for AoE damage, Air is for single target damage, Earth is great for extra durability, and Water when you’re low on health.

The Elementalist gains a ton of survivability from boons alone, not to mention reliable healing from water attunement skills.

I am having a very hard time with my Ele alt, too… I just haven’t figured out how to play it yet.

After playing thief, mesmer, ele, ranger, warrior, and necro to 80, with an engi in the 60s and a guardian in the 30s, I’m gonna go with ele as the hardest class to play, at least in PVE. I finally settled into the D/D thing, and it got better. Before that… aiee.

Ele is faceroll lol. Zerker thief backstabber needs most practice.
Seriously d/d ele is just massive keyboard mashing

Thief is terrible to play properly. If you make one tiny mistake, you are instantly dead.

Thief in PvE has the lowest room for error. That’s my vote for PvE

Main: Mesmer
80 alts: Ele, thief, ranger

I’ll weigh in and also say Ele in PvE. I just can’t get into that one and have had trouble leveling her.

80 toons: Necro, Mesmer, Guard, Engi, Thief
Currently ~30 toons: War, Ele

This is a personal preference type question since it is easy to find someone who thinks their particular class is easy as pie and someone else who can’t get control of it. For me mesmer, hunter and ele where easy to play because they where fun. Guardian is easy to play but I don’t enjoy it as much (have those 4 at 80). I am having trouble getting up enthusiasm to get thief and necro to 80. I have not tried engi or warror.

I think it depends a lot on level. At level 80, ele’s are one of the easiest classes to play. You just have a memorize a slightly longer rotation (fire 4 → earth 4, etc…)

Personally, I have the most difficulty with the engineer.

Guardian. Getting my hammer out, pressing 1 and doing nothing else against subject alpha was quite challenging.

colesy.8490:

Guardian. Getting my hammer out, pressing 1 and doing nothing else against subject alpha was quite challenging.

Turn on auto-attack and get a sandwich. That makes it a bit easier.

Probably mesmer for me, and mainly because it does not function anything like the mesmer in the original game. Just have to wrap my brain around the new play style. It’s fun, just…not what I expected.

Edit: Sort of chuckling at all the PvE Ele votes. I just don’t understand I guess. Staff ele is my main, and I found it a cake walk to level. I’ve also tried out all of the available weapons at one point or another. I don’t see the survivability issue, but perhaps I’m just a little more ‘in tune’ with that class.

1. Thief Norn, I lvled to 43 with a sword/pistol, took long to kill stuff. Dredge ugh.
2. Ele Asura, I lvled to 46 with d/d and staff, d/d is strong but a lot of work.

The thief currently has a desk job at the order of whispers.

The one just rolled yesterday.

Israel.7056:

I usually find ranged classes to be easier to play than melee because when I play ranged I generally have a better view of the fight and I can play with distance to avoid damage. When I play my guardian I feel like I have a harder time keeping track of the whole fight.

I certainly agree with this. It’s very difficult to be a party leader when you’re a Guardian, as you really can’t see what’s going on most of the time (especially if there are a few eles in your party creating all kinds of effects). Ironically, the Guardian is designed in a way that makes him/her about party support, but it’s tough to keep track of a party.

Thief or Engineer for PvE
War for PvP

Abhor.5602:

Thief or Engineer for PvE
War for PvP

This.

I honestly find being mobile with a bomb engi to be REALLY hard for some reason.

But I find ele combo, kiting, and attunement swapping super easy.

To each their own though. If you put me on a melee range character I will suffer greatly (D/D ele is ok for me, but its not safe territory at all lol; thief/rogue characters have also been a super weak spot for me).

LotuS.4378:

engi, nothing more to say.

I find engineer silly easy. So I guess this comes down to individuals.

Engineer is the only class I never change my skills / build on.

2 pistols, the purple icon elixor, the tool kit, the elixor that removes conditions, and the elite skill elixor that makes me a giant kung foo machine.

Ok, I do change my heal from the self heal elixor to healing seed (my engineer is a sylvarri) when in groups…

Otherwise just shoot with number 3 for confusion, then swap to toolkit and hit confusion again, then melee a bit, swap back and shoot for confusion, then back to melee… /win.

I think all the classes are about on par for difficulty. What matters more is which ones fit or don’t fit a given player well.

And with 9 character slots, I have all 8 and do dungeons with them all.

I dunno…I like the Engineer for PvE….

As others have said, ranged weapons are the easiest to use. An Engineer with zerker gear and speced well for guns does amazing damage at amazing range with a rifle…the kickback and net will usually keep an opponent at range until they are dead. And the rifle takes no skill or concentration whatsoever to use.

Against mobs? Flamethrower! IMHO this is the best AOE weapon in the game, particularly for farming. If timed correctly the exploding fireball will do unbelievable damage to a mob. The flamethrower can be a bit tricky though, as it has no long range ability and it is also weak at melee range…but if you can keep enemies at medium range it is absolutely devastating.

The only thing the Engineer lacks is good melee ability….but the class comes with lots of tricks to avoid melee combat.

I have leveled Engineer, Thief, Warrior, and Guardian. I think the Thief is the worst in PvE.

colesy.8490:

Guardian. Getting my hammer out, pressing 1 and doing nothing else against subject alpha was quite challenging.

I secretly pressed 4 a few times.

On the note on range vs melee. I find ranged harder as it leaves me outside the immediacy of the action and things like avoiding aoe effects requires a longer movement path.

With tool kit my engineer is maybe 60-80% melee. It’d be more but I don’t like the backpack so often drop out of toolkit just to see my toon the way I want her to look
- tool kit is amazingly powerful and makes engineer perhaps the strongest melee class in the game. But seems widely unknown…

Elbegast.6970:

Thief is terrible to play properly. If you make one tiny mistake, you are instantly dead.

For all the whiny garbage people love ta toss around about how it doesn’ take any skill to play Thief, it sure shows up on alot of these lists. PvE Thief is a devil of a class to get used to, but once ya do it is a blast to play; everything else seems boring by comparison. (though I haven’t tried mesmer, yet)

PvE thief:

2-2-2-dodge-2-2-2-dodge…

Very difficult.

Heartstrike spam may be fail in PvP, but in PvE none of the mobs care.

Sometimes though, you have to cast a stealth house to heal somebody…

Engineer was one of the most difficult and frustrating classes PvE wise for me. I spent countless hours in the mists, pve, and dungeons attempting to find a fun middle ground. The builds were either overly complicated or incredibly boring. After aching wrists, I finally admitted defeat.

My main depends on my mood. I’ve gone from Mesmer to Thief, and now working on Necromancer. After Necro I plan on going to Ele then Ranger. Guardian, for me, is a whole other can of worms.

As others have noted it’s a very personal view. I’ve levelled Ranger, Warrior, Thief, Guardian, and Mesmer to 80 and I’m in the process of levelling the others.

Ranger is trivial to level, straightforward with a couple of different options for play, but has some stigma associated with it for Dungeons.

Warrior was trivial to level, but I personally find a bit cookie-cutter despite seeming to have a lot of options… I can see Warrior would reward a twitch player, but I’m not really that… I think the reasons I don’t feel comfortable with the Warrior are down to me.

Thief I had the hardest time levelling until I ploughed into survivability and in particular went for all the initiative points I could generate, and paid attention to blinding… then it became trivial, and also started to feel cookie cutter, as I started to get compulsive about blinding things… which also leads to “spam the best ability over and over”. Built right the Thief is really very survivable. Without attention to this I found it just melted.

Guardian felt very well rounded throughout but over quite a bit of play I ended up with a build that I felt to be (for me) “done”, and so it felt a bit cookie cutter.

Mesmer I found a bit tricky to get used to, but once I did get used to it actually found it to be really versatile.

As a last notes, classes with high hitpoint pools tend in my opinion to offer more flexibility over builds and gear than those with small hp pools.

The classes I found most survivable were Mesmer, Guardian, Thief, Ranger, Warrior, in that order.

Kichwas.7152:

PvE thief:

2-2-2-dodge-2-2-2-dodge…

Heartstrike spam may be fail in PvP, but in PvE none of the mobs care..

Worst Thief ever.

Hardest – engineer, without a doubt. Respect to all the good engineers out there.

Second hardest – I’d say actually warrior in pvp – needs very good situational awareness.

Main – mesmer – not the hardest but certainly has a high skillcap.

Elementalist for it’s physical skill barriers. That’s some crazy hotkeying and fast fingers, and a well played Ele is always impressive to me.

Ranger would be second, just because the pet is more micromanagement than it seems. I lament the simplified pet handing system and used to prefer how a game like WoW handled it, but after putting time into my ranger, I understand why ANet wants it as is. Between your own movement and evades and all the action happening around you, it could be frustrating to have to micromanage your pet beyond, Go, Come, and F2.

Now, if F2 and those commands responded a little better…

Thief, engi, or ele, depending on the content and build you use.

Burst Ele, zerkers gear, no cantrip build. Have fun.

Seems the general concensus is ele, thief, & engi.

Personally, I love my engi (main) and think it requires the most active play of any profession I’ve put time into.

Never could get into Ele, despite trying a couple times. Seems to also have a higher skillcap like Engi.

Hardest, physically, has to be engineer. I couldn’t find a decent build without a ground-targeted basic attack and that level of ground-target spam is a repetitive stress injury waiting to happen. For those playing this way I implore you to consider the potential nerve damage before it’s too late.

Edit: I know about fast ground targeting, but in GW2 combat of any significance I seldom know where my cursor is. The ground-targeting is at least useful in finding my cursor.

Raine.1394:

Hardest, physically, has to be engineer. I couldn’t find a decent build without a ground-targeted basic attack and that level of ground-target spam is a repetitive stress injury waiting to happen. For those playing this way I implore you to consider the potential nerve damage before it’s too late.

Edit: I know about fast ground targeting, but in GW2 combat of any significance I seldom know where my cursor is. The ground-targeting is at least useful in finding my cursor.

Strangely enough the only time my cursor doesn’t get lost is when I play my engineer and I DO use fast ground targetting. This is probably because I can just follow the grenade trails and explosions. Where ever those end up is where my cursor is located.

Fast ground targetting also eliminates the temptation to maximize the number of targets included in the skill radius.

Cursor disappearing when you hold right click doesn’t help with the missing cursor issue.

Engineer was probably one of the harder classes to play until I found the right combination of skills for me. I was using flamethrower, something, Elixir C and either Elixir H or Healing Turret. I found that Medkit, Grenade Kit, Elixir Gun, Elixir C works much better for me. Either the grenade kit or elixir gun will sometimes get replaced with flamethrower against things that reflect projectiles.

I like to split this kind of thing up into two categories;

1) Easiest/hardest class to learn
2) Easiest/hardest class to master

I think it is also not really relevant on specific build, though bunker type builds make it easier to learn/master any class. I do, however, feel that utilities and skills chosen make a big difference.

Ele is one of the hardest classes to learn, however, once you get used to the attunement swapping it is relatively easy to master. Thief is one of the easiest classes to learn, and about medium on the master scale. Ranger is extremely easy to learn, but is one of the hardest classes to truly master. This is all just my opinion, of course.

I think the one that tops both lists, given certain skills (mainly kits), is the engi. If you use a few elixirs as utilities though, it becomes one of the easiest.

So, in other words, massive shrug. lol

I main a Guard for dungeons, Ele for open world, and Ranger for WvW.

Ele was easy for me (both staff and D/D). Mesmer is tough but I think Thief is the most difficult. Engineer was easy for me as well, but I got bored with it. I will try another once I get my 8th char slot.

Jack of Tears.9458:

Kichwas.7152:

PvE thief:

2-2-2-dodge-2-2-2-dodge…

Heartstrike spam may be fail in PvP, but in PvE none of the mobs care..

Worst Thief ever.

Ok… to avoid boredom I sometimekitten the other buttons too.

But the post was in specific response to the idea that thief is hard in PVE.

In PvE… a thief can basically just go between autoattack 1 and 2 and win… the class is so easy in PvE little else is ever required.

I do use more than just the above, but I have no need to. Rather I hit things just to see what will happen and to avoid falling asleep when PvEing on my thief.

Recently switched from d/p to d/d just so I could look for some variety… before i’d hit 3 or 5 for a blind now and then, now I can’t. But I still barely need to even be awake to win on the class.

If my mouse worked underwater i’d put it in my fishtank and watch my fish win in pve on the thief.

Pvp, I dunno… maybe it gets interesting there.

Course I imagine someone’s going to take me serious here… and get all mad about my thief skills again.

But the class, is easy…