Guild Wars 2

So wondering from top to bottom (with what gear/weapon/sigils/runes) that has highest survival in PvE/Dungeons/Fracts and also can do so much damage ?

Falados.7165:

So wondering from top to bottom (with what gear/weapon/sigils/runes) that has highest survival in PvE/Dungeons/Fracts and also can do so much damage ?

Try checking out builds here:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/index.php?title=MetaBattle_Build_Wiki

Guardian zerk/soldier.

Nomads d/d ele can survive and do some damage. Not sure how to quantify your “so much damage”

Basically, Knowledge (learn the encounter, learn to avoid damage by dodges, blocks, reflects) keeps you alive.
Also, survivability relies on your class, traits, bonuses, play style.
“So much damage” is subjective and less than maximum damage.

It really depends, in general warriors are passively tanky and can take more hits than every other classes. There is more to survival than just stats though, for instance thief are generally squishy especially for high level fractals but can be extremely durable when soloing certain dungeons due to invigorating precision + pistol whip keeping their health pool at full almost all the time despite taking hits. Not only that, they can keep mobs perma blinded essentially removing any sort of risk against them.

Guardians is also a good example of a class with crappy survival stats but is deceptively durable with blinds/blocks/aegis/protection etc…

Guardian’s probably the highest survival class at the moment, although I don’t like them because their shield skills suck and when you want to play tanky you want a shield.

Revenants look like they won’t be too bad either with the option to switch between a damage and a tanky legend at any time. Looks like they’ll get to have their cake and eat it too, just like the feral druids of Warcraft before patch 5.0.

I rolled a warrior with the expectation to be tanky and it turns out we’re one of the few classes that can’t bunker very well so not sure I can recommend, BUT unlike those silly guardians we actually get to use our shield to block. I’m hoping that the Warrior specialization in HoT will be more focused on defense since I’m not the only one who made a warrior with that expectation… but not holding my breath.

If you want high survivability and also lots of damage, I’d say it depends a lot on how well you play. Thieves probably have the highest survivability/damage ratio in the hands of a good player, because their stealth makes it easier for them to lose aggro and they have easy access to blinds (we all know the easiest way to survive is to not get hit in the first place).

The problem is that you really have to know what you’re doing when you play as a thief. I see a lot of inexperienced thieves die over and over, simply because they don’t know how to time their attacks/blinds/stealth properly. But in the hands of a master, you can pretty much go through any fractal or dungeon without dying while still dishing out lots of damage.

After that, I’d say guards are pretty good with respect to the damage/survivability ratio, thanks to their easy access to blocks, blinds, stability and projectile block/reflect skills, and on top of that, they’re a lot easier to play as well, so you’d probably find a lot of inexperienced players will find this to be the easiest class to survive with. If you use a sword focus/greatsword, you can pop blocks and blinds like crazy, and avoid a lot of potentially lethal blows, while the 20k health warrior next to you loses half his health in a single strike (keep in mind that large amounts of health and armor will not keep you alive in higher level fractals and some dungeons, it’s all about avoiding hits, not facetanking them).

All-in-all though, you can survive with pretty much any class if you just play them well and make the most use of their mechanics (eles with mobility and easy heals, rangers with well timed evades with melee weapons and stealth with longbow, mesmers with clones, stealth, distortion and reflects, etc).

Guardian.

is this realy a question ?

Zoltreez.6435:

Guardian.

is this realy a question ?

I don’t see the issue with the question, especially for new players who might have very little experience with the classes.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Zoltreez.6435:

Guardian.

is this realy a question ?

I don’t see the issue with the question, especially for new players who might have very little experience with the classes.

you know i wasn’t serious with that :P

If you’re in to Rangers, here is a tanky ranger build with lots of power.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJARTjEqhqW2ldJbyyitYx1etDYJUtbgAoAe/Ct6r6qES5VVwqVA-TBiDABQpUBLlVepEEgLpAjq/IwTKAl9HgTXDZAMHDA-e

Warrior is the one class that can be survivable and still keep its high damage builds. In order for your guardian to be survivable he has to give up DPS sources.

Warrior has Healing signet, the best heal in the game (that and the healing from 3 bar adrenaline basically gives you a free 400+ hp regen per tick, it’s insane).

Warrior also has heavy armor an a 7k base hp advantage over low hp classes. That means he can also absorb burst. Then you have stances like endure pain and shield stance on his offset (axe+shiel instead of axe+mace if your group is fine stacking vulnerability) and it’s really no contest.

All the other classes who want to build tanky will not come close to touching the damage of a warrior.

Really, either warrior or guardian. There’s good reason heavy armor professions are preferred by melee frontlines in WvW and in dungeon pugs.

Zenith.7301:

Warrior is the one class that can be survivable and still keep its high damage builds. In order for your guardian to be survivable he has to give up DPS sources.

Warrior has Healing signet, the best heal in the game (that and the healing from 3 bar adrenaline basically gives you a free 400+ hp regen per tick, it’s insane).

Warrior also has heavy armor an a 7k base hp advantage over low hp classes. That means he can also absorb burst. Then you have stances like endure pain and shield stance on his offset (axe+shiel instead of axe+mace if your group is fine stacking vulnerability) and it’s really no contest.

All the other classes who want to build tanky will not come close to touching the damage of a warrior.

You see, I think this is the problem with player perceptions. They think high health and armor = survivability. Then you do a higher level fractal with said players and they wonder why they get one shot buy a boss despite having high health and armor. Also, that regen sustain is not as good as it seems if you’re being downed in one or two hits. Burst heals and damage immunity are more important.

Also, I’m not sure where you got the idea that a guardian has to sacrifice damage to get survivability, but this is certainly not the case. The highest damage guardian builds right now use greatsword + sword focus alt and usually build into the radiance line, which means they also get justice is blind + renewed justice. That means they have access to an aoe blind from greatsword, an aoe blind from sword, a blind from focus, a block from focus, a block from shelter, a free block from aegis + an on demand party block from aegis, and spammable aoe blinds from justice is blind, which refreshes every time an enemy is killed (which is super useful for stacking situations). I’m not even factoring in other non-heal slot skills like renewed focus.

The skills you mentioned for warrior, on the other hand, aren’t near as numerous or spammable. To put it plainly, I’d say guardians are far above warriors from a pure survivability perspective, even in full zerker gear (keeping in mind we are speaking in the context of PvE, as the original post pertained to).

If you want the best survivability combined with the best DPS, look at the Thief. The best survivability for a Thief is with full Berserker gear, use S/P and get the trait Invigorating Precision and just Pistol Whip everything. It’s maybe the only profession that has zero benefit from investing in defensive gear at all. Full Berserker allows you to heal yourself to full with IP with 1 Pistol Whip, that is semi-spammable if you know what you are doing.

If you want extra survivability, a few trait changes can help, Feline Grace for extra dodges (you will never run out), Shadow’s Embrace with D/D for great on-demand condi cleanse, you rarely need more condi cleanse in PVE etc

So yeah Thief is the best combo for damage+survivability but it does require more skill to play than say a Warrior or Guardian.

maddoctor.2738:

If you want the best survivability combined with the best DPS, look at the Thief. The best survivability for a Thief is with full Berserker gear, use S/P and get the trait Invigorating Precision and just Pistol Whip everything. It’s maybe the only profession that has zero benefit from investing in defensive gear at all. Full Berserker allows you to heal yourself to full with IP with 1 Pistol Whip, that is semi-spammable if you know what you are doing.

If you want extra survivability, a few trait changes can help, Feline Grace for extra dodges (you will never run out), Shadow’s Embrace with D/D for great on-demand condi cleanse, you rarely need more condi cleanse in PVE etc

So yeah Thief is the best combo for damage+survivability but it does require more skill to play than say a Warrior or Guardian.

Yeah, this is my opinion as well. Thieves have the best combination of damage and survivability if you are a skilled player and use them properly.

Guardians are the best alternative for players who aren’t very good with thieves and want an easier to play class.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Zenith.7301:

Warrior is the one class that can be survivable and still keep its high damage builds. In order for your guardian to be survivable he has to give up DPS sources.

Warrior has Healing signet, the best heal in the game (that and the healing from 3 bar adrenaline basically gives you a free 400+ hp regen per tick, it’s insane).

Warrior also has heavy armor an a 7k base hp advantage over low hp classes. That means he can also absorb burst. Then you have stances like endure pain and shield stance on his offset (axe+shiel instead of axe+mace if your group is fine stacking vulnerability) and it’s really no contest.

All the other classes who want to build tanky will not come close to touching the damage of a warrior.

You see, I think this is the problem with player perceptions. They think high health and armor = survivability. Then you do a higher level fractal with said players and they wonder why they get one shot buy a boss despite having high health and armor. Also, that regen sustain is not as good as it seems if you’re being downed in one or two hits. Burst heals and damage immunity are more important.

Also, I’m not sure where you got the idea that a guardian has to sacrifice damage to get survivability, but this is certainly not the case. The highest damage guardian builds right now use greatsword + sword focus alt and usually build into the radiance line, which means they also get justice is blind + renewed justice. That means they have access to an aoe blind from greatsword, an aoe blind from sword, a blind from focus, a block from focus, a block from shelter, a free block from aegis + an on demand party block from aegis, and spammable aoe blinds from justice is blind, which refreshes every time an enemy is killed (which is super useful for stacking situations). I’m not even factoring in other non-heal slot skills like renewed focus.

The skills you mentioned for warrior, on the other hand, aren’t near as numerous or spammable. To put it plainly, I’d say guardians are far above warriors from a pure survivability perspective, even in full zerker gear (keeping in mind we are speaking in the context of PvE, as the original post pertained to).

You just named a bunch of skills that come off in one strike. When that fractal 50 archdiviner lands a melee on you, let’s see which is the profession that doesn’t get one shot. Same goes for the mossman dagger throw from stealth let alone his normal autoattack swings. In Colossus when the zealots are pelting you with arrows/heartseeking, all at the same time, a single blind isn’t going to prevent you from taking some hits.

When the captain in the ascalonian fractal does his fire swirl, the class that can take that hit and not be instadowned is called a warrior. Guardian’s blinds don’t even reliably work on bosses.

There’s a good reason why berk eles learn much quicker to max melee range archdiviner or mossman. Because it’s not optional, it’s quite frankly a necessity to not getting one shot by a single quick autoattack that has little tell.

How many 11.5k hp berk eles you see around in WvW versus 17k hp berk warriors? Higher health pools and the armor difference does matter. A guardian or warrior make for much better bunkers in spvp in staying inside a point and holding it than do the other classes. The difference in damage potential of a warrior vs guardian bunker is vast.

There are bad players for ALL classes, let’s not bring up the argument that because bad players gravitate toward one class, the class is underrepresented. The bias for a warrior/guardian frontline in WvW is real it’s not some figment of people’s imagination. Remove stand your ground from guardians and the WvW melee frontline would suddenly shift in proportion heavily for warriors.

Zenith.7301:

Warrior is the one class that can be survivable and still keep its high damage builds. In order for your guardian to be survivable he has to give up DPS sources.

Warrior has Healing signet, the best heal in the game (that and the healing from 3 bar adrenaline basically gives you a free 400+ hp regen per tick, it’s insane).

Warrior also has heavy armor an a 7k base hp advantage over low hp classes. That means he can also absorb burst. Then you have stances like endure pain and shield stance on his offset (axe+shiel instead of axe+mace if your group is fine stacking vulnerability) and it’s really no contest.

All the other classes who want to build tanky will not come close to touching the damage of a warrior.

Really, either warrior or guardian. There’s good reason heavy armor professions are preferred by melee frontlines in WvW and in dungeon pugs.

Did you ever use Healsig ? Its 372, Not 400+ ..It Used to be 400+ before our nerfs because of people crying it ws too strong.Have you taken a look at incoming regen and healsources from other classes while they Still have their normal heal available with the regen incoming ? Warrs have just healsig and That’s it,it’s Far from the strongest heal ingame.

Caedmon.6798:

Zenith.7301:

Warrior is the one class that can be survivable and still keep its high damage builds. In order for your guardian to be survivable he has to give up DPS sources.

Warrior has Healing signet, the best heal in the game (that and the healing from 3 bar adrenaline basically gives you a free 400+ hp regen per tick, it’s insane).

Warrior also has heavy armor an a 7k base hp advantage over low hp classes. That means he can also absorb burst. Then you have stances like endure pain and shield stance on his offset (axe+shiel instead of axe+mace if your group is fine stacking vulnerability) and it’s really no contest.

All the other classes who want to build tanky will not come close to touching the damage of a warrior.

Really, either warrior or guardian. There’s good reason heavy armor professions are preferred by melee frontlines in WvW and in dungeon pugs.

Did you ever use Healsig ? Its 372, Not 400+ ..It Used to be 400+ before our nerfs because of people crying it ws too strong.Have you taken a look at incoming regen and healsources from other classes while they Still have their normal heal available with the regen incoming ? Warrs have just healsig and That’s it,it’s Far from the strongest heal ingame.

372 PLUS the healing you also get from full adrenaline trait.

It seems you haven’t used the other classes. In a group scenario everyone will have regen, so it’s pointless to say somebody will have regen.

The healing per second of healing signet outheals any single heal any other class has in the game. It is virtually a free heal you get to have passively and then you can pop a burst heal on top of that if needed.

Something tells me you haven’t played necromancer if you think your heal is “ok”.

Zenith.7301:

You just named a bunch of skills that come off in one strike. When that fractal 50 archdiviner lands a melee on you, let’s see which is the profession that doesn’t get one shot. Same goes for the mossman dagger throw from stealth let alone his normal autoattack swings. In Colossus when the zealots are pelting you with arrows/heartseeking, all at the same time, a single blind isn’t going to prevent you from taking some hits.

When the captain in the ascalonian fractal does his fire swirl, the class that can take that hit and not be instadowned is called a warrior. Guardian’s blinds don’t even reliably work on bosses.

There’s a good reason why berk eles learn much quicker to max melee range archdiviner or mossman. Because it’s not optional, it’s quite frankly a necessity to not getting one shot by a single quick autoattack that has little tell.

How many 11.5k hp berk eles you see around in WvW versus 17k hp berk warriors? Higher health pools and the armor difference does matter. A guardian or warrior make for much better bunkers in spvp in staying inside a point and holding it than do the other classes. The difference in damage potential of a warrior vs guardian bunker is vast.

There are bad players for ALL classes, let’s not bring up the argument that because bad players gravitate toward one class, the class is underrepresented. The bias for a warrior/guardian frontline in WvW is real it’s not some figment of people’s imagination. Remove stand your ground from guardians and the WvW melee frontline would suddenly shift in proportion heavily for warriors.

Some of the skills I mentioned don’t come off in one stroke and can take multiple hits (guardian focus blocks) or are channeled (shelter/renewed focus). In most cases, you only actually need to avoid one powerful hit at a time. In other, more exceptional cases, a well time dodge roll or focus skill 5/renewed focus/shelter will suffice, especially considering most of the strongest boss attacks are well televised. As for things like mossmans axe throw and such, there’s a reason skills like wall of reflect or shield of vengeance exist.

I’ve played a lot of fractals, and I can honestly say I see warriors go down a lot more often than guardians. Maybe it’s just my luck with less skilled warrior players, or great guardian players, but that’s just my experience. Yes, warriors do have higher health pools, and in some cases take two hits to down where another class might take one, but if you use those other classes properly, you won’t get hit in the first place, or at the very least, you should get hit a lot less often. Of course, you did well in cherry picking a few odd encounters that might (and I say ‘might’ with a lot of trepidation) favor the warrior, but what about others like the Harpy Fractal, Molten fractal, Swamp Fractal, or Aether fractal, where guardian defensive skills like group stability and projectile reflects/blocks become much more important? In these cases, the guardian is still more versatile when it comes to defensive options, not only for personal defense, but also for group defense as a whole.

Damage avoidance is the single greatest aspect that contributes to survival. Health pool and armor come secondary to that, so the class avoiding the most hits comes out on top in this debate. I still think thieves are at the top of the list because stealth is the single most spammable defensive skill in the game, and the easiest way to lose aggro and thus avoid all damage (unless you get caught in an aoe). However, I also think guardians still have more up time on defensive skills and a greater variety of defensive skills than warriors though, and many of their defensive skills can be used without interrupting their damage.

As for the WvW and PvP arguments, they are pretty much irrelevant here, because the OP was asking his question in the context of PvE content. Suffice to say, armor and health are much more useful stats in PvP than they are in PvE, but in PvE… well, let’s just say there’s a reason everyone runs with zerker armor.

Zenith.7301:

Caedmon.6798:

Zenith.7301:

Warrior is the one class that can be survivable and still keep its high damage builds. In order for your guardian to be survivable he has to give up DPS sources.

Warrior has Healing signet, the best heal in the game (that and the healing from 3 bar adrenaline basically gives you a free 400+ hp regen per tick, it’s insane).

Warrior also has heavy armor an a 7k base hp advantage over low hp classes. That means he can also absorb burst. Then you have stances like endure pain and shield stance on his offset (axe+shiel instead of axe+mace if your group is fine stacking vulnerability) and it’s really no contest.

All the other classes who want to build tanky will not come close to touching the damage of a warrior.

Really, either warrior or guardian. There’s good reason heavy armor professions are preferred by melee frontlines in WvW and in dungeon pugs.

Did you ever use Healsig ? Its 372, Not 400+ ..It Used to be 400+ before our nerfs because of people crying it ws too strong.Have you taken a look at incoming regen and healsources from other classes while they Still have their normal heal available with the regen incoming ? Warrs have just healsig and That’s it,it’s Far from the strongest heal ingame.

372 PLUS the healing you also get from full adrenaline trait.

It seems you haven’t used the other classes. In a group scenario everyone will have regen, so it’s pointless to say somebody will have regen.

The healing per second of healing signet outheals any single heal any other class has in the game. It is virtually a free heal you get to have passively and then you can pop a burst heal on top of that if needed.

Something tells me you haven’t played necromancer if you think your heal is “ok”.

The heal from adren will be used for bursting/cleansing mostly,its not consistent and it isn’t a usable heal on command.You can’t slap that together with healsig and say oh look warrs have a constant 400hp sec incoming regen,thats plain bullkitten.

Caedmon.6798:

The heal from adren will be used for bursting/cleansing mostly,its not consistent and it isn’t a usable heal on command.You can’t slap that together with healsig and say oh look warrs have a constant 400hp sec incoming regen,thats plain bullkitten.

Well except the fact that you can say that.

There is a reason why zerker specced classes can barely bring down Warriors below 90% hp in WvW before they are promptly slaughtered by the Warrior because he is having very high damage at the same time.

Warrior. - this really fault tolerant class.

I have a character in every class, except guardian, which I really dislike. My necromancer minion master is by far the tankiest. I have to really get in over my head or just go afk to die. My necromancer wears cleric armor and has cleric weapons, and I use staff. I let my minions do most of the damage. It only takes an extra few seconds to kill the enemy. On really tough fights, the warrior(for example), will die and be doing zero dps, while my necromancer will live and gets the job done. When I play my necromancer, I feel immortal.

redcomyn.4651:

I have a character in every class, except guardian, which I really dislike. My necromancer minion master is by far the tankiest. I have to really get in over my head or just go afk to die. My necromancer wears cleric armor and has cleric weapons, and I use staff. I let my minions do most of the damage. It only takes an extra few seconds to kill the enemy. On really tough fights, the warrior(for example), will die and be doing zero dps, while my necromancer will live and gets the job done. When I play my necromancer, I feel immortal.

Unfortunately, minions have crappy AI. So, for every good fight where fleshy and his friends are taking out the mob you’re attacking, there will be at least one fight where they kind of stand there staring at you. Thus, I just can’t and don’t rely on minions right now (if their AI gets a change for the better, I’d love to try out MM again) and instead make myself do the damage.

Dawdler.8521:

Caedmon.6798:

The heal from adren will be used for bursting/cleansing mostly,its not consistent and it isn’t a usable heal on command.You can’t slap that together with healsig and say oh look warrs have a constant 400hp sec incoming regen,thats plain bullkitten.

Well except the fact that you can say that.

There is a reason why zerker specced classes can barely bring down Warriors below 90% hp in WvW before they are promptly slaughtered by the Warrior because he is having very high damage at the same time.

I don’t know, my medi guard doesn’t have much trouble with warriors in WvW. In most cases, they are free kills, unless they switch to greatsword and run away with super mobility.

Try Altruistic Healing Hammer Guardian. It’s pretty tanky. I can facetank bosses in 49/50 Fractals most of the time and still do 5-7k+ DPS on my 1 auto (Symbol + Hit)

Example Vid(This is an old setup but still viable):

Yeah, I have to agree about that problem. I have noticed quite a few times where the flesh golem just stood there doing nothing, even when standing right next to the villainous npc. Occasionally, some of the others won’t do anything, either. It is frustrating.

Its hard to answer that.

As far as raw survival goes, a Nomad Warrior or Guardian will survive more than the rest.
Though they will be useless anyway.

Just remember guys, the OP isn’t just asking about the tankiest class. He’s asking what class can survive the best while still doing lots of damage. So listing super tanky classes or builds with clerics or nomads armor, etc, is missing the mark a bit.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Just remember guys, the OP isn’t just asking about the tankiest class. He’s asking what class can survive the best while still doing lots of damage. So listing super tanky classes or builds with clerics or nomads armor, etc, is missing the mark a bit.

Since virtually all classes pop instantly vs bosses and the op emphasized durability, Nomad is not actually that bad.

Either way, unless op gives a bit more information on what he’s looking for, he wont get any useful answer.

I can not even begin to answer the question due to the following issues:
1) The detailed answer to the original question would take multiple pages
—-You would need to account for different specs and gear sets)
2) How high up in fractals are we talking about?
---At high enough level no amount of passive defense will suffice
3) How experienced is the player playing the class?
—-Very good player will require much different amount of passive defense than a less experienced one
4) How good is the group the player is running with?
—-This asks both how fast things will die, how much support (boons) will you gain from other party members and how much you will need to reply just on yourself

Bottom line: Too many variables to account for.

Zenith.7301:

When the captain in the ascalonian fractal does his fire swirl, the class that can take that hit and not be instadowned is called a warrior. Guardian’s blinds don’t even reliably work on bosses.

All blinds are the same. 10% effectiveness on things with Unshakeable. With the upcoming defiance changes it seems blind will be getting the same treatment as the CC skills which would mean 0 effect until the defiance bar is gone.

Death shroud necro staff/axe+warhorn. Of all my characters that is the one that is always still alive in parties, finishes the boss then revives everyone else.

Dawdler.8521:

Caedmon.6798:

The heal from adren will be used for bursting/cleansing mostly,its not consistent and it isn’t a usable heal on command.You can’t slap that together with healsig and say oh look warrs have a constant 400hp sec incoming regen,thats plain bullkitten.

Well except the fact that you can say that.

There is a reason why zerker specced classes can barely bring down Warriors below 90% hp in WvW before they are promptly slaughtered by the Warrior because he is having very high damage at the same time.

Which zerker class have trouble getting war below 90%? My pewpew melts warriors, i get them down to 30% hp before they even manage to get close in wvw. Warrior is just a meatshield. Active defense>passive defense.

I can’t believe no one listed engineer. So many fields and finishers, access to lots of might and one of the best heals in the game when used properly. I will gladly face tank with my bomb engi all the live long day.

My Guardian bounces back and forth between 2 builds: his tanky heal/support build and his meditation zerk build.

The Med/zerk build is fairly common and selfish in many ways, but deals out insane damage (and I’m not even 100% glass cannon on it), but with the properly timed blocks, aegis, blinds, heals I can keep myself alive in some pretty nasty places while doing a nice chunk of damage. All that being said, if I am on the other tanky build (and fighting around a lot of other people or in a party) I can eat SO MUCH damage while providing boons for days on my party or surrounding people and the damage I do isn’t actually as bad as it could be TBH since i’m suing zerk weapons and my trinkets don’t change from the 2 builds. Only thing that changes is my armor/rune/trait sets and even then not by much.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

I can’t believe no one listed engineer. So many fields and finishers, access to lots of might and one of the best heals in the game when used properly. I will gladly face tank with my bomb engi all the live long day.

Yeah, i was going to mention engie, but if he’s a new player, engies have a bit of a learning curve for some. i love my engie though.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

I can’t believe no one listed engineer. So many fields and finishers, access to lots of might and one of the best heals in the game when used properly. I will gladly face tank with my bomb engi all the live long day.

And cc. We all know that. Healing turret is definitely better than healing signet, theres no point to even argue over that.

I’m surprised I haven’t seen more suggestions for ele.

When I play PvE, i switch off between thief and ele. If a group doesn’t have an ele, that’s what I go to first. At first you might think neither is particularly tanky, but both have excellent endurance regeneration allowing you to not get one-shot since you’ll likely have a dodge ready. Ele has the added benefit of buffing the group nicely with 12 stacks of might and ~1 minute of fury when traited and used correctly. For a newer player you can build slightly more tanky and still be welcome as you’ll boost your group’s overall stats.

Maugetarr.6823:

I’m surprised I haven’t seen more suggestions for ele.

When I play PvE, i switch off between thief and ele. If a group doesn’t have an ele, that’s what I go to first. At first you might think neither is particularly tanky, but both have excellent endurance regeneration allowing you to not get one-shot since you’ll likely have a dodge ready. Ele has the added benefit of buffing the group nicely with 12 stacks of might and ~1 minute of fury when traited and used correctly. For a newer player you can build slightly more tanky and still be welcome as you’ll boost your group’s overall stats.

Ele is far from a beginner friendly profession. It’s far more unforgiving than a thief and getting your might rotation down and learning when to use your conjures or squish in your aoe’s is a large part of playing one effectively.

Also playing a staff ele outside a zerg in pvp requires really good skill cultivation otherwise you’re just thief bait.

Ele is an advanced profession that should not be the first choice of a beginner.