Guild Wars 2

Sorry, I made one of these in the players helping players forum, but some great replies there really got me thinking about how I want to play the game going forward, so I figured I’d ask all of you.

Here is a rundown about me:

-Limited playing time (will be casual) [and in that casual time, I am also playing ESO now that it’s sub free]
-Primarily focusing on PVE and probably solo
-I do enjoy dungeons, so dungeon utility is important.
-Not afraid of a more difficult class
-Usually, I like heavy armor and being in the fight. Feeling tanky is a lot of fun (but I’m open to ideas)
-Dealing damage can be a ton of fun, too.
-Not big on crowd control caster types
-Don’t want a class that isn’t wanted for dungeons.
-Don’t want a class that’s going to bore the crap out of me.

Having said that, these are the classes I’m considering at the moment:

-Guardian
-Elementalist
-Thief
-Warrior

Necro/Ranger are eliminated because they seem to be “unwanted” in dungeon settings.

Mesmer is eliminated simply because it doesn’t sound all that interesting to me.

Engineer in eliminated because I really don’t like the idea of guns in MMOs.

So, if anyone wants to take a quick second and share an opinion on what I laid out above, I’d very much appreciate it!!

For what you described I’d say warrior.

Given everything you’ve listed, I think Guardian is exactly what you want. I’ve mained Guardian since launch, and I can tell you that they’re great for PvE, very useful in dungeons, can be spec’d for high damage, and are far from boring. Let me know if you have any specific questions about the class.

Warrior or Guardian is your best bet.

Appreciate the responses. I had thought Guardian myself, but then I read a thread in the Guardian forum about the Guard having low HP and not doing great in dungeons and it kind of made me a little concerned…

Hope that’s not the case!

Guards aren’t terrible for dungeons and they definitely have low hp but they make up for it in healing/toughness.

I suggested Warrior because they usually have higher damage output, and are very mobile for open world solo play.

Miku.6297:

Guards aren’t terrible for dungeons and they definitely have low hp but they make up for it in healing/toughness.

I suggested Warrior because they usually have higher damage output, and are very mobile for open world solo play.

So from what I’ve gathered:

Guardians:
-Guardian is low HP but is the best defensive type profession in the game.
-Can do damage, but their strength is defense.
-Wanted in dungeon settings for their control/support mechanics
-Tougher to learn versus Warrior
-Not very mobile

Warriors:
-High damage output and high health pool.
-Not as defensive as the guardian.
-Wanted in dungeons for offensive buffs.
-Easy to learn.
-Highly mobile.

Is that about accurate? Seems like Warrior may hands down be the better choice of the two as I don’t see the downside to them versus Guardian. Having said that, there’s something drawing me to the Guardian. Not sure if it’s simply because it seems like the Warrior is much easier so there’s probably a bunch of them running around…

Hmm that’s pretty close to accurate. They are both strong classes, I personally prefer guardian to warrior; guardian has the whole holy knight flare, while warrior is just kinda bleh bland old warrior to me.

It’s all in what you enjoy. I have two 80 warriors and two 80 guardians. The first warrior bored me to tears (she had fun RP but GS/Rifle was a yawnfest in combat). The second was more fun (longbow/varying mix of swords and axes) and has had zero RP beyond a few sentences waiting for a Kessex boss to spawn. Both my guardians remain engaging, have strong RP plots, and are fun to dive into combat on. One is pure support, her dps is double digits sometimes, but she keeps everyone else alive and hurting things. The other is dps-oriented and slugs it out quite well; he’s one of my three alts I do LS on so as to have him as an option for the achieves.

If you agree with most players that dps is king, you’ll want warrior (and a well-played warrior with banners and such can be effective support as well). If you’re willing to do less dps in order to really buff up your friends, guardian is the way to go. I suggest you try some of both to see which keeps you having fun in combat the most, then focus in on that one.

Here’s the question that will make a defining cut in which class you want. Are you looking for personal survivability, or do you like the challenge of looking out for you team?

I’m not trying to bait; I’m looking for an honest answer. Classes in the game tend to adhere more closely to one of the other.

Guard certainly seems a lot more interesting… But then again, strapping on some heavy armor and a carrying a monster weapon and smashing things into oblivion with some offense doesn’t seem so boring, either.

I’ll have to really think about it. Appreciate the feedback so far in here, if anyone else has anything to add I’d appreciate it!

savacli.8172:

Here’s the question that will make a defining cut in which class you want. Are you looking for personal survivability, or do you like the challenge of looking out for you team?

I’m not trying to bait; I’m looking for an honest answer. Classes in the game tend to adhere more closely to one of the other.

I like being of use to a team, so yes, I’m looking for that.

But my guess is that the majority of the time personal survival is going to be much more important for me as I’ll be solo…

Guardians do have low HP, but the healing and damage mitigation is insane, in some PvP matches I got some whispers saying things like “OMG how much HP do you have?” and I only had 15,5k HP.

Also, guardians are amazing in dungeons, I can’t imagine any party refusing to take a guardian, even if they have 1 already.

Warrior fit your description, but so does guardian and imo guardian is way more fun to play.

Donari.5237:

If you agree with most players that dps is king, you’ll want warrior (and a well-played warrior with banners and such can be effective support as well). If you’re willing to do less dps in order to really buff up your friends, guardian is the way to go. I suggest you try some of both to see which keeps you having fun in combat the most, then focus in on that one.

May have to go with this suggestion.

I do it with most games. ESO I started as a Dragonknight DPS and then got to a little higher level (still crazy low) and decided I wanted to be a tank/off-healer Templar. But it was playing the game that made me see and understand that. So this sounds like great advice…

Guardian survives like nobody’s business if built with that in mind. It has a huge bag of tricks to block, absorb, deflect, to hold fast against knockback, to heal — even downed a Guardian is one of the better ones at holding out long enough to rally. My non-dps Guardian? Before I swapped to Mesmer for dungeons, she often was the last one standing in a fight, even solo-finished end bosses (slowly, and if they were low enough on health not to mean everyone getting bored in their dirt nap) rather than everyone having to restart the fight.

The low hp pool means nothing when you can refresh it almost at will, when you don’t avoid having it reduced in the first place.

#Guardianlover

Then I would say go for Warrior then. As mentioned before Warriors are the most forgiving class when it comes to mistakes and don’t have very high of an initial learning curve (I consider my warrior to be my EZmode toon in PvE). If by solo you mean map completion or story then Warrior is definitely your answer as they have superior mobility and can traverse maps very very easily (calm down thieves, I know how OP you are in that aspect).

As a Warrior in a dungeon team you will be expected to bring offesive buffs in the form of banners at the very least. If you play a build known as PS you’ll also be loved for bringing an extra “trait” buff as well as easily being able to maintain might boons. As far as defensive support your Battle Standard (War Banner) is a livesaver, literally, when it comes to picking up downed allies. It is rare to not be accepted in a group as a warrior.

Guards would be your counter part and be bringing defensive buffs to the team. While a warrior is mostly concerned with himself a Guard typically has the burden of watching out for his team and for good reason too. We have superior active defenses that keep the team alive. Granted we can also be an offensive traited without sacrifing our defensive capabilities. Nearly every organized group takes a Guard.

The two toons compliment each other but they tend to have opposite focuses. But yes, at the end of the day when all hell has broken loose it’s funny to see that both of those toons tend to still be alives.

Guard: “Man! I had to throw up blocks, blinds, dodges, and everything!”
War: “Really? I was just swinging my sword around…weird”

I find Guardian to be very active play. Having access to so many blinds and blocks requires you to use them carefully, so you can mitigate as many hits as possible. Also your F1 blind can stack group might and recharge on kill if traited properly, making it glorious when fighting groups of weaker mobs.

I’ve never played Warrior, so I can’t really speak to how it compares. But what I’ve heard other people say is Guardian is more challenging but more fun, and I can definitely vouch that it is challenging and fun (to play max DPS anyway).

ele is best when played well, and most valuable in dungeons.

Think I’ve pretty much settled on a Warrior or a Guardian. Definitely going Charr, too (male).

Warrior armor looks a lot more bad kitten … But aesthetics are only part of it. I want to say I’m going to make a Guardian, but I think this is one of those decisions that’s going to happen at the creation screen and just be in the moment.

Both classes sound fun. Warrior may be simple, but bashing skulls is never dull. Guardian sounds like it can be a kitten, too, though. So we’ll see. Haven’t named the characters yet, but I’m planning on logging in around 10 PM EST for an hour or so tonight just to get started. Maybe I’ll see some of you in game!