Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking about a Difficulty rank of the profesions, thinking on New players, so they can create easy-2-use characters first, then more difficult ones.

I thought of the following:

Easy: Warrior, Ranger
Medium: Elementalist, Guardian, Thief
Difficult: Mesmer, Necromancer, Engineer

Thoughts?

I would move elementalist to the hard category because, like the engineer, you have to have 3 hands and 15 fingers to play one well.

Necro I would put into the medium category as they are not hard to master.

Tommyknocker.6089:

I would move elementalist to the hard category because, like the engineer, you have to have 3 hands and 15 fingers to play one well.

Necro I would put into the medium category as they are not hard to master.

This was my exact thought

Guardian is easy. Or at least, it is for me. I have a much easier time playing a Guard than a Ranger or even Warrior.

Elementalist is the hardest class for me to play, hands down. The last time I tried to level one, I got a nasty case of carpal tunnel and still wasn’t very good.

In which game mode (PvP, WvW, Open world, Instanced)?

Using which gear? Which weapons? Which build? Advanced rotations or just spam auto?

I think you get the idea… these kind of generalizations often lend to misinformed people making unwarranted assumptions about a class and those playing them.

In terms of the mechanics of each profession, regardless of which game type, or traits, equipment etc..

Difficult: Elementalist, Engineer, Mesmer.
Easy: Warrior, Ranger

Everyone else in between.

They all felt easy enough to play. I guess we need more context as what you’re doing with that class. I’ve done world completion with each of the classes and didn’t encounter any difficulty unless you count the slowness (back then) of the Mesmer.

Yeah, I was refering to the mechanics of each profession, mostly focused in PvE, but other opinions are appreciated

PvE:
Easiest: Warrior/Ranger

PvP
Hardest: Warrior

For PvE levelling difficulty:

Ultra-easy: Necro (power build with wells made leveling a joke)
Easy: Warrior, Guardian, Ranger
Medium: Thief
Difficult: Mesmer, Elementalist, Engineer

Linfang.1087:

In terms of the mechanics of each profession, regardless of which game type, or traits, equipment etc..

Difficult: Elementalist, Engineer, Mesmer.
Easy: Warrior, Ranger

Everyone else in between.

In terms of available mechanics, yes, I’d agree.

But after suffering flamethrower camping Engineers, GS camping mesmers, and Fire Staff camping Eles, the available mechanics become moot and you now have easy mode for the difficult classes…

So, yes, all things should be taken into consideration.

I don’t know…. GW2 classes can’t really be thought of this way. 3 dif game modes multiple dif game types and team req in PVE. Very nice of you to call Ranger’s easy when in certain PVE modes they’re the hardest thing to use…. or be welcome to a dungeon group even. Necro’s apparently have that side of PvE even worse.

My personal list would be horribly honest and much to wordy….

Horribly wordy list—————- with notes!

Faceroll Easy Class: Solo Guardian, Warrior (were you joking with Guard?) Ranger in exterior world PVE once you know what your doing and have a stable of pet types…

Moderate Class: Necromancer, Engineer, Guardian -while protecting other people. Ranger when your fresh.

Finesse Class: Thief, Elementalist, Mesmer, Ranger… when your ranger is trying to function in a dungeon. Thief- when your low HP thief is trying to melee a dungeon boss that can one shot you.

*Faceroll easy classes become moderate play once you bother reading the abilities and try helping team/others with them.

*Moderate classes start moderate but get easy. Ranger finds extra pets with different statistics and abilities- it’s weaponry often requires reading as do it’s various pets- you must learn to swap pets. The pet’s are stupid- you have few ways of buffing other players with DAMAGE. Stingy/elitest groups may kick you from dungeon runs. Engineers must read much and learn a great deal of gimmickry potions and the use weapon kits and or stationary turrets- Hot may or may not see mobile ones additionally to their standard weapons. Necromances can be face-rolled solo but Necros are self absorbed for the most part -see Ranger above- only more-so and stingy /elitist groups may shun you in preference to a might stacking elementalist or warrior…

*Finesse Classes (start hardier- become easier over time or if you simply take a moment to read how their abilities work- then two of them are darn op- oddly it’s the cloth armor wearers. Who knew?) Thief pops up to Moderate once you know what your doing. The cloth wearer’s might as well pop up to faceroll easy once you have an inkling how they work.

Maweli.2849:

I’ve been thinking about a Difficulty rank of the profesions, thinking on New players, so they can create easy-2-use characters first, then more difficult ones.

I thought of the following:

Easy: Warrior, Ranger
Medium: Elementalist, Guardian, Thief
Difficult: Mesmer, Necromancer, Engineer

Thoughts?

Easy: Warrior – it’s built to be strong on the basics
Low-medium: Necromancer, Thief. Both have a bit of learning how your skills work but once you do they’re pretty simple.
High-Medium: Guardian, Mesmer, Staff Ele take a bit more precision timing and you have to know the encounters and all your skills otherwise you’ll just fail.
High: Engineer/Complete Ele once you incorporate all that Ele has to offer it gets pretty complex and intense, and well… there’s no reason to play Engineer at a level below that it’s simply a bad idea to do so (they don’t get good till you play them well). Both of these professions are going to be your highest actions per minute, they’re going to require that you simply know the cooldowns of various skills without being able to see them (gotta swap and hit it then swap out). Just by far the most intense professions to truly master.

This is of course for more optimized PVE not simply trying to get by in open world but really trying to wreck things. It changes dramatically if you’re talking just following a zerg or doing hearts.

0: Ranger
Requirements: Equip Bow, Press 1, and learn to activate autoattack
Ranger can afk through most leveling content thanks to the pet.

Easy: Warrior, Guardian
Requirements: Equip GS, Press 1, occasionally dodge and use utilities
Have lots of defense, warrior being easier due to more mobility and more passive defense both are still easy.

Medium: Engineer, Thief, Necro
Requirements: All of the previous things, learn a class mechanic and abuse it
Only hard until you learn some important feature of the class, then it becomes really easy. For example, when a thief learns to stealth and realize they can bypass most of the obstacles in this game, they become really easy, or when a necro learns to Death Shroud.

Hard: Mesmer, Elementalist
Requirements: Learn how the class works
These are the hardest because not only are the builds not complete until later levels, you actually have to realize what stuff like clones and attunement do and how they work. Basically, hardest to wing it.

ArchonWing.9480:

0: Ranger
Requirements: Equip Bow, Press 1, and learn to activate autoattack
Ranger can afk through most leveling content thanks to the pet.

Which makes it the top profession used by botters :-p

Whoah Whoah Whoah!

Guys the ranger cannot afk and live if anything “actually dangerous” is about to re-spawn or appear via event where they are standing. I’ve come back to dead Rangers lots… Just unfortunate placement.

I’ve come back to a dead Ranger many times…. and a hilariously alive Ranger with bodies of standard-NOT difficult mobs nearby.

Do not in your sarcasm of game mechanics give new players reading this false beliefs of the Ranger’s AFK Mighty powers please.

Please keep in mind that that pet has it’s own AI and will react to mobs attacking itself or the Ranger. This is automatic and expected unless you place Fido on passive. Necro pets can demolish normal mobs that dare to be cheeky too as can Engineer turrets. So this is not Ranger specific. Some pets are also much more capable of this then others.

As to this phenomenon… Since the pet is “supposed to” represent a full 30% of the Ranger’s damage then yes!… I bloody well expect to return from going to the loo or grabbing a sandwich and find anything that isn’t a veteran or elite that dared to tickle my Ranger while I was away -dead at my feet.

30% of my Ranger toon’s damage!?!…. Heck! I also expect Fido to have my slippers and the local newspaper held gently in his muzzle.

PS: Don’t try to spread falsehoods about difficulty when playing “the actual game”- not botting or afking near weak kitten mob respawn point. Not with me watching sir or ma’m… Not with a player who has actually played ALL the proffession types is paying attention to the thread.

Rating the professions with these 2 criterias combined in open world pve. Hardest to be killed and least knowledge or skill needed to kill efficiently (basically rated by skill floor) :
Ranger, you really need to be a potato to be bad with it.
Warrior, guardian
Mesmer, thief, engineer
Elementalist, necromancer (maybe I played him all wrong when I leveled him, but I had a very hard time killing monsters faster than them downing me).

I am so touched to see people putting Mesmer as “Hard”

So opposite of what all those thief players whisper me in SPVP. :P

Kalendraf.9521:

For PvE levelling difficulty:

Ultra-easy: Necro (power build with wells made leveling a joke)
Easy: Warrior, Guardian, Ranger
Medium: Thief
Difficult: Mesmer, Elementalist, Engineer

Yeah .. Necro is one of the easier characters and also guardian.

Personally i wold maybe say :

Easy: Warrior, Guardian, Ranger, Necro
Medium: Thief, Elementalist, Engineer
Difficult: Mesmer

Don’t know but i simply don’t find a way to kill trash mobs with a mesmer
in the time i need with any other class. And Engi can now be quite easy with
just campion bombs

Hardest to learn: Mesmer, engi, thief, ele(not cele ele plz)
Hardest to master: Mesmer

Easiest to learn but hard to master: Warrior, thief
Easiest to play and master: Guardian, necro, ranger

Thats how it was for me since I started playing 3 years ago.

I really find thief to be one of the hardest characters for pvp lately. It is really strong when played right, but has some of the least margin for error amongst meta builds. I’ve played engineer and elementalist (mesmer, warrior, ranger), which also have high skill caps, but I find it easier to respond to mistakes. I won’t deny that engineer is high skill cap, but I can find a suitable build with engie that works fairly well in pvp when I’m half asleep. I can’t do that as thief, I’ll die if I’m not playing 100% perfectly.

Here are my rankings to achieve the highest level of play:
Hard: Thief, Engineer, Elementalist
Medium: Necro, Mes, Ranger
Easy: War, Guard

Here are my rankings to achieve playability:
Hard: Thief, Necro
Medium: Engineer, Mes, Ele, War
Easy: Ele, Ranger, Guard.

So in my opinion, some classes are easy to reach a level at which you can compete, but are much harder to master. I do think that it takes more to master an engineer than a thief, but not by too much. I do however think, classes like necro and thief can be rekt if they don’t know how to fully utilize their mechanics. I even think warrior is harder to achieve an acceptable level than elementalist (cele).

I am being specific to pvp, and only looking at viable/semi viable builds.

ArchonWing.9480:

0: Ranger
Requirements: Equip Bow, Press 1, and learn to activate autoattack
Ranger can afk through most leveling content thanks to the pet.

Easy: Warrior, Guardian
Requirements: Equip GS, Press 1, occasionally dodge and use utilities
Have lots of defense, warrior being easier due to more mobility and more passive defense both are still easy.

Medium: Engineer, Thief, Necro
Requirements: All of the previous things, learn a class mechanic and abuse it
Only hard until you learn some important feature of the class, then it becomes really easy. For example, when a thief learns to stealth and realize they can bypass most of the obstacles in this game, they become really easy, or when a necro learns to Death Shroud.

Hard: Mesmer, Elementalist
Requirements: Learn how the class works
These are the hardest because not only are the builds not complete until later levels, you actually have to realize what stuff like clones and attunement do and how they work. Basically, hardest to wing it.

^This… As a Mesmer Main for 3 years, and a Champion Illusionist, I will say a Mesmer takes many hours of dedicated time and play. I think a true seasoned Mesmer, is a Mesmer that does not rely on METABATTLE.com but still creates a build effective for PvP or even PvE.

With that said, Mesmer in general is a very complex, intricate class. You need to know what you are doing, at all times while reading the enemies behavior while in combat.

Mesmer is not smash your keyboard to burst or do damage. A Mesmer needs to be one with his clones. I have fought many mesmers who are very easy to spot, for they move in all directions, not flowing gracefully alongside their clones. That is not how a Mesmer should play. Mesmers, Eles, and Engis are the most complex classes in GW2. Each delivers a variety of skills through multiple ways. The player must be aware of that, and deliver effectively in a fluid manner.

I’d say:

Easy: Warrior, Necromancer, Ranger
Medium: Guardian, Thief
Medium+: Mesmer
Hard: Engineer and Elementalist

I have every class at level 80, but the only 2 characters that I have 100% map completion with (including WvW) are my Necro (1st) and my Mesmer (2nd). They are more “difficult” to play in a sense that you really have to think of your build more and play it correctly. But, any class can see the whole world and enjoy it.

What part of the game is this about? Since it says new players maybe leveling and open world?

In that case I recently started playing engineer and I find it really easy. You just put down a few towers and wait for the hearts to finish themselves. No skill required.

As for elementalist: Once you have the glyph of elementals, leveling becomes a lot easyer.

I know that you won’t be playing these builds once you hit lvl 80 and get some gear, but for the leveling-phase they provide a both efficient and forgiving playstyle.

Lol. If Rangers are “Easy” pvp then where is the representation in championship and competitive play?

You guys/gals saying Rangers are easy are clearly only considering easy open world pve mobs that don’t have decent trick/high armor or players that don’t dodge.

Mob types that don’t have challenging mechanics like the Orian Subjugators or Vetran Karka do are easy for ALL the classes, it’s just readily apparent on the Ranger with a pet that is 30% of it’s damage. Mind you Ranger is one of the classes you can do Karka real slow with but not as well as the Mesmer. I steal your buffs Karka and make them my own hahahaah. Ahem.

Pets still die too kitten fast when facing high end mobs- and by high end mobs I mean anything that it’s mind numbingly easy.

Oh well whatever all. ;p lol

If your posting and insisting the Ranger is OP when people who play them late game know better and this somehow get’s an inordinate number of new players rolling one so we can actually see some buffs to them in the game modes that matter like high end PVP and Dungeons, Fractals and the new Raids- That’ll be a good thing.

And don’t bull-kitten the crew here that the Meta for such things wont still be Warrior/Elementalist/Gaurdain and multiples thereof.

Roguedemonhunter.9621:

And don’t bull-kitten the crew here that the Meta for such things wont still be Warrior/Elementalist/Gaurdain and multiples thereof.

This thread was thought for new players, so mostly for leveling in the open
world.

If we talk about “meta” we need new categorys :

Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer : all you need (old Meta)
Ele, Ele : easy mode (new meta)
Ranger, Necro : Impossible.

I nearly exclusively only play warrior because it has very few range AoE skills (only with longbow). I am left handed and use numpad instead of WASD. There arent that many keys around so I click my skills on the skillbar instead of using keybinds.

Moving the mouse cursor from the skill bar to the target area for AOEs simply takes too long to be effective, thats why i like playing warrior.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

What part of the game is this about? Since it says new players maybe leveling and open world?

In that case I recently started playing engineer and I find it really easy. You just put down a few towers and wait for the hearts to finish themselves. No skill required.

As for elementalist: Once you have the glyph of elementals, leveling becomes a lot easyer.

I know that you won’t be playing these builds once you hit lvl 80 and get some gear, but for the leveling-phase they provide a both efficient and forgiving playstyle.

Well said.

Although I placed them at Medium myself as relying on just those turrets after you leave your first zone might wind up being trickier and time consuming in set up/repair/replacement. I recommend you try swapping between Elixir gun- Flame thrower- 3rd slot flip out elixir of your choice as scenario later demand- possible need of thumper or net turret for control. It’s also a very quick way to cross all maps save wvw where the trait that grants your speed buff on kit swaps. That’s right 100% up time for go faster!

Oddly disabled trait in wvw but active in pvp and pve… So there is something very specific to wvw maps where they don’t want Engineers having 100% speed buff time.

I get the feeling a lot of you are basing your thoughts off a player playing to 20 tops for difficulty/challenge first zone and half another one and maybe some light unrated pvp.

Honestly wish they’d bring the champ mobs back to the first zone or throw in some annoying silvers….

*Headshake… They have made the first 4 zones… much much too easy. We need to learn to dodge there… and not dodging to a single chest though a hoop.

And thanks Bedlin. However the fist 20 levels are not the be all and end all of this game. We have a duty to let new players know all we can. Especially since they only have 2 toon slots… 5 if they paid for it.

It really depends on your scope.

For new players learning class mechanics, obviously ranger and warrior are the easiest. Guardian and necro are probably medium difficulty. Ele, engi, thief and mesmer are harder given their more complicated class mechanics.

However, for medium plus level PvP plays, it depends more on the meta and specific builds. This is assuming you already got familiar with most classes’ basic mechanics.

I think a bit of it depends on an individual’s play style, but for me, personally, I have found:

Easy: Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist
Medium: Thief, Mesmer, Necromancer, Engineer

I would recommend either a Guardian or Elementalist for a beginner.
Engineer was the first class I tried, and it gave me trouble at first.
Ranger is the class I play the most, and I find it very easy, but I have spent three years playing it so I’ve learned it a bit more than other classes. Although my pet still Leeroy’s into things from time to time.

Loboling.5293:

I really find thief to be one of the hardest characters for pvp lately. It is really strong when played right, but has some of the least margin for error amongst meta builds. I’ve played engineer and elementalist (mesmer, warrior, ranger), which also have high skill caps, but I find it easier to respond to mistakes. I won’t deny that engineer is high skill cap, but I can find a suitable build with engie that works fairly well in pvp when I’m half asleep. I can’t do that as thief, I’ll die if I’m not playing 100% perfectly.

Here are my rankings to achieve the highest level of play:
Hard: Thief, Engineer, Elementalist
Medium: Necro, Mes, Ranger
Easy: War, Guard

Here are my rankings to achieve playability:
Hard: Thief, Necro
Medium: Engineer, Mes, Ele, War
Easy: Ele, Ranger, Guard.

So in my opinion, some classes are easy to reach a level at which you can compete, but are much harder to master. I do think that it takes more to master an engineer than a thief, but not by too much. I do however think, classes like necro and thief can be rekt if they don’t know how to fully utilize their mechanics. I even think warrior is harder to achieve an acceptable level than elementalist (cele).

I am being specific to pvp, and only looking at viable/semi viable builds.

I would have to say that playing cele necro is more difficult than cele ele in sPvP, at least according to my brother. He picks up ele more quickly after a break than necro, despite being far better on necro and having at least 10 times as many hours on it. Having more skills does not on its own make a setup more difficult to use.

considering how many rangers that have no idea what they are doing I’m meeting in game I’d not name the class “easy” to play…..

Lord Trejgon.2809:

considering how many rangers that have no idea what they are doing I’m meeting in game I’d not name the class “easy” to play…..

I think it is a class a lot of people start with. It’s come to a point, actually, where I see another ranger, and immediately think it’s a new player.

I guess if we are purely talking based on skill floor…..

Ranger, Guardian, Warrior, Necro, Engineer
Thief, Ele, Mesmer

If we are talking about skill ceiling

Ranger, Guardian
Warrior, Necro
Thief, Mesmer, Ele
Engie

But…. that’s all my opinion naturally.

Maweli.2849:

I’ve been thinking about a Difficulty rank of the profesions, thinking on New players, so they can create easy-2-use characters first, then more difficult ones.

I thought of the following:

Easy: Warrior, Ranger
Medium: Elementalist, Guardian, Thief
Difficult: Mesmer, Necromancer, Engineer

Thoughts?

My rankings:

Easy: Warrior, Ranger, Necromancer
Medium: Guardian, Thief
Hard: Mesmer, Elementalist, Engineer

Depending on build, I might move engineer to Medium. All of that might change with Elite Specs, though.

Frankly speaking it all depends on the build, usually an ele can be harder to play for example. But if i just use a staff and sit back and nuke. Well its about as easy as it gets. So really you can make any class easy or difficult depending on how you build them. Overall I think mesmer is a little harder with thief being in the mid range simply because they aren’t as versatile/able to take a lot of punishment and live.

Maweli.2849:

Thoughts?

Depends on the game mode.

Open-world PvE:

Easy: warrior, thief, ranger, guardian
Medium: elementalist, necromancer, engineer
Hard: mesmer

Dungeons/Fractals:

Easy: warrior, elementalist
Medium: thief, mesmer, guardian, engineer
Hard: ranger, necromancer

PvP:

Easy: elementalist, warrior, guardian, ranger
Medium: necromancer, engineer
Hard: mesmer, thief

WvW Zerging:

Easy: warrior, necromancer, elementalist
Medium: engineer, mesmer, guardian
Hard: ranger, thief

WvW Roaming:

Easy: thief, mesmer, ranger
Medium: elementalist, warrior, necromancer, engineer
Hard: guardian

easy: mesmer, ranger, necro
medium: warrior, guardian
hard: thief, engineer, elementalist

CandyHearts.6025:

I am so touched to see people putting Mesmer as “Hard”

So opposite of what all those thief players whisper me in SPVP. :P

As someone who is pretty bad at mesmer, it’s pretty easy to faceroll people with condi builds at lower mmr. People just don’t seem to no what to do.
Shatter mesmer is definitely harder though.

I think people are mostly talking about PvE when they talk about mesmer difficulty.

RedDeadFred.1256:

CandyHearts.6025:

I am so touched to see people putting Mesmer as “Hard”

So opposite of what all those thief players whisper me in SPVP. :P

As someone who is pretty bad at mesmer, it’s pretty easy to faceroll people with condi builds at lower mmr. People just don’t seem to no what to do.
Shatter mesmer is definitely harder though.

I think people are mostly talking about PvE when they talk about mesmer difficulty.

Where the mobs always knows which is the real one and ignore the clones …

paintpixie.7398:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

considering how many rangers that have no idea what they are doing I’m meeting in game I’d not name the class “easy” to play…..

I think it is a class a lot of people start with. It’s come to a point, actually, where I see another ranger, and immediately think it’s a new player.

and then bam, the guy that mains ranger for 3 years now :P

but then again even for me seeign ranger that knows what he is doing is uncommon view at least – if not even rare….

Roguedemonhunter.9621:

Whoah Whoah Whoah!

Guys the ranger cannot afk and live if anything “actually dangerous” is about to re-spawn or appear via event where they are standing. I’ve come back to dead Rangers lots… Just unfortunate placement.

My main is ranger, has been since I got the game. (Was in GW1 as well.)

OP is talking about the difficulty of playing the game. By that measure, I’d agree that ranger is by far the easiest. You let the pet tank, while you plink it with autoattack from range. That will get you through 95% of the PvE content even if you’re mostly AFK.

What you’re thinking of is difficulty of overcoming encounters – i.e. effectiveness. By that measure, ranger is probably the hardest to play. In the time the pet-tanking autoattack-plinking ranger kills one mob, any other class can mow through 5-10 mobs. A lot of the ranger mechanics and trait combos are so broken, you can play it at expert level and you’ll only be as effective as any other class played at mediocre level. That’s the reason ranger is almost completely absent from competitive PvP. There’s no point playing ranger when you can work half as hard with another class and be just as effective.

If I were to rank classes by difficulty, from most to least difficult, this would be my list (Including reasoning):

1: Elementalist – To make the most of them you generally have to swap elements often and have good knowledge of combo fields and blast finishers. They have the most intricate skill rotations and require a lot of awareness regarding skill cooldowns across multiple elements.

2: Thief – Very squishy, so they die fast if you don’t play with them well. You have to make the most of stealth and evasion.

3: Engineer – Really depends on build but they are generally quite a complex class in my opinion.

4: Mesmer – Not actually a hard class to play from the offset, per say, but I’d say a hard class to master if you want to get the most out of them. I think most people struggle with timing on shatters.

5: Necromancer – Once you learn how to manage your death shroud use, I’d say they’re not too bad. A fairly easy class to play otherwise.

6: Guardian – Lots of active defense and pretty straight forward class mechanics make guardians pretty easy. But they still require some thought when it comes to placement of shield walls, or timing on active defenses.

7: Ranger – Pretty easy class. The only reason it isn’t at the bottom of the list is because some people still don’t seem to know how to play rangers properly. They sit at range when they should be cleaving in melee. Or they use less effective pets, etc. It strikes me as one of those classes where some people just choose not to play effectively.

8: Warrior – A very straight forward class. No particularly complex skill rotations. Banners can be dropped and then mostly forgotten about for reasonably long periods of time until you need to move to your next stack locations.

Well, that’s my opinion in any case. Please note, this is a list based on how easy or complex a classes mechanics are, and how much knowledge or skill it takes to bring the most out of them. It’s not based on how effective I believe they are overall. It goes without saying that with enough experience with a class, any of them can become “easy” to play. And some of the most difficult classes to learn can actually become some of the easiest to survive with once you know how their mechanics work (like thief and ele, for example).

I think it’s not really possible to say it that simply because it depends on the type of content and the build.

Playing a staff ele in PvE is very different to a D/D ele in WvW or…whatever people play in PvP.

ArchonWing.9480:

0: Ranger
Requirements: Equip Bow, Press 1, and learn to activate autoattack
Ranger can afk through most leveling content thanks to the pet.

The problem with this is it works ok against most enemies in the open-world, if they’re below veteran rank (or you’re in a group) and you don’t aggro too many at once, but it’s an absolute disaster using it anywhere else.

It also doesn’t give you any opportunity to learn other mechanics or playstyles so as soon as you need to do anything else you’re going to struggle. As someone else on this forum put it “most professions have a learning curve, rangers have a cliff”.

If they’re lucky people who exclusively play rangers will get bored with that (it is incredibly boring) long before they finish levelling and will try other options and end up learning to actually play as a result. Or they’ll play other professions as well and learn that way.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Maweli.2849:

Thoughts?

Depends on the game mode.

Open-world PvE:

Easy: warrior, thief, ranger, guardian
Medium: elementalist, necromancer, engineer
Hard: mesmer

Dungeons/Fractals:

Easy: warrior, elementalist
Medium: thief, mesmer, guardian, engineer
Hard: ranger, necromancer

Why and why on your choices? They are all just as easy. Necro being “medium” in PvE and “hard” in dungeons is ridiculous. They faceroll openworld PvE with ease and they can solo dungeons. If thats “hard”, I suppose a Warrior can kill champions in 1 hit.

This seems more like a meta list, which has nothing to do with easy or hard, just whats best.

Tommyknocker.6089:

I would move elementalist to the hard category because, like the engineer, you have to have 3 hands and 15 fingers to play one well.

Necro I would put into the medium category as they are not hard to master.

same

Danikat.8537:

I think it’s not really possible to say it that simply because it depends on the type of content and the build.

Playing a staff ele in PvE is very different to a D/D ele in WvW or…whatever people play in PvP.

ArchonWing.9480:

0: Ranger
Requirements: Equip Bow, Press 1, and learn to activate autoattack
Ranger can afk through most leveling content thanks to the pet.

The problem with this is it works ok against most enemies in the open-world, if they’re below veteran rank (or you’re in a group) and you don’t aggro too many at once, but it’s an absolute disaster using it anywhere else.

It also doesn’t give you any opportunity to learn other mechanics or playstyles so as soon as you need to do anything else you’re going to struggle. As someone else on this forum put it “most professions have a learning curve, rangers have a cliff”.

If they’re lucky people who exclusively play rangers will get bored with that (it is incredibly boring) long before they finish levelling and will try other options and end up learning to actually play as a result. Or they’ll play other professions as well and learn that way.

We’re generally talking about New Players, so I would assume they’d have to learn the basics such as even moving. So PvP and WvW are generally not in this topic. We’re generally talking about Open World leveling content. Well, I guess a player could go straight to pvp, but without prior MMO experience, that would be quite hard.

Sure, there are some enemies that will go after you instead, but I find that fairly uncommon until you go to Orr and hopefully people will have learned to not melee with a bow by then. But Orr is harder regardless of what you’re picking relative to the easier zones.

And I don’t know. I’ve managed to hold some champions in place— yea, it’s nothing special, but it’d be a bigger threat on most other classes, or at least take far more effort. Though I admit I was swapping my pet when it was low, so it wasn’t necessarily afk, but requiring a button press every 20 seconds or so isn’t exactly torture either.

And there are certain qualities that are inherently easier. People complain about using the engineers because apparently there are too many buttons to press, so that’s harder by default although not really once you learn. On the other hand, Ele I contend it’s harder because unlike engineer which you can get away leveling by pressing buttons as fast as possible (except Rifle 4, don’t do that) , such action will most likely get you killed. Let’s say you accidentally switched from fire to water and are now using the water AA against an enemy. You can’t go back for 10 seconds and would have to use a healing ability or switch to lightning or whatnot. The fight just got a lot more tedious and you really feel more punished more for screwing up.

The most major penalty for a ranger is a pet death, which is pretty huge at 60 seconds, but it does come back eventually with no interaction, and if the player learns you can have a 2nd pet active, well, life is generally better. Plus lick wounds makes down state very much forgiving if one remembers.

There is no doubt a steep learning curve for higher end content, but at this point most new players probably shouldn’t even be thinking about that, rather just thinking about how to move around, attack, and use skills. Warriors, Guardians, and Rangers just have the most perks to allow this to become a more forgiving experience. Then again, many players might not even care about getting better and just sticking to open world, so it’s not that big of an issue.

As a side note, I do believe Mesmers are easier to level now because Ilusionary Persona is baseline meaning shatter is much easier to use now. Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that Mesmers are really slow which I think is the biggest disadvantage when it comes to leveling or just playing open world in general.