Guild Wars 2

I just realised I have 70-90 hours on GW2 and my max level is a level 22 character, this is because I keep on trying different classes with different races and the confusion never seems to stop because it’s so hard to pick one character to stay with you for life.
So if someone (preferably a high level) explain a class or more on how they go in early,mid and late game as well as fun factor and play style.
Thanks in advance!

I have a level 80 Elementalist, Engineer, Warrior, and Guardian. I have mid levels of all the rest. Most of my experience is in PvE so take it for what it’s worth.

Anyway, with GW2 it all comes down to DPS (for now). So it all depends on how you like to deal that damage. My Warrior does very well in PvE with Greatsword and duel axes. My Elementalist does well with Staff or Double Dagger. My Guardian uses Greatsword and sword focus. While my Engineer is kind of the one I experiment with. I use a lot of kits and change up the sigils and runes a lot.

If your game play is a bit more stationary (which is hard if not impossible in GW2) or if you simply have difficulty dodging some attacks I think Warrior would be a good choice. It can rely heavy on melee. And with the new runes in Season 2 you can focus a little harder on a “tankier” build.

Ele and Guard can be VERY glassy. Tons of damage but one get caught with may direct hits. They can make for a very fluid combat experience.

Engi is a jack of all trades depending on you build. Medium armor, great range with the grenades, and potential to throw down turrets. Weapon are a bit limited though if you don’t like the kits.

Actually, you’re wrong about DPS being the only deciding factor. The core system relies on Damage, Support and Control, in all game modes and across all professions. No exceptions. The only reason people think it’s a DPS race is because of Berserker gear being the PvE Meta, but they forget all about sPvP and WvW where there’s an entirely different Meta.

• Damage – Self-explenatory, but comes in two distinct forms: Direct Damage, and Condition Damage (DoT’s). In PvE, Direct Damage is favorable, especially in teams and against World bosses because Conditions Cap way too easily, and even those with lower Condition Damage can overwrite your conditions easily, and constantly. In sPvP and WvW (Roaming) though, where you’ll often find yourself in 1vX situations, Condition Damage can be beastly however, and it allows you to slot more Defensive stat combos to be effective compared to Direct Damage.

Guardian and Elementalist are typically Direct Damage professions, Necromancer, Engineer and Mesmer are typically Condition Damage professions, Warrior, Ranger and Thief are about equally good at both. Certain builds deviate from the norm, of course, so don’t feel locked down to either of the two because of your profession. Hybrid builds are generally not useful, it’s better to focus on either Direct or Condition damage.

• Support – Support is the second cornerstone of GW2 and refers to the use of Boons, Conditions, Condition Removal, Heals, Blocks, Evades, Unique Buffs, Projectile Reflection, Wards and Combo Fields. Timing is everything, and I strongly advocate getting to know what kind of Support you can offer and to readily, and consciously, training to use it effectively just as you train to deal damage or dodge appropriately. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that you need Healing Power gear to be a good supporter, you don’t. What turns the tide in GW2 Is not Bursts of Healing, but correctly timed appliance of Boons, blocks and dodges.

Guardian is the undisputed king of Defensive support, bringing crazy levels of Condition Removal, Aegis, Heals, Projectile Reflection/Blocking, Wards, Protection and Stability. They’re also extremely good at stacking Might if built right.
Elementalist is the Queen then, bringing more Might and Fury buffs through their fire fields and blast finishers than any other profession. They can also spike heal by blasting Water Fields as well, and they’ve got a few more defenses lined up as well that can be used in a pinch.
Warrior and Ranger both bring unique buffs (Banners, Empower Allies and Phalanx Strength / Spotter and Frost Spirit respectively) to the party, making them useful allies at all times.
Engineer brings both Fire, water and smoke fields, amongst plenty of blasts, however they’re not as good as Elementalists in this regard and have lower overall DPS.
Mesmer brings portals, projectile defense and the wonderful Signet of Inspiration Boon share, but can’t reliably stack boons on the party themselves. They’re useful in certain situations, but mostly lose out to Guardians in that aspect.
Thief brings Loads of Stealth, Projectile Blocking and the only Energy Restoration skill in the game. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but what they have make a difference.
Necromancer brings almost no support to the team. They have some condition conversion and traits for support, but overall they’re much weaker than the other professions in this regard.

• Control – The last, but not least, aspect of the GW2 trinity is Control, which refers to the use of Hard CC (Knocks, Stuns etc), Soft CC (Cripple, Blind etc) and Line of Sight (LoS). Knowing when and where to throw down Hard CC or Soft CC is the key to mastering Control, and it will show on the player if they know how to do it properly or not, so do not skip out on this practice either.

Guardian has a few Launches and Wards, but they really shine while Spamming Blinds and Vulnerability on enemies.
Elementalists have a few Hard CC skills, but lack a lot in terms of Soft CC.
Warrior have Loads of Stuns and Knocks, loads of Cripple, Weakness and Vulnerability.
Ranger have Good Soft CC, not a lot in terms of Hard CC.
Thief is The king of Soft CC, best Blind spammer of the professions, Perma-Weakness/Cripple, Loads of Vulnerability.
Mesmer has pulls, knocks, dazes and some soft CC. They generally rely on clones and stealth to mindgame other players.
Engineer is the jack-of-all-trades and brings a little bit of everything. They can easily stack loads of conditions on enemies in a flash. They mostly rely on Soft CC, but their Hard CC skills are usually quick and good for surprise moves.
Necromancer makes up for what they lacked in Support, with their Control ability. No other profession can use Fear as readily as they can and they have plenty of Chill, Weakness, Cripple and Boon Corruption/Removal.

Prophet.6257:

I have a level 80 Elementalist, Engineer, Warrior, and Guardian. I have mid levels of all the rest. Most of my experience is in PvE so take it for what it’s worth.

Anyway, with GW2 it all comes down to DPS (for now). So it all depends on how you like to deal that damage. My Warrior does very well in PvE with Greatsword and duel axes. My Elementalist does well with Staff or Double Dagger. My Guardian uses Greatsword and sword focus. While my Engineer is kind of the one I experiment with. I use a lot of kits and change up the sigils and runes a lot.

If your game play is a bit more stationary (which is hard if not impossible in GW2) or if you simply have difficulty dodging some attacks I think Warrior would be a good choice. It can rely heavy on melee. And with the new runes in Season 2 you can focus a little harder on a “tankier” build.

Ele and Guard can be VERY glassy. Tons of damage but one get caught with may direct hits. They can make for a very fluid combat experience.

Engi is a jack of all trades depending on you build. Medium armor, great range with the grenades, and potential to throw down turrets. Weapon are a bit limited though if you don’t like the kits.

TheSwede explained it well – DPS is just one part. If all you do is DPS, then you end up dying in higher level areas faster.

Leveling in this game is very easy and fast. Don’t worry about which class is most useful in endgame and PvP, just play whatever class you like. Once you get your first character to 80, you can easily level your other characters to 80 by doing dungeon runs on your level 80 character and switching to a lower level character at the end of the run. I have a level 80 of every class.

I am going to take a more philosophical angle since TheSwede made an excellent job going over the technical.

My suggestion is forget about which are the best classes per-se, they’re not a factoring decision in Gw2 as they are in other games. Why am I saying this? basically in most cases classes dont have the limitation we’re generally used to in other games. each class in Gw2 can do damage, support or control. Its true some classes can do 2 of them a bit better but I dont think there is enough there to warrant worrying over. What makes a class different then another is how they’re played and how they achieve their roles. So if you like magic elementalist support will be conjuring rain, creating water gyzers. Elementalists control will involve, freezing, shocking mobs and damage will take the form of fireballs etc… If you play a necromancer support will take the form of marks, stripping conditions, control will take the form of skeletal hands grabbing enemies and fear. Damage will take the form of bleeding, poison and that dark stuff.

Classes do the same things more or less but use they’re own style to achieve it. At the end of the day I’d say its better to pick a class based on the style you like then based on what its best at.

The only thing to look out for is each class has its own unique mechanic… Elementalist get attunements, necro gets life force and death shroud, mesmers have shattering, warriors have adrenaline, thief has stealing and intiative, engineers have kits.. they provide a unique mechanic that differentiates one class from another and you might consider which ones you like / dislike when making your choice perhaps.

One thing I’d take into consideration is how broken the class is at the moment. For example, I find playing a Mesmer rather frustrating right now, because so many of their skills work half of the time. Ranger is equally annoying with its bad pet AI. Other classes work relatively well, although their AI reliant skills can also get quite annoying.

ANet has been extremely slow at fixing the bugs, so I wouldn’t count on any changes. Mesmer’s iLeap has been broken since release, for example.

Think about the game mode you want to spend most of your time in. My friend started with her necro, and since she’s not interested in PvP content, it made her really sad and she re-rolled a warrior for her PvE needs.

As stated above, if you don’t to feel anxious about every new patch because you don’t know how much further they can break your class or test your patience, then pretty much you should avoid A.I. dependent classes like Mesmers.

What are these ‘classes’ you speak of? This game has ‘professions’.

If you’re gonna invest any real time in this game at least learn the most basic terminology.

Yup. Gonna be ‘that guy’.

Eight O Eight.8257:

What are these ‘classes’ you speak of? This game has ‘professions’.

If you’re gonna invest any real time in this game at least learn the most basic terminology.

Yup. Gonna be ‘that guy’.

They’re classes. Get over yourself.

Summary of previous Readyup by Dulfy also is a good place to look at.
http://dulfy.net/2014/06/13/gw2-june-13-balance-philosophy-dev-livesteam-notes/

Eight O Eight.8257:

What are these ‘classes’ you speak of? This game has ‘professions’.

If you’re gonna invest any real time in this game at least learn the most basic terminology.

Yup. Gonna be ‘that guy’.

i call them classes, problem?

Zackie.8923:

i call them classes, problem?

Blasphemy! You shall repent yourself!

the only thing that defines your choice is what comes most natural, DPS is only important when you care about farming and zerging, you can’t really survive if you only rely on DPS.
also, you’re not gonna play a profession if you don’t like it, see profs like ice cream, if you don’t like the taste why continue?

TheSwede.9512:

Guardian and Elementalist are typically Direct Damage professions, Necromancer, Engineer and Mesmer are typically Condition Damage professions, Warrior, Ranger and Thief are about equally good at both. Certain builds deviate from the norm, of course, so don’t feel locked down to either of the two because of your profession. Hybrid builds are generally not useful, it’s better to focus on either Direct or Condition damage.

• Support – Support is the second cornerstone of GW2 and refers to the use of Boons, Conditions, Condition Removal, Heals, Blocks, Evades, Unique Buffs, Projectile Reflection, Wards and Combo Fields. Timing is everything, and I strongly advocate getting to know what kind of Support you can offer and to readily, and consciously, training to use it effectively just as you train to deal damage or dodge appropriately. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that you need Healing Power gear to be a good supporter, you don’t. What turns the tide in GW2 Is not Bursts of Healing, but correctly timed appliance of Boons, blocks and dodges.

Guardian is the undisputed king of Defensive support, bringing crazy levels of Condition Removal, Aegis, Heals, Projectile Reflection/Blocking, Wards, Protection and Stability. They’re also extremely good at stacking Might if built right.
Elementalist is the Queen then, bringing more Might and Fury buffs through their fire fields and blast finishers than any other profession. They can also spike heal by blasting Water Fields as well, and they’ve got a few more defenses lined up as well that can be used in a pinch.
Warrior and Ranger both bring unique buffs (Banners, Empower Allies and Phalanx Strength / Spotter and Frost Spirit respectively) to the party, making them useful allies at all times.
Engineer brings both Fire, water and smoke fields, amongst plenty of blasts, however they’re not as good as Elementalists in this regard and have lower overall DPS.
Mesmer brings portals, projectile defense and the wonderful Signet of Inspiration Boon share, but can’t reliably stack boons on the party themselves. They’re useful in certain situations, but mostly lose out to Guardians in that aspect.
Thief brings Loads of Stealth, Projectile Blocking and the only Energy Restoration skill in the game. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but what they have make a difference.
Necromancer brings almost no support to the team. They have some condition conversion and traits for support, but overall they’re much weaker than the other professions in this regard.

• Control – The last, but not least, aspect of the GW2 trinity is Control, which refers to the use of Hard CC (Knocks, Stuns etc), Soft CC (Cripple, Blind etc) and Line of Sight (LoS). Knowing when and where to throw down Hard CC or Soft CC is the key to mastering Control, and it will show on the player if they know how to do it properly or not, so do not skip out on this practice either.

Guardian has a few Launches and Wards, but they really shine while Spamming Blinds and Vulnerability on enemies.
Elementalists have a few Hard CC skills, but lack a lot in terms of Soft CC.
Warrior have Loads of Stuns and Knocks, loads of Cripple, Weakness and Vulnerability.
Ranger have Good Soft CC, not a lot in terms of Hard CC.
Thief is The king of Soft CC, best Blind spammer of the professions, Perma-Weakness/Cripple, Loads of Vulnerability.
Mesmer has pulls, knocks, dazes and some soft CC. They generally rely on clones and stealth to mindgame other players.
Engineer is the jack-of-all-trades and brings a little bit of everything. They can easily stack loads of conditions on enemies in a flash. They mostly rely on Soft CC, but their Hard CC skills are usually quick and good for surprise moves.
Necromancer makes up for what they lacked in Support, with their Control ability. No other profession can use Fear as readily as they can and they have plenty of Chill, Weakness, Cripple and Boon Corruption/Removal.

Elementalists lack Soft CC? When they’re busy spamming Cripple and Chill on low CD? You’re crazy. This list is nonsense.

Also, DPS Mesmer in PvE is usually a Phantasm-Berserker build, and in sPvP is usually a Shatter-Berserker build. It’s only in “roaming” and “dueling” do I really see a lot of Condi Mesmers.

Thanks, Neko. Elementalist has a lot of access to soft CC; chill, cripple, immobilization, blind (via Lightning Hammer), vulnerability (stack on crit via traits) and even weakness.

Don’t go mesmer, you’ll just delve into a class that’s always screwed over. Save yourself the anguish and disappointment.

I’ll admit to brainfarting on behalf of the Elementalist and Soft CC. For some reason I totally forgot about half their skills. I always get impatient at the end of my posts and just try to finish them as quickly as possible.

As for Mesmer, I know the PvE Meta is Phantasm Zerkers, Zerker is The PvE meta after all, for all professions. Necromancer and Engineer PvE meta is also Zerker and not conditions, but like Mesmer they have very niched or non-existant roles in PvE for the most part, so I felt it more prudent to jolt down their main strengths instead (Even if it’s in other game modes).

Dusty Moon.4382:

TheSwede explained it well – DPS is just one part. If all you do is DPS, then you end up dying in higher level areas faster.

Actually DPS is pretty much all that matters other than maybe high level fractals. CC doesn’t matter because defiant makes it mostly useless against champs and bosses. And the most desirable support is that which increases group DPS like fury, might, vulnerability, spotter, frost spirit, etc. Condition removal and buffs like protection and aegis are only minor factors for most PvE content. The only other major factor is skill – basically positioning and dodging. DPS and skill at positioning/dodging are well over 90% of PvE.

Where’s “That’s the Guild Wars 2 That You Play” when you need it..?

I’m myself new to this game and warrior seems to be good for new player. My engineer has to swap between kits to do what my warrior can do by just using 1 skill + auto attack. Even just auto attack is strong with an axe. The warrior his mobility buff on warhorn also helps a lot when running from quest to quest. Thought warrior could become somewhat boring after a time.

I don’t think that races mater a lot, racial skills seems to be weak compared to class skills, it is more about what personal story/looks you want.

I know what GW2 is going for (the soft trinity) but come on guys. Direct damage output is so OP right now that it is by far the “way” to play. What else are you going to do? You can try to tank it up, use conditions, or stealth, but the opprotunity cost is so great you would be better off just doing the dps.

In boss fights it’s a little different but right now Anet have buffed DPS so much it is the way you should be playing in PvE. Hopefully not for long though. Especially with the new runes they are introducing.

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Dusty Moon.4382:

TheSwede explained it well – DPS is just one part. If all you do is DPS, then you end up dying in higher level areas faster.

Actually DPS is pretty much all that matters other than maybe high level fractals. CC doesn’t matter because defiant makes it mostly useless against champs and bosses. And the most desirable support is that which increases group DPS like fury, might, vulnerability, spotter, frost spirit, etc. Condition removal and buffs like protection and aegis are only minor factors for most PvE content. The only other major factor is skill – basically positioning and dodging. DPS and skill at positioning/dodging are well over 90% of PvE.

Agree 100%

OP, if you don’t want to waste time any gold on builds that are currently inferior go DPS heavy, learn combat movements, and dodging. You will tag more mobs, kill enemies faster and be a better help in a large group for now.

Like I said before, all of that may change (and I REALLY hope it does) but for now it is what it is.

Agreed, DPS is only thing people care about, because tagging = loot, dead enemies don’t damage you, dodging will solve 99% of your mistakes and condition stacks are capped.

You’d have to change all those factors before DPS takes a back seat, but don’t count on it happening.

God Tier-
Engineer: Best class, can do everything better than everyone else especially style on fools.

Good Tier-
Guardian: A good source of stability and reflects for your engineer.
Warrior: A good source of Fury and stat buffs from banners for your engineer.

Ok Tier-
Elementalist: A good source of healing for your engineer. Can also provide fire fields if you’re feeling lazy on your engineer.

Situational Tier-
Mesmer: A good source of portal for completing jumping puzzles on your engineer. Also can throw down timewarp for supreme grenade spamming on your engineer.
Thief: A good source of stealth for your engineer.
Ranger: A good source of Frost Spirit for your engineer.

Comedy Tier-
Necromancer: A good source of entertainment for your engineer and the rest of your party.

The really short version is that pretty much every class is good at everything, albeit to different extents, except for the ranger and necromancer.

The longer version is:

Warrior: Offensive support. Buffs self and others well so does equally well in solo and group content, but you’ll never be hitting quite as hard as the guys you’re buffing to due to fairly middle-of-the-road DPS across the board.

Guardian: Defensive support. Basically the defensive version of the warrior, hits about equally hard but minus the offensive buffs, so you’ll last longer in a fight but not hit as hard. Paired with a warrior, both are about equal in everything.

Ranger: Offensive support. Weaker than a warrior in pretty much all respects but with better in-and-out mobility. Unfortunately, you’ll rarely find yourself needing such mobility in a PvE context, and the built-in pet really isn’t that useful either.

Thief: DPS and utility. Primarily used for providing stealth and blinds to get through annoying fights in dungeons, and hits decently hard as well.

Engineer: Strong all-rounder. Doesn’t have quite as much in any one field as any of the above, but still manages to have a little bit of everything and also hits extremely hard, DPS-wise.

Elementalist: Hard-hitter. Supplies massive raw DPS, hits for outrageous numbers when grouped up with allies who can buff them, but with a few exceptions don’t really buff super well.

Mesmer: DPS and utility. Like a thief, has lots of tricks to make life easier (teleports, reflects, etc.) and hits very hard when focusing tough targets. Suffers from poor AOE options and is weak to mobs with strong AOE that can kill the mesmer’s fairly squishy summons.

Necromancer: Tank. Rather weak both DPS and support-wise but has two massive healthpools that both refill very quickly. Good for solo content but not so great for group content where people would rather have allies who can just kill things.

since there is no trinity(heal,tank,dps) its hard to get a favourite class.Players who play other mmo’s too find it difficult to connect with a class in gw2 because all of them looks almost the same.Especially if you like to play support classes(tank,heal,buff).But even if u play dps on another mmo still its weird to see that you character can heal(even only yourself).

it’s funny, talking necro’s down while never showing any prove they suck, i have never had any problems with my necro and even outdamage the thief and mesmer at some points.
no support?……what do you do, spam 11111 all the time?
they have one of the best support in the game, L2P before talking a prof down.
no DPS?….yah sure, dagger necro is more powerful then dagger thief but sure, no DPS…..

and yes, i do know how to play a necro, i have yet to see anyone to prove me wrong in PvE.
and no, i am not talking about zerging, that’s a really lame excuse to compare professions.

sorudo.9054:

it’s funny, talking necro’s down while never showing any prove they suck, i have never had any problems with my necro and even outdamage the thief and mesmer at some points.
no support?……what do you do, spam 11111 all the time?
they have one of the best support in the game, L2P before talking a prof down.
no DPS?….yah sure, dagger necro is more powerful then dagger thief but sure, no DPS…..

and yes, i do know how to play a necro, i have yet to see anyone to prove me wrong in PvE.
and no, i am not talking about zerging, that’s a really lame excuse to compare professions.

sooo, are you saying your necro is great in dungeons?

-GMB

God. Cat. Mice.

That was funny as hell, surely Ele’s are back in cat tier tho?!

Well in pve, it would result in press 1 for every class.

Wolfield.9812:

God. Cat. Mice.

That was funny as hell, surely Ele’s are back in cat tier tho?!

This was released… 2 weeks after the game came out?

Maybe someone should update it XD

maha.7902:

sorudo.9054:

it’s funny, talking necro’s down while never showing any prove they suck, i have never had any problems with my necro and even outdamage the thief and mesmer at some points.
no support?……what do you do, spam 11111 all the time?
they have one of the best support in the game, L2P before talking a prof down.
no DPS?….yah sure, dagger necro is more powerful then dagger thief but sure, no DPS…..

and yes, i do know how to play a necro, i have yet to see anyone to prove me wrong in PvE.
and no, i am not talking about zerging, that’s a really lame excuse to compare professions.

sooo, are you saying your necro is great in dungeons?

-GMB

well yes, not solo and i don’t rush but i have kept teams alive where guardians failed…..true story…..

sorudo.9054:

maha.7902:

sorudo.9054:

it’s funny, talking necro’s down while never showing any prove they suck, i have never had any problems with my necro and even outdamage the thief and mesmer at some points.
no support?……what do you do, spam 11111 all the time?
they have one of the best support in the game, L2P before talking a prof down.
no DPS?….yah sure, dagger necro is more powerful then dagger thief but sure, no DPS…..

and yes, i do know how to play a necro, i have yet to see anyone to prove me wrong in PvE.
and no, i am not talking about zerging, that’s a really lame excuse to compare professions.

sooo, are you saying your necro is great in dungeons?

-GMB

well yes, not solo and i don’t rush but i have kept teams alive where guardians failed…..true story…..

Please, continue to enlighten and entertain us, lesser beings.

Maybe he used the marks to regen them and keep them healed.

sorudo.9054:

maha.7902:

sorudo.9054:

it’s funny, talking necro’s down while never showing any prove they suck, i have never had any problems with my necro and even outdamage the thief and mesmer at some points.
no support?……what do you do, spam 11111 all the time?
they have one of the best support in the game, L2P before talking a prof down.
no DPS?….yah sure, dagger necro is more powerful then dagger thief but sure, no DPS…..

and yes, i do know how to play a necro, i have yet to see anyone to prove me wrong in PvE.
and no, i am not talking about zerging, that’s a really lame excuse to compare professions.

sooo, are you saying your necro is great in dungeons?

-GMB

well yes, not solo and i don’t rush but i have kept teams alive where guardians failed…..true story…..

I’m afraid I’m gonna need more info on that. Just what exactly is it that you do?

Incoming new meta guys, brace yourselves.

-Grandmaster Mind Brain.

engineers are very good at direct dmg or condition dmg.

it is a very big misconception that they are condi only.

full zerk with a zerk build and zerk kits (grenade bomb) and rifle all rotated is very powerfull combo and has all blast fields needed.

so once ppl in this game stop being stupid and actually bother to learn each class propeprly they will see the game in a different view and start taking other classes they thought used to be sucky.

1 important thing.

a class does not suck

a player does suck

learn the difference and u will be a better player for it

Necro is the worst dungeon class, but if all you want to do is PUG and have fun they work perfectly fine, and its a lot easier to carry bad groups in easier content as a zerker necro if you run spoj’s 6/2/0/0/6 build, since you can facetank a bit with deathshroud. If you want to do speedclears though its best to play any other other class.

And while you guys are mentioning how bad necros are in PvE which I agree with in regards to high end PvE, you don’t mention how they are one of the best classes in WvW and GvG. Well bombs are simply amazing, and the combination of deathshroud and plague surviving is very easy if you position yourself well. In addition staff marks supplement your burst AoE from deathshroud and wells to make tagging remarkably easy.

I’d say that mesmer (and ranger too) is probably the worst class overall right now if you look at all areas of the game. In PvE they can have very high DPS, but that is wrecked by AoE and long start up time to reach their top DPS with phantasms, while guardians can provide all the reflects that are needed. Colesy would be able to tell us more about that though, since its his area of expertise.

Mesmers (staff/GS shatter) can’t really compete in high level tpvp right now since they can’t stay on a point and aren’t as fast or as evasive and can’t burst as well as a thief, and D/D ele basically fulfills the teamfight support role that they could have once filled. And PU is terrible past hotjoin and maybe solo queue. In WvW, groups only need one mesmer for veil, unless they have a good gank squad to pick off backlines with thieves, which is a niche roll that does exist.

Ranger is similarly bad for WvW as all it can do is provide one water field and not much else, and can’t even really be on a gank squad like a thief or mesmer. They do seem in a decent place for pve other than their sword auto as their damage buffs for the team are nice. In tpvp they have been pretty much replaced by D/D eles for the teamsupport role that spirit rangers once filled.

Crysto.7089:

Comedy Tier-
Necromancer: A good source of entertainment for your engineer and the rest of your party.

And as for this.. as an engineer, unless you fight bad players continually, you should know that condition necromancer is viewed as a hard counter for engineers in tpvp as engineers have relatively poor condition removal and CC counters and a slight reliance on boons, making them weak to condition necros that avoid engineer CC.

Although your post seemed to be referring to PvE, I just thought I should mention this when viewing the necro in relation to the engineer in other game modes.

Mesmer’s effectiveness is much more apparent in pugs where you don’t have the raw DPS needed to burst down bosses in one guardian’s WoR uptime, and conversely the mesmer has more time to build and sustain superior DPS using phantasms. For open-world solo, it’s sort of a mixed bag, shatters can be very effective if the mobs are weak enough to be one-shotted by them but the mesmer runs into issues when the mobs have enough health to survive.

Nothing quite beats an engineer’s open-world burst though.

Well it just comes down to what does most DPS, if you ever want to do a dungeon with other people, they WILL discriminate you if you are not Elementalist, Guardian or Warrior. The divines forbid you do a dungeon for fun, you do it for the loot!

For fun time in PvE though, pick anything you like, jaded people can’t hurt your good time if there is no loot or other people involved.

gvg doesnt even exist in this game

maha.7902:

gvg doesnt even exist in this game

Well yeah, it doesn’t formally exist as a recognized game mode, but guilds in higher tiered WvW servers do make teams, typically 15vs15 or 5v5 and challenge other guilds from servers that their server is up against, usually in either the obsidian sanctum or in the plains at the southern end of a borderland map.

While Anet does not officially get involved with it, it does exist as a community driven concept, much like the PvE tournament that you guys had, although anet did show support for that. The community does have an arbitrary ranking system and can have some rules such as no stat stacking sigils, and you have to link your weapons ahead of time to verify that.

Crysto.7089:

God Tier-
Engineer: Best class, can do everything better than everyone else especially style on fools.

Good Tier-
Guardian: A good source of stability and reflects for your engineer.
Warrior: A good source of Fury and stat buffs from banners for your engineer.

Ok Tier-
Elementalist: A good source of healing for your engineer. Can also provide fire fields if you’re feeling lazy on your engineer.

Situational Tier-
Mesmer: A good source of portal for completing jumping puzzles on your engineer. Also can throw down timewarp for supreme grenade spamming on your engineer.
Thief: A good source of stealth for your engineer.
Ranger: A good source of Frost Spirit for your engineer.

Comedy Tier-
Necromancer: A good source of entertainment for your engineer and the rest of your party.

thanx, had a good laugh

a lot of hate on necros in this thread!

sure in a group pve setting they are far from ideal in most situations. however, pve is just one aspect of the game. in a wvw zerg/havok group necros are pretty god teir. i dont pvp much but i roam an awful lot and in that sense of pvp there are not many classes that can stand up to a condi necro.

that said some other classes can faceroll everthing…. all hail staff 1 guardian

Mesmer is better than Guardian at Tequatl’s fight while Guardian is better at Triple Wurmp

sharkstein.2109:

Well it just comes down to what does most DPS, if you ever want to do a dungeon with other people, they WILL discriminate you if you are not Elementalist, Guardian or Warrior. The divines forbid you do a dungeon for fun, you do it for the loot!

For fun time in PvE though, pick anything you like, jaded people can’t hurt your good time if there is no loot or other people involved.

If it was DPS DPS DPS and nothing else, no one would ever take anything other than an elementalist.

The fact that people still want guardians, warriors, thieves, etc. and are willing to take engineers, mesmers and rangers for their support capabilities shows that the “DPS is the only thing that matters” complaints are totally off base.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

sharkstein.2109:

Well it just comes down to what does most DPS, if you ever want to do a dungeon with other people, they WILL discriminate you if you are not Elementalist, Guardian or Warrior. The divines forbid you do a dungeon for fun, you do it for the loot!

For fun time in PvE though, pick anything you like, jaded people can’t hurt your good time if there is no loot or other people involved.

If it was DPS DPS DPS and nothing else, no one would ever take anything other than an elementalist.

The fact that people still want guardians, warriors, thieves, etc. and are willing to take engineers, mesmers and rangers for their support capabilities shows that the “DPS is the only thing that matters” complaints are totally off base.

But aren’t those other classes wanted only (or at least primarily) for their skills that increase group DPS and/or situational skills that improve DPS, e.g. reflects?

Did you also know that in trinity games, a tank holding aggro and a healer keeping everybody up are archetypes revolved around maximising group DPS through buffs and maintaining DPS uptime by keeping aggro off of them or healing them?

Every party setup in an MMO is designed around increasing group DPS either directly through damage modifiers or indirectly through damage mitigation like with aegis or reflects.

maha.7902:

Did you also know that in trinity games, a tank holding aggro and a healer keeping everybody up are archetypes revolved around maximising group DPS through buffs and maintaining DPS uptime by keeping aggro off of them or healing them?

Every party setup in an MMO is designed around increasing group DPS either directly through damage modifiers or indirectly through damage mitigation like with aegis or reflects.

Yes, this is obvious, right?

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

sharkstein.2109:

Well it just comes down to what does most DPS, if you ever want to do a dungeon with other people, they WILL discriminate you if you are not Elementalist, Guardian or Warrior. The divines forbid you do a dungeon for fun, you do it for the loot!

For fun time in PvE though, pick anything you like, jaded people can’t hurt your good time if there is no loot or other people involved.

If it was DPS DPS DPS and nothing else, no one would ever take anything other than an elementalist.

The fact that people still want guardians, warriors, thieves, etc. and are willing to take engineers, mesmers and rangers for their support capabilities shows that the “DPS is the only thing that matters” complaints are totally off base.

But aren’t those other classes wanted only (or at least primarily) for their skills that increase group DPS and/or situational skills that improve DPS, e.g. reflects?

Warriors and engineers yes, the rest no. Thief DPS is not as good as people seem to think it is and even if it was it was it’s still less than elementalist DPS, and you’re not taking a thief for their amazing might or vulnerability stacking. Same goes for guardians and mesmers, outside of certain fights (i.e. Lupi, Stargazer, Alphard) there are actually relatively few situations where reflects actually do enough damage to warrant taking over raw elementalist DPS.