Guild Wars 2

So I have an 80 necro, thief, engi, and ranger. I’m looking to main one to go for full ascended legendary etc … My question to you all is which would you prefer in your group. I know some will say roll a heavy but I don’t like those so please keep those comments to a minimum.
I probably enjoy the ranger the most with engi being a close second. So to narrow it down to those two. I mainly do fractals and a few dungeon runs with a bit of spvp. So if you had to choose engi or ranger to join you on an adventure which would you pick. Thanks.

See, that’s tough. I’d say Engi because it’s the most viable in the most scenarios (dungeons, zergs, WvW, PvP) but, due to kits, you don’t get the benefit of that Legendary like you would with another class.

I think engi is your best bet for being both useful in pve group play and in spvp.

Thief, Engi and Ranger can share armor. And trinlets, of course. All you need is weapons for each to have fully ascended set. Provided that you can play them with the same stats, of course.

I’ve tossed up the usefullness thing of both. Kind of at a crossroads of the engi group heals vuln stacking cc and dps and the ranger heals spotter frost spirit and dps. kitten this game for making me think.

I should of added they’re on two sepperate accounts so that isn’t an option. Otherwise I’d just play both.

I can message you ingame and share with you my tumultuous road to picking a main.

But in general hmmm, I’d say either is wonderful, but I personally would play engineer since I’ve grown to hate the micromanagement of the ranger pets. I just made a ranger for the regen condi tank builds and cause they’re stylish hahaha.

Both classes are suboptimal for organized large scale WvW if thats your thing, but they might be able to serve on a gank squad with theives and mesmers (entangle and supply crate bombs?)

Overall go with what you like the best. Or if theres a particular legendary you have in mind that you like the best, maybe that will help you choose. Quip is really cool imo, and so is the dreamer, and bolt and howler (have that one on my necro <3<3<3) so that could help you decide too.

Thanks for all the responses. So seems the community would prefer an engi out of the two in a group setting.
I do enjoy my thief as well but I get owned in high lvl fractals on him so left him out of the choices lol.

I have 3 80’s ( Elementalist, Guardian and Warrior ) and working on a 4th ( Mesmer ). Out of those 4 which should I main ?

Well if you’re asking me personally I’ll give you the one you enjoy most answer. Only because all of those classes are loved to have in groups. Where as engi necro rangers are not.

Stubie.5834:

Well if you’re asking me personally I’ll give you the one you enjoy most answer. Only because all of those classes are loved to have in groups. Where as engi necro rangers are not.

Well you could follow your own advice then, since you say you liked Ranger the most. Rangers are actually fine for dungeons, as long as you don’t bear bow (and use Frost Spirit and Spotter). It’s just a stigma rangers have. Necro on the other hand is indeed less suited for dungeons, but rangers are fine really.

I understand they’re are fine. I enjoy all of the classes I play but would give a very small edge to the ranger. I didn’t ask which was more viable because I know other classes do most things better. I was just wondering which our community would prefer in there group. The reason I gave him the canned response was as I said all his classes are “meta” classes where mine are not.

Stubie.5834:

Well if you’re asking me personally I’ll give you the one you enjoy most answer. Only because all of those classes are loved to have in groups. Where as engi necro rangers are not.

Decisions decisions. I have no idea because I like all the professions I have currently leveled. Maybe I’ll just flip uh coin a few times.

Yeah I feel your pain! Guardians and wars seemed to be the overall favs.

Ascended gear is mainly for fractals. I’d suggest rolling a guardian and gearing that instead if you plan to upgrade for progressing through those, but you’ve mentioned you aren’t interested in doing that. For your preferred choices thief or engie can both be useful depending what you do with them and how you trait, rangers less so in comparison.

If you weren’t planning to do fractals, I’d only recommend weapons and trinkets because you get nothing useful from the armour other than infusion slots.

Yeah I have no interest in leveling a guard or war. I have both classes in the mid 40s and don’t like the play style. I’d go with thief but like I said in post 30 fractals I die so fast. I think I’ll stick with my engi. He is personal lvl 36 in fractals so far.

Personal opinion, since you asked: I’d go Necro. Only because my guild has done Fractals/Explorables with only 4 of us grouped: 2 Necros, 1 Guardian, 1 Elem. (We’ve done other combos of Warrior/Mesmer/Ranger.) Most of our Fractal leveling was with 2 well-speccd (dagger/dagger/staff and dagger/warhorn/staff) Necros in the group. Our latest runs, the dagger/warhorn Necro traded out for his Warrior just because he’s enjoying Warrior for the first time.

Our 4-man swat team for WvW is 2 Necros, 2 Eles and we are quite capable of both taking keeps/towers, (even when scouted) as well as defending.

Appropriately speccd/geared, a Necro can tank, do massive AoE dps, is good for PvE, SPvP and WvW.

My first level 80 (out of 29 level 80’s) was a dagger/dagger/staff Necro, used for tanking outdoor bosses in Orr and in WvW, so, yes, I’m a little biased. ( My main now is an Elementalist, for Fractals/WvW and I usually bring a Ranger for Explorables. )

Good luck with whatever you decide.

And have fun.

Bottom line: Play what you love. You’ll be more effective and have more fun.

I personally would suggest Ranger.

Engineer is very, very powerful in PvP as many of us know. However, in PvE content it is considerably less so and takes far more effort to bring something of value to your team. If you play PvP as an Engineer, it’s basically AFK, faceroll keyboard = win with at least a few different builds. If you play PvE, you’re probably going to be giving it 110% to achieve the same results as other professions and you still won’t be “desirable.” So either you’re working way too hard, or not at all.

As a Ranger, many, many people hate the profession. Many people will likely kick you before giving you a chance in PUG dunegons as well. However, in PvP, the Ranger is a very capable duelist and can bring a lot of utility to their group. It takes a considerable amount of time to “master” the Ranger profession, I would say on par with Engineer and Elementalist as the 3 most difficult professions to use skillfully. But this does not come without reward, as I’ve found that a well played Ranger can be a very welcomed teammate given your group can recognize talent when they see it.
So, either in PvP or in PvE, you will have to put in a fair bit of effort to succeed, but not so much that it becomes a burden and not so little that it becomes repetitive.

tldr; Engineer: Effective to the point of being borderline OP and AFK in PvP and difficult to master to the point of being frustrating in PvE.
Ranger: Effective duelist and capable of bringing a lot of utility to a PvP group, difficult to grasp but not so much so that it becomes tedious. Mostly misunderstood in PvE but relatively easy to use and again capable of bringing a lot of utility to a group, especially if said group understands what a Ranger with the proper skills can do.

Overall, I would say go with the profession you have the most fun on. Of course it matters what you can bring to a group composition, how effective you are as a player and as your profession of choice, but what is the time you spend in the game without enjoying yourself while doing it? So regardless of which you end up choosing, I highly suggest the one you choose is the one you have the most fun on.

Assuming that both the engi and ranger are competent players who know how best to buff/help their party members: I’d rather have an engi in my party than a ranger.

No Warrior,Guard,Elem? :-o