Guild Wars 2

Hi,

So I know the answer to this question is probably necro, or ranger.

I have a slightly different question. Could someone help rank the classes?

Specifically how would you rank revenant , rogue and warrior.

daredevil is #1

Daredevil>>>>the rest.

im surprised no1 mentioned daredevil yet he is # uno

Warrior gives you power and heavy armor, strong enough to get you through with ranged or melee, and swiftness and leaps for the slow areas. Great for Pve and map completion. Just don’t fight any other players.

I see little that makes Daredevil excel over base thief but I do know there is a much longer road to make a daredevil for the task that the OP asks than a thief.

Of the three you list, I would rank Rogue (you mean thief I believe), then ranger, then Rev.

In fact, of the classes available so far, I believe thief is #1 for doing open world roaming and map completions in the core game.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAoa6YlsMhenYjTwzJw+EHwE1OQ/gB1nGxRboTgAIDA-ThRBABA8EAwT/Alq/ExJBUCe1+jyPEMBBA-e

HoT is a different story though: solo, I would recommend Necro Minion and conditions build

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRArY4djM0QTN2VDu1A7NOCGq5MsDrbMBCgIQeCpQJA-ThTAABVr+T0nAQ/QP7PMjGEoNDghSwX0QQxREgJlGKcwAew0gYKxA4BActyAA-e

They are are all easy. Thief is slightly better only because of stealth lets you get away with using stealth for some communes. Mesmer or engineer could pull off similar things or any other class using a combination of consumables.

True, you can play any class … but that’s not the point of the thread. Obvious OP wants to know what is best from his list. Thief is better for many more reasons than stealth at communes. That’s actually a weak reason; thief wrecks anything in the way of commune HPs. Stealth is a last resort.

Thief excels for four reasons:

1. Fast: Runspeed signet
2. Damage: LOTS of damage multipliers in traits
3. Good opener: nothing in this game beats Dagger #3 in D/P to open the fight
4. Good closing: Cleanses and some interrupts on steal and skills to clear remnants of fight or prevent lasting conditions.

These are the factors that make a profession good for OW exploring and map completion. Thief has them all.

Obtena.7952:

1. Fast: Infiltrator’s Arrow

fixed that for you

Obtena.7952:

I see little that makes Daredevil excel over base thief

It’s the dodge.
You can either gain dps when dodging instead of losing dps like every other class, or, what I feel is much better most of the time, you can get free permaswiftness and a lots of dashes and immunity to every disabling condition. Also makes a dps utility that doubles as a condi cleanse (signet of agility) also double as a mobility utility. Nothing gets around as fast as a daredevil.

ALSO, clarification. While thief is the best, it is not the most effortless.

Openworld PVE is the last place you need to dodge, especially if you have on demand blinds with the build I presented. So to me, the dodge mechanics are wasted on a profession like Daredevil. Furthermore, Infiltrators arrow does not give you speed, it just mimics Dagger #3, with a higher cost AND requires you to swap weapons to get it; this lowers your damage and can put you in a situation where you are stuck with a weapon that is not optimal for damage on trash mobs. That’s not OW friendly at all.

Furthermore, thief is one of the most effortless professions you can use in openworld. You’re killing trash … it’s #3 then #1. If you got a group of mobs, then it’s #5 then #1. That’s as tricky as you get and the damage is frankly, OPed.

Really, you’re just going to have to post an actual build so I can see how what I’ve optimized for OW PVE on thief compares to whatever build you’re comparing it too. Just randomly comparing skills is a little pointless.

My rank would vary depending on whether you know the profession well or not. Given that, I’d suggest the following tiers:

• Really easy: Thief, for the stealth and mobility.
• Easy: Warrior, Guardian, Ranger, Revenant: decent mobility and great tankiness, so you can ignore most anything.
• Easy-if-done-right: necro (minion master zergs ftw)
• Not too shabby: engineer (mobility, durability), ele (mobility, damage, utilities).
• Never easy: mesmer (good mobility, but not durable)

Your mileage will vary.

I’m surprised ranger hasn’t been brought up more. There is literally nothing easier in the game than a LB ranger hiding behind a pet. Stupid way to play, sure, but it’s easy AF (astral force :P)

Fluffball.8307:

I’m surprised ranger hasn’t been brought up more. There is literally nothing easier in the game than a LB ranger hiding behind a pet. Stupid way to play, sure, but it’s easy AF (astral force :P)

There is also very little world exploration where that makes much of a difference.

As for movement speed If we include elite specs every class except Guardian/Dragonhunter can also have permanent 25%/33% movement speed. If we include runes then it is available to every class. Guardian could also use staff and maybe “Retreat!”/“Save Yourselves!”.

Khisanth.2948:

There is also very little world exploration where that makes much of a difference.

Yes but there is very little world exploration where anything makes a difference. We’re talking the difficulty equivalent of rolling a ball across the floor. Why not take the one that does all the “work” for you and lets you easily solo every “boss” in the game?

Ranger doesn’t make the top of my list: it doesn’t have easy access to cleanse and the damage from LB isn’t that spectacular. It does perform well in HoT due to pet tanking and strong ranged performance though.

There are differences in classes and they do make a difference in world exploration. Those differences are not just trivial. Just because OW is easy, doesn’t mean you can’t make optimized builds for it.

Obtena.7952:

Ranger doesn’t make the top of my list: it doesn’t have easy access to cleanse

Whaaaat? Ranger and druid have a LOT more condi cleanses than any other profession last time I checked. For open world I nearly always use SoR just for convenience. If you want to take a WvW build into PvE for whatever reason, you could be effectively immune to conditions.

Edit: I would also argue a pure zerk ranger with sword/axe + LB and damage pets is pretty optimal for HoT open world. A hell of a lot easier than daredevil, no question about it.

I’m not talking about druid, that’s an entirely different class as far as I’m concerned for OW content.

Being immune to conditions is not the only requirement that makes a profession optimal for OW content. I’m aware of SoR and I believe the reason I haven’t added it to the OW farming build is simply because a 10 second passive condition removal in OW is pretty useless; its too random when the condition is removed. An active cleanse on a longer CD is better in OW, and preventing the condition in the first place is even better than that.

I’m not questioning if Ranger is high ranking or not, but it’s not better than Thief. Thief has more damage, a better opening move and active cleanses. To be clear though, I was focused on Core when I said Ranger doesn’t make the top of my list. To be fair, I would agree that as you state, Ranger is a hihg-ranking profession in HoT for the reasons you stated. I consider hoT a completely different level of play and in my first post, did recommend the MM Necro as the best way to solo through it.

Obtena.7952:

Furthermore, Infiltrators arrow does not give you speed, it just mimics Dagger #3, with a higher cost AND requires you to swap weapons to get it

oh please, you don’t use shortbow to attack things (usually). It’s for getting to where you need to go.

also most of the mobs that you can’t facetank are also immune to blind. especially in HoT, where nearly everything has a break bar.

Really, you’re just going to have to post an actual build

This is my preferred build for open world:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn8lClOhNOBGOBkmiFqiau67+yvLCCgDYLHHsqD-TxCBQBA4CAkHNBB4BAoPdAYRpnAV/pI7PcGlgS4QAoRlBQ4IAAA-e
maximizes mobility, with lots of sustain and defense, and high damage

Obtena.7952:

I’m not talking about druid, that’s an entirely different class as far as I’m concerned for OW content.

Being immune to conditions is not the only requirement that makes a profession optimal for OW content. I’m aware of SoR and I believe the reason I haven’t added it to the OW farming build is simply because a 10 second condition removal in OW is pretty useless; most conditions you have in OW are over by that point. An active cleanse on a longer CD is better in OW.

Core ranger still has more condi removal options than any other profession (again, last time I checked, I haven’t been keeping a tally.)

This is pretty off topic though IMO. We’re talking minutia here. All I said was I can’t believe ranger hasn’t been mentioned, since it’s widely regarded as the king of open world/afk champ farming.

reikken.4961:

Obtena.7952:

Furthermore, Infiltrators arrow does not give you speed, it just mimics Dagger #3, with a higher cost AND requires you to swap weapons to get it

oh please, you don’t use shortbow to attack things (usually). It’s for getting to where you need to go.

You won’t have a choice … you can’t swap fast enough between trash kills where you won’t be attacking with SB. Even if you can, that’s simply way more cumbersome.

reikken.4961:

also most of the mobs that you can’t facetank are also immune to blind. especially in HoT, where nearly everything has a break bar.

Fair enough, but I DID differentiate HoT as a separate level of play and a different class recommendation altogether. Perhaps that wasn’t something you saw. I would have to say that if considering BOTH for Core and HoT, I’m not sure where Daredevil would rank with the rest of the classes, but I don’t think it’s realistic to evaluate a class over those two very different content to begin with. I do know Daredevil is not as good as Thief in Core but there are classes very good in both HoT and Core and therefore would rank higher.

reikken.4961:

Really, you’re just going to have to post an actual build

This is my preferred build for open world:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn8lClOhNOBGOBkmiFqiau67+yvLCCgDYLHHsqD-TxCBQBA4CAkHNBB4BAoPdAYRpnAV/pI7PcGlgS4QAoRlBQ4IAAA-e
maximizes mobility, with lots of sustain and defense, and high damage

You’re posted build will not compete with the one I posted in Core OW content. Sustain, defense are not necessary and it actually lacks mobility without a constant runspeed buff. How it performs in HoT, I can’t say, but probably much better, though still very slow to move around without a speed buff.

Of the three characters I’ve leveled in PvE, Mesmer, Thief and Elementalist, I found the Ele to be the easiest. Maybe because my first was a Mesmer or I simply know how to play now but I felt powerful in my Ele.

You don’t swap to shortbow unless you need to cover a lot of distance or are already out of combat. If the next place you want to be is less than 10 seconds away, you just dash dash vault/shadowstep/steal, and maybe swap and shoot an arrow or two if you leave combat before you arrive.

Obtena.7952:

You’re posted build will not compete with the one I posted in Core OW content. Sustain, defense are not necessary and it actually lacks mobility without a constant runspeed buff. How it performs in HoT, I can’t say, but probably much better, though still very slow to move around without a speed buff.

I guess you haven’t played daredevil
…and didn’t look at the traits

Take a look at the third trait in the daredevil line, Unhindered Combatant. Here’s what it does:
grants 10 seconds of swiftness on dodge
travels 50% farther than a normal dodge, over the same time frame
removes immob/chill/cripple on dodge
(and grants 10% damage reduction for 4 seconds, but that’s not releveant for easy stuff)

While chaining dodges, not only am I stacking more swiftness than I could ever possibly need, but also I am moving 50% faster than someone running with swiftness. And this is just as fast in combat as out, so it amps up to more than twice as fast as someone with swiftness while in combat.

The build has just short of the absolute most mobility you can get in the game. And for getting from place to place, you are never not teleporting or dashing, so you ignore the in combat speed reduction too, in case you get hit by something.

Spawn on map. Decide where I want to be, and then dash shortbow shadowstep shortbow dash dash signet dash dash heal dash shortbow dash. That’s about 3700 distance in 3 seconds, and 8000 in 10 seconds. For comparison, running with permaswiftness is 400 per second. ie 1200 in 3 seconds and 4000 in 10. (266 per second in combat)

Clearly the answer is guardian. Faceroll clears with speedboost utility to get between faceroll clears. Greatsword and zerker. That’s how I got my first world complete, back when you also had to wvw.

I like necro personally. Plenty of dmg. Pets if I feel like being lazy. Shroud is great both offensively as well as a defensive “oh kitten” button. And it has a passive speed boost option like the majority of classes, prior to obtaining the elite.

Solider warrior with GS/LB

I’ve done world completion on all classes and thief is definitely the fastest since they can shadowstep.

I would place Revenant at second.

Two words…Shadow Refuge. You can get to any point in the maps and get the hero point/vista completed with that skill. Thief is amazing for map completion…you have a run signet, you have Shortbow 5 for porting around faster and you have a long stealth for passing by things with Shadow Refuge. This is why I only have 100% map completion on my one thief…too lazy to bother the trouble on the other characters.

reikken.4961:

You don’t swap to shortbow unless you need to cover a lot of distance or are already out of combat. If the next place you want to be is less than 10 seconds away, you just dash dash vault/shadowstep/steal, and maybe swap and shoot an arrow or two if you leave combat before you arrive.

Obtena.7952:

You’re posted build will not compete with the one I posted in Core OW content. Sustain, defense are not necessary and it actually lacks mobility without a constant runspeed buff. How it performs in HoT, I can’t say, but probably much better, though still very slow to move around without a speed buff.

I guess you haven’t played daredevil
…and didn’t look at the traits

Take a look at the third trait in the daredevil line, Unhindered Combatant. Here’s what it does:
grants 10 seconds of swiftness on dodge
travels 50% farther than a normal dodge, over the same time frame
removes immob/chill/cripple on dodge
(and grants 10% damage reduction for 4 seconds, but that’s not releveant for easy stuff)

While chaining dodges, not only am I stacking more swiftness than I could ever possibly need, but also I am moving 50% faster than someone running with swiftness. And this is just as fast in combat as out, so it amps up to more than twice as fast as someone with swiftness while in combat.

The build has just short of the absolute most mobility you can get in the game. And for getting from place to place, you are never not teleporting or dashing, so you ignore the in combat speed reduction too, in case you get hit by something.

Spawn on map. Decide where I want to be, and then dash shortbow shadowstep shortbow dash dash signet dash dash heal dash shortbow dash. That’s about 3700 distance in 3 seconds, and 8000 in 10 seconds. For comparison, running with permaswiftness is 400 per second. ie 1200 in 3 seconds and 4000 in 10. (266 per second in combat)

You aren’t seeing past the difference between good skills and useful ones for the requested role. You’re talking about chaining dodges but you don’t dodge killing trash mobs in OW PVE; so basically, I need to dodge a whole bunch when I don’t need to for trigger good effects … or I could just stick with thief and get similar effects without the added burden. I agree that those traits are good, they just aren’t useful in OW PVE when 99% of the encounters you have are with trash mobs that you should be killing in 2-3 seconds, not dodging from.

Same with mobility; is the dashing around and shadowstepping really fast? Yup. But that’s not something that makes Daredevil a better class than thief … I can use SB as a thief as well, I just don’t recommend it because it’s just a tradeoff between effectiveness and efficiency.

My two biggest issue with Daredevil is 1) the traits in the line are too active and conditional to access as similar traits in base thief lines and 2) they trigger on not-friendly actions for OW content.

Bottomline:

Core GW2: Thief
HoT: Necro
Both: Necro

Obtena.7952:

You’re talking about chaining dodges but you don’t dodge killing trash mobs in OW PVE.

Ok bro, I’ll keep it short and to the point.

• Chaining dodges is for getting from place to place, not killing.* Vault is for killing.
• If you don’t want to put in any effort and don’t mind being slower, 1 dodge every ~25 seconds = same run speed as taking the signet.
• If you don’t mind spamming skills and want to get there literally 2 or 3 times as fast, you can spam mobility skills to do so.

.* You do sometimes dodge in combat even in easymode land. If you do, it’s for one of 3 things, from most common to least:
1. closing the gap to your target without using initiative, since your dodge is also a dash.
2. removing cripple/immob/chill.
3. dodging a knockdown

OP wasn’t asking about speed

Actually, OP didn’t really say what was being asked about at all. What does “best” mean? Most reliable? Fastest? Most effortless?

reikken.4961:

Obtena.7952:

You’re talking about chaining dodges but you don’t dodge killing trash mobs in OW PVE.

Ok bro, I’ll keep it short and to the point.

• Chaining dodges is for getting from place to place, not killing.* Vault is for killing.
• If you don’t want to put in any effort and don’t mind being slower, 1 dodge every ~25 seconds = same run speed as taking the signet.
• If you don’t mind spamming skills and want to get there literally 2 or 3 times as fast, you can spam mobility skills to do so.

---

.* You do sometimes dodge in combat even in easymode land. If you do, it’s for one of 3 things, from most common to least:
1. closing the gap to your target without using initiative, since your dodge is also a dash.
2. removing cripple/immob/chill.
3. dodging a knockdown

yes, so it’s simply a question of effectiveness vs. efficiency. From my perspective, I can get the same effectiveness more efficiently with a thief. You’re not really going to convince me that dodging all over the place on Daredevil to get the same level of effectiveness without dodging on thief makes Daredevil better than a thief.

Again, the build I presented does 2 of 3 things you state you need dodge for … without dodging. The first point is nice; Not using initiative is a nice thing … except you still need dust strike and a dodge/dash to open the fight for 4 initiative to match what I can do with Shadow Strike for the same cost. That’s important … you don’t want to be burdened with lingering effects after you’ve killed a trash mob.

It’s simply an added layer of mechanics you can avoid as a base thief while maintaining the same level of effectiveness. The only place I can see Daredevil being more value is when you are overwhelmed by trash mobs or in the most special case, groups of Ettins, since they can chain stun you.

I actually think the OP could have been more specific as well but I don’t think it’s so vague we can’t anticipate what he’s looking for:

1. Solo PVE
2. World Exploration (that’s probably map completion)
3. The Necro and Ranger he talks about also hints at what he’s after

Fastest : warrior and thief

Easiest : jk, who cares. everything is easy on open world.

I suppose I should have mentioned where I’m coming from. I have to L80’s already a Mesmer and a Engineer. Each one has about 50% of the world complete, but it has been quite painful getting just that far, especially with the mesmer.

I have HOT but have not completed either, again because of two things

a) I suck at grenades with engineer
and
b) While I understand the mechanics with a Mesmer, because of squishiness I have too little margin for error, and again AM just not that great of a Mesmer.

So I’m ultimately looking for a class, and it sound like it might be thief ranger or necro, that would be good for getting 100% of the world explored.

Since back when I played WoW I maxed every healing class, would that then lend me towards a Ranger/Druid ? or is the healing at endgame sufficiently different not to have a comparative?

That settles it .. you just want to get your world explore to 100%, Thief is best. If you want to carry on to HoT from there … then i recommend Necro instead.

If you are interested in healing, there is only one real place to fill that role; Raids and for that, you would go with the Druid based on your post.