Guild Wars 2

Hello, the question may seem pretty weird for ya’ll pros, but I wonder what is the best class to actually SOLO PvE. I had a ~2 year break (and even before it I wasn’t particularly good) and wonder what’s on the flow right now. I do have the Heart of Thorns, so Revenant is an option.

I want to clarify as to why I need a soloing class – I just have a LOT of other games to play and don’t expect myself to be playing regurarly or commit to much to this particular game – mostly because it is one of the few games I have noone to play with – and joining a guild I know noone from just for the sake of being in one doesn’t really appeal to me, especially if I was to get kicked thanks to absency after taking another god-knows-how-long break. So there’s that.

I heard Daredevils are pretty well-rounded so I can either go and max that speciality on my lvl80 thief, or start another char (I have boosts to both straight lvl80 and lvl20). I am looking for a burst dmg/self-healing hybrid or just one of those if there is just… NO such hybrid viable build. Basically necro/mesmer (with geatsword?)/revenant/guardian. Engineer and Hunter don’t seem to fit me. Don’t know about Warrior, he seems… boring? Can someone describe the feeling of playing him?

Yeah, after I wrote this I just realised how chaotic my question is. I know the game is not meant to be played solo, so bear with me (or just ignore my abomination of a mindset). I am just looking for something satisfying to play that will work well alone, and feel… “cool” when slaying enemies.
Thanks in advance for any possible help… I guess. (Yeah, I basically act like a woman and just hope you know what I want better than I do). Cheers <3

I think it’s useful to note that not all PvE encounters are the same, so it very much matters how “solo” you really are.

When some players talk about solo, they simply mean that they aren’t technically playing in a group. In other words, they zone in to a map, find an event, and start playing. Other players show up and they are no longer solo. If a challenge is too difficult for their build to handle alone and no other players are present, they simply move on to greener pastures. If this sounds like you, then you’ll probably want to prioritize damage. In most situations that are clearly “solo” content, high burst will kill trash enemies before they have a chance to do much damage to you in return.

Other players literally mean SOLO. They may not be opposed to cooperation, but their biggest concern is not feeling locked into playing in a group to get anything done. These types of players generally want a tankier build as it’s more important that they be able to take on tougher challenges by themselves than it is to take down trash enemies quickly.

I think if you fit the first description, daredevil is a good choice. It’s a great class for open world. Very strong burst damage, superior evasion, extreme mobility, and you have the option for strong heals on offense and condition cleansing.

If the latter, I think elementalist is your best bet (although several other classes are great options as well). Ele has a reputation for being squishy, but if you’re willing to give up some damage output they can be very tanky with excellent damage mitigation, healing, and cleansing. They can take down most champions with ease this way, and still beat the timers (where applicable). And if the reduced damage output is an issue when you don’t need the tankiness, just swap your traits and perhaps some gear and you’re suddenly a burst damage machine. It’s an extremely versatile class.

Best solo class would be ranger or necro imo.

- Viper Horror Reaper is a monster in solo play, very well sustain, easily hit 5x stack of bleed, with Blood varriant + minions pretty much nothing can take you down, But bear in mind that viper set is hard to get, you can use Carrion mix with Rabid or Dire but you lose abit of dps in exchange for massive survival but since you have 2 HP bar, HP steal, minions you don’t need that much of surviability. On the down side please remember necro is a selfish class, very little group support but still can find a group in frac or raid due to meta build.

- Next to necro is Condi Druid/Ranger, not much to say about this class due to pet make your life easy, as a condi you squish out alot more dps than power, druid varriant give you brand new set of 5 healing skill. This one also use Viper for pure dps but for survival, solo you should use Apothecary set to boost up your healing but also give nice sustain.

- Warrior are also on the list cuz he has strongest HP regen in this game, i must admit war can be boring at somepoint but still doing great. Condi Burn War have pretty nice dps atm and one of the best solo class cause condi is a mix between melee and ranged playstyle, with ton of HP regen, stay at save distance, what more do you want ?, If you find yourself hard to survive just take Defense trait, you lose quite alot dps but you gain more HP regen ( around 1k HP per sec )

For PvE solo playing i found Ranger and Necro (with minions) easiest for doing dmg and surviability.

My friend plays full vampiric necro, high precision runes of vampirism, sigils of vampirism, all wells, with vampiric rituals traited and they are pretty unstoppable.
There is a set of armor (marauder I think) gives precision and vitality, to allow frequent use of death shroud, and the trait where death shroud kicks in automatically if you get low on health.
Whenever we go out in PvE she is usually the last one still standing and with a considerable amount of health left while we are downed.

I’m kind of partial to the necro, not by choice more the current game mechanics. Rangers are fun and can be a good solo class, but when I just want to lay waste to anything before me well it’s my MM Reaper in Trailblazer gear. So far there are few things that can really make me have to slow down. It’s basically a one man wrecking crew.

Necro and Ranger, no question. Though Necro needs minions.

I’ve soloed my way through HoT on all classes.

With a basic necro minion build i don’t think i ever died solo. And I can solo most champs and all but 1 or 2 of the HoT champ HPs (one being that stupid queen mushroom, which i’ve soloed once after dying about 50 times trying to solo it).

Ranger is easy to solo, but champs can be tricky as the pet can die and alot of bosses are mobile. I’ve done my fair share of soloing champs on it, but there are more bosses i could not solo as easily as the necro.

Thief is fun when i’m in ‘far mode’ , doing treks, map completion, etc. Basically anything where i’m in a rush.

Other classes can solo stuff, just not as easily as the above, mainly due to the pets/minions.

I won’t really address all of you, but I just have to say thank you for the amount of long, detailed analysis answered so quick. I still don’t undrstand a tiny bunch of things you talk about (the eq sets and stuff) but as I pasted the exact same question onr eddit and both you people and the guys there agree on it, I decided to boost the necro (I always loved the necro theme too, so it was not a hard choice). The second best seems to be Ranger but that doesn’t really fit me, and thief seems to require much more skill, so I may leave levelling that Daredevil for later if I actually get better at the game.

Anyway, thank you all fopr the replies, I really appreciate the help, Guild Wars sure as hell stands up to its reputation of having a great community, cheers

I have used this build, in a couple of varying forms, in PvE (before the Elite Specs) and had great success with it. Not much can take down a Vampiric Minion-Master.

Again, this is what I was using before the elite specs…now i sometimes switch Soul reaping for Reaper to get the use of “Rise!” to make even more minions.

Good luck and try different variations to find what suits you best.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW3YjM0QTN2VDu1A7NOmGC68d685qSOUEA-TBTDABpoDILlHA8AAOSJGOq/AxRAAENDOcBAKwEXqKBN+gAcz+DBAOA44rvOAA-e