Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for simple gameplay that I don’t have to think as much in combat.

Werrier

Most people will say that and I always disagree. I find that warrior can be pretty challenging while leveling solo. You’re not nearly as durable as you think you are.

Tbh, Guardian is likely much easier to start with. They’re naturally more tanky, have lots of utility for regeneration, stability and blocking. They also have adequate offensive power.

Now that said, warrior will teach you a far better gameplay style than guardian will.

People say Guardian except whenever I play mine, I feel squishy as all heck.. also pretty slow. With Warrior, you have mindless attack patterns, your utilities are pretty passive and don’t contribute to the majority of a fight, and your traits can be cherry picked based on what weapons and utilities you run, making it pretty easy to figure out what traits you want based on how you play.

With Guardian, you have utilities that probably need to get swapped depending on zones, traits spread out and a lot of diversity in traits which ends up convoluting the leveling process trying to decide what path is better to take.

Keep in mind OP wants something easymode. Whether or not Warrior can survive (which they can, bar elite and champion solos as a newer player), they are definitely a lot easier to play and require less thought.

Oh yes, on warrior you hit hundred blades, on guardian you hit whirling wrath.

Different experiences. I find that a guardian can survive an unexpected encounter far easier than a warrior can. Warriors need to kill before being killed, guardians can whittle down while staying healthy.

People keep suggesting warrior and guardian, and to this day, I do not know why…^^

I’d say stay away from mesmer, engineer and thief at the beginning, but the rest are fine.
Elementalists stand far enough away from everything to roast most lowlevel enemies before they reach them, and if they do, they have weapon heals in addition to their normal heal skill, plus Armour of Earth and Arcane Shield for even more protection.
Necromancers have a) the largest normal health pool and b) an entire second health pool. It’s kind of hard to die as a necromancer in PvE once you’ve figured out how to use Death Shroud (and aren’t reading a book on the side and not paying attention…).
Rangers – same as elementalist, plus a pet to draw aggro. They basically come with their own tank.
Warrior and guardian are as explained above by other posters.

In the end, you need to know what you like. If you don’t like a certain playstyle but pick a class that plays like this because it’s supposedly easy, it’ll take a lot of fun out of the game. I’m a sucker for caster classes, so I main eles (yes, plural; I meant to main a thief on my other account, but somehow I now main an ele again…). Others might prefer ranger/druid/nature-y characters. There’s an “easy” class for every kind of playstyle, that just gets overlooked in favour of heavy melee classes far too often.

Probably nothing easier than a bearbow ranger but … .bad habit forming.

Sorry everybody, I made the topic in a hurry and neglected to say that I am strictly PvE. I have no interest in PvP or WvW. I am probably going to play solo most of the time, though I will party sometimes, most likely with my friend.

Esplen.3940:

Keep in mind OP wants something easymode.

Well, not necessarily easymode, but I want something simple. Running around trying to evade attacks while having to constantly rotate the camera and keep track of ten different skills with cooldowns (even more with weapon switch) is a little overwhelming and stressful.

I know GW2 is not the kind of game where you can just spam one attack and expect to get anywhere, but if there’s something remotely close to that, I’m willing to try it.

…On second thought, I suppose that does sound like easymode.

Red Queen.7915:

Elementalists stand far enough away from everything to roast most lowlevel enemies before they reach them, and if they do, they have weapon heals in addition to their normal heal skill, plus Armour of Earth and Arcane Shield for even more protection.

I’ve read that Elementalists are harder to use because they have four different attunements, which means a lot more skills to keep track of. Is that true?

Red Queen.7915:

In the end, you need to know what you like. If you don’t like a certain playstyle but pick a class that plays like this because it’s supposedly easy, it’ll take a lot of fun out of the game. I’m a sucker for caster classes, so I main eles (yes, plural; I meant to main a thief on my other account, but somehow I now main an ele again…). Others might prefer ranger/druid/nature-y characters. There’s an “easy” class for every kind of playstyle, that just gets overlooked in favour of heavy melee classes far too often.

The problem is, what I like is mainly based off of trinity-style gameplay. For example, I like being a healer class. The only thing I have to worry about is healing. If I add some damage then that’s fine, but healing is my role. There is no dedicated healer class in GW2, and PvE seems to be all about DPS (or that’s what I keep reading).

Khisanth.2948:

Probably nothing easier than a bearbow ranger but … .bad habit forming.

I’m actually trying a bearbow. Doesn’t help when enemies ignore the bear and run straight at me, and I can’t walk backwards fast enough. Then I panic and start mashing keys. So yeah, you may be right about bad habits.

Dodge to avoid attacks.

For the Ranger,

1. Send the pet in to attack first (F1) before you fire a shot
2. As soon as you can get the Taunt grandmaster trait (Beastmastery/Beastly warden)
   https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Beastly_Warden
3. Utility skills (Protect Me and Guard) can be useful

Rangers are fine in easy mode if that is what you want. Over time you will discover they have a myriad of builds and playstyles.
And if anyone gives you any grief, an arrow to the knee changes their tune.

really depend on what do you mean by easy in PVE
warrior, guardian and ranger can be quite tanky in leveling
but
guardian can be very hard to be “effective” in dungeon
i personally found warrior a great start, it have variety of skills, attacks and support
give you are better understanding of game mechanism

Tier 1 Warrior and Necromancer: Simple and Very tankey
Tier 2 Ranger and Guardian: Slightly more complex , but still good defense
Tier 3 Mesmer and Thief: Somewhat complex and a bit glassy
Tier 4 Elementalist and Engineer: Very complex and Ele is pretty glassy

Ele is only glassy when going full berserker. If you use the right equipment, they can stay on their feet for quite a while. I’m a fan of soldiers for relaxed casual playing, then swapping to berserker when the situation calls for it or when I’m actually paying attention to everything I’m doing, instad of chatting or daydreaming…

You have to learn to play every class for a bit, no matter which one you pick. Even more so for PvP and WvW, but since OP wants a PvE char, it’s not quite as complex, build-wise.

Ele, for example, will stay mostly in fire attunement in PvE, unless you want to take full advantage of traits and combos (though you can go through most PvE content in fire attunement easily). Staff ele must be one of the easiest things to play in PvE for that very reason. You could just hit a few mobs, wait until they reach you, activate Arcane Shield and/or Armour of Earth, then Meteor Shower and Lava Font and watch them drop like flies (though it’s always prudent to remember that you can dodge). For everything else, there is autoattack and Lava Font, and earth skill 3 for reflecting projectiles if you have to. Earth and air have more skills to knock back and stun enemies to keep them at a distance. It doesn’t get much easier than staff ele, and the gradual moving to more complex builds and rotations is pretty easy, too.
They could double as healers, too, depending on what content you play and who you play it with, with their water attunement and ability to blast their own water fields several times for extra healing, though it’s correct, there isn’t much demand for healer types yet; might change with HoT, but we don’t know that yet.

I’d also disagree with Cyril’s order a bit: Mesmer might have more health than ele, but needs some getting used to and a good grasp on the class mechanics. I’d say it’s at least as complex, if not more so, than elementalist and engineer.

As for the ranger, what Slalom said is useful. I’d add Muddy Terrain and the trap that cripples (forgot the name of that one) for utility recommendations. They keep enemies in place and/or slow down their approach. If they do reach you, greatsword is a nice second weapon to swap to; it has a built-in dodge, if you will, in its autoattack, a block skill than can also cripple and one that dazes, all to keep your enemies from hitting you. No need to panic, just relax, stick to the lowlevel areas until you are comfortable with your class and then go out and explore the world

I don’t want to sound rude or like a jerk but don’t know how else to say it.

Warrior simply is the easiest class to do well with, people who say it isn’t are trying to defend there class as a hard to play character. But simply put you can do great damage without trying with axe or greatsword. Heavy armor high health. Be warned though, it’s so easy they get Rayner boring to play

Red Queen.7915:

…I’d add Muddy Terrain and the trap that cripples (forgot the name of that one) for utility recommendations. …

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spike_Trap

I include that trap in most bow-based builds, especially for WvW. Gives a moment respite while switching to melee for that silly warrior that closes distance. haha

Warrior melee or Ranger…ranged.

I enjoy my Guardian that I rolled two weeks ago. Being totally new to the game it helped getting accustomed to most things without having to research every little thing.

Personally (in favor of simple, soloable gameplay), my first was the Ranger. I love ranged classes, where my DPS doesn’t really matter a whole lot (because having a pet helps).

I also went with a Necromancer. Another ranged class. Has even more pets than a Ranger (except you have to summon them, and you can’t control them) but they will hold aggro for you. And Necros are good at handling multiple targets at once without too much trouble.
Both classes can also Melee, but a Necro seems to do it better with a Power build (Dagger/Warhorn). Plus you got a shroud, that literally saved my life in the soloable version of the final boss (you got to have the right traits for it to activate before dying and heal you a bit).

If you aren’t talking from a PvP standpoint ranger is easiest. The pet does a lot of tanking for you. If your talking PvP and PvE I’d go warrior. Heavy armor and big health pool. Guardian has small health pool and bad mobility.

Well, I decided to just try every profession, and staff Elementalist seems to be the simplest way to PvE for me. Warrior takes too much effort to run up to enemies, especially ones that run away (e.g. Tamini Archers). I’ll figure out later how to handle dungeons and other high-level content. Thanks everybody for your help!