Guild Wars 2

I’m wanting to play a light armor class, but not sure which would likely be the easiest to play. I do have a Guardian, Warrior & Ranger already… so I’m not a total stranger to the game, but I’d also state I’m not all that experienced (or good lol) at the game either.

I don’t PvP / WvW, so how good a class does in them is not an issue. And this is a problem for me – I’ve tried reading the specific forums for Ele / Mesmer / Necro but the forums are filled with PvP/WvW commentary, which doesn’t help me.

I have played each class up to around lvl 20 (ages ago, prior to the leveling changes) but this was quite some time ago… and stopped playing them to focus more on guardian.

I generally only do open world exploring, hearts & DE’s. I want to play a light armor class, but unsure what would be a good class for someone who is not super skilled, or has great reaction’s or ping/latency – my ping/latency to GW2 server’s is not great, and I have bad eye-to-hand coordination and bad reflexes.

From what I’ve read elementalist’s rely heavily on dodging and constantly swapping attunements, Mesmer’s are terrible till later levels due to needing traits/skills to be decent, and most of Necro forum seems to be a big whinge.

So if anyone could give me some advice on which out of the 3 light armor classes would likely be easiest for a bad ping/reaction player in open world PvE… that would be appreciated.

Edit – and please no “don’t bother due to NPE” stuff. There’s enough of this discussion in general forums.

I would rate staff ele as the easiest of the three. The attunement switching thing is overstated. Most eles spend most their time in fire.

Because of your high ping, necro minion master might be easiest. Minions can absorb a lot of damage while you wait for your ISP to catch up.

With time and practice you will get good at any one of them

I agree with the above for Staff elementalist, it can be pretty chilled out – compared to double-dagger anyway.

Never played a Mesmer as the pink everything gives me a headache.

You are right, the necro forum really is one massive whinge zone. Necro might be good for you as the F1 Death Shroud is a whole other life bar to fall back on. The trouble with both Ele/necro is they both potentially use a lot of ground targeted skills which require more hand-eye coordination and speed than normal spells, just something to think about.

S/D, D/F, and D/D will not be camping one attunement.

I showed my Staff ele friend a D/F build and he was surprised at how… fast the gamepace became. Staff is pretty relaxed and slow, though.

So with ele most of the time you can stay in 1 attunement and not have too much of a problem? Would I be correct in assuming then that the whole attunement swapping emphasis is revolving around PvP, WvW and Fractal’s?

I remember trying necro minion master, and at that time they didn’t respond very fast when I attacked. I ended up being attacked most of the time. Has that changed?

Staff Ele is slower paced? I’m not sure I follow – Is this because it’s not as close range and thus not having to dodge as much as say a D/D ele would ?

Out of leveling all three, for open world I’d say necro is better. It has the highest health pool out of the three on top of death shroud in case of emergency and good damage that doesn’t require a lot of effort to dish out and is more than enough against most things that PvE will throw at you.

Obviously that’s going to depend some on your gear and traiting. My necro’s set up for power (dagger/warhorn + staff for being lazy, wells as utilities for easy AoE) and is doing just great as I work on map completion with him right now, especially since the last patch added some cleave to dagger auto-attack so that it’s now a lot easier to deal with multiple enemies at once than it used to be.

Staff ele is an ok alternate, but I find it’s still fairly easy to die and requires more reflexes than necro. Also: way more boring in my opinion, at least for open world (dungeons is a different matter).

Mesmer kind of had crap damage and mediocre survivability when I leveled mine up a few months back, haven’t kept track of the changes but I suspect it hasn’t improved much. Also bad mobility unless you use runes for it, which isn’t ideal when it’s a character you want to have wander around the world.

Staff ele is more “relaxed” because any attunement other than fire is a big dps loss so that’s why you camp fire attunement and hop to air for swiftness when you are running. The other weapon sets like S/x and D/x require you to attunement swap as S/x is used to stack might and then bust out LH or IB and then dps and hop attunements to get buffs etc and D/x the same to a lesser extent. Staff ele just has next to nothing utility wise vs the other weapon sets. It’s just a fire attunement dps weapon. Best bet if you are interested in ele is read the sticky DeKeyz has up which explains the builds and weapon sets in much greater detail.

D/D Ele is still my first choice for messing around in open world and has been since launch. Once you get used to switching between elements and timing dodges etc it’s quite an enjoyable play style IMO, although very unforgiving st first!

Jonny.6013:

D/D Ele is still my first choice for messing around in open world and has been since launch. Once you get used to switching between elements and timing dodges etc it’s quite an enjoyable play style IMO, although very unforgiving st first!

D/D or S/D on Ele is a blast! Fast-paced and when you get good at those element swaps it’s pretty much the only class where you don’t end up mashing #1 waiting for CDs.

Whoever says elementalists just sit on Fire are talking about bad elementalists. Good elementalists use all elements (usually water being least popular when doing solo open world PvE). Staff elementalist is just……boring.

Draknar.5748:

Whoever says elementalists just sit on Fire are talking about bad elementalists. Good elementalists use all elements (usually water being least popular when doing solo open world PvE). Staff elementalist is just……boring.

Fun is objective.
2. Not bad elementalists.
3. Perma firefield elementalists
3.1. Meta
4. Paired very well with a LH elementalist.
5. A good chunk of the time all you need is Fire and more Fire.

DonQuack.9025:

Draknar.5748:

Whoever says elementalists just sit on Fire are talking about bad elementalists. Good elementalists use all elements (usually water being least popular when doing solo open world PvE). Staff elementalist is just……boring.

Fun is objective.
2. Not bad elementalists.
3. Perma firefield elementalists
3.1. Meta
4. Paired very well with a LH elementalist.
5. A good chunk of the time all you need is Fire and more Fire.

And most important of all, the OP was specifically asking what was EASIEST.

I consider all three light classes to be my “main” for different game modes. I have played all of them in PvE, so here’s my opinion:

Elementalist is squishy, but also forgiving; you have several “oh kitten” buttons, and more than one way to heal. All weapon combinations are useful, and all are fast paced aside from staff (I use staff when I’m feeling lazy). Staff ele is probably the easiest to play of the three classes and weapon choices (you can do a small might combo and then pretty much sit in fire unless you need the defensive skills of the other attunements). You’ll also be useful in dungeons for stacking might and handing out those ice bows in AC. With bad ping and bad coordination, you might find ele too difficult because you have to always be aware and avoid damage- ele has a low health pool and can’t survive too many hits.

Mesmer is not my favorite for PvE. Tagging enemies at group events can be pitiful, as mesmer doesn’t really have aoe damage. They are ok in dungeons for utilities/defensive clones. You do, however, have stealth which can be useful for map completion. Plus everyone loves a JP port.

Necro might be your cup of tea. They come with a high health pool, and tagging mobs is easy. Necro got the short end of the stick with condition caps, but I find mine to be the best of the 3 for loot in PvE. You have access to a very nice skill, Epidemic (spreads conditions from the target to nearby foes), plus the marks from staff provide fast, easy tagging of mobs. You can even use a minion master build if you feel like you need something to take the heat. Your weapons have some nice defensive skills ( for example: fear on staff 5, condi clear on dagger 4). You won’t be the favorite in dungeons (there are some nice power builds if you wanted to go there).

Anyhow, in conclusion and keeping in mind “for someone who is not super skilled, or has great reaction’s or ping/latency – my ping/latency to GW2 server’s is not great, and I have bad eye-to-hand coordination and bad reflexes.” – I think necro would be your best option.

rhapsody.3615:

…
Anyhow, in conclusion and keeping in mind “for someone who is not super skilled, or has great reaction’s or ping/latency – my ping/latency to GW2 server’s is not great, and I have bad eye-to-hand coordination and bad reflexes.” – I think necro would be your best option.

I agree, even though my favorite profession is mesmer with elementalist as runner up.

Easy? Necro since it has the highest health pool and can use a minion to pull agro.
Fun? Do not use staff ele. I love ele and use staff for group events, solo it is not in the least bit fun.
Mesmer, is a huge blast at all levels for me (even created an assuri mesmer to test the latest patch and it was smooth).
Mileage may vary.