Guild Wars 2

I am an old player, who has just recently come back after a decent time from the game.

Here’s my question:
Which class is fun, viable and not over complicated(Casual-Friendly) at End Game content? I’m aiming for Dungeon runs, Fractals and perhaps some roaming/adventuring around in WvW. (I have NO interest in sPvP)

Here’s the breakdown of where I am:
Lv80 Guardian (Exotic Weapons, Ascended Ring) (Build is settled on)
lv80 Ranger (Exotic Weapon/Armor, no Exotic Trinkets)
Lv80 Warrior
Lv30+ Necromancer
Lv30+ Engineer

I plan on getting all to 80 and would like to gear them all as well. In time, of course. But, I would like some opinions on which classes may be more fun to play while allowing me to stay casual and relaxed for the most part.
PLEASE; Share as much information as possible. Links are VERY helpful! And if possible, try not to use too many acronyms, they’ll probably go over my head >.>

EDIT: Warrior is now Lv80

Guardian is fun whilst bringing a lot of group support and damage to the party, I’ve primarily played one for around 3k hours and thoroughly enjoyed it. The link below is from Obal who will explain everything you need to know for running dungeons with a guard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBfQUMRdobo
I’ve recently started playing a staff elementalist which is one of the highest damage builds around at the moment, whilst providing group support with condition cures and permanent fury. It also has a very simple rotation that is easy to learn and doesn’t really require much of a learning curve. The link below is another build video if you are interested in playing one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsS5TwgbWBo
Don’t feel you have to follow berserker gear as suggested, although this will give you the highest damage output it can take some getting use to with dungeons and learning when to dodge etc. You might wish to use Knights or Soldiers which is around a 10-15% damage loss to berserker gear but staying alive and providing damage is more important than dying and providing no damage. I used Knights for a while until I was happy to swap to berserker.

You may also like to check out gw2dungeons.net it has full guides for every dungeons and shows what skills you should use on what bosses. You may also like to check out youtube video’s of dungeons so you get a general understanding of what is being said in the guides.
http://gw2dungeons.net/
I hope this provides you with some useful information!

Thank you for the information on the Guardian and Elementalist! I will look into both videos and see how I feel after that

I’ve often shied away from Ele due to the “stance dance” of attunements, though. So, they have been difficult for me to get into.

UPDATE AND EDIT:

Watched the Guardian video. His voice feels a little monotone most of the time, and he just kind of runs out his breakdown rather quickly making it difficult to follow at times.
When I play Guardian, I am thinking Paladin. I don’t play for DPS, I play for Longevity and Support. I did like his Mace/Torch + Hammer though. So have a variation of that at the moment. Has good enough damage for my taste, and offers decent survivabilty with the Mace 2 & 3 skills. And the Zealot’s Flame on crit is nice too!
I run the Hammer as a backup, but don’t use it too often. I may consider one of his other options at some point, still up for debate.

I’m still in the Market for a solid Ranger build, but have settled, for the time, on a LB/GS setup using Flame and Spike Trap alongside Entangle. So far it is very enjoyable and has decent maneuverability and damage output.

Now I need to aim for a solid Warrior Build.
As much as I LOVE Supporting and offering buffs like Might, Protection, Stability and Regen, I feel that my Warrior should be more of a Stalwart Front-line Solder whose purpose is to stand his ground and help hold back any enemies from his Back-line.
Might anyone have a Solid Build or theory for this that would hold up in General PvE and perhaps Dungeons?

Again, links are very helpful so I know what Armor, Weapons, Trinkets and Sigil/Runes to aim for.

Marukeru.8746:

When I play Guardian, I am thinking Paladin. I don’t play for DPS, I play for Longevity and Support.

Guardian =/= Paladin.

Guardian have a low HP pool, but he’s king of active defense. Don’t be fool by the gear. Gear don’t help you support. Gear can provide you two main thing. DPS or Personnal Surviability. Thing of it as a slider. At one extreme you have Sinister or Berzerker, which are full dps but don’t have as much survivability or safety net. At the other end you have stuff like Nomad that have super high survivability but at no damage. Since defensive stats is so poor in GW2 and active defense is so powerful, there is no reason to get anything else than Zerker/Sinister/Assassin unless you need some training wheel, like playing more tanking, or don’t want/don’t have the time to improve your game.

The only exception for that is healing power which is the only support stats. But it’s not really that powerful in PvE. A Zealot guardian (Power/Precision/Healing Power) can be decent in making the run easier. But most group don’t the babysitting of healing.

The real power of the guardian is active support, like I said Guardian is the king of that. Blind, Aegis, Condi Removal, Protection, Reflection, etc Guardian have a ton of all that. But that never come from gear, it come from trait, skills, etc. That’s why most build will have a full DPS gear, but still bring a lot of support.

Skills
Skills like Retreat, Wall of Reflection, Purging Flames and Shield of Avenger are some of the most powerful support skill of the guardian. Stand your ground and Hallowed Ground are also good in specific situation.

Weapons
- Mace is a good sustain weapon to keep your team high hp.
- GS is good for dps, but for Binding Blades which is one of the two best PvE CC.
- Hammer auto-attack combine with the Trait Writ of Persistance allow high protection uptime.

Trait
- Zealous Blade give some healing on GS. On a GS + Mace/Torch build that mean that you alway heal a bit your team whatever weapon you are in at the moment.
- Justice is Blind + Renewed Justice allow you to blind like crazy against pack of trash.
- Invigorated Bulwark give you more Healing Power on mace when you block. Pratical on a weapon that heal on both skill 1 and 2.
- Selfless Daring heal on dodge, in a game where dodge is very important
- Writ of Persistence allow your symbol to last longer and to heal. This make the hammer a very powerful support weapon since you gonna have perma symbol under your team.
- Master of Consecreation reduce cooldown and longer time on Wall of Reflection mostly, which is one of the most important support the guardian bring.
- Absolute Resolution + Battle Presence give about 1/3 of the regen from the Warrior Healing signet to the whole team.

Gear
- Bezerker or Sinister are the best choice for Guardian since gear stats don’t really affect support
- Zealot is the second best choice. Not really needed, but it won’t really affect your speed that much in a good team. In a pug team either you keep them alive or if a good portion of your team don’t have better dps the run will be slow and painful (IMO).
- Cleric is really not a good idea. It can make a duo or trio run easier, but should never be used in a full party of 5. For now, the only good exemple of Cleric that I saw is this group of 3 people doing fractal 50 with a cleric guardian. But they are good players, in pugs the same setup would be terrible.

Thaddeus.4891:

SNIP.

There is a lot of solid information there and is all very helpful!
Now I have an idea of what Gear to aim for, and I pretty much already own the Weapons I’ll need. Thank you very much

Though, I still feel the Guardian is GW2 equivalent to the Paladin, as I don’t really see them being very different, I agree they are all about active defense not passive or reactive.