Guild Wars 2

Pretty new to the game, but I have tried all the classes and can’t decide between necro or guard. I love the play style of both! What are the pro/cons of each? what should I choose?

I honestly wrote up a long list of pros and cons but deleted it. Level them both up and you will likely lean to one more or level them both equally.

Guardian is tanky, supportive, well liked by groups, good pve and wvw. However really lacks ranged and condition builds.

Necro is tanky, good at debuffs, okay dps, great conditions, kind of the emo profession not everyone understands, has variable builds, great range. Problems arise with not being amazing at group support.

Honestly, they are both great professions and no reason why you shouldn’t level them both. Guardian will likely by more useful to start out with though.

Thanks Wiseman! Here is my take so far (high lvl 20 each)

Guard PROS
Can help others
Fast leveling

Guard CONS
Kind of boring I just spam GS1 while leveling and cant die
Like you said wiseman no range
I see soooooo many guards

Necro PROS
don’t see to many
I like pets and dots

Necro CONS
I’m guessing it’ll be harder to find a pve group
can’t really help anyone

anyone else got some advice? Thanks!

Also which is better 1v1? I’m guessing the guard b/c they are harder to kill?

Are you trying to WvW or PvE mainly? If you are trying to PvE, you will end up running end game fractals and dungeons at some point. You want a Guardian for this. Necro has some solid play in WvW (as does a guard). As for a 1v1? It depends on the players.

Guards in WvW tend to run tankier builds because player damage is less predictable (and faster but in smaller increments). It can be tanked better than enemies in PvE (especially some champs, bosses, and high lv fractals). For this reason, if you are PvE main, you want to get used to playing a high sustain DPS Guard with some power/prec/crit gear (or ease into it with power/prec/toughness).

Oofda 1v1? I’m probably not the best to give advise as far 1v1 goes…Probably all professions are better at 1v1 than Both of these professions at least with my experience but my guard is built around WvW so naturally not good at 1v1. 1v1 is really just about meta. All classes have their weaknesses but for 1v1 I have a harder time with playing Guardian but alas that is probably a gear issue on my part. I’ve had better luck using my necro for 1v1. And Guardian has lots of toughness yes but Necro has tons of health and DS and if you go Plague form you get like 5k toughness. So they both can be very tanky if you want them to be. I know in sPvP necros are pretty dominating with condition builds right now. Minon Necro can be a real pain to kill too but they don’t work in all situations naturally. Honestly I love playing all professions though. I have level 80 for all 8 and leveling a second Necro for the ascetic value. Honestly you should go level them a little bit in PvP to get a feel for the profession and builds. Take them into WvW a bit to get a feel for how to use them in a group or roam. Play both, why the heck not eh.

I prefer necro over guardian simply because I like sucking the life out of enemies.

PvP needs more Guardians. Sacrifice yourself for a bunker.