Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

So i’m a new player (i bought the game about a month ago) and i still can’t choose my main class for various reasons, i was wondering if you guys could give me some advice/ideas. I’ll first explain my situation:

-My first character was a mesmer, i used the 80-boost on him. I didn’t like him for two main reasons: 1. his damage depends much on his phantasms, and i thus find it way two slow in open world PVE, for exemple there is this mob here i wanna kill, i summon a phantasm and engage him, then there is this second mob that comes at me, phantasm is still on CD, and fighting it on my own is way too slow. I do not find this fun when i’m still a new player who want to explore the world, do events etc. 2. when fighting bosses i find i’m not using much of my skills which is kinda boring (for exemple i use sword/sword, 3 and 5 summon a clone/phantasm which i don’t need to use if i’ve already got 3 phantasms, 4 is a counter which i don’t need to use if i’m not being attacked, that only leaves the auto attack, and the 2 skills which i use once every 12 seconds, this is not an “active combat”, most of the time i’m just sitting there watching my character AA, i find this boring). I know there are utility skills too but they are on longer cooldowns.

My second character is a warrior which i leveled up to level 80. While i enjoyed it way more than my mesmer, i still find it to be lacking. The utility skills are rarely used (banners on a 120s CD, so only used at the start of the fight, and i only have signets for the passive effect), and when it comes to weapons i only use the GS which i find to be the best weapon on warrior (that’s what i’ve seen in some guides too, so i’m kinda limited to 5 weapon-skills), and not all skills can be used when fighting, for exemple i only use 3 when there’s a wall behind my enemy, and ’ only when there isn’t etc.

To be honest i’m not sure what to expect from this game, it might be that all professions are like this and i just need to get used to it. I tried other classes in the pvp lobby (thief because he uses energy and no CD, but i didn’t like him that much, and revenant also but i got the impression that he mainly uses the AA when fighting, which is the same problem i had with my mesmer). I know i can’t judge a class from fighting a golem, but that’s why i came here asking for help.

If you could tell me if all professions work this way or there are some that are more “engaging” than others, and based on what i’ve already said are there any professions i might like that you could point me to ? You help would be much appreciated.

PS: i just re-read the post and realized how long it is, i apologize for that, and extra thanks for you who took the time to read it.

Archilus.4590:

or there are some that are more “engaging” than others

You might enjoy Engineer and/or Elementalist, they are by far the most engaging professions in GW2, they have TONS of skills to play with! (I prefer Engineer).

I never understood the concept of choosing a main. When I get a new game I play classes that I find interesting. Over time I grow fond of a particular class and end up playing that class more than others. I then label that a main. You don’t choose a main. A main chooses you.

In Guild Wars 1 my main was a Monk. But Guild Wars 2 had no Monk so I thought I would gravitate toward Guardian as it seemed like the closest fit. But it didn’t work out that way. I found the Guardian kinda dull so I made a Necromancer. It didn’t take me long to realize that Necro was the class for me. Necro has been my main ever since. Just have fun and let the game come to you.

Mesmer isn’t a high damage class. So that’s part of the problem. Another issue may be that you aren’t fully utilizing the class. For instance, you mention that your phantasm is on CD when a second enemy comes at you. Remember that you have a weapon swap with another phantasm on it. You also have utilities and traits which can spawn phantasms.

By the time you unlock Chronomancer, you should have no trouble keeping up a rotation of phantasms. It still won’t produce great damage, but mesmer is actually one of the more survivable classes for solo open world content.

But you wanted an alternative, so this is my suggestion:

Daredevil. It’s perhaps the most simplistic playstyle in the game, requiring only quick thinking, accurate timing, and constant movement to thrive. In contrast to most of the other classes, thieves have a lot fewer abilities to work with. I think this lends itself well to players who are experienced with MMOs, but new to GW2 (or at least, that was my experience when I signed up for GW2 7 months ago).

It’s also one of the strongest solo open world classes, in my opinion. You deal insane burst with a glass build (berserker stats), frequently taking down non-veterans almost instantly. And once you get the evasion timing down, you’re nearly impossible to kill and can escape tricky situations better than any other class. As long as you’re paying attention, you should be able to walk away from almost any fight via stealth and/or pure speed.

As a bonus, if you’re anything like me the class is tons of fun to play!

I thank you all for your answers,

I agree that trying professions myself would be the most efficient way to choose my main, but the idea of going through the whole leveling process another time just to find out i don’t actually like this or that profession is discouraging.

I will look into Daredevil, Engineer and Elementalist and try leveling one of them to see if i like it. At least now i know what to look for, i’m not just randomly picking classes.

Thank you again, i will update again when i make my choice.

You should be able to go to the sPvP lobby and attack golems while fully leveled to get a feel for how each profession plays. So you can make a level 1 or 2, do that, delete, until you find one that feels natural for you.

Please try guardian. I think it won’t disappoint. I too found warrior lacking but guardian has really nice utility and still does a lot of damage.

Hey, this is somewhat unrelated but last night I finally got my lazy self over to those training golems they have in the raid staging area and did some testing. I was surprised at some of my results!

While my daredevil’s staff raid build produced about 20% more damage fully raid buffed, by swapping out deadly arts for acrobatics (and making a couple of other minor tweaks to traits) I was able to produce better damage AND survivability for solo content.

If you decide to try daredevil, you might give this build a try for open world. I tested it out by flying in and pulling an entire shelf of those white mantle in BF surrounding the bloodstone stalagmites. I must have had 20 of those guys fighting me, it got a little dicey, but they died and I lived. That passes the solo survival test in my book any day of the week (YMMV)!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCFOhFmCOOBkmiFqiqrnCgGYu63+yfLHHsqD-TBSBwAAeCAFV+hX3wN1fioE8xFB46+DIM/RKA9UGB-e

Notes:

If you don’t need the extra stun break (you have a passive stun break in acro on a 30s cd), you can swap out bandit’s defense for extra CC or whatever you need at the moment. But if you can time the block, bandit’s defense doubles as a CC anyway.

If you have too much healing going to waste, change out invigorating precision for no quarter. This should bump your crit damage up to around 250% with about 100% fury uptime and an 80-90% crit rate. And unlike a pure damage build, you will still gain healing for initiative spent via the acro line.

You can also change out channeled vigor for signet of malice to add even more healing on offense. You lose one of your endurance refills, but you have plenty of other options for that and you get solid vigor uptime at +50% efficacy.

So i’m back after some testing, i really enjoyed playing thief and guardian (surprisingly, i wasn’t expecting it but the class is actually fun to play), i’ll play each of them again for the coming days before i make a final decision, but i’m definitely choosing one of these too.

I’ve done some WvW too (for the first time) and i liked it, so i’m gonna take this too into consideration before i make a final choice.

Thank you both again for your advices.

PS: i’m playing vanilla thief, no daredevil, so i can’t test this build right now, but i sure can see how the daredevil trait line enhance the thief gameplay. I’ll try to test it in the PvP lobby even if it’s not the same as open world.