Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone.

I started to play this game couple of weeks ago and I love it! I leveled my warrior and guardian to lvl 65 and although I know it would be nice to get them to 80 first I can’t help myself from thinking that maybe another profession will be more suitable for me. I’m thinking about light armor profession and can’t make up my mind.

So… what caster profession would you recommend mainly for open world and PvE (maybe with some WvW in a future, but I’m not a fan of any kind of PvP) that will be reliable especially post patch? I’m somewhere between casual and very active player and don’t have time to level 3 of them as quick as I would like to, so I seek the help from players that know these classes very well.

If you care about dungeons, Ele > Mes. Don’t even look at Necro. And if you’re thinking of playing caster to be ranged DPS, abandon your hopes and dreams now. Ranged DPS will only limit your ability to grow as a player in the long run.

If you only play open world it really doesn’t matter what you run, everything is easy enough.

I know this probably isn’t what you’re looking for but for open world PvE – any of them really. Which one do you like the look of best? That’s the one you should choose.

I love all of my Scholar Professions. Necro is really good fun to play and has a load of health; Ele is brilliant for just nuking everything in sight and Mesmer has some really nice utilities and some fun weapons (mainhand sword is awesome!).

All 3 are welcome in WvW as well so choose which you like the look of best and go with that one.

Right now I’m between Ele and Mesmer. Have both on lvl 12. I like Ele with 2 daggers, looks awesome, but I’m tired of jumping between attunements a little bit (blame my one click warrior for that). I like fighting with Mesmer, but I’m discouraged by all builds recommending greatsword (I already spent hours playing guardian and warrior with greatsword).

No worries Mesmer has other weapons. Sword for melee with Sword/Focus/Torch off hands, Scepter for ranged with Sword/Focus/Torch off hands or Staff as another ranged weapon. I personally prefer Sword/Sword with second set as Scepter/Focus. When traited focus offers some nice reflect skills.

Can’t help you with the Ele issue as I love swapping between attunements on my Double Dagger Ele. Place a fire field, swap to earth, blast with skill #4 to get some might then attack.

With my Staff Ele I am lazier. It usually involves place Lava Font, drop Meteor Shower, watch critters die, but when needed I can be more focused.

AdaephonDelat – did you bind F1-F4 somewhere else on keyboard?

I think I might be lazy with attunements cause functional keys on my keyboard are two times smaller then normal ones and it’s hard to click them. I was thinking about rebinding them somewhere else and give my Ele a shot.

I’ve got a mesmer and an ele and the best way to get used to swapping weapons is to do it while leveling. You’re meant to swap, so if you want to play ele you should get used to swapping attunements. Other classes are meant to swap weapons.

I leveled my mesmer with greatsword and I loved it, but if you hate it that much, sword/X is really way faster at killing mobs.

Most all classes are welcome anywhere else but PvE dungeons. I don’t even do them myself because if you read the forums, dungeon runners are generally completely rabid and elitist about their groups. If you’re not full berserker, best spec for your party, and one of the highest dps classes, they don’t want you there.

Eles and warriors are pretty much the highest dps for dungeons right now so if you’re wanting cloth, I’d recommend you go with the ele instead of the mesmer.

No I haven’t changed them around yet. I’ve thought about it but not sure how I’d lay them out yet. My F1-F4 are also quite small but I’ve gotten use to where they are so hitting them is quite easy.
Does your mouse have multiple buttons? You could try binding the F1 – F4 skills to 1 to 4 and put the 1 – 4 skills on the mouse buttons. Or put the F1-F4 buttons on the mouse. Play around with what’s more comfortable to you.

Grace.6074:

Most all classes are welcome anywhere else but PvE dungeons. I don’t even do them myself because if you read the forums, dungeon runners are generally completely rabid and elitist about their groups. If you’re not full berserker, best spec for your party, and one of the highest dps classes, they don’t want you there.

I’d disagree with this. I don’t run any meta builds (knowingly) and very few bits of beserker armor and I run some dungeons most days. Just make your own LFG and ask for people like yourself. In my case it’s “PX any welcome”.

switching from warrior to Ele is quite a jarring change, since they are opposites in many ways. when you play warrior you get used to using spamming 1 or 2 skills and not doing much else. The ele is quite different, you really have to play smarter if u want to stay alive, and constnatly switch attunements. One or two direct hits is enough to down an ele, however a warrior might still be standing. The tradeoff is you get more tools to survive if u know to use them (heals, reflects, invuln), you deal better dps (usually) and can stack about 5x as much might/fury as a warrior. Not to mention conjured weps which adds more variety to the class. The only advantage of mesmer over ele, at least in dungeons I guess, is portals and time warp. But usually ele is more useful, if used right.

Grace.6074:

Most all classes are welcome anywhere else but PvE dungeons. I don’t even do them myself because if you read the forums, dungeon runners are generally completely rabid and elitist about their groups. If you’re not full berserker, best spec for your party, and one of the highest dps classes, they don’t want you there.

Eles and warriors are pretty much the highest dps for dungeons right now so if you’re wanting cloth, I’d recommend you go with the ele instead of the mesmer.

Most EU LFG around midday/afternoon tend to ask for Mesmers more often than Elementalist. Likely since a lot of people are stuck in the CoF p1-farm, where you’d want 4 Warriors, 1 Mesmer. Though there’re ‘Full zerker, ping gear, 5k+ AP etc’ groups, I see plenty of groups forming with ‘Anyone Welcome’ or at the most ‘80s only!’ You shouldn’t be discouraged just because certain players prefer running with favour of the month classes. No reason to discourage people just because not every single group has the anyone-welcome mentality.

As for the OP:
In WvW all Scholars are in a good position. Necromancers are very useful with their Wells, Marks (Staff) and Plague Form (once traited you can spam blind and chill) in zergs. They’re not in the strongest position for roaming though. Mesmers provide amazing utility to a zerg in the forms of Veil (invisibility for the whole zerg) Portal (many uses) and Time Wrap. In the actual fights you’re not doing much more than trying to tag and pull people of walls with Temporal Curtain (focus.) Your usual weapons will be Staff (survivability purposes) Sword/Focus (or Scepter if you prefer.) Greatsword is very situational but can replace the Staff for more offensive play. Mesmers make great roamers with their stealth and clones. Elementalist usually provides fields (Fire for offense, Water for Healing) when the Commander asks for them and has plenty of CC to mess up a Zerg (Static Field from Air and Earth 4-5) They make decent roamers aswell.

In Dungeons/Fractals Necromancers are currently in a less beloved place, they have little blast-finishers, no cleave and no desired Fields, which currently makes them fall out of the meta, but they are rather easy to play and many groups welcome anyone. Elementalist is very beloved due to Fiercy Greatsword and situationally Frostbow for high damage and their potention to either deal huge amounts of damage and stack a bit of Might with perma Fury or stack tons of might at a slight personal DPS-loss. Mesmers are also very beloved due to their Reflects (Feedback, iWarden (focus, traited) and Temporal Curtain (focus, traited) which caused a lot of damage aswell as party protection. Be aware that Elementalist feel rather squishy compared to Warrior/Guardian, or any class really.

For Open-world any class does the job just fine. Elementalist is a bit squishy but deals huge damage (in AoE) If attunement swapping is an issue you can chose to use Staff, where it’s generally preferred to stay on fire and spam 1 + 2. How-ever I recommend using the friendly envoirment of Open-world PvE to get used to attunement swapping. Mesmer has a build-up on damage and limited AoE (Though once you get used to Sword/Focus you can get a far way with iWardens AoE and your cleave.) Don’t feel you have to use Greatsword, I see a lot of Mesmers do but I have no idea why, it’s a very situational weapon. Little survivability compared to Staff, low DPS in most situations compared to Sword, a weak Phantasm, average at most AoE, though it removes a boon. The only advantage is that it’s a Ranged weapon that can’t be reflected (except skill 2) very, very situational (I love it in early morning WvW though.) Necromancer is likely the friendliest for Open-world. Huge HP-pool along with an additional Health bar in the form of Death Shroud with plenty of AoE (Wells especially) to quickly dispatch mobs.

Hopefully this can give you some insight on what you’d like from a class and which would fit you the most.

I personally prefer mesmer. Ele is rather weak in the current meta but for PvE you can make it work if you want. Don’t listen to the people that say necro isnt worth it, necro is a strong enough class. Mesmer over necro is just my personal preference.

That being said theres a big patch coming on the 15th that is introducing new traits so that elementalist might suddenly become really good or the necro might suddenly get a few buffs that make them even better.

Thanks guys for all responses.

Esmee, this is by far the most helpful and detailed for my needs response. I’m noting it down

I started to play warrior and guardian cause people recommended these classes for newbies. Now I would like to play something more challenging in meantime. I think I’ll try Mesmer and if I won’t like it I will try Ele. From all your descriptions Mesmer I get that is better to play Mesmer after Warrior.

Esmee.1067:

You shouldn’t be discouraged just because certain players prefer running with favour of the month classes. No reason to discourage people just because not every single group has the anyone-welcome mentality.

I’m on US servers, and it may be different. Just peeking at the actual dungeon forums here though or any dungeon/fractal based thread in the profession forums is completely discouraging for anyone who hopes to possibly get into them.

In any case, to the OP…it’s going to come down to what you like playing more, sometimes it takes a bit to find “your” class. My first class in this game was an ele and even though I leveled it with someone else, I rarely play it since I still have bad memories about how awful it was to level for me. I felt like I could look at a mob and fall over dead. I was that bad at it. Then I rolled mesmer and loved it and had no problem surviving and killing whatever I wanted, even though I heard others complain that they died all the time as a mesmer or they couldn’t kill anything. You just need to find what you like and play the best.

Googling some leveling guides for the class you want to take can be helpful too, as what works best for solo play is often much different than the meta for party-based play.

A tip because a bunch of mesmers say it’s hard to level at early levels, use the scepter. It breaks PvE AI until you can actually get better armor.

neelith.5613:

AdaephonDelat – did you bind F1-F4 somewhere else on keyboard?

I think I might be lazy with attunements cause functional keys on my keyboard are two times smaller then normal ones and it’s hard to click them. I was thinking about rebinding them somewhere else and give my Ele a shot.

I like both elementalist and mesmer, mesmer being my favorite.

I have the same problem with function keys so have switched things around:

z is my swap weapon because I use ` in my various voice programs
x, c, v and b are my F1 – F 4
“g” is my dodge because v replaces F3 (although I use double tap s, q, w and e to dodge)

I’m on a Mac so my mouse does not have the same functionality of the Windows mouse or I might have set up my keys differently.

neelith.5613:

Thanks guys for all responses.

Esmee, this is by far the most helpful and detailed for my needs response. I’m noting it down

I started to play warrior and guardian cause people recommended these classes for newbies. Now I would like to play something more challenging in meantime. I think I’ll try Mesmer and if I won’t like it I will try Ele. From all your descriptions Mesmer I get that is better to play Mesmer after Warrior.

Glad you didn’t pass out by viewing the wall of text I put down for you. I really hope you’ll find the class that’s right for you!

Some small tips that could have helped me when I started out my scholars:
- If you feel you die a lot try summoning a clone or phantasm before you attack (they die quickly, but as long as they get their first attack of that’s ok for now, the mob doesn’t tend to live long enough for a second to hit.) For Elementalist it helps having an Elemental around, just to take some fire of you.

- If you feel your damage is lacking, buy some (different) +10 power runes from the TP, they range between 16-50 copper and give you a huge buff on early levels.

- Struggle with weapon/attunement swapping, try to use a similar rotation to get used to whilst learning the cooldowns. For Mesmer I start of with a clone, then I tend to summon my Phantasm (every weapon has 1) swap and summon another, kind of straight forward (PS: I run Sword/Sword, Sword/Focus, so swapping only affects my phantasms, find something that works for you!)
For Elementalist it’s very weapon dependant, but most weapons start in Fire to put down a Firefield and then go to Earth where most of the blast-finishers are. A dagger/dagger rotation could look something like this: Fire #3 -> Fire #4 (Firefield) -> Fire #5, swap to Earth, Earth #4 (blast-finisher) -> Earth #3 (2x) -> Earth #2, swap to Air -> Air #4, Air #3, auto-attack in air. Though in most cases the mob dies before you get to go into Earth. :p Ye, Elementalist can be a bit complicated, but I find them very rewarding.

And it’s very important for almost any class to make your f1-4 skills easy accessible. I’d recommend finding a nice keybind for them. I can’t recommend anythough though since I personally use: 1-5 for skills 1-5, crtl + 1-4 for F1-4 abilities, Heal is on R, Utilities, Dodge, Interact, etc is all on my 12-button mouse.

Grace.6074:

I felt like I could look at a mob and fall over dead. I was that bad at it. Then I rolled mesmer and loved it and had no problem surviving and killing whatever I wanted, even though I heard others complain that they died all the time as a mesmer or they couldn’t kill anything. You just need to find what you like and play the best.

That is almost exactly how I feel now. While playing Ele I’m concentrating on switching attunements so hard that I’m getting a lot of damage. After checking Ele I played Mesmer and she feels much better for my taste. Some dodging, blinking and kiting is a must but it’s fun. I will stick with it for a while.

Lazuli, I was thinking about binding x, c, v and b but B key feels a little bit far from movement keys so I gave up on that.

My experience:

Open world easiness- necro>Mesmer>elementalist
Dungeon desirability- elementalist>Mesmer>necro

Lol, yea. They’re all completely fun and viable in open world PvE. I personally enjoy the Mesmer because I’m not hampered by the long cooldowns as with Ele and it’s more dynamic than necro. Plus, it’s got lots of build options.

I agree with Seras.
I found nerco’s to be great for open world because of the minions you can use as cannon fodder and the quick health stolen from enemies.
Second is the Mesmer and the same reason that Seras stated.

People who dont know what to rebind profession skills to:

F1 → Shift+1
F2 → Shift+2

etc

The easiest keybinds imo are always using a key you press often and changing the qualifier (Shift, CTRL, ALT).