Guild Wars 2

I have played thief, and only thief, since launch. No other characters but one thief. I’m looking into trying, for the very first time, something else. I’ve eliminated some and come up with two contenders. Necromancer vs Elementalist. I’m looking for something that has high dos, survivability, but is fun to play. No, I’m not going to play warrior/guardian.

High DPS – Both can be build to do quite a lot of DPS. Currently Elementalist is one of the best DPS-classes for PvE (Fiercy Greatsword vs walls is tough to beat, along with loads of might/fury stacking and damage modifiers.) How-ever for other Scenario’s (WvW/sPvP) I’d say they’re quite on par (mainly since Survivability becomes key.)
Survivability – Necromancers have high HP and more or less a second healthpool due to Death Shroud (if not used actively in builds can still be used as a buffer to soak up big hits.) Elementalist on the other hand have low HP, low Armor, making them very squishy, meaning they have to either gear or trait defensively to be survivable, thus reducing their damage.
Fun – That’d be completely opinion-based. I’m personally a huge fan of the Elementalist and main her in PvE (dungeons/fractals, alongside with a Guardian if heavies are needed,) but if survivability is a key-point I’d highly recommend Necromancer, who for that same reason is my main WvW-zerging toon. They’re incredibly scrappy without sacrificing too much DPS.

Necros definitely have more survivability than ele’s, if you make a dps ele, you have the potential to have the highest dps in the game, however you are going to be extremely squishy. IMO both are equally fun to play it just depends on how squishy/much damage you want to do. Necros are going to have less dps but take more hits, and ele’s are the opposite.

Since you can handle thief I would recomend ele. That or mesmer.

Necro has more survivability…but I would have to say coming from theif, you might like Elementalist far more….it is much faster paced and you can do the Dagger – dagger build which is super fast around the battle-field while still producing serious damage…much more than your thief…while also having a lot of utility. Problem is, you cannot take a hit…but that is part of the excitement also.

Elementalists require a LOT of sequenced and timed button rotations to obtain maximum DPS (and often to maintain survivability). They are a LOT of work to play well and efficiently (but they can certainly be fun to play and provide a very strong sense of accomplishment).
Necros cannot put out the sheer DPS of an Elementialist or Thief, but can certainly kill (tho a bit slower) and has better capability to survive than both. I really enjoy playing my Necro in all areas of the game (tho I don’t play him enough, to be honest).

Hope this helps you decide, but then again I could NEVER consider playing only one class for the length of time you describe….too much an Alt-aholic (I have one of each class and all but my Ele is 80).