Guild Wars 2

Returning to GW2, have not played since launch. I remember at launch Warrior could take a ton of damage and kill mobs extremely fast. Is this still true? If not what PvE profession would you recommend?

Warrior is still a very solid PvE choice, but not the absolute “best.” It is the easiest to play well, but other professions (guardian, thief, and elementalist) have been shown to outdamage it by a notable amount while bringing utilities that warriors cannot. Many organized, hardcore minmaxing groups will only have one warrior for banner buffs and fill the other spots with other classes who can bring other utilities and forms of support or higher DPS to the group. You will find many warriors in PUG groups, but that is again not because they are the “best,” but because they are the hardest to screw up on and therefore easier to play in disorganized and inexperienced groups than thieves or eles.

Also, the above paragraph is looking at things from the zerker meta PoV, which believes that the most effective group is the one that does the most damage. It is very possible to clear dungeons easily without stacking DPS, and there are a significant number of players that won’t care about speedclears. In those groups, really any class will be fine as long as you understand both it and the dungeon and play well.

tl;dr the best class will be the one you like and play best (especially considering how balance patches change the meta all the time). If warrior happens to be that class, more power to you, but any class should be fine with PvE if you understand it.

PS: And if you are into min/maxing, here’s a relevant link for you. http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84416-guide-minmax-dungeon-groups-with-any-class-composition/

Warrior is probably the simplest to play but not necessarily the best.

In PvE there’s enough flexibility that you can play any profession in any situation. Some things might be easiest or harder depending on your profession but it will never get to the point where you’re really struggling at something other professsions would find easy.

And for some people harder (or rather more complicated) is actually better. Every time I’ve tried to play a warrior I get bored fairly quickly because I feel like all I’m doing is hitting the attack keys as they come off recharge and waiting for my F1 skill to fill up. My favourites are the elementalist, engineer and ranger which are generally considered the most complicated to play (in the case of the ranger one of the most complicated to play well) because to be effective you’re constantly juggling different skills and need to use them all at just the right time.

It depends how you play the class, really. Both wars/guards are capable of sustaining heavy abuse. Wars being more forgiving and yes, harder to screw up even if you have little to no clue what your doin. Which is why most people who are new tend to roll a warrior. As I have both a war and a guard I can say I find both fun to play, both in the hands of a competent player can achieve a lot. As I main my war I obv find it more fun, but really once you use the metas for a while, rotations become..well, rotations. If you find one class boring you will likely find the other boring as well, as they are both remarkably similar combat-wise. Though sadly as it is now anything a war can do, a guard can usually do better. I’ll use an example of rotations, while I can stack slightly more vuln on my war I can also achieve this on my guard, in addition to applying blindness and partywide regen at the same time. So yeah, kinda sucks. Only thing we have to fall back on I guess are our big numbers that really don’t mean much i.e. a 47k hit on HB. Factoring in cast time and all though, that’s actually less DPS than a similarly-geared guard (from what I’ve been told at least).

To sum up I’ll list pros/cons of each.

guard:
+excellent group support
+higher DPS than wars (if correctly traited)
+more blocks/heals → slightly higher survivability
+great for pulls in dungeons
+more useful support-wise when stacking (consecrations, reflects, etc.)
-lower health pool → less forgiving in general
-not as much mobility
-less might/fury uptime
-terrible DPS support (except staff for might-stacking)

war:
+excellent DPS support
+reliable burst DPS (in a group of wars most of whom are noobs, expect high DPS)
+blocks/evades/invulns if correctly used → high survivability
+highest health pool of all classes →most forgiving, can take a couple huge hits and still remain standing
+more might/fury uptime
+excellent mobility
-less overall DPS
-less access to blocks/heals etc.
-terrible group support (except for warbanner)

Every class is good for PVE, so pick one that you like and have fun.

That said the Warrior is a solid choice if you have a good build (I like the Great Sword and Bow)

Though I also play a Mesmer and Necromancer build regularly with great success.

Have fun!