Guild Wars 2

I used the search function to look at some info and I saw a few comparison posts on some professions. What I am interested in is information (or a site that provides it) on how the professions generally play.

Since there is no specific Tank or Healer class I am a little lost on what to play. I usually role one or both of those. I do have a basic understanding that all the professions are supposed to be able to do damage, some support, some defense and some crowd control. But, I also imagine each profession has it’s stronger points.

I have played 5 of them (thief, ele, mesm, engi and necro) to only the teens to try and at least get a feel for combat and how their skills and traits fit with the style. What I’ve come up with so far is I’m a kiting fool with all of them and it seems like I can set them up for good damage builds (not sure on conditions yet).

Looking for the info so I can determine a primary profession to play. I’ll keep piddlin’ around with what I’ve got, but right now I’m not sure on any of them for my primary.

Thanks in advance.

You can tank in this game with a hammer guard and PVT armor. You can heal with a staff ele in water attunment.

I’ll try to capture the strong points of each character given that I have all professions at 80 and ran dungeons with them as well as played 10+ pvp games with them each. However, I haven’t tried many builds with all of them, I just chose the one I preferred the most—but I should be able to capture their potential.

Warrior: Greatest damage dealer (don’t let anyone tell you any differently). Can be geared for good offensive support with banners and shouts—but PvE wise if you nail down the dodging skills, warriors are most effective as zerkers; although some good warriors still do support with banners or shotus.
Weakness: Conditions. Very low access to condition removal.

Guardians: Really balance classed in the offensive and defensive aspect. Really good in control and mobbing. Can be geared to tank really well against enemies (and I mean your standing their and tanking as opposed to kiting). They have one of the most effective utilities so they work well in all scenarios. PvE and WvW wise, guardians are one of the best for difficult content due to their versatility.
Weakness: Low hp. But not really.

Mesmers: Tricky classes. Their shatter skills are really useful in various scenarios. You can become invulnerable, you can daze, you can cause confusion. Your illusions can help you confuse enemies. And they can provide the most offensive support with the beloved elite skill time warp. If you face any boss and you want to get the job done faster. Time warp is the best elite skill for that. Also, mesmers have portals which can help in indefinite ways of carrying your members through difficult jump puzzles or obstacles. Mesmers are great in all areas of the game. Portals work wonders in wvw. Time warp works wonders in pve. And shatters work wonders in pvp.
Weakness: Squishy if you don’t master distortion and dodges.

Thief: If you master stealth, thieves can be the best ‘ressing’ classes out there. The most useful thing amount a thief is their stealth mechanic and being able to get allies when they are down or using stealth to cloak allies through enemies you are just not in the mood for. They can deal heavy direct damage as well if built right or heavy condition damage in retrospect. Thieves shine in pvp because you can stealth gimp inexpericed players or oblvious players. Thieves are good in PvE as well due to great dps and stealth ressing, but you really need to learn how to dodge.
Weakness: Squishy if you don’t master stealth and dodges.

Necro: Great survivability with siphoning (although it could be better) and Death Shroud is like a 2nd life. If you play minions, you can survive really well. If you play wells, you can do some good aoe dps. If you are a fan of damage dealing, power necros with wells can do some great damage. Also, their easy access to fear can save your life in some bad cases of the knock downs.
Weakness: Not a lot of support potential.

Eles: Attunements galore. They have really great supports per attunement with a staff. And you can become almost indestructable with bunker builds with double daggers. They are probably the most OP class in pvp currently with bunker d/d. Their ice bows are useful for destroying envinronment structures (can be very helpful in the ascalon dungeon) and they can provide support heals and massive aoes.
Weakness: Squishy if not bunker d/d and you do not know how to use their heals

Ranger: Using traps and pets, rangers can handle quite a few stuff. Thier access to pets can be very good for different situations. They have one of the best range (1500 dist with longbow). And their search and resuce utility can be useful for really dire moments.
Weakness: Not really good in anything, Pet can be dumb and a hinderance sometimes (draws unecessary aggro or just dies due to its inability to dodge or be stowed.

Engineer: Has access to a lot of different utilities and kits. Kits can give you access to new skills without swapping cooldowns. They also have 1500 range with grenades. Has access to various cc skills, support. They are pretty flexible and work well in range.
Weakness: Not very high in damage.

Yeah you can’t tank and shouldnt try to tank or main heal.
Every class MUST be able to use Damage/Control/Support in combat to stay self-effeciant and coordinating with your team in dungoens is vital.

I would highly recommend avoiding anyone who claims to Tank, because they most likely will be the first to die. Just because you can take some hits, doesnt mean you should.

My (Guide) should help explain that, it also has video attachment on it. =)

A good way to get a feel for a class is to take it to PvP, where you are instantly lvl 80 with all skills and trait points unlocked.

As you’ve picked weaker armoured professions you will find that most of your levelling will be kiting/trying to mitigate every single hit.

You are right in saying that there is no specified trinity in the game, however in my experience the only classes that can tank whilst maintaining a higher DPS than other classes are the heavies, being guardian and warrior, most other professions will simply keel over after holding aggro for over 10 seconds, unless they’ve greatly punished their damage potential. As for the healer, guardian and staff elementalists are good, and to a lesser extent warrior and engineer (thief has little to no self/group heal abilities.)

So from the sounds of it Guardian is right up your alley, however they seem to be quite in abundance in this game as they’re one of the easiest classes to play. It’s pretty uncommon to be in a dungeon group that doesn’t have a Guardian already in it.

This is only my opinion and I’m sure people will say otherwise, but these professions IMO are the only ones that can pull it off without completely crippling the other aspects. What you generally expect from the classes you’ve picked is:
Thief: brutal DPS, doesn’t matter if they’re squishy, they should spend their time behind the boss.
Ele: Solid healing and damage with the staff, or even better damage weaving through mobs with daggers.
Mesmer: Skillful use of portals and Time Warp… That’s about it…
Engi: Devastating damage with the grenade kit, I mean absolutely devastating…
Necro: Idunno lol, I’ve never played as one or run with too many to get a grasp of what they actually do… Generally I just see them sitting miles away occasionally turning into the Grim Reaper.

Thanks you three!

After reading Dreamy’s guide and realizing I’ve been looking at this game like it was your standard MMO, which was wrong. And now reading what Arc has written places me in a much better starting point than where I was.

@Dolan thanks for the advice on trying the classes in the mists. I did try that and I think at first it confused me more having not leveled with those skills it never “felt” right. I think I’ll go back again and see if it “feels” right. And you may be right about the Gurdian. I was purposefully ignoring them for now, trying something else

Lot of good info to digest, thanks y’all.

I wouldn’t recommend going to the mists yet. Mists isn’t bad if you have some experience on the character, but being instant 80, figuring out what weapons work well together, what trait points to use, what armor stats, what jewel stats, what runes are best, what minor and major traits to use, is a little overwhelming.

As people have said, you can’t really tank, however, you can be more or less ‘tanky’ with certain characters and builds.

As far as healing goes, that’s not really a great option. The reason is because most things that kill you in PvE are one or two hit kills. However, Guardians might be the best at this along with providing Aegis which blocks 1 attack. Engineers have decent healing grenades and the water attuenement for eles provides some minor healing + regeneration.

As far as ‘tanking’ your best classes are going to be guardian, warrior, necromancer, and ele. Most guardian builds are suitable, defensive warrior builds are suitable (although most dungeon parties prefer offensive warriors w/ shouts or banners), necromancers pretty much have only one viable build which is conditions + high survivability, and eles have a very nice D/D build that dances attuenements to have pretty much constant boon upkeep, focusing on regen and protection + auras.