Guild Wars 2

I am looking for some help in choosing a profession to play as i don’t find my current profession (elementalist with tempest auramancer build) all that much fun to play.
I have played healers and support classes in every MMO i have played. I like these roles because it is a group role i find fun to play and it also usually mean that these classes are good at soloing stuff on their own. They might not do the most dps but they can last for a long time.

I am looking for a profession that do the following well: good support, good soloing/sustain, in PVE content (map meta events and fractals mainly)
Bonus points if they don’t die all the time on champion events and such.
I do not care about PVP one bit.

I don’t need long paragraphs about the different professions but i would like to request specific information.
Saying “mesmer is really good group support” is not very helpful to me, saying “mesmer can keep alacrity up all the time” would be much more valuable input

I have played druid, elementalist and revenant all as support;
-Druid didn’t really click with me. The buffs, e.g. from pet swap, does not last for a long time and the healing mechanics are not fun at all.

-Revenant; very interesting visuals and mechanics. I hated how squishy i was though, and how having buffs up meant that i had no resources to do anything other than autoattack. Bonus points for being able to keep buffs up 100% of the time though.

-Elementalist; i have only played as an auramancer and it has been fun. Having 9 auras that all heal for a bit and give my group several buffs, while doing decent damage, is nice. I am sick of dying all the time though, particularly in the new season 3 map. I literally did nothing but die for an entire champion boss yesterday. Die, get knocked around on the ground taking me gradually from downed state until death, get resurrected, rinse and repeat.

I am not interested in the thief or the necromancer as i am not a fan of those archetypes.

I am mainly interested in learning more about guardian and mesmer support capabilities.
How do they support? Which boons do they give? Do they have 100% uptime? Does being in support builds handicap them, and how? (By handicapped i mean e.g. Revenant with legendary dragon spirit having no resource generation with all buffs up)
Are they good at soloing? (Not necessarily with the support build) By soloing i mean HoT veterans, Verdant Brink nighttime soldier escorts alone, etc.
Do they die a lot on group events, champions, etc?

Any input is highly appreciated!

Mesmers are probably the most versatile support class in the game. You have such build diversity it can give you a headache. In HoT maps I run a stun build on my Mesmer while the 2-3 other players are DPSing the mobs down via AOEs I run AOE stuns into the Pack and keep them standing still while they die. All while grabbing Might stacks + another Random boon with ‘almost’ every stun. I then have a choice to use my signet to share my boons with the rest of the party. Depending on the party make up Ill swap out Precision(I get Fury Boons a lot with stuns) for Healing Power (700~ or so) and trait from Chrono down to a the healing trait to get AOE heals on Mantra charges. So that not only I can stun my targets but I can now heal all 5 players for 2300 health on every mantra recharge.

I did all LS2 and all of HoT’s Story on my mesmer solo. So its very capable for survival. You just gotta learn the timing and not button mash. There is an elegance to be had when Playing a mesmer.

I can go on the same amount about the guardian (Dragon Hunter Really), but that’s the class I use for FoTM/Raids/Dungs. I don’t really do open world events with my Guardian. I prefer my Mesmer for that.

Have you looked into Guardian? It’s pretty good, especially after the recent patch, and it’s pretty straight-forward to play.

Edit for link to build:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_DPS/Support

Guard: Projectile Defense, Condi Clearing, Minor healing, Group Stability, Aegis, and potential perma protection.

Those would be what I’d highlight as the main things on guard. You won’t be a great main healer due to how things function and not many options for burst healing when compared to other options, but a great supplementary healer and with the other support tools you’re a great addition even if set up in a DPS build.

Worth noting that on high level fractals the fear of enemies stealing retaliation makes guardians not very well liked, they’re fantastic in other content though. Not a meta pick in most raids but viable for sure.

Mesmer: Projectile defense, condi clears, DPS buffs through quickness (near/at 100% uptime), Alacrity (only source), And boon sharing.

You also have portal and stealth options which really come in handy, you have some options for minor heal support though I wouldn’t label it a strength. Some mesmer mechanics can be a little clunky but a well played mesmer is always a pleasure to see in a group. When I say clunky I refer to say Illusionary Wardens for reflect, they can get stuck in the wrong place or just not attack because… reasons? But, overall once you get used to the quirks it’s a very fun profession with a lot of great uses.

Each decent at soloing, I’d put the guard above the mesmer in HoT content. Mesmer was one of my favorites for old pre-HoT soloing as there were many times where I could simply set up my reflect rotation and more or less afk. HoT is a bit more… on your kitten . Not as much can be trivialized through reflects, so the blinds and blocks of guardian are better, and then the passive protection buff and healing you get from various skills add up.

I personally use my mesmer/chronomancer as a tank, but even without changing a build you can easily swap a weapon and jump to the back out of trouble and spam clones to sometimes distract the opponent. Then get back in to keep the opponent off while helping the player that got downed.
But for full support, Guardian is usually the best to go with. Not too sure about a ranger/druid haven’t tried it out as a support.
Elementalist can be great for full support, just need to be sure the opponent stays away from you.

Consider some variant of the PS Warrior, too. It’s a bit expensive to get the runes/sigils… but you provide everyone many stacks of might, you also have banners and shouts depending on what you slot for utilities. You can swap from GS to mace/shield (or hammer) for interrupts/cc as needed. If you instead use bow, you can lay down a ton of fire fields.

There are other less expensive ways to make Warrior a support than PS… but there are options…. for instance if you stat for high healing power, you can put down banners for 100% regen up-time.

~EW.

Ranger can be very good for support, especially for stationary fights. frost spirit (10% damage boost, 3 stacks of might if traited), sun spirit (add burning to allies’ attacks, vigor if traited), spirit of nature (straight up heals, with stability if traited) are good if it isn’t a running battle. If you’re moving around a lot you still have spotter (extra 150 precision for everyone!), glyph of empowerment (damage boost), grace of the land (3% power/condi increase per stack from healing with CA skills), boon support from pet/warhorn, and other stuff. Even without the spirits, it still has some unique buffs that aren’t boons, and a decent amount of boon support, without sacrificing DPS.