Guild Wars 2

Firstly sorry, i know there is another similar thread to mine that was posted recently but I had more questions than were being covered in that one and I didnt want to hi-jack the guys thread.

I have recently got back into GW2 after about a year and started a new thief and leveled it to 80 and I am very much enjoying it but I also want to be leveling a second class that I can play with my friends other than just the thief.
When I originally played I leveled a lot of classes to 25/30 ish but then always started again and couldnt settle on one class so getting a thief to 80 was a big deal for me, lol.

My main issue is out of the rest of the classes everytime I read the forums in the relevant class section all I can see is ppl complaining the class is bad or ppl dont let that class into dungeon groups.
Can people please give me a brief run down of like 5 most useful class/build combos in a dungeon?

My current understanding is that:-
Thief – Only good for straight DPS, must go D/D or S/D and not do conditions
Ele- Tons of builds for dungeons from what ive seen
Guardians- Tanky/support role – average damage, dont know too much about them
Warrior- Havn’t played one before but all i read is they are great in all aspects of the game

other than those 4 all I know is that Rangers, Necros and engineers arnt normally welcome in dungeon groups and that mesmers can only build for reflect and nothing else.

All information is much appreciated to help me decide what to have as my second class that will be useful to my friends and dungeon groups

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons

These guys will be able to help you a lot more

The profession forums are always full of complaining because there’s very few people who will actually take the time to come to a forum and write out a topic about something they like and don’t want changed, unless there’s rumors that it’s going to be changed.

From what I’ve seen in LFG adverts warriors and guardians are popular, particularly for speed clears and a lot of groups like to have 1 mesmer. Eles are widely accepted too.

But honestly unless you’re looking to join speed clear groups it doesn’t matter. There are plenty of groups out there who will take any professions using virtually any build. Even me playing my ranger.

Come to think of it I’ve done at least one dungeon playing my ranger with another ranger, a necro AND an engi in the same group. I forget who the 5th one was, maybe an ele?

I second Carpboy’s post, but also there’s a new initiative called Dungeon Mentors, it’s a sticky up top of the dungeon forum. It is often for new players, however we have a few mentors who teach speed runs and meta classes. We have specific mentors designated as “Meta Mentor” along with Arah mentors and general mentors. Anyone in that sub forum or in that thread can likely help you. (Except me because I’m not a meta person, I’m a casual. Lol)

I only play ele and I’m more than glad to show you about generic stuffs regarding ele in dungeons and fractals.

I think ele is easier to play than guards or med and a bit more complex than war.

Brief version:
Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist, Mesmer.

Long version:
Guardian: Condition Removal, Lots of Blind, Stability, Reflects, Protection, Aegis whilst maintaining high DPS.
Warrior: Banners (Discipline/Strenght) Party-wide Might/Fury, easy to play (thus less chance to get a warrior that drags down the team)
Elementalist: Firefields + Blastfinishers = Loads of group Might(/Fury) = More DPS from everyone, Conjured Weapons (most notabily Fiercy Greatsword)
Mesmer: Reflects, high DPS, some Stability, Condition Removal, Time Wrap, Portal to help bad pugs/skip content/group-wide mobility in certain cases. (Situational. but due to Time Wrap pugs will love you.)

More for orginized groups:
Ranger: Spotter (trait) for precision for the party and Frost Spirit. People are too scared to get a bearbow, making it really tough to pug with a Ranger.
Thief: Stealth to make certain tactical parts a joke (and skipping) perma blind, decent weakness uptime. Less effective if your team doesn’t understand what you can bring to a group. (S/P for trash, D/D or S/P for bosses) Once again have a poor name with PuGs due to people playing them selfishly or simply bad.

Quick google for what I think are up to date guides with builds included:
Guardian: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first
Warrior: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83915-axemace-dps-build-for-dungeons-and-fractals-101513/
Elementalist: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first#post3436702
Mesmer: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/83936-the-new-mesmer-meta/
Ranger: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84268-the-perfect-dps-ranger-guide-for-real/
Thief: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/87167-a-guide-to-the-thief-meta/

InBeforeHate: Yes, obviously he should play whatever he want and ofcourse there’re non-zerker, non-stacking groups.

Thank you so much for all the advice, I had a couple of those level 20 boosters so I ended up buying myself 2 extra character slots so I didnt have to delete any characters to try the other classes and tried a ranger and a warrior, the warriors bow abilities seemed a lot more fun.

That dungeon mentor things sounds good. I never got to end game the first time around that I played. Its nice to hear as well that groups that arnt speed running accept most classes, you guys have taught me more in this thread than my week of reading through the class specific forums.

Mesmer is the last class I have to try, from what I heard about them they are difficult to level till 40 and get big trait points.

Thanks for all the help and thanks for those guide links too, that was another issue I had when googling was that a lot of stuff wasnt from the current patch

The dungeon mentor thing seems amazing to be honest, I’d highly recommend that from reading the links. I was lucky enough a friend showed me end-game until I gathered the courage to pug. (Silly fear of disappointing people.)

Since I didn’t in my post, I like to stress that atleast 50% of the groupfinder parties I see don’t ask specific classes and from experience the ones that do aren’t a safe-bet either so don’t play a class you don’t like for them. If none of the groups are to your liking you can always form your own. Knowing how to deal with mechanics gets dungeons done, anything else gets it done a bit faster.

Esmee.1067:

The dungeon mentor thing seems amazing to be honest, I’d highly recommend that from reading the links. I was lucky enough a friend showed me end-game until I gathered the courage to pug. (Silly fear of disappointing people.)

Since I didn’t in my post, I like to stress that atleast 50% of the groupfinder parties I see don’t ask specific classes and from experience the ones that do aren’t a safe-bet either so don’t play a class you don’t like for them. If none of the groups are to your liking you can always form your own. Knowing how to deal with mechanics gets dungeons done, anything else gets it done a bit faster.

Agreed. I only ever play with groups that let anyone in, if I don’t see one advertised I’ll make one. I’ve never had to wait for more than about 10 minutes to get a group together.

(And oddly enough only ever encountered 1 bearbow ranger. And his problem was actually that he’d listened to his friend who advised him to buy gold and level his first character by crafting, so he was level 80, trying to get into the ‘end game’ and didn’t even know it was possible to swap pets or weapons during combat.)