Guild Wars 2

Hey all, I recently (in the last week) came back to this game. I have never been able to get into it but with all the changes I am really starting to like it.

My question is choosing between a mesmer and necromancer. I tried to make one of each and hop into heart of the mists to try out some stuff but it seems to have changed since I last tried (over a year ago). The weapon and armor smiths no longer have pvp gear on to try out different weapon combinations. I saw the pvp setup at the top of the screen and I could change rings and the like but not weapons.

I have a level 16 mesmer right now but seems to hit like a wet noddle even on mobs lower then me. I buy new gear every 5 levels trying to stay upto par. Does the mesmer do more later on? It’s hard because I notice you no longer get trait points until level 30 which is an odd change. I like the idea of a mesmer and think portals and mass invis could really help a group out.

As for a necromancer, I really like the idea of conditions builds and wells, but hear they are not really wanted in pve and having so few defensive skills in my mind they seem weak in that respect.

What are your experiances with both classes? I plan on doing some pve (in the other mmos I always likes dungeons) and right now I jump into wvwvw and run with a zerg and have been enjoying that. Until I am a higher level I guess I don’t know what I will be doing.

Maybe level both. I have 5 80s because I like playing different classes for different things.

Anyway, the answer to your question depends on what you want to do. If you want to do organized WvW, go necro as their well builds are vital to the offensive success of any group. If you want to do pve, mesmer is a bit better but still kind of lower tier outside of fractals as guardians outclass mesmer for the most part and mesmers have issues with low personal DPS and their phantasms that they need for damage die very easily in fights with AoE so I personally hate playing mesmer in PvE, but does have very high reflect uptime.

And if you play mesmer people will expect portals and veils so keep that in mind too. Honestly both of these classes are a bit niche and difficult for a new player to use. Id suggest warrior ele guardian or thief while you learn the game and learn what your favorite things to do are.

Necro will have more survivability while leveling due to the amounts of pets to help him.

Mesmer will be TONS more viable in dungeons. People openly welcome Mesmers as part of a group as where I have seen anti-necro (and engi/hunter) groups.

-Mesmer Portal alone is worth leveling the Mesmer.

-Time Warp in groups is awesome.

^ What nearlight said.

For dungeons, they both lack something to be really welcomed in any groups: mesmer is a full utility class with low damage outside of spreadsheets, and necro is a high damage class without utilities. Pugs will most likely take a mesmer, and some dungeon paths actually benefit from a mesmer with some portal tricks, but your personal damage will be low to average. For www, mesmer is still powerful in solo roaming with shatter/ PU cheese specs, and necros are more zerg oriented. They lack mobility and invuln to be effective in small scale.

Thanks for the replies guys! I do eventually plan on leveling both but if don’t hVe tons of time so I just want to enjoy the first experiance through then power through it a second time but have no idea when that will actually be.

I was thinking about ele to learn the game but understand it is a very hard class to pickup and do well with and everything I have read just isn’t for me.

Unhygienix.2834:

Thanks for the replies guys! I do eventually plan on leveling both but if don’t hVe tons of time so I just want to enjoy the first experiance through then power through it a second time but have no idea when that will actually be.

I was thinking about ele to learn the game but understand it is a very hard class to pickup and do well with and everything I have read just isn’t for me.

Ele is difficult because it has a lot more button pressing than most of the other professions, but from my time playing ele, I’ve noticed that the things they can do can outdo the abilities of most other professions. For example, ele has the highest PvE DPS, PvE burst, and PvP burst in the game, but for PvP/WvW, you can also spec heavily into water and arcane for healing and boons, even for leveling while you learn.

In PvE eles are useful for blasting traited fire fields to provide most of the might and fury a team would need, and their conjured weapons do extremely high burst damage against bosses. In PvP, the easiest specs are Celestial with daggers, which has a lot of boons, healing, and team support. I like the scepter builds better since they have a higher skill cap and their burst damage is 2nd to none. Staff is also great in coordinated groups becuase it has so many useful combo fields and the highest ranged sustained AoE damage in the game.

I like all of the classes, except for warrior and engineer, and they all perform pretty well for most things if you know what you’re doing, however in their current state, necromancers aren’t good for high end PvE, but are great for WvW/GvGs, whereas for engineers and rangers the opposite is true.