Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. I bought gw2 at launch but I left for the Navy a week after and didn’t get to play much. Anyways Im back now with lots of free time and I want to get back into it. I’l be playing alone so I’m looking for the best solo class their is. If you can tell me for both pvp and pve that’d be great.
Thank you

First time through, go with a Ranger. The pet tanks mobs for you so you don’t die very often.

Alternately, I found a heal-specced Guardian to be pretty invincible while leveling.

Thief.

Azure Prower.8701:

Thief.

As a new player who’s so far played mesmer, thief and warrior, I can only say I hope that was some weak attempt at humor.

Of the three the warrior is by FAR the easiest to get into, understand and survive while playing.

mtpelion.4562:

First time through, go with a Ranger. The pet tanks mobs for you so you don’t die very often.

Alternately, I found a heal-specced Guardian to be pretty invincible while leveling.

I’m not too nooby when it comes to MMO’s..
In Wow I was glad multiple seasons as a Warrior. Was thinking of going warrior but I have no clue how they do in gw2

Defeye.9487:

I’m not too nooby when it comes to MMO’s..
In Wow I was glad multiple seasons as a Warrior. Was thinking of going warrior but I have no clue how they do in gw2

Warriors are OK for leveling solo, since they have heavy armor and deal a lot of damage. I actually found Elementalists to be pretty easy as well, since they can stance dance their way out of a lot of problems.

I’m still going to say that Rangers are the number one solo class.

CAVEAT: I’m talking PvE.

Warr is the best class in gw2 , for solo or anything . Also best mobility , you can runn across the maps pretty quickly to lvl up.

Leave a slot open on your character list, that is your pvp slot. You can play any class at any time, there is no need to strangulate yourself to locking in on levelling to 80 just to pvp on any class.

For PvE/WvW the matter of choice is more about you what like to play, what you like to accomplish, what tolerances you have to “death”. Even if you play solo you can float: be a solo roamer, a small group roamer team, or join the zerg. All while unpartied if you wish. This is how I WvW, so I can afk when I want, exit game when I want, etc. I don’t feel compelled to continue to play on just because I might “let others down”.

Any class can be a floater, soloer, roamer. Quick over view on WvW:

Mesmer: isn’t the fastest class on the battlefield, no perma 25% speed unless you get runes for that. It’s a personal play style class, it requires a bit more skill than the most basic faceroll possible classes.

Thief: Great soloer, has uses in small group and roaming bands, lacks on Zerg potential unless you play it as a sweep the back line ganker, which is really a soloer in reality.

Ranger: Can run with zerg, bow ranger doesn’t have the greatest survivability unless in the back line. Bunker rangers can solo, roam, float.

Engineer: High skill level required to pull off effectively when solo or small group roam/float.

Necromancer: Can do everything but lacks in mobility. Fairly strong class.

Elementalist: Can do everything, zerg, solo, roam, float. Tends to be squishier than some other choices.

Guardian: Can do everything, wanted by any group.

Warrior: Can be facerolled. Can do virtually everything this game has available. Most balanced/strong class in most people’s opinions.

The above is just my comments, others may disagree or provide more clairty.

As someone who has played and leveled every profession a bit, I’d tip my hat to the warrior. Currently, they have it all and then some. They do well in any aspect of the game and are easy to get into.

Good post above. My first GW2 class (after capping all GW1 content with the same class) was Ranger and that seems to be the most forgiving in terms of not needing to know the nuances right away and letting you learn them as you play. It has good ranged capabilities and with the right weapons / pet skills you can usually keep away the mobs that want to get in your face and do some thumping. They’re medium armor though, so you should adopt the mindset that you can’t really toe-to-toe like the melee classes (Warrior and Guardian).

As for other classes, I’ve capped the Engineer (a joy to play but the huge number of options may be a lot to pick up right off the bat) and Thief (toughest to cap for me so far but the most fun I’ve had playing GW2, once I got my builds to work the way I envision playing the class).

I’ve gotten my Warrior and Mesmer up to mid 60’s and they are fun – Warrior is good for thumping and the Mesmer has some nice combo field skills. I’ve got a Guardian and Necro that haven’t seen much action but I ‘birthday scrolled’ them up to 20th so I’ll at least have some tools to let me learn the class. My brothers have capped both classes and say they’re a lot of fun.

Hope that helps!

I have leveled every class, and I will say my favorite is the Guardian with Vitality/Toughness/Healing Power for solo play. also the ranger is a good choice.

Magmorel.7806:

I want a class that does well in PvE and is generally wanted for dungeons and stuff. But can also hold their own when it comes to PvP/WvW

And hearing that elementalists are just super squish and die wicked easily i dont even want to bother with them.

I want a class that is capable of dealing high amounts of damage, and still having some decent survivability wether it be from evasivness, to just general defense.

And i hear a lot of good things about Warrior but they just have no depth, its like a ok i run in and swing my weapon for days and use a couple shouts/stances and thats it. no real strategy.

I like being able to outplay my apponent and do crazy things some people might not expect.

Just if anyone can help me find a class that fits these at least a little bit it would help a lot.

It’s funny how you’re bashing on warriors, but they’re actually one of the few classes that best fits your criteria :P

You’re not the 1st to feel that warrior is a boring class either. Most people are of the same opinion, and the number of wars running around swinging GS and spamming hundred blades probably adds credence to this. There was a similar topic discussoin and my post can be found here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Which-is-the-best-funnest-GW2-class/first#post3211125

Basically, once you become experienced enough (with the mechanics of the game really, not ncessarily with your class) you will find that no class is really ‘boring’. This is because you are free to experiment with new weapons, skills, and approaches. Yes, the bread and butter of warriors in dungs is to faceroll GS 2/3, provide banners and shouts to aid group effort. But its a lot more than that, for instance when you go up against hammer warriors in WvW you will see how deftly they stack stuns/KDs/bleed/cripple/knockbacks not to mention their insane speed and mobility. In the case of dungeons, warriors do actually weapon swap quite often, instead of simply running around with GS all the time (at least the good ones do). I’ll use TA as an example, since that’s where I wep swap the most: shield can be used to run through the blossoms and block the spider boss’s AoE (its actually quite handy). Sword mainhand is useful in running through trash mobs, offhand it can be used to block wurms periokittennockbacks (HOW this was censored??) as well as safely run through bubbles that would otherwise down you (and usually down others who try to).

I would also recommend a guardian. They are on par with warriors when it comes to dungeons, if not better. I’ve also heard that guard DPS is better than warriors but I honestly don’t believe that. I will say that as I do have an 80 guard, I find its a little easier on my guard due to accessibility to more blocks and heals, but a skilled warrior can use his extra evades/mobility to make up for this.

I’m also currently leveling an ele (still kinda low level) and while it is indeed very squishy if you don’t know how to use it right, it is very rewarding when you become proficient with it. I would just say you need more skill to really play an ele well, as compared to playing a warrior well. One slip up and you could very well die.

Warrior is the best for solo at the moment because they can be very diverse. I played warrior as my first class and played it for 8 months. However, they are easy to play, a bit boring, and is the most played class.

Now I play Guardian and regret not rolling this as my first character. As previously mentioned you can build a heal-spec Guardian and surviving will be very easy. You also have the ability to focus on DPS and use more defense utilities to survive. The Guardian requires more skill than a Warrior if you want to excel and to be hones is more fun. As a warrior stunning and using 100 blades is fun for the first few levels but then it becomes repetitive.

I play Solo Eng, Thief, Guardian, ELE, Necro. Any class can be played solo as long as you focus on skills that do a good amount of AOE. I found Thief the hardest to get to started but once I sorted out the class (around lvl 25) It became really easy to solo most groups/ and champions. My advice is to find a class that you enjoy, take a look at a character builder online and plan out your build ahead of time. My guardian is the simplest to solo I don’t even have max dmg weapons and mow down almost everything in ORR without issue. Eng, focused on toughness and turrets so dealing dmg can feel slow at times but it is do-able. Necro use minons to take the dmg,
Thief – keep moving
ELE- there are a good amount defensive skills to desquishfy them.
Oddly enough have not yet sorted out the the ranger in a solo situation. I found the Ranger traits and skills were heavily focused on support. And the Mesmer well not my thing so there he sits at lvl 7…

So after that long winded explanation, Find a class that you enjoy playing and you will find a class you can solo

The appropriate selection

Warrior, Thief, or Guardian.

Warrior – is the best class overall, amazing for dungeons, best for clearing maps, solid for pvp and can be outstanding in WVW.

Guardian – is a beast. Absolute beast. Personally, I think the Guardian PVE wise is even more OP than the Warrior, to the point I actually dont like using it. They can mitigate damage extremely well while maintaining solid (even better than warrior with a certain build) dps. Also, ALWAYS wanted in a party because of the support they bring via reflect, might stacking, damage reduction.

Thief – is a monster. once you master blinds and stealth there is very little you cant solo. Damage is high, survivability is high. Not as easy to use at first as warrior and guardian, but just as good. Sword and Pistol thief or PVE is absolute. In WVW …. ill let you figure that out yourself.

A taste of wisdom

Mesmer – is my personal favorite. Support and damage all wrapped into one. Think if this class as the … Magi Thief. This is a horrible class to start off as IMO but its an amazing class if you like a challenge or just being unique. Good HP pool helps a lot for that early level grind. Really doesnt show its potential until you hit level 60-80 and use good gear. Only downsides are lack of AOE, no 25% movement speed without gear, and its actually a weak class damage wise. To get damage on par with other classes, you will need to use all damage (berserker/assassin) gear. On the flip side, mesmers survive very well due to their clones and evades that its not difficult to survive without toughness.

Elementalist – my original class and I still love it. A lot of people will tell you they suck, others will say theyre just complicated, others will sing the gospel. Overall, they can do everything in PVE and WVW. You MUST learn how to use a staff well, and off hand Dagger to maintain effectiveness. Main hand dagger of scepter is up to you. Great support, great damage, great aoe, good speed. Squishiest class though, so again, learning curve.

Necromancer – amazing. really no other words for it. Tankiest light armor class and can dish it out well. Not a good class to start with as youre going to mess with utilities a lot and that can be annoying in the beginning. However, def a class to come back too as your 2nd or 3rd. Also, one of the few classes where ALL of the weapons are viable in different situations.

Engineer – im mixed on this. I … I want to tell you to make this class first simply because of how awesome it is to run around with grenades bombs and rifles. I also think (IMO) that engi is best WVW class hands down. They are the jack of all trades class. They play similar to an ele where you need to know the class inside out. I really dont suggest making this until you know the game well; dungeons, pve zones, events, wvw, pvp. Once you know the enemy, engineer can tactically dismantle everything.

I like you, why would I let you do this???

Ranger- sucks. yep I said it. I LOVE the Ranger and it might be my 3rd most used class but.. its not good. Completely viable in PVP WVW and PVE, but you will be the stinky kid in class. no one will tell you that youre not wanted in the party (a huge reason is besides sucking, Rangers are very very popular). Their 1hs lacks control (you will understand) but its mighty mighty strong. From Range, Warrior Longbow has Ranger Longbow beat. Their ranged damage is decent, nothing to go crazy about. They have useful utilities to increase party defense and offense, also they have one of the best healing skills for the party in the game, if not the best. Why do they suck? Because of their pets. IF (and this is a huge IF) you can accept that the Pet is just there to add extra damage and woohoo its alive yay than you might reallllly enjoy the Ranger. However, if youre looking for effectiveness and the kind of person that micro managers (which just so happens to be a lot of Ranger people in their forum) the pet will make you angry and want to kill. Their main hand axe is borderline useless. Nice skills, weak in both condition and power damage. Traiting for arrows to pierce hurts, no reason for it to be a Grandmaster trait, destroys your traiting. Basically, a melee Ranger does work well, but you might as well roll Guardian which does EVERYTHING better.

As a player with all 8 classes…

The best solo class is the mesmer, period… if you do it right you have an infinite amount of health points, and as long as you’re not fighting players, AI mobs can’t tell the difference between you and your clones. Before the update that gave world bosses timers, I took down every single world boss except the Shatterer, Dwayna and Jormag solo, and I routinely solo WvW camps without going below 75% hp as a mesmer. However it’s also the second most involved class when understanding what your skills do is concerned – if you just spam all your skills as they come off cooldown, you will die very fast.

The most involved class would be the elementalist, but it doesn’t have the kind of insane survivability a mesmer does, even though it does roughly double the amount of damage to compensate for that. The elementalist is also simultaneously the highest skill-floor and highest skill-ceiling class, in addition to needing planning. But the elementalist is far more potent in groups where its might buffing and AoE heals/condition removals actually help someone else as well. While the mesmer is a better soloist, the elementalist is the strongest PvE class in the game, and one of the strongest in WvWvW/PvP behind the permastealth thief and mesmer; its potential is balanced by a high skill floor – so most elementalists you see generally won’t be much of a threat. Still… granted that the skill floor of an elementalist is way above the average GW2 player, the vast majority playing it will die and die badly, giving it the ‘squishy’ reputation it has.

If your skill level is low, Guardians and Warriors are the easiest to use – or to rephrase, the hardest to die in, where Warriors tend to level a bit faster. But they’re not as ‘good’ in soloing… Warriors require 25x might buffing from Guardians or Elementalists to reach their proper potential. Many attempt to compensate with full berserker gear, but unfortunately, most of them are downed too often for that gear to achieve the DPS it could have.

Thieves have very high damage per second on a single target and have stealth, but suck at AoE damage – something that severely impacts their solo potential. There will be some things you find you can’t do against bosses that summon way too much.

Avoid Engineers and Rangers. The current balance mechanic makes it such that both are underpowered. Engineers have a skill floor second only to Elementalists for proper use, though planning isn’t as much of a factor. Rangers in particular have really bad skills for melee combat, while Engineers don’t have any melee options at all. The stronger points of the engineer are all inferior to the Elementalist, and the stronger points of the Ranger are all inferior to the Guardian and Necromancer, depending.

Lastly, necros work better with condition damage and AoE. Their single target spike damage is somewhat limited, but they work relatively well as soloists… just not as good as Elementalists or Mesmers. They’re about in the same category as Warriors and Guardians, but will level slower than warriors and are somewhat less survivable than Guardians.

I’m still waiting for an overdue buff on Engineers and Rangers…

Tl;dr to OP – To be safe, in your case I’d recommend a mesmer first – if you find it easy, move on to ele; if you find it hard, move on to Guardian.

I’ve leveled each class to 80 (almost all solo’d) and they’re all fully kitted but the class to stay away from solo is definately the ele. Until they fix (gr8 in GW1) that class it’s the worst for solo play in most areas unless you keep a summons and only kill 1 mob at a time. All other classes do quite well really on their own. Thief you have to kite a bit more than the other classes but it’s also easy enough on its own. GAME ON

I solo an elementalist everywhere (story, world bosses, group events etc etc), and I’m the last to die in dungeons… usually after exhausting all my invulns on ressing downed party members. An elementalist can survive floor 3 of the Nightmare Tower up to the portal Group Event, complete the Group Event alone, and finish the tower. That is pretty much the hardest thing to do in PvE at the moment I know of, anything rivalling it tends to be PvP content of some sort.

Its single target damage is not very good, the elementalist’s main ability aside from boonstacking is AoE damage. You’ll level a lot faster aggroing 10 mobs and killing them at once. My summoning Elite is reserved for Champion+ level mobs only.

PvE is a different beast from PvP however. In PvE mobs follow programmed threat mechanics, and if you’re familiar with their movements you can evade every single major attack and outheal every minor attack. In PvP, everyone focuses down the elementalist first, so you’ll die much, much faster than you’d expect; also, its AoE being its main ability also means you’ll be in a bad spot if fighting alone. For WvW and PvP type content, Mesmers and Thieves will be the strongest soloists due to their higher single target damage, and ability to stealth.

Guardian and warrior are pretty brainless classes.