Guild Wars 2

Hello all, I know this get’s asked here a lot by new people but I’m going to ask also anyways and see what teh general communities suggestions are.

First off a bit of background: I just bought the game with the sale that just went on and am having fun just experimenting with several different profs (ranger 11, warrior 8, necro 5 so far). I have been playing MMOs for around 10 years and usually enjoy a ranged class or a melee bruiser, but not a pure tanky character. I also really enjoy large scale pvp (I guess in this game it would be the World Vs World?) and would like a character that is useful in that sort of thing. solo pvp for me is not an overly fun thing due to playing with constant 250ms+ latency so I’m always at a handicap, even if it’s a small one, as well as the inevitable egos that get swung around when someone wins or looses. I also want to be useful to the team in pvp (and I guess pve too) and not play a purely selfish character. Finally I like a little complexity and flexibility with the profession, simple classes simply bore me to tears eventually.

What I don’t like is a stationary character that isn’t overly mobile. I don’t mind having limited mobility in some situations, but having to stop and hard cast all the time I find annoying and breaks the fluidity of combat for me, saying that I don’t really care either way about having someone that can zip all over the place, sure it’s nice but not important, a happy middle ground and above I guess.

From what I’ve seen and played, the Ranger seems to be what I enjoy the most right now, at low level, however I have no idea how they perform at higher levels and have not watched any youtube videos about them yet, however warriors seem to be able to do soem pretty amazing things with a GS/Hammer combo from what I’ve seen in pvp (admittedly at near top gear levels I would assume which is out of reach).

As I said I’ve only played 3 professions thus far and may be missing some fun things with teh other professions I’ve not tried so any insights as to if they would kind of fit what I’m looking for would be great.

I know this is long and I thank you for your time if you have read this in advance.

Ione

In PvE, a staff elementalist is the best choice you’ve got for a good pure ranged class.
A grenadier engineer is also a somewhat viable choice but can suffer from delay and spread on their grenades at long range, plus having to close in to use their big hitting skills.
Unfortunately I’m not well versed enough in PvP to say anything about it.

The Elementalist is a very strong arena pvp option with the dagger/dagger build. Aswell as serving as the backline ranged dps for World versus world bigger scale battles with the staff . They also function very well in PvE with either the staff or the scepter/focus or dagger. They provide alot of AoE damage, aswell as essential boons to your teammates. This is the class i would suggest from what you’ve said you’re looking for

Fortunately for you, no class in this game benefits from standing still and attacking! In this game, as soon as you stand still, you are dead.

As for your classes:
Elementalist is strong in every game mode. Their D/D builds are bruiser builds that are highly mobile. They also have staff for extreme long range. That satisfies both of what you described.

Mesmer is a lot of fun. And they arguably have one of the best ranger weapons in the game, GS, since only one attack is a projectile that can be reflected. Member sword is great too. It’s Auto attack rips boons, and it’s 2 skill is a burst+evade. They have lots of I combat mobility and are a good class if you ever want to be out of the box. Noobs will also think you’re the most overpowered class in the history of MMO’s, which is funny.

Warriors and Guardians both make great squishy bruiser characters. The difference is, Warrior has more passive defenses, while guardian has more active defenses.

Ranger is great as well. I’m sure you’ve already discovered just how potent the LB is. Ranger Melee builds can get nasty too. Using a sword/Dagger + GS is a lot of fun, especially when you can rely on your pet to use immobilize.

TL;DR, I would probably recommend either elementalist for you, or ranger. finally, don’t let anyone tell you a class is useless. They are all viable in PvP.