Guild Wars 2

I’m sure you guys are probably sick of the these threads. But I’m pretty much stuck on which class to play mainly and thought I would ask some advice.

I’ve given every class except Warrior, Thief and Necromancer a breif try. And I’m still not really clear on which class I would like to focus on. None of them have just clicked so far.

I am looking to play mostly PVE and Wv3, but I’ll probably get into other PVP as well once I feel competent. I really enjoy melee and up-close combat when it is interesting and dynamic with many tactical options. I guess that’s the important bit, I love a tactical playstyle regardless of range. I have looked at the warrior skills, and it might be an interesting class with some of the more flexible weapons (thinking dual swords, mace/axe or mace/sword).

In other games I tend to love flanking, getting the best positions and generally creating havoc on the enemy team, even if I don’t end up doing the most damage.

I’ll likely be grouped with friends who run engineer and theif a lot as well.

Any advice is much appreciated!

First post edited for clarity and to reduce the wall of text.

Also, if anyone finds it helpful in informing their advice here are my impressions of the classes I’ve tried so far (no obligation to read this all!):

Engineer – really breif test in the PvP area, just didn’t jive with the abilities at all

Mesmer – I kind of like the class, but the clone mechanic drives me nuts, I just hate it as a signature ability (shatter etc.)

Ranger – just felt really bland and boring, especially with bows. Melee ranger was more fun, but all the jumping and rolling is pretty broken with low control and jumping off cliffs, bridges and so on.

Guardian – I like the class, I’m just having trouble finding fun with this. The weapons sets seem okay, typically each having a neat ability or two and the rest meh. I like the shouts, and I want to like the hammer. Not sure, the melee weapons just feel kind of slow and not fluid (this may just be my lack of expereince).

Elementalist – Staff is eh, scepter is awful, but D/D is ridiculous amounts of fun. Throwing melee fireballs is pretty awesome, but there’s no option to step back. I also find playing this class extremely hectic, and not sure it’s the best place to start off in GW2 to learn the central mechanics. Perhaps the biggest downfall is the 4 attunements really don’t add much variety here. The overall tone is tied to the weapon, so the playstyle is arguably less varied than weapon-based classes.

The ones I’d recommend are the ones you haven’t tried, haha. Thief has quite a few traits that depend on positioning, and obviously stealth lets you sneak up on people or escape combat – which you’ll have to do, because thieves are squishy. Stealth works wonders in PvE though, monsters out in the world just lose interest in you in you get away nicely.

Warrior is probably the most straightforward class and seems very simple. However, it’s great fun to play and you can get trickier with it if you like. I think it relies heavily on tactical use of weapon switching, personally. It also has a bunch of combo finisher moves.

I play a daggers elementalist and it’s great fun, but a really delicate balance of trying to stay alive! It doesn’t take much to down me if I lose the flow for a second, heh.

Helequin.2608:

I’m sure you guys are probably sick of the these threads. But I’m pretty much stuck on which class to play mainly and thought I would ask some advice.

The best advice I can offer (and I’m not trying to be any variety of mean) is pick one of those many other threads that you have acknowledged exist and make your case / questions there. Threads drop off the first couple of pages so fast, especially because of duplication. You’re far more likely to get some useful answers by contributing to an existing active thread, than by starting a new one!

You are in exactly the same place I was, but then I tried out PvP. the wonderful thing is that PvP automatically levels you to level 80 so you can tell if a class will be fun for you in the long run. I engineer at quit almost immediately, but after a quick PvP battle he become my main. No I don’t don’t like PvP over either of the other two modes (in fact, I like it less) but it’s a great tool for choosing a class.

That said, with a descriptions you’ve given I would say the best class for you to try is the elementalist with a D/D. Warriors and guardians have great melee options, but have little in the way of tactics compared to the elementalist’s tactical options. It is a harder class to use and to master, so it’ll be a bumpy road. I say this especially because D/D elementalist isn’t exactly “competitive” so it might take a while longer to master the elementalist over a warrior.

Thief would also be a good option to try as they have many tactical options and a lot of skills that prevent targeting or hitting in general. Engineers and mesmers are both great late-game classes which is why I recommended you try these classes in PvP so you can see what they can really do. With a mesmer, you can get a tactical melee glass cannon with lots of options and if you don’t care about range, engineer is probably one of the most tactical classes in the game because of their great control weapons and kits, gadgets and turrets (if you don’t mind fighting at range as opposed to melee.) You have to be aware, the 4 classes I just listed are all kind of glass-cannon like so you have to watch your health and learn to dodge if you hope to achieve success. The mesmer, and to a lesser extend the thief both have a steep learning curve so think about how much time you are willing to invest before you need to see your character doing something super awesome every single fight.

Hope I helped you! I would recommend trying all 4 of these in PvP before deciding, but that would be your call to make.

Thanks for the insights so far.

@Raedwulf: I understand your point completely. I’ve read through those threads, and extracted what I could from them. However at a certain point the advice has to be more personal. Also, I didn’t want to go hijacking someone else’s thread with my own thoughts and likes/dislikes. It’s a tough balance on any forum sometimes, maybe I made the wrong choice here but too late now.

I hadn’t considered thief, I tend to like a more sustained approach to combat than burst-style, which is also why I haven’t tried out the warrior yet. But, looking back I think both skill sets could be made to work that way. I’ll have to give the initiative mechanic a try, should just be a different management style than CD based skills.

Since you’re grouping with thief and engineer, it’d make sense to go either light or heavy, so you can trade drops with them.

I think you should follow the crowd and go warrior.