Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been leveling up a guardian (currently level 50) and I’m living him, but now I’m stuck choosing between the 3 professions I’ve listed as my next character. I’ve tried out each of them (by finishing up the starter quest and jumping straight into the PvP and testing each skill on a target dummy). So far, based on target dummy, I’m leaning towards the ranger because I can down the target dummy in under 8 seconds. I understand its not the same as playing against real people, but being able to kill a target dummy that quickly seems like a bonus. The Mesmer for me just seems like it’s lacking in that power to kill someone, but I know why people say that the Mesmer is the most annoying profession to be in a fight against. Elementalists seem the most complicated of the 3 due to the stance switching mechanic. If someone could help me break down the professions, (biased opinions are also accepted lol), by explaining how each of these 3 work in a PvP, in solo, and in dungeons/world events, then hopefully I could make my choice then

“what class should I play” gets asked in this forum multiple times a day. Try looking back a few pages or searching and see what you can find on the topic.

I couldn’t find anything that answered my questions, hence why I created a topic.

What is most important to you when playing? Survivability, damage, utility, flexibility, specialization, difficulty?

I main an elementalist (played since launch), and I run double daggers and the 0/10/0/30/30 build, though I switch out my weapons manually when the situation calls for it. It lacks raw survivability, having low defense and HP, but can be nigh unkillable when played right due to its high mobility and heals/condition removals. If you plan on playing an ele, you must get used to moving constantly in battle- standing still and trying to facetank will get you killed. Just compare this battle to this battle. It’s nothing on daphoenix, but hopefully it illustrates what I said.

In essence, ele does a little bit of everything in exchange for not doing one thing especially well. My build survives well at the cost of damage- other builds can lay down high AoE damage at the price of being glassy. Broadly speaking, elementalists can damage, inflict a wide variety of conditions (bleed, burn, chill, cripple, immobilize, weakness), stack a wide variety of boons on themselves and allies (might, fury, swiftness, protection, regeneration), set up a variety of elemental combo fields (fire, water, ice, wind) and use combo finishers themselves, heal and remove conditions from allies, and control enemies with slowing conditions and knockdown. They also have the most AoE skills out of all professions.

It is a difficult class to learn- you must be able to memorize over twenty skills, think of how they link with each other, and be able to keep your head in tight spots to use the most of all of them. Ele skills also serve more functions than pure damage and are best used in rapid combinations with each other, or at certain times- though pressing 1-2-3 to fight is minimally effective on all classes, it is especially so on ele.

Is it fun, though? Heck yes… at least in my opinion. I love being able to dive in and know I can adjust as needed, throw out skills and combinations on the fly. And even though it’s hard, it’s not impossible to learn- early levels are squishy, but things get much better once you have your traits in. The key is thinking creatively, and practicing a lot.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or in-game.

What playstyle are you looking to be doing?

Have an 80 guardian and 80 ranger pls a baby ele and mesmer i play the Guard and ranger because they are so different.

The guard you know the ranger compared to that is dancing like a charr on a hot tin roof i may not have the strait dps of an ele or the group utility of the mesmer but the ranger is just fun sword dager, zephyr, quickness sigil quickness on pet swap Ye haa
Such a change from buff heal tickle mob repeat on the guardian

First off you must understand, all classes are capable of DPSing, surviving, and supporting, but each in their own way.

But to put this simply, Ele has the highest skill cap, Mesmer comes next, Ranger after.

Mesmer survivability comes from shatters, teleports, and stealth (distortion and similar effects, blink, phase retreat, mass invisibility, decoy..etc), highest straight up burst damage builds come from berzerker gear and greatsword + phantasms, healing primarily comes from regeneration (applied generously by many skills), low cooldown heals, and traited mantras.

Elementalist survivability comes from heals and condition removals as stated above, you will always have one or two forms of those regardless of how you spec, fire eles are great for AOE dps, Air is for single target dps and mobility, Water is great for a support role, and earth is great for defense and control.

I don’t know much about the ranger, but the ranger is highly mobile and has many ways to dodge and evade attacks, and his heals are strong when pet is alive.

I have both a lvl 80 ranger and a very recent lvl 80 guardian, the two classes are very different.

I never PvP, and don’t do WvW, so cannot give you much on this, but for solo PvE, you cannot do much better than a ranger. I used longbow/greatsword almost exclusively while leveling and had a lot of fun with this. I still use this set-up when farming in Orr, although after the recent Orr nerf, a water pistol would do fine …

Rangers have a wide weapon choice, so your preference will dictate play-style and build. I could go on about what I did, but if you prefer using shortbow or sword/X, the play-style is very different.

In dungeons, rangers have one main roll – ranged single-target and AoE DPS. The support rangers provides to the group is in generating a steady stream of ranged attack. To do this, you need to survive, so dodging and mobility is paramount, and anything that reduces and/or eliminates condition damage.

Generally a ranger doing melee in dungeons is not a good thing. Yes, there are certain situation where you need to go melee, but medium armour and being rooted in a small area means AoE attacks and hard physical damage from many mobs and/or bosses will down you very quickly. You cannot melee a ranger like you can a guardian.

Pet selection and management is very important. The pet represents a portion of your overall DPS. Using the wrong pet at the wrong time, or sending the pet on suicide missions reduces your DPS. If you don’t like managing a pet, then go with another class.