Guild Wars 2

Now that I’m nearing the end of the story for my first character I’m wondering what I should make next. I was all set to start up a necromancer but everything I read in the forums makes it look like they’re even worse to play as than my thief – instead of a never-ending parade of one-sided nerfs they say they get game-breaking bugs the devs pretend are features.

I don’t like generic melee combat so I don’t want a warrior or guardian but the ranger is said to have pitifully low health so no dungeons for them, and I don’t know anything about the mesmer other than they’re supposedly as fragile as a glass-cannon thief.

Is it worth bothering to try rolling a necro, ranger, or mesmer? Or is it just nearing the time to uninstall?

Why are you so negative? I think youre looking at this game completely wrong. Do you even enjoy it at all?

I liked it for what I played, but the class I picked to start with (thief) has gotten progressively worse and worse to play with in PvE, and it just constantly gets weaker as devs make changes to it. I’m not going to stick with it if they keep that up, so I want try a new character.

I really wanted a necromancer, but 99.9% of the threads in its section are about bugs and how terrible its skills are compared to all the other classes’. If the only viable class options are heavy sword-swinger and sword-swinger with a shield then I want to know so I don’t waste time bothering.

But this is bound to happen, its still the first year when everything gets tweaked. I main a thief and have been playing thief since the first BWE and I havent noticed it being underpowered at all in PVE.

And in regards to necro, why dont you try it for yourself rather than going on mostly baseless complaints on the forums. You know this place is where all the people who want to complain and start drama come.

I wouldn’t call complaints about them baseless. Not when the devs themselves are in the forums even saying they know there are problems.

Well, my point still stands that you should try it out for yourself.
And hey, there no sub so theres no obligation to stay. Why not take a break for a bit and come back when everything is sorted?

Since you enjoy playing as a thief, I think you might enjoy a mesmer.

Like the thief, mesmers can not simply stand in one spot and swing away at an enemy. They need to dance around and time their moves carefully. It takes a bit of practice to figure out how to play a mesmer, and some people never do get the hang of it.

Mesmers are all about crowd control, misdirection, evasion. They are very popular in sPvP and WvW. Unfortunately, I do not know how they are in dungeons. A mesmer does need to avoid being surrounded by enemies.

Necromancers seem to be a love it or hate it profession. Bugs or no bugs, they are almost impossible to kill. The main reason many players dislike playing a necromancer is that necromancers tend to deal steady damage over time instead of high burst damage, although you can set up some condition tricks. It is especially satisfying to use the life draining skills and grow stronger as your enemy grows weaker.

I suspect playing a necromancer will feel much different than playing a thief.

I ran AC story mode earlier with a thief, a ranger, and a mesmer from my guild. We cleared everything in under an hour and had only three deaths across the entire group.

Don’t be too hasty to judge a class based off forum posts only- yes, there are issues, but as was stated earlier, a lot of people here like to whine and whine. The only way to know if something suits you for certain is to try it yourself, and keep an open mind. Case in point- not too long ago, the elementalist forums were full of complaints about how we die whenever a mob so much sneezes from ten feet away, or how we have the damage of a declawed kitten. I almost believed them when I first started playing. With some build tweaks, however, I’ve found myself able to outsurvive heavy armor classes while doing a generous amount of damage myself. Take everything with a grain of salt, and don’t let other people dictate what you enjoy.

Every class has HUGE playability. It’s designed that way. You can go with the ’cookie cutter’ designs people post but you don’t need too. You will need to have a empty slot and try each class up to level 10 using every weapon that class uses to unlock the attacks. Find whats fun for you.

You are the only one who can choose.

I love my necro. I admit after I had played for a bit I went to the necro’s forum and saw all the bugs it has I was discouraged for a bit. But then as I looked at all the other classes I realized that all of them have issues. There are pros and cons with all of them, you merely have to take the cons and work around them.

Now as a level 80 necro I thoroughly enjoy my class mechanic. Afterall there is no such thing as the perfect build for any class. I personally went 20/0/25/25/0 with any traits I can to boost my minions since I’m a minion master. My gear is all Power/Tough/Vit. I didn’t bother with condition since Power will increase my damage over all and when I’m doing PVE on the map I prefer to go dual daggers. Now with 3 minions out and dual daggers I am killing mobs quickly and as I attack my minions lifesteal, draw aggro and deal damage. The few moments aggro is on me my tough and vit means I take fairly low damage and and even if its significant I still have a large well of health. My minion’s lifesteal is quickly healing me as I am getting hurt.
Though 1 very large complaint about necros you can’t dispute is that the minion AI is kitten and has issues but that can be worked around.

When in dungeons or if I wish to range then I scepter/dagger and staff. With the Greater Marks trait you staff has a large aoe potential.

There is more I can talk about on this class but at this point I’m just rambling. My point is every class is viable you merely have hit on the right combination that works for you.