Guild Wars 2

Hello all, I’m new to kittenittenrying to pick a profession. I’ve started with Ranger (up to about 15), but find the pet somewhat annoying (and hear that i could be shunned at dungeons later in the game). And I’ve also been working on warrior (just started), but keep on reading he’s not great for people who tend to play alone, which i do. Can anyone recommend a good profession for the long haul for someone new who tends to play alone and wants to do PvE.

Please, keep the abbreviation use to a minimum, cause I am still trying to figure all these out (yes, i’m really new).

Thanks guys.

And I should say, I understand there is no “best” profession, but I’m looking for something where I won’t struggle too much if I have to solo things. It really seems like it would be guardian or warrior, but from reading the posts on the message board, it’s obvious I have next to no knowledge on how everything works.

I have now 7 characters, 4 have reached 80, two are around 75 and the few days old Warrior is at lvl 20. Thief I have no experience with yet.

Every class can be played alone. Most of the time I have been alone in the World barring events. I know you may not want to hear this, but the best profession is the one you find most interesting.

That said, the Ranger is very good at surviving in the field. If you don’t like pets that is a problem, of course. Mesmer has been the easiest for me to keep up on her feet alone, but the class is not the simplest to play.

As for the dungeons, are you planning on playing them or farming them? If you want to play, there are plenty of good, nice players who don’t care what your class is as long as you are ready to do your best. If you want to farm, then there is the crowd who will only take ‘Warriors in full exotic, preferrably Berserker, gear. Only experienced players’. Of course there are also dungeon farmers who do not judge you by your class.

Personally I stay away from people wanting just one specific class, certain gear or lvl 80 for a lvl 35 dungeon. They make more money than I do, no doubt. I just prefer fun over coin and I am still having fun after 1600 played hours.

Garambola, thanks for the help. I played both the warrior and guardian to level 4 and so far found the guardian much more fun (maybe that’s because i don’t like the Nord home world that my warrior is in or just hating the shield).

Funny for my guardian is a Norn. So in my Engineer actually.

I’ ve not gotten into shields either. I may be missing out something I don’t even know about… Oh well, I do play each character in the way that feels right for that character, not min-maxing.

You do know that you can use any weapons the class can use from the very start? You just need to acquire them if you don’t like the starting weapons. When I start a new character, I actually get them all their possible weapon and train them on them. So if suddenly at level 80 I discover that I really should take a certain weapon to a cetain situation, I don’t have to start it from scratch.

I have both, an 80 gaurd and 80 warrior and out of the two I prefer my gaurd over the warrior for solo play as it has better survivablity skills and can still kill things at a decent speed.

Any class can level up in normal PVE content. I assume that is what you mean by “Solo”.

As for dungeons any class (even ranger) is viable, though there are some who would exclude you because they want to speed through the dungeon as quickly as possible.

Two things:

First – don’t take the profession forums too seriously. I’m not saying that people there don’t know their stuff, because I’m sure a lot of them really do, but the forums tend to be full of people nit-picking and complaining about how some flaw or other totally ruins the class (it’s true elsewhere, just check how much of the general discussion is about how GW2 is apparently a terrible game, haha). Reading what people have to say may help you decide, but don’t let it put you off without trying stuff first.

Secondly – at later levels you’ll get a lot more customisation for your character. Traits open up at level 11, and trait points not only open up special perks but also raise your basic attributes (power, precision, toughness, vitality, and others). This means that if you’re not doing enough damage, you can sink points into power/precision, and if you’re dying too much you can sink points into toughness/vitality… and each class can focus on any of these to some extent.

So in answer to your question, I really think any class you pick can be viable solo PvE, depending on how you build them (for example, my mesmer is awful to solo with, but that’s because I built her for group support, not because mesmer is awful). I highly recommend just picking something you think is cool! My warrior does fine on her own :P Try out a few things, get a sense of what you enjoy, and just run with it. You’ll refine the character over time as you keep playing and learning about it.

Hey!

I have just made a profession selection guide to answer to your question:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Profession-Selection-Guide/first#post1540116