Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone.

I could use a bit of friendly advice from some seasoned people.

I’ve started playing GW2 with a friend who already has a max level warrior (leveled a few years ago and then quit the game) that he seems to enjoy a lot.

I’m having a hard time figuring out what to pick as my class. I’m a seasoned WoW-player, did a lot of mythic raiding and such, but i can’t play that game in moderation, so i figured it was time for something new, and so far i really enjoy GW2.

Anyhow. I really enjoy playing melee dps – i always played Rogue, Enhancement shaman, Death knight and such in warcraft.

So i’d like to find a class that can do melee well, and work well in various end game activities ( mainly pve categories).

The Thief is cool, but Deadeye is not my style at all. Revenant i haven’t even tried, and it seems to be going bow-spec.

Warrior could be cool, but daggers??
Guardian is nice, and so far my highest level char, at 52. But i can’t really figure out how Firebrand will play.. seems like a hybrid dps/support thing to me.

Could you play a super cool melee petless soulbeast maybe?

Engineer – holosmith? Seems super cool, something like what i’d prefer, but the rest of the class is a bit less “me” ….

Any of the light armour classes that’ll have great melee specs? Haven’t really tested them out. Maybe weaver is right in the thick of it with the sword?

And how important will the new elite specs even be? Can you just ignore them?

Sorry for all the noobish questions, hope you can help me make a decision.

Before I answer I have to ask: Do you realize that you don’t have to pick any of the existing Elite Specializations?
Ergo: You don’t have to play Warrior with Daggers (or with Spellbreaker spec entirely) or Thief with Rifle, etc. etc.

I sure hope you get some responses, as I’m in a similar position: WoW veteran but that game has grown very stale, melee-oriented playstyle, recently picked this game up . I’m looking for a profession that plays something like the WoW DH: melee, highly mobile, not too squishy.

Constantine.5107:

I sure hope you get some responses, as I’m in a similar position: WoW veteran but that game has grown very stale, melee-oriented playstyle, recently picked this game up . I’m looking for a profession that plays something like the WoW DH: melee, highly mobile, not too squishy.

Warrior with GS.
Guardian with GS.
Ranger with GS or S/A.

Alatar.7364:

Constantine.5107:

I sure hope you get some responses, as I’m in a similar position: WoW veteran but that game has grown very stale, melee-oriented playstyle, recently picked this game up . I’m looking for a profession that plays something like the WoW DH: melee, highly mobile, not too squishy.

Warrior with GS.
Guardian with GS.
Ranger with GS or S/A.

Chronomancer is a surprisingly melee-focused and nimble class. It’s squishy, but in exchange for that it has a lot of mitigation tools and some serious team support. I often run mine Dual Sword mainhand and Sword/Shield offhand. Example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAse8cncfCtfilfC2fCUrhlVjq+Yj2pFdLOjqocDGhAA-TByEABxv/wNK/Aw8HCPBgBUCmi6PMcSA0Q/ApAIdoF-e

Revenant is a highly mobile combatant, but it’s at its most mobile when you go Sword/Sword Herald. It’s also got solid survival and team support in the form of buffs. Example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQRAsc8un3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdskFPFiNLjpM29LgFsdABoAA-TBCBQBhz8XK0PUhTCgEV+BgnAQ/2fQgq/oOlgkCIihWA-e

Ranger is a surprisingly nimble melee combatant, with or without pets. Example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNEQNBMhFakQFaZxSWwgF4axQiQ1XQIcC8520HwHArwMfirTzK-TBSDABgoP4Ulgvo+jSK/2Z/BAM/JxpA4gnAApAiYrF-e

The Daredevil is a surprisingly hardy build with all of its built-in evasion and movement skills. You can go as glass as you want and it doesn’t matter very much because you can evade and block more than anything. It’s difficult to outlast in PvP unless you’re smart about it. Example: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW6an8lCVmiFmC+OBsPhlfCbbMFA+Pd7g0UMYeAWAbgA-TRCBQBt7gAgD1fglSQAcFAgwDAIg7PkCdDTR5XCM/RKgI2aB-e

I am one hundred percent positive the next person to post after me will tell you this, but I’ll share it anyway: These are not really meta builds. I threw them together quickly. Most of their survival comes from skills which blow or reduce damage, or grant added endurance for dodging.

All classes have a reasonable (but not necessarily meta) melee build. Even a traditionally fragile ranged class like Ele has a meta Fresh Air melee build.

I may be outdated as to WoW’s modern combat mechanic, but in my time it was incredibly static. My rogue just sat at Rag’s toes spamming eviscerates, while the tank ate the hits. This was in the days of 40-man vanilla raids, so correct me if things have moved on since. In GW2, doing that will get you 2 or 3-shotted in HoT open world (core open world is much, much less dangerous). “Not being squishy” in GW2 means using positioning, dodges, blocks, blinds, reflects, CC or any other profession specific defences (e.g. distort on Mesmers) to avoid damage.

It works a bit differently here. When you talk about choosing a “melee” class, keep in mind a few key points regarding the GW2 combat system:

1) Each weapon offers a different set of skills to each class.

2) All classes except engineer and elementalist may switch between two weapon sets in combat.

3) Which weapon set is ideal depends upon the build (traits and stats) you’re using as well as the game mode (raid, fractal, open world, PvP, WvW).

So, while all classes are potentially melee classes, it’s unlikely that you’ll stick to melee 100% of the time with most classes in all game modes.

Having said that, I suppose if you wanted to be a melee-only class you’d be best off with elementalist. Since they are not designed with a weapon swap and because their PoF elite spec is designed around a melee weapon, I expect that between dagger/x and sword/x you will usually be able to find a viable melee-only build for this class in any game mode.

Still, it’s hard to find a class in this game that doesn’t have a viable build that isn’t at least partially melee-oriented. It’s just a side-effect of the way weapons work in this game. And it’s going to be difficult for anyone to tell you what you’re going to like. So no need to lock yourself in. Try whatever sounds fun to you!

Keep in mind that with PoF elite specs its not an upgrade in power but a choice, you can choose either HoT specs or PoF specs, each one has it own benefit. For example Warrior with HoT specs Berserker is a melee condi dps specs focus on PvE while PoF specs Spellbreaker is more like a PvP/WvW specs.

Guardian remain very powerful in most contents, HoT specs DragonHunter has very high raw power DPS while we don’t have much infomation on Firebrand can do in PvE but from the stresstest Firebrand too are pretty powerful but act as a condi specs. I think you should stick with Guard.

Warrior atm are in a bad spot because meta force you into condi play for high personal dps while providing some solid support like Might and Banners. But warrior remain very easy and friendly class for newcomers, also power build still doing very well but in raid they refer condi.

Ranger in HoT are a healer/semi-condi dps class, they do have alot of useful buffs and solid personal DPS but they are ranged class ( althou you mostly fight in melee using ranged weapon which kinda weird if you like pure melee class ). But PoF specs soulbeast is really something like wild version of Warrior, altho we don’t know how well it can be in PvE but atleast the idea of wild warrior are really really fun to me.

Thief is a melee dps specs good in both condi and raw power build but only HoT specs can do that, they are martial art fighter rely a lot on dodge timing, ping to do well, Daredevil has very high personal DPS, if you have bad ping just don’t play this class otherwise its a fun class to play with.

Revenant its true that this class is a melee type but you shoudn’t play rev atm cuz its a mess, it really hard to say, you should vist rev’s subforum for more details.

Constantine.5107:

I sure hope you get some responses, as I’m in a similar position: WoW veteran but that game has grown very stale, melee-oriented playstyle, recently picked this game up . I’m looking for a profession that plays something like the WoW DH: melee, highly mobile, not too squishy.

Once again, this doesn’t necessarily translate well. Since classes can play drastically different depending upon the weapon set and build they choose, every class can be melee, mobile, and not too squishy.

Take elementalist, for instance.

A popular raid build up until recently was scepter/warhorn fire/air/tempest. This build features the lowest health and armor of any class, is about as mobile as a rock, and all attacks come from range.

Compare to my current open world PvE build which is dagger/dagger water/air/tempest. Water is the healing traitline for elementalist, so I decided on zealot (power/precision/healing) gear as opposed to the 100% damage-focused gear one would use with the raid build mentioned previously.

With this build I still have low health and armor, but powerful passive and instant heals that make it so that unless I’m killed almost instantly I’ll be back at full health before I take another hit.

It’s also a long melee range build (normal melee range is 130, while this build operates at 300 range). And it features tons of mobility with a 900 range leap, 600 and 1200 range forward charges, full uptime swiftness, access to super speed (if traited), and may be supplemented with utilities such as a 900 range teleport and a couple more 900 range charges via fiery greatsword.

In other words, my open world build is melee, mobile, and not too squishy, while my raid build could be the complete opposite. All within the same class!

Thank you so much for your responses.

It’s both very helpful, and quite useless (In the way that it doesn’t help my choice in any regard) – I feel incited to play every single class right now.

I feel like i should pick a class where i’m content with the new elite specs. The developers will have a lot of focus on the new specs, and they’ve put a lot of work into them, so that’s probably my gut feeling.

So right now i’m looking towards the Firebrand and holosmith, and i’m quite intrigued by the weaver and soulbeast for some strong flavourful melee oriented builds.

I don’t necessarily require a 100% melee build, but i do like to have the majority of the spec play out where i prefer it. If you catch my meaning.

Thanks again, keep the oppinions coming

Spitzbube.3964:

I feel incited to play every single class right now.

Do you have a Level 80 Boost and a free character slot? If so you can test every profession at level 80, since the boost can be undone if you don’t leave the Silverwastes – just make a character and boost them (you probably have to play the first instance before it’ll let you boost, I guess). Once you’ve finished testing, undo the boost, then delete and make another one of a different profession. You can’t test elite specs with the boost though.

Thank you for the excellent, detailed responses! AliamRationem, you’ve sold me on Ele.

I see you’re already sold, but as a former DH raider, I would concur that Dagger/Dagger Elementalist is surprisingly close to a Havoc DH. Lot of dashes, and the dodging will be familiar. I’d lay hands on a staff as a secondary weapon (even though you can’t switch like other professions) as there are some big open world and story encounters where the staff makes life a lot less dead.