Guild Wars 2

Three of my friends and I are picking up Guild Wars 2 for the first time. My friends mostly played Runescape and aren’t too familiar with faster paced MMORPGs where combat involves more than clicking on a target and bashing it til it’s dead. So, two of my friends are playing Warriors that will be using Longbows / Sword + Warhorn since they like ranged characters that do mostly damage and little else. The other friend hasn’t decided on a class yet, but from what I know about him he’ll probably pick a frontline Warrior, Thief, or Necromancer.

As for me, I like to play characters that support allies, but I also like being able to harm enemies from a distance. So I’m deciding between Guardian, Engineer, and a Thief focused on party support through Stealing Traits and whatnot. The Guardian appeals to me because of heals, the Engineer appeals to me because of Ranged capabilities, and the Thief appeals to me because of mobility and stealthed support. I know all of these characters are good… but keeping in mind that my friends are probably going to play characters that stay back (with the exception of one friend), what character would be best to provide support to them?

Any help in this decision would be immensely helpful… even if it’s pointing me towards another class I might not be considering.

Well, your friends might find longbow Warriors not awesomely effective in PvE (PvP much more so). Warrior usually focuses on dual axes, axe/mace and/or greatsword. That being said, play what you want!

Ranged physical damage dealers, I would say, are Hunters.

Frontline DPS is definitely thief, without a doubt.

If you want party supprt with range, I highly recommend either Engineer or Elementalist. Both classes are good choices.

You don’t have to have melee & ranged or either or. You can be all melee or all ranged if you like. I’ve been on groups like that quote often, you just have to manage aggro & dodges carefully.

I’d say Guardian or Engie; Thief isn’t as supportive as you think. Engie gives a lot of flexibility as to role, though it requires the most keyboard dancing of any profession since you swap your weapon skills via selecting different utilities and may not spend much time with your base equipped weapons at all.

Guardian is super supportive if built that way. It’s not terribly ranged for dps, even scepter won’t reach that far, but hoo boy can it block and mitigate damage to its friends. Also if you want heals, the healing elite skill heals every party member in range to full after a 5 second channel. Time that right and you get real healing satisfaction.

One profession you didn’t mention that might do well — though it’s nearly as complex as Engie to play it well, and it’s incredibly squishy — is Elementalist. They can be built to be highly supportive. They can’t suddenly swap mid fight between melee and ranged weapons, as they swap attunements rather than weapons, but they can do quite a bit and use water attunement to help heal.

Note however that no profession can singlehandedly keep friends alive. Healing is something each player does for themselves, with others providing a boost but not salvation.

Guardians range is not the best. Engie on the other hand with grenades is good mid and far range. If you want to support keep in mind how close you need to be to the other player to get the buff, warrior can actually be really good at buffing with banners and shouts. Warrior is also very forgiving of mistakes and easy to pick up. Myself I enjoy other proffs much much more.
You seem to be thinking in a trinity type mindset and I gotta say it is not a good thing to do in this game. You have 5 free slots, pick something you like and play with it for a while, if you like sPvP it is even easier to get an idea of how each handles at max level. If not you can get a good feeling by about level 20 if you don’t skip levels with things like EoTM.
GL

How would support Elementalist work?

There really isn’t much of a Support role in GW2 (for pve). When it comes to pve, it’s “kill it before it can kill you”. I mean, everyone has at least one pretty good self-heal, and so the need for a dedicated Healer is negated 95% of the time. There is also the dodging ability, which can and should be used by all players to avoid taking high damage.

Ranged isn’t always going to be your best option, and I imagine you all will learn that as you level. It’s always good to keep a ranged weapon with you, just in case you need it, but most group fights will go better (and end faster) if everyone is doing their best DPS. And your best DPS on a warrior, for example, will never be with a longbow or a rifle.

As for what you should pick, it’s really up to you and what YOU think would be fun to play. As I said, there’s no real need for someone to strictly run Support for pve things. So, if you like having the ranged option, I’d go with an engineer. That way you have melee and ranged options (your kits will be your best damage), provide group buffs (can stack might and stack stealth, if needed, among other things), and have good mobility.

Well,

Elementalists can deal various forms of status effects & crowd control.
They can heal.
Provide summons to manage aggro.
Conjure weapons.
And are able to put up fire fields for blast finishers which give the might boom (mo’ damage).

Plus more, but that’s just off the top of my head.

And, the can deal AoE damage like no one’s business.

Rogue of Time.4732:

How would support Elementalist work?

Depends on what you mean by support, if healing then yes it can assist but each person should learn how to maximize their own healing. They are also very good at building might in a group using various blast finishers on their own fire fields. Also have some of the highest damage ability in the game (depending on skill of user of course).
Drawback is they can be squishy while learning them.

I guess it might help to post what I’m imagining doing and what my playstyle is like.

I kind of imagine a scenario where an enemy (in PvP) runs up to my two backline Archery-Warriors and are attacking them. I want to help keep them alive and PREVENT the enemy from doing damage to them. EDIT: Even something as simple as Blinding, Immobilizing, or Launching the enemy would qualify as damage prevention to me.

The second scenario I imagine is a scenario where we’re in complete control. The archery-warriors are staying back shooting comfortably. The other guy is doing his thing… so I want to be able to help them out with maybe beneficial Boons so that they’re doing more damage or healing passively a little bit.

Sounds like Engineer / Guardian / Elementalist can all do this, but like I said I’m just torn. It’s not even a situation of “nothing sounds good”, unfortunately. It’s one of those situations of “everything sounds good”, lol.

Like I said, you have 5 slots to play with. Since to want to do PvP it will be much easier on you to see what the full potential of each play style is like.

Alright, I’ll probably end up rolling one of each. Everyone’s suggestions have been good and I honestly haven’t even looked at Elementalist yet. Thanks for the tips, guys!

Ranged warriors are kind of, well, useless in PvE. And in PvP, fights aren’t as organised as you might imagine. There is no “shooting comfortably from way behind” if you can’t keep the enemy at a distance. And… why would you play a support role to keep one of the tankiest classes in the game from taking damage? I don’t quite understand your reasoning here, or that of your friends, for that matter. If your friends want DDs that can stand comfortably in the back (albeit out of reach of boons), then longbow warriors are the last thing they should be playing, and they are better off with elementalists, rangers or even necromancers. Those classes were made with ranged combat in mind, while the warrior is mainly a melee class.

In PvE, it’s counter-productive to your entire plan if you stick with your warriors, away from the mob, and stack might and aegis and whatnot on them while your DPS (?) guy is face-tanking the mob and receiving no boons at all because you’re too far away. And when you stick together as a group right in front of the mob, the longbow warriors are really inefficient and better off using melee weapons while you dish out boons to keep them from dying (as a guardian or elementalist, for example).

Red Queen.7915:

Ranged warriors are kind of, well, useless in PvE. And in PvP, fights aren’t as organised as you might imagine. There is no “shooting comfortably from way behind” if you can’t keep the enemy at a distance. And… why would you play a support role to keep one of the tankiest classes in the game from taking damage? I don’t quite understand your reasoning here, or that of your friends, for that matter. If your friends want DDs that can stand comfortably in the back (albeit out of reach of boons), then longbow warriors are the last thing they should be playing, and they are better off with elementalists, rangers or even necromancers. Those classes were made with ranged combat in mind, while the warrior is mainly a melee class.

In PvE, it’s counter-productive to your entire plan if you stick with your warriors, away from the mob, and stack might and aegis and whatnot on them while your DPS (?) guy is face-tanking the mob and receiving no boons at all because you’re too far away. And when you stick together as a group right in front of the mob, the longbow warriors are really inefficient and better off using melee weapons while you dish out boons to keep them from dying (as a guardian or elementalist, for example).

The biggest reason they were looking at ranged Warrior was for survivability. It’s basically my wife and my friend’s wife, and they’re not used to kiting for fifty years while also managing Conditions and micro-managing pets and whatnot – they like things plain and simple. Hit things hard, stay away from scary things. They’re not hardcore gamers – just casual players that want to have fun.

I’m probably the closest thing we’ve got to a “hardcore gamer”… I’ve played a lot of MMOs but never Guild Wars, so I was hoping to help keep them alive while they kill stuff. I know things aren’t really like that in Guild Wars 2, which is what’s causing my problem picking a class.

Warriors are one of the best support classes, but you want to run banners.

Elementalists are great ranged DPS (best in game actually) as well as being able to play support well.

Guardians are great support with constant boons/reflects/absorbs and can also do upper-mid level DPS.

Rangers are a solid ranged DPS option with decent melee.

Rogue of Time.4732:

Red Queen.7915:

Ranged warriors are kind of, well, useless in PvE. And in PvP, fights aren’t as organised as you might imagine. There is no “shooting comfortably from way behind” if you can’t keep the enemy at a distance. And… why would you play a support role to keep one of the tankiest classes in the game from taking damage? I don’t quite understand your reasoning here, or that of your friends, for that matter. If your friends want DDs that can stand comfortably in the back (albeit out of reach of boons), then longbow warriors are the last thing they should be playing, and they are better off with elementalists, rangers or even necromancers. Those classes were made with ranged combat in mind, while the warrior is mainly a melee class.

In PvE, it’s counter-productive to your entire plan if you stick with your warriors, away from the mob, and stack might and aegis and whatnot on them while your DPS (?) guy is face-tanking the mob and receiving no boons at all because you’re too far away. And when you stick together as a group right in front of the mob, the longbow warriors are really inefficient and better off using melee weapons while you dish out boons to keep them from dying (as a guardian or elementalist, for example).

The biggest reason they were looking at ranged Warrior was for survivability. It’s basically my wife and my friend’s wife, and they’re not used to kiting for fifty years while also managing Conditions and micro-managing pets and whatnot – they like things plain and simple. Hit things hard, stay away from scary things. They’re not hardcore gamers – just casual players that want to have fun.

I’m probably the closest thing we’ve got to a “hardcore gamer”… I’ve played a lot of MMOs but never Guild Wars, so I was hoping to help keep them alive while they kill stuff. I know things aren’t really like that in Guild Wars 2, which is what’s causing my problem picking a class.

Well, that makes sense.
But the beauty of GW2 is that it’s not a hardcore game if you don’t make it one. PvE is pretty easy, even on high levels, and even Arah and fractals are kind of easy once you know the mechanics. Playing an elementalist and standing juuust at the egde of your boon radius would give them some measure of safety while helping them kill stuff before it can hurt them, or an engineer who just slows everything down to a crawl before it can reach them. Even better, a staff elementalist in water attunement has two water fields that can be blasted for even more healing than just the personal heal skill, so actually, in a group that’s organised and communicates, this is one of the easiest classes to play in my opinion.
For PvP, if they want to experiment, it sounds like they are prime candidates for turret engineers – little buggers that just place their turrets and hunker down on a point while taking potshots at anyone who comes too close, or rangers who snipe enemies from way behind the actual frontlines.

For your current situation, an elementalist or guardian for you would be a good start, and maybe a little change of tactics so your entire group benefits from boons – that is, never having too much distance between the party members. Practicing this can serve as a slow introduction to kiting. For a change of pace, rangers for the ladies might be good. Pet micro-managment in PvE is mostly “press F2 when it’s available”, and that’s that. A longbow ranger can keep pretty much everything nasty in PvE far enough away, with bow skill 4, utilities and traps, to prevent damage while turning their target into a pin cushion. They’d be out of reach of your boons, but they wouldn’t need them if two tanks keep the beasties occupied.

Just to give you an overview of easy-to-play classes for group adventures. But for your current boon and support needs, again, elementalist or guardian would be a good addition to your group.

Make an Element a list and try to get your melee Warrior friend to give the Guardian a try instead of Warrior. Let the ladies do whatever they’re comfortable with and be glad they’re willing to play the game with you in the first place. They can each take on offensive Banner (Strength/Discipline) and equip Healing Signet (strong passive healing) and Shouts (For Great Justice! and Shake It Off!) for their other utilities. This will give them decent output+good party damage support while still being about 75%+ passive. Your friend would offer great defensive support as a Guardian making life even easierfor the women while still being very strong in melee. This will give you the breathing room as an Elementalist to ‘Do all the things!!’, as an Ele does (and excels at).

Based on what you’ve said so far about experience, skill levels, and desires as a team, I think this will be one of your most forgiving/productive party comps and will give you almost every tool you need for the entire game (with the exception of Stealthing options.) 3/4 people being a Warrior will be a LOT of overlap in party options. Trading one for Guardian gives access to strong projectile control, excellent party-wide defense/boons, as well as AoE Stunbreaks/Stability.

Something to consider…