Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone. Im new to the game.
Ive been trying different proffesions and having a hard time finding one that fits me. It takes alot of time figuring out wich proffesion to play as they all have different weapons and they all can suddenly feel alot different with each weapon.

Im looking for a solo friendly proffesion as ill be leveling alone, do not know anyone who plays so

I would allso like a class that will be welcome in pve aswell as pvp. Im not looking for the fotm or anything, just a proffesion that doesnt die in a hit or two and are welcome in groups.

Ive usually allways played healer, but this game isnt build that way :-) So when pvping im usually standing at the back running around avoiding people, so ranged would probably fit me best alltho ive allways disliked ranged dps, i find im better at kiting then standing in the middle of all the action. Then i just end up pulling all cds hoping i wont die instead of actually killing something.
A good supportproffesion would probably suit me.
I dont mind trying a melee class if it has a bit of survivability and dont die to fast.

I did like the thought of the ranger but reading all of the comments of it beeing bad because of pet etc it kinda turned me off it. Is it an ok class for an avarage joe who doesnt aim to be number one, but somewhere in the middle ?

Thanks for your time and help

Edit: I do realise theres multiple of these topics but I just wanted a responce as to what fits my style, ive tried giving you an idea of what kinda player I am.

Ranger is fun and relatively easy. Never believe sub-forums people take change very hard.
Take something all the way to 80 does not matter what (unless you really hate it). This will be your break-in character. It gives you an idea of what to expect in different situations. Your next character after this will be a better indication of what you do or do not find really fun. I started a mesmer as my 5th character (after 4 lvl 80s) and found it easy and fun from the start, others say it is no good until 80.
Don’t skip levels using crafting at first since this makes you lose a good part of the feel of the character (many disagree).

Thanks for the responce
Think i might try a ranger and a mesmer to see how they feel

Suggestions for wep on mesmer ? Sword/Staff ?

Regarding weapon choice (regardless of profession), I can give you this piece of advice:

Try them all!

If you get a little familiarity with each of the weapons available to your profession, you will find that each weapon has its own unique characteristics compared to the others, and some of them are bound to interest you more than the rest. Each weapon has its own use for the profession, but you are free to choose the weapons that suit your playstyle best. (And there is no single “right” weapon for any profession.)

By level 8, you will unlock your weapon swap option, which allows you to have two weapon sets equipped and freely switch back forth between them (on a small cooldown).

(Finally, don’t forget that underwater weapons have their own set of weapon skills.)

Thanks so much for advices Friendly bunch!!

After looking at what you said, I’d either try Guardian, Ranger or Necromancer.

Guardian is possibly the strongest class at the moment, just due to the fact that it fits into everything well. They are very versatile, as they can be a bunker (high survivability, little damage), support people, take conditions off others and bring them to themselves, but they can also be offensive and do good damage as well as still supporting.

Ranger is one of the classes that people like to say are bad, as well as Thieves, when in reality they are pretty kitten good when played well, which is the same as Thieves. Rangers do good damage and are arguably the best class for soloing PvE content. They’re also prettyyy good in WvW, but you know, not the best. They are often considered weak in dungeons and group content however, so if you want to play one, make sure to learn the class well and prove yourself to guildies etc. that you can do runs with.

Necromancer is a very strong profession and was called ‘OP’ a lot until a few recent changes. They are the masters of conditions, them and thieves, and have really some pretty incredible crowd control. They have a high health pool (highest in the game normally) easily reaching 28k health (a lot when compared to something like a squishy Thief with 12k or so) and they also have good damage.

Necromancers are good in PvE group content, but then again, not considered to be the best. The real let down point of them is poor mobility and this is why they are not used for Roaming much (going around by yourself maybe with a few friends in WvW and killing people) as you get caught out a lot.

Personally I like Professions which I like to consider a bit more of a challenge, like Mesmer and Thief. The problem with Thief in particular is that a lot of people consider them to be useless or weak in PvE, whereas in reality unless they’re played well they are.

After re-reading your comments, I think you should really try Guardian and Warrior as no.1, as they have both good Damage, Survivability and ranged alternatives. Warrior is much more offence-oriented, whereas guardian is more defence-oriented.

Picking a class really isn’t too much of a tricky thing though, yet I’m still trying to decide myself as to what I want to make my main xD

I recommend going on Twitch TV or YouTube and looking up some just general game play videos in WvW Roaming etc. This is due to the fact that WvW Roaming often allows you to see aspects to a class that you don’t see in PvE, as WvW Roaming is harder and a different type of gameplay.

Just check out videos and look for a class that when you see them being played you go ‘Oh that looks cool’ or ‘that playstyle looks pretty awesome’.

I’ll give you a quick rundown of the playstyles just in case you don’t know them already (these all vary due to builds etc.):

Guardian: Front-line (offensive) or back-line (support), usually pretty tanky, decent damage, lots of boons and support-oriented buffs. Absolutely essential to almost all areas of play. Highest survivability in game, either burst them down instantly or they’ll be up forever…

Warrior: Front-line or ranged, high damage, high health pool, not too much survivability (not as much as Guardian), offensive banners/shouts such as Fury and Might (more damage for your group basically). Most played profession I’d say and I have one… bit boring but fastest to level.

Ranger: Back-line for a normal longbow build but they’re boring IMO. You want to go a greatsword spirit Ranger. If you want to play one, prepare for the rockiest and weirdest levelling experience but when mastered they are one hell of a profession in WvW Roaming.

Thief: Stealth, highest burst in the game (single target), super squishy if you want high damage, super-fun (in my opinion), super high-risk high-reward. (My favourite class if you couldn’t tell from all of the superlatives lol.)

Mesmer: Hard to play, button mashing, combination of great group utility as well as decent DPS. They are wanted in a lot of PvE content due to amazing support abilities. My second favourite profession as they are pretty good in PvE as well as being amazing in 1v1 and Roaming when played well.

Engineer: Versatile and hard to master, many different aspects to them, lots of conditions (equal to Thief I’d say), have really come into the light lately, they were considered weak and now they’re considered great lol. Same as Thief/Ranger, when played poorly they are considered very weak in PvE content.

Elementalist: Basically the same as Engineer. Lots of aspects to them. Look up combo fields and you’ll understand.

Necromancer: Stay at the back, apply conditions, kite a bunch.

P.S. If you want more answers to class-specific stuff, go on the Profession’s Forum Sub-Section and make a thread there.

Also, sorry about all of the comments about WvW Roaming… it’s basically all I like doing lol. I do Dungeons etc. for the gear.

I’m going to second not listening to any whining that’s going on in the prof sub-forum.

If you like the idea of the Ranger/Mesmer then give it a shot. Ranger will be a breeze to solo level with, but Mesmer may be a little rocky at the start.

Regarding melee classes the heavies Warrior/Guardian won’t go down too fast unless they get focused on, and even then they can be built with a good amount of staying power. The Guardian having more built in support/tankiness, and the Warrior having more damage/control.

I recently picked up the game again, and started a new character just to get back into it. When playing MMOs in the past, I was also usually a healer or ranged. I’m just not a melee person.

I’m not uber pro or anything, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Elementalist with staff is the profession for me. It’s ranged, lots of fun abilities (thanks to the different elements) and I haven’t had any problems soloing tough groups of mobs.

I’ve tried all professions to at least level 15, and Ele is without a doubt the easiest one whilst still being lots of fun. It took me a while to get used to it, but the self combos are amazing compared to anything else I’ve tried. You got damage bursts, healing bursts, survivability skills and all around a lot of abilities. I also love magic classes so it’s perfect for me.

While leveling an Ele I made my own made up build consisting of traits in Fire, Water, Arcane and Earth – the amout of trait points in order from most to least. Fire and Arcane for damage, Water and Earth for healing and protection while leveling. It’s working very well so far, I have no problem soloing groups of Veterans, Hard or even some Champion mobs. The important thing I’ve found is to use all element attunements, switching to get what you need. If it’s a ranged mob, interrupts in Air and protection in Earth, drop down healing from Water and burn down with Fire. This is why I love this profession, it’s so active.

That’s my 2 cents, good luck.

Oh and another quick thing, don’t go for what people call ‘OP’ or ‘FotM’ etc. etc.

All of that stuff changes so quickly it’s pretty stupid and often it’s not even accurate. People just hear others QQ’ing and hop on the QQ train.

Pick a class you’ll like and it will be the most powerful class you’d ever imagined.

I recommend mesmer. It may not be very easy like guardian for open world pve, but the versatality of the mesmer is amazing. Really, you can do pretty much anything with a mesmer! The versatality doesnt really open up untill you get traits though.

You can spec to be very evasive in pvp. You stand in ranged most of the time, but you often run in melee and do massive burst damage while evading all damage at the same time, then you go into ranged while not even being scratched.

Mesmer survivability in pvp depends alot on active defense. Invulnerbailities, stealths, peojectile reflects and more! People can literally run with a full berserker set without any toughness or vitality, and still just not die, or something :p.
in the beginning you will feel very squishy and kind of randomly use invilnerability skills, but after practice yoy gt alot better. Ive played my mesmer for almost 2000 hours and im still learning!

Open world pve statts a bit difficult, but it becomes alot easier once you get o level 40! At this level you create a clone every time you dodge, you just get so much clones youre not even sure what to do with them.

There are alot of amazing support mesmer builds (healing too!) out there, just like there are bunker builds and damage builds.

Thqt said, all professions are wanted in all areas of the game and theres alot of room for personalisation through traits. Id recommend going with the one that cosmetically pleases you the most. Mesmer is by no means the “best” profession. They are the only ones with purple butterflies though.

Oh, and female sylvaris are amazing.

If you have any questions about anything, feel free to send me a forum pm!

I actually picked female sylvaris for my mesmer And having a very good time with it aswell This might be the one ^^, Thanks all for your help
Hope to see you ingame.

There is something immensely satisfying about killing your foe with an explosion of purple stained glass butterflies.