Guild Wars 2

Back after a long break, all of my characters builds are outdated, old traits, old armor, old all the way around, im going to keep them for birthdays and what not but i feel like i should make a refresh.
What class though? What has changed bassically in the last year? Any info on changes or on what info i post would be great!
What i love/hate about a couple classes

Engi
I loved the turrets, mobility and condition damage theh have. I hated that the best build was just walking in circles throwing grenades, got real old real quick.

Gaurdian
I love to heal/support teammates, but i need solo power too, i find that 85% of my gameplay is solo. Only used a gaurd for wvw in the past, viability?

Necro
Love everything about them, AoE condition spreads, tanky, cool animations, cool armor, but not min/max friendly in pro FotM and Dungeons

Ele,
Love the powerhouse, love the mobility, love the pvp gameplay, hate the armor choices, and hate the time it takes to really get you build going.

Theif,
Is very fun, but everyother 13 year old is a theif, when i used to play they were overpopulated and only used in pvp, whats changed?

Mesmer, very fun in pvp and pve,
Loved basically everything they have to offer, wish there was more offensive elites but well rounded class, lurning curve to start, powerhouse at the end.

Warrior,
I like the versatility and the different weapon builds, but if your not full zerk your not playing with pros,
Has this changed?

Ranger, never really fell in love with ranger,
Any good in pvp?
Still best solo’er?
Opinions?

Warrior everything good as you said but why do you wanna play with pros their boring with not pros this game is fun and challenging.

Yes but for a end game oriented guild for FotM, WvW and Dungeons is gonna want endgane geared “pro-toons” u know?

Every class is still good, in some ways some are better. There is another balance patch tomorrow, we’ll all be outdated for a few minutes while we figure out the changes.

Changes to the trait system made it very easy to switch builds, you can totally re-trait for free (out of combat only) anywhere.

Your armor shouldn’t be outdated, exotic quality armor is fine for everything except the highest level of fractals. Runes and sigils may need updating for some builds to be omtimal, but the basic stat sets are generally the same (soldier’s for wvw and dragons, berzerker for everything else).

“List all the changes to every class in the last year” is a tall order, even with my high quality coffee. The game is still fun, and still free, no reason not to jump back in and try it out to see.

Any guild demanding full ascended gear to join is silly anyway. This game is aging, fairly well for an MMO, but still, the population is declining as normal. Guilds can’t expect to recruit much if they limit themselves to the small pool of players with enough time in the game and dedication to have all top gear. Anybody with that much time in game already has a guild or doesn’t want one.

Your equipment shouldn’t be outdated. They’ve added 1 tier of gear since the game came out, and that’s not needed for anything except high level Fractals. If you were using unusual builds you might need different stat combinations but exotics are easy to get so changing them shouldn’t be difficult.

Changing traits is even easier, you can switch them for free anytime you’re out of combat. Making a new character would actually put you at more of a disadvantage because they’d have to go through the new system of unlocking traits by doing specific events and things, whereas existing characters have them all unlocked by default.

Nothing wrong with making a new character if you want to, but if what you want is to join a guild and do dungeons and WvW it would be a huge waste of time. It would be quicker and easier to make changes to one or more of your existing characters and then spend the time that would go into levelling learning the dungeons.