Guild Wars 2

Ok, ok I know everyone is going to jump in here and say “open world is faceroll” “every profession is fine” etc etc. Let me explain.

I am a casual player that likes to relax some evenings when I am able and play some gw2. I was looking for opinions on what you think are the easiest professions to perform well within open world pve mostly, perhaps dungeons in the future but not right now.

I would like to be able to level up my prof, do the personal story, and solo veterans/champions, skill challenges etc. I am aware that all profs can likely do this in the right hands but as I said I am a casual player and don’t have time for min/maxing and research.

What are your opinions? Which profs and builds would you choose for this content? What weapons and traits are most effective? I need help staying alive so which ones are tankiest? etc.

I thank you ahead of time for your knowledge and any tips are appreciated.

I’ve been playing three weeks.

I find the Guardian and Warrior very easy to play so far. They just work. Simplest game mechanics.

The Ranger is also easy and durable, and I found the Signet of the Hunt which gives 25% movement speed increase very handy (as I spend less time getting about). Right now he’s my main and without too much time got to 37 in that three weeks.

My spell classes (Mesmer, Elementalist) are a little trickier, so I wouldn’t recommend them.

Guardian. The profession comes with so many heals and high innate healpower, it gives you a lot of survivability. Of all classes, I found the guardian the easiest to play. Even in story steps where I had problems with tricky classes, guardian just stands his ground. Warrior comes right after, but isn’t my thing. Maybe test both till lvl 10 and then decide which mechanic you prefer playing.

Beware of Thief, Ele and Mesmer. Those are extremely strong classes but they require quite some getting used to. If you don’t want to study strategies and stats, these are not the classes for you.

The most important is that you are having fun with the class mechanic. You have 5 char slots and getting to lvl 10 is fast. Test out the professions you are interested in, see how the mechanic fits your playstyle and test out various weapons. If you find something that is really fun to you, then that is the class that will be easiest and most engaging to you. =)

if you want to be able to do dungeons later as well, go with warrior, it’s easy and great for dungeons

I find that having a passive movement speed boosts is helpful in open-world leveling. See this page for a list of skills/traits that can do that.

Other than that, the only advice I can give you is to play a class you enjoy playing. You could have the most op class in the game, if you don’t like its playstyle your grinding is gonna be boring quickly.

If you haven’t already, check this great sticky. I’ve been enjoying the game immensely more since I started following it.

Axe-Warrior .. Guardian is however also fine

Warrior – Very forgiving (survivable) and a wide variety of weapon (skill) choices.
Guardian – Quite survivable and can provide some group support that the Warrior lacks.
Ranger – Very Survivable in most of the game but can teach poor game-play habits (would not recommend as a starting character).

It’s really hard to think in the mindset of a casual new player that doesn’t plan to do research or any of that, but my recommendation is Guardian or Warrior. They can both be built to have lots of sustain like you want. I would lean toward Warrior just because they are a lot more mobile than guardians (open world is a big place). You almost get perma swiftness or simply the melee running trait. You get the high armor and defensive stances and passive signet healing. Wear soldiers gear and time your dodges and you should be able to casually beat the crap out of anything open world.

As Brother Grimm pointed out, please don’t roll a Ranger. That class is stained with a bad reputation because it tends to teach new players bad habits. They get by while leveling, but once they try to move on to other activities, they hit a brick wall because they haven’t developed proper gameplay skills. It’s better for yourself and the community to only go Ranger if you know what you are doing, or plan to research.

Thanks so far for all of the info! It looks like warrior or gaurdian is the way to go. I leveled a necro for a while last year before I took a break from the game, how are necros these days? I imagine playing a minion necro would develop the same kinds of bad habits as a ranger though, what do you think?

So, what weapons and traits are people enjoying on Guardians and Warriors? Thanks again everyone for the input.

I also checked out that combat sticky that was linked and it was very helpful thanks.

OP, the bad habit you can develop while playing a ranger is always staying at max range with a longbow and bear pet.

If you learn to play a melee ranger (sword/xx) and select you pets based on the situation, you will become a good ranger.

eyballkid.2513:

Thanks so far for all of the info! It looks like warrior or gaurdian is the way to go. I leveled a necro for a while last year before I took a break from the game, how are necros these days? I imagine playing a minion necro would develop the same kinds of bad habits as a ranger though, what do you think?

So, what weapons and traits are people enjoying on Guardians and Warriors? Thanks again everyone for the input.

I also checked out that combat sticky that was linked and it was very helpful thanks.

Ah necros…. let’s just say that they are not really appreciated in some arah group. They perform well on fractals though. They are efficient in hotjoin pvp but do poorly in team pvp and tournaments (IIRC necro were under-represented in the tournament of legends).

They are however pivotal in WvW for their fear spam and their staff which is very usefull for slowing entire zergs down. Epidemic simply rocks when used properly.

Minion builds steamroll open world PvE (you can level up while naked) and the queen’s gauntlet. I don’t know how they perform in PvP though. In dungeons, you want to stay away from this builds. Also, gives you bad habits.

The OP mentioned he/she wants to solo veterans and champions.

Veterans are intended to be solo-ed as tough encounters. Any professions should be able to handle a veteran of their own level, but it may be a challenge in some cases. (Especially if the veteran is not alone.)

Champions are NOT intended to be solo-ed by a single player. While it may be possible (and sometimes not even really hard) to beat certain specific champions on your own, you should probably not count on it, especially if you describe yourself as a casual players who just wants a few hours of fun in this game every once in a while. A champion is NOT a guaranteed kill, unless other players are around to help.

eyballkid.2513:

I would like to be able to level up my prof, do the personal story, and solo veterans/champions, skill challenges etc. I am aware that all profs can likely do this in the right hands but as I said I am a casual player and don’t have time for min/maxing and research.

Imo the two easiest professions for these purposes (because they are pretty not so dependant on appropriate items, food and traits), with very few exceptions where you’ll still need help in Open PvE, are:

Mesmer, 0/2/5/3/4, Staff and Sword/x
use 0/2/4/3/3 until lvl 79 inclusively

- because of high mobility thanks to phantasms and clones; if you manage to summon three iWarlocks in Y-position around a mob, you can get Regeneration+Protection nearly all the time while circling. If you summon melee phantasms like iSwordsman or iWarden they will heal you and other phants/clones/players in melee range too. You will have a lot of useful traits to swap when needed, to either strengthen your illusions or yourself.

and

Engineer: 2/0/6/6/0, Pistol/Shield
use 4/0/4/4/0 with Explosives IX until lvl 79 inclusively

- use a kit and the Alchemy IX trait to get a perma HoT. In the build above I use the bomb kit, but it’s up to you which kit you like the most. The effects of equipped sigills in your main weapons will also be applied when using a kit. Turrets are not mobile like illusions, but they are durable if traited and do decent damage. In case of facing a champ either swap the kit for a ranged one or a third turret. Turrets can be placed on hard to reach objects like roofs or rocks – as long as you are reachable, the mob won’t reset.