Guild Wars 2

Some friends wanted to start playing again, but the only character I’ve really played is a mesmer(max level). However when I stopped playing mesmer felt very gimmicky so I’m thinking of playing something else. I’ve narrowed my choices down to the following which I think I’d like if I decide to switch: elementalist, guardian, and warrior. So my question is how are each of these classes currently, and which do you feel is more fun? Also feel free to suggest other classes(please give reasons if you do). Thanks in advance for the help!

I think you would probably most like warrior, with my second guess being elementalist, because they have the least focus on “build and burst” in the way that mesmer does, and they don’t involve juggling the same volume of things that guard and mesmer do.

It’s really impossible to know, though, because it is all about you. (eg: I didn’t find mesmer gimmicky, so I’m just guessing about what made it seem like that to you…)

SlippyCheeze.5483:

I think you would probably most like warrior, with my second guess being elementalist, because they have the least focus on “build and burst” in the way that mesmer does, and they don’t involve juggling the same volume of things that guard and mesmer do.

It’s really impossible to know, though, because it is all about you. (eg: I didn’t find mesmer gimmicky, so I’m just guessing about what made it seem like that to you…)

I guess I say gimmicky because mesmer is suppose to be all about illusions yet they always seemed to die before you could properly build them up to shatter them(at least when I last played). So guardian does have a lot of build up stuff before you can actually do damage?

Noctix.9624:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

I think you would probably most like warrior, with my second guess being elementalist, because they have the least focus on “build and burst” in the way that mesmer does, and they don’t involve juggling the same volume of things that guard and mesmer do.

It’s really impossible to know, though, because it is all about you. (eg: I didn’t find mesmer gimmicky, so I’m just guessing about what made it seem like that to you…)

I guess I say gimmicky because mesmer is suppose to be all about illusions yet they always seemed to die before you could properly build them up to shatter them(at least when I last played). So guardian does have a lot of build up stuff before you can actually do damage?

If you are using a shatter build then the build should be providing sufficient ways to generate illusions at a decent rate. What builds have you actually used?

Noctix.9624:

I guess I say gimmicky because mesmer is suppose to be all about illusions yet they always seemed to die before you could properly build them up to shatter them(at least when I last played). So guardian does have a lot of build up stuff before you can actually do damage?

Yeah, in random PvE stuff — especially levelling — they feel pretty useless. It gets better later on, because things don’t die quite so fast, but … that explanation helps a lot!

Guard doesn’t have a “build and burn” cycle like illusions do, but it is heavily dependent on cooldowns and timing of skill use to survive — despite being a heavy armor class, their health pool is the size of an elementalist, so they are squishy if they don’t defend themselves well.

My guess was that your issue was more the “must use all sorts of utility and defensive skills a lot” rather than “hard to build/burn illusions for shatters”, so that’s not so applicable.

Guard, especially the 2H hammer build, feels “slow but heavy hitting” in combat, in my experience. Contrast ranger, which feels “lots of fast but weak attacks” to me. (Note: this is how I feel about their attacks, not necessarily the math of it.)

Ele, for reference, has a “fresh air” based build, which is a trait that resets the cooldown on air “mode” on crit, which involves lots of jumping back and forth, but it’s not the only build. You may find that unsatisfactory for the same reasons, but I’m not sure.

I think you would be happy with any of those choices though.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Noctix.9624:

I guess I say gimmicky because mesmer is suppose to be all about illusions yet they always seemed to die before you could properly build them up to shatter them(at least when I last played). So guardian does have a lot of build up stuff before you can actually do damage?

Yeah, in random PvE stuff — especially levelling — they feel pretty useless. It gets better later on, because things don’t die quite so fast, but … that explanation helps a lot!

Guard doesn’t have a “build and burn” cycle like illusions do, but it is heavily dependent on cooldowns and timing of skill use to survive — despite being a heavy armor class, their health pool is the size of an elementalist, so they are squishy if they don’t defend themselves well.

My guess was that your issue was more the “must use all sorts of utility and defensive skills a lot” rather than “hard to build/burn illusions for shatters”, so that’s not so applicable.

Guard, especially the 2H hammer build, feels “slow but heavy hitting” in combat, in my experience. Contrast ranger, which feels “lots of fast but weak attacks” to me. (Note: this is how I feel about their attacks, not necessarily the math of it.)

Ele, for reference, has a “fresh air” based build, which is a trait that resets the cooldown on air “mode” on crit, which involves lots of jumping back and forth, but it’s not the only build. You may find that unsatisfactory for the same reasons, but I’m not sure.

I think you would be happy with any of those choices though.

Yeah that could be it now that I think about it. Most of their stuff outside of weapons skills is almost all utility and defensives no flashy damage abilities, and in traditional mmos I’ve mainly played pure damage classes.