Guild Wars 2

New to the game here and I heard the easiest prof to learn is warrior, which is also a jack of all trades, so I took one to 40 and am ready to start a new character.

I def want to go ranged for sure. But I don’t want to be a glass cannon, I want good survivability and cc options. I also want a lot of aoe options, not a single target type prof. I dont mind something with a learning curve but I want an overall easy time. I expect to balance my time with PVE soloing and large scale WvW, and hopefully dungeons if I get that far. I’m not really feeling necro because I’ve played the dot spammer in other mmo’s and wasn’t a fan. And if im not mistaken mesmer, guardian, and thief are melee? So I narrowed it down to three:

Ranger
Pros: Seems like the easiest with a pet tank. Good survivabiltiy from what I’ve seen. “Cool factor”
Cons: I would think pet dying in WvW would get old after a while. Heard they’re not welcome in groups often

Engineer:
Pros: Seems just like the engineer from warhammer online, which was my favorite class of that game. Loved the point blank grenade aoe skills and turret system
Cons: I’ve heard its very hard to learn

Elementalist
I’m not really sure how this profession works. Not sure how attunements work or what they are really but it looks like an interesting prof and I heard theyre really good if you get past the learning curve

Remember no glass cannon, just a relatively simple ranged class with good survivablity, cc and aoe for zerking and soloing. Thanks

Dunecoon.5134:

Ranger
Pros: Seems like the easiest with a pet tank. Good survivabiltiy from what I’ve seen. “Cool factor”
Cons: I would think pet dying in WvW would get old after a while. Heard they’re not welcome in groups often

Don’t think of your pet as a tank – the AI isn’t good, and they aren’t durable. You have to really leverage swapping pets, choose the right pets to complement your build and the situation, and micro-manage their targeting in boss fights. The cool thing about them though is that you can swap them out any time you’re out of combat, so you get a lot of flexibility there.

I love my ranger, but there is a lot of ranger hate out there, so you might not want to choose it if you’re looking to PUG dungeons. It would be my vote – it’s really survivable and if you can get into a decent guild, you wouldn’t have to worry about getting teams.

Engineer:
Pros: Seems just like the engineer from warhammer online, which was my favorite class of that game. Loved the point blank grenade aoe skills and turret system
Cons: I’ve heard its very hard to learn

I loved my engineer in WHO too! I’ve got an engineer up to 45 and enjoy it. I think the reason some say it’s hard is because between the kits and the tool belt there are tons and tons of skills to keep track of if you use more than one kit. I haven’t found it too hard so far, but it is my fifth character so I’ve been around the block a couple times. I’m also not doing much WvW with her, so I don’t have a good feel for how effective an engineer would be.

Dunecoon.5134:

Elementalist
I’m not really sure how this profession works. Not sure how attunements work or what they are really but it looks like an interesting prof and I heard theyre really good if you get past the learning curve

Elementalists are challenging at the start and really powerful as they get higher level. You do have to do a lot of attunement switching to get the most out of your damage though. I didn’t get mine very far, so I can’t say much more than that.

Every profession in GW2 has the ability to be ranged. Guardian has scepter and staff that are ranged, Thief has shortbow and pistol, Mesmers have scepters and staffs and their greatsword skills are almost all ranged even though you would think it’s a melee weapon.

I assume you’ve looked over the information on the wiki? I would dig in there and examine the skills, traits and class mechanics, because the professions aren’t really that pigeonholed into melee/ranged/AOE/single target unless you only focus on the “best” build. There are many viable builds that are fun to play even though they’ll get you kicked out of dungeon speed run teams. There’s more to life than grinding dungeons though

The Elementalist and the Engineer is the two most complex professions. However, you can build an Engineer to be straight-forward and easy without having to suffer from efficiency.

The Grenade-Engineer is the best ranged dps, and it’s really easy to play. (If you want something a bit more challenging, just adjust the build).
The Grenade-kit (which is your weapon as an nade-engi) is entirely made up of aoe attacks that can be fired from a great distance – Even the auto attack.

The Engineer has the highest base-health, which means that you’re fairly tanky to begin with.
You get ton of CC from your original weapon (the Grenade-kit is actually a utility-skill that becomes a permanent weapon). If you want more, the Engi has a ton of CC in form of Utility-skills.
If you want more survivability, you can just equip some defensive gear and/or use a defensive utility-skill, that does things such as making you invulnerable, or use Rocket Boots to make you fly far, far away from the danger.

Engineer and elementalist are my personal favourites in GW2. I got my ranger to 80 but didnt enjoy it that much since it felt it lacked depth (compared to the hunter i played in wow). In my eyes it gets boring really really fast.

The engineer offers a really diverse playstyle with a lot of (potential) depth. Its a class that you can shape in to something you really enjoy playing since it has a lot of builddiversity and variety in its uttilities. Trying out different builds as engineer almost feels as if you play a totally different class at times. Its a jack of all trades class pretty much that can shine in certain areas if you spec for it.

I rarely hear complaints from engineer players since its overall a really enjoyable experience.

Elementalists are a bit more restricted in their roles. Its typically either a burster or very aoe oriented with staff (in wvw for example). It really shines in the latter, esp in wvw. It can be a bit glassy if you really want to do a lot of damage but i guess thats the case for every class. The variety of the attunements make it a pretty enjoyable experience.

Id say engineer is the better choice for solo play and elementalists are the better AoEers.

Dunecoon.5134:

Remember no glass cannon, just a relatively simple ranged class with good survivablity, cc and aoe for zerking and soloing. Thanks

Id say engineer is your best bet. Due to its diversity you can keep it as simple or make it as complicated it as you want. A lot of the builds are condi (dot) damage builds eventho there are options to spec in to powerbased or even hybrid builds aswell. The condi isnt really the typical dot spam like with affliction warlocks in wow or condi necros in GW2.

It has some of the best survivibality in the game so that whont be a problem.

Ranger. Good low challenge fun if you want to play it ranged. If I’m on my Norn ranger my pet tends to stay on it’s passive mode in events, AoE and cleaving is not your friend. I just have my Bear and use that skill where it takes the damage I would take should I get into trouble. I would not attempt to take my ranger to dungeons. As for WvW I have a condition/regen Asuran Ranger which is melee, great fun, a lot more challenging.

Engineer. Not much experience of Engineer in PvE as she’s condition damage, and as it’s not my ‘main’ I wouldn’t take up the one condi slot with running an alt in a dungeon with friends. Haven’t found as much flexibility with the Engi, build wise. Epic fun in WvW and PvP, can go really quite glassy and still survive. Fun in outnumbered fights.

Elementalist. Hands down my favourite class, simply for its flexibility. All weapon options are good fun to play with, I recommend the staff as a good starter weapon. It allows you to get used to attunement swapping slowly, you can then move onto scepter/focus once you feel comfortable, which is currently my favourite PvE weaponset. I would recommend you try out daggers, as they don’t feel as melee-ish as other professions and are very good fun! Traits also allow great changes to your gameplay. Experiment!