Guild Wars 2

Last time I played, I played the heck out of the heavies because apparently they were the most sought after classes in endgame PvE. Now that I’m back for another round, I am itching to start mostly fresh and try different options but having tons of second thoughts and overall indecisiveness.

I have never been a big fan of PvP and never owned a rig that could handle WvW and its massive zergs, so I am limited to PvE. I know open world PvE isn’t very challenging though being a big noob, I found some parts ridiculously hard to solo (mostly when I get impatient and pull too many mobs). So I guess what I am looking for is a class that can handle dungeons and fractals and other endgame PvE contents.

What I am looking for in a class:
1) Good map mobility – I want to go for map completions so perma-swiftness or at least 25% movement speed would be great.
2) Ability to survive multiple mobs and AoE them down – I have years of Diablo 2 under my belt so I find fun in pulling multiple mobs and AoE’ing them down.
3) Not too high skill floor – I don’t mind learning and improving but if a class requires me to get everything correct down to a microsecond…Well that’s just no fun for me.
4) Self-centric playstyle – By this I mean not having to keep an eye on other characters that isn’t me. If I’m paying a lot of attention, I’d rather it be on my own character rather than have it split among multiple characters.
5) Useful for endgame PvE – I don’t want to be a dead weight to any team. Don’t mind playing support as long as the class is actually great at it.

Thanks in advance!

Elementalist is pretty good

Cream Sauce Pasta.8254:

1) Good map mobility – I want to go for map completions so perma-swiftness or at least 25% movement speed would be great.
Thanks in advance!

Just want to say, you can get perma swiftness on any class with just centaur runes or the traits for it. The classes with best mobility is thief or warrior, I suggest warrior because you rly don’t need to care about your group at all. The only group support they have is battle standard, other than that you just give offensive support (banners etc). You also don’t have to babysit anyone like with a thief or guardian. You have good cleave with melee weps, will never lack for AoE at least. High survivability, solid dps, plus the easiest class in game.

Northernnliht.9514:

Elementalist is pretty good

This probably the worst advice because Ele has the highest skill floor. You need lots of practice and always think about your rotations, even then there’s a good chance you die pretty fast. Ele is also more focused on your group, you bring heals if you are support and make sure to stack might if you are a good Ele. Highest dps, but low survivability with zerker.

Hi there OP,

I would pick engineer for perma-swiftness, but the skill floor is high to master.
If it’s true what Nagr said, that Ele has the highest skill floor. Then Engi must be close to second-highest skill floor.

Are you looking for a non-heavy character btw?

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

Yes I am trying to steer away from heavies though I am still tempted to make another one just because of how squishy most profs are. I’ve been considering ele and engi but as you guys pointed out, they’re difficult to use.

I guess the problem is I want too many things at once so I guess I need to make some compromises.

Don’t be discouraged.

Ele is fun and has the highest potential all of which you have described. This is an example of what a good ele can do: http://youtu.be/uVjlzgBSX5Q

Warrior GS handles 3 and 4, axe DPS handles 5, the profession was naturally made for 2, and warrior has superior map clearing. When I played, all I did was map. I have gotten 2 world completions on thief and warrior and 40%+ for every other class except for necro which I made last (because of the abomination of the NPE trait unlock system I have quit before doing anything on that new character). Warrior is MUCH faster than any other profession in map clearing.

But I mapped when traits were unlocked all at once. Warhorn 4 + Signet of Rage with warhorn traits is the easiest, longest-lasting swiftness you’ll ever see in game, together with GS 3 (the whirlwind thing) and GS 5 (the charge thing) you can chase anything down faster than anything else.

I should add thief has relative ez-mode. Instead of destroying everything you come across you can stealth and pray you stay in it for skillpoints. All I did on thief was go d/d and spam death blossom with initiative regen traits. Add caltrops to dodge and it’s the easiest mapping experience ever. Warrior is still faster though because you still risk the chance of running out of initiative as thief and you’re naturally squishy.

Like I said though, haven’t played since the trait update. Not sure what the game is like now, but I still think my experience is relevant for your purposes.

Engie is difficult to master at higher levels if you want to properly maximize damage, at which point you need to balance a metric ton of cooldowns and swaps, but it’s very possible to play “easymode” by only using one kit in PvE and still do very well while having fun, which sounds like it could work for you?

I recently leveled my second engineer to max via PvE using rifle and bomb kit: rifle has good damage and CC, bomb kit is the highest auto-attack you can get on engie and also gives you close-range AoE as well as a smoke field that’ll blind mobs so you can mitigate damage while blowing them to bits, and you can experiment with the other two utility slots to find what you enjoy.

If that works well enough you can slowly ease yourself into more kits as you get more familiarized with the mechanics, if you want to. For running dungeons running bombs and/or grenades will work well enough for most non-meta parties, and as engineer you will have lots of good utilities for support (water fields for group heals in a pinch, providing smoke field for stealth if no one’s logged a thief, fire fields for might if the ele is slacking, etc).

Engie’s hard, probably impossible to be perfect at, but it’s not as hard to run around with as most people make it out to be, and IMO a lot of the fun is that you have so much versatility and room for improvement.

Hmm, I’m so indecisive lol. Well, I guess I’ll first give an ele a go and if that doesn’t work out too well, I’ll hop onto engi. Thanks everyone for the help!

From your list, you’ll want to play anything but mesmer, basically.

You might enjoy ranger, I think. It’s very easy and straightforward to use, and you get a free tank/extra dps in your pet. It’s not particularly in demand for high-end PvE, but you’ll be fine in pug groups in dungeons. If you’re not doing dungeons at all, then no one will care.

I really think you should consider a necro. They are pretty hard to kill, have 25% swiftness signet (or just use traveler runes), have solid aoe options, are generally a selfish class and don’t have the higher skill demand that a Ele has.

Engi would be my 2nd choice for you. Only downside is it takes some time to get the trait needed for perma swiftness so you will be rather slow for a bit but the rifle and slick shoes are really nice.

Good luck and happy hunting!

Cream Sauce Pasta.8254:

What I am looking for in a class:
1) Good map mobility – I want to go for map completions so perma-swiftness or at least 25% movement speed would be great.
2) Ability to survive multiple mobs and AoE them down – I have years of Diablo 2 under my belt so I find fun in pulling multiple mobs and AoE’ing them down.
3) Not too high skill floor – I don’t mind learning and improving but if a class requires me to get everything correct down to a microsecond…Well that’s just no fun for me.
4) Self-centric playstyle – By this I mean not having to keep an eye on other characters that isn’t me. If I’m paying a lot of attention, I’d rather it be on my own character rather than have it split among multiple characters.
5) Useful for endgame PvE – I don’t want to be a dead weight to any team. Don’t mind playing support as long as the class is actually great at it.

Thanks in advance!

1) Engis can achieve perma swiftness with 2 trait points (which is early), thieves have movement speed signets and can shadowstep around,eles can provide alot of AoE swiftness with their staff,overall everybody has perma or almost permanent access to swiftness either way. As far as i know mesmer’s the only class that relies on centaur runes for it.

2) Necros, engineers, elementalists, warriors can all clump some mobs together and kill them with AoE. Thieves can survive any encounter in PvE due to their stealth mechanics and shadowsteps.

3) Engineers and elementalists require you to chain your skills together in a timely fashion, so does shatter mesmer.
Thieves a similiar issue: you don’t need to execute combos at all, but you need to time your evades, heals, teleports really well.

4) Warriors and guardians fill the description, but so does the necromancer (except the fact you can corrupt boons, but that’s only one ability and it’s obvious when you need to use it). Mesmers and thieves tend to be the opposite, as you need to dodge, evade, block most of the incoming attacks.

5) Warriors, guardians, mesmers, elementalists are all required in all parts of the game. Thieves are immensely useful in dungeons to skip mobs, engineers can become jacks of all trades. The only profession that doesn’t fit really well in dungeons is the necro because it tends to avoid helping others.