Guild Wars 2

Back in September I was unexpectedly admitted to Hospital and during this time my account was subject to password attacks spanning several days. Only when I came home did I see the many e-mail warnings and realise everything had been taken. Unfortunately ArenaNet was unable to help so with that news and the state of my health at the time I decided to stop playing as I had lost all motivation.

It is now the present day and I am ready to get back into the game. The problem is I have not kept track of any changes since I left and my knowledge of GW2 is pretty much back to that of a newbie, not that I knew a great deal in the first place (low level Warrior and Elementalist around level 20). Thus, I am back to the initial question of “what profession should I start with”.

I am not going to ask out-right what I should pick, instead I would like those reading to help me by recommending some of the more effective classes for certain things which are a key part of the game. Once I have seen a decent amount of responses and opinions I will have enough information to choose for myself, at least that is the plan.

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In your opinion (I cannot stress this enough, I do not want to start a flame war) what are the more “effective” professions for the below (please give reasons why or specific weapon types if they apply):

1. General PvE – Solo play
2. Running Dungeons
3. PvP
4. WvW
5. Fun factor – PvE
6. Fun Factor – PvP and WvW

From what I have seen skimming these forums I believe the Warrior and Guardian are great for PvE and Dungeons whilst the Elementalist using Dagger/Dagger is great for PvP but I have no idea if they are good for anything else or what the other professions excel at. I am completely lost.

Thanks for any help I receive.

1: Ranger
2: Mesmer, Elementalist, Guardian, Engineer (well played one), Necro
3: all of them have pluses and minus’s, all instant 80 so to be honest you need to test and decied this for yourself.

3: allm again its really personal preference most effective when played well i would say, Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Elementalist, Sniper Warrior, Necro.

4: all, its really personal preference most effective when played well i would say, Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Elementalist, Sniper Warrior, Necro.

5: only you can answer this, for me Mesmer / Ranger.

6: again really only you can answer this again for me Mesmer / Ranger.

Every class can do everything you need to pick one you’re going to enjoy, for instance i love doing fractals on my ranger and having abuse ‘’ranger suck, no dps this that and the other’’ then when they see me micro managing and keeping my pet thus my DPS alive i generally get a slight compliment.

all professions can Bunker (tank) DPS and burst some more than others but you really need to test these out, best way to do it is to go into PvP instant level 80 test some builds you might like for yourself a long with various weapon stes.

That’s a lot of factors and the answers will be very subjective to many of those questions. However your questions are basically asking about what class you should use to learn about GW2. My personal answer woud be Warrior. You’ve got a high Health pool and Heavy Armor, so the class is very forgiving in the low to mid levels as you’re making beginner’s mistakes. Grab the health regeneration signet as your heal, take the dodging / condition removal signet for utility, and then whatever powers sound like they fit your playstyle.

To be completely honest, I eventually dropped my Warrior. I used it during Beta and during the 1st month of the game’s release as I took my time to learn and explore, but the class ended up boring me. Yet my experience with a Warrior was extremely helpful. It made the process of learning Thief and Engineer so much easier since I already understood things like aggro ranges on mobs and where/when to use dodging.

In my opinion:
I’m going to leave out PvP, as I barely played any of it. Haven’t played much of WvWvW either, so…

General PvE solo
If you want something easy to play, take a class like Warrior, Guardian or Ranger. I’ve levelled a Guardian to 80, and he was able to face-tank multiple mobs and mow them down without problems using Greatsword. Warrior same story, but with less face-tanking multiple mobs but with faster kills.

Dungeons
I have 3 level 80’s (Elementalist, Guardian and Thief), and I find them to be all pretty equal when it comes to dungeons. However, Elementalist is my favourite.

WvWvW
Haven’t played much of it, but the few times I did I found my Elementalist more fun to play there than my Guardian (Guardian lacks long-range abilities).

PvE Fun-factor
Dual-dagger Elementalist wins for sure. That is, if you like a hyper-active playstyle that requires dodging a lot and continuously swapping elements. Thief is pretty fun too since they get a lot of dodges, and have great mobility. Have played some Mesmer, and is pretty fun so far, but not high enough level to really judge well. While Guardian is easy to play, it’s one of my least favourite classes when it comes to fun-factor. I guess it depends on what playstyle you like. For an active playstyle I’d definetely go with melee Elementalist or Thief.