Guild Wars 2

I played this waaaaaaay back in the day, from launch for quite a while, and now I’m interested in coming back. I deleted my characters because they were kind of potatoes and I really enjoyed the leveling process, unlike most other games, so I’ve decided to start fresh.

What I’m curious about is how the classes stack up nowadays. Any class OP at the moment? Any horrendously under powered? Balance? I used to play a Warrior, and they were monstrous back in the beginning, easily able to take on multiple people at once in PvP and come out alive. I understand that’s not the case any more.

Probably not the best time to be asking this question since the next patch(which should have been released this Tuesday but got delayed) will be including some balance changes.

Oh, really? Well crap lol. I guess I’ll just pick whatever class and see what happens!

To be honest, I don’t think any of them are overtly OP right now (but I’m sure someone will drop in to tell me how wrong I am).

It really depends on what game mode(s) you plan to focus on and what type of play style you enjoy.

BTW, the leveling process has gone thru some rather drastic changes back in Sept. (called NPE – New Player Experience). Just so you know and aren’t blindsided when you start up and things are different.

I personally don’t think that any of the classes are OP or broken. They all just simply have different strengths and weaknesses that make them more or less suited for different roles and play-styles. For example, Necromancers are great for pvp/wvw, but not so well suited for group pve content whereas Guardians are awesome for group pve content but not necessarily the best option for solo pvp. Even so, such strengths and weaknesses are not so significant that they break the class for use in whatever content you choose.

Thus, you really can’t go wrong on picking a class. It’s simply about picking a class that appeals to you and matches your play-style.

Thanks muchly for the info! I’m curious how different this “NPE” is compared to the experience at launch, so that should be interesting. I might roll a Warrior or a Necromancer, see how that goes.

Greatly appreciate the input, thank you.

The balance over all classes is pretty decent at this point.
In dungeons, most classes are welcome but elementalists do stand out a bit for their dps. As for high level fractals, people usually prefer guardians.
In PvP, elementalists and engineers are most seeked professions but other professions can definitely be played ffective as well especially in mid-level competition.
In WvW, warrior guardian elementalist and necromancers are still the core for any organized group play. But you really can play any profession to their strength, especially in small-scale fight.

Exciton.8942:

The balance over all classes is pretty decent at this point.
In dungeons, most classes are welcome but elementalists do stand out a bit for their dps. As for high level fractals, people usually prefer guardians.
In PvP, elementalists and engineers are most seeked professions but other professions can definitely be played ffective as well especially in mid-level competition.
In WvW, warrior guardian elementalist and necromancers are still the core for any organized group play. But you really can play any profession to their strength, especially in small-scale fight.

See how Elementalist comes in every point? Try one.

Haha I may well have to try an Elementalist! Maybe I’ll just make a bunch of characters, I’m sure I have the time before the xpac comes out!

I’m sorry you deleted all your alts It will be much harder for you to unlock traits right now, as they changed it to require either open world achieves (like “Lornar’s Pass Completion”) or a pile of money + skill points per trait. Alts made before last April’s feature patch were grandfathered in to full unlock just via leveling, except for the 5 very top grandmaster traits that were added.

They have said they’ll be changing the trait process again, but we don’t know when.

Donari.5237:

I’m sorry you deleted all your alts It will be much harder for you to unlock traits right now, as they changed it to require either open world achieves (like “Lornar’s Pass Completion”) or a pile of money + skill points per trait. Alts made before last April’s feature patch were grandfathered in to full unlock just via leveling, except for the 5 very top grandmaster traits that were added.

They have said they’ll be changing the trait process again, but we don’t know when.

Sounds easy enough, not a big deal. I wouldn’t want to play an old character.

Hi CthulhuDawn,

I’ve been playing GW2 pretty much since launch and recently levelled a character to 80. I can tell you it’s a veeeeery different experience than it used to be, mostly because you actually get small rewards after reaching new level (weapons, armour, mats, etc.) And a lot more fun, in my opinion.

A lot of stuff like coins, dyes, tokens, laurels are are account bound now, which means levelling alts (besides being fun) contributes to your account as a whole.

I searched for a while before deciding on the profession this time around and didn’t really see much in the way of overpowered or underpowered characters. I did come across tons of references to the Warrior being nerfed, so this might influence your decision to make on again in the current game play.

If you’re interested in a fun, informative summary of the main events and changes from end-2013 to mid-2014, check out this video: https://youtu.be/Oew7usdU53o

It really helped me when I came back to the game after nearly a year away.

Hey, thanks for the info smhtjoa! I’ll have to check that video out after work, then the leveling begins. I was screwing around on an Elementalist and a Mesmer last night, and I just don’t like the range, I think. I might have to roll a Guardian and get right up in things faces, or maybe a Thief.

CthulhuDawn.8194:

Hey, thanks for the info smhtjoa! I’ll have to check that video out after work, then the leveling begins. I was screwing around on an Elementalist and a Mesmer last night, and I just don’t like the range, I think. I might have to roll a Guardian and get right up in things faces, or maybe a Thief.

Both elementalist and mesmer can melee, it depends on what weapons are equipped. In fact most professions can do both range and melee depending on weapons. The guardian is probably the most limited in that regard since their ranged is almost non-existent. But since you don’t like ranged that shouldn’t be a problem.

Happy to help! As Lazuli said, both Elementalist and Mesmer can play melee range, but as light-armoured characters you can’t take many hits, so game play tends to be dodge-reliant and more suitable for the ‘kill before I’m killed’ type of player.

The Guardian, as a heavy-armour character, is most effective in close combat, but I don’t agree that his range is non-existent. I use the scepter+focus as my ranged weapon set and – granted – I don’t hit as hard as I do with my greatsword, but with a range of 900, it’s far enough to stay out of striking distance and I can get more dps out of traits, runes, sigils and trinkets.

Having said that I’m very much a defensive player, and this is all about your play style. So, my advice would be: go out there and find out what your play style is and what works best for you.