Guild Wars 2

Hey guys

Played GW2 for some time now, took a break and coming back a lot of things have changed, so I figured I’ll start from scratch (+ I like exploring anyways).
This time around, I was thinking on making a character that excels in some form of support (mostly offensive, like CC, debuffs, etc.) and preferably good at range.
Mainly I’m looking for PvE + PvP thrown into the mix. I’m a solo player at the moment (friends no longer play this game). So with that in mind, which proffession would you recommend to (re)start now? I narrowed my choice to a few classes:

Necromancer, Ranger and perhaps Thief?
Was thinking on Engi too, but the kits are really putting me off. Flamethrower was fun though ^^ Ele… stance-dance is not my cup of tea, sry guys, I know the class is strong Warrior is just too simple, got bored really fast. Mesmer, same deal as with Ele, although I like the concept but the execution is… confusing xD Guardian is also plausable with the new Dragon Hunter, but not sure how much dmg he can dish out with bow…?

Will need to think on a race as well too after I got the class :P
Any imput would be more then welcome ^^ I need some information about how they work, since I missed out a lot of time and not sure how they changed.
Much appreciated

No surprise from me: go with necromancer and then unlock Reaper asap. Range isn’kittens thing, true — I use staff as a backup for when I really can’t wade in — but it’s amazing and tough. Greatsword is a blast, albeit slow; the speed of the shouts make up for that.

I’m with you on not wanting to stance dance. Shroud isn’t really a dance, though superficially similar in that you want to hop in and out of it to suit moment-to-moment needs. It’s more like having a third weapon swap with extra cc options at need as well as a second hp pool to survive when others would go down. I blithely traipse around the HoT maps on my main Reaper. While she does die at times, the jungle has to work to take her down.

Mesmer can be fairly simple to use, you just need to learn one effect per F key and get used to making and destroying your clones and phantasms. They aren’t pets, they’re fire and forget spells that you can dispel at will for bonus effects. That said, for the life of me I cannot figure out use of the F5 key on Chronomancer. My instincts are to hit the F keys when I’m on cooldown in my main bar, but the F5 is used before you use other skills or get hurt, making it proactive rather than reactive. And you have almost no time to hit the other skills. 1.5 seconds, I think, to fire off everything you want to have restored when the F5 wears off? I can’t think that fast!

Thief gets fun as Daredevil but doesn’t have nearly the support use most other professions offer. Ranger becomes Druid which is very heal-support. I don’t play mine enough to really delve into the offensive support options, though.

My personal opinion is that you just can’t go wrong with Reaper, at least for PvE. I don’t PvP. My one Reaper PvP experience was when one of my guilds got its arena up and running and I one-on-one’d and completely wrecked the GM who loves PvP. Maybe my initial attack was a surprise? Or maybe Reaper just was that awesome, I can’t say. I did feel bad about it, that being the inaugural fight for the arena. I had thought I would be the one getting wrecked. The GM’s comment after was " … "

Hehhe yea, I played on and off GW2 for some time and I landed on a necro after trying out the classes. It felt really nice that I have an “oh kitten…” button (the shroud form). I dont consider that to be a stance-dance. Ele is a LOT more heavy on that department :’)
Btw, used dagger/focus +staff I think…? It was at the early part of GW2 ^^

I do know that melee is more of the bigger deal in this game, but I really like to use bows and whatnot thats why I was considering the possibilities of a more ranged type proffession I usually either play a support (healer, but here its more like a defbuffer/buffer) or sneaky guy ^^ Thats why I added ranger and thief (and perhaps guardian with bow…?) to the possibility list.
I will most likely play solo since I left for a long time. So there is also that too. And yea, I plan to play PvE more. PvP is … a bit hecktic here :’D

With these in mind, thats why I was pondering other possibilities then necro. Problem is, I dont have too much time to play, so multiple chars are out of question ^^; I can dedicate to 1 character fully though Thats why I was looking around for some answers ^^
Necro is nice, I like the class so I might end up with it again, but I’m tempted to try out different classes this time.
Ranger is interesting (bow user), the only thing putting me off is the pet (the AI is still stupid, isn’t it?)… at least with necro you can chose to use one or not :P Thats why I was considering Guardian who also has a bow with the new spec, but without the pet hassle.
Last would be Thief, my only worry is that I dont have the fastest reflexes in the world :‘) but could work, who knows… ? ^^ I like to play sneaky classes as well mainly interested in pistols/shortbow though I wasn’t the fan of spamming DB…

I will say that Druid staff has amazing range. And sonar pings. You want to pretend you’re a submarine, spam staff 1 .. Though the glyphs are targeted at your feet. If you’re solo, all to the good there.

I’m also a low-reflexes player, which is one reason I like Reaper. The skills have a lot of windup and they all work well off each other so while there are some sequences better than others, you can’t really mess up by hitting one out of your preferred order.

I do go for all new content on my Daredevil first, but that’s just because he’s been my main for RP and exploration since 2012. He’s a disaster in dungeons, just way too squishy and lacking in group synergy. And when I go back into LS chapters for achieves, he’s usually not my first choice (on the plus side, beating an LS chapter on him makes me have to think my way through things, and then subsequent runs are so much easier on almost any other alt).

I’ll note an issue I have with Dragonhunter that arises from my preference for using all the cool new shinies when in an elite spec: trap utilities and long bow weapon use don’t play well together. The traps get laid down where you’re standing, but with the bow you want your target as far from you as possible. That doesn’t mean you can’t combine them effectively, but it does mean you won’t do so in an intuitive flow of play. If I didn’t feel this silly need to use as much of the elite-spec-defining skills as possible, I’d likely come up with a much more effective DH than I have.