Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, Im thinking of playing this game again and I just finished patching it to the latest version so I’m all ready to go. I just have no idea what to play. I read on the professions specific forums, basically on all of them players were like “oh this class is not viable, we need this and that and we’ve been nerfed” etc. so Im just gonna ask directly for opinions

I like ranged more than melee classes (on the contrary I had a lot of fun on guardian but I just want to try something else), and I remember being excited about engineer but got disappointed at really low dps. some of it was probably a l2p issue but I heard i wasn’t alone with it. Also remember someone saying there’s just like 1-2 viable spec.

What profession would you say is doing all-around well? I’m not asking for the most op prof or anything, just one that doesn’t end up gathering dust because other classes will do everything you do, but better. :P cheers.

Engineers are special ops, that means they are used for a very wide variaty off roles and can switch very easy, but on the counterpart they dont stand out on anything. They are OK at DPS, ok at protecting, ok at CC-ing, ok at conditions etc.

So anything you can do, another class can do better, but no class can do all these things as good as you can do them.

Everyone has their opinion on that the “best” profession is. Also these opinions change with every rebalance.

The key here is figuring out how you want to play and building for that. Every profession can range and melee. By using gear and traits, you can determine your character’s play style. Also, by playing different professions, you figure out what you like best about that profession.

For example, I created and Elementalist with the play style of, " she’s going to be in-tune with nature, bit of a hippy, back of the pack, staff wielding, support for the group" in mind.

When I made her and started playing, she turned out to be very tough and a little psychotic. She wields double daggers, does lots of condition damage, and is almost exclusively attuned to fire. She is not in-tune with nature at all, the elements are kitten [sic] afraid of her!!! I’m a little scared to play her sometimes. :P

My point is, the characters in this game can be built and played in so many different ways. My advice is to pick one and try it out and see what you like.

For a well rounded class i would recommend either a Warrior or Ranger. Both are fairly easy to play (as far as mechanics are concerned). The warrior can use just about every non magical weapon in the game (except Short bow) and the ranger has a good variety of both melee and long range.
Also a sidenote: Just about every class can fit most roles in a group
(My personal preference is to stay away from the class specific forums. True you may find some helpful info here and there but its mostly people flaming how either the class is useless or how badly it needs a nerf.)

CountzuCrytus.7256:

For a well rounded class i would recommend either a Warrior or Ranger. Both are fairly easy to play (as far as mechanics are concerned). The warrior can use just about every non magical weapon in the game (except Short bow) and the ranger has a good variety of both melee and long range.
Also a sidenote: Just about every class can fit most roles in a group
(My personal preference is to stay away from the class specific forums. True you may find some helpful info here and there but its mostly people flaming how either the class is useless or how badly it needs a nerf.)

Can’t use daggers either. :P

Khisanth.2948:

CountzuCrytus.7256:

For a well rounded class i would recommend either a Warrior or Ranger. Both are fairly easy to play (as far as mechanics are concerned). The warrior can use just about every non magical weapon in the game (except Short bow) and the ranger has a good variety of both melee and long range.
Also a sidenote: Just about every class can fit most roles in a group
(My personal preference is to stay away from the class specific forums. True you may find some helpful info here and there but its mostly people flaming how either the class is useless or how badly it needs a nerf.)

Can’t use daggers either. :P

Why use a toothpick when you can use a sword :P

There are some very large daggers.

CountzuCrytus.7256:

(My personal preference is to stay away from the class specific forums. True you may find some helpful info here and there but its mostly people flaming how either the class is useless or how badly it needs a nerf.)

Yeah I figured as much :p lots of people who find nothing wrong with their class or know how to play don’t even visit the forum.. or the class forums.

hmm.. yeah im aware most classes can be either melee or ranged, its just that the playstyle also changes in some cases, quite drastically. I mean not just the fact you’re standing further away from the enemy, but that then you might be killing it slowly with conditions and stuff. heck I think i just need to find a list of all the classes weapon set skills explained or something lol. then find what i like.

its been a while since i played, for end game stuff, are there a lot of cookie cutter builds? or people expecting you to be in specific builds if you’re playing a certain class? i always liked customization.

Bearsus.1302:

CountzuCrytus.7256:

(My personal preference is to stay away from the class specific forums. True you may find some helpful info here and there but its mostly people flaming how either the class is useless or how badly it needs a nerf.)

Yeah I figured as much :p lots of people who find nothing wrong with their class or know how to play don’t even visit the forum.. or the class forums.

hmm.. yeah im aware most classes can be either melee or ranged, its just that the playstyle also changes in some cases, quite drastically. I mean not just the fact you’re standing further away from the enemy, but that then you might be killing it slowly with conditions and stuff. heck I think i just need to find a list of all the classes weapon set skills explained or something lol. then find what i like.

its been a while since i played, for end game stuff, are there a lot of cookie cutter builds? or people expecting you to be in specific builds if you’re playing a certain class? i always liked customization.

It varies on what you’re doing. Most dungeons for example people don’t really care as to if you use a specific build or gear set as long as you’re not dying or causing other people die. On the other hand if you join an organized WvW Group the Commander might expect you to perform certain activities (Example: when I played my Ele in a WvW guild I was expected to run a Staff build and throw water fields at certain times).

If you want a list of all the classes and their skills you can go to www.gw2skills.net it’s one of the nicer build websites (they’re a little slow on getting updates out after patches , but the way the website is set up its understandable …but other than that it’s great).

The wiki has all the profession traits and skills listed. Generally with more details than gw2skills.net. Details such as the actual activation speed for certain skills.

They are all in the form of

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_<profession>_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_<profession>_skills

They are generally updated on the same day as updates or the day after.

Khisanth.2948:

The wiki has all the profession traits and skills listed. Generally with more details than gw2skills.net. Details such as the actual activation speed for certain skills.

They are all in the form of

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_<profession>_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_<profession>_skills

They are generally updated on the same day as updates or the day after.

Very true wiki is always the best source of info (call me a sucker for the fancy looking stuff :P )

Bearsus.1302:

I like ranged more than melee classes (on the contrary I had a lot of fun on guardian but I just want to try something else), and I remember being excited about engineer but got disappointed at really low dps. some of it was probably a l2p issue but I heard i wasn’t alone with it. Also remember someone saying there’s just like 1-2 viable spec.

Nah the engineer is good damage, but you have so many traits that are kit specific, and kits themselves, it gets confusing when your new. I will offer a suggestion though, when someone uses “viable” and “specs” in the same sentence, begin questioning anything they say. I have had clowns on profession specific forums tell me a build I linked isn’t viable just after I solo lupi with it. In my experience, there are very many solid builds for each profession, and there are very many players with a limited scope screaming all over the forums how they all only have 1-2 viable specs.

When you have a profession you like, Get advice on builds, but do not lock yourself in to a suggested builds with out tweaking it, testing it, and playing with it, to find what feels right to you.

Every class can be played at multiple ranges (melee, medium or long), but some classes have more options for some of these ranges.

The warrior, for example, has a lot of options for melee range, and relatively few for medium/long range.

The engineer has a lot of options for medium range, but significantly fewer for melee range (tool kit, medicine kit) or long range (rifle, mortar turret elite).

The elementalist has an equal amount of options at all three ranges, but must commit to melee, medium or long range for an entire combat (since elementalist has no weapon swap that can be used in combat).

The Ranger has many options for medium range and long range, but has a very limited set of options for melee range. (This is not to say those options are necessarily bad, though.) The pet can compensate for this, as the pet can also be chosen for various ranges.

The thief has excellent options for both melee and medium range, but can be somewhat lacking at long range (with the shortbow being the only weapon to support that).

I cannot really comment on the other professions, as I don’t have enough experience with those.

I’d suggest Ranger for you, personally. Definitely best at range. The engineer is definitively not ranged (it will make you want to at least hop into the fight, then back out sorta like a thief), nor is it good with DPS at range. Rangers can go DPS, control, whatever you want them to, really.

Mesmers and Staff Elementalists are good ranged magic users. But they’re hard to level up.
Engineers are also hard to level, for that matter since you won’t feel like one until at least level 30. Rangers and Warriors are easy.
Warriors you will also want to hop in the midst of stuff due to adrenaline.

Lorelei.7809:

I’d suggest Ranger for you, personally. Definitely best at range. The engineer is definitively not ranged (it will make you want to at least hop into the fight, then back out sorta like a thief), nor is it good with DPS at range. Rangers can go DPS, control, whatever you want them to, really.

I’ll have to disagree with engineers not being ranged- virtually every weapon and kit involves range except tool kit and bombs (which is more of a kiting/trap kit). One of engi’s highest DPS options is grenades (though there appears to be a tool kit/bomb DPS build), so they are capable of putting out strong ranged damage.

The main thing in PvE min/max settings is that melee or melee-range fighting is almost always preferred over ranging- it’s easier for party members to share boons and defenses and puts out more damage. For that reason, even with ranged weapons, many classes will be up in an enemy’s face. Other classes will eschew ranged weapons for higher-damage melee weapons- most notably, ranger longbow is fine for PvP and open-world PvE, but avoided in min/max dungeoning in favor of sword/warhorn.

This is primarily applicable to speedruns- normal runs and PUGs generally won’t care as much. Just something to keep in mind if you were interested in that route.

When you have a profession you like, Get advice on builds, but do not lock yourself in to a suggested builds with out tweaking it, testing it, and playing with it, to find what feels right to you.

^ This. thankfully this game allows you to swap between builds and things relatively easily

Thanks for the replies so far everyone. i decided to go ele, and having a blast, but i’m only level 9. I played a mesmer to 60-something and remember loving it as well but yes, i agree it was sometimes hard to level. :p it was a tie between ranger and ele but having 4 skill sets instead of 2 seemed like more fun ^^

Several things to remember when talking Builds with others.

1. Many will discuss ALL builds with the view that THEIR favorite game mode is the only one worth considering (whether ignorant or just arrogant)….and fail to mention that they are looking thur PvP or WvW glasses (just examples). They will often discount other game modes as irrelevant to consider. I would suggest avoiding these players in general.
2. Often players only consider something “viable” if it is what they consider the most “efficient” at a specific game mode or even specific task, when other builds will certainly do the job (basically, they don’t know what “viable” really means).
3. If they do not mention options for utility/Elite skill or Trait changes that could be made in specific situations, be wary of anything else they say. It’s likely they are either too narrow minded (or maybe just not smart enough) to think for themselves and realize these options DO exist while playing and MAY be useful under a variety of conditions.
4. If you like the way a certain build plays, by all means use it. However, if you run into instances where it falls short, don’t be afraid to ask for suggestions on how to get around the instance without completely changing your play-style. Also don’t discount the need to change it to move forward.
5. Remember that everyone has an opinion (you can finish this one yourself).

Brother Grimm.5176:

Several things to remember when talking Builds with others.

1. Many will discuss ALL builds with the view that THEIR favorite game mode is the only one worth considering (whether ignorant or just arrogant)….and fail to mention that they are looking thur PvP or WvW glasses (just examples). They will often discount other game modes as irrelevant to consider. I would suggest avoiding these players in general.
2. Often players only consider something “viable” if it is what they consider the most “efficient” at a specific game mode or even specific task, when other builds will certainly do the job (basically, they don’t know what “viable” really means).
3. If they do not mention options for utility/Elite skill or Trait changes that could be made in specific situations, be wary of anything else they say. It’s likely they are either too narrow minded (or maybe just not smart enough) to think for themselves and realize these options DO exist while playing and MAY be useful under a variety of conditions.
4. If you like the way a certain build plays, by all means use it. However, if you run into instances where it falls short, don’t be afraid to ask for suggestions on how to get around the instance without completely changing your play-style. Also don’t discount the need to change it to move forward.
5. Remember that everyone has an opinion (you can finish this one yourself).

This guy is 100,000% Correct!

I know you rather Not learn the game, and perfer to just learn as you go,
But I highly suggest you to read and watch the videos on my (Guide) to help you understand the mechanics and How-To-Build Your own Playstyle so you can play effectively based on how you want to play your class.

Here’s the link:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Combat-System-101-Guide/first

Good luck!