Guild Wars 2

Hey,

I’m downloading GW2 as we speak. I wonder which class is most suited for me: I want to focus on the solo aspect mostly, with some dungeons/instances. PvP is of no intrest to me. I prefer a “battlemage” type, or a “Paladin” type: being survivable, but decent damage & utility, without being a straight up nuker. (Sorry if that made little sense.)

Which class offers reasonable solo survivability, in the Stories? I’m doubting between Mesmer, Elementalist & Guardian. The first two come across as very squishy (based on the threads I’ve read), but their armour styles appear more to me. ;-)

Can you think of any other starter advice?

Kind regards & thanks in advance!

I think you want Guardian for the parading type. Don’t be fooled by a low health pool! The guard has mainly utilities and support skills for itself or party. A well played guardian is awesome in dungeons.
Don’t expect any high burst damage. Guardian is all mainly all about sustained damage, you can easily fight mobs of risen at a time.

Mesmer is very interesting, at first they come off as squash but constant confusions and some invulnerablity skills come in handy. Very interesting class! I run a melee Mesmer with dual swords. Devastating! More of a dancing spell sword.

Ele I don’t have much of an idea. I can’t get into ele. The beginning you might be frustrated in the early stages but stick at it. I’ll let someone else take over this bit.

So Mesmer isn’t a glasscannon? I read some threads explaining that its solo adventures are frustrating.

Guardian is a cake walk… dunno what else to say.

Mesmer can be alright if you build it right. Unfortunately I like the sword/sword skillbar which puts me in melee range. Thought that if I buffed up toughness and vitality I could have fun but there’s no damage there – so if you play Mes you’re pretty much forced ranged.

Elementalist is fun, complicated but fun. Seems to be very difficult to solo personal story instances (as most leave no room for kiting the many enemies you face at a time) and first time players all seem to have trouble leveling solo from the low 20s to about 35. It’s my main though and at level 80 there are several viable builds for PvE that make it fun no matter what range you want to play at. I do play it as a nuker though, so if you jump to the elementalist forums you can see discussion on the tanky builds that work for players (though most of that content seems to revolve around PvP instead).

Like any class it really depends how you spec it.

I run a semi glass cannon but I don’t go down much. The thing is to time those dodge and such. Also when you apply your confusions etc. Don’t spam the whole set of confusions at once play one, attack till it wears off. Stay back a bit till confusion skill is half charged. Apply a different one and attack again. You can get a very steady rotation of confusions and stuff. Also utility skills are amazing! Sure it may take more work to kill something compared to a warrior, but if you want to be a better player playing a harder to learn class ain’t a bad thing!

A Mesmer can also stealth using torch, utility and elite skill. It’s a pretty cool class to play! Except if you play a male the butterfly effects are kinda funny.

Mesmer is far from squishy; i’m the last that die in any given group and i’ve soloed my way to 80 by doing skill points, and DE that others needed a group for. U will have a hard time at low lvls until u get a grasp of the class’ mechanics and unlock some key traits, but imho mesmer shines in any aspect of the game at higher lvls with tight play.

Guardians really are awesome for survivability. If your goal is solo survivabilty (as opposed to AOEing things down quickly) then they are probably the best class in the game. They’re also good for new players in that, unlike some other classes, their talent trees are very well designed to synergize with one another. It’s fairly difficult to come up with a truly worthless guardian build just because of the way the traits are designed.

Elementalists don’t HAVE to be uber-squishy, but it takes until level 20-30 to really get the traits that make them less so. They also have the highest learning curve in the game, so you might want to start with something else just to get the basic game mechanics down before having to worry about you class mechanics.

Mesmers also have issues at low levels, but to a lesser extent. They have disposable pets to tank for them, which helps their survivability a lot. While they can be built glass-connon-ish, the majority of their abilities tend to focus on control more than raw damage. A lot of people claim they have issues learning the playstyle, but that was not the case for me personally. If the guardian doesn’t have enough mobility for you, then you might like mesmer.

Warrior and necro could probably also work for you, with the right builds, with the caveat that you would have to research specific builds. Also, neither of those might have the aesthetic you’re after.

At max level and max equipment the armor difference between light armor and heavy armor is less than 300. At max level each piece of equipment gives bonuses to three different stats, and with those bonuses it’s possible to boost your armor by ~1000; on top of that you can boost your armor by 300 via trait points.
A light armored character can easily end up with more armor than an heavily armored character.

You’ll notice the difference in base health far more but in the end active defense determines your survivability, e.g. dodge rolls, blocks or skills that blind foes.

How durable you are not only depends on your profession but also on your build; e.g. you can build an Ele to fall down the moment a boss looks at him or to be a bunker.

All the classes in GW2 can solo everything that can be solo’d in the game. So apart from dungeons, ‘most’ champions, and group events..you wont have a problem unless you bassicaly play really bad.

However asuming a person plays bad, that person will die with all classes but the class that will last the longest will be the Guardian.
i dont think you would liek the guardian for its paladin apeal ..becouse it really isnt that much of a paladin tbh. However for a battlemage there really is only 2 choices. The Elementalist and Mesmer.

The Ele is all direct damage, you do the damage via your abilities.
The Memser is mainly damage via conditions and your ‘clones/phantasms’.

I personaly find the Mesmer a more fun class than the Elementalist just due to the constant weapon swaping needed in even a simple fight, and the amount of movement you need ot do aswell as cycling your clones and such. The mesmer is also really weak at low levels so it makes those low lvls al ittle tricky. However once you get soe traits going thats when the mesmer comes into its own.

I said all that but im actually a 80 guardian myself. TBH im finding it a bit boring lol. Rly wish i had lvled a warrior or Mesmer higher than just lvl 5o :P

All class’s are design so they can do ANY role in the holy trinity.

Also they made healing into a support role.

Plus tanking into a control role.

So it Control/support/dps is the holy trinity.

The major difference is like I said any class can do any role.

As of right now the Guardian, mesmer, and warrior.

These 3 can do any of the 3 roles in a good manor, while other class’s have weakness in certain one of the roles.

However Mesmer I keep hearing is hard and weak until you learn to play them.
Never experience this myself from lvl 1+ they feel powerful to me.

So you might wanna do warrior/Gaurdian if you looking for easy lvling.

Ps the guy that said Mes as tank build cant do much damage and so your force into a rang build.

He a Kitten(sorry but it true) don’t listen to him(I am a tank Mesmer)

I can 2 men almost any dgn, and solo tons of dgn boss’s.

EsLafiel.4517:

Ps the guy that said Mes as tank build cant do much damage and so your force into a rang build.

He a Kitten(sorry but it true) don’t listen to him(I am a tank Mesmer)

I can 2 men almost any dgn, and solo tons of dgn boss’s.

Don’t understand why you felt the need to insult me over an opinion… but anyways the point I was making is that when trying to level a melee Mesmer if you invest in toughness and vitality so you can be a better melee character the damage output wasn’t there.

I’m glad you can be a great tank, I can however kill things in a third the time on my Ele – would guarantee it actually. Sitting there fighting an enemy as long as it took when I tried leveling a Mesmer is what bored me from the class.

Continue insulting me and saying what you will but the fact that investing points in a tanky build makes you take longer to kill things will remain the same. Because of that Mesmer wasn’t for me… and it’s why I feel the only viable option is Ranged.

Thanks for all the replies. I think I’m going to go Mesmer & Guardian, playing both. I’ve found a good basic thread on Guardians, but haven’t got any luck with Mesmer builds. Can anyone please link such a thread regarding Mesmers? Thanks!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Guide-The-Comprehensive-Mesmer-Guide-all-Parts

Try this. It certainly helped me get to 80. Also if ur at underworld whisp me and i ;ll help u with mesmer

^ yea shadow put up a great link!

Have fun! Glad we could help.

Bvhjdbvkjf.1987:

EsLafiel.4517:

Ps the guy that said Mes as tank build cant do much damage and so your force into a rang build.

He a Kitten(sorry but it true) don’t listen to him(I am a tank Mesmer)

I can 2 men almost any dgn, and solo tons of dgn boss’s.

Don’t understand why you felt the need to insult me over an opinion… but anyways the point I was making is that when trying to level a melee Mesmer if you invest in toughness and vitality so you can be a better melee character the damage output wasn’t there.

I’m glad you can be a great tank, I can however kill things in a third the time on my Ele – would guarantee it actually. Sitting there fighting an enemy as long as it took when I tried leveling a Mesmer is what bored me from the class.

Continue insulting me and saying what you will but the fact that investing points in a tanky build makes you take longer to kill things will remain the same. Because of that Mesmer wasn’t for me… and it’s why I feel the only viable option is Ranged.

Did not insult you, I say Kitten, not a curse word being filter…. but the actually word for baby cat.

However I was upset at the time, because others was pissing me off.

So sorry for semi taking it out on you.

It true my damage out put is not the best, however on any cd monsters are long range. I can do really high damage on.

Like on lupi I did 50k damage on him.

However, I dont care about damage that much. When I can solo any champ, and almost any dgn boss.