Guild Wars 2

I recently got to 80 on my guardian and started making alts. I made a mesmer with my friend but he hasn’t been online for a while. I made an engineer but got bored of it today. I want something with good AoE to dispatch of big groups of enemies. Any suggerstions?

The best AoE in my opinion would be the Elementalist, but it’s not a class I personally enjoy.

I played my Warrior since launch, which is quite similar to the Guardian in a few ways, and I loved it. When I felt it was time for an alt I went Thief and it is ridiculous how much fun I am having. No seriously, it should be illegal to enjoy anything as much. Give it a try, you’ll understand.

The elementalist would be one of the better profession at AOE bombing, but if you’re not used to micro managing all the cool downs and attunement swapping, you’ll be dead most of the time.

Necromancer is another high tier profession when it comes to AOE, wells and marks can and will get rid of hordes of trash mobs fairly quick. It’s also the caster with the largest health pool, so you will have a really smooth time in PvE.

Thieves can do some form of AOE, but I wouldn’t call it fun and easy. Thieves’ AOE involves a lot of kiting, and it gets boring after a while, but thieves’ 1v1 ability is no doubt the best among all professions. If you like killing one mob at a time at an amazing rate, this is a great profession for you.

I played the necromancer but I didn’t really have THAT much fun with it. I like the class but the weapon sets are too limited.

I did have fun with thief actually. Got one to Lv.8 but stopped playing it for some random reason.

As for elementalist, I find it really fun but it’s pretty squishy.

Also, something that’s easily soloable is preferred since I usually play alone.

Presuming you’re making a build that’s centered around maximizing your AoE (ie, I’m not talking about the AoE capacities of the profession on a whole), I would (personally) list the best to worst builds as such:

1. Elementalist (because elementalist).
2. Ranger (Axe/Torch & 3 traps)
3. Engineer (Flamethrower, Grenade, & Bomb kits)
4. Necromancer (wells, staff, exploding minions)
5. Warrior (Hammer/Longbow)
6. Guardian (variety of half-decent aoe)
7. Thief (Shortbow & Venoms)

And you should be able to solo reasonably well with any of those.

How good is the elementalist at survival?

Depends on the build. Bunker (tanky) ele’s are considered some of the most difficult to kill in the game. But you can also run very squishy, if you choose your stats and traits to go that way.

Hmm.. I guess I could try the bunker build.

Pinder.5261:

7. Thief (Shortbow & Venoms)

D/D condition thief should be #1 in my opinion. The amount of bleed AoE from Caltrops + Death Blossom is crazy. Though that in itself isn’t going to bring it to the #1 spot. The thing that trumps the elementalist in my opinion, is the fact that you have so much more control over your enemies and the battlefield. This in turn makes it a very high survivability set-up, because you will rarely even get hit.

I’m talking PvE here, though.

That being said, I find my Elementalist more entertaining due to the mechanics of the profession and the sheer flashyness of the skills. Also, it’s a lot more satisfying to kill stuff on an elementalist than a thief. Simply because my D/D condition thief almost feels like cheating in PvE.

While I haven’t tried the d/d thief myself, and therefore cannot speak on its potential (seen a few in sPvP, nothing to write home about), the ele takes #1 just for the fact that you cannot build an Ele without aoe damage. It is a core construct of their class. Within that, some builds are more or less effective, but all of them have AoE.