Guild Wars 2

My main character is a berserker Ele. I’ve got alts of every class other than warrior and I’d like to something else with them in PvE. I’d like to know what my options are.

What roles can each class fill in PvE that can’t be done by a berserker ele ?

For example, which classes can do decent condi dps ?
Do they do it in melee or at range ?

Which classes make good healers ?

Which make decent melee berserkers ?

I am not asking for specific builds in this thread. I will decide what role I want a character to fill, then I will go into the class specific forum to get a build.

Any of them can do anything on a fundamental level, and everybody will have different opinions on what is the “best” at each role, for example, I have seen Warriors be healers, but I personally think Druid or Tempest makes the best healer, but other people might argue that Revenants are the best healers, and it all comes down to the situation it’s being applied to.

The following are my personal views that I would use my characters for. If somebody can get their Elementalist to tank in a raid or something, power to them, but this is just what I use mine for, or would try to use them for.

Warrior – Conditions
Guardian – Direct damage, Boon distribution or Conditions
Revenant – Any role
Ranger – Direct damage, Conditions or Healer (with Druid spec)
Thief – Group support (stealth) Condition damage, Direct damage or Tanking (with Daredevil spec)
Engineer – Any role (except tanking)
Elementalist – Any role (except tanking)
Necromancer – Direct damage, condition damage or tanking.
Mesmer – Direct damage, group support (portals, reflection) or tanking (with Chronomancer spec)

As for the ranges of those professions, if you want to be ranged or not depends on the situation and build you’re using. No profession is exclusively ranged or melee. All professions have both a ranged and a melee weapon for direct damage and conditions.

Thanks for those answers.

Due to the mastery point for getting ascended armor for each weight class, I’ll focus on a medium and heavy class now, others later. Medium will be the ranger as a healer, since everyone always brings them up when talking about good healing classes.

That just leaves heavies. I think I’ll stick one in berserkers gear for direct damage in melee, one in a condi gear. Would I be better with condi guard, berserkers rev or the other way round ?

You’re over thinking this. As was mentioned, any profession can do pretty much anything. I have a main character I prefer playing, and different types of armor. So in my case, I can play a healing druid, a power ranger, or a condi ranger.

Condi vs power rev and guardian… it doesn’t really matter, either can do either. For now, condi burn guard probably does more damage than the condi rev, but that could and probably will change with any random balance patch. Especially since burning will likely be looked at soon due to it’s dominance in both PvE and PvP.

There isn’t really any need for that extra mastery point.

Khisanth.2948:

There isn’t really any need for that extra mastery point.

I’m currently two mastery points away from being able to afford all the core mastery tracks. I want to be able to afford all the mastery tracks. My choices are:
– Ascended and cultural armors. Which just require me to accumulate gold, which is something that happens however I play GW2.
- Spend mytime going after other mastery points, taking me away from doing the parts of GW2 I’m enjoying right now. When my playing time is rather limited.

Sure, I’ll take longer to get them this way, but it will be more entertaining for me.

Argon.1563:

Any of them can do anything on a fundamental level, and everybody will have different opinions on what is the “best” at each role, for example, I have seen Warriors be healers, but I personally think Druid or Tempest makes the best healer, but other people might argue that Revenants are the best healers, and it all comes down to the situation it’s being applied to.

The following are my personal views that I would use my characters for. If somebody can get their Elementalist to tank in a raid or something, power to them, but this is just what I use mine for, or would try to use them for.

Warrior – Conditions
Guardian – Direct damage, Boon distribution or Conditions
Revenant – Any role
Ranger – Direct damage, Conditions or Healer (with Druid spec)
Thief – Group support (stealth) Condition damage, Direct damage or Tanking (with Daredevil spec)
Engineer – Any role (except tanking)
Elementalist – Any role (except tanking)
Necromancer – Direct damage, condition damage or tanking.
Mesmer – Direct damage, group support (portals, reflection) or tanking (with Chronomancer spec)

As for the ranges of those professions, if you want to be ranged or not depends on the situation and build you’re using. No profession is exclusively ranged or melee. All professions have both a ranged and a melee weapon for direct damage and conditions.

" but other people might argue that Revenants are the best healers"
And those people are wrong.

“Warrior – Conditions”
And the king of giving might to people.

“Guardian – Direct damage, Boon distribution or Conditions”
no, no, and no

Revenant – Any role
revenant does decent flat dps and great boon sharing, and is mostly brought to increase the boon duration of the mesmer 50% with facet of nature, it is bad for anything else really.

Ranger – Direct damage, Conditions or Healer (with Druid spec)
Don’t forget great support with frost spirit and spotter, also has bad personal dps.

Thief – Group support (stealth) Condition damage, Direct damage or Tanking (with Daredevil spec)
sure

Engineer – Any role (except tanking)
Engineer is good for a condi role that has a lot of cc, and it can tank great with scrapper…

Elementalist – Any role (except tanking)
You can tank just fine on an elementalist. Can heal or condi but not optimally.

Necromancer – Direct damage, condition damage or tanking.
sure

Mesmer – Direct damage, group support (portals, reflection) or tanking (with Chronomancer spec)
-mesmer
-direct damage
hahaha, no
mesmer has the lowest dps in the game quite probably but has GREAT buffing abilities with 100% quickness uptime and also alacrity.

Argon.1563:

Any of them can do anything on a fundamental level, and everybody will have different opinions on what is the “best” at each role, for example, I have seen Warriors be healers, but I personally think Druid or Tempest makes the best healer, but other people might argue that Revenants are the best healers, and it all comes down to the situation it’s being applied to.

+1

On top of that you also run into the argument of professions in a vacuum setting vs in a team setting. The biggest example being a Chronomancer who has incredible buffing capabilities. In a vacuum all the Alacrity and Quickness goes straight to the caster and Illusions increasing their Damage output by a noticable amount. Due to the prioritization rules in a team setting those same Illusion would seldom, if ever, receive those buff since player party members take priority over companion or other AI when it comes to receiving boons/buffs.

Personally, I’ve run with Rev healers and have had great success. Sure, they may not have the damage Healing coefficients/bonuses as someone like a Druid, but being able to visually see the tablet made it a bit easier to see where the healing was focused at. I’ve also seen Necro and Mesmer Tanks.

I agree with Argon that any class can fit any role to an extent, though there are definite winners when casting particular roles when we’re wanting to optimize. If you’re concerned about optimal professions in optimal roles I’m sure the community will gladly point you in the right direction. Though if you’re not concerned with that at all I would recommend you pick a class that better meets your playstyle.

Additionally for guardian: Ally condition removal.