Guild Wars 2

I’m relatively new to MMO’s, and generally a pretty casual player, but I’d like to work toward improving myself and getting into harder content. I don’t need to worry about LFG to find a party — I’m a member of a friendly and tremendously helpful guild, but I’m trying to figure out how I can be useful to them in groups.

The problem is, I can’t settle on a class. I’ve got everything except engineer available. Lately I’ve been running fractals and general PvE on my newly unlocked dragonhunter, but tempest (celestial staff) is definitely my favorite PvP class right now (still need to unlock her for PvE), and a friend has been making a convincing argument that I’d love the reaper (also not unlocked yet).

I like the idea of being a tank, and I’ve heard people have been using dragonhunter tanks in the raid – what does your build look like? What should I expect the role to involve?

Also, I’ve realized a couple things about my playstyle lately and why I like certain classes.

• I’m not great at keeping track of the effects of a bunch of skills based on their written descriptions. I like to be able to see that I’m doing something, even if it’s just watching boons stack. What I really like about tempest is how very visual and auditory my skills are: I can easily see my AoE’s, my earth shield, and hear a shout when I use rebound. On the other hand, chronomancer wells look too similar; I keep forgetting what they do.
• I have a terrible habit of standing in one spot, only really moving if I’m in an AoE field. I don’t know when to dodge, and once my enemy’s in front of me, I’m not inclined to move. I know, this is a big issue I really need to work on! So far playing tempest and dragonhunter have helped me move around more. I’ve got AoE’s centered on my character, but low health and ranged weapon, so it makes sense to move in and out. Positioning myself to pierce multiple enemies with the longbow has me moving more, too.
• I don’t like having too many skills, or having to use them in quick succession. Thief’s definitely out – I can’t respond quickly, and I barely know what weapon skill 5 (any weapon) does because I don’t know when to save initiative for it. I’ve played Mesmer (inexpertly) for a while, but chronomancer seems focused on speed. Aclarity is not helpful if I can’t keep up already! I keep forgetting to use the pet skills when I play ranger. I really wanted to like Revenant, but I get confused swapping legends, especially when they have such different roles (plus I keep swapping weapons on accident and vice versa). Tempest is easy to keep track of because skills are in similar places across attunements.

And I see I haven’t mentioned what I think of my warrior! She was my main when HoT came out, and still the farthest character into the jungle. I’ve enjoyed phalanx strength and condi longbow, but now she seems lackluster compared to the DH. Maybe I just need to rework my build? (here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJATRjMdQfHWGC2eAnIGKCqbMWgk3GgHIAygYIeeA-ThREgA5KRKUCuq+DvyLOdBAHBAA-e) I’d heard initially that the berserker elite spec was terrible, but now I see them listed on Dulfy’s raid guides…

Tl;dr: casual player looking for class and build suggestions to start learning harder content (open to anything but engi or thief)

EDIT: making wall o’ text easier to read

PS — I know I’ll want ascended. Working on that (yes, I know about time-gated stuff), but I’d like to find something that works well in exotics so I know what I need.

Dodge rolling is the key to your happiness increasing, especially on a light armor class. Almost every boss in the game has a tell before they drop major skills, just learn them through repetition, and even ‘end’ game content will be a breeze.

As far as the most forgiving/easiest class for you to play I would suggest progressing your Warrior to Berserker or rolling a Revenant.

Warriors have high health so missing a dodge or two won’t get you killed right away, but the missing chunk from your health will let you know you did something wrong. PS Berserkers are still valued for their might stacking as well as being the BannerBot. Gameplay is relatively the same except now you have an extra F2 to go “beast mode” for faster attack rate and more damage.

Revenant would be my other suggestion because of how visual they are. The Herald is extremely visual not only on the boon bar, but they also have a visual on their feet to let you know what skills you have toggled. Extremely forward play style if you’re using the meta build has you mostly toggling upkeeps and auto-attacking until your energy burns out. The class can be confusing at first since you kinda run into a double swap mechanic, but it makes more sense if you look at it from a Elementalist point of view of swapping Legends plays a bit like swapping attunements.

Both classes and their variants are widely accepted in fractals and raids.

Personally, I run Mesmer/Tempest for Fractals and Herald/Tempest for raids (unless something else is needed). Mesmer for her versatility and group buffing, Herald for his raw damage and boon distribution, and Tempest because he rains fire from the skies…literally.