(edited by DreamyAbaddon.3265)
What class to pick
Generally, people seem to think the Ranger is one of the easier classes to play in open world PvE. Ranged weapons usually do less damage straight out the door than melee weapons, which I believe is pretty standard across several games, but as a Ranger at least 30% of your damage output comes from your pet. Pets with the highest DPS are feline pets, so the snow leopard, jaguar etc all do significant damage. Without your pet, then yes, the Ranger generally does less damage.
Overall, the Ranger’s best DPS weapon is the main hand sword which, though a melee weapon, has several evades and mobility skills that, to me, make it seem more active, more darting in and out than say a Warrior with a sword is. But yes, definitely not a ranged weapon.
Do you prefer to be very far away or mid-range? Longbow does more damage the further away you are. Shortbow keeps you at mid-range, and does condition damage more than straight DPS, but if you trait for condition damage, you can kill things very quickly. Use your pet to keep the mob at range, and you can kill very efficiently.
Elementalists are probably the most squishy class (aside from perhaps a badly played Thief) and are very difficult to get to grips with, since you have 20 skills at any one time to manage, and swapping attunements comes will a learning curve. Very good Ele players have probably spent hours finetuning their build and learning how to switch in and out of attunements. Staves on Eles are also tricky – brilliant in specific situations, but generally in open world PvE, I think you are more effective with a different weapon setup, such as dagger/dagger, sceptre/dagger or sceptre/focus.
Warriors are the most straightforward class just to pick up and play. And yes, they do very good damage and of course you have the rifle and longbow options if you prefer to play at range. I find the Warrior longbow skills better than the Ranger longbow skills, but I find them less interesting as a class, so I choose Ranger over Warrior.
Do have a look at various build guides on Youtube. If you really want to play a Ranger, then study these guides – take your character into the Heart of the Mists (PvP area) to test out builds that you might want to try to work towards.
While I have a soft spot in my heart for Ranger, the unfortunate truth is that they simply aren’t in that great of a spot right now unless you plan on dedicating your time to sPvP or solo-roaming in WvW.
For your first character, I would strongly recommend Warrior. Not only are they an incredibly capable class when it comes to leveling content, but they’re also currently wanted in every aspect of the game; no matter what you plan on doing when you get to 80, your Warrior will be more than welcome. They’re an irreplaceable part of the WvW zerg backbone, they can roam fairly well, they’re very strong in the current sPvP meta, and everyone is happy to see a Warrior in their party when it comes to Fractals and dungeons.
If you’re adamant about playing another class, Guardian and Elementalist are also strong choices. I personally found Guardian to be a bit on the boring side, but Elementalist is probably my favorite class as of now; that might change once my Mesmer and Warrior reach 80.
Fort Aspenwood | [Bags]
(edited by Flytrap.8075)
Honestly, stick with your ele. ALways roll with two sets of weapons (one in your bag, you can only have one set as ele at a time, but that weapon can be used in fire water air and earth, giving a single weapon 20 skills.) Staff is AoE and good support, dagger is up close and you will be moving about a lot (DONT use daggers on the jumping fractel, I did, must have went off the edge more times than Britney Spears). Scepter is a good weapon for eles to start with, its got a little of of everything, and some nice damage combos and might stacking.
But if you really want to change, as others have said, warrior is the go to class for easy mode. MUCH higher health pool, can use almost all the weapons in the game, built for damage and simple to use. I love my thief, its my main, and i love how a few mistakes will cost me dearly with my no health no armor class. Each to his own, I suppose.
Here is another tip, make a few alts of different classes, then go into pvp mists and you get an auto 80 with almost all your skills unlocked (them new ones still need to be bought but most are rubbish or not very useful in the pvp meta so dont worry about it). That way, you can try out some classes, see how they feel and do it all for free.
You dont even need to go into a match if you really dont, the mists has target dummys you can practice on, as well as class bots you can duel against for a little more real fight practice. Or the boss npcs, like svanir and stuff, practice on them. Plenty of ways to test out builds and see what you like without having to invest time and money into one. Once you have found a class you enjoy, pop back into the pve game and carry on.
I had a soft spot for Rangers when I started playing, deleted my original Ranger, started again, and realised that Engineer is the current best class in terms of similarity with the Ranger… Yeah, he doesn’t have a Bow which I’m unhappy about, but he has a lot of default survivability and Build Options.
Since Ranged is all the Engi really has in terms of base weapons, you can easily switch out for a Kit and use a wide variety of hard-hitting, group-supportive attacks, which I feel is a good start point to those who’d want to be Rangers. I main Engi and keep hesitating whether to take on Ranger or not, mainly because of the Bow aspect and initial Ranged, single target-focused damage which seems to be good near the back of a Zerg in WvW running a pure damage Build to burst down those Warriors; same can easily be done with an Engi, if anything, a little more effectively with a Boon-Burst-Static Discharge Build which I’m running ;D