Guild Wars 2

Comeing back to the game after a hiatus and want to start from zero on a new character. I’m mostly looking for something with good mobility and evasiveness, maybe even a touch of CC to compliment. It can die quick when it gets hit, I like the idea of actively avoiding damage better than soaking.

My first character was an engineer so I’m kind of leaning toward something with a bit of melee or close range capability.

Any suggestions?

For WvW This Mesmer Build is powerful and has good kiting/damage avoidance as Stella’s the ability to take hits if needed.

Thief, although everyone is praying for a huge nerf to stealth.

Mesmer, but only when you’re extremely skilled

Any profession if played as such. Every profession has control/support abilities which allow him to evade most damage.

Mesmer . Its kinda a slow leveler though and you’ll be wanting to call it the mehsmer until around 40-45 but it gets real fun from there on out

Don’t forget the Ranger for those evasive skills. With my Shortbow + Sword/Dagger weapons and the utility Lightning Reflexes, you can jump around, spin around the enemy, cripple and stun.

I use this build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjIVV21VCWo2BilCAFI2DDxoH9Uke2XwkD

But I would definately say that thief/mesmer > ranger.

Thief…..all they do is run like hell

Thief and Mesmer both have a great amount of mobility and evasive maneuvers, but I’d also recommend checking out a dagger/dagger elementalist.

From a PvE perspective, thieves give you the flexibility to trait for solid damage while throwing in some blinds and dazes (offhand pistol comes to mind) that can shut down anything that doesn’t have Defiance – and lets you have some crazy mobility (sword, dagger, SB,…). I haven’t spent a lot of time on my mesmer, but I see a lot of potential for moving around enemies and giving you lots of escapes while doing decent damage. Dagger/dagger eles are paper thin and do a bit less damage than the other classes at low levels, but they have a very mobile move set (less than thief and the many shadowsteps, but more than mes) and have some great CC in the way of stuns/immobilizes and freezes as well as durability through their own CC removal and healing.

Thief – based completely around quick dmg bursts, evasion, and stealth

Mesmer – squishy, but you mitigate damage with distortion, evades, and clones

Ranger – not a popular class right now, but can trait for near endless dodging. 1h sword even has evasion built into its auto-attack.

Seras.5702:

Thief – based completely around quick dmg bursts, evasion, and stealth

Mesmer – squishy, but you mitigate damage with distortion, evades, and clones

Ranger – not a popular class right now, but can trait for near endless dodging. 1h sword even has evasion built into its auto-attack.

I think you mean 2h sword for ranger, it’s 3rd attack in the #1 chain is an evade. 1h sword has the ‘get behind your enemy’ move, which could be also an evade though (didn’t really test it out much, skill 2 was a great idea but way too slow to cast to be useful).
generally the 2h sword felt quite good imho. #3 leap has endless range, you get good uptime of swiftness and fury with 2 moas and a warhorn, vigour is naturally built in (minor trait I think) etc. all in all he feels quite nice to play, but the horrible pet AI (and pet skills take forever to cast, if they even do), the low overall dmg and the useless traits are quite a disappointment right now. maybe wait until they buff ranger.. a lot.

mesmer doesn’t really have much evasion.. near consta vigour is easily possible, but it’s not unique, guardian, ranger and thief are capable of the same (different methods, same effect). but the distortion you get from F4 shatter and sword #2 makes you invulnerable for a while, which amounts pretty much to the same thing, or is actually better. I do however think mesmer doesn’t feel quite as mobile as ele or thief, especially when traveling you’ll feel slow, because of only a short uptime of swiftness. personally I really like mesmer though, as ele gets a bit annoying if you have to stand still for a moment (CoF 1 i.e.) or can’t use much ground to fight (on bridges, at ledges or similar stuff).

also don’t forget warri.. with a warhorn you can get vigour and swiftness (as well as cure immobilize, cripple and chill, traited even all other conditions as well), gs has it’s #3 whirling move which is an evade, you get blocks on several weapons etc. my current build focuses on shouts, healing with shouts and burst abilities (shouts give adrenaline and more dmg with more adrenaline etc), feels pretty fluent, constant weapon swapping, using burst skills all the time etc. if you want cc, just take a hammer and you got plenty. longbow’s longlasting firefield and it’s burst finisher are useful too (whether alone for a few might or to blast in other people’s fields).

actually, after writing this wall of text, I think pretty much every class can be played with evasion/mitigation in mind. guardian does it as well with blinds and aegis, engi can dish out a few blinds, cripples, immobilize, chill etc as well.. necro might be a bit of an exception, he plays a bit differently with his 2 (or depending on elite skill) 3 lives..

Ele. Hands down. My main is a mesmer, and I have to say that ele evasion should be reportable behavior.

With Rune of Vampirism (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_Vampirism) you potentially 3 passively-proccing tank/invulnerable abilities (4 if you include your downed “2”). Add slotted mist form you get an extra activated, hold a dagger in your offhand you get another activated (Ride the Lightning). With the correct traits you also have loads of condition removal (for conditions like cripple). Plus a load from other abilities, such as conjured weapons (if Anet would fix them). Don’t forget your lightning fields etc. that stun enemies.

If you master it; it’s a metric kittenton of fun to troll groups, and you will likely spend more time making sure that you don’t get too far enough that they lose interest. I have kited players for massive distances (a good 30-40s chase) in WvW; on a level 42 ele, by simply focusing all my traits and abilities on evasion.

Ranger and thief have good mobility and evasion just through their weapon kits. Thief makes use of shadowstep for good mobility and ranger uses leaps from either sword (tricky to do but if skilled you can get very far with its 2 leaps) or gs. Depending on how you build, they can soak damage or be squishy but their playstyles must shift drastically to fill these 2 roles. Both are excellent in solo play but the gold start goes to ranger in pve for solo. For pvp solo, thief usually wins only because of how much of an anchor the pet is on the ranger.

If you wan’t the most evasion and mobility go thief. If you wan’t the most evasion with decent mobility and decent survivability go ranger. If you want good evasion good mobility good survivability and good damage go bunker ele because they are just flat out broken atm.

A dagger/dagger thief with enough points in the Acrobatics and Trickery trait lines can dodge pretty much nonstop.

most of the answers here are correct.

in my own experience thief and mesmer are the best. I havent played ranger or ele above lvl 15 (didn’t enjoy them myself)

just about every class can be mobile, but from what you are describing, I do have one piece of advice.

do NOT roll a guardian if you want to be mobile!

Thanks for all the advice. Looking into it I think I’ll give thief a shot since that seems to be one of the most recommended. I tried a mesmer before, and while I didn’t hate it, i did sort of lose interest and the whole shatter mechanic really didn’t click with me. Plus there’s a chance I’ll get a little bit of hit and run gameplay out of it which is a bit of what I’m looking for.