Guild Wars 2

I have 3 toons at 80, thief(dd), guard(dh) and ranger(druid) and I want to level up and probably explore the map (again) with a light armor class, but I have no clue which one should I choose.

I really enjoy open world PVE, world bosses, and a little bit of fractals, I don’t play pvp too much and I casually go to WvW…

So…. Mesmer, Ele or Necro… and why?

BTW thief is the class I enjoyed most

From my PvE standpoint I will say Necro, because then you can make a Reaper. Reaper is so viscerally satisfying and so tanky tough that my first Reaper is my do-all-the-HoT metas alt, she’s got full HoT map exploration when the rest of my alts must settle for completing VB to work on the Elite weapon, and my second Reaper was the first alt I tomed to 80 just to get a quick duplicate of my beta character. Also Necro gets a utility for perma 25% speed boost, which helps with exploration.

However, for world bosses and running around maps (if you don’t care so much about run speed or are willing to use a focus offhand), Mesmer with a GS has superb range with instant hits. Necro staff 1 is so slow other people kill your target before you hit. Mesmer also has a lot of get-away skills, can enter stealth and/or drop distracting clones while zipping off to the next point of exploration, almost thief like in this. Chronomancer is trickier to play than Reaper, once you’re to that point. To judge by forum comments it also just took a solid nerf kick to a core feature. I have yet to master the F5 use on it — I believe that requires you to preemptively hit it before using other skills and then hit it again, all in a couple of seconds, and I just don’t think that fast. My mesmer is my fractals runner, btw, I like her utility in there.

Which brings me to Ele. Super squishy, lots of finger dancing to get to the right attune, and having to remember 20 things your weapons will do in the heat of the moment (some of them the exact opposite on the same key, where in this configuration you charge to the enemy when you press 3, and in that one you roll backwards). Many swear by Ele, more power to them, but I consider it one of the trickiest professions to play well and definitely not terribly relaxing. If you can play it well, you will be highly versatile and very useful to your friends.

But Reaper is soooo fun. Maybe you can go to the Mist lobby with one of each Light and try out the skills on the golems as a test for what you like doing.

As an ele main:

Eles are amazing in PvE. However, the levelling experience is…. a bit… irritating until you start unlocking traits. You might have a more positive experience now than I did, considering how much the trait system has changed.

If you use scepter or dagger, you’re in for a world of continuous clicking which I hate. However, staff is absolutely amazing. I have a very lazy way of playing open world PvE. I essentially spam lava font, fireball, flameburst… everything dies. You tag all the mobs. You get loot. Not that this is necessarily a ‘professional’ way to play the game, but I love it.

Once you start unlocking your traits, you’re essentially set. You’ve got damage, perma-swiftness, water is great for restoring your health. You’re relatively self sufficient.

I would say it can be quite tricky because you’re essentially made of glass. So… there’s a learning curve involved. I feel that eles are more dependent on their traits than other profs. However, I really had a blast with my ele.

By all means try out scepter/dagger, but once I hit 30, I switched to staff and never looked back. Easily my favourite PvE profession. Once levelled, your staff will just slaughter mobs. If partaking in open-world PvE and world boss events, I honestly think ele just outshines the other two

However… if you want to try more serious PvE-related things, e.g. Dungeons/Fractals… Eles have a pretty steep learning curve I believe.

In terms of necro:

I do like necro… I just found it extremely boring. On the plus side, I very rarely died as a necromancer. Reaper however, is a billion times better than Tempest! They’re so cool.

Necromancers are a forgiving profession I think

In terms of mesmer:

Although I have levelled my mesmer to 80….
I don’t feel strongly enough to say ‘hey! go for mesmer’

I do like mesmers. However, maybe it fits your love of thief? With all the deception/illusions stuff going on…

Make a toon of each light class, go pvp and try them. Anything works in open world pve so it’s better to go with a class you enjoy most. I used to main thief for 2yrs and friends told me I’d love mesmers. Instead necros bore me to death and mesmer gameplay is a pure torment for me but you might enjoy the instant threesome that comes with mesmer :P

Mesmer – it’s a strange profession to get used to at first. You have to rely on clones and phantoms to get your damage done and when those skills are on cooldown it gets old. You don’t kill things particularly fast because of it. They have a great group utility to them but you will find that you are a buffing bot and a portal bringer to groups…so if you don’t enjoy that game play I’d say stay away. Groups aren’t bringing Mesmers for their damage

Ele – I’ve eaten the dirt more times on my Ele than any other profession. It’s made of wet tissue paper but hits like a semi-truck. Some days there is nothing more satisfying than equipping a staff and lava fonting/meteor storming things to death. With the other weapons, it’s going to be more of a finger dance that you have to play to learn. Working with 20 weapon skills at a time and trying to remember which ones are the useful ones at any given time can make your brain explode. Once you got them down though, it can be one of the more fun professions to watch and play.

Necro – This is my new ‘love’ profession. I finally got Reaper and it changes the Necro gameplay and is so much fun to use. I know a lot people are saying how faceroll it is and how much easier it is…because it really is, but Reaper Shroud is seriously the single most fun and entertaining thing I have found in this game. I enjoy the dance between being in shroud and finding the sweet spot to exit so I can get more life force to enter again but not run 100% out incase I need a quick clutch save. I have found it to be a ‘slow’ profession though, I was used to running around with a focus Mesmer or having Swiftness with a Weapon skill on an Ele…rather than having to equip a signet or Spectral Walk.

I’d say give them all a try if you have the account space. If you don’t, level them and then delete and start over with the next one. One is sure to ‘stick’ with you…