Guild Wars 2

I’m really going mad,i’ve deleted 26 kitten characters…and still don’t really know.
I tried them all in the mists,levelled them up to at least lvl 10…and STILL i don’t know!
I don’t really care about “balance” : there are people saying that X is overpowered and Y is underpowered,while someone else will say the opposite…so for me everything is well balanced.
Also,i’m planning to play PvE,then after lvl 80 dungeons and WvW,sometimes sPvP too,but that’s optional.

What i’m looking for,is a profession that can be played in a very nice amount of ways,if it’s challenging…better…but it must be rewarding for the difficulty (i’ve heard of some classes being much harder than others…then having the same reward)
If possible,levelling shouldn’t be a pain,and endgame capabilities should be fine.

Right now,i’m thinking about…a “few” professions (let’s say almost them all):
Thief: Venom build,crit build,condition build,pistols build,trapper build,stealth build…ok,it can be played in many ways. It has stealth,i like stealth,nice damage,can also support…but it’s the only class having “mana” (initiation in this case)…i hate mana…but can be fine.

Engineer: I only see complaints about this class,however kits allow it to be played in many ways,i like science…can support well,does fine in dungeons,in pvp and wvw too…a fine choose.

Ranger: Pets,i’ll never be forever alone! Spirits,they look cool,i’ve seen a few differents build for them…a fine choose too

Mesmers: That’s the class i wished to play while downloading the client and past that…however clones are just there to be shattered or stacking conditions using a trait…phantasms aren’t that much durable,and levelling the mesmer is really a pain! however it’s a beast on pvp…

Necros: pets! pets! PETS! no more alone! However they’ll do all the work…and in the late game/end game i’ll be focused anyway,because i’ll be a higher threat.
A nice thing is that infinite swiftness with the war horn,it’d be cool,and i like stacking conditions.

Guardian: cool,strong,shiny and boring,that’s just spin 2 win x.x

Elementalist: People complaining about this profession too: it seems dagger/dagger is the only way to play WvW and PvP…also it’s the squishiest profession x.x

Warrior: Banners are cool…but not very effective,and people could steal them on purpose :x
I dislike the fact it takes no true skill to play,just smash all the buttons and you’ll kill the enemy,unless using some builds like the sniper one.

So…i guess the decision is about Thief,Engineer,Ranger,Mesmer and Necromancer.
Wich one would you play with (not yourself,i mean to play with you) in a dungeon?
Wich has more play styles?
Wich one can level easier?
Wich one is the most rewarding?

I’d appreciate any comment,but please don’t flame and be civil: last time it turned out in a professions war x.x

One of your problems might largely be that soloing is kind of dull on any class.

I play elementalist and guardian.

Yeah people complain about the ele, but most are just upset it’s not a glass cannon WoW style mage, or ended up being too dependent on one particular build that anyone could have figured was going to get fixed in the first place. Traits are a little all over the place but I’ve always enjoyed playing it, and can make it work. I like the challange of the class, it feel like every button you press matters, but if you’re the type that gets hung up because it feels like everyone else is having it better than you, you might want something else.

The guardian is only ‘spin 2 win’ in solo play mostly. I love being able to protect my teammates with walls, wards, reflections and such to keep enemies away from them. Throwing out boons like they’re candy is quite nice too. I feel like my presence makes a difference.

I played Thief to 50 but got bored of it. I felt like every fight came down to spamming the same move until the thing died, and doing anything else was wasted iniative. It’s fun in small doses but nothing I wanted to dedicate myself to primarily. I imagine there’s more of a payoff in PvP but PvE was dullsville for me with this one.

Can’t really give you too much advice on the others, since I haven’t spent too much time with them.

First off, quit reading the profession forums if you are trying to decide what to play. Every profession section is full of whiners who want their class buffed and all others nerfed, such is the way of the MMO.

To me, the hardest profession to master is the Ele, the most fun is the Necro and the face-rolliest (yes I made that up) is (are) the Warrior and/or Guardian.

To be honest, you have to get further than 10 levels to start feeling like you found the play style you like with a class. I have deleted level 30 somethings because I just didn’t enjoy it and eventually purchased an additional character slot so I would quit deleting so much.

Start with what you think would be something you would enjoy and push it to at least level 20. Don’t try crafting or exploring but do pick up the skill challenge points. Use every weapon combination and pick the one you feel most comfortable/happy with. Try different starting areas and races, explore the options to the fullest.

That’s one of the beauties of this game, no monthly means you can take your time to do whatever you want and not feel like you have to get your money’s worth.

To try them…i’ve done that: the mists was useful for that,however i really have no idea who i want to play with up to level 80!

My mind is strange: it can easily find the best solution in any situation that has a right solution…but when a solution is equally good as any other i really get mad.
yeah,MAD…4(almost 5) months and i still have doubts,while if i ask around most people had no issues…at least like me!

A major issue…is that i want to change,and in my mind 80 levels is an infinite amount of time.Of course,i know it’s not,but it feels like so.
For example: i can enjoy playing a…let’s say…thief with a crit build for…let’s say…1 week,but then i’ll feel it old and i’ll want to change! If i can’t,i’ll lose interest very quickly,and i’ll have doubts again like “and what if i’ve chosen a different profession?”

So,i know them all are cool,the thief,the mesmer and the engineer fit my playstyle,but also do the ranger and the necro…however they’re very,VERY different each other,and that makes it a really hard decision for me.

Sometimes,i think i should just smash my head some times,so maybe i’ll then not have these kind of issues xD

Level 10 is not sufficient to show you whether you like a class. Believe me, I have 5 classes leveled to at least 30 (but no level 80’s), because I have massive alt-itis. The skills, strategies, and overall aesthetic of play changes dramatically a few times in the first 30 levels. You can’t expect a stable concept of how each class feels until level 30+. And as much as it helps to head to the Mists and try a lvl 80 build, it does not effectively replicate the moment-to-moment feel of PvE gameplay.

It will feel something like this: 1-10, nearly everything goes. Mobs act relatively brainless, rarely come heavily grouped, and have significantly small health pools. That last part is especially important to note. Once you hit the 10-20 stretch, many of the simple skill combos you used to quickly annihilate mobs now only deal half of the mobs health. That, or you’re fighting five mobs and only killed two with the combo. This can very easily take a class which you thought was incredible and drag it down a few notches on the awesome meter, and suddenly you get the urge to go back and play a different class whom you also remember breezing through 1-10 mobs. You didn’t do anything wrong, and the class didn’t get worse, but the game did get more serious.

20-30, the mobs won’t get substantially worse, but your character will begin to fill out their own niche. You finally have enough choices to make your character feel less defined by their weapon choices than by their trait and utility build. And after 30 you continue to more sharply define this focus. But it takes up to this point before you understand what the class truly feels like to play. Don’t get too caught up early on in what the class might become.

As for which character to first take to 30? If you’re looking for varieties: Ele is the quintessential jack of all trades and can spec for just about anything. Guardian can strongly spec to damage, survival, or support, which gives you a fair variety of options. Most other classes fall into one or two major capabilities, without strongly adopting a third, although Engineer and Necromancer come close.

I think the elementalists still falls under the category “dps-support” to me…i don’t see how it could be harder to kill than a guardian/warrior…but anyway: i didn’t leave there all my characters because the game became a little harder:IMO this game feels too easy early,and fine after level 20 (i levelled them all over 10,but not over 20,except one).

Just to know: can you explain me how the necro can have many ways to adapt? on paper i don’t see it,while i clearly do with the engi.
Also,isn’t the thief adaptable too? it can solo well by spamming blinds,and can play in a group by blinding enemies,stealthing allies and giving allies venom buffs using the trait,it just can’t tank.

Necro have some of the best condition and boon cleansing and swapping in the game. With some decent AoE effects on top of that, it puts them near a solid, though not core, support position. Otherwise, they can nearly keep up survivability with other tanks through intelligent use of death shroud and defensive stat stacking. Not quite enough to properly fill either position, but close.

Elementalist is probably the only class that can keep up with Guardian in terms of sheer survival, with warrior and engineer tagging along after. They require a much higher skill cap than guardian, but are overall no less effective at the task. But it’s a trade-off. You are by no means an offensive Ele at that point, and for a lot of tasks (solo PvE, WvW, and some dungeons) you’re overall more effective as a damage dealer.

It’s fine that you haven’t leveled past 20, just so long as you understand that the game play continues to change up til 30-40. Not necessarily getting more difficult, just becoming more complicated and, often, longer. This is why Thief falls short of acting as a core support or control class: while they have some impressively useful skills (group stealth, blinds, some access to repeatable interrupts) they don’t successfully provide group benefits over large scale or long duration events.

Arguably, a fully venom equipped Thief with Venom Auras makes for the most successful support build they have. It functions well enough in small battles, but for dungeon bosses and large skirmishes you’re left with a couple uses and then a longer stretch absent of support. Since Thieves have basically no weapon skill based support abilities, you can’t keep up the support actions in the downtime. And while venoms have useful effects, they aren’t situationally critical like Shadow Refuge or Smoke Screen.

While Thief, like all classes, has a multitude of ways in which you can tweak their damage output, damage type, range, and utility, they don’t bring the reliable consistency and wide array of benefits (including combos) that core support classes like elementalist and guardian do. Their condition range is rather narrow (poison, bleed, vulnerability, blind) outside of two certain venoms, nor do they have much proactive hard control, which is required of a full time debilitator. And their defensive measures are largely derived from evasion, which will naturally shift aggro to other group members in PvE, whereas true survivalists can mitigate and even intercept damage to save other players. Thieves are damage dealers. They have very adaptable methods of dealing damage. More so than most classes. But ultimately they remain, solely, a damage dealer.

Sounds like you like all the classes and just need to sit down and pick one. I think your preconceptions about the professions though are mostly guided by what trolls have to say about them and the basic “view” they have instead of what they’re really all about. ANY of the professions can fulfill ANY role in the game. Some just fill certain roles better than others.

You said you’re looking for a profession that can be played in “a nice amount of ways” but then you dis Guardian as “cool strong boring and it’s spin 2 win”. Yes that’s the general perception of guardian, as that is how most people play them. Yet It’s probably the class that best fits what you said you’re looking for. Yes you can be very tough class while leveling, if you spec and gear that way. Granted there is a certian amount of natural durability it has in the lower levels, depending on what weapons and skills you take, but post 40, a guardian that has all of it’s stats and gear based towards dps is a very squishy guardian indeed. But at 80, you can do any number of builds with it. You can be pure healing and buffing support. Or you can be a very tanky build with a lot of reflective aoe condition damage output. Or you can be pure dps, or any comination of the above. I think it has more versatility than any other class at 80. Yes for dps, you’ll be lacking a tad behind some of the more dps based classes, but you’ll still have very respectable dps output and you’ll still have options.

I haven’t played an Engi yet, and yes the popular conception is that they’re broken. But I’ve seen some very good Engi players, and from what I’ve heard, they have a lot of versatility and they make a great support class.

Rangers are probably one of the most stereotypical of the classes from other MMOs, but I’ve yet to see one that wasn’t fun to play.

Mesmer’s can be great, and very fun. They good for a lot more than just pvp. Here’s a very extensive guide this guy did for Mesmers. Easily the best guide I’ve seen yet for GW2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H70RjrLdeLs

Necros certainly have a lot of pets. But that’s not the only way to play them. Currently I’ve been leveling up with an aoe bleed/poison condition build that utilizes a lot of kiting. Word is it doesn’t work too well post 60 since a lot of things have closers to negate the kiting, but it’s very fun currently and if it gets too much, I can just go back to minions. The aoe condition build is still very good for dungeons at 80 though.

Ele’s are definitely the hardest to play and the least survivable in the lower levels. If you’re main interest is a challenge, then this would be the class you want.

I think you’re biggest problem is you want to play them all. Just buckle down and pick one. Besides, Idk why you’re deleting them, you don’t have to level and stick with the same toon all the time. It’s ok to swap around if you get bored with one.

I delete them because i’m out of slots… x)

right now i have a 21 engineer (however i missclicked and now he’s named gaaa,facepalm) a lvl 14 guardian,a 17 thief,and a lvl 9 elementalist.

To be honest,i don’t see the elementalist that much hard: ok,i have to swap attunements,but what’s the hard thing other than that?
When i’ve tried it,i’ve had no issues combo’ing my abilities and attunements,the bigger issue is that i die in 3 hits,and the arcane shield has a 75 seconds cooldown :x

Anyway,i’ll check the mesmer guide video,i’ll be back soon.

seen the video (skipped some parts ofc) i think i’ll try an asura mesmer,let’s see.

i think mesmer is the most fun class, it is slow to level but very classy and high survivability.

warrior at the moment is really the easiest straightforward class, I would even say sometimes OP, very easy to level up, very hard to die. all the PVE and personal stories are balanced around warrior IMHO.
it is the only class that i never died in any personal story.

thief is the class that die the most in PVE.

elementalist feels very weak, 1 to 79 and only shines on 80. but very helpful in groups

Engineer is very very fun to level up IMHO, it is few classes in one…
you can play shady demolition man with bombs, grenades and mines.
you can play the nutty professor with elixir gun, flamethrower and elixirs,
you can play the robot mastermind with army of turrets and repair kit…
you can play space cowboy with pistol/shield and just gadgets…
I think that from RP pov it is one of the best classes.

Ranger is the most boring class . period.

The problem comes with how easily they die. ALready you’re having problems with getting killed in 3 hits. I didn’t have that so much at level 9 because I stacked all stam and toughness gear, but at level 15, or about the time you walk into Kessex Hills, the gloves start to come off, and you find out how squishy that ele really is. It can get better later on once you’re able to get some defenses in traits and skills, but imo, it also rather pigeon holes the class into one particular spec.

I think you’ll do fine on the mesmer, they can be made quite tough, but they can still grind their way through mobs fairly quick as you saw in the video.

Mmm…now i’ve doubts again: answer me this question and i’ll play that profession: Wich one would you prefer between mesmer and engineer?

I’m asking that because as a mesmer i refuse to use a shatter build,it just feels bad to me to shatter clones (unless it does the killing blow,then np).
Wich one do you think that adds more to a group? Wich one is better for solo levelling? Wich one is better PvP and WvW?

Also,having phantasms is so cool..but being able to have kits and turret is too…

I’ve also seen that my phantasms die really,really fast (yep still lvl 5,but their health scales,so the point should be the same…)…while i’d really like to make a phantasms build.

i just don’t really know xD

Have to disagree with your statement of Guardians being boring, when you build a bit of toughness with them, and are in melee (or even out of it) you will get boss agro almost constantly, trying to survive that is never boring, frustrating maybe, not boring.

You can say that again Dreamer

Butter I can’t answer that because I haven’t done an engi yet, although I do plan to as they look really cool. But I think you need to go back and look through those video guides on the mes again. It’s good that you don’t want to do a shatter build, it’s the most readily noticeable build, and the easiest to pull off. But there’s other builds, like the staff build using poisons (or was it bleeds) in those vids that does NOT want to shatter you clones often as they’re a big boost in dps both in terms of their bounce-back buff and in how fast they stack your poisons. Likewise, where as your clones are often sacrificial, phantasms are not, as they take longer to get out, and they do significantly more damage than clones. These builds aren’t as readily apparent and aren’t utilized as much, although the staff build has become well known and is probably a staple at this point. However, don’t dismis your shatter or other uses for sacing your clones either. I don’t want to sound like I’m being a proponent for mesmers it’s just that I haven’t played or researched engineers yet. Both can be great boons to a group. It’s all in how you trait them and how you use them. As for pvp though, I rarely saw an engineer, mesmers, on the other hand, are all over the place and are well known for dominating pvp.

BTW are engies the one’s that can duel wield pistols? cause that’s just the kitten.

Mesmers are difficult to level until level 40 when you get some decent traits. They get more powerful/easier the closer you get to lvl 80. However they are one of the more difficult professions to play alongside Engineers and Elementalists so keep that in mind.

They are extremely fun though when you start to master the class but do require some effort.

Do you have to have a main? You said that you’re considering mostly between five classes. How many character slots do you have? Five. Play them all, and free yourself from having to decide on a main right away. Play them beyond level 10. Going into the Mists is great, because it gives you an idea of how the character will play in the endgame. However, the only way to really get a sense for how the character will play – and more importantly, how you will play the character – is to play them to at least level 40 or so. Make your five characters, play them all, have a good time. One will probably emerge as your favorite.

Also, don’t be afraid to try a build that isn’t as “effective” but is much more fun… There’s nothing wrong with that. You can be creative – and you’ll find something you like.

Like everyone else said. You can’t judge a profession in 10 levels no matter where you take that toon…be it mists, wvw or pve.

No true skill?..compared to what? WoW perhaps? That takes skill? Smashing the same rotations over and over? This game is every bit as skilled as any mmo out there because in the end…all you are ever going to do is smash buttons for any strike in any game.

I have 8 toons. 2 lvl 80’s…one is an engineer, the other a ranger. And all the other professions mostly ranging from level 17-level 54.

I’ve made and deleted 6 thieves until this last one which I think captures what I’m looking for in that class (i.e. the small, wiry thief of the genre…though tbh..she is rather busty, I suppose…still, I like her) Thieves die a lot early on. Not because they are squishy…more, imo, because of the high learning curve of how they can be played.

I even deleted a lvl 46 human warrior in favor of a new Charr warrior. No problem…just a toon.

I solo all of them. But some classes….especially the engineer, thief and ele (at least until level 30+) are better in groups, I think.

Feywray.4351:

BTW are engies the one’s that can duel wield pistols? cause that’s just the kitten.

Thieves can dual wield pistols also.

I think i’ll play my mesmer up to level 25 (the same of my engineer’s) then i’ll decide wich one to bring to 80 first. p.s. necro and ranger are cool too…will this ever end(to begin)? XD