Guild Wars 2

I’m considering starting a medium armor character but I’m not sure yet. I’d like to have 1 of each armor type considering I have my 80 guardian and my 15 mesmer that I use to help my friend level. I’m looking for a new character that’s an adventurer to mess around with soloing. I just wanted to hear your opinions on each of them and what you think are their weaknesses and strengths. I then draw upon what is posted to make a choice that accommodates my needs. Simple additive problem solving.

I really enjoy my Ranger. I usually run a condition damage shortbow build, and I find that it’s good combination of soloability and survivability, and being able to do fairly hefty damage in a group situation. I find that I’m usually the last one down in a group – you have the pet to take some of the aggro, which is nice. I’d say that Rangers aren’t a very good support class, but you said you’re looking to solo.

Engineers are fun, but you have to be pretty alert and plan your course of action well. You have to think about each encounter, and think about how you’re going to use it to your advantage. They seem squishier than Rangers, to me (probably part of that is because of the pet-aggro). They can play offense or they can also be a great support class. Engineers cannot weapon-swap.

I have played a Thief only briefly… The class mechanic is a little different than the rest – the focus is on resource (Initiative) management, instead of the cooldown management. I prefer cooldown over resource management, which is why I did not stick with the thief.

Does that help? :]

Yeah it helps. Engineer and ranger are what appeal to me right now from that description.

Engineer (mine is level 80): Higher skill ceiling, but lots of versatility to make up for it. If you like to juggle skill sets, you can load up your utilities with weapon kits and stance dance your merry little way to victory. If not, turrets give you most of the benefits of a pet class, without most of the annoying AI problems. There’s a larger number of skills to use either way, and if you don’t make the best of them then you’re shorting yourself on potential, and that turns a lot of people away from the class.

Thief (lvl 32): Excellent at a few particular things. Hit-and-run. Creatively combining skills to maximize burst. Using shadowsteps and stealth to disorient and misdirect opponents. If you’re okay being the polar opposite of a Jack of All Trades style class, whose entire concept of versatility is, “how can I kill the next hundred mobs each in a unique way,” then it’s good times. If you’re looking for anything outside of a squirrelly, squishy, damage dealer, probably not your bag.

Ranger (lvl 30): A bear pet pretty much nullifies the difficulty of any PvE encounter. To the point of boring. Like a thief, Rangers are all about the damage. Unlike either the thief or the engineer, Rangers don’t get very creative about how they do it. Bottom line: excellent survival at the cost of interesting moment-to-moment play.

I’m thinking about going with engineer. I like the ranger’s survivability but if it’s that boring, then no thanks. I’d rather have decent dps and fun(like my guardian) than facerolly crud. Thanks for the help.

Well, it’s boring for me. But I play a kit-heavy Engineer, so I’m biased. That doesn’t mean you’ll find it boring. I see a lot of rangers around in the game, so it can’t be all that bad. If you won’t like it, you’ll figure that out pretty early in the game, since most races can get a bear right off the bat.

Then again, you can always just avoid using a bear, and use a squishy pet instead. Probably more interesting.

Oddly enough I find the ranger more fun than the guardian. But I don’t think I play it the same way many people do. I don’t use bears (I usually use a stalker and black moa) and currently I’m using a longbow as my main weapon. I also have a sword and either torch or axe for when enemies get into melee range.

My playstyle on the ranger is very focused on movement and getting myself into the best position to attack while dodging or evading enemies or keeping them at range. Whereas on my engineer I focus more on doing damage through turrets and grenades and switching kits to be most effective in each encounter. I’d say it’s more tactical but in a different way, it doesn’t really matter where I am except when I’m positioning turrets but there’s a lot more skill switching going on.

I haven’t played my thief much but I think Aeleniel and Pinder summed it up well.