Guild Wars 2

In my opinion, it’s the engineer. Even the elite spec takes skill to play. You just can’t go in spamming AoE’s and other shanaggigins with an engy and expect a kill.

A close tie with the Engy would be the Theif. As a theif, you must constantly rotate during a match to +1 fights and decap points. You must always pay attention to where your teammates are and who is fighting who. Bottom line, only a competent player can be good with a Theif.

Contrary to popular belief, I think the Mesmar takes quite a bit of skill as well. You must know how to best ultilize your shatters to clear condis, heal, etc.

Class that takes the least skill? That spot belongs to the Reaper hands down, before the patch that is.

I will like to hear what your opinions are.

Thief in my opinion takes that trophy. Not only does it take map awareness and skill to pull of effective methods of decapping or engaging foes appropriately but I also consider them a class with a very high skill cap in regards to combat. It’s very rare to find a thief who can do both.
Especially in the last couple of metas that have had many fights against their favor even in a 1v1 case.
A good thief is quite a high valued asset in both points and teamfights. However, due to it also being punished the most for mistakes, makes it alot harder in play.

Mesmer, as a whole comes a close second but I would say it’s mostly held back by alot of it’s mechanics than most. Regardless of its own cheesy uses, resorting to tricks to keep it going.

I would rank Engi as third, although I feel it’s gotten easier and core engi is higher than scrapper itself in terms of the skillcap. Overall I’d say Engi is one of those middle ground classes at the moment. Not god tier easy, but not put under the thumb heavily either.

Thief

Core engi takes skill but scrapper is faceroll

Thief.

That’s mostly due to the fact that a thief needs to be the most map aware class in the game and more people who play thief can’t do that.

Mesmer.

Teehee, thief, I’d say.

Gratz
http://i.imgur.com/mHxYXlH.gif

Depends what you mean with skill, at what level of play, and which builds.
Aka way too many factors.

Generally, I’d say that If you’re talking about mechanical complexity, Ele and Engi are probably the highest, with Mesmer a bit behind.

If you’re talking about gamesense and reading the opponents, then probably Thief and Warrior.

Zeghart.9841:

Generally, I’d say that If you’re talking about mechanical complexity, Ele and Engi are probably the highest, with Mesmer a bit behind.

There’s no mechanical complexity in those classes in their current meta state. If we were talking core engie, shatter mes and s/f burst ele from long ago then I’d agree.

i’ve tried many class except ranger and DH.
The hardest class i found in engi (not scrapper, but the core one), followed very close by ele, but i can admit i didnt try them that much so i dont know if they are so hard at high level.
Differently from what people saying, i found thief not that hard, at least in 1v1, but if we talk about map awareness then is another thing.
Easieast class? Simply the necro, it’s an automatic gameplay especialy after hot. Even a noob who never touched gw2, can easily be competitive as a necro in a couple of days.

Thief.
They are pretty much much what every martial says about a punch.
“Easiest thing to do. Hardest thing to master.”

Their mechanics aren’t difficult to get your head round. Its their ability to be 1-2 punched by anything out of a game that makes them a steep learning curve. Get sloppy with them for one second and the duel is now heavily disadvantaged against you.

The next most difficult is warrior. Very little of what is stated about warrior actually works. Many of their skills rubber band, glitch, don’t match their descriptions or do what they are stated to do. Once you learn how not to emphasize their short comings they become a fun profession..but the learning of what works, what doesn’t, how to make this actually work etc etc is the hard part. Thats why many people laugh at warrior..until they come across a good one.

With so many get out of jail…and the ability to cross the map in half the time of other profession…it’s extremely hard to pretend that thief requires any mechanical or special knowledge

Your only job as thief is to decap empty point and +2 people…you have the best mobility in the game, you have the ability to get the kitten out whenever you want …no matter the number of opponents and unless you’re a total moron….

Is even possible to fail at thief?…ha yes, maybe the try hard that try to 1vs1 specs that go bunker as it’s the only thing they can do, lacking stealth or shortbow teleport, losing to specs that are forced to go full ham on tank role as they can’t stealth and run away at will.

It must be incredibly hard to learn how to avoid dmg..when half the enemy team won’t even try to chase/follow or even target you..tell me more how hard is to play thief..

Guess that to avoid aoe skills that are not even directed at you..must be the hardest thing in this game -_-

Not surprisingly , every time a thief try to play a profession that they think requires no skill..they fail majestically lol, must be hard to talk when you can’t run away at will, you haven’t got either the stealth or mobility to do so

My experience is quite the contrary. Whenevr I play one of the easier classes for an extended period of time, I find it hard to get used to the thief again.
And yes: compared to thief most professions are relatively easy to play. It took me about 150 games on ranger to get them to a point where I’d be only a little bit less effective than a veteran.
Ele an engi both require a different sort of skill: you have to get your rotation right.
Its basically the same for mesmers I guess.
The ‘skill’ of thief is a) Having to react to everything your opponent does. You dont act, you react. b) You cant afford to make a single mistake.

Ranger of course! Why you might ask? Because that’s what I use!

I kind of think all classes are hard to master, while many are easy to play poorly.

Azukas.1426:

Thief

Core engi takes skill but scrapper is faceroll

^ Agreed with this. I would say that it does take some skill to play mesmer well, even if you can perform well while being a mediocre mesmer.

Core ranger. Without any decent profession mechanic, a glue eating pet companion, millions of reflects, and a for-show-only bow it is the hardest profession to master, if there is a thing as “master ranger”

whatever class I main takes the most skill, and whatever class counters me takes the least.

Darknicrofia.2604:

whatever class I main takes the most skill, and whatever class counters me takes the least.

Last year I started a thread like this but I had one rule. No one was allowed to answer with their main class. It went pretty well. For those curious thief had 19 votes, next was engi with 15, then ele with 13 and so on. Small turnout that really only told me that forum users are a vocal minority, and all classes take different though prosseces to improve. I am really terrible at engi

Darknicrofia.2604:

whatever class I main takes the most skill, and whatever class counters me takes the least.

No other answers needed.

I’d say Thief requires the most skill. Hardly ever fight good thieves, and you can really tell the difference between your typical Thief and an actual good Thief.

Core Engi is next. Scrapper is still pretty forgiving, so really can’t say it requires much skill.

Mesmers used to require skill, and I’d say power Mesmers still do. But condi Mesmer and Chronos are just faceroll.

Rangers / Druids are both very forgiving. If you are firing into reflects, that just shows your lack of skill concerning basic game mechanics and awareness.

Contrary to popular belief, Necros / Reapers do require some skill to be decent. They lack active defenses and are easy to focus. Without good postioning and awareness, it is really easy to focus down a Necro / Reaper.

As for the rest, can’t speak much for them as I haven’t spent much time on other professions.

Right now every class is a faceroll.

Maybe 10 months or a year ago it was a differnt story.

Supreme.3164:

With so many get out of jail…and the ability to cross the map in half the time of other profession…it’s extremely hard to pretend that thief requires any mechanical or special knowledge

Your only job as thief is to decap empty point and +2 people…you have the best mobility in the game, you have the ability to get the kitten out whenever you want …no matter the number of opponents and unless you’re a total moron….

Is even possible to fail at thief?…ha yes, maybe the try hard that try to 1vs1 specs that go bunker as it’s the only thing they can do, lacking stealth or shortbow teleport, losing to specs that are forced to go full ham on tank role as they can’t stealth and run away at will.

It must be incredibly hard to learn how to avoid dmg..when half the enemy team won’t even try to chase/follow or even target you..tell me more how hard is to play thief..

Guess that to avoid aoe skills that are not even directed at you..must be the hardest thing in this game -_-

Not surprisingly , every time a thief try to play a profession that they think requires no skill..they fail majestically lol, must be hard to talk when you can’t run away at will, you haven’t got either the stealth or mobility to do so

Can we see your thief gameplay?

Supreme.3164:

Your only job as thief is to decap empty point and +2 people…

My goodness, what has this patch done?
Thieves have been demoted yet again… now, their role is to +2 fights! :-(

Thief.

You are a playing a game aimed at casual players with barely any resource management, with a sort of faux action combat where the vast majority of skills are auto-aimed or require no real aim (melee) and with passives coming out of its kitten and with so many things designed in a way that requires no real thought or skill, to the point they seem designed in a way to assist not so good players, if you think any class in this game takes much in the way of skill, then well…

Burn.5401:

Zeghart.9841:

Generally, I’d say that If you’re talking about mechanical complexity, Ele and Engi are probably the highest, with Mesmer a bit behind.

There’s no mechanical complexity in those classes in their current meta state. If we were talking core engie, shatter mes and s/f burst ele from long ago then I’d agree.

As I said, it depends on the builds. Those classes have generally the highest potential for mechanical complexity, the only problem is that their current meta builds are extremely simple. But I feel that’s more of a powercreep problem.

XxsdgxX.8109:

Darknicrofia.2604:

whatever class I main takes the most skill, and whatever class counters me takes the least.

No other answers needed.

One thing I would say also is that warrior takes a hell of a lot more skill than it did back in the hambow and great hammer meta days.

Hi

It depends much on the build but i would say thief and warrior are hard to master but easy to play decent. Average thiefs or warriors are easy prey, good ones extreme challengign. I can smash top revenants easier then a realy good warrior which usually kills me. Elementalist if you don´t play full defence is als quite hard.
I have the most fun with elementalist without water traited but needed half a year to play that challenging.

Talonblaze.3175:

Thief in my opinion takes that trophy. Not only does it take map awareness and skill to pull of effective methods of decapping or engaging foes appropriately but I also consider them a class with a very high skill cap in regards to combat. It’s very rare to find a thief who can do both.
Especially in the last couple of metas that have had many fights against their favor even in a 1v1 case.
A good thief is quite a high valued asset in both points and teamfights. However, due to it also being punished the most for mistakes, makes it alot harder in play.

Mesmer, as a whole comes a close second but I would say it’s mostly held back by alot of it’s mechanics than most. Regardless of its own cheesy uses, resorting to tricks to keep it going.

I would rank Engi as third, although I feel it’s gotten easier and core engi is higher than scrapper itself in terms of the skillcap. Overall I’d say Engi is one of those middle ground classes at the moment. Not god tier easy, but not put under the thumb heavily either.

Core engy takes a ton of knowing how your skills and traits interact with one another. I literally had memorized what each of my traits did for my Engy build just because i had to if i wanted to play the class to its full potential.

I agree with you about the Thief. Its just one of those classes that you must be good with or you simply won’t do well.

I started to train warrior as my second class and did play staff ele a bit. With staff i realized how traind i am already on my usual weapon set and how huge the diffrence is….
After about 500 matces on one class and weapon set you notice how bad you are with something new. And i don´t vanish with warrior since i know the game and had a few matches so i already have consideable level like killing most classes within a few seconds if they don´t dodge/block the shieldstun (a singe sunbreak doesn´t rescue them due to CC chain …).

Definitely not thief, the only thing you need to learn and it takes practice is to learn to disengage and not being greedy. Mesmer is harder.

Unpopular opinion, but I think the revenant is one of the hardest classes to play.

Yeah yeah i know y’all scream bugged and OP skills and whatnot. Honestly though, between switching stances and weapons and managing cooldowns while having no stealth to disengage safely and on top of that micromanage an energy bar.

The difference between average revenant and top tier revenant is skyhigh and it shows in absolutely every 1v1.

You are free to watch TCG’s games from last week where Frae obliterated every other rev and see the difference.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Unpopular opinion, but I think the revenant is one of the hardest classes to play.

Yeah yeah i know y’all scream bugged and OP skills and whatnot. Honestly though, between switching stances and weapons and managing cooldowns while having no stealth to disengage safely and on top of that micromanage an energy bar.

The difference between average revenant and top tier revenant is skyhigh and it shows in absolutely every 1v1.

You are free to watch TCG’s games from last week where Frae obliterated every other rev and see the difference.

I was kinda thinking that. Sure the class is op on paper, but in reality 90% of all revs suck, so there must be some skill requirement to it.

Supreme.3164:

With so many get out of jail…and the ability to cross the map in half the time of other profession…it’s extremely hard to pretend that thief requires any mechanical or special knowledge

Your only job as thief is to decap empty point and +2 people…you have the best mobility in the game, you have the ability to get the kitten out whenever you want …no matter the number of opponents and unless you’re a total moron….

Is even possible to fail at thief?…ha yes, maybe the try hard that try to 1vs1 specs that go bunker as it’s the only thing they can do, lacking stealth or shortbow teleport, losing to specs that are forced to go full ham on tank role as they can’t stealth and run away at will.

It must be incredibly hard to learn how to avoid dmg..when half the enemy team won’t even try to chase/follow or even target you..tell me more how hard is to play thief..

Guess that to avoid aoe skills that are not even directed at you..must be the hardest thing in this game -_-

Not surprisingly , every time a thief try to play a profession that they think requires no skill..they fail majestically lol, must be hard to talk when you can’t run away at will, you haven’t got either the stealth or mobility to do so

Sorry, but you’re wrong. Maybe you should actually play one. My thief is by far my hardest toon to play effectively.

Einlanzer.1627:

Supreme.3164:

With so many get out of jail…and the ability to cross the map in half the time of other profession…it’s extremely hard to pretend that thief requires any mechanical or special knowledge

Your only job as thief is to decap empty point and +2 people…you have the best mobility in the game, you have the ability to get the kitten out whenever you want …no matter the number of opponents and unless you’re a total moron….

Is even possible to fail at thief?…ha yes, maybe the try hard that try to 1vs1 specs that go bunker as it’s the only thing they can do, lacking stealth or shortbow teleport, losing to specs that are forced to go full ham on tank role as they can’t stealth and run away at will.

It must be incredibly hard to learn how to avoid dmg..when half the enemy team won’t even try to chase/follow or even target you..tell me more how hard is to play thief..

Guess that to avoid aoe skills that are not even directed at you..must be the hardest thing in this game -_-

Not surprisingly , every time a thief try to play a profession that they think requires no skill..they fail majestically lol, must be hard to talk when you can’t run away at will, you haven’t got either the stealth or mobility to do so

Sorry, but you’re wrong. Maybe you should actually play one. My thief is by far my hardest toon to play effectively.

Hardest relatively to what? bunkers?
I believe all burst builds show less sustain respect to builds created with the purpose of staying alive for as long as possible, therefore the thief is the hardest respect to what? other burst builds?

Did you actually try to play another burst build that is not thief? Using the same amulet that’s it which is Marauder and not Paladin. In this regard the thief becomes the easiest one by a mile

When trying to make comparisons do take in consideration all of the aspect involved, giving for granted the amulet used by the compared builds..it’s not really fair and neither logical to do so

Ravenmoon.5318:

Unpopular opinion, but I think the revenant is one of the hardest classes to play.

Yeah yeah i know y’all scream bugged and OP skills and whatnot. Honestly though, between switching stances and weapons and managing cooldowns while having no stealth to disengage safely and on top of that micromanage an energy bar.

The difference between average revenant and top tier revenant is skyhigh and it shows in absolutely every 1v1.

You are free to watch TCG’s games from last week where Frae obliterated every other rev and see the difference.

I was going to make a post like that too actually.
rev is very easy to be decent at, but there’s a LOT of tricks and obscures things Rev can do to push the level higher.

Taking good advantage of swap sigils, using the legends swap damage/heal trait, managing energy to its maximum potential.
Doing the best damage possible as Rev in pvp is technically difficult, and it shows a LOT.

Just put a random revenant against a tempest and see how fast they can kill them. You’re going to see insane levels of difference between a good and a great rev.

Was also about to say the same thing about Rev but didn’t find it worth it to be then burned alive by the angry mob.

This is a very bait question. Each class requires the most skill in specific aspects in order to be most effective.

Even if thief doesn’t take the most skill, we probably have one of the stranger learning curves because of how much the class’s abilities and balance revolve around playing off of what other people do and don’t do.

It depends. Thief is up there since they have no viable builds other than dps and playing dps means you always have some sort of counter. But they can also be one of the most faceroll classes. Compare it with every other dps class/build other than rev and its almost always in favor of the thief. If you like high risk high reward its definately for you.

Mechanically I think engi is hardest. Ele was harder before tempest and burn abuse because you had to manage might stacking in your rotations as well as staying alive and doing damage.

Also, I tried guardian and it never really clicked with me. I found it hardest on a personal level to get used to and never got much play with it.

Easiest to play right now would be necro and tempest

Leaving all elite specs out of the picture for now..

I always thought engineer and elementalist required the most mechanical knowledge and skill.

Thief requires timing and a lot of awareness of map/battle, mesmer also does. Both these classes have high risk/reward, since they die easily but also can dish out big damage to show for it.

Supreme.3164:

Einlanzer.1627:

Supreme.3164:

With so many get out of jail…and the ability to cross the map in half the time of other profession…it’s extremely hard to pretend that thief requires any mechanical or special knowledge

Your only job as thief is to decap empty point and +2 people…you have the best mobility in the game, you have the ability to get the kitten out whenever you want …no matter the number of opponents and unless you’re a total moron….

Is even possible to fail at thief?…ha yes, maybe the try hard that try to 1vs1 specs that go bunker as it’s the only thing they can do, lacking stealth or shortbow teleport, losing to specs that are forced to go full ham on tank role as they can’t stealth and run away at will.

It must be incredibly hard to learn how to avoid dmg..when half the enemy team won’t even try to chase/follow or even target you..tell me more how hard is to play thief..

Guess that to avoid aoe skills that are not even directed at you..must be the hardest thing in this game -_-

Not surprisingly , every time a thief try to play a profession that they think requires no skill..they fail majestically lol, must be hard to talk when you can’t run away at will, you haven’t got either the stealth or mobility to do so

Sorry, but you’re wrong. Maybe you should actually play one. My thief is by far my hardest toon to play effectively.

Hardest relatively to what? bunkers?
I believe all burst builds show less sustain respect to builds created with the purpose of staying alive for as long as possible, therefore the thief is the hardest respect to what? other burst builds?

Did you actually try to play another burst build that is not thief? Using the same amulet that’s it which is Marauder and not Paladin. In this regard the thief becomes the easiest one by a mile

When trying to make comparisons do take in consideration all of the aspect involved, giving for granted the amulet used by the compared builds..it’s not really fair and neither logical to do so

lmao someone is mad about getting their 50 seconds of Protection stolen

Thief and warrior hands down.

SD core engie.
S/F Burst ele
Shatter mesmer
Thief in general.

All the elite specs are easy compared with these builds. HoT kinda made Gw2 even more casual then it allready was with the passice CC procs and everything.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Unpopular opinion, but I think the revenant is one of the hardest classes to play.

The difference between average revenant and top tier revenant is skyhigh and it shows in absolutely every 1v1.

Definitely the skill range is huge on revenant.

Generally i would say most core builds are way harder to play than elites.

Mechanically i would say shatter mes and core engi takes skill to play.

Overall (i know it is biased) thief probably takes most skill (taking about high end pvp) – extremely unforgiving class in combat, teams have extremely high expectations from you, as thief you have to have best map awareness and rotation than anyone in match to be effective and that is hardest thing to learn. Class mechanics can be learned and practiced relative fast. To learn proper map rotation and strategy as roamer takes really really long time. The difficulty increases exponentially if you play soloq and not with premade that you can rely on – you need to make up for mistakes of your teammates in soloq and it is close to impossible in many cases as a thief due to their class nature (worst point holder in game, worst support in game, worst dueler in game).

Supreme.3164:

Einlanzer.1627:

Supreme.3164:

With so many get out of jail…and the ability to cross the map in half the time of other profession…it’s extremely hard to pretend that thief requires any mechanical or special knowledge

Your only job as thief is to decap empty point and +2 people…you have the best mobility in the game, you have the ability to get the kitten out whenever you want …no matter the number of opponents and unless you’re a total moron….

Is even possible to fail at thief?…ha yes, maybe the try hard that try to 1vs1 specs that go bunker as it’s the only thing they can do, lacking stealth or shortbow teleport, losing to specs that are forced to go full ham on tank role as they can’t stealth and run away at will.

It must be incredibly hard to learn how to avoid dmg..when half the enemy team won’t even try to chase/follow or even target you..tell me more how hard is to play thief..

Guess that to avoid aoe skills that are not even directed at you..must be the hardest thing in this game -_-

Not surprisingly , every time a thief try to play a profession that they think requires no skill..they fail majestically lol, must be hard to talk when you can’t run away at will, you haven’t got either the stealth or mobility to do so

Sorry, but you’re wrong. Maybe you should actually play one. My thief is by far my hardest toon to play effectively.

Hardest relatively to what? bunkers?
I believe all burst builds show less sustain respect to builds created with the purpose of staying alive for as long as possible, therefore the thief is the hardest respect to what? other burst builds?

Did you actually try to play another burst build that is not thief? Using the same amulet that’s it which is Marauder and not Paladin. In this regard the thief becomes the easiest one by a mile

When trying to make comparisons do take in consideration all of the aspect involved, giving for granted the amulet used by the compared builds..it’s not really fair and neither logical to do so

Can we see your thief gameplay?

Thief, then mesmer, then Warrior.

This might sound weird but I find Ele difficult to play – I think zerker ele builds take a lot of skill.

Curunen.8729:

This might sound weird but I find Ele difficult to play – I think zerker ele builds take a lot of skill.

This is what I don’t understand when I read posts like this.

Power ele and thief are ultimately broken. They take as much skill as any other broken bottom tier profession.

Thief is kind of okay to play if there werent so many random condis and ccs and even passive damages flying around.

Good players prevail with these classes not because of the classes themselves but simply because they outclass their opponent.

These days, thief 1on1 is pretty much who’s going to make more consecutive successive crits. And playing warrior 1on1 is pretty much more about tricking and playing the opponent rather than being mechanically superior.

In case there is any misunderstanding, yes, I do agree that thief and power ele and warrior currently are difficult to play but that’s only because they are poorly balanced to the point of being broken.

Shoutbow warrior was difficult to play but an average shoutbow was almost just as good with the silly celestial amulet.

Hambow was pretty easy to pickup, most effects came from firing off weapon abilities anyway.

There’s certainly skill involved but if someone is going to be good with thief/ele/war/power mes … well lets not kid ourselves, they’re going to be good with other professions as well. They have the necessary map awareness and knowledge when and where to intervene to tilt the battle in their favor.

One on one with those professions between average and good there’s basically hardly any difference, beside RNG (crits)