Guild Wars 2

I’v pretty new to guild wars, don’t really know much about it but my brother loves it and some of my other friends play it a lot as well. In other mmo games, I’v always loved small group pvp the most but all my friends play WvW the most so I want to find a class that works really well into small group pvp and wvw.

So far, I really like the sound of Necromancer, Mesmer and Elementalist but i’m still a little unsure on the specifics of each. Can anyone give me a rundown of their pro’s & con’s in both small group and wvw? I’m not really interested in the other classes but I may try them later down the road.

Thanks!

Necro – cheesy, be it in small group or zerg
Mesmer – annoying
Elementalist – traditional AOE mage.

Necro: the current meta has two forms of Necro. The above-mentioned cheesy version is a high condition-damage build that can melt even the tankiest opponents through the clever use of bleeding and such things. The other form of necros you see out there are glass-cannon/power builds. They take advantage of a high base-health pool and DS to lay down massive AoE damage through wells. In general you will see condi-necros in small-scale fights and powermancers in large-scale zergs and/or guild grouos in WvW.

Mesmer – Tend to be the same sort of thing as necros, either a condition spec or power build. Will let others mention specifics. Shatter-builds, PU mesmers and the like.

Elementalist – Large group eles are some of the best support and AoE in the game. Water fields are a must for keeping people alive and the massive damage of fire and earth are only matched by Necro powermancers. Large-scale eles usually use Staff (more for support), but D/D eles are still viable with massive AoE damage. In small-sclae stuff you often see glass-cannon eles using scepter/dagger or d/d. While thieves probably still have the greatest single-target burst, glass-cannon eles hit like a kittening tank and can burst down 3-5 people in less than 2 seconds.

That said, people all have opinions that will differ. I’m sure you will have fun with whatever you choose.

In the end, ranger is the best. It can do all the stuff the aforementioned 3 do, just at 70% efficiency and with 90% more headaches.

Ranger. Make sure to get Bear as your pet, it’s pretty powerful, and don’t level up in PvE, it’s too slow, upleveling works great in WvW.
So yeah, in a nutshell, Bear Ranger.

Necro’s are almost completely dependent on others for survival. They are generally very tanky but lack any sort of escape so they live/die based on who they run with. Power spec is OK but the condition bunker is VERY strong in skirmish play. I would say it is currently dominating small group fights.

Shatter mesmer’s are currently killing it in solo play. They are hands down the scariest class going in that style play. Mesmers are also handy in zerg play with the most utility of any class (port, veil, feedback and more). Some players end up resenting the constant skill request nags and poor mesmer-ing frequently gets groups killed along with some general griping. Mesmers are least useful in skirmish fighting. Their clones are no mystery against heavier AoE and their utility is often wasted.

Ele – ANet has almost nerfed the poor D/D into oblivion so its solo/skirmish usefulness is currently low. It is still playable but it has never been weaker. Power staff eles drop a ton of damage but are REALLY squishy. All in all most eles lean towards staff and are there for the water fields with moderate damage. A hammer line often makes them the first to drop in a large fight.

Warrior is really the last of the do every style play (solo/skirmish/zerg) well classes. Rangers are near hopeless in WvW currently and outright banned in many skill groups. Guardians are solid support in skirmish/zerg play but suffer from the necro problem in solo fights. Thieves and Engis are relegated to solo/skirmish play (very deadly in these styles) and not particularly useful in large scale fights.

Mesmers are incredibly strong in small fights and have amazing utilities in big groups, but generally aren’t world beaters in Zerg fights, and they are slow.

Necros can rush a ton of power in any situation (with different builds), but they lack buffs and focus instead on debuffs. They also have no escapes.

Eles have good group utility and they are still strong in roaming, but can be very squishy.

Roll a ranger……

Prysin.8542:

Elementalist -traditional rallybot

fixed for you.

on a more serious note:
If you look past the snide remarks and ignorant statements regarding rangers, you will find that the profession itself has more then enough tools at it’s disposal. Rangers can AOE, they can do serious condition damage (mostly single target. sadly), got very decent CC and has the ability to tank through almost anything.
They can seriously pull off anything any other profession can, short of making portals, veils and clones…Oh and we don’t have flamethrowers either (T_T).

The Warrior can hold its own with 500hp/second healing. The ranger can without breaking a sweat get over 700hp/sec healing and they still do some serious DPS.
The main issue with rangers is that they require serious skill. Not to shoot the bow, but to keep the suicidal pet alive for as long as possible. No other profession can be without it’s main mechanic, short of rangers. Even with the pet dead, the profession can still hold it’s own.
It IS a selfish profession, however with the recent buffs you can get very good melee cleave/AOE ranged DPS along with perma swiftness, regeneration and spirits. This allows you to build for group support, strong group support at that.

A regen ranger will not die unless focused by a lot of players. While a guard may succumb to 3-4 stunlock warriors, the rangers can outlast 5 of them. A ranger should/will not die unless YOU, the player, screw up.
The number of evades, escapes, CC, healing and utilities at your disposal is second to none. Using the right pet or pets can allow you to both do AOE condi cleanse and AOE heal or AOE fury, AOE protection, AOE chill, cripple, fear, daze, poison and weakness.
Another thing rangers excel at is destroying single targets. A single ranger can even without it’s pet apply perma poison (perma -33% healing) to the enemy. This means that even the most hardcore signet regen warrior will melt. IF that isn’t enough. Use a spider and the target won’t go anywhere either.

When it comes to tagging you got MANY options. You can utilize the second longest reaching AOE in game (meteor shower with trait can reach some 50 range longer), the axe mainhand, traps, pets or simply AOE cleave on the GS.

In the end, those who have yet to seriously play a ranger, barely know what it can do at all. Most rangers you meet are usually casuals/alts or newbies. They all contribute to the negative view of rangers, incredibly enough, one can ask oneselves; IF rangers are so incredibly kittenome say, why does they recieve nerfs in areas that does NOT affect the only part of the game were everyone agree that they excel in (sPvP)??

Play what you want. Every class has a place in small groups.

Omnitek.3876:

Play what you want. Every class has a place in small groups.

Except the ranger (and yes I have one with plenty of WvW kills)… Rangers need some WvW love.

I think warrior is the most popular class overall in GW2, isn’kitten I saw some stats on percent of players in each class somewhere a few weeks back.

Straegen.2938:

Omnitek.3876:

Play what you want. Every class has a place in small groups.

Except the ranger (and yes I have one with plenty of WvW kills)… Rangers need some WvW love.

Rangers are sick for small group work and general WvW…

We don’t some WvW love, RANGERS NEED SOME PLAYER LOVE, LOVE THE RANGER AND EMBRACE IT DEEP INSIDE OF YOU!

Straegen.2938:

Omnitek.3876:

Play what you want. Every class has a place in small groups.

Except the ranger (and yes I have one with plenty of WvW kills)… Rangers need some WvW love.

As stated before, rangers are great in small groups. When you get into 15+ they fall in effectiveness very, very quickly. I 100% agree with that.

In small group it depends on what your bro’s and friends already play. Having at least 1 Mesmer or Ele in the small group is probably more helpful than having a Necro. But I’m a light armor noob, I don’t know much about them aside from which ones I rather have in my group when I small man roam.

In my opinion, this is the ranking of professions (with a brief description) of small-group (~3-10) combat in WvW:

1. Warrior – control, mobility, damage, everything but sustain (hammer being the most effective weapon of choice with either S/X or GS on swap to disengage from the thick of a fight/GS for amazing down-cleave)
2. Necromancer – great AoE damage/pressure if allowed, decent utility, bad mobility and priority target (Power works also with slightly less AoE damage and more single-target)
3. Mesmer – AoE burst/DPS, decent single-target DPS, stealth, combat mobility/slippery, not too much group utility, contribution to DPS is very player/skill dependent (PU builds are garbage outside of 1v1)
4. Guardian – great support through mainly stability and heals, highest sustain and damage mitigation if focused when played properly, decent control, low mobility with most weapons or builds, great at stomping/reviving
5. Engineer – lots of damage mitigation if played properly, tons of utility, mediocre to great damage depending on the player and build/spec, essentially a wild card
6/7. Elementalist – high burst with S/D (hardly any damage mitigation compared to other burst roles), lower damage with other weapon sets, decent mobility/control and awesome sustain with D/D (if not completely trained/focused), staff being too slow/not suited for smaller fights although slippery, other classes bring the same utility with more to offer
6/7. (Power) Thief – great single-target DPS (main utility – something else other classes can do more effectively in most situations), occasional high AoE DPS, hardly any utility outside of stomping downed players/reviving allies but with more risk than Guardian, (Condition Thieves are garbage)
8. Ranger – high damage with longbow, nothing but annoying with anything else, low survivability, hardly any utility outside of Binding Roots (Rangers are essentially the same thing as an up-leveled character)

Of the three classes you mentioned, Necromancer would most likely be the easiest to pick up, Mesmer for a slightly higher learning curve assuming you’re playing a burst shatter build, and I wouldn’t bother with Elementalist honestly (although personally feel it’s probably the most fun class).

Necromancer
King of conditions, one of the strongest classes when it comes to dealing with conditions and putting them on opponents, whether it is sending them the ones you have or eating them to gain life, it also has the largest health pool of any clothie and with plague, lichform and Deathshroud it takes a long time to kill them even for a number of people. That is because they dont really have any form of escape tools and have the worst mobility of any class so you need to be able to pick your fights well or be prepared to run back alot, also minions are as worthless as a ranger in wvw so dont even bother with those. (class is probably the fotm atm)

Mesmer
Mesmer is akin to a thief with how annoying they can get, they have decoys which you can use with limited use stealth to trick opponents to target the wrong thing, they have some nice group utility with veil and portal and can usually escape due to blink clones and stealth but also do not have the greatest mobility and smart players will be able to target the true mesmer and focus you down

Elementalist
Ele’s are still one of the strongest wvw classes, they do not have a weapon swap like most classes instead they switch focus from fire to water etc, but you can manually switch weapons when your out of combat. They have the most number of abilities of any class so there is always something to do in terms of ability cooldowns, so it may take you some time to workout some of the nice combos they can do, they have great mobility and some great escape tools but lack in the armour and health areas so situational awareness is key with this class

TLDR
Necro = ranged tank conditions are key
Mesmer= illusionist, misdirect to survive
Ele= squishy caster but has op combo’s