Guild Wars 2

Hello GW2 Community!

So- here is the situation.

I just got my account back from being compromised for the past who knows how long (I was studying abroad and didnt have time to log into GW2) and my first character that I leveled up to 21, is now 80.

I feel a little cheated and upset about this, because I really got into the swing of his story (which i am still following), but I feel less motivated because I was thrown everything in the game at me, at once.

So I want to re-roll, do this right, and Im stuck between Ele and Guardian.

I heard through friends that Elementalists and Mesmers really got a beating over the past patches, so I was wondering how they compare to Guardians.

In comparison im looking primarily at PVE, Leveling, and Dungeons. But some SPvP and WvWvW.

Any pros and cons would be great!

Thanks.

Guardians are a solid choice, and always will be b/c they are a dev pet-class. However, if you want to get around the map quickly, ele can do it better.

For wvw, ele is good, although takes a lot of work to get there. Sticking with a group carrying a staff is very good.

For pvp, eles need some help, but like in all mmos, they will eventually be viable again. Its more a matter of when rather than if.

It took them 6 solid YEARS to find out that Elementalist was completely out of the picture in hard mode of GW1, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. Anyway, regarding the OP question, its guardian all the way. Heavy armor, good buffs, aegis on command to block critical boss attacks, protection, very good dps when specced for it. Trust me, with a guardian you can never go wrong, very competitive in all three modes (PvE, WvW and sPvP) and easy and fun to play.

I had solely an ele for the past year, was fun (still is to certain extend), Im currently rolling a guardian though.

Both are fun, both have niche enviroment, the main difference is dungeons and WvW zergs. With ele staff you will be a great asset on a WvW zerg ball, whereas as a guardian you will e less impactful, except the line warding on staff, which we, ele, now have disposable to us at much lower CD (and less duration too), also some dungeons like CoE is better for ele since you can get Alpha to a wall and Fiery sword will melt him, or AC p1 and p3 for icebow. Most other dungeons is better with guard, specifically TA and Arah.

It is up to you. One of the main reason I also roll a guard is because I like Sunrise and eles cant use greatsword. The day eles can use GS and LB thats the day I wil solely play ele even if it is less unviable that what it is right now in PvP and small skirmishes.

The problem with guardians is their clothes are ugly.

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

The problem with guardians is their clothes are ugly.

personally i like some heavy armors! But yeah, for the most part heavies are bad looking except TA set

I was disappointed when GW2 did not have a monk class. I looked at both guardian and ele closely before the beta trying to decide which I would bring up. Now I’m happier with my ele’s even though they are not as strong as my guardian. The ele’s have to be smarter and sneakier to succeed. They have to plan and combine skills. They don’t just bash things head on.

Guardian first, then ele when you get skilled or bored or both

kekuso.5837:

Guardian first, then ele when you get skilled or bored or both

Lol, the guardian is a lot more forgiving than the ele, thats for sure, but they arent an easy class to master right. In the right hands a guardian can make or break, more than an ele could ever hope in the same hands. Anyways. I play them both interchangably. As noted by the poster before, it is easier to pick up guardians, but they both have a lot of potential for skilled players. You might find your niche. Personally I like ele in open world more than my guard, but for almost everything else guard seems to be the best.

Leveling
It has been almost a year since I’ve leveled my Ele and Guardian, after I’ve switched from Staff to Dagger/Dagger I don’t recall any major issues with either.

Open PvE
While both are pretty good I would say the Ele is a little bit better; Ether Renewal and 20 instead of just 10 weapon skills give them more flexibility and survivability.

Dungeons
Guardians can bring reflection, and in addition Stability and condition remove, thus making them a great addition to any team; the only other profession that can bring reflection (and since the patch 2 days ago also Stability and condition remove) is the Mesmer, thus those two professions are the core of most dungeon groups. While an Ele isn’t bad in dungeons it simply doesn’t bring such unique advantages.

Guardians are better hands down. The only thing Eles do better is probably mobility. But this isn’t a racing game, so stick with the Guardian.

Guardians are much more balanced, similar to warriors, but there really isn’t anything they excel that that some other class can’t do better. They’re mostly taken because they can do a bit of everything; if you’re pugging a dungeon and you’re not confident that the pug mesmer you’re taking can manage reflects and condition removal or that the engineers are going to stack might properly, you can roll on your guardian and do a bit of everything. You won’t reflect as well as a mesmer or might-stack as well as an engineer or ele, but you’ll probably do well enough to get by.

By comparison, the ele has a much more distinct niche: ripping apart everything outrageously fast. Of all classes in the game, the ele is the DPS king by a pretty wide margin, and also can also manage their combo fields to give a load of boons to everyone so they can hit harder too. Their biggest downside is that unlike the guardian, who can pretty much afk through everything, the ele is extremely squishy. They have excellent heals but a lot of the time you will die in a single hit before you ever have the chance to even use them.

neither. choose mesmer or warrior.