Guild Wars 2

My buddy hasn’t played since November, and I haven’t played much since Christmas, though I dip in. I’ve kept up with the changes for the most part.

We both decided to start new Norns together, he went Warrior. I can’t decide what to roll between Guard or Ele. Most of my experience is with Ranger, Thief, and Mesmer.

Norn Cultural armor is a big draw, but as far as duoing in WvW and PvE, what’re the boards’ thoughts?

Guardian. Protection+Aegis ftw. Even if an addition warrior would even be better.

Dual warriors, eh? That could actually be fun since there’s no competing for gear.

I was thinking the Ele’s combo fields and utility could be fun while he smashes things. One thing I dislike about the Guardian is being limited to Light fields, but maybe I’m overvaluing combos.

I think warrior + ele is the most powerful combo in the game.

Well this should be easy for you: both profession will be able to support your friend’s warrior very well, but they are like night and day.

A Guardian is GW2’s unmovable object, very resilient thanks to heavy armor, heals, regen, vigor, aegis etc… But it lacks mobility and a good way to deal ranged damage.

An Elementalist is, on the other hand, the unstoppable (well uncatchable) force: wielding a pair of daggers D/D I feel more “nimble” than a thief! There are so many ways to move around (ride the lightning, burning speed, magnetic grasp, lightning flash etc…) it’s almost ridiculous

If you don’t like D/D or prefer to stay at a safe range you can use a staff or a scepter and turn into a more traditional caster: long range damage and heals, lots of cc, buffs…

The downside is: they are very fragile, Elementalists have the lowest health pool paired with the lowest armor in the game. If something gets to you, you’re dead in two hits.

There’s another aspect which separates the two professions: complexity.

A Guardian is essential, absolutely not boring or dull, you have all the tools you need, but the way you will use them will have a huge impact on the results you will get.
The best example is aegis: let’s say you and your friend are in a dungeon, the boss is charging one of those slow oneshotting moves, but your friend has been knocked down; you hit F3, aegis pops on your friend and he’s alive. Had you wasted it on an easily avoidable hit, your friend would be dead now and you in a risky position while trying to revive him.

An Elementalist, instead, is very complex and unforgiving: you make a mistake and you are dead, even with a group of normal mobs. Which is good, belive me, learning how to effectively play an Ele will teach you more about this game than anything else and then you will be able to play other professions better than before.

That’s all I can think about Guardians and Elementalists which could help you in an objective way.

As a personal preference I like to play my Guardian in PvE and my Ele in WvW.
I’ve always been the “tank” guy, I love pulling a bunch of mobs in the same spot with my greatsword so my friends can blow them up, or knock back the mob beating on my little brother’s ranger with my hammer, or block a choke point with my staff, etc…
But in WvW there’s nothing more fun to me than my Elementalist: with a pair of daggers it’s so easy to move around the map; it’s fun to dive into an enemy zerg, pop mist form and see if I can make it out alive. Plus I feel I can actualy contribute in a siege thanks to all the aoe damage, support spells and healing I can provide with my staff.

Well that’s a lot of stuff, but I hope it will help you on your decision and if it does not it’s ok, at least I’ve spent my time while I get back home (and hopefully play some GW2) :P

Thanks, Mik! That’s a great perspective. I do like challenging classes that teach me about the game, so I’ll give Ele a try first.

I’m usually a Warrior/Tank type in tabletop and MMOs, but with GW2 I ended up as a Thief and Ranger at launch. I’ll keep breaking ground and try a mage class. I suppose a Norn Ele is just a shaman, eh?

Glad I could help!

P.S. Check daphoenix’s guide on this forum, it’s basically an Elementalist’s encyclopedia.

If you go DD ele in many times you can escape battles that your buddy won’t. You will find yourself leaving him to die, to let yourself catch up on health and restart the fight better on your own terms. When chargeing in to big zerg fights as duo your warrior buddy will have much more passive sustain if running a zerg friendly spec, shouts, hammer+warhorn. While you are blinking and dotting around. Loosing the bro connection.

If you go staff ele, small scale duoing is quite out of question and larger fights you won’t have the bro connection with ranged + a melee.

So if you wanna be the bro Norns bashing faces, definetly guardian + warrior. Then you both are in the same boat of similar mobility skills, both complement each other well with full swiftness together, not alone. Similar type melee assist, lot of retaliation with hammer + lightfields similar type sustain. Fear inducing double hammers diving into zergs.

Actually the most powerful combo in game is thief and mesmer due to extreme burst damage.

In truth an ele is good for any combo.

Ranger +ele is fun as well.