Guild Wars 2

Basically what the title says. I’ve tried a few alts to the low 20s (Thief, Guardian, Engineer) and while fun, they don’t seem to capture the flavour of the Elementalist.

I realize that the Ele is in a class of its own, with the high mobility and fun of D/D to the WvWvW carnage that Staff can cause, but I’m curious to get opinions on what the best alts for dedicated Ele players are? The way I quantify fun is how engaging the challenge of a class is.

Perhaps I should just roll a Mesmer and/or a Necromancer, as these classes seem to have a more engaging, tactical playstyle than the Adventurer or Soldier professions.

So I guess the question is, for dedicated Ele players, which professions overall are the most engaging and interesting as alts?

I have pretty much tried every class……..

Ran back to my Main and that is Elementalist….

After playing ele and being my 1st Character other classes just seem meh to me…..

But right now, i am….trying …to level a warrior which gets boring very quickly and within 30minutes or so i am back on my ele XD

You should try necro. It’s basically the counterpick of ele because of all the conditions that you can throw out and the speed. Epidemic and corrupt boon absolutely cripple d/d eles if they’re used at the right time. They have absolute boon and condition control, but not much support.

I’m thinking about trying necro too, they are the underpowered class of the month.

Pretty fun with complicated gameplay as well, need to think about synergies similiar to Elementalist.

Personally I’m considering a power/precision death shroud build, already did the power/condition thing on my elementalist.

3 kit engineer, everything else is simply too boring.

3 kit engineer, everything else is simply too boring.

3 kit engineer, everything else is simply too boring.

I’m currently working on a necro alt. It’s pretty fun and demanding, and nowhere even remotely near underpowered. If you do roll a necro, I highly recommend not talking to anyone who plays one unless you know they are good.

Playing stealth heavy thief right now in WvW. It’s a blast, I’m getting away with stuff that should not be allowed. Ele is still a lot better for pvp though.

@ OP
Engineer is – I think – even more fun than the elementalist. However, right now would be a really bad time to start an engineer. They have too many bugs and a general lack of skill synergy right now. I hope (pray) that ANet will fix them soon though.

@ roostapro
I do the same thing. I can’t play my warrior any more. He’s 62 so he’s in the final stretch. But i just get really bored with him. One thing I will say though is that I switched to hammer and have been having a TON of fun with it. It’s really great when you can control the flow of the fight. You should try it out next time you’re on your warrior.

@brickforlife
I’ve been leveling a necromancer alt recently and I have to say that once I got a few skills and began to understand the profession it was a lot more interesting than I had thought. I’ve been running with staff and DD. I like that I can prep my marks, pull a mob into them and then pounce on them with my daggers and put up wells if I need to. It’s a really great profession. And really great against tough mobs. Speaking of which, I’m going to go play her right now…

I’d say Mesmer. As someone who 80’d Mes then Ele – both classes rely heavily on positioning and (vs. players) a healthy dose of making your opponent second-guess what you’re going to whip out next. Both also have ‘tankier’ spreads available. Also, Mes is pretty nasty at boon inversion/stealing (though not as much as a well-done Necro), and can pull out counters to certain attacks. Give it a shot sometime, you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Well from what I’ve played, tested, read and seen, it seems the caster professions are my style. I’ve got an Engineer, and while fun, just seems to slog through stuff without much synergy or strategy. I’ve tried to level both a warrior and guardian, and while initially amusing, melee combat in RPGs has never been my favorite. Even the Ele’s D/D playstyle, while at melee range, still feels like fighter pilot ACM compared to the melee classes. Granted, the melee professions including the Thief I haven’t leveled much past 20, but for some reason they just don’t seem to jive with my playstyle.

I’ll probably end up shelving the Engy alt for now, and level up a Necro and Mesmer.

It seems like everybody who likes the engineer likes the necro and mesmer too. I haven’t tried mesmer much. I may give it another shot though.

I’m really enjoying a support warrior with shouts and banners (and longbow for blasts and burning, sword/shield for bleeds and tankiness – cripples and immobs on both to protect party)

When someone puts a water field down i can drop 5 blasts into it for massive healing, I rolled my ele to support so support warrior is really fun and quite complex, having to remember the cooldowns on each banner and the alternate weapon is slightly reminiscent of ele.

I really want to play a necro though, probably because they are apparently underpowered, like people thought ele was, I like playing underdog classes :P

I recently got my (condition-) necro to 80 and I can’t say that they are underpowered in PvE – I even find soloing PvE easier than with eles. The higher health pool makes fights more forgiving and the necro is able to do damage in his “Oh, kitten!” forms (death shroud, plague)

Necros also bring good dungeon support support with their wells and Plague Signet. Never tried them in WvW/sPvP though.

Combo fields are crucial for dungeons and nobody does that better than necros.

Zonzai.2341:

Combo fields are crucial for dungeons and nobody does that better than necros.

Yes, who needs those underpowered water fields anyway :P

I get more use out of my radiation field than the water field, and that’s like a necro field :P AoE weakness and poison is just so handy for an ele imo.

emikochan.8504:

I get more use out of my radiation field than the water field, and that’s like a necro field :P AoE weakness and poison is just so handy for an ele imo.

thats why im an little staff asura in dungeons!
Water,lightning,fire,ice and the radiation field racial is simply too good

I’ve tried pretty much every class to at least level 20, so I thought I’d give you my impressions of each one.

Engineer – my engineer was my first lvl 80. I’d recommend you ignore most of what the engi forum will tell you, because even despite several nerfs they are still great fun with some good builds and good versatility in there. By the sounds of things you would like the grenade build, which is amazing in wvw and in large events. People will tell you that the grenade build is dead after the latest nerf, but I still run it and I can tell you that its still a big hitter and good fun. Dual pistol is probably your only option for main hand weapons though, which is a bit limiting.

Warrior – I find warrior pretty boring personally but I am slowly leveling one up with a fairly unusual build. It focuses on shout utilities, which has some great buffs for you and allies. But the real interesting bit is that I run a rifle/longbow build. Its not so great in pve (although rifle is pretty op in pve). In wvw though it has some great potential, with longbow being very useful in sieges against groups and rifle for everything else. With the shout utilities it can be a pretty handy build. I like it personally because I hate melee in RPGs usually, so I’d recommend giving it a go.

Mesmer – I’ve only just started a mesmer so I cant really comment much, but there’s a lot of things in the mesmer to appeal to those who like elementalist.

Thief – I really hate thieves. They’ve too melee focused for me and I have always hated stealth classes. There are viable range builds but I could never get on with them. The lack of much ally helping abilities other than stealthing really put me off thieves for good.

Guardian – good fun to start with, and you’ll very rarely die, but at higher levels you feel pretty useless. If you like focusing on helping friends then you might like it for the utilities, but you really will sacrifice damage dealing at higher levels unless you also like charging in with your greatsword. The complete lack of any useful range was a deal breaker for me as much as I enjoyed my guardian at lower levels.

Necro – I really enjoy my necro. I run a pretty standard condition focused build, using staff/scepter and staff. There’s some great area control abilities, huge condition damage and even some handy friend buffs. Death shroud is very handy for increasing survivability as well. I’d definitely recommend a necro, but it might take some time and few levels to really get into the swing of it.

Ranger – My ranger was my first character but I just had to abandon them they were that bad, even though I really liked the character and the design. The bow skills are ok at best. The utilities are rubbish though, unless you trait very heavily many will be pretty pointless. I loved my ranger in GW1, but there’s something about GW2 rangers that really really doesn’t click for me. The trait lines are scattered all over the place as well, you’ll struggle to get a really solid build out of them. I’ve always been meh about pets, and if you don’t have one of them with a condition curing ability you’ll be doomed to suffering conditions.

Overall (and apologies for how long this post is), I’d recommend trying out an Engineer (focusing on the builds you find most fun – grenades is still good and fun despite what people say) and a Necro. A warrior range/shout build might be for you, but I do warn you that warriors are really really dull. Avoid guardians, thieves and rangers at all costs. I hope that helps you out. At the end of the day I fear none of the other classes will quite match how much fun you can have as an elementalist whilst also being able to be incredibly supportive and dish out devastating damage.

pmnt.4067:

Zonzai.2341:

Combo fields are crucial for dungeons and nobody does that better than necros.

Yes, who needs those underpowered water fields anyway :P

Water fields are fantastic but taking into account that most of the time a necro functions in a support role and is specced and traited to spam those fields as much as possible, I’d still give the edge to the necro. It’s his job to put out those fields. Plus, against a tough boss weakness or blindess beats a weak heal or a few stacks of might every time.