Guild Wars 2

Hey fellow Elementalists!

I’ve been a long time altoholic since I’ve started playing MMO’s really.

However in Guild Wars 2 I could somehow stick to my main Elementalist, (well, except my 6 other alts level 80, all classes except Ranger).

So with the recent announcement of the Revenant as the third heavy armor profession I was really interested, as I never really liked the current heavy armor professions, the Revenant sounded complex enough, and has a really cool theme, just like my Elementalist.

I thought to myself: I should have a main for each armor type, my Elementalist for light armor, the Revenant for heavy armor.
Now here’s my problem. I can’t decide on a medium armor profession.

The Engineer has the versatility and the depth thing going for it, similar to the Elementalist.
However looking for similarities may not be a good idea if I’m looking to make an alt for my Elementalist, what are your experiences with this?
Also I would miss a bit of magic in an Engineer, although an Asura Engineer with magitech would probably outweigh that a bit.

The Thief has the really cool Ninja theme, the initiative system and generally fast paced gameplay to it. I like hectic gameplay (Elementalist attunement swapping, Dagger/Dagger).
At the same time it would miss versatility, would be as squishy as the Elementalist, and maybe not have as high of a skill cap as an Elementalist.

The Ranger has a really cool nature theme going on for it, I like Sylvari a lot so a Sylvari Ranger with the Druid spec would be a real Sylvarigasm for me. I also like it’s spell effects, and the mobility it offers.
On the flip side, many of its weapon sets are really straight forward and boring (ahem, shortbow/longbow) and you spend a lot of time autoattacking, which I would like to avoid.

So basically I’d just like to hear your opinions and experiences with medium armor alts for Elementalists, which classes you liked, which ones offered a fresh experience from the Elementalist while being just as fun etc.

Thanks for reading and cya in game!

It depends on your play style. The recent changes to ranger make zerk longbow pretty fun if you favor staff/ranged DPS. Thief shines in melee dps and niche support with stealth, if you favor in your face play styles and clutch moves. Engineer is similar to Ele in doing “everything”, but it takes more effort, not to mention an enduring hand(lots of click spamming).

Ranger, why? Because kitten mains and you have the other two. Gear all your level 80s, it’ll take like a month max of casual play to buy exotic gear for all your 80s with dungeons, gold, or wvw

Engineer was my 2nd “main” due to the complexity, which I enjoyed. In some ways, it can be even more complex due to having every kit available on-demand at all times (while in others it is simpler b/c there is no down-side to kit swapping). It is a lot like an ele. Plus, it has more build variety due to some incredibly strong traits/skills and not too much crap. It has some very strong healing, like an ele, and some really strong defense. Plus, if you started playing ele b/c you wanted to burn everything down with fire, you can mess around with flamethrower (which is fun).

Thief is very fun and challenging because it is SO different. The play-style of managing initiative, porting around everywhere, abusing blinds, and popping in/out of stealth to do damage is just SO different from eles with the strong sustain capabilities to recover from hits.

Ranger is best for being more laid back in pve b/c you can semi-afk through most things. It has some fun capabilities, but can feel a little simple.

If you’re a PVE player, Engi for sure, It’s the only rotation more complex than the Ele and tougher to master. Really fun, and if you like tying your fingers in knots with Ele you’ll love Engi.

If that’s not what you want though, Thief is a great change of pace, really powerful and a whole new skillset to master. It won’t tie your fingers in knots but it will stress your ability to time things just right.

Ranger is just… kind of funky. Some LOVE it, but it’s certainly a weird profession. Pets are incredibly hard to control well. Your sword auto is as funky as can be. And outside of that it’s pretty strait forward. So basically it’s quite simplistic with some patches of WTF but I mean that in the best way.