Guild Wars 2

Hello guys, I just came back to GW2 after a long break. Before my main was a thief, but I never got to far into the game. I am looking to roll a magic class. The choses are mesmer, ele, or necro. I just can’t seem to decide and I want to take one to max level and main.

Could you guys maybe give me some pros and cons of each. And maybe a general overview. Like I heard mesmer is like a mage/thief, ele is your standard wizard, and necro does condition damage.

Thanks for the insight on this subject.

Also could you post a PvE build for which ever one you suggest.

Mesmer is an illusional duelist class. Specialises in using clones and phantasms for damage, and shatter them for more damage (or other neat effects). They have a bunch of unique utility that’s fun to play around with. Mostly ranged attacks, but they can go melee with swords.

Elementalist is the typical mage class if you go staff or scepter. You can play them as elemental ninjas using dual daggers. Has a bunch of cool utilities to kick kittens with. You can also use one to go really supportive with boon spread and heals.

Haven’t played much of Necromancer, but they’re your dark mage kind of character. Big focus on condition damage. Can apply marks and wells on the ground, summon minions, steal health, fear stuff etc.

I think it’s also helpful to look at build options. Over the course of the game, you may respec frequently and having a profession with a few appealing playstyles can keep you entertained.

Elementalists I mostly see running Staff or Dagger+Dagger.

Staff has a lot of targeted AoEs, good for group WvW as either damage or support. Few movement options compared with other classes. I usually feel “powerful, but slow” on mine.

Dagger/Dagger is a very thief-like playstyle. Lots of attunement swapping, dancing in and out of combat, and high powered but close-range damage. Few ranged options, so I usually get frustrated in keep sieges.

Mesmers are kind of the trickster profession. Tons of in-combat movement, clones, stealth, and phantasms (short-term pets). Most common builds I see are shatter, phantasm, and glamour.

Shatter mesmers make a bunch of clones, then burst them for high damage. VERY versatile build with decent AoE. The biggest weakness, for me at least, is the fragility of clones. In many encounters, they don’t reach their target so shatter damage is significantly smaller.

Phantasm mesmers toss up high-powered phantasm pets which attack every 5-8 seconds. Great damage but big load-up time. Can be frustrating when your target moves away or your phantasm is killed (they’re squishy). In my experience, higher damage in longer fights than other builds but fewer movement options and fewer opportunities to successfully take advantage of the phantasm’s potential.

Glamour/confusion mesmers rely on many of the “glamours cause confusion” traits to wrack up huge stacks of confusion on enemies in WvW. VERY powerful against zergs, but suffers immensely when smart groups use condition removal. Low mobility, high skill downtime, and lack of power in PvE make this kind of a niche build.

Necromancers are the ‘evil’ casters. The most common builds I see are conditions, power-daggers, and pets.

Conditionmancers generally go with staff and scepter/dagger for huge bleed stacks, huge control conditions like Weakness and Vulnerability, and in-combat boon/condition manipulation. All in all, a very strong choice. Fewer mobility skills than other classes, but high health and Death Shroud are pretty great survival tools.

Power-dagger builds go for high power. Many use someof the high-damaging Wells, lots of Death Shroud movement, and close-range combat. Most of the necros I know who play this are pretty focused on single targets and compare it with a dagger elementalist, but evil. I’m not the most familiar with it, but they seem to love the build.

Pet necromancers are a hoot to see on the field. Nice passive damage, plenty of pets which bring their own utilities. Bad AI and low pet health seem to be problematic for these builds. I hear a lot of guildies loving it for leveling though. I’m not sure if that’s because of the power of the build or the minion-master RP.

Finally, take a look at guardians as well! They also qualify for the “mage” title and have their own builds. Most seem to be melee-weapon based though. I’d still love to see a heavy staff-using guardian build

Don’t go Necromancer unless you want to be stuck using a condition-based class, or want to be mostly AOE-support. Minion builds are subpar in endgame content, and tanking is BORING (if I want to tank, I go to my Guardian).

If you do more solo-play, go for the Elementalist. They are the current kings of the metagame. Good boons, the best mobility of all the classes, and a decent mix of power and condition damage (and good self-healing and condition removal, depending on how you spec). Dagger/Dagger for in-your-face offensive power, or Staff for lots of AOE and support skills. Scepter is there for a medium range skill set that’s kind of a mix of dagger and staff.

Mesmer is tons of fun, and arguably the class with the best variety of possible builds, since hybrids are just as good as pure builds for Mesmer. Very hard to level and master, but once you do, you will be arguably the hardest class to kill aside from Thieves and Elementalists (and tanky Guardians). They can be power or condition based, depending on what weapons you choose to main with.

CrazyAce.3842:

you will be arguably the hardest class to kill aside from Thieves and Elementalists (and tanky Guardians)

No. Not arguably. We are THE hardest to kill against noobs. Then there are the pro’s. Still, extremely hard to kill, with all the stealth, teleporting and leaping. Unless you go full zerker and just spam sword/pistol 5. We are pretty tough, even against guardians. Infact, I once had a 25 minute fight against a staff guardian (I was Immortal Mes). It was so even and in the end he killed himself off of my retaliation, but still, one of my fave fights.

Skillcap of mesmers aer higher than other classes. Except ofc the phantasm build.

I’ll list a few pros on ele and mesmer

Elementalist: Extreme mobility, meaning you can disengage from fights. This also gets you to and fro really quickly which mesmer lacks. At 80 I’ve seen them use their mobility and buffs tank up 10 players while killing at the same time.

Mesmers: Able to be a team player with various utility skills such as portal, feedback, aoe stealth. But really really slow compared to other classes (this is my only issue). Mesmers are easy to learn but hard to play. That may seem like a contradiction but when you’re up against someone who knows their class well you can’t just spam buttons.

Necromancer: Never played it.

In conclusion, for WvW mobility is the way to go since you’ll see a lot of zergs. Elementalists can pretty much disengage easily.

I would take a step further back and go by class identity.

Elementalist plays as a rather explosive class, combining CDs from various stances constantly. It’s hectic to play, but very rewarding when you get the combinations done right. It’s also highly adaptive.

Mesmer is a manipulative class which excels when the enemy plays into your hand. You are fairly strong, but you rely on short and very long-CD abilities which can potentially turn fights around (assuming the enemy goes along with it).

Necromancers are a steady and paced class. You can sustain yourself well, and you have a nice array of group-support options, which play well with being able to win in the long run instead of the burst race. You play at your best when you got various sustain and survive abilities at the ready, and can take risks the other casters could not.

I struggled with the same exact question and finally settled on… well probably necro, I’m still bouncing between Necromancer and Mesmer.

Elementalist is amazing, but very complicated. No other profession has such versatility, because that’s what Elementalist were created to be: versatile. An elementalist can heal, damage, buff and debuff all with the same build, and can flow between those things rather seamlessly. However, you have to remember and know how to implement all of those things to play it well so it’s very hectic.

Mesmer is amazing, if your build is meant for the situation you find yourself in. They have the tools to be great supporters and are amazing PvPers. The drawback is that they don’t quite have the versatility once a build is set. For example, if you are a staff Mesmer designed for PvP and dungeons, you generally don’t deal damage fast enough to do well in AOE-centric events. They also normally require very exacting and specific trait placement and armor/weapon sets. If you have these things, though, they are unstoppable, and are able to bring the situation under control if they are speced to deal with that aspect of the game.

Necromancer is rather balanced and solid. They have many functional builds that are good even with slight tweaks and personal touches. They are built to last and are fairly aggressive. Their abilities are almost always useful in any part of the game, and with slight changes to an already-existing trait points spread, they can change their function, even in the middle of dungeons. They are considered weaker by most, though, largely because nothing about the necromancer is terribly impressive (aside from perhaps survivability) but everything they can do is functional, as opposed to other classes who have skills/traits that no one ever uses.