Guild Wars 2

I will go on the limb here and say that i think guardian was your first class.
Let me share my experience with you. I was playing ele since the first week of the game release(worst case first month) and even today i can’t do some stuff with ele that i did in 20 days of actively playing my ‘new’ guardian (It’s more then a year old in truth but I started to play her regularly only recently).
Of course I’m not deluding myself thinking that I am one of the best eles out there but I’m sure not the worst. I am above average at least. That said i can do good running stuff build (which we all know is boring as hell) or roaming. But being in the zerg with D/D ele is just sad compared to proper build guardian. This is basically all I meant when i said it was easy mode.
Also, one last remark – lucky for everyone else this class was put in lowest health pool!

I fully agree with you. After playing ele as my first choice, and then trying enge, mesmer, necro for a few weeks each I was astonished how good guardians actually are compared to other classes just by existing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware of the high skill cap on ele, and how helpful mesmers can be in WvW, but guardian are (no insult on any kind intended) easy mode of this game. I go in, I kill 20 I go out like nothing happened. I was astonished how good they are, that’s all. Just like guy above me

Although i agree some money can be made while enjoying a fun activity there are few thing you didn’t take into consideration. Firstly, although you ran a race in 5 minutes or less you will still have to wait until the last competitor finish the race. So, that is not in any case 1.2 gold per hour more like 0.9-1g, which is still decent. (I tried leaving and reentering the SS but that would usually just return me to same race so this is not an option) Secondly, you are talking about drops from chests like they are common when in fact they are not. I ran a little more than 30 races and i didn’t get single rare item in the chest (I am not even sure that is possible. have you had that kind of drop?). Finally, skins are very rare drops and as far as i know most players didn’t get them including myself.
All that said, i will repeat myself from the beginning. SS is nice way to make some money (and karma if that’s important to you) while playing Mario kart in GW2

Very nice guide. Long term ele player but will try out some of your stuff for sure. I really like ele’s sustain so i was never particularly open to drastically changing my build while also aware I’m not the one to deal a lot of dmg. Also, i did try hammer earlier but didn’t like it that much for some reason (probably cuz of bunker build). Your fav build seems like something just for me. Hopefully I’ll like it but even if not tnx for sharing.

@Nikkinella – you sound like someone who didn’t really explore elementalist capabilities all that well. give an ele a heavy armor and in right hands it will be unkillable. Also, dmg spec played ele can not just deal more dmg than guardian but can over scale his dmg at least twice. to do that you have to be in D/D build as it is most damaging and mobile build which, I am aware, is not exactly what the original poster is looking for.
Arguably, you can also deal a tons of dmg in PvE as lot of mobs tend not to move to much by landing ele’s devastating AoE attacks. I really don’t understand how is that to much to bare. All you have to do is swap from fire to earth.
@Rhaegar – Not to be snide or anything but I honestly think you would be better off playing something else. This is my conclusion based on what you posted. There is really no class in this game that would fit perfectly (best case it may fit half way) to your description.
Anyways, let me suggest few things:
1. Play ranger with short bow and long bow (or axe+smt. its also great in PvE as it hits multiple targets) and command your pet to avoid combat. This is what I’m doing at the moment although my motivation is completely different (to make myself entirely self sufficient as a ranger and to make the game even more challenging)
2. Play great sword mesmer as someone above me already suggested (although there is some basic skill required to manage your illusions properly)
3. Each class in the game can be at least decent at range (although you excluded engineers completely because of the ‘no guns’ policy). Go for bows on thief or warrior, scepter on guardian (i personally don’t like it but it is a decent choice nevertheless). Lastly, necros has two good ranged options in scepter and staff. A lot of both AoE and variety of conditions

I did it just yesterday in pug so it can be done. However, the truth is that the path requires rather specific group. For example, we had 2 guardians, warrior and 2 mesmers (one of them being me). We agreed on projectile reflection cycle before engaging the last boss. Also, we had two time warps so we had to establish who goes first. Furthermore, i told everyone to stack up might at the beginning of the fight so i can double my boons and give it to party. All in all we melted him pretty fast, under a minute for sure (we were in melee of course). Even with all that coordination I ended up dead at the very end – which didn’t really matter as i got 60 tokens

I don’t know you but it wouldn’t matter. even if i did know you I would tell you exactly the same thing: Do not put words in other people’s mouth, especially if they are my mouth. Nothing you write is even remotely what i said. (no sarcasm in my sentences)

What i said was not in any way a cheap shot that had any intention of undermining necro players, and if you interpreted this is such a way (which i have a feeling you did) than you sir have a problem with comprehending other peoples thoughts (although it may be the forum mentality where everybody’s full of prejudices).

Furthermore, you did one thing I asked you not to – you tried to convince me that necros are harder to play than eles (which is completely ridiculous). I notice that you are some kind of big shot here (there was a bit of sarcasm here to be honest), but that does not make you right in everything you do or write.

And by now you people should have realized that necromancer is not very mobile. So, do not wonder why you died if your positioning is wrong. That’s purely on you, not class or Anet.

@Nemesis – I really don’t like you saying elementalists are OP… if class with the lowest health pool and weakest armor in the game is tough to bring down, it is mostly because of the very good play. We all saw tons of elementalists trying to reproduce what they saw in videos once and failed miserably.
Elementalists are by far tougher to master then necros – and truth to be told some class features were easily exploitable in the hand of a skillful player. On the other hand to play necro effectively you need IF half as much skill. (please don’t try to convince me otherwise because you will not succeed)

And to conclude, necros are not op. they may have need some tweaks and polishing but they are decent as they are. To beat them you need some skill, which a lot of common gamers don’t simply posses.

The best clue that necro is in fact a bit OP is a first forum page dedicated to a necromancer. There isn’t a single post where people cry and rage how the class is underpowered, kittenty or rubbish (which was in fact, for those who were present at time, the case when the game came out). Just go to ranger forum to see what I’m talking about.
Secondly, necromancers are fairly easy to play – so it is not that hard to utilize their strengths. That’s not to say that skill won’t improve your play even further, just like good build choices would make even better – I’m simply pointing out that playing some other classes is fairly harder and this is the fact which no one should deny.
Personally, I haven’t had that much trouble versus necros although it can be a bit ridiculous to see a single guy in the middle of the opponents zerg for like half a minute. You instantly can assume it’s a necro