Best simple build for each profession?

I'm not sure which forum this belongs in, if not maybe each profession forum.

I'll try to be brief but informative. I've seen a lot of similar threads, but can't find one to this degree.

I'm looking to play EACH profession (if not spec) in a way that minimizes effort as much as possible. I have a few ortho issues with my hands.

I will often:-stand in AOE a few seconds before realizing I need to move.-forget to dodge.-mishit keys.

So twitchy and piano is not for me.

However I don't mind kiting. I enjoy playing Bomb Engi and simply just holding down a couple of keys and running in circles while pressing 1 repeatedly.

For some profs, this isn't a big deal (MM Necro/Reaper/Scourge, BearBow, P/P Thief to an extent), but others I have a ton of trouble (Warrior (both specs), Ele, Mesmer, Guardian) even using Metabattle.

I generally play solo to blow off steam for fun and the "story", so Open World is the idea with the hardest being the HPs. No Fractals, or Dungeons, or such.

I do not mind "slow". I read often that the MM Necro is slow, but the pace is more than fine for me.

For GW1 players, I loved Paragon. Setting up the hero team to do damage and spamming TNTF and SYG/SY just to add something but going along for the ride was ideal. That's not feasible here.

I immensely prefer passive over active (part of the issue with Guardian for me) and am happy letting the game "play itself" so to speak since I'm so bad at active anything.

Obviously I'm not looking to DPS/Burst things as quickly as possible (yes, I know the best way to avoid damage is for things to die quickly so they can't hit you), but more quick enough to hit time limits, but with a high % of not dying.

Thanks!

Edit: I suppose some explanation might be in order. The video demonstrates a build designed to be as inexpensive to gear as possible while also requiring zero class knowledge to play and with the most simplistic playstyle imaginable. No weapon swap, no heal or utility skill use required. You don't even need to move out of fire or time anything whatsoever to stay alive. You can push other buttons or not, but just keep pressing dodge and auto-attack and you win. It doesn't get any easier!

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:

Edit: I suppose some explanation might be in order. The video demonstrates a build designed to be as inexpensive to gear as possible while also requiring zero class knowledge to play and with the most simplistic playstyle imaginable. No weapon swap, no heal or utility skill use required. You don't even need to move out of fire or time anything whatsoever to stay alive. You can push other buttons or not, but just keep pressing dodge and auto-attack and you win. It doesn't get any easier!

Thanks! This is pretty close in idea, if not spot on to what I'm looking for, so that'll solve the Mesmer situation at least (I think) which was the toughest for me to get to 80 (I have all classes at 80, now to get those HPs...). Do you have any other videos or suggestions for the other professions?

@notatardis.6540 said:

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:

Edit: I suppose some explanation might be in order. The video demonstrates a build designed to be as inexpensive to gear as possible while also requiring zero class knowledge to play and with the most simplistic playstyle imaginable. No weapon swap, no heal or utility skill use required. You don't even need to move out of fire or time anything whatsoever to stay alive. You can push other buttons or not, but just keep pressing dodge and auto-attack and you win. It doesn't get any easier!

I am currently playing weaver and have plenty of video on that, but I would never call that the easiest elementalist build to play.

Almost any form of minion necro should be right up your alley. Here's a totally braindead setup.

The point of this is that you have high HP and very high toughness, so you can eat some hits from both power and condition damage without dying immediately. It does not rely on maintaining boons or any other special setup. Your minions will fight for you, and you can just spam weapon attacks (or not). Having minions out increases your already high toughness to pretty absurd levels. If you want to play this a bit more actively, you can swap into shroud (which should fill very quickly with no active input on your part), hit ability 4 to damage lots of things around and heal your minions back up. You can just autoattack if that's all you want to do, but mindlessly spamming weapon attacks is also moderately useful. Ideally you'll be watching which weapon attacks do what (such as chaining the immobilizes, fears, and dazes you have to stun bigger enemies), but that doesn't sound like something you care to do, and that's fine - again, the minions kinda play for you here, the only thing you might want to consider is doing some stuff just to keep them alive.

You can use this build to solo pretty much every single HoT hero challenge. For the more difficult ones, it all comes down to how intelligently you want to chain your weapon attacks, and how good you are at pressing F1, then 4 to keep your minions a bit healthier. But frankly, there's actually not a huge amount of difference between playing this a bit more actively vs letting it play itself, so that's good news for your more laid back approach.

I play ranger the most, and here's a variation of a once-decent solo build I made to lead HoT meta events. The original version of this build used Trooper Runes to provide steady access to area-wide condition cleansing, but since ANet reworked ranger 'shouts' into 'commands', that synergy is no longer with us. As such, this build has 0 cleanse, and instead relies on (1) not getting hit because of longbow's range, (2) literally endless regeneration, and (3) 22K HP to make it through conditions. You can run Melandru runes to further cut down on how badly conditions affect you, but I haven't noticed much of a difference. With the old Trooper rune synergy, this build was useful in a few places. Now that that's gone, this build is deeply, deeply inferior in so many ways. Thankfully, it still works as a solo build, and I was able to solo the Balthazar HP in Auric Basin with little issue. The only problem you might have with this build is getting Commander and Wanderer stat gear. If those aren't available to you, the infamously bad Soldier stats actually work with this. You lose out on all the boon duration buffs, but you'll still pretty much have eternal regeneration and swiftness. That means you can usually run away easily from anything you can't just regen through, so there's that.

Look for the condition-based builds on metabattle, you-tube, or where ever. They typically promote condition damage + expertise, vitality + toughness. Dire and Trailblazer stats. So you deal good DoT and are tanky. You're looking for things like Ranger shortbow, Necro minions + scepter, Berserker sword + torch, etc. There are plenty of builds out there.

Outside the ones you have mentioned the other most passive I can think of is either staff or dual pistol thief. Both are basically spam one skill until you don't have energy and most stuff up to champs die before then. The staff one heals per crit and you have 3 dodges, so its not complete auto pilot but it can take some abuse. Thought maybe it might be worth a look for something different https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Daredevil_-_Bounding_Staff

@notatardis.6540 said:I'm looking to play EACH profession (if not spec) in a way that minimizes effort as much as possible.

Sounds like you want to be a Minion-mancer Necromancer! Pick 5 mobile minions, trait them in Death Magic, exercise some patience with their derping and you can enjoy having lots of pets.