Help me pick a profession before I burn myself out.

I'm a returning player who stopped playing originally because I couldn't decide on what to play. If I keep re-leveling and re-gearing new characters I'll eventually burn myself out again, I need to stick with one so I can get further into the end game content. I honestly enjoy pretty much every profession so I figured I'll run a poll and go with whatever the community decides for me and stick with it until I get full ascended gear for that character.If you want to base it off what I value most in order of importance;

1. Lots of Build/Role diversity.
2. Bring unique value/support to a team
3. I like heavy armor them most, not a deal breaker though
4. Having an edge lord theme (e.g. Rev or Necro), of minimal importance.
5. I care very very slightly about playing what's meta

What game modes I play most in order;

1. Wvw/Open World PvE
2. Fractals
3. sPvP

EDIT: Additional info; I have both expansions and almost every profession to 80 already

@Zexanima.7851 said:I'm a returning player who stopped playing originally because I couldn't decide on what to play. If I keep re-leveling and re-gearing new characters I'll eventually burn myself out again, I need to stick with one so I can get further into the end game content. I honestly enjoy pretty much every profession so I figured I'll run a poll and go with whatever the community decides for me and stick with it until I get full ascended gear for that character.If you want to base it off what I value most in order of importance;

1. Lots of Build/Role diversity.
2. Bring unique value/support to a team
3. I like heavy armor them most, not a deal breaker though
4. Having an edge lord theme (e.g. Rev or Necro), of minimal importance.
5. I care very very slightly about playing what's meta

Play either warrior, ranger or necromancer. In PvE, every profession is viable and this does apply in PvP and WvW to some degree. The three of professions I recommended you are viable both in PvE and PvP/WvW. For warrior you can play either core or Spellbreaker, for ranger you can play core or Druid and for necromancer you can play Reaper or Scourge.

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:I'm a returning player who stopped playing originally because I couldn't decide on what to play. If I keep re-leveling and re-gearing new characters I'll eventually burn myself out again, I need to stick with one so I can get further into the end game content. I honestly enjoy pretty much every profession so I figured I'll run a poll and go with whatever the community decides for me and stick with it until I get full ascended gear for that character.If you want to base it off what I value most in order of importance;

1. Lots of Build/Role diversity.
2. Bring unique value/support to a team
3. I like heavy armor them most, not a deal breaker though
4. Having an edge lord theme (e.g. Rev or Necro), of minimal importance.
5. I care very very slightly about playing what's meta

Personally I had been deciding between Mesmer, Ranger, and Revenant.

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:I'm a returning player who stopped playing originally because I couldn't decide on what to play. If I keep re-leveling and re-gearing new characters I'll eventually burn myself out again, I need to stick with one so I can get further into the end game content. I honestly enjoy pretty much every profession so I figured I'll run a poll and go with whatever the community decides for me and stick with it until I get full ascended gear for that character.If you want to base it off what I value most in order of importance;

1. Lots of Build/Role diversity.
2. Bring unique value/support to a team
3. I like heavy armor them most, not a deal breaker though
4. Having an edge lord theme (e.g. Rev or Necro), of minimal importance.
5. I care very very slightly about playing what's meta

Start with ranger. Mesmer isn't as beginner friendly as the warrior, ranger and necromancer. Revenant isn't in a good spot at the moment, at least from what I've seen on the Revenant forums so just play with ranger for now.

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Zexanima.7851 said:I'm a returning player who stopped playing originally because I couldn't decide on what to play. If I keep re-leveling and re-gearing new characters I'll eventually burn myself out again, I need to stick with one so I can get further into the end game content. I honestly enjoy pretty much every profession so I figured I'll run a poll and go with whatever the community decides for me and stick with it until I get full ascended gear for that character.If you want to base it off what I value most in order of importance;

1. Lots of Build/Role diversity.
2. Bring unique value/support to a team
3. I like heavy armor them most, not a deal breaker though
4. Having an edge lord theme (e.g. Rev or Necro), of minimal importance.
5. I care very very slightly about playing what's meta

I'm not a beginner, just returning. I like Revenant, don't mind that it's not in a great spot. Only thing I don't really like about Revenant is the limited build options.

Based on what you value, I'd say mesmer. From a pve perspective, they have the most number of roles available: boon share tank, boon share off tank, and power dps all in chrono, and condi dps in mirage. They're also currently the only class to have access to both alacrity and quickness, while also being able to stack every boon permanently when done correctly. Ontop of that light armor has some edgy looking armor, it's meta in pve instances. As for pvp and wvw, it's very good at roaming and side capping. Near unkillable with an insane burst if you know what you're doing. They also have a boon share build for zergs in wvw, and offer invis and portals on the side.

@Sephylon.4938 said:Based on what you value, I'd say mesmer. From a pve perspective, they have the most number of roles available: boon share tank, boon share off tank, and power dps all in chrono, and condi dps in mirage. They're also currently the only class to have access to both alacrity and quickness, while also being able to stack every boon permanently when done correctly. Ontop of that light armor has some edgy looking armor, it's meta in pve instances. As for pvp and wvw, it's very good at roaming and side capping. Near unkillable with an insane burst if you know what you're doing. They also have a boon share build for zergs in wvw, and offer invis and portals on the side.

I'm heavily considering playing it again as I was playing mostly chronomancer before I left. The only thing kind of pushing me away from the idea is that they are kind of OP right now and something about playing a over tuned class in games has turned me off of them.

Elementalist and Mesmer, those two have history been 2 most loved prof by anet, so they have high damage, build variety, access to just about everything and so on.

On the other spectrum you have necromancer... easy sure but rubbish at the end, it still as gimmicky as it was day one and anet doesn't care, it offers nothing to the party, comes with garbage damage and has no staple boons that almost everything has, get in the water and you feel like someone at anet was just salty and that how this class came to be, stability? one measly source locked behind cooldown and resource that is just... what the hell. Blocks? whats that? Evades? again what is this madness you speak of? Unless you speak reaper you don't even have finishers... it's pathetic.

Anything other then that is kind of situational deal but most do shine at least in a few areas.

All that being said, end game is kind of vague concept in this game. 99.9% of the game is open world and vast majority of things can be acquired in such manner which in turn means that past 80... unless you are soloing legendary enemies you can run ANYTHING, you can do world boss, map metas and so on naked and it would make next to no difference as long as there are people there. Anything worth doing... has people there.

@"Zexanima.7851" said:

1. Lots of Build/Role diversity.
2. Bring unique value/support to a team
3. I like heavy armor them most, not a deal breaker though
4. Having an edge lord theme (e.g. Rev or Necro), of minimal importance.
5. I care very very slightly about playing what's metaEDIT: Additional info; I have both expansions and almost every profession to 80 already

Engineer (core & scrapper)1.) and 5.) Build & Role diversity can be done easily, if you think outside the meta. In most cases in this game meta is just maximum damage output at all costs. The meta mostly ignores survivability aspects as well as support, some classes even sacrifice mobility for greater dps (e. g. the infamous warrior build which forced you to waste your endurance). The engineer offers possibilities in most sections. Damage can be done with conditions by playing the traditional styles of kit-swapping with lengthy rotations. Direct damage can be achieved with either the use of a few certain kits, hammer or sword (if you are looking for good dps). The big problem we always have, our dps is average at best. If you are fine with that, you will have a lot of fun.

2.) Support can be done in various ways. You can shield your allies, buff them, cleanse them and with the reworked med-kit even heal them. We can also stealth our allies. The big issue we have with support, we are not an expert in any type. If you compare our abilities in terms of buffing to another profession that can also rely on buffing, you notice that the output is average at best. We cannot beat the phalanx strength with might-stacks, it is just not possible. We are also unable to outheal a druid. What we can do is, we can adjust quickly to the situations. We can do a lot of changes without touching our traitlines and sometimes we don't have to change our skills, but adjust our rotations. A good example is the buffing/healing/cleansing balance. Compared to other classes our ability to buff might mostly comes from combos (fire filed + blastfinisher). If we are pre-set to this and join a group with a phalanx strength, we are not the 5th wheel. We just need to pick any skill that causes a water or light-field and can easily use our blastfinishers to either cause group-heals or area-cleanses. With mostly the same build. The effect is not superior, but noticeable. Certain abilities require access to gyros (scrapper). You do not have to use them, but there are certain situations they come in handy.

3.) We cannot offer heavy armor. But to be honest, this game turned the traditional view of armor-types into complete madness. As we have the freedom to give every piece of equipment the stats we want, we can gear every class as we want to. I own tanks with light armor, and glasscannons with heavy armor. I do no longer care about the armor type. All I care: Can I enjoy playing it? Aside from that, with the use of outfits and certain armors, we can almost look like in heavy armor. If you build the Juggernaut legendary weapon, you will get access (during precursor crafting) to a gizmo which allows you to chrome-effect your entire armor, even if you are not wearing the weapon. The effect does not last that long, but it is quite impressive and makes most cotton-like armors look like a heavy plate (if dyed correctly).

4.) Before the Holosmith arrived, we had the reputation to be the jack-of-all-traits. Difficult to master, lowest work/result ratio and some very questionable balances/nerfs. One of the most shocking developments I remember were the infamous "purity of purpose" balances. Playing engineer can be quite frustrating, because of all the synergies. For example, when they turned the FT into a condition-only weapon, a lot of builds were literally unplayable from that point. Later they decided to nerf our abilities to deliver burn-stacks (= condition damage) with the FT, which made a lot of people very angry. Some patches force us to recalibrate our builds entirely. That is another big reason to stay away from the engineer. People who want consistency and reliability in certain mechanics are better off with any class but engineer.

We are often considered as the 5th wheel which an easily be replaced by any class. If you wander Tyria these days, you will meet couple of Holosmiths for sure. But core-engineers or scrappers are rare. Lesser importance is hardly manageable.

-Currently the poll looks like it is going to be mesmer, which is fine. Mesmer is an awesome class with lots of flexibility. It is quite difficult to find something the mesmer is not good at. Healing.

In my case, I was attracted by the engineer from the points 1-5 you have listed. I never cared about the meta at all. The learning process is long and exhausting, but the fun is never ending. I really enjoy the freedom to adjust the character to each situation. My current project is a build-set, base build with variations, which keeps me busy for a few months now. I recently tested a beta-version of it with a friend of mine in a T4 fractal against Skorvald. We did not succeed, but we managed to improve during the fight. We adjusted our builds according to the difficulty and managed to get closer by each try.

But I usually do not recommend people to play engineer. It can be frustrating and disappointing. I am totally fine if you choose Mesmer ^^.

@HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

@"Zexanima.7851" said:

1. Lots of Build/Role diversity.
2. Bring unique value/support to a team
3. I like heavy armor them most, not a deal breaker though
4. Having an edge lord theme (e.g. Rev or Necro), of minimal importance.
5. I care very very slightly about playing what's metaEDIT: Additional info; I have both expansions and almost every profession to 80 already

Thank you for the detailed reply! The second character I ever made was an engineer, sylvari because I thought the clash of nature/machine would be funny. I had a ton of fun on them back when I was playing them but then I just decided to try other classes to get to learn them all and just kind of forgot about my engi. Maybe I'll bust them out again tonight and give him some play time. I didn't really give them a try since I returned due to having zero interest in holosmith.

Engi is the best class, IMO, but I don't think it is in a good enough spot to really offer build variety or team support. I mean, there are a LOT of options, but not only they are not meta, they are very very underwhelming. Core engie is not good for WvW or PvP, and is not that good for PvE either. Scrapper is way better for group support, but super boring for PvE. Holo is great at PvP and PvE, IMO, and is fun, but is totally selfish and the practical builds are super limited.

IMO, play Engie if it is fun enough for you, but don't do it for build variety or group support.

Mesmer fits way better your guidelines, IMO.

Power Reaper, tanky as a heavy class

Staff very useful during WvW zerg and PvE events tagging

If you want to stick with just one class and still have tons of build diversity then engineer is your best bet. It's not going to be the be-all/end-all kind of class, but you can do anything with it and still do well. Other class might do "their thing" better, but an engineer can do anything well.

Outside the edgelord theme sounds like Guardian fits the best. Has great build in every gamemode, good diversity, can support etc.

Honestly, I think if you've already tried a couple of profs and haven't found one that you find fun, you probably just don't like the game. I use toons of every profession and find them all fun. I can't imagine that if you don't like engineer and don't like warrior, for instance, that somehow you'd find elementalist totally engaging. Ultimately it's the same game.

@"Biff.5312" said:Honestly, I think if you've already tried a couple of profs and haven't found one that you find fun, you probably just don't like the game. I use toons of every profession and find them all fun. I can't imagine that if you don't like engineer and don't like warrior, for instance, that somehow you'd find elementalist totally engaging. Ultimately it's the same game.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there: I find both warrior and guardian unsatisfying and not much fun to play, but enjoy necromancer and mesmer a great deal. There absolutely are common parts to gameplay, but I don't think that it is as simple as you say.

I'd also note that people with experience with basically any other fantasy MMO will have an ... odd experience when they hit GW2, because in every other game you get more or less the same cookie cutter character if you pick the "warrior" or "paladin/guardian/lancer", or the "ranger", or whatever.

When you hit GW2, where these classes are actually different to other games, it can be a heck of a culture shock as you learn that, for example, Guardian doesn't play identically to paladins in every other game in existence, and you may not enjoy it, even though it is the correct choice everywhere else.

@Zexanima.7851, if you are still trying to figure this out, I'd suggest you just roll a dice and use that to pick the next profession. If you don't enjoy it, repeat with that one removed, until you either run out of professions, or find the one you enjoy.

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@"Biff.5312" said:Honestly, I think if you've already tried a couple of profs and haven't found one that you find fun, you probably just don't like the game. I use toons of every profession and find them all fun. I can't imagine that if you don't like engineer and don't like warrior, for instance, that somehow you'd find elementalist totally engaging. Ultimately it's the same game.

The problem isn't finding one I enjoy, I enjoy most all of them. The problem is picking one to stick with so I can learn it inside and out for pvp and start acquiring end game gear for it. If I keep popping between characters every day I feel like I never really make any progression. I'm essentially using this poll as a roll of the dice but having the decision be a little more informed than just random chance.

Balance between DPS/support/builds, the guardian is your man!! Always on the frontline, fighting to protect your brothers in arms..... The last barrier between your enemies and your dying/fleeing allies....A shining beacon of hope to those that despair at the sight of a boss....What will be your story.....