Elementalist or Thief?

I have just bought an 80-boost and I am looking for another class to invest time in. I already got a Ranger at 80, and I am looking for a similar playstyle, at least in comparison to ranged fighting. I have both an Elementalist and a Thief both quite a low level and I am interesting in knowing which you think I should invest time in.

Deadeye is somewhat similar to ranger when it comes to long range and burst. Ele's skills are rather slow and play style is fairly different from ranger's.

Core Ranger is kind unique in how it plays, kind of to the point where its hard to replicate with other classes. But Ranger is also very narrow in how its works as most of its skills either syergize in very specific ways, or act in passive. Thief relies heavily on rapid movement, with Core having an emphasis on Stealth management, Dare Devil offering more brute force, and Deadeye made specifically to pick off distracted targets from range. None of these work like Ranger, which has the pet tanking in many cases as it hammers away from mid to long range. Even when Melee speced, Ranger tends to not move all that much by comparison, but takes on a huge amount of risk without the strong disengage potential Thief normally sports.

That said, Thief is one of the harder classes to get a handle on, as much of its power comes from Field Combos, soft control conditions, and rapidly diving in and out of striking range before the target can counter attack. If you can get a good handle on them, they're very hard to put down... especially in PvP/WvW. However, they have a very narrow margin for error. Especially in PvE, since Thieves have issues engaging multiple targets at once. While its not overly difficult to control an engagement, one hit on the blind side or a decently powerful AOE field, and the Thief has about 2 seconds to react and get clear. Even the Defenses of Dare Devil are strongest when used in well timed counters, then if used as reactive defenses.

Elementalist is a whole other animal. They have the most complicated control system, along side Core Engineer, and requires you to to be able to think abstractly about your combinations. While some builds have you camp Fire for optimal damage, Ele's real strength is its high utility by way of skill combinations. Its one of the few classes explicitly designed to have strong Self Field/Finisher combo, and even when not traited for it, offers a fairly wide range of Support and Control options spread across its Elemental skills. The analogy of "Playing a Piano" is pretty apt, as rotating through various elements to respond to enemy actions, or Setting up field combos is a regular routine for them. This doesn't change with either Tempest or Weaver.

In Terms of "I like Long bows", Dragon Hunter (Guardian) is actually better then Core Ranger in general combat, if you're not considering the Pet as being strategically useful. Damage wise the Long bow is still meh, and its range is only 1200- but Guardian offers so much better Support and general Utility via its skills without having to select traits around it. Guardian also has much better Melee options, making this a great combo that is similar to Core Ranger, but much more straight forward, and a lot more flexible. If optimal damage is not a concern, Traveler runes can make up for the lack of movement buffs at a fairly minimal loss in damage potential. (If you're running LB, you're not shooting for Benchmark DPS anyway).

There are 3 ways you can build DH, depending on how much defense you need. Zeal/Radiance is the optimal DPS combo, as it offers a lot of extra Crit damage. For Self Sustain, Meditation Guard is go-to build, trading Radiance's raw damage boost for extra condition management and sustainable self healing (good for HOT maps when solo). The third is Burn Guardian; however Firebrand's version is a lot stronger, though shorter ranged.

@SmartRas.8473 said:I have just bought an 80-boost and I am looking for another class to invest time in. I already got a Ranger at 80, and I am looking for a similar playstyle, at least in comparison to ranged fighting. I have both an Elementalist and a Thief both quite a low level and I am interesting in knowing which you think I should invest time in.

Both the elementalist and the thief are different professions, but require a lot of skill to play especially for the end game content.

Core elementalist is a glass cannon, Tempest is a support and Weaver is an evasive bunker. I would say the elementalist is more difficult to learn than the thief because of the amount of weapon skills you get per attunement. If you like having a mix of damage and support specializations, play the elementalist.

Core thief is an evasive glass cannon, Daredevil is a mobile glass cannon and Deadeye is just pure glass cannon damage from range. When you're playing thief, you need to learn when to use certain skills properly, otherwise you will waste all of your initiative and you'll be dead. Daredevil does have more survivability than core and Deadeye, so if you're having trouble surviving as thief, play Daredevil.

Thank you both very much for the tips and help, I'll look into it more thoroughly about what I am gonna invest in. Dragon Hunter sounds interesting, so it might that which I will try but thanks anyways.