Skill floors/ceilings for each profession?

Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

Don't want to be annoying but...It would be best if you stated your intentions for this new toon - i.e. raids, hardcore solo, wvw, pvp, etc. Also, keep in mind that professions may vary in difficulty not only across professions but also builds (the condi variant may be more faceroll than power, or some variant requires piano hands to reach full effectiveness etc.) and for PvE (especially hardcore solo), reliance on others/other classes' boons, conditions and or effects.

@King Nutella.4570 said:Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

This is my opinion on the professions starting from skill floor all the way to skill ceiling or from the easiest to the most difficult:

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Warrior
4. Thief
5. Mesmer
6. Revenant
7. Guardian
8. Elementalist
9. Engineer

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@King Nutella.4570 said:Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Warrior
4. Thief
5. Mesmer
6. Revenant
7. Guardian
8. Elementalist
9. Engineer

I disagree with ranger, sure you can use a bow in open world and have an easy time but groups are another beast for rangers, to me it seems like one of those easy to play but hard to master classes, and that is only if your using longbow, the rest of the weapons are a bit more complex and have unique ways of dealing with situations. Guardian should be placed easier then mesmer atleast, as guardian is all about timing and watching your group, I agree with where you put everything else but I have not really played warrior or necro.

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@King Nutella.4570 said:Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Warrior
4. Thief
5. Mesmer
6. Revenant
7. Guardian
8. Elementalist
9. Engineer

Is this some kind of general list? If I think about something like raiding or PvP specifically, this list is bonkers.

Hmm. I'm going to rate core and elite specs. The idea of rating them this way is to compare how difficult or easy the elite specs are both on their own and from what the core spec teaches you in preparation for the elite. For me the floor is how easy they are to just pick up and learn while the ceiling is how difficult it is to reach a good skill level on that profession and elite spec.

Warrior: Low skill floor with low skill ceiling.

• Berserker: Low skill floor with a moderate low skill ceiling.
• Spellbreaker: Moderate low skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.

Guardian: moderate low skill floor with a low skill ceiling.

• Dragonhunter: low skill floor with a low moderate skill ceiling.
• Firehrand: High skill floor with moderate skill ceiling.

Revenant: Moderate skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.

• Herald: Low skill floor with moderate low skill ceiling.
• Renegade: Moderate skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.

Ranger: Low skill floor with a low moderate skill ceiling.

• Druid: Low moderate skill floor with a low skill ceiling.
• Soulbeast: Moderate skill floor Moderate skill ceiling.

Thief: Moderate high skill floor with a low skill ceiling.

• Daredevil: Low skill floor with a moderate low skill ceiling.
• Deadeye: Low skill floor with a moderate low skill ceiling.

Engineer: High skill floor with High skill ceiling.

• Scrapper: Moderate skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.
• Holosmith: High skill floor with a moderate low skill ceiling.

Elementalist: High skill floor with a high moderate skill ceiling.

• Tempest: Moderate skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.
• Weaver: High skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.

Mesmer: High skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.

• Chronomancer: High skill floor with a moderate high skill ceiling.
• Mirage: Moderate low skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.

Necromancer: Low skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.

• Reaper: Low skill floor with a moderate skill ceiling.
• Scourge: High skill floor with a moderate low skill ceiling.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@King Nutella.4570 said:Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Warrior
4. Thief
5. Mesmer
6. Revenant
7. Guardian
8. Elementalist
9. Engineer

It's a general list since the OP wasn't exactly specific on which game mode certain professions have it easier than others. Also, it was a difficult choice for me between ranger and warrior, but now I decided to swap the spots for ranger and warrior. Ranger is on the third spot due to it having more varied builds than warrior.

To a certain degree, this list also applies for raiding and PvP. The reason why the engineer has the highest skill ceiling is because I'm a core engineer main and I've been playing the profession since 2013. Holosmith is a joke compared to core and even Scrapper, it mocks the engineers' reputation and it can be placed somewhere between thief and mesmer.

@Hoodie.1045 said:To a certain degree, this list also applies for raiding and PvP. The reason why the engineer has the highest skill ceiling is because I'm a core engineer main and I've been playing the profession since 2013. Holosmith is a joke compared to core and even Scrapper, it mocks the engineers' reputation and it can be placed somewhere between thief and mesmer.

You should really do something about that bias. It's invalidating your opinions to some degree because seeing red every time someone mentions Holo isn't a healthy point of view. Sure, holo is easier to play than core engi but it's by no means a faceroll class like Scourge or Dragonhunter. It was always kind of inevitable that an engineer Elite Spec would be easier and equally effective as there really was no other way to go other than down. It's hard to imagine anything being more complicated than the 45-step condi engi DPS rotation with 60% of your cooldowns being invisible most of the time. Even Ele never had that complicated Piano Wars 2.

If you were one of the few people that could handle it, that should be a point of pride for you. But Holosmiths existence doesn't invalidate that.

Onto my own opinion on the matter. I'm gonna use a rating of 1-10, and I'm going to judge floor and ceiling as separate entities. Means that ceiling may in some cases have a smaller rating than floor. Furthermore, I'm going to rate Elite Specs separately in relation to their core class. How easy it is to pick up and transition. I'm going to be basing the rating based on OW performance rather than PvP, WvW or raiding because they are already highly covered niches.

Warrior, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Berserker, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Spellbreaker, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 6

Guardian, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 5-Dragonhunter, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Firebrand, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 7

Revenant, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 8-Herald, Floor: 3 Ceiling: 8-Renegade, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 6

Ranger, Floor: 1 Ceiling: 5-Druid, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 7-Soulbeast, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 8

Thief, Floor: 9 Ceiling: 7-Daredevil, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 5-Deadeye, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 4

Engineer, Floor: 8 Ceiling: 10-Scrapper, Floor: 6 Ceiling: 6-Holosmith, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 5

Necromancer, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 4-Reaper, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 6-Scourge, Floor: 1 Ceiling: 4

Elementalist, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 10-Tempest, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 8-Weaver, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 10

Mesmer, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 6-Chronomancer, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 8-Mirage, Floor: 3 Ceiling: 6

These are my subjective experience. Only one of these I don't have much personal experience on is Core Mesmer. I can't stand playing it. So my view is mostly based on Chrono and Mirage, and how the perceived differences make them easier or harder to play and master.

@"Yannir.4132" said:Onto my own opinion on the matter. I'm gonna use a rating of 1-10, and I'm going to judge floor and ceiling as separate entities. Means that ceiling may in some cases have a smaller rating than floor. Furthermore, I'm going to rate Elite Specs separately in relation to their core class. How easy it is to pick up and transition. I'm going to be basing the rating based on OW performance rather than PvP, WvW or raiding because they are already highly covered niches.

Warrior, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Berserker, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Spellbreaker, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 6

Guardian, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 5-Dragonhunter, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Firebrand, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 7

Revenant, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 8-Herald, Floor: 3 Ceiling: 8-Renegade, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 6

Ranger, Floor: 1 Ceiling: 5-Druid, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 7-Soulbeast, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 8

Thief, Floor: 9 Ceiling: 7-Daredevil, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 5-Deadeye, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 4

Engineer, Floor: 8 Ceiling: 10-Scrapper, Floor: 6 Ceiling: 6-Holosmith, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 5

Necromancer, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 4-Reaper, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 6-Scourge, Floor: 1 Ceiling: 4

Elementalist, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 10-Tempest, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 8-Weaver, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 10

Mesmer, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 6-Chronomancer, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 8-Mirage, Floor: 3 Ceiling: 6

These are my subjective experience. Only one of these I don't have much personal experience on is Core Mesmer. I can't stand playing it. So my view is mostly based on Chrono and Mirage, and how the perceived differences make them easier or harder to play and master.

I'd raise ele's floor (7-8, weaver +1 on that), reaper's (8) and mesmer's ceiling (8), both on chrono (6/9) and reduce both on tempest (2/7), thief's (6) and engi's (4) floor. Others look quite reasonable.

Thief has no cooldowns and it's squishy so it cant be harder to get into than ele which has to pay attention to multiple weapon skill cooldowns on top of being slow and squishy. Ele should be on par with rev, if not harder. Tempest's only "hard" part is managing high attunement cooldowns and making sure that overloads arent cancelled, so getting into it is actually quite easy since first one makes you play with only 3 attunements and second one doesn't have to do much with skill level.

Mesmer has lots of tricks in its sleeves and chrono improves that complexity with F5.

Reaper is generally underrated spec. Everyone think it's easy because necro is generally easy and because you have that extra HP, but that's the only thing you have on it. It takes additional skills to fight enemies who are constantly kiting you for example.

Engi is considered hard because of kits. You dont need to use kits when you start learning class and flamethrower makes class even easier to play at start, especially when you add turrets as factor.

Honestly, its probably easier to pick a game mode or pick a role, and work from there....... But if you want a class thats universally applicable to everything... Memser. Before POF I would had said Guardian. But now Chrono's support aspect has remained largely untouched since HOT, and Mesmer's roots as a dueling class make it staples of PvP and WvW roaming.

Plus you didn't even tell us what builds you're already running, so we could at least skip over those.

@steki.1478 said:

@"Yannir.4132" said:Onto my own opinion on the matter. I'm gonna use a rating of 1-10, and I'm going to judge floor and ceiling as separate entities. Means that ceiling may in some cases have a smaller rating than floor. Furthermore, I'm going to rate Elite Specs separately in relation to their core class. How easy it is to pick up and transition. I'm going to be basing the rating based on OW performance rather than PvP, WvW or raiding because they are already highly covered niches.

Warrior, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Berserker, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Spellbreaker, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 6

Guardian, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 5-Dragonhunter, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Firebrand, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 7

Revenant, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 8-Herald, Floor: 3 Ceiling: 8-Renegade, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 6

Ranger, Floor: 1 Ceiling: 5-Druid, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 7-Soulbeast, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 8

Thief, Floor: 9 Ceiling: 7-Daredevil, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 5-Deadeye, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 4

Engineer, Floor: 8 Ceiling: 10-Scrapper, Floor: 6 Ceiling: 6-Holosmith, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 5

Necromancer, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 4-Reaper, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 6-Scourge, Floor: 1 Ceiling: 4

Elementalist, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 10-Tempest, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 8-Weaver, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 10

Mesmer, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 6-Chronomancer, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 8-Mirage, Floor: 3 Ceiling: 6

These are my subjective experience. Only one of these I don't have much personal experience on is Core Mesmer. I can't stand playing it. So my view is mostly based on Chrono and Mirage, and how the perceived differences make them easier or harder to play and master.

This is all good information. Why I rated ele lower than thief is because of personal experience, it was the second class I picked up, and did just as good as on the first one. Hence, I gave Elementalist the same rating as Guardian. Ele can also easily be played with just fire attunement during leveling. I know a guy that played until level 60 before he realized he could swap attunements. Engineer on the other hand was my most harrowing/tedious leveling experience, which is why I gave it the highest rating.

@Yannir.4132 said:

@steki.1478 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:Onto my own opinion on the matter. I'm gonna use a rating of 1-10, and I'm going to judge floor and ceiling as separate entities. Means that ceiling may in some cases have a smaller rating than floor. Furthermore, I'm going to rate Elite Specs separately in relation to their core class. How easy it is to pick up and transition. I'm going to be basing the rating based on OW performance rather than PvP, WvW or raiding because they are already highly covered niches.

Warrior, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Berserker, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Spellbreaker, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 6

Guardian, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 5-Dragonhunter, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 5-Firebrand, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 7

Revenant, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 8-Herald, Floor: 3 Ceiling: 8-Renegade, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 6

Ranger, Floor: 1 Ceiling: 5-Druid, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 7-Soulbeast, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 8

Thief, Floor: 9 Ceiling: 7-Daredevil, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 5-Deadeye, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 4

Engineer, Floor: 8 Ceiling: 10-Scrapper, Floor: 6 Ceiling: 6-Holosmith, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 5

Necromancer, Floor: 2 Ceiling: 4-Reaper, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 6-Scourge, Floor: 1 Ceiling: 4

Elementalist, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 10-Tempest, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 8-Weaver, Floor: 7 Ceiling: 10

Mesmer, Floor: 5 Ceiling: 6-Chronomancer, Floor: 4 Ceiling: 8-Mirage, Floor: 3 Ceiling: 6

These are my subjective experience. Only one of these I don't have much personal experience on is Core Mesmer. I can't stand playing it. So my view is mostly based on Chrono and Mirage, and how the perceived differences make them easier or harder to play and master.

Technically true, but you can play every class with same weapon without using F skills at all. It wont make them all less skillful. It just shows that core game is complete joke.

Tedious leveling also doesnt necessarily mean that class requires more skill. I find easy classes tedious for example because I get bored pretty fast.

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:Don't want to be annoying but...It would be best if you stated your intentions for this new toon - i.e. raids, hardcore solo, wvw, pvp, etc. Also, keep in mind that professions may vary in difficulty not only across professions but also builds (the condi variant may be more faceroll than power, or some variant requires piano hands to reach full effectiveness etc.) and for PvE (especially hardcore solo), reliance on others/other classes' boons, conditions and or effects.

Sorry about that. I'm thinking primarily fractals and sPvP.

@steki.1478 said:Technically true, but you can play every class with same weapon without using F skills at all. It wont make them all less skillful. It just shows that core game is complete joke.

Yeah but that's more the ceiling than the floor.Also, the reason why I rated Chronos floor lower than Core is because picking Chrono makes playing mesmer easier, as it introduces a variety of things missing from Core like AoE damage utilities and proper defense skills on Shield. Quickness and Alacrity don't hurt either.

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@King Nutella.4570 said:Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Warrior
4. Thief
5. Mesmer
6. Revenant
7. Guardian
8. Elementalist
9. EngineerOf course an engineer main will state this...

Holosmith is trivial with traitet double rocket boots.

Low skill floor means you can do multiple mistakes while still being successful (= easy entrance to the game).High skill ceiling means if you play perfectly, you can beat pretty much everything (= lots of room to develop).

Now tell me why necro (no block, no invuln., no stealth, no disengage) is the easiest class for you, while engineer who has a 2x1200 range disengage on 2x18s cd, a block, 6s stealth on low cd and an auto invuln. is the hardest?

Or are we talking about PvE raid rotations here? Then nevermind...

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@King Nutella.4570 said:Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Warrior
4. Thief
5. Mesmer
6. Revenant
7. Guardian
8. Elementalist
9. EngineerOf course an engineer main will state this...

Core engineer main to be specific.

Low skill floor means you can do multiple mistakes while still being successful.High skill ceiling means if you play perfectly, you can beat pretty much everything.

Now tell me why necro (no block, no invuln., no stealth, no disengage) is the easiest class for you, while engineer who has a 2x1200 range disengage on 2x18s cd, a block, 6s stealth on low cd and an auto invuln. is the hardest?

Necromancer is the easiest profession especially Scourge because it doesn't have to do the things that core engineer and even Scrapper have to do: multi tasking and cooldown memorization.

Before any expansion, engineer was the least played profession for these two reasons alone, not to mention that there was no such thing as an average engineer player. They were either really bad or really good. In order to good as engineer, you need to know how to use kits. The profession benefits a lot from these and they require both multi tasking and remembering cooldowns in order to be effective (unless you play Holosmith in which case go nuts running full Exceed skills and swinging your weapon like Star Wars Kid). The profession has the largest DPS rotation and it's why a lot of players are terrified of core engineer.

Playing core engineer in its' current state especially in PvP requires a lot of hard work. The profession lacks the things that professions like the necromancer have: barriers, stability etc. It also received many unjustified nerfs during HoT and even in PoF. Traits like Alchemical Tinctures (removes conditions when using elixirs which worked great with Elixir Gun) were replaced with Compounding Chemicals which is an awful replacement, Gear Shield got its' block duration reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds etc.

Thankfully, ArenaNet has decided to stop nerfing core engineer and instead buff the profession. I just wish they would buff the profession a lot faster because the profession currently has the largest potential in the game of becoming the best hybrid profession. I run a hybrid build that deals solid power and condition damage while also being a healer. Properly buffing the kits and changing some of the core traits to work better with kits is a better way of improving the profession.

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@King Nutella.4570 said:Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Warrior
4. Thief
5. Mesmer
6. Revenant
7. Guardian
8. Elementalist
9. EngineerOf course an engineer main will state this...

You can take 5 minion skills and beat like 90% of pve content without dropping below half HP. You can also do a fair amount of pvp/wvw without issues on same build(very specific part though, like ktrains or unranked/custom games etc). But as I said before, it doesn't have to do much with class choice (necro makes it a lot easier than others though), but with joke of a difficulty that this game has.

@steki.1478 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@King Nutella.4570 said:Title. Just curious since I'm thinking of making another toon. Also, from my understanding, skill floor means how easy it is to get started with the class and skill ceiling means high skill potential?

1. Necromancer
2. Ranger
3. Warrior
4. Thief
5. Mesmer
6. Revenant
7. Guardian
8. Elementalist
9. EngineerOf course an engineer main will state this...

Muh 45 step Shroudless Staff rotation says otherwise. Only the most MLG Pro players can get the most out of this build. :P