New in game trying to decide a profession

Hello! Name is Karaash! I started GW2 a few months ago but as soon as I got it running pc died. Now I'm back and I'm having a hard time deciding a profession to play first. I come from games like WoW always beign a tank or healer and wanted to know the profession that fits that place :) Not really into PVP but I would like to explore it eventually. I'm not really into meta I just want to have fun :D

Most professions can be tanks and/or healers. It really comes down to builds. You could run a Necromancer as a tank if you really wanted to. You'd need to decide on a few more traits to narrow it down as this isn't like WoW where they pigeonhole their professions into very strict roles.

The only place you'll find tanks here are in raids, and its usually the chrono doing it. Agro mechanics are near non-existent anywhere else. All we know is toughness makes you more likely to be targeted, but you have no way to hold agro. As for healers, they really only exist in fractals and raids, and it's mostly druid. You could go healer in open world for group content or solo if you really want to, but you'll find it to be a slow drag.

Sounds like you enjoy being supportive of other players as your role. You can go full support on a few classes, but as stated above it is only really useful in a few areas of the game. An alternative is picking a role that can give plenty of buffs to other players while still dishing out decent damage. For this type of style some options would be guardian-firebrand, mesmer-chronomancer, or revanent-herald.

Saying that all classes can tank and heal might be right but not if you ever want to be accepted in the meta lfg groups. To be fair it's rather sad but most people can't let the meta go and to give you a good start for tanks and healers, accepted in the meta, it's as follows:

For tanks, everyone want Chronomancer, the HoT elite spec of mesmer. They are the main tanks in raids where the bosses have aggro mechanics and otherwise they are meta in all endgame PvE for their boon support.

For healers there are a few more choices atm, Druid, HoT elite spec of Ranger, has long been meta and is regarded the best according to most. A few others are commonly accepted atm, for example Necromancer, as healing Scourge, with alot of barriers and ress capabilities. Elementalists, Revenants and Guardian also got healing builds but none of them are commonly accepted in LFGs.

Last but not least, don't let the meta fool you, it shifts and you will have a better time playing a class you enjoy than something that's meta! But i think you will need the correct information to make that decision! Good luck and have fun, see you around in Tyria!

@"Karaash.1037" said:Hello! Name is Karaash! I started GW2 a few months ago but as soon as I got it running pc died. Now I'm back and I'm having a hard time deciding a profession to play first. I come from games like WoW always beign a tank or healer and wanted to know the profession that fits that place :) Not really into PVP but I would like to explore it eventually. I'm not really into meta I just want to have fun :D

I have bit similar background, and I also like to play tank & healer roles in group content in the previous WoW-like game. But GW2 is different. Time to time it has been painful to unlearn all the aspects from my previous game, to think things differently, and some times I have missed the game I used to play. As I am still playing GW2 tells you that even that the process can occasionally be bit painful, it pays off.

First things first. First, when you start, you play mainly so called "Open World PvE", and in that game mode, you use more or less a self-sufficient builds, no matter of the profession. Because of the fighting mechanism, at first you are most probably liking more "sustained", defensive builds, and drift towards higher damaging builds as you get more experience. Most professions give you tools for this.

Fractals (5-man relatively small instances) are probably the first group content you start to play. The big difference to WoW-like games is that there is no (strict) tank, healer, ranged DPS and melee DPS roles to fulfill. Instead, all classes needs to put out DPS, but so called "support" roles are allowed to dish out less DPS than others. Support means you support your team's DPS by applying DPS boosts to your team mates. But, you can also provide them heals and protection, too, and you can have good CC. Unlike in WoW-like games, in this game it is much more important to avoid damage entirely, than to try to mitigate it.

You need to understand, that even that many classes can fulfill those support roles, in practise people will only expect the so called meta (most effective tactics available) builds to carry that role. So, even if you could tank raids with many different classes & builds, people only choose chrono (atm) to do that. My personal advice is to forget that: you need first lots experience from raids before being able to tank them on chrono, so it is best to choose something else first - make that chrono tank later, if you still want to do that.

Last thing is that there is 9 professions, but all these professions have 3 specializations: so called core (free), HoT (Heart of Thrones expansion) and PoF (Path of Fire expansion). That is, if you don't have certain expansion, you can't play that certain specialization. So, at first, you may want to start with such profession, which have decent core builds for your purposes. But keep in mind those expansion specializations, for many classes they really change the game (e.g. Ranger becomes a support with Druid specialization).

My suggestions for a class to start to play would be Ranger, Necromancer and/or Guardian. Ranger is a good allaround ranged/melee DPS class to go, especially if you have HoT for Druid - PoF Soulbeast specialization is good, too. Later you may find it a bit boring class, but at that time you can play something else (and then later come back to Ranger with totally different and more fun approachs). Necromancer is also durable and versatile class to go, and currently it is slowly but steadily becoming my "workhorse" instead of Ranger. Guardian is a good allaround pick, too, it has good sustain to start with in form of blocks and some heals.

Even if you start with one of those three classes, I suggest you to try out other classes later. When you get experience from classes and fights (and have unlearned enough your previous game), you most probably will find some other class more tempting and fun to play. There is no bad class in the game at the moment, but not all classes have viable builds for all roles, and some classes / specs / roles need lots more dedication to be effective than others. Hope this helps you!

I decided to make a new post for this, so that these things are not lost in the text mass. My suggestion to choose a class as a newcomer is: choose a class that can be traited to have enough sustain so that the build is forgiving at the beginning. Choose a class that can provide some support for low level fractals. From my experience, higher tier fractal groups with more experienced players take surprisingly small amounts of damage (compared how much more damage higher tier mobs do compared to lower tiers) and don't need full fledged healers all the time: it is the low tier groups who are struggling and can appreciate some sustain.

I used to tailor PvP / WvW roaming builds for my classes, but nowadays there is open world section in the metabattle (https://metabattle.com/wiki/Open_World). But as a newcomer, you need to understand that not all of those builds are that forgiving: build can get high rating because it has great potential, but to get that potential you need experience.

For this post, I picked few open world core builds that I could think are newcomer-friendly and can be modified for higher sustain (for "facetanking") at the beginning:

1) Core Guardian: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Radiant_Greatsword - Although this build is good, it is not necessarily that newbie-friendly, as stated out in the comments, it does not have good sustained heals so you rely on avoiding damage and that needs experience. You can get more defensive build at first with Honor and/or Valor, and using mace, shield and/or focus. There were so called "Symbolic" PvP bunker builds, but sadly they are not in metabattle anymore and I can't get any reference to give an idea how to trait it. Maybe the only drawback with Guardian is that it has not that good options for ranged DPS, which you time to time appreciate if you can't reach mobs by foot easily.

2) Core Ranger: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Longbow_Beastmastery - again, just like with Guardians, core builds are even top tier open world builds. This particular build has lots of damage potential, but you can start with Wilderness Survival and Nature's Magic traitlines to get some sustain to help at the beginning. As an example, this is survival PvP build for core ranger: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Power_Survival. You can start as so called bearbow ranger usually considered as a newbie setup (it is popular newcomer choice for a reason!), just remember that if you go to fractals with such builds, people may be looking you strangely ;)

Comments about the build: "One of the most popular new player builds, and for good reason. This build is easy to pick up, doesn't require any expansions, and can easily whittle down difficult champion enemies from range ... Could pretty much solo anything ... Can also be improved with Soulbeast once at max level if you have PoF."

3) Core Necromancer: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Necromancer_-_Power_Minion_Master - even that Scourge (PoF) and Reaper (HoT) builds dominate the Necromancer builds, core builds are still decent (or more than decent). Necromancer is very durable class to play. It is usually played as melee DPS, but can be traited to have support with Blood Magic traits, especially if you use PoF Scourge builds.

Good thing with these classes is, that you can run them nicely without any expansion, but if you happen to like the game and buy one, all these three have pretty nice specializations from expansions.

Thanks all for the replies! > @Dace.8173 said:

Most professions can be tanks and/or healers. It really comes down to builds. You could run a Necromancer as a tank if you really wanted to. You'd need to decide on a few more traits to narrow it down as this isn't like WoW where they pigeonhole their professions into very strict roles.

Yeah I've seen that professions are more selfsuficient with all having ways to mitigate and heal damage like dodges or necro shroud so I Will need to re learn everything here n-n

@Sephylon.4938 said:The only place you'll find tanks here are in raids, and its usually the chrono doing it. Agro mechanics are near non-existent anywhere else. All we know is toughness makes you more likely to be targeted, but you have no way to hold agro. As for healers, they really only exist in fractals and raids, and it's mostly druid. You could go healer in open world for group content or solo if you really want to, but you'll find it to be a slow drag.

Maybe I'll leave chrono for later since I don't feel capable of mastering it asap since I need to learn the mechanics here n_n plus rotations seems complex @.@

@Banankungen.2130 said:Saying that all classes can tank and heal might be right but not if you ever want to be accepted in the meta lfg groups. To be fair it's rather sad but most people can't let the meta go and to give you a good start for tanks and healers, accepted in the meta, it's as follows:

For tanks, everyone want Chronomancer, the HoT elite spec of mesmer. They are the main tanks in raids where the bosses have aggro mechanics and otherwise they are meta in all endgame PvE for their boon support.

For healers there are a few more choices atm, Druid, HoT elite spec of Ranger, has long been meta and is regarded the best according to most. A few others are commonly accepted atm, for example Necromancer, as healing Scourge, with alot of barriers and ress capabilities. Elementalists, Revenants and Guardian also got healing builds but none of them are commonly accepted in LFGs.

Last but not least, don't let the meta fool you, it shifts and you will have a better time playing a class you enjoy than something that's meta! But i think you will need the correct information to make that decision! Good luck and have fun, see you around in Tyria!

I try to not follow the meta and I found a guild that is helpful with that giving me advice and the leader says I can play whatever I want they Will make it work but I have to play for fun XD

@"TamX.1870" said:I decided to make a new post for this, so that these things are not lost in the text mass. My suggestion to choose a class as a newcomer is: choose a class that can be traited to have enough sustain so that the build is forgiving at the beginning. Choose a class that can provide some support for low level fractals. From my experience, higher tier fractal groups with more experienced players take surprisingly small amounts of damage (compared how much more damage higher tier mobs do compared to lower tiers) and don't need full fledged healers all the time: it is the low tier groups who are struggling and can appreciate some sustain.

I used to tailor PvP / WvW roaming builds for my classes, but nowadays there is open world section in the metabattle (https://metabattle.com/wiki/Open_World). But as a newcomer, you need to understand that not all of those builds are that forgiving: build can get high rating because it has great potential, but to get that potential you need experience.

For this post, I picked few open world core builds that I could think are newcomer-friendly and can be modified for higher sustain (for "facetanking") at the beginning:

1) Core Guardian: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Radiant_Greatsword - Although this build is good, it is not necessarily that newbie-friendly, as stated out in the comments, it does not have good sustained heals so you rely on avoiding damage and that needs experience. You can get more defensive build at first with Honor and/or Valor, and using mace, shield and/or focus. There were so called "Symbolic" PvP bunker builds, but sadly they are not in metabattle anymore and I can't get any reference to give an idea how to trait it. Maybe the only drawback with Guardian is that it has not that good options for ranged DPS, which you time to time appreciate if you can't reach mobs by foot easily.

2) Core Ranger: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Longbow_Beastmastery - again, just like with Guardians, core builds are even top tier open world builds. This particular build has lots of damage potential, but you can start with Wilderness Survival and Nature's Magic traitlines to get some sustain to help at the beginning. As an example, this is survival PvP build for core ranger: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Power_Survival. You can start as so called bearbow ranger usually considered as a newbie setup (it is popular newcomer choice for a reason!), just remember that if you go to fractals with such builds, people may be looking you strangely ;)

Comments about the build: "One of the most popular new player builds, and for good reason. This build is easy to pick up, doesn't require any expansions, and can easily whittle down difficult champion enemies from range ... Could pretty much solo anything ... Can also be improved with Soulbeast once at max level if you have PoF."

3) Core Necromancer: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Necromancer_-_Power_Minion_Master - even that Scourge (PoF) and Reaper (HoT) builds dominate the Necromancer builds, core builds are still decent (or more than decent). Necromancer is very durable class to play. It is usually played as melee DPS, but can be traited to have support with Blood Magic traits, especially if you use PoF Scourge builds.

Good thing with these classes is, that you can run them nicely without any expansion, but if you happen to like the game and buy one, all these three have pretty nice specializations from expansions.

Long reply from my side but I wanted to make sure everyone knows I read all n_n I decided to try those 3 and warior too thanks for the metabattle link I'm seeing it and trying to follow a bit till I find my place in the world… I also made a rev since I like the mechanics is complex but I'm trying to get the hand on it since I think I Will like the herald spec n_n

THANKS ALL!!!!!

@Karaash.1037 said:I decided to try those 3 and warior too

Yeah, I excluded warrior only because it has no support builds :) My first toon was warrior, but it didn't fit to my hands at those times. When I was creating first toon, I falsely thought that Ranger is ranged DPS. When I later started to play it, I was surprised to have a pretty sturdy melee fighter in my hands :) Nowadays I play warrior again, not to that extent it deserves, but anyways. I have learned that my struggling when I started was not because of the class, but just my inexperience and my wrong ideas about the warrior and fights (learned from previous game).

@TamX.1870 said:

@Karaash.1037 said:I decided to try those 3 and warior too

Well my second choice Will be a ranger so far I'm having a lot of fun with revenant got him to 33/4 and it's awesome! A Little hard to manage energy but it's good so far… any advice on him? how does he look in PVE and PVP in general? I've seen a lot of hate in fórums towards revs :anguished: