What are the Current Pros and Cons for Professions?

Trying to get a refresher on which professions and their elites are good for in PvE, Fractals, WvW, Dungeons and regular PvP.

metabattle.com can answer this question. a batter answer would be to play what you enjoy.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:metabattle.com can answer this question. a batter answer would be to play what you enjoy.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

pvp: holosmith, spellbreaker, scourge, reaper, mirage, herald, core guardian, firebrand, deadeye, soulbeast

@gateless gate.8406 said:pvp: holosmith, spellbreaker, scourge, reaper, mirage, herald, core guardian, firebrand, deadeye, soulbeast

Mind explaining why you said those are good?

omg metabattle is open for deleting several negative ratings on builds, its not serious anymore

@Arkantos.7460 said:omg metabattle is open for deleting several negative ratings on builds, its not serious anymore

Really? I've been told differently several times.

@ZarexWolf.5637 said:

@gateless gate.8406 said:pvp: holosmith, spellbreaker, scourge, reaper, mirage, herald, core guardian, firebrand, deadeye, soulbeast

That would take a bit too long, but basically: power is generally stronger than condi right now. The only condi specs able to hold their own are scourge and mirage. Soulbeast is strong right now because it's able to pump out endless boons on itself, making it pretty tanky and still able to do good damage. Another common theme in that list is that most of these specs have good access to stability and invulnerabilities (block, evades, etc).

This list pertains to platinum and higher. If you just want to casually pvp, play what you like.

@gateless gate.8406 said:

@ZarexWolf.5637 said:

@gateless gate.8406 said:pvp: holosmith, spellbreaker, scourge, reaper, mirage, herald, core guardian, firebrand, deadeye, soulbeast

Ah ok. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

@gateless gate.8406 said:

@ZarexWolf.5637 said:

@gateless gate.8406 said:pvp: holosmith, spellbreaker, scourge, reaper, mirage, herald, core guardian, firebrand, deadeye, soulbeast

I thought condi was stronger atm:)? Is it because so many prof with condi cleanse and resistance, or just powercreep?

@Phoenix the One.4071 said:

@gateless gate.8406 said:

@ZarexWolf.5637 said:

@gateless gate.8406 said:pvp: holosmith, spellbreaker, scourge, reaper, mirage, herald, core guardian, firebrand, deadeye, soulbeast

Yes, tons of condi cleanse right now.

We will find out today. New patch ;)

Here's a quick and dirty breakdown of each profession and their elite specs for PvE and PvP. I ignored WvW since I don't really play that game mode.

ElementalistIn PvE - Plays a damage-dealing role in most cases, but also has had some healing builds that generally are mostly outside of the meta. The meta elite spec changes from patch to patch and often from boss fight to boss fight in raids, depending on which can deal more damage. Eles mostly play builds that are heavy on DPS with little to no unique support.In PvP - Has had a rocky time fitting in the meta for quite a while, but usually either plays as a bunker/defensive team fighter or as a glassy burst role with scepter

EngineerIn PvE - Generally plays a straight DPS role. Core engi has had a good condi build, but Holosmith provides the highest power damage.
In PvP - Holosmith is a damage-heavy team fighter. Scrapper currently lacks behind, but has been receiving buffs to become a more defensive option.

GuardianIn PvE - Firebrand often plays as either a support healer or condi DPS build whereas Dragonhunter brings power DPS. Firebrand can share a lot of quickness and a Firebrand/Revenant combo is a debatable replacement for using a Chronomancer.In PvP - Firebrand is a strong bunker and core guard is a strong team fighter. Dragonhunter has struggled to fit in the meta, but can be a decent team fighter.

MesmerIn PvE - Chronomancer has been the de facto support build for raids and fractals as long as the spec as existed. Frequent nerfs have moved players towards considering groups a firebrand + Rev instead to cover Alacrity and Quickness needs. Chronomancer also has a strong power DPS build and Mirage has a strong condi DPS build, but mesmers are almost always asked to play Chrono support (often referred to as "Chrono Jail").In PvP - Condi Mirage has been a strong team fighter/roamer for a while. Chrono bunk is considered by some as a decent alternative as well, but isn't generally seen as meta.

NecromancerIn PvE - Has always been the red-headed stepchild in PvE, but is sometimes favored for Epidemic, despite the frequent nerfs to this skill. Power Reaper has become a decent option for DPS while Scourge can deal strong condi or work as a support healer. None of these options are really considered "meta" by most.In PvP - Scourge has been a very strong condi-focused team fighter that is a hard counter to boon-reliant builds due to frequent strips/corrupts.

RangerIn PvE - Druid, like Chrono, has often been a go-to support spec since it can heal or DPS while providing strong boon output and the Spotter precision buff. Soul Beast is also currently a very strong power DPS option.In PvP - Druid has fallen out of favor after frequent nerfs, but Soul Beast has become a very strong contender, particularly for covering fights on side notes as a result of its strong burst damage and ludicrous boon output.

RevenantIn PvE - Revenants have been gaining popularity with each mesmer nerf due to being the only other class able to provide meaningful alacrity. Herald can work for support or damage builds, whereas Renegade is more condi focused.In PvP - Power Herald is a strong team fight build that also has good mobility and unblockable attacks. Renegade has yet to find a solid place in the meta.

ThiefIn PvE - Generally considered the easiest to play DPS role for PvE because of the simple rotations and high access to evades. Daredevil staff and Deadeye dagger builds can both deal very high personal DPS, but aren't always desired for groups since they don't provide much else.In PvP - D/P Daredevil and S/D core thief are excellent roamer builds, able to decap undefended points and assist in small-scale fights faster than any other class due to their high mobility. Rifle Deadeye is still popular in PvP, but isn't considered meta since it struggles to perform at higher levels of play.

WarriorIn PvE - Often called a "banner slave" because of how valuable the unique buffs from warrior banners are to groups. Can provide strong power DPS with Spellbreaker or core Warrior (depending on whether boon stripping is needed). Berserker is also a very strong DPS option for condi damage.In PvP - Spellbreaker is a strong team fighter that has high CC and boon strip along with high uptime to Resistance to shrug off condi damage, but frequent nerfs to this spec has pushed it out of meta.

MesmerPros: solid power DPS, viable condi DPS, portals, clones are useful aggro management, fun to play. Chronomancer is welcome in all groups. Mirage does really high damage and has good defensive skills. Portals are great. Warm fuzzy feeling from helping newbies get around the maps and access tricky vistas etc.

Cons: vocal minority shit the bed any time things change. Universally hated in PvP (apart from by other mesmers - I love fighting other mirages). Can be gruelling to play as support during to repetitive nature and need to watch timers a lot.

RangerPros: pet makes for excellent aggro management. Easy to get ok at. Amazing range in longbow. Decent power and condi builds. Collector's paradise. Druid is simple, fun and desirable in groups. Soulbeast hits like a truck filled with other, smaller trucks in PvP.

Cons: pet needs management or will aggro half the map. Longbow trades DPS for safety because of range so can be slow. Druid can get a bit dull as same build is basically used throughout.

NecrosPro's able to corrupt boonsCons LITERALLY EVERYTHING that is not corrupting boonsGets nerfed in some way every patch and is never allowed to be strong in PVE

in general JUST DONT PLAY NECRO because Anet hates Necros and never wants necro players to have fun in PVE

@Xxnecroxx.4039 said:NecrosPro's able to corrupt boonsCons LITERALLY EVERYTHING that is not corrupting boonsGets nerfed in some way every patch and is never allowed to be strong in PVE

in general JUST DONT PLAY NECRO because Anet hates Necros and never wants necro players to have fun in PVE

I don't think it's truly ArenaNet that hates Necro, I just think some people hate how strong it could be and I am starting to see people use it more and more.

@Dahkeus.8243 is on point with PvE but I think the points on PvP can be fleshed out better.

ElementalistTempest in PvP has the tools to be an excellent support but currently lags behind as a result of power creep, both in regards to Firebrand's support capabilities and the damage output of the current meta in general.Weaver is a difficult to play spec. There is a duelist 1vx potential that hits like a wet noodle but has a lot of active defense and self healing. It struggles to secure kills compared to other 1vx builds. There is also a fresh air weaver, a strong roaming build that focuses on rotating into fights already in progress and slamming down kills as well as flirting at the edges of team fights. It has strong burst potential and kiting potential with super speed and scepter, but is immensely fragile with far less active mitigation of other roaming builds like Thief and Power Mirage. Occassionally you find players who make it looks broken but that's like 1 in 100 games if that in my experience.

EngineerHolosmith is an excellent all rounder build, providing both great team fight and duelist capacity and B tier mobility and some of the best hard CC capabilities outside of a warrior using the Rampage elite skill. It also has a surprising amount of sustain and survivability, to the point where it's muscled Scrapper out as most players would rather have S tier damage and B tier survivability than A tier survivability and C tier damage. It even has solid team support as far as DPS builds are concerned with the ability to stealth bodies to avoid stomps, as well as Elixir S rezes and stomps. I wouldn't say it has any overt weaknesses so much as a few things excel in any of it's roles a better, namely soulbeast and mirage for dueling and 1vx, and potentially scourge for team fighting if properly supported.

Scrapper can do modestly well in both duelist and support team fighting with it's plentiful active defense and strong control over the downstate game respectively but struggles to be as high impact as Holosmith.

GuardianFirebrand is the strongest team support, very much not to be confused with Bunker. In fact the support Firebrand is one of the last classes you want to leave full capping a node, you always want them pushing into the fights and supporting their team. As far as supports go they have top tier healing, as well as boon support, cleanses. However they are immensely slow to rotate from point to point and as a support have zero damage while Scrapper and Tempest are a bit faster and provide a bit more damage. It's also extremely unreliable in ranked and unrecommended for queueing unless you're partnered with a strong team damage dealer you can support and trust to do well because you are so dependent on your teammates and if you're high rating chances are all your teammates are lower rated than you.

Core guard is a strong team fighter and +1 class, it has an effective mix of burst capability as well as survivability and sustain as far as builds this explosively deadly are concerned. It also has tons and tons of condition hate. It's weakness are it's extremely slow out of combat speed, making it slower to rotate into fights it needs to plus and move from point to point as well as having almost no ability to disengage from a fight that's going poorly outside of just running away early. No joke core guardians are running 25% movement speed runs in conquest unironically in 2019. Dragonhunter has struggles to fit in the meta Really everything DH can do Core Guardian just does better and DH's one potential niche, Longbow, isn't very good and it's hard to justify running the build over core guardian.

MesmerCondition Mirage is among the strongest builds in the game. It has very high damage, active mitigation as well as an abundance of debilitating soft CC's like Cripple, Weakness, and Blind. It can also perform actions with complete safety both through Distortion, the mesmer mechanic, and Mirage Cloak the Mirage mechanic. It's a top tier duelist, that has strong if short lived team fight capabilities through bursting kills while also providing near effortless safe stomp. It can also easily rez downed allies through Mirage cloak and distortion. As far as weaknesses go certain builds can pack enough condition cleanse as to be functionally unkillable by condition mirages and when it comes to other 1vx duelist builds it has the least self healing of any of them so it's only hope for resetting a fight going poorly is to completely disengage whereas weaver, boonbeast, spellbreaker, and holo have the potential to completely resustain without completely giving up the point.

Power mirage is a strong roamer, one of the strongest perhaps. It focuses less on 1v1, which it struggles with compared to Condition Mirage, and is more of a dedicated roamer similar to Fresh Air Weaver except actually good. It has one of if not the highest power burst in the game and can afford to run sword for the ambush, giving it A tier mobility. It struggles with landing damage while being actively attacked due to the nature of the Greatsword combo and so it's 1v1 capabilities are below average. It also lacks the consistent chip damage condition Mirage can do that really help mirage excel in 1v1s.

Chronomancer has more teamfight sustain than either variant of mirage but under performs as team dps or support and thus is hard to justify bringing one over either variant of Mirage which is unambiguously the best 1v1 spec Mesmer has access to.

NecromancerScourge has been a very strong condi-focused team fighter that is a hard counter to boon-reliant builds due to frequent strips/corrupts. It can really struggle without dedicated support.

Reaper is an excellent power damage alternative and more self sufficient team fighter option though it has less synergy with dedicated support.

Both builds can run blood variant for excellent team rezing options. Both Reaper and Scourge are very slow to rotate into fights as well as out of fights going poorly and very susceptible to CC. While the core mechanics of both builds are fundamentally easy to learn, as a necromancer you are such a game changing presence in the team fight that you will almost always be focused by the enemy team and thus requires a bit of fancy foot work and positioning to stay safe and do your damage. Unless it's the team I get put on while solo queueing at which point NO ONE HELPED ME FOCUS THE SCOURGE! COME ON GUYS! Ugh, gg this game is over....

RangerSoulbeast has access to both the single best 1vx spec in the game and a solid if risky long range burst build very similar to mirage in that regard. Boonbeast, as it is called, is the best 1v1 spec. To put this into perspective Boonbeast mains made up 5 of the top 10 last season. It has excellent damage, sustain, and disengage potential with a combination of both movement skills and immobilize. However compared to a mirage, warrior or holo it's a bit slower getting to points. As far as weaknesses.... Consume Plasma isn't a 100% chance? I mean as far as conquest goes and it's particular job it does it's job almost perfect. I mean you can say it doesn't have access to distortion or endure pain or elixir S on demand but really even without those boonbeast is still far more difficult to actually slam down kills on.

Sic Em Sniper, as it's called, is an extremely high damage off point sniper. It fills a similar role to Power Mirage and Fresh Air Weaver. It has perhaps higher damage at way higher range than Mirage, but less disengage potential when threatened and less access to stealth for bursting targets unexpectedly in a plus.

Druid's role in conquest is basically the same as Soulbeast's. Except it basically has almost no kill potential in comparison to that build. It has some team support but they don't support team fights the way Firebrand and historically Tempest can and did.

RevenantIn PvP - Power Herald is a strong team fight and +1 build that also has good mobility and unblockable attacks. When supported it can carry team fights similar to Scourge and Reaper. However it's mechanic of energy and legend swapping, and it's relative lack of emergency options make it one of the highest skill cap and hardest to play builds that can be considered meta.

Renegade is the worst elite specialization in PvP. Even below Weaver and Tempest. People have tried and tried and tried to make it work and come up with nothing.

ThiefS/D Thief and DP Daredevil define what it means to be a roamer in this game. They have the best mobility in the game, and plenty of abilities that let them ambush players unexpectedly as they are engaged in a fight and slam down kills. S/D currently out performs DP Daredevil which I think is more of a function of what the current meta demands than DP's capabilities overall. S/D has unblockable attacks and boonsteal, high evasion up time and Infiltrator's Strike can feel extremely oppressive in skilled hands. However thieves are very squishy and with their low health, high reliance on in depth knowledge of their match ups and intricacies of properly rotating, and port spots makes them along side Revenant as the highest skill cap class in the game. Thieves feel a bit on the back foot lately because when so many classes like revenant, power and condition mirage, and core guardian can port onto a target and dump 10-15k damage onto a target thieves with their 6-7k Flanking Strike combo don't feel all that threatening to get jumped by anymore comparatively speaking.

Deadeye is like a Sic Em Soulbeast. It has a low skill floor due to permanent stealth giving so much safety and dodge on stealth giving it uninterruptible disengage potentially that's honestly kind of toxic for the game mode. It also struggles with maybe having the highest skill cap in the game maybe? Or maybe it just attracts the worst players? Quite frankly l Clown l and Vallun are the only players I've seen use the build with any sort of excellence. I'd really love to get a closer look at what I Clown I's game plan is in matches and what he did to get top 10 on the leaderboard when other deadeyes I see are so low impact and value.

WarriorSpellbreaker's current meta spec, called trauma warrior or tether breaker, has perhaps the best mobility of the other 3 main side noding builds. It has spellbreaker's excellent defensive rotation and can have suprising burst that can catch players off guard with it's insane might stacking potential with Magebane Tether. It also has solid sustain with Might Makes Right. However it's fallen behind Boonbeast and Condimirage as 1vx specs go and is no longer the god of 1v1 anymore. I saw a loooot of Spellbreaker mains switch to Boonbeast last season.

Beserker is down there with Renegade as one of the worst elite specializations but there is an amusing gun flame beserker build out there that does a bit better than meme builds usually do.