Help me to choose a profession.

[alchemist.5019]

Hello! I just came back from a quite long hiatus (5-6 years). Before leaving, I left all professions at 80, and now I want to main a class to I can get all ascended equipment.

I mainly plan to play WvW, fractals, and possibly raids if I find a good guild. In the case of WvW I really like roaming, but most of the time I'll be joining any small zerg to get some experience. In fractals, I just plan to join any party by now, so I can reach T4.

Some of the professions that I've been thinking to main are Thief, Ranger, Revenant, Guardian, and Necro; however, I'm open to any comments of the other professions.

Ps1: When I mean main a class is that I'll play core and the specs, so I'll be playing support or dps if is possible with any of the professions.Ps2: I'll really like to hear mostly about the experience of people in these game modes and the professions that you feel that really made a difference when you play.Ps3: Please, don't tell me that any class is viable, I already know that. In the future, I'll main more than one, but now, I just want to focus on one so I can get all the gear and complete the history.Ps4: I really wanted to play any of the previous classes I mentioned before, but apparently I just came back to the game after many updates that changed many things about the professions.

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

Welcome back :)

My advice:

If other players’ feedback is something you value a lot, read each profession’s forum and see what’s being said about each.

If you prefer finding your profession on your own, try each and every profession and eventually some will make more sense to you than others.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

My recommendation - Revenant.

Fractals and Raids - Renegade is meta.

WvW - Herald. Roaming is definitely an option (unlike necro), in zergs he can provide mass boon share on basic boons and the ever-valuable resistance for up to 5 men.

The really cool thing about him is how well rounded his kit is. He is something between a necro and guardian. Necro is all about stats and condi play, but lacks god-mode defenses like evades, blocks, invulnies etc. Guardian is all about those, but his base health is crap and he puts too many eggs in one basket (blocking and healing). If guardian's opponent has good access to unblockable attacks (bonus points if also poison application) he will struggle hard.

Rev doesn't have to choose. He has plenty of tools to both take sustained pressure and negate large bursts. On top of that he can rip boons (guardian can't) and mass share boons (necro can't).

On top of that he can be a healer and with 3 ways to do so, no less (glint, ventari, kalla).

[Kodama.6453]

Some of the professions that I've been thinking to main are Thief, Ranger, Revenant, Guardian, and Necro; however, I'm open to any comments of the other professions.

Your name is alchemist, maining engineer is the only logical choice.

[Infusion.7149]

From your list, guardian.Guardian has been essential in WvW due to stability and is meta in T4 fractals (firebrand) for the foreseeable future. The only other class typically providing quickness is boon chrono. If youu want to change it up a little you can even run core power or power dragonhunter.

You could also look into revenant as it has been relevant in WvW since its inception and currently meta in T4 fractals due to alacrity renegade. However if your party consists of autoattack spamming people, quickness is much more effective. In addition, the meta condi quickness firebrands have benchmarked around 28K which is more than alacrity renegade at 23K so if the rest of your party is amazingly lazy you still have more party DPS. For WvW the meta has been hammer herald for quite some time but has seen more condi revs since Feb 25 patch , despite the issues of people kiting mace attacks and scrappers clearing conditions in bulk.

Necromancer, while a strong choice for WvW is a mediocre choice for instanced PvE : it doesn't provide alacrity for anyone nor quickness for anyone other than itself (reaper spec). The whole life force mechanic excels on deaths because life force generation outside of staff auto attack + marks (traited) is generally low so it is going to be subpar for strikes and raids. Whereas other non-boon classes such as power soulbeast , power chrono, and holosmith have benchmarked at 37-38K : power reaper is listed at 32K DPS.

Thief is viable as staff daredevil in both T4 fractals and WvW but it isn't an essential role. Staff gives it the cleave that daggers or sword do not ; shortbow is more or less a single power damage skill on cluster bomb, rifle is generally unwanted when cleave is required. In both cases it is replaceable by engineer (holo in PvE , scrapper in WvW). The latest benchmarks have the damage at 35K DPS.

The last thing you want to play is ranger if you are talking about WvW as the soulbeast was heavily nerfed due to PvP and currently PvP/WvW are under the same balancing rollout. Even before the Feb 25 patch they were underwhelming and most ranger players in squads have terrible habits (longbow autoattacking, rapidfiring into reflects, not stowing pets while stealth pushing, etc). For PvE, druid rangers fell out of meta for 5 man instanced content when glyph of empowerment (+10% damage for 5 players) stopped existing for druids to make up for damage loss , since soulbeast can bring frost spirit for the 5% damage bonus it is still semi-viable.

[Strider.7849]

@alchemist.5019 said:Hello! I just came back from a quite long hiatus (5-6 years). Before leaving, I left all professions at 80, and now I want to main a class to I can get all ascended equipment.

I mainly plan to play WvW, fractals, and possibly raids if I find a good guild. In the case of WvW I really like roaming, but most of the time I'll be joining any small zerg to get some experience. In fractals, I just plan to join any party by now, so I can reach T4.

Some of the professions that I've been thinking to main are Thief, Ranger, Revenant, Guardian, and Necro; however, I'm open to any comments of the other professions.

Ps1: When I mean main a class is that I'll play core and the specs, so I'll be playing support or dps if is possible with any of the professions.Ps2: I'll really like to hear mostly about the experience of people in these game modes and the professions that you feel that really made a difference when you play.Ps3: Please, don't tell me that any class is viable, I already know that. In the future, I'll main more than one, but now, I just want to focus on one so I can get all the gear and complete the history.Ps4: I really wanted to play any of the previous classes I mentioned before, but apparently I just came back to the game after many updates that changed many things about the professions.

Rev guardian necro all have support. Technically druid does too but it really sucks now (I was formally a druid main.. now it's a CC spec). All are viable in small group roaming - thief/ranger weakest in zergs. In fractals guardian and rev are essential to the group. While guardian is common, rev is not.

[alchemist.5019]

Thank you for all your answers! I think I narrowed my preferences to Guardian and Revenant, and by now I'll stick to Guardian. As far as I read, revenant is in a good position in terms of condition damage; however, I remember that I really enjoyed playing a power build, but from what I can find in the forums, it is not in a good position.

I really wanted to play ranger too, since I feel is a class that fits many of my desires gameplay-wise. But from what the people say, I can see that the developers don't know what to do with the class, and is under a constant shower of nerfs.

Thief is another class that I really enjoyed playing. However, when running in a zerg it does not feel right (or at least the way I play it doesn't feel that I'm doing anything at all).

[mortrialus.3062]

Guardian. It's extremely dominant in WvW zerg gameplay and in all forms of PvE as you set up different builds for it like Quickness Firebrand, Condi Firebrand, Power DH.