Quick community Poll

[TricksteR.1392]

Which is, in your opinion the best (most fun + best overall) class/specialization in open world?This includes meta events, world bosses, simple farm, you name it

[Danikat.8537]

I don't think I can choose just one. That's why I made 4 characters on the first day and I've added more since then,

The ones I play most often are my ranger (who is currently a soulbeast, but only using the trait line and the merge skill for healing) and my tempest ele who I've sometimes called a 'one woman firestorm'. But I really enjoy both scrapper and holosmith engi specialisations as well, I just don't play them as often at the moment because they're both working their way through stories and I like to wait until I can have the sound on to do that.

[mercury ranique.2170]

No class is the best.It really depends on the person playing and the playstyle one prefers. In my opinion it is not a matter of opinion, but about preference. I really like the holosmith. It is a bit challenging to stay alive if you do not dodge/mitigate damage, but with the extra heals I bring it is not as unforgiving as it could be. The outgoing dps and burst mechanic is very much fun and I really love that the burst has a trade off. I also do understand that for some players it is way too flashy.

[yoni.7015]

Every class and spec can be fun in open world but I prefer power reaper and power soul beast for open world.

[Tukaram.8256]

My favorite is by far my necro/minion master. My 2nd favorite is ranger/longbow & pet. ?

[Joe Schmoe.6981]

My fave? Probably my mortar/alchemist (think, the chemist from Final Fantasy Tactics) core engineer (should be in my sig below), where most of your abilities have to be manually aimed. I hate tab targeting! I'll also play my flamethrower scrapper from time to time as well, as flamethrowers don't need a target either.

[aspirine.6852]

Soulbeast, GS/LB. The melee range in combination with the ranged and the soulbeast merge makes this a lot of fun. I love Holo mode of the holosmith a lot too..

[Ashantara.8731]

My favorite profession is Guardian - highly adaptive to every situation, very relaxing to play.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Engineer. Easy to adjust for every situation. I use three different builds and two gear-sets, utilizing both of the Elite Specializations. The builds are optimized on playability, fun and sustain. Damage is also an objective, but does not have the highest priority. The potential for cross skill/trait synergies is almost endless. Playing it for more than 7 years now, still fun to play.

-

Most of the polls/threads which ask for the BEST class, basically want a class that hits like a truck and is not too complicated to learn. Normally I would highly recommend you to check out the Guardian and both of its Elite Specializations. It is very powerful, easy to play and has good sustain, under certain circumstances. Soulbeast (Ranger) is in a similar spot at the moment, although a little more specific. Power Reaper is almost indestructible with good damage-output (= high sustain + high damage). Those three are imo the easiest to handle.

I remember from your last poll, you are/were an Elementalist main? If you still have no good feelings about the Guardian, try for the other two. Engineer can be very frustrating, if you are used to good DPS. Opposite to the Elementalist, it is a lot less squishy. Depends on your preference.

[Infusion.7149]

Guardian followed by Engineer and maybe renegade or tempest.

Recommendations

Guardian has the option of running condition quickness firebrand which puts out quickness to people around you, lowering the threshold for tagging. It also has good cleave due to symbols + sword of justice, and F1 tome of justice resets every time you kill something. When things don't burn you can run power dragonhunter: everything on greatsword hits 5 targets except the auto.Fast Farming blurb reads:

The Firebrand elite specialization offers amazing AoE cleave abilities with its Tome of Justice , whose cooldown refreshes on every killed mob due to Renewed Justice. This build also improves overall squad dps due to quickness given by Mantra of Potence....Providing quickness to the squad is simultaneously increasing your tagging potential; your allies will apply burning for you as you give them the Ashes of the Just buff on quickness application due to Quickfire.Tagging = excellentSupport / DPS threshold lowering = excellent / top tierUsefulness in instanced content with build changes = top tier + meta

Engineer has two main build options: holosmith and lazy scrapper mode. The holosmith has one of the best power cleave because Photon Forge autoattack hits 5 targets and so does grenades. Every time you drop out of forge to use a kit you get heat therapy heals, corona burst gets you barrier, and big boomer is a trait that also adds incidental healing. Scrapper can use hammer along with grenades or bomb kit (delayed) to hit 5 targets or be lazy and flamethrower things that die fast and generate a large amount of barrier. Minor self-quickness on both specs.Fast Farming blurb reads:

The Holosmith elite specialization easily outperforms the Scrapper and its Flamethrower tagging build in DPS, CC and AoE cleave with the help of Engage Photon Forge and other Holosmith-unique cleaving skills such as Laser Disk.Tagging = excellentUsefulness in instanced content with build changes = meta DPS slot in several raids (typically with sword not rifle)

Renegade (revenant) with Kalla + Dwarf legend cleaves a lot with Vengeful Hammers + Inspiring Reinforcement and is extremely tanky. Versus bosses you can run condi rev which has a longer ramp time.Fast Farming blurb for condi rev reads as follows:

The Renegade elite specialization offers excellent tagging abilities due to the master trait Heartpiercer in the Renegade traitline. It also offers amazing range AoE cleave possibilities and has the ability to share alacrity with allies.Tagging = excellentSupport/DPS threshold lowering = top tierUsefulness in instanced content with build changes = top tier + meta in condi encounters

Tempest with Fresh Air traited both is more robust than power weaver and cleaves more. Use Overload Air often, even though it is 3 targets the AoE is immensely large and moves with you. Lightning Orb single-handedly made me warhorn weapon master, which is difficult for offhands. The water aurashare variant (air,water,tempest) also has decent sustain despite not running any healing power. It's held back by lack of self quickness.Fast farming's blurb reads:

The Tempest elite specialization provides good cleave due to their attunement overload skills. It is only recommended for advanced farmers if you are planning to solo farm mobs.Tagging = excellentSupport = mediocre unless you run water traitline for aurashare then it is close to top tierUsefulness in instanced content with build changes = mediocre except against large hitboxes

Considerations

If you're doing world bosses or open-world content you want big damage and cleave unless the participation is event based. Don't be one of those players bringing full tank builds into open-world, one time I brought my heal firebrand to the Metal Legion concert and tagged zero crazed fans because despite hitting them it wasn't enough damage.

Other classes:

• Warrior - if you run greatsword you have good cleave but sustain isn't as good unless you run different traits, axe hits 5 targets with cyclone axe + whirling axe but axe burst is single target. Has some self quickness , might generation, and berserk mode has increased attack speed. Hitting near crit cap (100% crit chance) without banners is problematic and if you carry banners around in openworld it is tedious. What stops me from recommending it is lack of good non-melee options. Fast farming's recommendation is the condi variant which has a slight ramp time to it , not all damage is burning (roughly half is).Fast farming blurb reads as follows:

  The Berserker Elite Specialization offers good cleaving potential with a lot of piercing skills and AoE possibilities, but requires fast reaction times to cleave larger mob groups and is recommended for more experienced farmers.

• Necromancer - cleave is okay if you can stay in reaper shroud but the number of targets hit is 3 except death's charge, soul spiral, and Gravedigger (very slow attack). Self quickness in reaper shroud and some sustain off the reaper traits and minions if you use them. If a boss is dangerous to melee you can run condi scourge.Fast farming blurb reads as follows:

  The DPS tagging build for Reaper performs decently well on large mob groups with various AoE cleave skills. It uses the staff instead of Axe/Warhorn because of its longer reach (1200), at the expense of losing insignificant DPS on bosses/champions.

• Thief - easy to play staff daredevil but generally hits 3 targets except Vault, unless you run shortbow and spam clusterbomb (#2) for low damage ; Invigorating Precision adds sustain but kills off at least 16% of your damage so Escapists Fortitude is betterFast farming blurb reads as follows:

  The Daredevil elite specialization is one of the best farming classes in the game due to its insane mobility and AoE capabilities. Our DPS tagging build specifically combines DPS with unrivaled mobility, tagging capabilities and survivability.

• Ranger - double axe soulbeast with greatsword as a swap has decent cleave other than the autos. "Sic Em" is single target so it only excels against bosses. If you run longbow you better trait it with marksmanship or your only AoE is barrage on long cooldown. Maximum tagging is achieved by running staff on druid which means trash level damage.
• Mesmer - not amazing cleave and illusions pop too fast versus trash mobs ; slow uptime will be poor generally for Danger Time on chrono. Some self quickness and you can run Seize the moment to spread quickness at a cost of about a third of your DPS. Running chronophantasma means your phantasms receive an annoying delay before hitting again. Bosses can sometimes trigger confusion often which means condi mirage will be high damage in that case.Fast Farming blurb:

  The Power Quickness Chronomancer build is versatile and therefore can be played in many variations depending on current needs such as quickness and alacrity boon uptime for the entire squad. Mesmer's have also the ability to portal up to 20 members of the squad for extra mobility. The traitlines provide good tagging abilities on range and melee. Your main task is to create and shatter as many clones as possible to provide quickness for a large amount of members in the squad or your subgroup due to the grandmaster trait Seize the Moment.

Outside resources

If what you care about is openworld events (i.e. your aforementioned "meta events, world bosses, simple farm") you should look at https://fast.farming-community.eu/farming/builds

Maximum Tagging section on metabattle: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Open_World#Tagging_BuildsKeep in mind the gear for openworld is not worth investing into. There's quite a few iffy decisions such as Valkyrie gear on necromancer. The only classes that really should be running marauder armor at all are power tempest and power dragonhunter. I certainly would not run Marauder on a PVE renegade when people tank things in full berserker.

[Biermeister.4678]

Thief is most used in open world

[Urud.4925]

I second the thief. Daredevil with staff/shortbow is my favorite in open world. Good damage with the staff, you can solo some boss, like the 3 vines in SW, and good to farm with the bow during metas. But for group content I prefer other professions.

[AliamRationem.5172]

For solo play in open world I'd say best probably goes to condi renegade. It has strong damage, CC, healing, boons, a versatile kit and is comfortable dealing damage from melee or range. It can pretty much do it all.

For most fun my pick is condi weaver (sword/focus). It can deal strong damage and has excellent sustain, but the lack of a ranged weapon swap can be a liability. You also have to work quite a bit harder for your healing, CC, and boons! But I find the play style very enjoyable. Nothing else plays like weaver!

[Eros.6801]

Fun plus Best are kinda vague imo

• Best as if right now by just doing open world/solo contents only i would say Renegade either power or condition (most of the case condi is better due to Trailblazer), a full package from montrous self sustain to ridiculously CC as well as numerous cleave skills for tagging. Downside tho, no reall access to movement speed beside runes.
• Fun....although Renegade is the best imo, its still sitting as my backup because i know i can achieve almost everything in easy mode with Renegade. Despite all that i keep drawing back to Warrior simply because i feel fun and more challenging while playing.