Class suggestion for new main

[AWSUMSAUCE.4372]

Bit of a selfish post here but I would really appreciate some pretty specific advice. I've main'ed Necro since launch and it's been terrible up until recently I see (I had a bit of a hiatus). But most builds seem to be scourge and I just don't care for it. I've gotten various classes to 80 now Gaurdi, Ele, Thief, Ranger and Mesmer and don't really care for them as a main.

What would you suggest between Engi, Warrior and Revenant for doing content that will be Raid, WVW and fractal related? (I have no experience raiding but looking to get into it) Warrior seems extremely popular, but I've never made one. Holosmith looks awesome, but not sure of viability. And revenant I never seem to read anything about.

Any help appreciated!

[Lily.1935]

@AWSUMSAUCE.4372 said:Bit of a selfish post here but I would really appreciate some pretty specific advice. I've main'ed Necro since launch and it's been terrible up until recently I see (I had a bit of a hiatus). But most builds seem to be scourge and I just don't care for it. I've gotten various classes to 80 now Gaurdi, Ele, Thief, Ranger and Mesmer and don't really care for them as a main.

What would you suggest between Engi, Warrior and Revenant for doing content that will be Raid, WVW and fractal related? (I have no experience raiding but looking to get into it) Warrior seems extremely popular, but I've never made one. Holosmith looks awesome, but not sure of viability. And revenant I never seem to read anything about.

Any help appreciated!

Revenant is probably going to be a no for you. If you don't care for scourge, the revenant has a similar element to it in energy management, although its energy management is much easier to maintain. But its also the most shallow profession in the game and the one that has the most hand holding from the devs when it comes to builds. Engineer is probably okay if you go power. Its power build is extremely easy to use. If you like Condi though, its build is extremely involved and you can be quite fragile. Warrior might be your best bet as it is the most straightforward.

Personally, I'm a scourge player through and through. There isn't anything else in the game that comes even close to as fun. But I really like Area control, resource management and the support it provides through barrier.

[AWSUMSAUCE.4372]

Personally, I'm a scourge player through and through. There isn't anything else in the game that comes even close to as fun. But I really like Area control, resource management and the support it provides through barrier.

Maybe I'm missing something on scourge. What are the aspects you enjoy? For me it's just summoning little yellow puffs of smoke that do intelligible things.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Don't throw that necro into the gutter so soon. Last time i checked when it comes to raids at least, the necro you want/need is Reaper, not scourge. And he's tons of fun. I personally hate scourge with a vengeance, to the point i would only use it to save team from hopeless situations (like siren's reef T4). Other then that i spent most time on core necro and can pop reaper, both for some amazing good time.

I experiment a lot with necro builds (and it's fun af) so if something on necro is going south for you - ask away! I may have a solution for you.

[AWSUMSAUCE.4372]

I experiment a lot with necro builds (and it's fun af) so if something on necro is going south for you - ask away! I may have a solution for you.

Cool yea I like reaper. My goal really is to have a viable one in raids. On metabattle I see a power and a condi. The condi uses minions which seems like an easy start. I like the idea of having signet of undeath to make me less selfish in the raid. Thoughts?

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

For raids snowcrows.com is the website to go to.
Good news for you - among all necro variants reaper has highest raid dps - 31k if going full damage power. Which is sufficient to enter a raid and not be called dead weight.I don't think condi breaks the 30k dps barrier so, hard to say there. The power wariant still uses minions, so no loss there if that's your preference. Blood Fiend, Shadow Fiend and Flesh Golem all get a slot.

Now I don't do raids myself cause i hate elitists and their demanding attitude (got my lege armor from pvp where i impaled elitists and their expectations:3), but from Fractal T4 experience i can tell you that far more important then 31k dps is for your team to stay on their legs. That is to say, that when i saw my run go to shit, i would make some sacrifices to boost team sustain (Signet of Vampirism + Singets of Suffering, Blood Magic with Transfusion and Ritual of Life) leading to cleared fractal intead of top dps team dying over and over at first boss.

In raid that should be healer's job, but there's a difference between "should" and "what you got", and if everyone is full glass, then necro will by default will be the last guy standing and able to act on it if he builds for it.

Ofc i can't speak with full authority, as i'm not a raid guru, and raids are a mode i despise because if how ppl are "meta or gtfo" while i'm the guy who has no qualms about making varied builds for varied purposes.

[AWSUMSAUCE.4372]

Sounds good man :) whats your thoughts on signet of undeath? Still a waste of time?

[Revolution.5409]

@AWSUMSAUCE.4372 said:Bit of a selfish post here but I would really appreciate some pretty specific advice. I've main'ed Necro since launch and it's been terrible up until recently I see (I had a bit of a hiatus). But most builds seem to be scourge and I just don't care for it. I've gotten various classes to 80 now Gaurdi, Ele, Thief, Ranger and Mesmer and don't really care for them as a main.

What would you suggest between Engi, Warrior and Revenant for doing content that will be Raid, WVW and fractal related? (I have no experience raiding but looking to get into it) Warrior seems extremely popular, but I've never made one. Holosmith looks awesome, but not sure of viability. And revenant I never seem to read anything about.

Any help appreciated!

Warrior is the best choice, it's easy to play and you won't have any problems in any game mode.Warrior in my opinion is among the most complete professions in the game, and with SpellBreaker or Berserker you can get more defensive or offensive skills to adapt it even more to your style.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Signet of Undeath without signets of suffering is gonna be a very fringe use case. Once you use the active you will have to wait a loooong time for next use. Without the passive. Even with passive up, it'll not work in shroud.

It is one way to bring ress utility without blood magic, but you better be sure someone dies there (grab and push them into sure death red circle, lol) else you're shooting your own foot there;p

If traited with signets of suffering...then it's utility goes up hard....hard enough to slot it? Don't know myself.

[starlinvf.1358]

The real solution is to "Not Main". Its as simple as that. Every Class, Every Espec, every Build has major blind spots in their use cases. Some classes can adapt better then others, but as of right now, none have Universal application across all game modes. And given the Dev's current trajectory, this is going to get even worse over time.

For the sake of your sanity, you want to have at least 3 character laid out to handle the various game modes you participate in. if you play in all game modes on a semi-regular basis, you're gonna want all 9 classes at your disposal. Also, don't fall into the mental trap of thinking DPS builds are flexible..... not only is not true outside of openworld, all the other game modes are criminally short on Support players that keep the DPS builds alive. And since ANet has a history of heavy handedly Buffing and Nerfing entire builds in and out of the meta with each balance pass, you can't count on having a "Main" character that won't eventually be thrown out for a given period of time. Mesmer used to be the safest class against build destroying nerfs.... but now Chrono just got dismantled in a way that makes very awkward outside of raids.

Also take into account your playstyle. I've noticed that players that have the most difficulty with the game, are the ones that are still stuck in the WoW-eqse mindset of a more passive mind set toward combat. This is most often evidenced in an inability to fully articulate what they don't like about a class, or can't fully wrap their minds about Class/Spec mechanics. Another issue with that is most classes don't mechanically make sense until they're lvl 80, and the Especs start coming into play. Ergo, its not really possible to sample a class during the leveling process.

For example: I could never get a handle on thief, due to its spastic skill combos. But after DareDevil came out, it was straight forward enough for general use to learn Thief utilities as a separate concept. Combined with time on Engineer and Scraper learning Field Combos, 5 years in I finally learned how to use Thief's mechanics at a minimally competent level. I'm still bad at it; but now I know whats giving me trouble, and have been improving on it over time.

You'll find this same problem with all the classes and most of the Especs, as they all utilize a higher gameplay function thats not specific to their class in their overall play style. Only learning or specializing in one class or one build actually makes you WORSE at the game, because you'll often fail to recognize what other players are doing, and how you can capitalize on their actions. Even though raids are thought as rotation focused, the actual mechanics of the fight demand you pay attention to know when and when not to do something, and know what your supports are doing, since they set the cadence of the fight.

When I first started, I mained Ranger. After 6 months I quit the game for almost a year. Second time around I switched to Guardian... and holy crap did everything start to make sense. Ranger at the time was a Trash class, but it wasn't until I got on another class that I started actually understanding everything that was wrong with it. I later made an Ele, then an Engineer in Base, then picked up Mesmer, Warrior and Necro after HOT launched. The more I started playing other classes, the more realized how badly underutilized I was playing the other classes before that.

Simply put... this game does NOT reward people who only play mains. The more classes you play, and the more builds you're willing to play as, the greater your chances at success in all areas of the game. And if you're able to get good at Support builds, you're pretty much guaranteed spots in Fractals and Raids, even if they're useless outside of it. I've even gotten into the habit of modifying my WvW roaming builds for use as my open world builds, in order to get more practice on them. I'm even starting to take Fractal support builds into group meta events for the same reasons. If you take the time to Learn the buildcraft, and the various classes, you not only get better at all of them, but you also have something available when the Balance patches disrupt the previous metas.

[Lily.1935]

@AWSUMSAUCE.4372 said:

Personally, I'm a scourge player through and through. There isn't anything else in the game that comes even close to as fun. But I really like Area control, resource management and the support it provides through barrier.

Maybe I'm missing something on scourge. What are the aspects you enjoy? For me it's just summoning little yellow puffs of smoke that do intelligible things.

Scourge is a hyper involved build that asks a lot of its user. It grants you the ability to support your allies in a unique way, field control and potent condition damage. Most people struggle with the scourge because it's so different from anything the game has to offer. Where as reaper is fairly standard affair for the necromancer up till that point, scourge does a 180.

Although players will claim that scourge is both easy to use yet claiming it can't kill anything, this is because of a serious lack of understanding from the community on how it functions. Its builds, the rotation is not as straightforward as many other professions as it doesn't have a line a to b progression due to the nature of energy management rarely lining up with its rotation. A good scourge player can come out the gate hitting hard and maintain consistent performance while a inexperienced player will quickly find their dps falling far below average. The confusion comes from the natural bulk the scourge has by being a necromancer. Although this is no different from the reaper. The reaper is a much simpler elite spec to grasp, as such most reaper players get frustrated with the scourge and give up and claim that scourge is the worst thing ever, building an irrational vendetta against the play style that is illogical.

Scourge players like myself don't dislike reaper so much as we grow bored of it rather quickly. I have over a thousand hours on reaper and scourge and I always come back to scourge due to it's more involved play style. I like feeling like a caster. I like being aware of my surroundings and using the shades to create choke points as well as limit my foes' options. Reaper control is about catching your target and holding them down while they beat them to death. Scourge isn't so direct but limits options while overwhelming your foe with conditions and converting their strengths into weaknesses.

Comparing the two to other games, Scourge is far more similar to what you'd find in other games that have necromancers. While the play style of the reaper can appear on necromancers in other games it is far less common and more likely to be seen on a death knight/dark knight type class than a necromancer. And because of this the play style is extremely different. Death/dark knights tend to be self sufficient and fairly tanky with good damage while necromancers are usually support classes. A strange concept for sure given the rather rocky history of the necromancer in gw2. When looking at what I enjoy, I dislike death/dark knights play style since it seems to be a reverse Paladin. And reaper isn't far off from that. I'm a support/debuff player and I love the elements that make up your traditional necromancer. Life sacrifice, reanimation, cursing foes or the land, controlling the area with dead zones, supporting allies with unique buffs. That is what is for me. Reaper does next to none of that which is why it was the biggest disappointment for me. I'm more okay with it now then I was when it was revealed since I was starved for the play style I enjoy that wasn't in the game prior.

If you go back to GW1 and compared the necromancer to GW2 those two classes are like night and day. The GW1 necromancer was a very fragile support and debuff class. It wasn't a melee bruiser. If I wanted to play a melee bruiser I'd have picked warrior, I wouldn't have touched necromancer.

It also doesn't hurt that I'm really good at necromancer. I'm superb at both reaper and scourge. But my favor goes to the elite spec that makes me feel like a necromancer.

[Knighthonor.4061]

@Lily.1935 said:

@AWSUMSAUCE.4372 said:Bit of a selfish post here but I would really appreciate some pretty specific advice. I've main'ed Necro since launch and it's been terrible up until recently I see (I had a bit of a hiatus). But most builds seem to be scourge and I just don't care for it. I've gotten various classes to 80 now Gaurdi, Ele, Thief, Ranger and Mesmer and don't really care for them as a main.

What would you suggest between Engi, Warrior and Revenant for doing content that will be Raid, WVW and fractal related? (I have no experience raiding but looking to get into it) Warrior seems extremely popular, but I've never made one. Holosmith looks awesome, but not sure of viability. And revenant I never seem to read anything about.

Any help appreciated!

Revenant is probably going to be a no for you. If you don't care for scourge, the revenant has a similar element to it in energy management, although its energy management is much easier to maintain. But its also the most shallow profession in the game and the one that has the most hand holding from the devs when it comes to builds. Engineer is probably okay if you go power. Its power build is extremely easy to use. If you like Condi though, its build is extremely involved and you can be quite fragile. Warrior might be your best bet as it is the most straightforward.

Personally, I'm a scourge player through and through. There isn't anything else in the game that comes even close to as fun. But I really like Area control, resource management and the support it provides through barrier.

I disagree Revenant is easiest class to play since it has less build options to go wrong. It has Melee and range. My main issue is the lack of choice. Energy system is bad for other reasons

[Lily.1935]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@AWSUMSAUCE.4372 said:Bit of a selfish post here but I would really appreciate some pretty specific advice. I've main'ed Necro since launch and it's been terrible up until recently I see (I had a bit of a hiatus). But most builds seem to be scourge and I just don't care for it. I've gotten various classes to 80 now Gaurdi, Ele, Thief, Ranger and Mesmer and don't really care for them as a main.

What would you suggest between Engi, Warrior and Revenant for doing content that will be Raid, WVW and fractal related? (I have no experience raiding but looking to get into it) Warrior seems extremely popular, but I've never made one. Holosmith looks awesome, but not sure of viability. And revenant I never seem to read anything about.

Any help appreciated!

Revenant is probably going to be a no for you. If you don't care for scourge, the revenant has a similar element to it in energy management, although its energy management is much easier to maintain. But its also the most shallow profession in the game and the one that has the most hand holding from the devs when it comes to builds. Engineer is probably okay if you go power. Its power build is extremely easy to use. If you like Condi though, its build is extremely involved and you can be quite fragile. Warrior might be your best bet as it is the most straightforward.

Personally, I'm a scourge player through and through. There isn't anything else in the game that comes even close to as fun. But I really like Area control, resource management and the support it provides through barrier.

I disagree Revenant is easiest class to play since it has less build options to go wrong. It has Melee and range. My main issue is the lack of choice. Energy system is bad for other reasons

That's not a disagreement with what I said...

[nosleepdemon.1368]

@Lily.1935 said:

@AWSUMSAUCE.4372 said:Bit of a selfish post here but I would really appreciate some pretty specific advice. I've main'ed Necro since launch and it's been terrible up until recently I see (I had a bit of a hiatus). But most builds seem to be scourge and I just don't care for it. I've gotten various classes to 80 now Gaurdi, Ele, Thief, Ranger and Mesmer and don't really care for them as a main.

What would you suggest between Engi, Warrior and Revenant for doing content that will be Raid, WVW and fractal related? (I have no experience raiding but looking to get into it) Warrior seems extremely popular, but I've never made one. Holosmith looks awesome, but not sure of viability. And revenant I never seem to read anything about.

Any help appreciated!

its also the most shallow profession in the game and the one that has the most hand holding from the devs when it comes to builds.

Shallow? Only if you haven't taken the time to actually play it, Mister Scourge, sir. Of particular interest as a counter argument is the ~50 step condition rotation. Then there's the duality of resource and cooldown management and rhythm of switching legends at the right time to maximise skill availability and legend swap procs. You also have two heal skills to contend with, on elite double procs, cast time for most skills and so on and so forth. Shallow. Ha! :P

OP - Go Rev, it's the most unique class in the game, and miles better than splurging around on a scourge. It's also a rather rare class, and has some interesting builds for every game mode, including straight damage, condition damage, healing, and boon support.

[Lily.1935]

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@AWSUMSAUCE.4372 said:Bit of a selfish post here but I would really appreciate some pretty specific advice. I've main'ed Necro since launch and it's been terrible up until recently I see (I had a bit of a hiatus). But most builds seem to be scourge and I just don't care for it. I've gotten various classes to 80 now Gaurdi, Ele, Thief, Ranger and Mesmer and don't really care for them as a main.

What would you suggest between Engi, Warrior and Revenant for doing content that will be Raid, WVW and fractal related? (I have no experience raiding but looking to get into it) Warrior seems extremely popular, but I've never made one. Holosmith looks awesome, but not sure of viability. And revenant I never seem to read anything about.

Any help appreciated!

its also the most shallow profession in the game and the one that has the most hand holding from the devs when it comes to builds.

Shallow? Only if you haven't taken the time to actually play it, Mister Scourge, sir. Of particular interest as a counter argument is the ~50 step condition rotation. Then there's the duality of resource and cooldown management and rhythm of switching legends at the right time to maximise skill availability and legend swap procs. You also have two heal skills to contend with, on elite double procs, cast time for most skills and so on and so forth. Shallow. Ha! :P

OP - Go Rev, it's the most unique class in the game, and miles better than splurging around on a scourge. It's also a rather rare class, and has some interesting builds for every game mode, including straight damage, condition damage, healing, and boon support.

First off, I'm a girl. So its Miss Scourge Lady.

Second, Revenant is a class I actually rather enjoy the style of. The reason I don't play it super often is because it's so shallow. Maybe you believe its difficult to master but it's not. It was one of the easiest classes. The fact that you can recharge your energy in swap made damage spamming extremely easy. Also, my preference on Revenant was condi. I'm quite talented with condition builds and revenant isn't even in the top 5 most difficult.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Nightblade or dragon knight are a blast, oops wrong game lol

[nosleepdemon.1368]

@Lily.1935 said:

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:

@Lily.1935 said:

@AWSUMSAUCE.4372 said:Bit of a selfish post here but I would really appreciate some pretty specific advice. I've main'ed Necro since launch and it's been terrible up until recently I see (I had a bit of a hiatus). But most builds seem to be scourge and I just don't care for it. I've gotten various classes to 80 now Gaurdi, Ele, Thief, Ranger and Mesmer and don't really care for them as a main.

What would you suggest between Engi, Warrior and Revenant for doing content that will be Raid, WVW and fractal related? (I have no experience raiding but looking to get into it) Warrior seems extremely popular, but I've never made one. Holosmith looks awesome, but not sure of viability. And revenant I never seem to read anything about.

Any help appreciated!

its also the most shallow profession in the game and the one that has the most hand holding from the devs when it comes to builds.

Shallow? Only if you haven't taken the time to actually play it, Mister Scourge, sir. Of particular interest as a counter argument is the ~50 step condition rotation. Then there's the duality of resource and cooldown management and rhythm of switching legends at the right time to maximise skill availability and legend swap procs. You also have two heal skills to contend with, on elite double procs, cast time for most skills and so on and so forth. Shallow. Ha! :P

OP - Go Rev, it's the most unique class in the game, and miles better than splurging around on a scourge. It's also a rather rare class, and has some interesting builds for every game mode, including straight damage, condition damage, healing, and boon support.

First off, I'm a girl. So its Miss Scourge Lady.

Second, Revenant is a class I actually rather enjoy the style of. The reason I don't play it super often is because it's so shallow. Maybe you believe its difficult to master but it's not. It was one of the easiest classes. The fact that you can recharge your energy in swap made damage spamming extremely easy. Also, my preference on Revenant was condi. I'm quite talented with condition builds and revenant isn't even in the top 5 most difficult.

Well Mrs Scourge Lady, players tend to disagree with your easy to play theory, especially when it comes to PvP where most Revenants just die until you meet the 1/10 that know how to play the class. Get off your high-minion ;)