Profession with best variety?

[ButterOfDeath.2873]

I'm a terrible altoholic, i started playing day 1, i currently have a character for each profession and to this day no main, all leveled in pvp for the most part.

I played the game on and off and now i may be able to introduce a new player to it, the plan is to get a new character slot (hopefully it goes on sale with the anniversary) and level up alongside them.

However, while i normally can just switch character nonstop, it'd be nice to stick with one while playing with them, makes for a more fun narrative.

 

Now, i know all the professions to a decent degree, but i've been away for a long time so i'm clueless in terms of balance, hence the question:

Which profession has the best variety in terms of weapons, traits, abilities and specializations? Meaning which profession has the least "mandatory" or "useless" elements, across all modes?

 

What i like to do is to focus on a weapon/trait/utility skill and build around it, rinse and repeat. I'm fond of being able to fulfill different roles as well.

In general, if something feels mandatory (think trickery, shadowstep and shortbow on thief spvp) or too niche/weak (think most engineer's turrets) then it's way more likely for me to find cases where a skill/trait i like isn't worth building around, or where it's too much of a drawback not to pick something.

This is especially true for specializations, i'm not fond of professions where elite specs are always preferred over core (eg: why pick core ele over tempest or weaver?).

 

I think mesmer, thief, guardian, necro and ranger are the best in that regard, but that's literally half the professions so it doesn't solve my doubts.

 

I've been most fond of thief and mesmer (love the mobility and stealth, lots of fun shenanigans), guardian (bunker and bursty with meditations, it's fun to become a projectile and teleport in people's faces with a hammer) and necro (mostly power with wells, worked wonders in spvp back in the day).

 

I've tried meta builds for other classes recently, using open world ones vs the blue lord in the pvp lobby and pvp builds in regular pvp.

Guardian, necro, thief, revenant had no problem with the former, while ranger, mesmer and engi were not as consistent due to how quickly the mobs spawn.

While for the latter i really enjoyed guardian, thief, mesmer, necro and revenant (core stinks though). Ranger didn't feel as good as it used to, same with engi and ele, but especially warrior.

 

So all in all i like most professions a lot, which is my main problem. Any help to narrow it down is heavily appreciated. ^^

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

1 hour ago, ButterOfDeath.2873 said:

I played the game on and off and now i may be able to introduce a new player to it, the plan is to get a new character slot (hopefully it goes on sale with the anniversary) and level up alongside them.

I happen to be in this situation once in a while. If it is a person you know from RL, you can pick either the same profession as them to give a good example and explain things directly. Or you pick a profession that adds up to theirs, offering support, sustain or tank for them, while they slowly make their first steps in Tyria. It also depends on the content you both aim to play together. Especially when you want to focus on instanced content, you should check with the meta-pages, to makes sure to pick professions that are wanted and gain easy access, but also are not too difficult to learn.

Guardian is always a good choice. It has proper sustain and easy to access ally-support. It can be played in different ways: pdps, cdps, buffer and healer. Depending on how many build-templates you own, you can run with multiple versions and just pick the one that is appropriate in the current situation. If your friend picks Guardian, you can explain the skills well and how the different mechanics work. There exist guides and videos, but learning it from a mentor is still priceless. If you know the classes blindly, you can explain stuff for their profession while on guardian yourself. I do that myself. Over the years, you know the traits and skills blindly, their side-effects and how the mechanics work. Yesterday I was teaching a new player combos and managed to recite the tooltip of a skill correctly, although I barely touch that one when playing that class. If you are a passionate player, which seems to be the case, you should be fine.

If you intend to focus on sPvP a lot, Engineer is probably a good pick. It can mimic almost every profession somehow and has an almost endless variety possibilities. You can buff your allies, deal good damage, are very hard to catch and kill and assist with plenty of CC.

As Engineer is not in your list, I would go with Ranger instead. A little less flexible in combat, but in a very good state. Can fulfill different roles with ease and has a good variety of options to aid your friend. 

Thief can work out. But you will mostly end up as a personal guard. When introducing new players this can be helpful, but once they have made some progress, it is hard to let go - my impression. It is great to play thief if your friend plays thief, as the mechanics are quite challenging. But it can be difficult to sit certain situations out, instead of just slaying everything as you are used to do it.

[ButterOfDeath.2873]

49 minutes ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

-snip-

The plan for them is to pick an easy class, probably ranger or necro, it'd be their first mmo and they're not fond of having too many buttons to worry about.

 

Picking the same class would be neat, but each of us having our own thing going on has its appeal, i should know every ability in the game by now (aside from reworked stuff) so i can help them out if they don't know how things work or what to pick.

 

My main issue is that i know what the professions can do and if i wanted to be able to do as many things as possible the engineer would be the easiest choice with ranger close second, but it's hard to know which ones feel limited when coming up with builds.

 

With engineer it's awkward since core feels worse than the elite specs and while the breadth of things an engineer can do are massive, how many you can cram into a build before it falls apart is also a limitation. If there's a skill i like (like going full toolkit with  static discharge) i may have to pick one i may not need in that build (like rifle turret, which is useless but happens to have a great toolbelt skill).

 

So for me it's less the breadth of what the profession can do and more how flexible each build can be.

[Infusion.7149]

You should play your guardian because it's least likely to be nerfed to uselessness in PVE or WVW and core guardian is actually playable. 

The same goes for revenant. Necromancer is in vogue now but sometimes it can be unwanted (see scourge before torment buff in PVE or reaper in general) and core doesn't have much cleave. Engineer has been strengthened in PVE the past few years , in WVW it only became common after gyro reworks, but in PVP holosmith has been a dominant force. However, core engineer is horrible as far as playing it to proper execution.

If you WVW there is no reason to make a ranger really. Core ranger is rather underwhelming as well.

If you PVP mainly then you might look at thief but it is not a good choice for PVE and WVW at all. It mainly fulfills the decap role so I would not call it flexible.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[ButterOfDeath.2873]

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You should play your guardian because it's least likely to be nerfed to uselessness in PVE or WVW and core guardian is actually playable. 

The same goes for revenant. Necromancer is in vogue now but sometimes it can be unwanted (see scourge before torment buff in PVE or reaper in general) and core doesn't have much cleave. Engineer has been strengthened in PVE the past few years , in WVW it only became common after gyro reworks, but in PVP holosmith has been a dominant force. However, core engineer is horrible as far as playing it to proper execution.

If you WVW there is no reason to make a ranger really. Core ranger is rather underwhelming as well.

If you PVP mainly then you might look at thief but it is not a good choice for PVE and WVW at all. It mainly fulfills the decap role so I would not call it flexible.

I thought core revenant was quite bad compared to the two elite specs, the F2 ability doesn't seem worth it at all.

 

I'm not too worried about what the profession can accomplish, for example i don't mind that thief can't bunker in spvp and i'm not a minmaxer per-se, so stuff like invigorating precision seems like a great deal. In the pvp lobby i could just dodge and spam staff1/2 against the blue lord, killing everything before they respawned and surviving through the lifesteal alone. Quite neat!

 

What gets me is when i look at something (a trait, an utility skill, whatever it is), build around it and don't get "good enough" results. So for example if i pick thief and someday i think "kitten, seal area looks sick, i should build around that", if everything i come up with is kinda sucky, then that'd be a bummer.

 

Thus far guardian is looking like the best candidate honestly, there aren't many things that feel way too good or not good enough, but it's hard to tell without spending a bunch of time with each profession. ^^

Edited August 26, 2021 by ButterOfDeath.2873

[moony.5780]

I play very often with new player and help them. Also i got my father to play gw2 even hes not only completly new to MMOs, he also never play anything else other than strategy games. So I can share my experience with you :)

First a few tipps:

- Never use power in your build when u run the first 20-30 lvl. You know the game and even with a new character, you make extremly much dmg. U will kill all before you even stoped the explanation. Also your friend cant attack with u together, because things r dead before anything happen.

- Take a class that can heal extremly much while doing very very very low dmg. Your friend may need a lot more time to understand the situation and sometimes randomly freeze in a group of monster. If u kill everything in a few seconds then, the learning effect is gone. So stay there and keep both of u alive. The best healer without elite specs would be ele and engi (correct me if there are also other strong core healer).

- A profession that can buff will also help in difficult situations. So u have teamplay to kill difficult monster (vetrans or maybe even champs). Also there is nothing better than a speedbuffer, if u have no mounts :P (do me a favour and dont rush the game, just to get the mounts)

- You can also take an excisting lvl 80 character if u prepare the gear for it. Take no dmg gear, and most important...get a lvl 1 weapon. If u think this is too little dmg, then take a lvl 20 or 40 weapon.

 

My own choice would be either engi or ele. Engi is reaaaallly weak in core, but u can heal and buff might (fire blast) and a lot of other boons. So it would not feel thaaat bad if u play in a team anyway. Ele (especially on staff) would be the more fun option, but as a main ele for 9 years i can tell you, that ele is reaaally hard to master in endgame, and feels more frustrating than any other profession. But as long as u r not min maxing stuff, on a cele ele you have maximum freedon regarding builds and abilities. I have 12 builds alone for my ele, and there is still more to discover. I just started my engi few weeks ago,...and it also got extremly much different builds with completly different playstyles. With power holo u also have a good dmg option without playing piano.

 

 

I hope you will enjoy the class, and the time together with ur friend ;)

 

[ButterOfDeath.2873]

45 minutes ago, moony.5780 said:

I play very often with new player and help them. Also i got my father to play gw2 even hes not only completly new to MMOs, he also never play anything else other than strategy games. So I can share my experience with you 🙂

First a few tipps:

- Never use power in your build when u run the first 20-30 lvl. You know the game and even with a new character, you make extremly much dmg. U will kill all before you even stoped the explanation. Also your friend cant attack with u together, because things r dead before anything happen.

- Take a class that can heal extremly much while doing very very very low dmg. Your friend may need a lot more time to understand the situation and sometimes randomly freeze in a group of monster. If u kill everything in a few seconds then, the learning effect is gone. So stay there and keep both of u alive. The best healer without elite specs would be ele and engi (correct me if there are also other strong core healer).

- A profession that can buff will also help in difficult situations. So u have teamplay to kill difficult monster (vetrans or maybe even champs). Also there is nothing better than a speedbuffer, if u have no mounts 😛 (do me a favour and dont rush the game, just to get the mounts)

- You can also take an excisting lvl 80 character if u prepare the gear for it. Take no dmg gear, and most important...get a lvl 1 weapon. If u think this is too little dmg, then take a lvl 20 or 40 weapon.

 

My own choice would be either engi or ele. Engi is reaaaallly weak in core, but u can heal and buff might (fire blast) and a lot of other boons. So it would not feel thaaat bad if u play in a team anyway. Ele (especially on staff) would be the more fun option, but as a main ele for 9 years i can tell you, that ele is reaaally hard to master in endgame, and feels more frustrating than any other profession. But as long as u r not min maxing stuff, on a cele ele you have maximum freedon regarding builds and abilities. I have 12 builds alone for my ele, and there is still more to discover. I just started my engi few weeks ago,...and it also got extremly much different builds with completly different playstyles. With power holo u also have a good dmg option without playing piano.

 

 

I hope you will enjoy the class, and the time together with ur friend 😉

 

Hey thank you for your tips, really appreciated!
Very good points with build, i hadn't considered bringing very low level weapons on a max level character either.

I'd imagine stats like apothecary would be spot on, focusing on condi damage is a fairly subtle way to handle content since it takes time to ramp up.

 

Engi is perfect on paper but i can't bring myself to fully endorse the profession, due to how its mechanics are made it's bound to have skills that may not fit in a build, plus not having a kit feels rough outside of holo.

I've had a fair bit of fun playing d/d celestial ele back in the day, but it's tiring after a bit, lots of keypresses haha. I've bound f1-f5 to alt+q/e/r/f/c which helps, especially for toolbelt shenanigans on engi, but it's still a lot of work to play the class.

 

When it comes to picking a profession that happens to be able to buff and support my friend i think all can do a fair job to some degree. Guardian can heal, buff, add swiftness and tank which is handy.

Thief can stealth, blind enemies, share poisons and teleport them around with the new preparation skill.

Mesmer could speed them up, offer targets for the AI to focus, also stealth them and provide buffs with staff, plenty of reflects as well.

Even necro has a smidge of support here and there (spectral wall, well of blood, minions drawing aggro, some traits to heal with).

 

So in that regard i think any profession would be OK, it'll boil down to which i think is the most varied. Although knowing i don't necessarily have to get a new character is very very handy. ^^

[moony.5780]

Im happy that my tip was useful 🙂

 

Its very convenient to have a main, and u have the chance to dive deep in the mechanic and different builds, but as long as u enjoy the way u play, there is no need to choose a main 🙂

 

here maybe one more tip 😛

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAIJlRweYNMLWKe0TutSA-zRZYBRBDKJCgDuMioASPBUbA-e

That engi build is really fun to play, with only 1 kit 😄 and as it is the elite skill, u dont lose the other useful skills. U can heal, buff and do dmg. When playing with my lvl 9 friend i use a lvl 1 hammer, and things were fine even with berserker gear 🙂

 

edit:

You can also stealth with the elite if needed 😛

Edited August 27, 2021 by moony.5780

[ASP.8093]

On 8/26/2021 at 10:07 AM, ButterOfDeath.2873 said:

revenant (core stinks though)

Core doesn't have the raw power of Renegade and Herald, but you don't really *want* raw power. What you want is to be casting Call to Anguish to pull enemies together so you and your buddy can cleave them super hard together, or putting up Protective Solace and Rite of the Great Dwarf when so they can engage the more annoying enemy types more confidently.

 

Then you will blossom into your full potential just as they hit the kind of content where having a top-notch dps+support meta Rev beside you actually matters.

Edited August 27, 2021 by ASP.8093

[Touchme.1097]

In terms of flexibility, meaning viability in all game modes I would say Necromancer.

In PvE Necros can hard carry a whole squad with their barriers and healing and they can dish an insane amount of damage as well.

In PvP Necros are very strong, you can double check by reading all the complain threads in the PvP forums.

In WvW Necros are an essential part of a Blob with their well ability, the tanky aspect and the damage and they are also strong roamers.

In Open world they can solo champions and bounties that require a party of 5.

Let's debunk the myth about Guardian being the most flexible because their viability in PvP is one of the worst compared to other professions.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Touchme.1097

[voltaicbore.8012]

For leveling with a friend, I'd say the both of you running necro would be a good idea.

Core necro can be one of the most forgiving specs for a new player. As a more experienced player running alongside them, a support+condition necro build can let you assist them without one-shotting absolutely everything in sight, which people correctly mentioned as a possible issue when running efficient power builds.

Ranger is also a fairly forgiving class for new players, but has the unfortunate habit of teaching many bad habits. Many new players are drawn to the longbow, which leads to standoff-distance play (bad for group content where stacking with the group for boons and line-of-sight is often helpful), and using the pushback on longbow 4 as a reflex (it does less damage/has less range than autoattack, and often leads to players pushing enemies outside of area attacks put down by others).

Edited August 27, 2021 by voltaicbore.8012

[ButterOfDeath.2873]

14 hours ago, moony.5780 said:

-snip-

True, as long as i enjoy what i play it's all good, although once i settle with something i get intense fomo vibes going on, which is what has been keeping me from choosing a main for all this time.

Builds for leveling are no problem, i'm mostly thinking of how the profession i pick will be when experiencing the rest of the game at full level.

 

9 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

-snip-

True when it comes to leveling and open world, but when it comes to endgame activities (pvp,wvw, raids and whatnot) core feels strictly worse for me. While mesmer, thief, guardian, necro etc all have some upside and downside that may tip core over the edge in some cases.

Having 1/3 trait lines locked into either elite spec would harm build variety for me.

 

8 hours ago, Touchme.1097 said:

-snip-

I thought guardian was quite viable in pvp, between the bursty builds with meditations and bunker/support builds being meta both when i left and now. Litany of wrath alone makes for a compelling case in pve content when it comes to soloing hard fights too.

My test of choice for pve performance was to defeat the blue lord in the spvp lobby (both soldiers, both casters, the lord itself, before they can respawn), professions that can pull it off with the (usually) worse spvp skill tweaks probably would crush all open world stuff.

Thief, guardian, revenant, necro all passed it easily enough, mesmer almost (a bit too low dps wise vs the lord to keep up with the healing in time for the weaker mobs to respawn), ranger very inconsistent, engi, warrior and elementalist didn't pass it in a satisfying way.

 

Your point on wells being a staple in wvw builds sounds very accurate. Appreciated!

 

6 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

-snip-

In fairness going necro and leaning on minions isn't that far off as a ranger hiding behind a pet and using a bow, i think.

Although it's definitely something i'll have to keep in mind, especially for lb4. Thank you for the heads up ^^

[voltaicbore.8012]

9 minutes ago, ButterOfDeath.2873 said:

In fairness going necro and leaning on minions isn't that far off as a ranger hiding behind a pet and using a bow, i think.

Although it's definitely something i'll have to keep in mind, especially for lb4. Thank you for the heads up ^^

I wasn't thinking specifically about minionmancer (although that is a popular beginner build, for good reason). It's just that necro has innately high HP compared to its fellow light armor caster types, has shroud basically acting as a second HP bar, and has good access to a lot of area cleaves on reasonable CD (wells are generally pretty great, staff marks with the unblockable trait are easy to use too, and more), and the blood magic line works well in terms of supporting yourself and others. You can run all of these things while also doing passable damage without a complex skill rotation.

Also as  ranger main who necros quite a bit, I'd say that the minionmancer plays differently than ranger pets. For whatever reason, minions can actually get to enemies and land melee hits. Ranger pets - after all these years - STILL cannot hit a golem moving in a circle. The few pets that can actually land hits or otherwise provide utility make it into the meta, the rest are just stinging reminders of lost potential.

The worst part is that new rangers don't even know that they are suffering a personal stat penalty because of the pet. The stat penalty is significant (for instance rangers have 200 less power - that's like losing an entire ascended amulet's worth of power then losing another 43 on top of that), and the idea behind it is that the pet is supposed to make up for it. But of course, pets fail to land hits quite frequently, so it just turns into a pure stat loss.

So new rangers often stand by themselves at range with a weapon generally designed for single target attacks, not realizing how little their pet is doing to make up for the intentional stat penalty ANet gave them. Necros on the other hand have pets that can actually hit, have many of them, but more importantly have natural access to cleaves and group support baked into a lot of weapons/utilities/traits. There's just a lot more helpful circles you can put down as a necro, even if you're a staff minion necro.

In the 5 years I've been playing, I've managed to observe a handful of new players stick around long enough to advance toward level 80 group content. Almost universally, those who started on necro seem to have gained an innate sense of herding mobs to get close enough to all get hit by a staff mark, then not spreading them apart (probably because they leveled up by spamming fear, then noticed that just makes mobs run all over). In contrast I feel it's quite rare to see someone who learned the game on ranger come up as a fresh 80 and even be aware of mob placement. Instead, it's usually just pewpew-unhelpfulLB4-pewpew while everyone else actually does the work. Which pains me to admit, as a ranger main.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Warrior technically has the most variety in regards to weapons.

You can do strong melee DPS power or condi, viable ranged condi DPS, you can bunker with it (ask @Multicolorhipster.9751 for their build in PvP), there is also viable support via Shouts and Warhorn. Banners are also very popular in endgame PvE content.

 

If you get creative with stats, runes, and sigils you can make most of the weapons viable and fun to play with, though sPvP restricts those options.

You can give your friend 25 might pretty easily or heal them with 0 cast time, give them fury, sprint, vigor, barrier, cleanse condis from them,  apply vulnerability to their target to help their damage, and if they go down you can drop a banner to rez them

If you just looking to help them out and not steal their thunder then try something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwEwE2osA2FDjpxIxSbadVD-zxIY1o7vEUdA-e

 

[Touchme.1097]

1 hour ago, ButterOfDeath.2873 said:

I thought guardian was quite viable in pvp, between the bursty builds with meditations and bunker/support builds being meta both when i left and now.

Core is still viable.

DH is currently viable only thanks to trapper runes. I wouldn't include this into consideration because if Anet took trapper runes away from PvP tomorrow my claim wouldn't be true and the viability should be reflected on the traits, not the upgrades.

The current issue with Guardian in PvP is mobility, it's quite slow.  

Firebrand is not viable, you can ask any top PvP player about this.

Still nowhere as viable as necro in PvP though

[ButterOfDeath.2873]

10 hours ago, voltaicbore.8012 said:

-snip-

In the 5 years I've been playing, I've managed to observe a handful of new players stick around long enough to advance toward level 80 group content. Almost universally, those who started on necro seem to have gained an innate sense of herding mobs to get close enough to all get hit by a staff mark, then not spreading them apart (probably because they leveled up by spamming fear, then noticed that just makes mobs run all over). In contrast I feel it's quite rare to see someone who learned the game on ranger come up as a fresh 80 and even be aware of mob placement. Instead, it's usually just pewpew-unhelpfulLB4-pewpew while everyone else actually does the work. Which pains me to admit, as a ranger main.

Very valid points, especially that last bit! Organically learning to group mods together is a huge boon.

I'll make sure to suggest necro first to them, thank you a lot for your input!

 

9 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Warrior technically has the most variety in regards to weapons.

You can do strong melee DPS power or condi, viable ranged condi DPS, you can bunker with it (ask @Multicolorhipster.9751 for their build in PvP), there is also viable support via Shouts and Warhorn. Banners are also very popular in endgame PvE content.

 

If you get creative with stats, runes, and sigils you can make most of the weapons viable and fun to play with, though sPvP restricts those options.

You can give your friend 25 might pretty easily or heal them with 0 cast time, give them fury, sprint, vigor, barrier, cleanse condis from them,  apply vulnerability to their target to help their damage, and if they go down you can drop a banner to rez them

If you just looking to help them out and not steal their thunder then try something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwEwE2osA2FDjpxIxSbadVD-zxIY1o7vEUdA-e

 

Definitely the best weapon variety, although it's a profession that really doesn't click for me outside of strict pvp, i've never been able to satisfyingly deal with pve content as a warrior, even with builds picked straight from metabattle meant for hard solo pve content.

 

8 hours ago, Touchme.1097 said:

Core is still viable.

DH is currently viable only thanks to trapper runes. I wouldn't include this into consideration because if Anet took trapper runes away from PvP tomorrow my claim wouldn't be true and the viability should be reflected on the traits, not the upgrades.

The current issue with Guardian in PvP is mobility, it's quite slow.  

Firebrand is not viable, you can ask any top PvP player about this.

Still nowhere as viable as necro in PvP though

I thought between sword and judge's intervention that it had quite a fair bit of mobility with the old mediguard build, but then again last time i saw someone play that build firebrand was meta (what happened to it?)
Necro does seem like a perfect fit for pvp in almost every regard, especially with scourge easily covering control points.