Best profession to pair with Guardian?

[Ezzorez.3071]

My son and I recently started playing GW2 and he finally settled on Guardian. I'm an MMO vet but it's his first. We both bought the expacs so we have access to all elite specs.

 

I'm trying to decide what the best profession/class would be to duo with him. We are enjoying casual PvE right now and I'm really looking forward to the PvP. The emphasis for the duo should lean towards PvP.

I currently like: 

Warrior

Thief 

Mesmer

Elementalist 

Maybe Engineer but they seem a little dull early levels.

 

Doesn't have to be core spec. All on the table for both of us.

 

Thanks in advance. Loving the game so far

[Buran.3796]

Both Guardian and Ele provide very good supporting builds, so they can sinergy a lot teaming to maintain alive your team mates or making good tanks, albeit the best support class at the moment is maybe Necro. If you want to make a more bursty duo Thief with hisbroad access to stealth and stuns/dazes would complement well a glass cannon Guardian.

[draxynnic.3719]

If you're thinking about PvP, guardian and necromancer is one of the strongest duos for dominating teamfights - the guardian keeps the necromancer alive and the necromancer wrecks things. Or you can go guardian plus scourge and have two fast ressers to make yourselves really hard to keep down.

 

Engineer could also work, but engineer builds tend to be a lot harder to get the most out of.

 

There's no guarantee this meta will continue into EoD, though. It might just be a case of avoiding professions like mesmer and thief that are expected to decap and +1 since then you won't be fighting alongside one another - although having a bruiser and a roamer as a duo with voice comms can still give your team an edge if you don't mind splitting up a lot.

 

If you're considering ever doing instanced PvE like fractals or strikes, revenant might be worth considering. Guardian and revenant together make for a solid team core that will work pretty much whatever pugs you get as long as the two of you adjust your builds accordingly. An LFG that already has quickness and alacrity covered is likely to fill rapidly. Guardian and revenant together is also a reasonably strong combination for PvP, although it's likely the guardian will get focused because the enemy team will know that the rev won't have any quick res skills.

[Loules.8601]

57 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

If you're considering ever doing instanced PvE like fractals or strikes, revenant might be worth considering. Guardian and revenant together make for a solid team core that will work pretty much whatever pugs you get as long as the two of you adjust your builds accordingly. An LFG that already has quickness and alacrity covered is likely to fill rapidly. Guardian and revenant together is also a reasonably strong combination for PvP, although it's likely the guardian will get focused because the enemy team will know that the rev won't have any quick res skills.

I think that it's better to wait for complete reveal of new e-specs if we talk about near-future meta or PvE

[draxynnic.3719]

1 minute ago, Loules.8601 said:

I think that it's better to wait for complete reveal of new e-specs if we talk about near-future meta or PvE

I was considering mentioning that caveat, but if the OP and son are making the decision now, they kinda have to decide on what we know now. They've already committed to a guardian, so for PvE purposes they have quickness covered. It's possible, maybe even likely, that EoD will bring another alacrity spec, but at the moment we don't know what that will be. So unless we really think that there's a high probability of firebrigade* being nerfed into nonviability, revenant is the safest sidekick for guardian if considering high-end PvE. (Alacrimirage would also work at the moment, but mesmer balance is so unstable that I could not in good conscious recommend it to anyone who isn't already so in love with the concept that they'd play it regardless. What's good now could be literally removed from the game next balance patch.)

 

It's also worth noting that if push comes to shove, they could level with their current professions, and then boost another profession if they need to.

 

I did neglect to consider the list that the OP gave. Of those five, then considering current PvP balance... I'd probably recommend engineer or elementalist, unless you don't mind splitting up in which case thief could work. Mesmer and warrior in PvP are both in a state at which experienced players can make them work, but they're really painful to try to learn in PvP when you're not already an expert. The new warrior elite spec might change that. Virtuoso probably won't.

 

*For the uninitiated, "firebrigade" refers to the due of a firebrand guardian providing quickness, and a renegade revenant providing alacrity.  

[genjonah.1253]

While we don’t know what EoD will bring, I would be very surprised if it brings anything that would make the guardian/revenant combo obsolete in the strike/raid/dungeon/fractal environment. 
 

I know we still have 6 professions to see, but I find it highly unlikely that any of them will provide permanent alacrity to ten people while still dealing decent damage with heavy armor sustainability. Rev all the way for PvE content, since guardian can provide quickness, healing, or dps all on a dime to compliment

 

however, since you are looking forward to PvP, with the current specs I would say necro. Scourge or even spin-to-win reaper combined with the utility of guardian is a nasty combo

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, genjonah.1253 said:

While we don’t know what EoD will bring, I would be very surprised if it brings anything that would make the guardian/revenant combo obsolete in the strike/raid/dungeon/fractal environment. 
 

I know we still have 6 professions to see, but I find it highly unlikely that any of them will provide permanent alacrity to ten people while still dealing decent damage with heavy armor sustainability. Rev all the way for PvE content, since guardian can provide quickness, healing, or dps all on a dime to compliment

 

To be fair, not many people thought that firebrand and renegade could tip chrono off its throne, and here we are.

 

That said, I don't think firebrigade will ever not be a solid core for a PvE team even if alternatives are available, unless ArenaNet bends to the demands of a certain proportion of the player base and firebrand gets the flock nerfed out of it.

Edited September 12, 2021 by draxynnic.3719

[Ragnarox.9601]

guardian /firebrand with sunrise and necro reaper with twilight. best combo 🙂

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

To be fair, not many people thought that firebrand and renegade could tip chrono off its throne, and here we are.

 

That said, I don't think firebrigade will ever not be a solid core for a PvE team even if alternatives are available, unless ArenaNet bends to the demands of a certain proportion of the player base and firebrand gets the flock nerfed out of it.

 

That's right, but already on Pof release Fb+Ren were not as OP as they are today; because of the huge buff on Exposed, plus celestial, diviner set, some rework on guardian's specs with the signets, etc. Both have high dps/burst at least in fractals, almost close to what you expect from a DPS class or a bannerslave; while providing all boons, offensive buffs and cc, sustain, boonstrip, anti-proj, utilities...

And chrono kept losing stuffs patch after patch; it just came back not so long ago with seize the moment etc.

 

We may see powercreep the first year after EoD, but to imagine an other duo could do better than ren+fb ... wow ... all bosses will last less than 15 sec even in pug ?

They might also nerf FB+Ren, or the +100% Condi damage on Exposed to +30%; so we might see a condi duo with FB+Ren and a Power duo with something else  for example. We couls also see a core of 3 specs, rather than 2; with less sacrifice on the gear, the utility skills, more dps... a bit like when Herald brought +50% BD to 10 allies( edit* or 5? I don't remember)

Edited September 12, 2021 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Gamble.4580]

Support grd works with any dps along as the dps spec can self peel and peel for peel back with grd. Necro works best as most of its butter combos work best vs a target targeting someone else. I.e your support also they are both very strong shadow peel for peeling each other around map.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Gamble.4580

[jpsssss.7530]

I would recommend mesmer or Ele. from the list you gave. My warning is that they are both fairly high skill floor/ceiling classes.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Shout Warrior and Shout Guardian combine to be an extremely versatile combination. One brings heals and offensive buffs while the other brings heals and defensive buffs. On top of this they both wear heavy armor, favor melee and their ranged weapons both have access to the Immobilise condition, allowing gap-closing.

 

Take them some quasi-DPS gear like Crusader+Zealots or slot in some Celestial, and you'll keep each other alive for ages and handle basically anything thrown at you in either PvE or WvW. (Though keep in mind that in PvP, damage builds almost always win matches).

Edited October 22, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[genjonah.1253]

On 10/21/2021 at 8:34 PM, jpsssss.7530 said:

I would recommend mesmer or Ele. from the list you gave. My warning is that they are both fairly high skill floor/ceiling classes.

Agreed and why I recommend necro. I am personally terrible at both Mesmer and ele and can stomp them in competitive… unless they know their class then I don’t stand a chance a lot of the time

[Samis.1750]

For PvP, your gear and level doesn't matter. You can be a level 1 and be on equal footing. While it is true that if you play a class in PvE and WvW you will be more familiar with the skills, PvP is quite different than the other 2 game modes.  Both of you might start with one class but find another one is more enjoyable. You might also like a class in PvP, but prefer another class or build in a different game mode.

 

Do you plan on joining a guild to do fractals, raids/strikes, or World vs World?

 

Do you want to join guild to do 2 PvE and WvW with others? WvW commanders usually run open tag (you can join squad and join their Discord) though large fight builds and often completely different than a small scale build.  If your son is young kid, you might want to stay out of some guilds WvW Discord (and PvE to a lesser extent) due to occasional profanity and adult conversation/humor.  I am asking more questions than giving answers, but in the end it depends upon which game modes you will be playing and you likely won't know that until some time in the future.

 

I would stay away from thief since if you are duoing in wvw, a stealth partner isn't that great. Most other classes would be fine.