Returning player - Class help

[DarkStar.7834]

Hey gang,

 

Coming back to the game for EOD. I was hoping for some help on picking what class I'd like to play. I used to play Renegade and it was really good for solo. The self healing was great. I want a light armor class this time around that can solo the harder content in the game. Are any of the EOD specs game-changers for either of the light armor classes? I played Scourge for a little bit, and that seemed like a strong contender. The only good build I could manage was a scourge minion master and that didn't really feel too fun. Elementalist is pretty cool but feels rough in solo. Same with Mesmer. I was hoping to find something that can solo as well as Renegade out of the 3 light classes. Any help would be immensely appreciated. Thank you.

[Yello.3406]

I like Harbinger (and Spectre, but it's medium). It is really fun.

And with this build I think you would have a pretty easy time:

https://guildjen.com/harbinger-open-world-build/

[DarkStar.7834]

1 minute ago, Yello.3406 said:

I like Harbinger (and Spectre, but it's medium). It is really fun.

And with this build I think you would have a pretty easy time:

https://guildjen.com/harbinger-open-world-build/

Hey Yello,

 

Thanks for the reply. I did watch a video about Harbinger that had me super excited. But someone in the comments said it was nerfed pretty hard just before launch so now I'm reluctant. How is Harbinger after being balanced?

[Hallow.7368]

3 minutes ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

Hey Yello,

 

Thanks for the reply. I did watch a video about Harbinger that had me super excited. But someone in the comments said it was nerfed pretty hard just before launch so now I'm reluctant. How is Harbinger after being balanced?

I'd suggest playing what sounds fun for you. At first I thought I was going to love untamed, but for me having 6 buttons on a pet while having to swap in and out of your unleashed and having basically 3 different sets of abilities was just not for me. But I LOVE mechanist. Soloing is more of a skill you acquire though. While Necro is a lot easier to do it on if you aren't good.. someone who is good at ele or mesmer. And besides that you won't be having fun anyways if you don't enjoy the class. You've essentially asked an impossible question because nobody here is you. I've made tons of characters and even deleted quite a few whether that was because I needed to make space for a new class I want to try and I decided I disliked the other one already or because I decided I dislike their race. The only class I have never played is warrior and while I can't say I won't ever try it since bladesworn looks actually somewhat interesting I always knew it was the least likely one I'd ever play.

[Yello.3406]

I can say i don't even use that build because i hate minions. I use a much more aggressive build but also with celestial stats and i have no problem so far.

The thing is, shroud 1 already shoots fast but with the quickness mastery you feel like a machine-gun, it's pretty amazing^^

 

[DarkStar.7834]

2 minutes ago, Hallow.7368 said:

I'd suggest playing what sounds fun for you. At first I thought I was going to love untamed, but for me having 6 buttons on a pet while having to swap in and out of your unleashed and having basically 3 different sets of abilities was just not for me. But I LOVE mechanist. Soloing is more of a skill you acquire though. While Necro is a lot easier to do it on if you aren't good.. someone who is good at ele or mesmer. And besides that you won't be having fun anyways if you don't enjoy the class. You've essentially asked an impossible question because nobody here is you. I've made tons of characters and even deleted quite a few whether that was because I needed to make space for a new class I want to try and I decided I disliked the other one already or because I decided I dislike their race. The only class I have never played is warrior and while I can't say I won't ever try it since bladesworn looks actually somewhat interesting I always knew it was the least likely one I'd ever play.

I understand your perspective. But this isn't an impossible question, because I didn't ask "what do you guys think I will like?". I just want to know which light class is good at harder content. If there was a class I didn't like I would point that out (I've played most specs and have all classes at 80). Even if scourge MM is best, I'd play it. What's fun to me is being effective, not a certain playstyle.

[DarkStar.7834]

1 hour ago, Yello.3406 said:

I can say i don't even use that build because i hate minions. I use a much more aggressive build but also with celestial stats and i have no problem so far.

The thing is, shroud 1 already shoots fast but with the quickness mastery you feel like a machine-gun, it's pretty amazing^^

 

Well, that does sounds pretty awesome actually. May I ask what the build is?

[Hallow.7368]

1 hour ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

I understand your perspective. But this isn't an impossible question, because I didn't ask "what do you guys think I will like?". I just want to know which light class is good at harder content. If there was a class I didn't like I would point that out (I've played most specs and have all classes at 80). Even if scourge MM is best, I'd play it. What's fun to me is being effective, not a certain playstyle.

Then you should probably make that clear. You said minion scourge did not feel fun to you which heavily indicates that fun is a large factor in your decision. There is seemingly going to be huge changes coming this summer which again makes this a really hard question to answer because it's not going to stay the same for long. Right now though? Of the 3 cloth armor classes necro is far and away the most broken (scourge specifically). Catalyst might be good I'm not really too sure. I know in the betas people were putting out broken amounts of dps on that class which made soloing good because as long as you're good at positioning and dodging you could just obliterate things very quickly. I have a feeling that dps got nerfed on release though to what I'm not sure. Mesmer is ok staff mirage is good at soloing because of clones good self boons range and some other things. Do note that damage scourge got nerfed quite a bit on EoD launch. It's base shielding is like 55% or something lower than before but it got massive increases to the healing power scalings on it's shields. I'd still probably put both reaper and and scourge above ele/mes because of minions with reaper getting tanky in shroud and scourge still gets a solid amount of shielding.

[DarkStar.7834]

18 minutes ago, Hallow.7368 said:

Then you should probably make that clear. You said minion scourge did not feel fun to you which heavily indicates that fun is a large factor in your decision. There is seemingly going to be huge changes coming this summer which again makes this a really hard question to answer because it's not going to stay the same for long. Right now though? Of the 3 cloth armor classes necro is far and away the most broken (scourge specifically). Catalyst might be good I'm not really too sure. I know in the betas people were putting out broken amounts of dps on that class which made soloing good because as long as you're good at positioning and dodging you could just obliterate things very quickly. I have a feeling that dps got nerfed on release though to what I'm not sure. Mesmer is ok staff mirage is good at soloing because of clones good self boons range and some other things. Do note that damage scourge got nerfed quite a bit on EoD launch. It's base shielding is like 55% or something lower than before but it got massive increases to the healing power scalings on it's shields. I'd still probably put both reaper and and scourge above ele/mes because of minions with reaper getting tanky in shroud and scourge still gets a solid amount of shielding.

 

Thank you. This was very helpful. I saw a video the other day about a Celestial Tempest. Do you have any experience with that? It seemed very good. I don't know if I can link youtube videos here. But so far I'm leaning towards Scourge or Harbinger (maybe also with celestial armor) Thank you again.

[Hallow.7368]

1 hour ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

 

Thank you. This was very helpful. I saw a video the other day about a Celestial Tempest. Do you have any experience with that? It seemed very good. I don't know if I can link youtube videos here. But so far I'm leaning towards Scourge or Harbinger (maybe also with celestial armor) Thank you again.

I've tried some cele tempest builds but I don't really damage tempest variant playstyle wise. Channeling overloads has never felt great to me. I'm sure the builds perform fine but ele specifically has a fairly high learning curve because they're lowest armor lowest health in the game and their defensive utility while acceptable isn't outstanding as where mesmer while not having great defensive utility summons illusions that will draw aggro and can pretty easily be spammed out and necro has its summons + great defensive utility. Personally I feel like if you want to run a ele build weaver is probably better. There's a snowcrows guy who made a video where he swears by trailblazer weaver and said that weaver in general is just better than tempest for soloing content. Can't remember his name but I could try to find the video.

[Yello.3406]

4 hours ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

Well, that does sounds pretty awesome actually. May I ask what the build is?

I have this at the moment: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSkAoilRwwYXMNWLOaX5xXA-e

I also got it from somewhere in the forum, so credit to unknown user^^

But the important thing is the grandmaster "Deadly Haste" in Harbinger

 

4 hours ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

 

Thank you. This was very helpful. I saw a video the other day about a Celestial Tempest. Do you have any experience with that? It seemed very good. I don't know if I can link youtube videos here. But so far I'm leaning towards Scourge or Harbinger (maybe also with celestial armor) Thank you again.

 

For celestial ele I can recommend the build from wp, it's very good!

 

[DarkStar.7834]

On 3/5/2022 at 10:18 AM, Yello.3406 said:

I have this at the moment: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSkAoilRwwYXMNWLOaX5xXA-e

I also got it from somewhere in the forum, so credit to unknown user^^

But the important thing is the grandmaster "Deadly Haste" in Harbinger

 

 

For celestial ele I can recommend the build from wp, it's very good!

Oh, that's the video I was talking about earlier! Have you tried it first hand? It definitely looks fun and strong, albeit a bit complicated. I'm very interested to see if the build translates to actual practice. I know a lot of youtube "builds" only look good because the player is amazing or has perfect gear. I'd say I'm a mediocre player at best, lol.

[Yello.3406]

14 hours ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

Oh, that's the video I was talking about earlier! Have you tried it first hand? It definitely looks fun and strong, albeit a bit complicated. I'm very interested to see if the build translates to actual practice. I know a lot of youtube "builds" only look good because the player is amazing or has perfect gear. I'd say I'm a mediocre player at best, lol.

It works very well.

You have to get used to the playstyle and skills of course but he describes it very detailed.

But damage is good and you are very tanky had have good heal/self-heal potential.

Most of the time you can even camp in fire^^

Edited March 7, 2022 by Yello.3406

[DarkStar.7834]

9 hours ago, Yello.3406 said:

It works very well.

You have to get used to the playstyle and skills of course but he describes it very detailed.

But damage is good and you are very tanky had have good heal/self-heal potential.

Most of the time you can even camp in fire^^

I decided to give it a shot and it feels very solid. How do you figure it compares to a Scourge?

[The Boz.2038]

On 3/5/2022 at 9:31 AM, DarkStar.7834 said:

I want a light armor class this time around that can solo the harder content in the game

Scourge can definitely do so. Harbinger too, to a slightly lesser extent.

[DarkStar.7834]

44 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Scourge can definitely do so. Harbinger too, to a slightly lesser extent.

Has anyone tried Harbinger with Rune of Tormenting? I know RoT was nerfed so it probably isn't good anymore.

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 3/5/2022 at 1:31 AM, DarkStar.7834 said:

Hey gang,

 

Coming back to the game for EOD. I was hoping for some help on picking what class I'd like to play. I used to play Renegade and it was really good for solo. The self healing was great. I want a light armor class this time around that can solo the harder content in the game. Are any of the EOD specs game-changers for either of the light armor classes? I played Scourge for a little bit, and that seemed like a strong contender. The only good build I could manage was a scourge minion master and that didn't really feel too fun. Elementalist is pretty cool but feels rough in solo. Same with Mesmer. I was hoping to find something that can solo as well as Renegade out of the 3 light classes. Any help would be immensely appreciated. Thank you.

Unpopular opinion, but condi weaver is very strong in solo play with the caveat that it probably has one of the higher learning curves due to its large skill set and unique attunement swap mechanics.  Here are a few sample video clips of condi weaver in solo play using different stats:

Trailblazer Weaver 

Celestial Weaver

Grieving Weaver

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 minute ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

Has anyone tried Harbinger with Rune of Tormenting? I know RoT was nerfed so it probably isn't good anymore.

It wouldn't provide significant healing (only regen), so there are probably better options.

[DarkStar.7834]

10 hours ago, Yello.3406 said:

It works very well.

You have to get used to the playstyle and skills of course but he describes it very detailed.

But damage is good and you are very tanky had have good heal/self-heal potential.

Most of the time you can even camp in fire^^

Which of the two (Necro/Ele) do you think is better to main in the long run? Like, which is higher in demand or has useful secondary builds (Necro healing/shield)? I will be investing a lot of time and I don't like having alts, so I want to focus on one character.

[Klowdy.3126]

On 3/5/2022 at 3:31 AM, DarkStar.7834 said:

Hey gang,

 

Coming back to the game for EOD. I was hoping for some help on picking what class I'd like to play. I used to play Renegade and it was really good for solo. The self healing was great. I want a light armor class this time around that can solo the harder content in the game. Are any of the EOD specs game-changers for either of the light armor classes? I played Scourge for a little bit, and that seemed like a strong contender. The only good build I could manage was a scourge minion master and that didn't really feel too fun. Elementalist is pretty cool but feels rough in solo. Same with Mesmer. I was hoping to find something that can solo as well as Renegade out of the 3 light classes. Any help would be immensely appreciated. Thank you.

For light armor, I absolutely love reaper, and coming around on mesmer (nothing specific, still my first).

 

That said, so far, I'm having a great time on vindicator. It's fun running OW with GS/GS with double energy runes, flying around smashing stuff. The rotation is fun keeping up fury with a short CD ability, able to weave it in to guarantee 100% uptime on 100% crit chance.

 

Honestly, a lot of these new builds look interesting, and I'm definitely going to try them out. I just mentioned vindi because I also came from renegade (melee torment), and I enjoy it.

[DarkStar.7834]

20 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Unpopular opinion, but condi weaver is very strong in solo play with the caveat that it probably has one of the higher learning curves due to its large skill set and unique attunement swap mechanics.  Here are a few sample video clips of condi weaver in solo play using different stats:

Trailblazer Weaver 

Celestial Weaver

Grieving Weaver

 

I just watched that Celestial Weaver video and that looks much more fun than Tempest. I mean, Tempest is pretty fun but the Overload skills feel a bit clunky. I haven't unlocked weaver yet but it looks easier to play. I'll work on some hero points so I can try it out.

[Stx.4857]

All the light armor classes have great Solo builds.  You really can't go wrong with any of them.  

[DarkStar.7834]

2 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

All the light armor classes have great Solo builds.  You really can't go wrong with any of them.  

I tried a lot of mesmer builds. It feels incredibly unforgiving. I love mesmer, in theory. I played minstrel chrono in the maguuma days. It just doesn't seem to have the self sustain and damage output of Ele or Necro.

[AliamRationem.5172]

15 minutes ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

I just watched that Celestial Weaver video and that looks much more fun than Tempest. I mean, Tempest is pretty fun but the Overload skills feel a bit clunky. I haven't unlocked weaver yet but it looks easier to play. I'll work on some hero points so I can try it out.

If you find overloads slow and somewhat antithetical to the busy playstyle you expect and enjoy from core elementalist, weaver might be more your speed.  It has a much shorter (4 second) attunement swap cooldown.  However, I wouldn't call it easier to play because it has a significant tradeoff in order to gain that fast swap that makes it unlike any other class including other elementalist specs.

Weaver attunes to two elements at once.  Your mainhand attunement covers 1-2 and your offhand attunement covers the 4-5 skills with the 3 skill a unique dual element skill (meaning weaver has 26 weapon skills rather than the usual 20).  When you rotate attunements, your current mainhand attunement shifts to the offhand and the element you selected becomes the new mainhand attunement (e.g. swapping to earth while in fire/air becomes earth/fire). 

With any other class/spec you are able to access those offhand skills whenever you need them, provided your swap is off cooldown.  But weaver is locked in by the previous swap choice.  This creates a bit of a balancing act between what you need right now and what you'll need 4 seconds from now.  You also have to consider the dual attunement skills, which create a bit of a forced rotation because you want to avoid rotating into them while they're on cooldown.

This is why I say weaver isn't necessarily easier to play and for most players probably has a higher learning curve.  It's just very different from the way other specs swap weapons or attunements.  No other spec has a mechanic like this.  But it's fast and complex, which is what draws a lot of players to elementalist in the first place.  So it may be just the thing you're looking for!

[Stx.4857]

48 minutes ago, DarkStar.7834 said:

I tried a lot of mesmer builds. It feels incredibly unforgiving. I love mesmer, in theory. I played minstrel chrono in the maguuma days. It just doesn't seem to have the self sustain and damage output of Ele or Necro.

There is a mirage staff condition build that is very forgiving to play.  It's actually a little boring for some players, but its very effective and may be a good place to start.