Canonically, what classes/specs are the "strongest"?

[Arklite.4013]

If you held a 1v1 tournament and every spec had a representative, what would the standings look like? Do we know at all?

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I would rate the medium classes rather low on the power scale. 

Heavy, if we count elite specs, are pretty even for me. 

But my bet would be on the casters. 

Ele being basically the avatar. 

The win however would go to Mesmer. 

No one gonna deal with the bull shid mesmer can do. 

 

[Tails.9372]

Mesmer and it's not even close.

[Sarius.9285]

if this wasn't going by Game rules, it would probably be Spellbreaker

 

FULL COUNTER

[Diovid.9506]

Look at EoD and tell me it's not Engineer. 

 

Outside of tech however I agree with Elementalist and Mesmer, just look at Jenna (though keep in mind that Chronomancer deals with perception of time instead of actual manipulation of time, unlike what some people think, so that limits things somewhat). 

[Omega.6801]

I'd go for Chronomancers. Time magic ranks really high on the power scale if you think about it.

[Tachenon.5270]

Ritualist/any Spirit Spammer. 😄

Because for whatever reason they still haven't implemented Commando. HoT would have been a great time/place to bring that one in! "Aw, heck, that don't look right, lemme fix this here." Ka-BOOM!

Otherwise, I dunno. Thief, maybe? Sneak, sneak, STAB. Or does that not work anymore?

[Westenev.5289]

The water is a little murky, because I think the commander's classes only have limits because it's hardcoded into the game. In the core game, we see warriors with pistols and Mesmer's with shields, and Zojja/Snaff are light armored golemancers - so it's clear the commander is by no means the be all to end all in terms of power/training. And that's without tacking on that it's possible to learn two professions at a time.

 

But, yeah. As the poster above me says, Commando is probably a clear winner because they have the only weapon that will operate above 1500(give or take 150) range.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Westenev.5289

[Rendalmj.3152]

asura thief because asura is so small they quick kill you one shot head pew pew double pistol. again i say asura thief is small and quick you cannot see them just like john cena

[Puck.3697]

It's gotta be necromancer or mesmer. 

Mesmers ability to create clones, go invisible teleport turn people into birds, use time magic and more. 

Necromancer because every time it kills its army grows, meaning its a infinite spread effectively. 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

It's objectively impossible to answer. There are too many builds possible for each spec (even if people tend to stick to whatever is meta).

Thought, Thief and it's specs are more often than no the best duelists. A well played thief can simply toy with anyone to the point that it's victims would believe that he is a hacker/cheater.

[RabbitUp.8294]

To rank them canonically, you'd have to decide if you are only judging the skills the players have access to, or what NPCs of that class can do. Like, for example, do mesmers get points for Queen Jennah, when she is clearly leagues above player mesmer?

There are two classes that break the rules, though: revenant and engineer.

Revenants can channel a legend and use their powers, so they can potentially have access to any and all skills other professions could do, and even use magic that no other class can tap into, like draconic magic or the jade winds.

Then there's engineer, which is the Tyrian version of "a wizard did it". It doesn't matter what, they can develop a device that accomplishes that task. Scarlet waged a war, destroyed a city and awakened an Elder Dragon armed with her inventions. Asura can open gateways continents away and even to the mists, Joon has an entire army of mechs and built a device that could depower an elder dragon. And countless other inventions we've seen over the years. 

[yann.1946]

Do we mean as best based on average performance or best as having the strongest representative. If it's the latter, do we count God's etc or only "mortal" races?

[Stx.4857]

Mesmer, probably Engineer second.

[Puck.3697]

5 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

Do we mean as best based on average performance or best as having the strongest representative. If it's the latter, do we count God's etc or only "mortal" races?

I think they mean as in if every guild wars 2 proffession went to war, which one would come out winning. 

As lore wise which proffession would be the strongest, ignoring balancing and game mechanics. 

I.e in WoW mages in lore have always been shown to be stronger then other classes. 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Super Hayes.6890]

Clearly you folks haven't seen what my character can do to ambient creatures. Beserker for the win!

[yann.1946]

9 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

I think they mean as in if every guild wars 2 proffession went to war, which one would come out winning. 

That does not really clarify much, do you mean if all necros fought all warriors

9 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

As lore wise which proffession would be the strongest, ignoring balancing and game mechanics. 

Or as you suggest here, picking the strongest representative?

9 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

I.e in WoW mages in lore have always been shown to be stronger then other classes. 

Does that conclude immortal characters?

(And i always thought druids where considered strong in the lore, but i havent played WoW so i might be mistaken.)

 

To answer the question i think it would be between engineers, mesmers and necros.

 

Engineers: We have examples like Yoon and Scarlet showing extreme power, but requiring extreme resource to make that happen.

 

Mesmers: Queen Jenna and Kasmeer have shown to be really strong, and mind control in general can be quite strong.

 

Necro: We have seen a lot of strong liches throughout the years. Personally i think Palawa Joko would probably win against most people in the long run.

[Puck.3697]

7 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

That does not really clarify much, do you mean if all necros fought all warriors

in GW2 i feel its ALOT harder, Because ALOT of NPCs dont represent Proffessions Strictly.

Marjory we see as a Necromancer, yet Remains reaper through 2 expansions, wields a blade blessed by her dead sister but does not utilise Shroud or Real necro utility past Devourers.

Kasmeer, i dont think progressed past core Mesmer and Rarely is used in actual Fights, you see her role more dedicated to teleporting people to different stations.

Rytlock Remains a Core Revenant, but Wields a blade which is ALOT stronger then mortal blades.

Braham is a Guardian, but again never progressed past Core Guardian. and primarily you only really see him utilitisng the guardian Shield, Displays no Guardian Utility, he turned into a Wolf and became the champion of a Elder dragon.

Canach is susposed to be a Warrior. but again.. a Core warrior with Nades?

because of this, we dont see the same Power house level of Proffessions throughout the Story / Lore of GW2, Where in World of Warcraft we see major NPCs such as Kadgar, who we see visions of him accepting the guardians power and Annihilating The legion by the Masses, Or Obliterating Demons With huge beams of Arcane Energy, Jaina Using Magic Alone to fly a boat through the Skys and Bombing a Entire city,

So i guess its ALOT harder to clarify in GW2 as effectively the only Point of view of the Actual proffession is only through the player character, which is Mitigated by Game Balancing etc etc because things cannot be shown in such extreme fashions as Players such as these Moments in WoWs history where it can afford to show Much crazier uses of abilities as NPCs dont need to be balanced.

ontop of this, Due to how Elites work. there pretty condensed down and Limited in how Individual they really could have been if were a seperate proffession, so we see Elites in a Much more tamed fashion.

I'd imagine it'd be Necromancer, Due to the fact necromancers build Armies through deaths effectively. which means the more they kill the more they take over. but yeah as above, its really hard to really put something there, unless we really delve into the possiblities it could hold and Expand upon what they could show them using their powers to realistically do.

I.E the power of Illusion through the Mesmer... now if it was Expanded to the concepts of what they could create illusions of, Ingame we see it only used for Clones and Daggers, but effectively illusions could be perception, Reality, Terrors, Boats, Different Weaponary and more.

 

[Justine.6351]

Mesmers because they were introduced with the ability to turn another's power back against them and to disrupt. In gw2 the mesmer really had the illusion aspect amplified.

[ZDragon.3046]

All of errr most of them are stupidly strong in their own right canonically as far as I am aware. Its actually rather silly how strong anet writes some of their examples in the books despite them having some what realistic writing the feats some of them do are very impressive especially for that time period which is early on before alot of developments have taken place from where the game sits today.

 

The game does a great job of showcasing how stupidly powerful mesmers are Via Queen Jenna and Kasmeer and even Xera (raid boss of wing 3) 

Guardians are empowered by their faith regardless of what that faith stands for Allmorra was a very good representation of that too.

Revenants are also very strong as seen through our own Rytlock as well as a certain individual in End of Dragons. 

Then you have necromancers there are so many examples of various types of necromancers in the game that show case their ability to be anything from a minor annoyance to being so powerful they stand right up behind the mesmer examples. 

I imagine elementalist have the power to be rather strong but like the necromancer its a wide range from weak to stupidly powerful.

 

In the books though lets also not underestimate the power of the races that might go along with each profession as it also likely makes difference in how powerful one might be. For example, the norn as warriors tend to be extremely powerful more than people canonically like to give them credit for especially should they transform into one of their animal forms. The sylvari often are born into the world already knowing a welth of knowlage and likely a wide range of spells. The charr make good all rounders from warriors, to spell casters, and engineers. The asura have a great understanding of the world and so they know how to best manipulate the things within it which also makes them great magic users. 

 

Overall if i had to pick the weakest profession canonically it would likely be a ranger as the honestly have the least going for them even when you look at the magical things they can do they just don't compare to the things we see in game and in the books (As far as i know) to professions like Mesmer, Necormancer, Warrior, Rev, Ele, and even Guardian. 

[Arklite.4013]

Glad to see this topic has gained some traction - to clarify, I'm referring more to an "average" representative - probably somewhere between NPC and Commander level (before the commander became ridiculous). For example, you would have a standard, run-of-the-mill Tempest versus an equivalent Scrapper. The only merits the characters have are from their class/spec alone. A lot of people are suggesting Mesmers would be the strongest because we've seen them accomplish large-scale feats other classes couldn't come close to, but how strong is the average Mesmer? Also, for the case of engineers, I don't think giving them "Batman with prep time" level strength is fair. I recognize how difficult it is to evaluate something like Warrior or Ranger because the most we ever see them do is just... hit stuff. Could there be matchups where they're good enough at hitting stuff to beat a Revenant with an "average"-level invocation? I'm sure we could draw up a 36 entrant tournament bracket and guess through each matchup individually..

[ZDragon.3046]

On 4/25/2022 at 3:30 PM, Arklite.4013 said:

Glad to see this topic has gained some traction - to clarify, I'm referring more to an "average" representative - probably somewhere between NPC and Commander level (before the commander became ridiculous). For example, you would have a standard, run-of-the-mill Tempest versus an equivalent Scrapper. The only merits the characters have are from their class/spec alone. A lot of people are suggesting Mesmers would be the strongest because we've seen them accomplish large-scale feats other classes couldn't come close to, but how strong is the average Mesmer? Also, for the case of engineers, I don't think giving them "Batman with prep time" level strength is fair. I recognize how difficult it is to evaluate something like Warrior or Ranger because the most we ever see them do is just... hit stuff. Could there be matchups where they're good enough at hitting stuff to beat a Revenant with an "average"-level invocation? I'm sure we could draw up a 36 entrant tournament bracket and guess through each matchup individually..

I personally still think even if you take run of the mil individuals almost all the professions can still be rather strong after all if you scale down an individuals offensive potential you likely do the same to their defensive potential as well thus your run of the mil mesmer is likely still very powerful in comparison to your run of the mill ranger for example. 

again do consider race too as it actually does make a big factor in the lore books. That is not to say humans are weak and defenseless but races like norn and charr are often seen as fearsome due to their increased size and strength. Based on the way anet wrote some of their books. IF a norn warrior hit you directly a single time you would likely regret it if not bed on deaths door. This is what i would consider from an average run of the mill warrior at that.

In terms of practically I image revenants would be quite rare in the world as they are often individuals whom (as far as I know) have gone or directly interacted with the mists in some way which is not an easy feat to do. 

Edited April 27, 2022 by ZDragon.3046

[Legend of Rogue.5394]

On 4/22/2022 at 11:46 PM, Arklite.4013 said:

If you held a 1v1 tournament and every spec had a representative, what would the standings look like? Do we know at all?

Necro and guardian are the strongest by far

[Arewn.2368]

Not sure that I agree that mesmer are all that powerful. Is mesmer magic useful? Certainly. Buy I don't think it's particularly above other magics just because it has some interesting use cases.

The mesmer feats aren't that great when you dig into them either.

Xera was roided up on bloodstone magic.

Jenna and Anise collaborated to make a gig projection. 

Kasmeer in particular strikes me as one of the weaker members of DW. She's mostly a portal bot, doing many of the same things nameless npcs do.

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

From a theme/concept perspective, looking at real-life examples I think the strongest would be:

Elementalist & Ranger - nature's destructive power is insane; how many times populations have lost almost everything to tsunamis, earthquakes, tornados, etc.; also, imagine all wildlife suddenly turning against you!

Mesmer - if you can control someone's mind you can do anything to them, or have them do anything you'd like;

Engineer - this one I think is obvious, but engineering and science and technology in general give us so much power and possibilities; also, nuclear weapons;

Just realized this isn't exactly what you asked for, oops 😄 

So focusing on elite specs now, I would say the strongest would be:

Heavy - Firebrand, Berserker, Renegade

Medium - Daredevil, Holosmith, Soulbeast

Light - Reaper, Weaver, Virtuoso

It's hard for me to pick just one, they all have so much potential if played right.

Edited April 30, 2022 by TheLadyOfTheRings.9148