Your personal professions enjoyment tier list

[Antrix.4512]

Hey everyone,

I saw a video from Laranity today on this topic, and It was really interesting to see her tier list of most enjoyable specializations, the way she perceives it, and this has inspired me to create a similar thread. After a quick search, I found that there were only a couple of threads nearly similar to this one, but none exactly like it. So, here we go.

This post isn't one of those "decide for me which class to play" or "what class is currently the meta?". Lets forget about the meta, which class is best in which game mode etc., this post is not about that. Instead, I'm curious to hear about your subjective impressions of the different professions - how YOU personally see and enjoy them.

To kick things off, I'll share my own subjective tier list, which is mainly based on my PvE (Open World, achievements etc) experience as that's my main game mode.

S Tier

- Revenant: By far my favorite. I love its aesthetics, lore, legend mechanics - everything about it feels right. Some say the Mesmer is the signature of GW2, but for me, it's the Revenant. So far, I don't see any alternatives for myself in terms of fun, especially since it perfectly fulfills absolutely everything that my style of gameplay 'requires'. In other words, this is the profession that brings real pleasure and I can rightfully consider it my main.

A Tier

- Mesmer: Interesting, quirky, and somehow both easy and complex. However, it doesn't manage to hold my interest for long, but oddly, I find myself wanting to play it again after a few days. It's a weird fun curve with this one for me.

- Thief: I tried it as one of the last. So far, I have only tried the Specter spec, but I was very pleasantly surprised by its survivability. Coupled with mobility (of the profession in general), it turns out to be very interesting. In solo OW, as for me, it even surpasses the Mesmer in many cases (problems arose only with the Avatar of Balthazar and Mushroom Queen champs for now). It may have problems with some game modes, but in OW, it feels generally excellent, IMO.

B Tier

- Necromancer: Was one of the first characters, but eventually dropped it. Recently tried to revive him, geared up, picked up a Reaper and Scourge build - generally not bad, but I can't say that I'm getting a lot of fun from playing this class, but either I can't say the opposite. As for me - a solid average, although in OW feels like a fish in water and goes like a tank through any mob density.

C Tier

- Guardian: I'm not a fan of the Holy-Paladin-Glory vibe, plus I've spent too much of my MMO career with a support classes. Despite some interesting mechanics, I find it hard to play for long periods. Too boring for me.

Yet to be ranked:

Engineer: This one intrigues me due to its unique mechanics and overwhelming utility skill selection. It's on my to-try list.
Ranger: I find this class a bit strange, like there's something missing or perhaps there’s too much of something else. I have yet to give it a shot, but it's not high on my priority list.

Not my cup of tea:

- Elementalist / Warrior: Never been a fan of playing these archetypes in any game. They’re the bread and butter of any MMO or RPG, and I tend not to get much enjoyment from them. I doubt I'll ever create character with any of these professions.

Of course, your mileage may and WILL be different. That's exactly the point of this thread. It doesn't matter what game mode you play - It would be cool and very interesting to know what YOU think about your favourite and not-so-favourite professions and how you'll ranked em.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Antrix.4512

[xellink.7568]

S tier -

1. Thief

I like how spectre is clearly necro and I don't need to make a necro slot just to play two different classes.

The other two classes are great too, deadeye and daredevil, and the way they play are unique, gives the class identity. 

A tier -

1. Guardian

The swiss knife of utility. Playing guardian is so rewarding that you can contribute more than just numbers and still contribute numbers.

B tier - 

1. Warrior

Prepatch warrior was kinda suck until the latest spellbreaker changes. I liked banners with spellbreaker and berserker. But we're going to lose that soon.

2. Engineer

Really flexible but mechanist is a whole new beast. Alac uptime is always good. You can go for coffee and your mech is still providing alacrity.

3. Mesmer 

Really good DPS. Really cool animations. Mesmer has its niche roles as well like JPs and tower Chrono in raids. They are also the best tank. 

C tier

Elementalist, Necro, Ranger

I really tried to get into this. I can make the numbers work. I just can't make it fun.

Unexplored

Revenant - can't give opinions on this. 

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Warrior

Real ones play warrior.

They know the struggle. They know what it means to win as a warrior. The catharsis. Warrior is the ultimate choice. Play everything else but always return to warrior. Despite the nerfs and the meta, warrior is just fun.

[Awn.1327]

Here's my preferences, as someone who plays WvW (mostly in an organized guild setting) and PvE (no raids, no challenge modes).

S tier
Elementalist, Revenant, Engineer - all for the same reasons: profession "fantasy" is on-point, very versatile (dozens of usable builds, has roles in PvE and WvW)

A tier
Mesmer: fun and unique but builds are very limited, often clunky - esp. in WvW where its current meta build feels like it's more of an accident that it's working at all

B tier
Warrior: fun to play and strong, but all specs feel same-y

C tier
Ranger: feels too much like a warrior with a pet, which is esp. sad for druid
Thief: theme is nice but every build feels like a one-trick pony

F tier (aka not my cup of tea at all)
Necromancer: gameplay is actually fun and specs are varied, I just really don't like the theme of it at all
Guardian: I simply find everything about it boring, from the mechanics to the overall theme

This is just my very personal order of enjoyability. Has little to nothing to do with whether I think a profession is performing well / strong overall.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

S tier:

Warrior is Life

A tier:

Necro is a false life, a cursed life.
Guardian
Mechanist gets a pass to be here because pew pew.

B tier:

Ranger

💩 tier:

Everything else. 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

S tier: Mesmer (love the gameplay feel, even with trash tier builds)

A tier: Necromancer (mostly reaper), Elementalist (tempest), Thief

B tier: Ranger, Guardian (boring to play)

C tier: Engineer, Warrior, Revenant (Just can't seem to ever play those 3 right)

[xellink.7568]

I would like to emphasize that the best S-tier class for wing 4 is thief where S stands for Samarog's door. 

[Fueki.4753]

In this order from favourite to worst:

Warrior (not the EoD junk)

Revenant (mostly Renegade)

Mesmer (mostly Chronomancer)

Thief (only Daredevil and without using Stealth or disgusting amounts of teleporting)

Guardian (Core and Dragonhunter)

Elementalist (mostly D/D Tempest camping Fire)

Ranger

Necromancer and Engineer are pretty much equal as the least enjoyable ones.

In Season 1, Season 5 and EoD content, Warrior drops below Renegade and even almost drops below Chronomancer.

[ArkLightXXVII.4768]

S Tier:
Necromancer - Currently my main. This is the only class I play right and I really like the mechanic of Reaper and Harbinger. I just don't like its limited movement utility.
Engineer - Used to be my main (Scrapper). Like how you can cover most of the roles with a single class. Ended up bored.

A Tier:
Revenant - Used to be my main too. But somehow I ended up disliking the energy management. But really good class since it's meta in every game mode.

B Tier:
Guardian - Played it with 40+ hours only to find out It's not really for me. But I like Dragonhunter.
Mesmer - Simple to use with portals. I like portals.

C Tier:
Ranger - I like Soulbeast and pet management. But made a mess with it.
Warrior - I just don't like banner but definitely fun to play in PvE

D Tier:
Elementalist - I play RPG, not piano. Not for me

Unranked:
Thief - This is the only class that I didn't try. Can't really say. But Deadeye are annoying in PvP

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

S-Tier
Engineer: Mostly because of the versatility it offers and how utterly broken the Mechanist is until today. In WvW and PvE I constantly swap between 4-5 different builds. I can buff Quickness/Superspeed, play condi DPS camping FT with acceptable damage, power Scrapper with insane sustain and capable of soloing tough bosses and I can provide perma-alacrity. 

A-Tier
Thief: I use DD for HP runs, meta-events and every content that requires a lot of movement and power DPS. The more I play it, the more I enjoy it. In addition, I use a custom DE build for tagging loads of enemies in certain events and farm-trains. I know the meta recommends using DD, but the DE is way more fun to use for me and imo works a lot better.

Necromancer: My Reaper is a juggernaut, which is probably considered an overkill. I know most Reapers go full GC. But with mine I can solo instanced content. That was already the case before they have boosted its DPS. My Harbinger runs on full Celestial + Sanctuary Runes. With Bloodbank I have more barrier than my Scrapper in its prime. The pulsing-groups quickness and the good DPS make it the perfect choice for group-content. I love using it in Strikes. Feels like playing on Infantile Mode. Saves me the trouble of learning complicated rotations and allows me to face-tank some of the quick-response attacks.

B-Tier
Warrior: Core Warrior until tomorrow, then I will delete my core boon machine ;_;. It has been fun with quickness on banners. My 2nd Warrior is a Bladesworn. Combat is a bit clunky and gameplay feels nice. Build development was very intense with this one. While I've managed to get the style perfect, both sustain and damage-output are lacking. It is one of my least played professions, yet I rank it this high.

C-Tier
Mesmer: Chronomancer with a shatter-condi-build and group-quickness. A real button-masher. Damage could be better and with all those clones and cooldown/charge-management, I sometimes lose track. 

Revenant: Vindicator only. I run a Staff-Dervish build that has good sustain, a bit low damage but plays great.

Elementalist: Creating the current build took multiple years. Tons of experiments, field-tests, golem-tests. A true summoner-build that allows camping one attunement. With 9k DPS, given all my special rules and limitations, the result is nice imo. But even in this state it is quite the button-masher. Else it would be B-Tier. 

D-Tier
Ranger: Best is currently Core, because of its versatility. I have one Untamed build that has massive sustain, but damage-output is disappointing. 

Trash-Tier
Guardian: It was once my 2nd main. But the way FB took place, it ruined the whole class for me. I can pick whatever I want, 5 minutes max. and I have to log out due to boredom. A good class needs edges and curves. Things that sting. Guardian is a perfect iron-ball. Even build-crafting is disappointing with it.

[Antycypator.9874]

S Tier:
Mesmer — Even if mesmer is constantly raped every patch, I still love Mirage. Mobility and fancy colors above everything.
Thief — I love putting an effort to actually be behind my target and deliver huge hit. Rewarding class.

A Tier:
Engineer — Most important thing about Engineer is using technology instead of overrated magic. Explosions are fun. Directed by Michael Bay
Elementalist — Mashing lots of buttons makes me feel advanced.
Guardian — I'm gonna put it somewhere in the middle, because Guardian is impossible to hate, but also not the best and not the worst. At least more fun that everything below on this list.

B Tier:
Necromancer — Necro doesn't feel challenging. Reaper shreds things so hard that it feels unfair, but in other way Scourge is too clunky, and Harbinger is too repetitive.
Revenant — Very limiting due to having only specific set of skills, clunky for solo play. I like it in raids and fractals, but only there.

C Tier:
Ranger — It's the most disappointing class here. Pets do almost nothing and you can't rely fully on bows.

Garbage Tier:
Warrior — Whirling is pathetic. Warriors are good only at dying, because this is what they're born for. Pretty lame.

[Bookah pls.9352]

S- Necro, everything else is just like a side hobby to this class for me where i can't stick to them for long, it's the only "dark mage" type of class so it will always be my go to, i'll always do everything on necro if possible.

A- Mesmer, i love it but mostly only play it for pvp these days, virt is something i really do enjoy for pve but really dislike the daggers above head permanently thing, bugs me to no end. Not a big chrono fan though.

Rev - I love rev and sometimes hate rev, but when i love it i love it.

B- Engineer, i enjoy engineer when i play it but it's mostly to fill a role rather than just play it for enjoyment, it's a class i could enjoy 10x more if i could reorder my weapon skills around, all classes would be more enjoyable for me with that but for some reason engineer is the most annoying for it

Ranger, i really want to like ranger more but the only spec that i actually like to play usually is soulbeast and that has that ugly merge visual and it's always a deal breaker. 

C- Thief, has its moments but i enjoy thief archetype significantly less in gw2 than other games

Warrior, It's really insane just how boring i find gw2 warrior despite really enjoying warrior in most other games, i often dive in to scratch that itch and then log onto something else 10 minutes later.

D- Ele, i'm really not a fan of the traditional elemental mage in any game i play but i really don't enjoy the gw2 version, so it's probably more jumping puzzle chest tier than actual D tier for me.

F- Guardian, i despise paladins and will never play one in any game ever.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

S Tier:

Warrior, Thief, Revenant, Ranger: Reaction and prediction based gameplay, very rewarding to land setups, flexible and mobile

A Tier:

Mesmer. Same as above, but a little harder to play. Being able to turn off skills by looking at opponent feels kind of cheesy. 

Guardian: Same as above but clunkier, build not as reactive as I would like.

B Tier: 

Elementalist, Engineer:

Same as above, but a little harder to play. I don't include Tempest, mechanist or cata evaluations in this, I only like glass variants, and the glass versions of these two are very unforgiving.

C Tier:

Necromancer

Too slow, don't like dropping marks. Reaper fixes this a little. but still too slow. Fun, but I would pick something else first.

Nothing is so low on the list that it has my contempt.

 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Batalix.2873]

S Tier (a lot of playtime): Mirage (raids), Herald (PvP/WvW), Druid (Open World)

A Tier (moderate playtime): Scourge, Scrapper, Berserker

B Tier (some playtime/niches): Tempest, Weaver (unlike other especs I have to compartmentalize all Ele especs as if they were merely builds on a single espec because of how tyrranical the attunement-swapping bonuses are...but they are still okay to play if you can whittle them down to 2-ish attunement rotations).

C Tier (hope to play more in the future): Reaper, Spellbreaker, Chronomancer, Soulbeast, Holosmith, Deadeye, Daredevil

D Tier (job fantasies lacking for me): Dragonhunter, Firebrand, Renegade

E Tier (EoD specs that are close to being something I would try but still kinda janky and unfinished): Bladesworn, Harbinger, Untamed

F Tier (garbage design, poor execution on job fantasy): Willbender, Vindicator, Specter, Virtuoso, Catalyst

Zero Tier (can still afk play large swathes of the game for you): Mechanist

Edited June 26, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Misterbrady.2167]

For me, it's 'top, middle, and bottom' in terms of fun.

Top: Necro and Mesmer compete for top.

Mid: Most other classes are fun, but not 'top' for me.

Bottom: Thief is bottom for me.  I don't enjoy their mechanics.  But that's okay, considering all the other classes I like.

[Buran.3796]

S tier: old PvP Herald., the one which was, you known, the one which didn't made a dramatic pause before releasing Surge of the Mist, the one which didn't had to pay 40 energy units for most of his breakstuns or 35 for a teleport. Obviously is dead (and didn't touch a Herald in the last 18 months) but mas was fun to play...

A tier: Power Vindicator, maybe cele Vindicator. Bunker/brusier builds to melt solo content... Is what I main after being thrugh Warrior and Guardian until HoT.

B tier: cele Renegade (most of game modes),  power Bladesworn (mostly PvE), cele Mirage, condi Reaper (PvP). Willbender (condi at PvE, power at WvW/PvP). I'm worse playing those but still enjoy them a lot.

C tier: Spellbreaker, Dragonhunter, Deadeye, Virtuoso? I like them but not enough to main, and I'm quite bad at playing them. So I like the mechanics and gameplay but perform poorly using them.

D tier: most of everything else. I don't ne

[Aymeric de Borel.6192]

I love Mesmer and all the specializations (especially Chronomancer and Mirage and although Virtuoso seems kind bland and boring, its visuals are pretty beautiful). It's the most fun class for me. Another one is Elementalist, especially Catalyst (but I like Weaver and Tempest), I just feel like a god when I do something right with this class and the visuals are stunning.

I have tried Guardian too, but it was so boring that I gave up without even reaching level 80. One day I'll try Thief (it seems kinda fun and another "side" of Mesmer) and Revenant, they seem kinda cool to play with.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

Top Tier -

-Mesmer. I keep coming back to my Mesmer. I find it's gameplay unique and interesting

The Chrono is my favorite design if only Anet will fix the gameplay. Forcing it to be DPS but making it work twice as hard to achieve the same level as other classes is just frustrating.

After the patch preview I've rebuilt my Mesmer as a Virtuoso. It's so much more of a fluid gameplay and fun and easier to play than Chrono. I've been very happy with it.

 

Mid Tier-

-Necromancer, Guardian, and Ranger. I've had much fun with all these. 

Low Tier-

-Engineer. I had fun leveling it up but I have no desire to play Mech or Holosmith. Scrapper seemed fun but never kept me drawn in and I'm not expecting to continue playing it with the new patch. 

Bottom Tier-

-Warrior I created a Spellbreaker when my Mesmer felt like a wet noodle in PVP. It was super powerful compared to the Chrono but SUCH a boring profession. I deleted it to make room for a Guardian. I figured Willbender or Dragonhunter could fit the same purpose.

-Revenant I played one for a while in the PVP area and open world... Its mechanic of just having a Utility swap as well as a Weapon Swap just seems so crap to me. I'm already doing weapon swapping I don't feel the need to just add another swap in. The Elite Specs don't add anything except for a set of Utilities that everyone else gets an option for.

Untried-

Elementalist and Thief I haven't really even tried these professions... But the Thief has recently been catching my eye looking fun. I'm considering deleting my Engineer for one but it's currently parked at chests and I'm eventually planning on getting weapon collections with it.

[The Boz.2038]

S tier: Necromancer (Scourge or Reaper, don't vibe much with Harbinger, try as I might), Engineer (Scrapper of the power-quickness variety, because I really like the kit).
A tier: Revenant (any type, they're really cool to play), Guardian (any type has access to The Toolset, but Firebrand and Willbender are fun for different reasons). 
B tier: Thief (any type; it's either tiny barely perceptible malice dots or animation locking or click-a-friend), Ranger (the playfeel is good, but I feel like the versatility/QoL stuff isn't). Elementalist (it almost makes A tier, but too lacking and dependant on/nerfed by being The Everything due to element-swapping).
C tier: Warrior (hoooo boy, I keep trying to give him love and affection, but he keeps rebuffing my advances)

Don't have a Mesmer yet.
 

[draxynnic.3719]

Figure I should probably answer this now to give my thoughts in the current environment, since it might change after the patch.

Everything's going to be the A-C range for me - I'm a bit of a "don't really have a main" person and I have some quibbles with all of them, so I wouldn't put anything in S-tier, and there isn't anything I dislike enough to put into D-tier. Broadly speaking, though, A's are generally the standby professions that I'm most likely to bring if there's no pressing reason to bring another profession, B's are professions that I play regularly but which I'm generally less likely to make significant commitment to, and C's are the professions that I feel the itch for occasionally but are probably most likely to end up sitting at the end of a jumping puzzle for an extended period.

A+: Guardian. Combination of paladin and arcane knight fantasies, with each of the elite specialisations providing a new flavour of the core theme while still building upon it rather than attempting to replace it. Interesting set of weapon skills, and utility skills generally feel impactful to your tactics and supporting your allies rather than being pure damage-boosting skills. Probably has the best ranged weapons for a heavy profession outside of revenant shortbow. Trending: Stable. Not really anything in the patch that I see significantly changing my enjoyment. In the long term, I'm a little worried about how far firebrand is going to get beaten down, but I think the worst of that has already passed.

A: Mesmer. Trickery, illusion, disruption, and using the enemy's strengths against them is a magical archetype I tend to lean towards, and guardian probably only slips ahead in part because it also borrows from these themes. Elite specialisations all feel distinct while being solidly anchored to the core. Weapons are fun and it has some unique capabilities in utility skills, although they tend to be more technical in nature and feel less impactful in the moment than guardian utilities do. Trending: Unstable, but unpredictable. I'm concerned about the direction that mesmer balance has been going in general, particularly that changes to mirage and virtuoso might overshoot and make them a little too fragile, but that's more of a power thing than a general enjoyment thing (although being overly fragile naturally can impact enjoyment), while it seems that they're finally making a solid effort to improve chronomancer's issues.

A-: Revenant. Unique playstyle and theme of drawing from the powers of legendary beings. Mostly, though, it's Herald pushing it to A tier. Renegade and Vindicator would probably be B tier on their own - which is still good, but not as enjoyable. Wide range of capabilities and ability to adapt to situations by changing legends. Hammer being the only ranged weapon for non-renegades while also being terribad is a bit of a downer. Trending: Downwards. I don't like the changes being made to quickherald - they might be functional after the patch, but I'd rather use facets rather than simply maintain 6 pips. Will probably end up retiring revenant from endgame instances as a result.

B+: Thief. Thief-like playstyles are normally not my cup of tea, but the Guild Wars 2 thief pulls ahead, probably because the core is more focused on agility than sneaking (although that is obviously still a factor) or executing complex combos, giving it a fast-paced playstyle. Utility skills offer a wide range of options, but the weapons feel a bit pedestrian compared to the A tier professions. Probably the most diverse set of elite specialisations, although spectre, particularly sceptre, was a bit of a disappointment. Trending: Cautiously upwards - curious to see how the new spectre mechanics work out.

B: Elementalist. It's a theme I normally enjoy, and it's being pushed into a mage knight theme which I also normally enjoy, but it feels like it's being pushed a bit too much into that theme with the elite specialisations while the core elementalist theme has been left to rot. Rotations make for a distinct playstyle and offer interesting interactions with traits - however, utility skills leave a little to be desired, with many of them being simply damage boosts or buffs rather than opening up new tactical options. Weaver and Catalyst feel a bit samey - neither of them are really bad per se, but from a playstyle perspective, they're basically doing the same thing, and even Tempest isn't really changing the playstyle that much from the other elite specs apart from changing attunements less often pushing you into melee range for overloads, unless you're playing a heal tempest. Trending: Stable. Don't really see anything in the patch that's likely to change the overall feel.

B-: Necromancer. Largely being carried by reaper's dervish-like playstyle here. Weapon skills feel fairly mundane in effect for a spellcaster (greatsword excepted), although the core is otherwise pretty solid. Scourge and harbinger are okay, but fit more into the "sometimes I get the itch" category rather than being things I want to play regularly - scourge is forced to rely more on weapon skills due to lack of a regular shroud, and in harbinger's case I don't really enjoy the elixirs. Trending: Mostly stable. I'm concerned about the changes to scourge shades and the impact that could have to how much I enjoy scourge specifically, but the current ranking is already based more on reaper and core.

C+: Warrior. There's a lot of potential with warrior, but so much of it has been wasted over the years. Melee weapon skills are actually fairly decent for a mostly mundane profession, but ranged weapons are pretty lacklustre apart from berserker. Utilities also feel like they're limited to a fairly narrow subset that are mostly straight buffs rather than having tactical significance - I don't even remember the last time I even used a spellbreaker utility despite spellbreaker otherwise being my favourite warrior elite specialisation. Elite specialisations in general feel like they're basically doing the same thing, although to be fair they're at least doing that thing in different ways. Trending: Unstable. The recent rework of Defence was a step in the right direction, but I'm not sure about the changes in the upcoming patch.

C : Ranger. A lot of core ranger just feels bland to me, apart from the pets, which have issues. Traps are probably the most interesting aspect of core, but other professions can do that too. Druid I just haven't been able to get into because it's so hyper-focused on healing and I'd rather heal on a build that I actually know, soulbeast basically plays like core except that you can put the pet away but for most pets you lose their most interesting ability when you do so, while untamed... untamed has potential. Interesting utility skills, hammer and ambush skills both make it more interesting, and it's the first ranger elite spec that actually tries to work with the pet. Implementation, however, is still missing something, and the unleash/ambush mechanic feels a bit awkward. Trending: Unstable. Targeting DPS druid is a good sign, but the changes don't feel like they go far enough. Meanwhile, I'm not convinced that Untamed are actually getting much in exchange for losing Fervent Force apart from access to coveted quickness spots.

C-: Engineer. Used to like it a lot more, but a lot of engineer has been defined by grenades and mortar, which I don't particularly enjoy. The endgame builds that don't use either tend to be mechanist, which I also don't particularly enjoy. Holosmith might be a B tier except that the punitive overheat mechanic makes it the one elite specialisation in the game where I really feel my Australian ping - if I had a dollar for every time I thought I'd shut down the holoforge in time, and my client agreed, but a quarter-second later I got well-actually'd by the server and hit with an overheat I'd have... enough to buy a nice meal with, which is not a huge number of times but it's enough to be annoying. This means that my engineer gameplay tends to be limited to memebuilds and themebuilds rather than anything really competitive. Trending: Tragically, down. Support scrapper is one of the high-end engineer builds I had been thinking might be worth a try sometime, but the change to how quickness will be applied in the future is an even bigger nope than being bound to mortars and grenades. I don't think this will be enough to push it towards a D, but it's certainly not helping when it comes to catching up.

[howdy.7604]

I preface that I exclude all EoD specs, as I quite literally dislike/hate all of them, and also that I mainly play wvw. 

S-Tier

Warrior. No questions asked. Deliver heavy armoured violence face to face with all the subtlety of a nuke. High base health enables pushing it to ludicrous numbers. Stacking this with high vitality and toughness stats, such as sentinel and soldier, makes for truly hilarious builds. Slow and purposeful. I'm very sad that they removed Armoured attack. Anyways, make a beeline for whatever you don't like and enact unholy hand-to-hand brutality. Core is glorious. Hammer core? Glorious. Axe/shield core? Glorious. My personal favourite core build is axe/gladius and rifle (for poking only). Truly glorious. It also has quite possibly the coolest named trait in game: DESTRUCTION OF THE EMPOWERED. Absolutely metal. Spellbreaker too is glorious because of the "BEGONE, WIZARD" vibe and because of the reveal in magebane tether. These two things scratch my itch to murder elementalists, firebrands and thieves. If only there was a specific anti-asura thief/firebrand/elementalist class it would be perfect for my needs (fight me). Also I like the fact that "Dispelling force" means removal on cc. And cc means bonk. You bonk people into submission. Get on my level, pansies, for I have become blunt force. Get that magic outta my face. I'd like for boon strips to be tuned up, and offhand dagger to be actually useful. I want a valid reaver-like combo of axe and flaying knife.      For bladesworn I have no words. I dislike the gunsaber thingy. Really doesn't do it for me, though I can see why it may perfectly fit someone's taste. If you like that fantasy, it's perfect. I'm only very very baffled by the fact that it gives offhand pistol. It robs me of a true Warhammer-esque (bolt)pistol and (chain)axe combo.                                          And now, my absolute favourite elite of all the in game elites: Berserker. Specifically the power variant, with discipline and defence. Twin axes, mace and shield. No ranged, like a true chad. Become an absolute walking nuke. Wade in the fray screaming "I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL". Yes! Blood for the blood god! The elite? A headbutt. Hilarious. Comical. Utterly disrespectful. Uncomplicated and straightforward, no fancy magical willies. And low cooldown. Coupled with stance traits in defence, and all the bottom row in Berserker, you become too angry to die. Dive in, trade blows, come out on top. Also, reflects on block. Begone, projectile users. With all these stances, sporadic stability, reflects, blocks, invulns, high base health and warrior's sprint, I have all the means to rapidly deliver a man-sized (no plants, no charrs, no norns and NO asura) cargo of bat**** violence. And that cargo is me. Also quite cozy in pve, since you don't die easily. I love this elite because it takes everything I like about core warrior and makes it incredibly rabid and brutal to a comical degree. "Tell me how the grass tastes, little man!". Bonk. Bonus points for the meme-fueled, high sodium cele-killing gunflame build. Truly demented, true kek. All of this gets extra flavour if you make it human and blessed by Balthasar, and be very, very sure to play PoF. You become atheist not just because you no longer believe in god, but because you straight up removed your own. With a headbutt. 

A-Tier

Revenant. Heavy armour, decent health. The power core loop was very, very nice to level up with. A nice, slow and steady brawler with pristine rotations and very, very sick animations. Sword 3 is still some of the best for me, right behind Headbutt. Closely followed by Frigid blitz. I love the invocation traitline because of the very high crit chance. It allows me to build how I like it, which means high, high, high ferocity. Barring power, my favourite build is the hybrid herald. Shiro and Glint, respectively with sword/shield and mace/axe, on-swap sigils running invocation and corruption with all invoke torment traits and abyssal chill. Port in, swap legend, swap weapons, enjoy the express delivery bomb that you are. And not just any heavily armoured bomb, but a possessed bomb. Even demon stance is fantastic, you become satan until you run out of steam, and you've got boonstrips. I wish the energy cost to be lowered, though. In regards to power, for the ferocity reason above, I like power renegade because it allows me to slot ridiculous ferocity gains by giving me even more crit chance. And also life steal. Not a big fan of the shortbow or Kalla, tho. And battle scars these days aren't as nice as they were. Still, coupled with hammers from Jalis, all the life steal makes for a nice brawler. 

B-Tier

One, ranger. Two reasons. First, Dunadan-esque greatsword and longbow combo, which I find so cool that I don't immediately ditch the bow to get more melee. Second, said greatsword: I wish warrior had it. It's the perfect weapon. It has a sick auto chain with endurance gain. It has a block with flip over (and NOT automatic) kick. It has leap. It has the smoothest self synergy in game, to me, all contained within bash and maul. I wish more weapons had such a good, rewarding and useful internal mechanic. The fact that they somehow made it for warrior's hammer (2-5-2) is very encouraging. Longbow I tolerate and even appreciate because it's the begone-thief set, and the Sick'em thing truly makes me smile. Not as much as headbutting a magic-vomiting  winged strosphere platinum legend in wvw, but close. Also, bonus for the second and third best trait names in game: "Vicious quarry" and "Strider's defence", the latter because it's a Tolkien reference in an already Tolkien-esque class. And this I classify as a true win. Maybe I should move this class upwards to A. Favourite build is a variant of the classic core greatsword/longbow build with skirmishing instead of marksmanship. My primary weapon is the greatsword, the longbow is just for poking and shooing away things until I get close for the kill. Also, come on, Vicious quarry. Fantastic. This build is durable, it has high ferocity, it's smooth to play and it's fairly fast. And the class has high base health. I like it despite no heavy armour because it's very in line with the og Tolkien inspired ranger class from old DnD. Ragged cape with sporadic metal bits. Druid doesn't really catch my attention unless I'm in for the Radagast meme. Soulbeast is nice, but too shiny for me, and I feel bad using dolyak stance. So I just revert to core. Solid and dependable. 

Two, Mesmer. My enjoyment if this class is utterly paradoxical. Specifically power mirage. Greatsword, sword and pistol. Class identity is being a cackling troll. And boy, does it work. I got myself to play it because the true endgame is fashion and I happen to loathe shiny gaudy crap. So I managed to produce a sober Fanged Dread, Devout set for a gentlemanly and almost monastic look, much like my revenant (Kodan greaves and chestplate, illustrious visor, hidden arms, ebon vanguard shoulders and vigil boots. Proper paintjob and you're a discount Word Bearer priest king). This kinda made me play it a bit more. It is indeed very fun. Chrono phantasm spam is a close second for trolling purposes. Enemy sieges my tower. I pop two greatsword phantoms and doze off while the enemy has to eat a total of eight spinning illusions. Third I like because torch-axe condi mirage allows a very good-looking kitchen cleaver/touch of madness combo. Also stealth abuse, but I don't like it much. 

B-Tier

Necro. I only like reaper for reasons you may have guessed from what I put above. I like melee, I like high ferocity, I like being able to eat pain face to face while I dish it out. And I like kicking boons from under people. I'm not very fond of light armour, crows, decomposition and edgy looks. Solution: slap on Devout set, make a Rasputin looking dude and add Nazgul hood for flavour when you tire of Rasputin. So far so good. Rest doesn't really exite me. 

Engineer. I made one because I wanted it to be the chemical crimes department with dirty bombs, dirty bullets and other immoralities, but it always ends up being the juggle-between-gimmiks class, with each one of them being slightly underwhelming, because you have so many. I sometimes enjoy the artillerist-turned-close chemical assault vibe, but it's a bit of a miss for me. However, the wrench is hilarious, and so is the ram. In a world of magical shiny things, you're the one whacking people with a crowbar and battering them with a miniature ram. A spring-loaded ram. From your belt. Comical, the kek has been delivered unto me. I respectively put them in fourth and fifth place of my animation top 5. 

C-Tier 

Guardian. Only core burn, which is solid, dependable, close range and with a lot of internal synergy. Heavy armour, a plus. Low health, ew. Core burn in full Dire and Balthasar runes is great, if outdated, and the coziest pve experienced I had until the odd destroyer encounter. You're hard to kill, you're burst masked as DoT, you're the og fanatic and I love it. For bonus points, I recommend the same as warrior. Make it human blessed by Balthasar and then play PoF. Extra kek because it's the heir to the monk class. The rest of this class I either hate or forget about. Going persian firebrand with a tabar is occasionally fun, but unfortunately I developed a discreet irritation towards firebrand in general, despite liking the concept on paper. 

D-Tier

Thief. I hate everything about it expect core sword-dagger with acrobatics and no stealth. That's enjoyable. Otherwise, the only saving grace to me is a variant of my own. A very bloodborne-esque sword and pistol daredevil, based on copious interrupts, actual blocking and pulmonary impact. Pistol 4 is an excellent equivalent to the absolutely sick bloodborne pistol parry. Bandit sword is good cleaver-like, and medium armour allows suitable Yarnam drip. Fourth best named trait in the game, "No quarter". 

Heresy-Tier 

Elementalist. All of it. It's everything I dislike. Low health, light armour, shiny magical gimmik switching, and WIZARD (BEGONE, WIZARD). And not much melee. Hate to play it, hate to play against it especially if celestial catalyst, which is the super combo of all the things I most loathe in this game. The only enjoyment I get from this class is the cathartic feeling of killing a good one in wvw. 

 

[howdy.7604]

23 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

S tier:

Warrior is Life

A tier:

Necro is a false life, a cursed life.
Guardian
Mechanist gets a pass to be here because pew pew.

B tier:

Ranger

💩 tier:

Everything else. 

 

S-Tier is enough to grant you the rank of chad. 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

S tier: None

A Tier: Warrior 

B Tier: Guard, Ele, Nerco

C Tier: Engi, Rev, Ranger

D Tier: Thief, Mesmer. 

 

[the krytan assassin.9235]

S tier: ele

A tier: mesmer, engi

B tier: necro, warrior

C tier: guardian, revenant 

D tier: ranger, thief

 

[Aylpse.6280]

I've mostly rated these on class fantasy and flavor, things I value in MMO classes more then balance.

S

• Engieneer - Engineer was unique, I picked up the class just because even in vanilla, I saw all the weird things it could do. At first I hated the theme, why was a technology based class in a fantasy game? Then the archtype started to grow on me, the clever inventor with a trick for ever occasion. You don't need devastating magic or mastery of martial combat to succeed. As someone who has been healing for almost two decades, a unique archtype of healer really stood out to me: Traditional medicine. Salves, injections, first aid, surgery. It's bizarre that in games filled with holy magic for whatever reason I was drawn to this. Engineer happened to have this theme for most of it's support, along with alchemy which is amazing. Mechanist allows me to run around and be a combat doctor with a giant robot helper.
• Mesmer - While a lot of Gw1 fans lament the gw2 incarnation of Mesmer, it pulls off the illusionist bit better then any similar class or school of magic in nearly any game even a decade later. Similar to Engie, Mesmer isn't about brute force and raw power, it's got a bag of tricks, utility and support. I really do wish Mesmer had a "Minstrel" or "Bard" healer spec with support illusions and a focus on glamors, but perhaps in the future.

A

• Ranger - I like Ranger. I have more time put into Ranger then any other class. The only fighter-type fantasy is the forest hero who roams about the land with his animal companion, but every game always forces you to use a bow! Gw2 at least got it right, I can run around with a greatsword, a giant lizard and nature magic. Druid is my third favorite healer archtype behind a traditional doctor and FFXIV's Astrologian (Star healers, which is cool.). Better yet, Druids in Gw2 use starts as well! I'm also thankful for a Druid that doesn't use shapeshifting . It really sucks when you want to play a nature mage but think shapeshifting is stupid.
• Elementalist - Command the forces of nature, turn into a living natural disaster, summon meteors and living flames. Elementalist is unique in that it doesn't neglect the benevolent aspect of nature, and adds the option for support on top of being fireball man. At the end of the day, it still lacks the oomph and uniqueness Mesmer has, save for Weaver which gets S- for exceptional class fantasy, spellblades are amazing.
• Warrior - Not a fan of the archtype, but I respect Gw2's Warrior for not being "large ape man with beat stick". Warriors, the art of a fighter, requires strict discipline and years of practice. Battlefield knowledge and mastery of tactics. Berserker excluded, which I'd put in D tier for just being "large ape man with beat stick BUT ON FIRE".

B

• Guardian - I want to like the class, the class fantasy is good, a Paladin adjacent archytpe unbound by gods or holy magic, just raw willpower. However I think Monk in Gw1 was way more unique, and Guard feels so braindead to play. Even Firebrand puts me to sleep. It doesn't help I've been playing Firebrand for so long. It's the definition of average.
• Thief - It exists I guess, while I like sneaky rogues that rely on cunning and tricks, slip into places they don't belong and snatch all the loot, Thief feels... eh? The shadow magic is cool, not big on the assassin aspect, it's fine but I have no strong feelings one way or the other.
• Necro - I'm not a fan of the archtype, but it would be unfair to call the class bad or poorly designed. Understandably, compared to Gw1, Minion mancer is a bit... lacking. Reaper gets A rank for class flavor, when Anet introduced it, they claimed it was designed like a slasher killer from a horror film, and they nailed it. Inexorable death, slow, but drawing ever closer by the moment.

C

• Revenant - I simply don't like the class. The themes, the flow, the way it plays. It's not for me. I would have much preferred Ritualist.