Picking a main.

[Kamura.4731]

Hello, I know there are dusins of YouTube vids about this topic, but it's not helping me at all. 

I'm a wow veteran, been playing since mid TBC and the classes that I've played the most are:

Warlock, Rogue & Druid. I've got a Thief (Daredevil 80) Necromancer (Reaper 80), Warrior (Berserker 80) Mesmer (Virtuoso 80) Because this should be somewhat what I'd be looking for according to the youtube guides and from the classes that I've mained in wow. PURE DPS - but, I don't think I fully understand GW2 PvE; I feel like I'm missing alot of utility that warlock/rogue/druid offered in wow.

I love to support with great utility, and simulteanously play a PURE DPS class; does that exist in this game? Also in a way so that I can feel like I'm doing a differnce, and not just grant boons which feels like i'm doing nothing for the team.

Am I playing the wrong classes? I really want to find a main before the new expansions takes effect in August. PLease help ! 🙂

[Randulf.7614]

Well, it cant poss be pure dps and greta utility. Pure dps means nothing else but dps. But, to answer your question, these days almost all classes do everything and they seem to be homogenising them more and more.

I wouldn't get hung up on a main, but play the one(s) you like the most. Of my 15 odd characters, I pretty much only play 2 now and my Catalyst/Ele has become my slightly favoured because it can do fast dps, but also has a few other well rounded tricks like heals, barriers, cc etc

I wouldnt rule out Revenant for you though if you want to try out a different class

Edited July 31, 2023 by Randulf.7614

[AliamRationem.5172]

I assume what you mean is that you don't wish to play primary boon support, which means quickness/alacrity.  As a "pure DPS" you can still provide other boons, apply conditions like vulnerability, boonstrip, CC.  These are all critical utility.  The problem is the versatility of the system allows for most of these functions to also be provided by your primary boon support and healer.  So, there will sometimes be overlap there.

[Lucy.3728]

2 hours ago, Kamura.4731 said:

I love to support with great utility, and simulteanously play a PURE DPS class; does that exist in this game? Also in a way so that I can feel like I'm doing a differnce, and not just grant boons which feels like i'm doing nothing for the team.

Alac and quickness do a lot for the team.

Boons, conditions/cc and combo fields. The only other support for a team would be heal, but then you cannot be a damage dealer.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Lucy.3728

[Farohna.6247]

Greetings!  As a former WoW player, I can understand some of your frustration and puzzlement.  I played a hunter for years, came to GW2 and took up ranger.  While it's similar in that they have pets and a wide variety of weapons, it kind of stops there.  Same with the other professions...they may be similar but not the same.  

All of them are designed to dps, heal themselves, and support others (to at least some extent depending on build), since there is not the trinity of tank, dps, and heals.  Alacrity and quickness are sought after for support, as stated by Lucy.3728.  It's a little quirky, and definitely a little confusing with WoW as what you're expecting.  

I would recommend really looking at builds that interest you, start with Metabattle for a simple, easy to use selection.  Look at Snowcrows for raid builds if that's your thing.  Discretize for high end fractal builds.  YouTube has many videos to help with class mechanics and how they work. 

I'll echo Randulf ...do not discount revenant for a different kind of gameplay, it's not just an emo DK, and guardian isn't a shiny paladin that bubbles and hearths.  Sometimes the profession you think you want to play, may not be the one. 

[Buran.3796]

10 hours ago, Kamura.4731 said:

I love to support with great utility, and simulteanously play a PURE DPS class; does that exist in this game? Also in a way so that I can feel like I'm doing a differnce, and not just grant boons which feels like i'm doing nothing for the team.

 

   Quickness Herald delivers good dps, a huge amounts of boons to the party, plus has a insane defiant bar breaking abilities, sharing all in a huge area, so is almost perfect as an offensive support. It can also work very well as a support healer, and the Renegade alacrity build is also strong.

   Quickness Firebrand is the Swiss knife of ofensive support, having a trick in the pocket for every situation. The healer support build is also strong.

[starlinvf.1358]

You have unlearn all the bad habits you picked up in WoW, and learn the all the bad habits you'll pick up in GW2.    The game is structured in a way where having "A Main", doesn't make sense in any real practical terms.  In fact, from the ground up its extremely Alt friendly.   The gear tiers have only marginal differences in overall stats, and highest basic gear set tier (Exotic) is what 90% of the game is balanced around.  The Ascended gear tier has only a 5% difference in stats, and ultimately only exists for Fractals (side content) due to needing infusion slots for the gear check mechanisms.  The only difference between Ascended and Legendary is QOL features, and an order of magnitude more expensive to construct.  Gear stats in this game only makes up around 30% of your overall performance output. The rest comes from trait lines and play style, as the game's buildcraft is built on coefficient math, rather then vertical scaling.  Having the right types of stats is important; but a 5% difference in stats rarely leads to more then a 10% difference in damage in optimal conditions. 

 

As such, Raids are also not the real "End game", because no is forced to go through them.  Ergo most just avoid it and play open world all the time for whatever it is they are doing.  And both combat and support jobs are heavily AOE oriented, so theres no such thing as a "dedicated healer".  In fact, a pure healer build is counter productive, as each class has at least one effective self healing skill for emergencies, and you can easily run group healing in parallel with other support functions on half the classes.

If the game has anything that can actually be called end game, its sPvP and World vs World. Instead of getting slapped around by mobs because you don't know what you're doing, you're getting slapped around by players because you don't know what you're doing.

If you're the type thats focused on hyper optimization, you won't like this game off the bat.  But at some point in your life, once your tied of the WoW format most MMOs try to copy, GW2's lateral systems is like a breath of fresh air.  Theres always a path forward, or a direction to travel, so long as you're NOT purposefully shutting out options because its slightly different then the one ultra specific thing you do, with neurodivergent focus.

 

Now with that out of the way, ALL the classes operate way different then anything WoW does.  Each class, at its core, is designed to be self sufficient in 90% of situations.  The only exception are instanced content, which are all built on WoW-like philosophy of vertical scaling and hard checks.  But that last 10% is actually pretty loose; and its the community being stupid with how it enforces builds that is the biggest problem, compared to anything else.  The only parts of the game that inherited WoW's toxicity are the things that work most like WoW does.  And even then, its minor at worst compared to other MMOs.

Class systems are divided up into 2 parts.  Core Specs and Elite Specs.  Like everything else in the game, its a Lateral system where you have you 3 slots for Trait lines, and you choose between One Elite plus Two Core Specs, or Three Core Specs from the 5 available to the Class in the base game.  When people say Core vs Espec, what usually mean is a Core build using whats available to base game, while the Elite specs are only available if you have the expansions. 

Elite specs are different from most games, in that it massively changes how most a class operates.  Typically it'll do this by modifying the Class mechanic and adding a new classification of skill type, or in some cases, replace it with a totally different mechanic.  They can get pretty radical too.  The Necromancer 's core ability is minor transform that adds a second health bar and some extra ranged attacks; but with the Reaper Epsec, that ability turns into a melee brawler with gap closers, cleave, and Point blank AOE attacks when engaged. And another of the Necros Especs replaces the shroud form with AOE fields it can lay down, and trigger effects around itself and the fields at the same time. 

To answer that question in your head; No, you do not need to do the game in order if you want to use the Especs.  But it will require you to jump around if you do it out of order, as the Especs require a lot of Hero Points to unlock.   The Base game is designed for lvl 2-80 (max level is always 80), and leveling alone will give you all the hero points needed to unlock all the Core spec lines.  The maps have spots where you can earn extra hero points (its all cumulative), and you stock excess points for later.  But each Espec requires a lot of hero points, and you will at some point need to go Xpac or Living World maps (aka LS = content blocks between expansions) to fill out at least One Espec. 

 

Next topic is that each Class is pretty flexible in its own way.  I can give a rough description of how each class operates; but keep in mind that this has more in common with Black Dessert, Tera, and other Action RPGs then it does with Stand&Cast RPGs like WoW and Everquest.   Also note, despite the fact I might mention armor weights, the difference between armor is so marginal in the grand scheme of who the game operates, its only really there to justify the division in cosmetic skins that relate to each armor type. 

IMPORTANT:  ALL CLASSES HAVE ACCESS TO A COMMON DODGE ROLL MECHANIC!!!   Do not forget/ignore this, as this how you avoid dying 90% of time.  A lot of WoW players try too tank and spank, and wonder why they have a hard time staying alive.   Learning how to use this, learning tells on the field, and how to best time dodges, will make you better then 50% of player base off the bat.  I'm not even joking when I say there are people who have played the game for over a year, and didn't know Dodge was a thing. 

 

Heavy armor/Solider Professions.

Guardian - Not to be confused with Paladins; Guardians are an extremely flexible melee oriented class, and are definitely NOT Tanks. Their Base HP is low, but they more then make up for this short coming with an extremely wide range of self sustain skills, and group sustain that also happens to work on themselves as well.  Their weapon choices are split between pure offensive or defense/support; however even their pure offensive weapon skills have minor support function baked into it.   You start with a mace, which is support oriented; however switching to swords or great swords is the best way to go when playing open world.  Their utility skills are mostly support or sustain oriented, the majority will also buff allies, but their almost all very straight forward and easy to understand.  Their class mechanic are 3 F-key skills that give passive bonuses while charged, or can be fired off for a moderate AOE effect. Their one and only practical weakness is poor mobility in Core; however the Elite specs all have ways to deal with this.   Difficulty level is moderate-low. 

I recommend Guardian for almost all new players, especially those who don't know Action RPGs; as the Guardian requires a moderately active play style, just squishy enough to make it obvious when you're doing something wrong, but extremely forgiving as the utility skills let you rebound with the ability to purge effects, strong self heals, and a wide range of buffs you can learn to use to your advantage.  Its a perfect cross section of everything Guildwars 2's combat and buildcraft does right, is easy to understand how to play, and lets you recover from mistakes easily enough in the Core maps.  You will definitely want to switch to Especs for the expansions; but for training wheels on common mechanics, I'd still recommend using Guardian up to at least lvl 15 or so to get a hang of how the game works.   From there you can easily start over in another class, with their more esoteric systems, but already know basic combat.

 

Warrior - A Tankier Martial oriented class, they have access to the largest range of weapons (anything not magic), and have some of the strongest passive sustain in the early game.  Note that they also aren't tank and spank, but do rely on their large HP pool and passive Healing to offset their poor active healing.  This lets them shrug off chip damage, but big hits are still a threat; so you'll still have to stay mobile, deciding what hits are worth taking and which ones to avoid.  Their weapons are split mostly between melee damage, melee CC and ranged damage.  Their biggest practical weakness is poor condition handling, so not letting effects stack up on you is how you avoid dying.  Utility skills are combinations of passive and active buffs, crowd controls, and extended self sustains. Their class mechanic is Adrenaline that that builds up during combat by taking or dealing damage; once charged enough can be spent to unleash a burst attack, for damage or effect, based on the main hand weapon held.  Greatsword is the go-to for power damage, and is one of the few classes right now where hammer is a usable option.  Some people recommend warrior for their durability, but this only works if players are actively paying attention to whats killing them.  If they aren't learning, then its just dying slower.  Difficultly is moderate -low

 

Revenant is a hybrid support class with a few spicy damage builds for when your soloing.  Its the only class added post-launch, and is the only class explicitly designed around group play.  Their class mechanic is swapping between 2 channeled legendary spirits (history lessons if you've never played the game), which also controls what utility skills are active at any given time.  Each Legend is themed, and all their associated skills are made to fit into this niche play style.  Because of this, they don't have an overarching play style, and almost everything is defined by your build.  Difficulty is moderately high, but most of that is skewed toward designing a build and knowing what all the interactions are.  They can be made to work solo for open world; but the inherent lack of flexibility, and the fact their baseline design was made with Especs in mind, as a starting class their are very clunky without extensive knowledge of the rest of the game's combat mechanics.

 

Med armor/Adventurers

Thief - Anyone who thinks their good at Rouge will pretend they are good at Thief..... and probably suck just as much at it.  Thief has an extremely hyper active play style.  While it has stealth, stealth duration in this game is mere seconds long.  So in order to be effective, you have to master the Thief's myriad of mobility options, as well as manage a resource system that is basically the only thing that keeps the thief from being utterly broken like they usually are in other games.  Their class mechanics are "Steal" which is a teleport to target that can trigger a multitude of secondary effects.  And Initiative, which is point based resource system that all your weapon attacks consume to use.  Their utility skills are a huge mixed bag of tricks and toys that let you do all kind of slippery kitten (more teleports, blinds, traps, extra dodges, pulls, stuns, etc).  A well played thief is basically untouchable, while a poorly played thief spends most of its time taking dirt naps.  There is no middle ground.... not even in PvE.  Their practical weakness is being squishy; and severely punishes you for bad resource management.  This still extends to its Especs, however, those do allow a thief to be more stand offish.   Skill level is high, and demands the ability to control a mouse and keyboard well. 

 

Ranger - A moderately versatile survivalist, with a decently good range of builds, Rangers dip their toes in a lot of things, but only does a couple of things decently well.  Their Class mechanic is a pet that everyone hate using.  Combat wise rangers are a solid choice for solo play, as they have a lot of ways to get out trouble without the overhead of the Thief. They also do decent damage, but require very focused trait choices to get the most out of it.    The Elite Specs are worth mentioning for this class, because Pets have been one of the most contentious things in the game since its beta.   All of the Especs for Ranger dramatically change how a ranger plays, by focusing them into specific types of play styles.  So while Core Ranger is pretty flexible, it doesn't excel in any areas.  The Especs solution to that was to make ranger more focused into a specific build.  However, none of the Especs directly address the main problems with the Pet's AI systems, and thus each Espec is working around the Pet in a different way.  Druid is deep into healing and support, and ignores the pet entirely-  This entire espec was made to enforce trinity comps in Raids (which came out at the same time).   Soulbeast tried to remove the pet and shift its damage budget into the Ranger; but its biggest draw was pet based special used by the Ranger itself. Soulbeast is also (arguably) the most flexible, having a rare choice between Power or Condition damage as your main focus. The Untamed Espec is also doesn't know what to do with the pet either, that did what Soulbeast did in reverse.  IE: you can give the pet a buff to get some new abilities, or turn it off and buff yourself.  Difficulty is - moderate low overall, but Druid demands more focus on a specific rotation.

Out of all the Classes, this one has the most stigma attached to it. So if you plan on going raids or fractals, or even PvP and WvW, most groups don't even wanna risk taking you unless you're running certain builds.  Open world doesn't care, so it tends to boil down to how well you can avoid dying.

 

Engineer - The game's Jack of Trades, Master of something.  One of the Two "Piano classes", Engineer has the second largest number of weapon skills in the game due to having a whole line of utilities that act a weapon swap.  Their main class mechanic is the Tool belt, which adds an extra sub-set of skills based on your choice of utility skills.  While skills are not individually powerful, knowing how to navigate and chain skills or effects allow them to do some impressive damage.  While mainly considered a Hybrid Support class, they have some of the widest options for builds, despite Group content only being focused on a few of them.   They're also routinely welcome in WvW, even when not meta, as they're always capable of filling some kind of niche job or secondary support role for zergs.  Difficulty level is Moderate-High due to the memory required to navigate all your skill options in combat.  Moderate-low if you're running Holosmith or Mechanist, as those were made to be easier to use. 

 

Light armor/Scholars

Necromancer - Necro is the chonky boy of the Scholars, as their designed primarily to be an element of oppression in sPvP, and are pretty tanky because of it.  Their builds go in 4 different directions, Area denial, Minions, boon rip, or the Reaper Espec.  Like Ranger Pet AI, minion AI is pretty useless for any kind of precision play, and mostly relegated to open world as a low demand build.  Area denial and Boon Rip are more commonly found in group play, but can be found in Open world meta events since its easiest way to tag lots of enemies.  On Core, Necro's class mechanic is Life Force and Shroud.  Life Force is gained when things die, or when certain skills are used to generate it.  This acts as fuel for the Shroud which, when active, becomes a second life bar, and gives the Necro access to some area control skills.  Core Necro's practical weakness is very poor mobility, and low burst damage, which makes necros almost as unpopular as Rangers if it weren't for the Especs.  However, they do have good self sustain, and despite how much people complain about the Especs, they're still pretty solid if you understand the mechanics of each Espec.  Difficulty is Moderate-Low, and thats mostly because they have issues healing from a bad hit.  The general idea is to have the shroud mechanics take the big hit for you, and regain your normal health over time.  

The reason I list Reaper separately, because its almost a 180 to how the other builds works for necro.  Reaper Espec gives you access to strong melee skills... both in the 2h Sword and the Reaper Shroud. Where as the other specs are about area control, oppression, and negating buffs, the Reaper is a straight forward "hit it until its dead".  Reaper builds are low difficulty, tanky, deal respectable damage, and are entirely selfish.  Perfect for open world solo.  Especially with Minions and life steal traits, which chip heal you constantly.  Even after the nerfs, it still holds up well. 

 

Elementalist is the other "Piano Class", and has the most weapon skills in the game.  Its class mechanic is elemental attunement, letting it swap between 4 elements on the fly in combat, which all your weapons skills. Each element type has a different general purpose, and collectively they let Ele do almost any type of build they want. And even when speced into a certain build, the other elements not used still have fringe benefits due to useful mechanics found in each (Cleanse, CCs, etc).  The big downside to the Ele is that they're a lot more combo oriented then any other class, so skill chains and rotations have to be executed in certain order to get the effects you want.  They also make substantial use of Field/Finisher mechanics, so knowing how those work underpin a lot of their strategic use, and reasoning behind some of the rotations.  When solo, most people are tempted to go "mage" and use staff for the AOE..... this is a poor use of the class.  If you're doing open world, melee weapons are where its at.  Ranged weapons are built for back line damage and support in groups; meaning you're vulnerable when up close.  But the selection of melee weapons offer more damage, various mobility skills, and better access to combos (both in weapon and in traits).  There was a point where Dagger/Dagger Ele could hit as hard as most other melee builds, but had way higher mobility, way more CC, and give yourself a bunch of different buffs on the go.  (now that I think about it, I should probably try out the D/D builds again)

 

Mesmer - Guildwar's Trademarkable poster child, the Mesmer is Half Utility Wizard, Half Duelist, Half Time Lord, and 100% the most hated class in PvP.  Built mainly for PvP, Mesmer specializes 1v1 or small fights, as they have strong single target damage, but not many strong AOE or cleave options. Most of their skills are also built on 'misdirection', which the Mob AI is too dumb to fall for.  This puts them in a weird place for Open world play, as its the only class that doesn't really a good way to mow through waves of trash mobs, making then harder to use in dangerous parts of the game.  However, where they shine is enemies that survive more then a few seconds, like Vets and Champs.  Their class mechanic is Clones, which partly serve as distractions (though very fragile), but are mainly a resource for their Shatter ability and the multitude of traits that link into it.  Basically the longer a fight would go, the more effective the Mesmer is in battle.  This translates from their PvP origins, where they were designed to confuse enemy players by baiting out an enemy into using their stronger abilities, displace themselves out of dangerous positions, displace themselves into striking range, and unleashing aggravating amounts of burst or condition damage, while being in 3 different places on the map.  For short fights in open world they struggle a bit; but nothing a little bit of practice and back to back mob pulling to keep the momentum going won't solve.  They're also everyone's best friend in Jump puzzles, as their long range portal skill lets you teleport people to the end section on most maps. 

Difficulty is moderate high for PvE, and High for PvP.  But for Leveling in Core, its considered very hard, as Mesmer's potential won't be fully realized until you have 3 full sets of traits to work with.  And that takes a while to unlock.  But its also a class you don't want to Level Boost, because you're going to need to a LOT of practice with how the clones and shatter works, as this is were most of your damage and buffing come from.  This is still true with the Especs, as they work on this same overall resource system, as do the traits.

Anyone whose played long enough will be tempted to play a Mesmer, after seeing what they can do in competent hands.  A lot give up, because theres a lot of intricacies to how its traits work, making hard to use without decent practice.   But ultimately its not super hard to use, you just have to be aware of whats happening around you, so you don't screw up and teleport into killer AOE field.  And if you get really good at it, people will hate you more in PvP then they do Thieves.

[starlinvf.1358]

With all the paper work out of the way, my recommendations are this:

Pick either human or norn as a race if you easy to navigate starter maps.  Both are pretty flat, or have paths that are easy to follow.  The other races have starter maps with vertical elements, making them less popular, on top of the races being less popular. 

Start with a Guardian, and just play it to learn the basic combat mechanics. The class mechanics on Core Guardians aren't particularly useful, but the passive effects are welcome even if small.   Go with Greatsword as soon as you find one, stats don't matter in the early game.  Keep the default Healing skill "Shelter".  It has Block as a mechanic, so you'll want to learn how use that to negate big hits, or use it to walk through AOE fields.  This will help teach you to understand Dual-Purpose skill effects, so you're not just healing and blocking as separate actions. A lot of skills in the game have dual functionally; some are just more obvious/useful then others.  And don't forget dodging.  If you have to, rebind it to an easier to reach key.  Disable double tap dodge in options if you're playing with jump puzzles, and keep rolling off cliffs.    

As you get Hero points, use the first 7 on Meditation to unlock "Smite Condition" as your first utility skill.  It lets you purge 2 conditions and has a short cool down. Or alternatively you can spec into Valor and get the passive Strength of the Fallen or Smiter's Boon.  The first one passively removes a condition everyone 10 sec, but Smiters boon lets you cast "Smite condition" with your heal; and its a separate cool down from normal Smite condition skill.   The intent here is to allow you to get rid of damaging conditions if they start to stack too high on you, or clearing conditions after a fight, so you're not stuck "in combat".  Being in Combat slows you down, and prevents health regenerating until all aggro mobs are dealt with, and you're free of negative conditions. 

You can do the personal story if you want, but the REAL XP you'll get is from doing map exploration, Heart quests, and Dynamic events. Killing mobs doesn't give you significant XP, so mob farming is not worth your time.  Gear Drops are also extremely rare by design, and drops in general are uncommon at best.  Your main sources of coin and XP are from dynamic events that pop around the map.  The Heart quests exist to keep you an area long enough for most events to cycles, and you can use the Karma awarded at the Heart NPCs for arguably useful or interesting stuff.  Events gives you a % base of XP determined by the level of the specific area you're in, so this is always going be the best gains moving forward.  Map exploration is the second biggest reward for early game XP, so be sure to wander around the entire starter area after finishing the Prologue.

As the reasons about the low drop rates..... its meant to clean up the massive amount of trash loot the game used to generate in early versions.  You still get "trash" loot occasionally when killing mobs; but these were originally meant to be tokens to trade with the NPCs (like in the first game), andd was later replaced with Karma as a universal currency to avoid bank space problems.  You can sell trash to NPCs for small copper as compensation.   All the other drops are either gear or bags.  Gear is typically worth more as salvage (especially mid-tier mats), while the bags can be opened to get coin, mats, or other goodies worth a small amount.   Even then, most of your early game gold is going to come doing map based activities (events, hearts, exploration). 

So don't worry about having a full set of gear.  The points are so minuscule, and the starter areas so undertuned, that it barely makes any difference. If you do find something that fits, just slap it in there and it'll be good enough.  The only thing you have to think about is weapon choices.  Theres weapon vendors scattered around all the early zones, so you can just buy a white common great sword for copper if you have to it.   If you want to experiment, 1h Sword and either Shield, Torch or Focus in off hand (if your level unlocked it).  Shields are just another type of weapon in this game; so its more for the skills they have then defense stats.  Shield is the most mechanically unique, as skill 5 puts up a dome that block projectiles, and pushes enemies if they were too close when activated. Can also be detonated early for a small extra aoe heal.  Shield 4 sends a wave that gives 4s of damage reduction and one free block to allies. No one else will appreciate it (or even notice), but a well timed use of the skill in someone else's direction to block a hit, or survive ticks from AOE circle is satisfying in its own right.  Helps make you aware of the play field.... especially in recognizing good AOE circles and bad AOE circles. 

 

Do that up until around 15 or 16 (high enough to start exploring the next map).  By then you should have some time to play with the utility skills and get used to general combat. From there if you can decide to test out other classes.  Just keep in mind that some classes require more of itself unlocked to make sense; as all classes are designed around the idea that you're level 80.  Like how I said Mesmer doesn't actually work correctly without all 3 trait lines.  Warrior, Guardian, and Rangers are the only classes consistent between lower levels and max level.  All the others have some kind of tipping point, due to certain traits or utilities being very important to make the class function as intended. 

[starlinvf.1358]

Now on the subject of Mains vs Alt.   Theres no reason for this mind set to exist in this game.   The closest to it might be using one character's antics to fund another character's setup.  Since a lot of late game activities have lateral trading power for rewards, having one character doing something like daily fractals or LS maps can generate the resources or coins needed to get another character a full set of ascended trinkets, and exotic armor in a couple of weeks.  (note that if you want specific stat combos, ascended trinkets are easier to get then exotic ones.  Armor and Weapons on the other hand are big money sink, so expect a need for 300g for a Core stat combo, and extra costs or hoops jumped for Xpac stat combos)

Getting the first character set up is always the hardest.  But once its generating income, the ease at which you can boot strap an alt, theres basically no reason not to set up a second one that do jobs your first class isn't popular for.   If you're into group content or PvP, this is also helpful in getting recruited for groups, as you can swap out for a demanded build, rather then fighting for a slot against other people with the same role type as you.  Even 2 different types of DD builds are useful, since different raids sections have different mechanical problems to solve. 

Because the whole leveling process can be fast tracked, the only real thing stopping you from being good at multiple classes is an unwillingness to play around with them.  I still suck at Thief and Revanent overall, but I've made one build for each that I can do stuff with, so I can be useful in that one niche situation.  Those are the ones I use for WvW when I'm not needing to do something more important.