Which legendary armour class gives the greatest variety of (easy) builds?

[Enigma.6089]

I'm trying to choose the best armour class to forge first to give me access to the highest variety of builds. I mostly play open world, but I might start raiding if I can find some easy builds to learn. Looking on Snow Crows it looks like light and medium have access to some of the easiest raid builds (at least based on their rating system).

Appreciate any recommendations!

Edited March 16 by Enigma.6089

[Ascleph.2147]

Light armor would give you access to the easiest and strongest builds: Condi Virt, Heal Scourge, Heal Chrono, Boon DPS Mesmer/Necro, Power Reaper.

[Chyro.1462]

1 hour ago, Ascleph.2147 said:

Light armor would give you access to the easiest and strongest builds: Condi Virt, Heal Scourge, Heal Chrono, Boon DPS Mesmer/Necro, Power Reaper.

And elementalist 🙂

[Ashantara.8731]

1 hour ago, Chyro.1462 said:

And elementalist 🙂

"Easy"?? Uhm. 😉

[Cuks.8241]

Well it really depends what you like to play. I first made heavy because I like all 3 classes. Rev and Guardian are very versatile and can cover most roles. And Warrior used to be my go to progression class because it's quite easy and inherently durable so I liked it for progression because the risk of getting killed was lower and could focus on mechanics.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I would go with Heavy, largely for guardian.  Guardian has condi FB, condi WB, quickness FB, healbrand, power dragonhunter, and power WB.  A lot of those have different sets of gear and runes, which makes building each one individually a pain.  Revenent also has quickherald, heal herald, power alac renegade, condi alac renegade, condi renegade, and power vindi.  Warrior... doesn't have that many builds which require different gear, but that's the trend for most weight classes.  

[Flowersunshine.7385]

11 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

"Easy"?? Uhm. 😉

Heal tempest is lots of fun and super easy. I use it a lot in open world with world bosses, but it also allowed us to do 4-man Cairn back when double staff mirage first became a thing. It has been useful in fractals too.

[Buran.3796]

Easiest healers are Druid and Scourge. Easiest dps the Virtuoso. Easiest quickness probably Herald.

[Lucy.3728]

I'd also go for heavy if you're after variety.  Rev, Guardian and Warrior - I found them easy to play (as in easy brainless rotation: push all buttons in random order) and easy to play through the stories and open world.
Otherwise light for necro.

Edited March 22 by Lucy.3728

[Chyro.1462]

Since legendary armor is pretty much a long term project, may be worth first playing the classes and builds that interest you in exotic gear to see what you enjoy playing. Simply going by general ease of use or potency in group content won't mean anything if you end up not enjoying the gameplay of the class. If you somehow end up making the legendary armor before really trying out the classes/builds that use that weight type you may end up wasting all that time amd resource investment.

[starlinvf.1358]

paradox. easy builds don’t require complex or obscure stat mixes. and easy access to mixed stats is the main benefit of legendary gear.  

[Flowersunshine.7385]

12 minutes ago, starlinvf.1358 said:

paradox. easy builds don’t require complex or obscure stat mixes. and easy access to mixed stats is the main benefit of legendary gear.  

That's not my definition of easy builds. In my definition 'easy builds' are the builds that are easy to play. An easy build can be hard to gear. Accessible builds, now that's a different story. An accessible build is easy to gear.

[Luthan.5236]

Imo it depends on the game modes and preferences (play style you prefer). I am more casual (not playing raids, harder strikes and higher tier fractals) and I have a main engineer. Never had trouble there and with the mechanist it got even easier - mech can tank and do a lot of damage. The ranger also uses medium armor and is considered easy to play cause of the pet. While thief seemed always a bit more squishy to me. (Have only tried the core thief though.)

Light-weighted armor has the necro that has the (in)famous "second health bar" - the shroud forms that use it. High base health pool and it can use minions. For the mesmer I had played a bit with an open world Chronomancer with a build utilizing Chronophantasma trait. Also felt pretty sturdy - even vs. champs.

Can not say much about the heavy-weight classes. Though warrior afaik has high health pool as well. Guardian might need a bit more skill - heavy armor but low base health (needs to clever utilize the traits and the ton of heals/aegis and other stuff it uses). And the revenant seemed borign to me. 😄 Cause of the fixed utily skills per stance.

Have only played engineer and mesmer with more than core (all other stuff core only) - and mainly open world + achievementing. So no "pro builds" and optimization (maxing dps) - can not post vaulable info about that.

[draxynnic.3719]

I'm not sure there is a single clear option - there are relatively easy, competitive builds in all weights.

If I had to start over, though, I'd probably go with light first. Heavy doesn't have great alacrity builds these days (you can do it, but don't expect groups to be enthusiastic). Medium isn't known for easy quickness builds. For light - chronomancer might not be the easiest support, but you can run alacrity or quickness with basically the same playstyle, so if you want versatility, it's a good choice. Virtuoso and reaper are both reasonably solid, relatively easy DPS builds, you'll have access to the res potential of scourge if you need it, and if you're thinking open world, celestial tempest and weaver can be surprisingly simple to run (just don't bother with Weave Self rotations, bring another elite and most weaver builds collapse down into just bouncing between two attunements).

I don't think there's a wrong answer, though, so the right answer might just be 'which set of professions calls to you the most?'