which leather armor class?

[Merisee.9035]

I love the looks of the leather armour in game. For me its some of the best looking out there especially for humans and norn. Thing is? I don't actually have a leather wearing class atm and i don't know which to go with, I only have one slot open for a new class atm so I'm torn, I want something that's going to be my "new" main. Something that is capable in all aspects of the game apart from pvp,, really cant stand pvp which is strange as I like wvw go figure.

As I said I want something that's capable in all aspects of the game. I don't want The meta or best cus that's always changing and chasing that's just silly at least to me. I'd like something that's not overly complicated where I need a degree to learn how to play it, And builds that can be used for support as well as dps

[Chyro.1462]

With ranger you have:

Druid as alac heal or condi dps.

Soulbeast as pure dps.

Untamed as quick dps or pure dps (both power or condi).

Also quick untamed is a real powerhouse for soloing open world content.

Engineer has a similar line-up:

Mechanist as alac heal or dps.

Scrapper as quick dps or dps.

Holo as pure dps.

Dunno about thief cause I don't really play it. As far as WvW is concerned I also don't know much, but assume scrapper is likely meta for group play and thief specs good at roaming.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Ranger sounds like the best bet. It can be played in a variety of ways in all game modes from support to dps to solo in both PVE and WVW. It's also kinda safer with the pet and simpler than the others too. Thief can get you there, but doesn't have as many good support options. It's a bit narrower in scope but also really fun in its specialty. Engineer has everything you might want too and can be played with a variety of playstyles, but some builds are more complex than what you'll typically find with rangers. That said, they all have their charm for me, but I like the range of engineers' theme and complexity, so it's my favorite among the 3.

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

My advice would be, try all 3 professions and see which one you prefer. They all have viable builds for both dps and support. 

My personal preference would be Ranger, then Engineer. 

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

I agree with the others.  Ranger is in a good place right now.  I'd never been a fan of the class until recently due to my pet class aversion, but the elite specs are all very ranger-centric.  I think if you want something easy to play and effective in all game modes, you can't go wrong with Untamed.  I'd rate it in the top 2 among solo play builds right now, with incredible damage and great sustain.  It's also pretty straightforward and is still effective even if you play it like a potato.  I did raid wings 2, 4, and 7 today just camping sword/axe and tiger pet.  Basically, just push buttons off cooldown and toggle unleash to proc ambush whenever you would normally swap weapons.  It wouldn't keep up with the pros played this way, but it was plenty to top DPS on most of the bosses in a perfectly capable group.

Here's a video of a bounty solo on Untamed.  There's a build link in the comments if you'd like to try it out.

 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

i think you can go to the pvp lobby at level 2(?) and you immediately have access to all possible builds (with a few differences), so you can feel free to try each class out on the golems there or even enter some unranked pvp matches to get a feel for how each class plays after grabbing a loadout from metabattle.

 

it won't be the same in pve of course, but its an easy way to test them all out with only one slot available.

Edited June 21 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Panda.1967]

On 6/19/2024 at 3:22 PM, Merisee.9035 said:

I'd like something that's not overly complicated where I need a degree to learn how to play it,

Well this narrows down your choices quite quickly… Ranger…

Engineer has overly complex rotations often switching in and out of multiple kits for one or two skills to the point that you practically need a degree in rocket science to play the class…

Thief has probably the highest skill floor in the game for classes due to its initiative mechanic turning something as simple as using all 5 skills on any given weapon into a complex math problem.

Ranger is simple and straightforward… all of its elite specs maintain that simplicity even… Druid is the most complexed that ranger gets and it simply adds a shroud mechanic to the profession.

[StraightPath.3972]

I will respectfully disagree with most and say Thief.

First off the Ranger which is so glorified here has a massive complexity spike with each e-spec you unlock.
Druid? - entire astral force and form management (and he's the tame one among ranger e-specs).
Soulbeast? - Beastmode management is critical for your success. Wrong pet, wrong pet swap, wrong merge time = trouble.
Untamed? Better have that green goo on the right character (you or pet). Else watch your dps dip, defenses get weaker, wrong pet skills get triggered or your boonshare fail.

Ranger may have friendly, easy builds (bearbow), but when things get real you'll be managing at least 3 swaps -> weapon swap, pet swap, e-spec mechanic swap.
Managing your pet and rotation is already enough to keep one busy without these extra "delicacies" on your plate...

Meanwhile over at Thief's:

• e-specs naturally progress in complexity without sharp spikes (DD easiest, specter hardest, but nowhere near as crazy as Untamed).
• support is rock solid despite common belief. Group stealth, projectile and boon hate, sharing venoms, opening a portal for allies, creating a safe zone similar to guardian's Sanctuary, options to heal and grant barrier to whole group and obviously boon sharing.
• much like complexity, squishy thief's defenses grow as you unlock new specs. Stealth, tons of evades, ranged options and lifesteal are there from the start.
  Daredevil adds more evasion, cc and a block, Deadeye adds very potent ranged option along with more stealth, projectile hate and initiative generation.
  Specter gets his own necro shroud on top along with very powerful barrier generation.
• is great for pvp  - especially if you dislike the mode. As a thief your job is to just run away from any big fight, find an enemy node, decap it and then just look for a cheap +1 kill or an objective. A good thief is all about minimizing the "pvp" in pvp. You're the saboteur not the barbarian

Ofc there are some issues - thief does not excel at aoe (though Deadeye has tools to change that situation), and is squishy, especially in early game before you get your hands on all the juicy survability tools (Shadow Arts are big). Support with Specter is a whole different beast compared to any other support, it's doing it's own thing, but is a support non the less.
Still with thief I really feel this is the class where it's your own mistakes and not overabundance of mechanics to manage that put you in the ground.

[AliamRationem.5172]

5 minutes ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

I will respectfully disagree with most and say Thief.

First off the Ranger which is so glorified here has a massive complexity spike with each e-spec you unlock.
Druid? - entire astral force and form management (and he's the tame one among ranger e-specs).
Soulbeast? - Beastmode management is critical for your success. Wrong pet, wrong pet swap, wrong merge time = trouble.
Untamed? Better have that green goo on the right character (you or pet). Else watch your dps dip, defenses get weaker, wrong pet skills get triggered or your boonshare fail.

Ranger may have friendly, easy builds (bearbow), but when things get real you'll be managing at least 3 swaps -> weapon swap, pet swap, e-spec mechanic swap.
Managing your pet and rotation is already enough to keep one busy without these extra "delicacies" on your plate...

Meanwhile over at Thief's:

• e-specs naturally progress in complexity without sharp spikes (DD easiest, specter hardest, but nowhere near as crazy as Untamed).
• support is rock solid despite common belief. Group stealth, projectile and boon hate, sharing venoms, opening a portal for allies, creating a safe zone similar to guardian's Sanctuary, options to heal and grant barrier to whole group and obviously boon sharing.
• much like complexity, squishy thief's defenses grow as you unlock new specs. Stealth, tons of evades, ranged options and lifesteal are there from the start.
  Daredevil adds more evasion, cc and a block, Deadeye adds very potent ranged option along with more stealth, projectile hate and initiative generation.
  Specter gets his own necro shroud on top along with very powerful barrier generation.
• is great for pvp  - especially if you dislike the mode. As a thief your job is to just run away from any big fight, find an enemy node, decap it and then just look for a cheap +1 kill or an objective. A good thief is all about minimizing the "pvp" in pvp. You're the saboteur not the barbarian

Ofc there are some issues - thief does not excel at aoe (though Deadeye has tools to change that situation), and is squishy, especially in early game before you get your hands on all the juicy survability tools (Shadow Arts are big). Support with Specter is a whole different beast compared to any other support, it's doing it's own thing, but is a support non the less.
Still with thief I really feel this is the class where it's your own mistakes and not overabundance of mechanics to manage that put you in the ground.

I guess we have different definitions of "massive complexity".

[Panda.1967]

1 hour ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

I will respectfully disagree with most and say Thief.

First off the Ranger which is so glorified here has a massive complexity spike with each e-spec you unlock.
Druid? - entire astral force and form management (and he's the tame one among ranger e-specs).
Soulbeast? - Beastmode management is critical for your success. Wrong pet, wrong pet swap, wrong merge time = trouble.
Untamed? Better have that green goo on the right character (you or pet). Else watch your dps dip, defenses get weaker, wrong pet skills get triggered or your boonshare fail.

Ranger may have friendly, easy builds (bearbow), but when things get real you'll be managing at least 3 swaps -> weapon swap, pet swap, e-spec mechanic swap.
Managing your pet and rotation is already enough to keep one busy without these extra "delicacies" on your plate...

Meanwhile over at Thief's:

• e-specs naturally progress in complexity without sharp spikes (DD easiest, specter hardest, but nowhere near as crazy as Untamed).
• support is rock solid despite common belief. Group stealth, projectile and boon hate, sharing venoms, opening a portal for allies, creating a safe zone similar to guardian's Sanctuary, options to heal and grant barrier to whole group and obviously boon sharing.
• much like complexity, squishy thief's defenses grow as you unlock new specs. Stealth, tons of evades, ranged options and lifesteal are there from the start.
  Daredevil adds more evasion, cc and a block, Deadeye adds very potent ranged option along with more stealth, projectile hate and initiative generation.
  Specter gets his own necro shroud on top along with very powerful barrier generation.
• is great for pvp  - especially if you dislike the mode. As a thief your job is to just run away from any big fight, find an enemy node, decap it and then just look for a cheap +1 kill or an objective. A good thief is all about minimizing the "pvp" in pvp. You're the saboteur not the barbarian

Ofc there are some issues - thief does not excel at aoe (though Deadeye has tools to change that situation), and is squishy, especially in early game before you get your hands on all the juicy survability tools (Shadow Arts are big). Support with Specter is a whole different beast compared to any other support, it's doing it's own thing, but is a support non the less.
Still with thief I really feel this is the class where it's your own mistakes and not overabundance of mechanics to manage that put you in the ground.

I’m sorry but Astral force & form management is braindead simple, you can fill your astral gage faster and with a lot less effort than it takes to fill the life force gage on a necromancer. 2-3 skills and your full. Astral form management is as simple as “do people need healing? or Do enemies need CC? No, ignore form. Yes, use form.”

Soulbeast has no management what so ever, you can camp the merge and be perfectly fine in group content, in solo play you want to let your pet tank for you most of the time still though.

Untamed’s management is also simple. Sure it takes a little forethought to get the most benefit from Unleash, but it’s not complicated in the least. Also, if you buff the wrong one you aren’t actually losing out on that much damage.

 

thief on the otherhand is complicated right out of the gate… sure it’s especs may not be very complex, but they don’t chamge the fact that the core mechanic of the class has the highest skill floor for use out of every profession in the game. You can play Elementalist more effectively and easier without any knowledge of its mechanics than you can thief, and this community has a habit of calling elementalist the most compelex class in the game… if talking skill ceiling, sure, elementalist is more complex to master… but thief is the most complex to even start.

[Cuks.8241]

Speaking very generally.

Ranger is very straightforward in general. At least outside Untamed. It can do anything in pve and is very good at it. In wvw it's meh, sometimes useful. You can roam with it like any other class but in zergs you're pretty much heal support druid and maybe some very niche Untamed build (yes they do exist but it's really comp dependant).

Engineer is actually very good in all modes and can do lot's of stuff. But in it can often get quite complicated, lot's of buttons. On the other hand there's mechanist. But that's an abomination in my opinion. 

Thief is just special. In truth I only play thief in spvp. I started playing it to learn it so I can play against. And it quickly became one of my favs. Thied in pvp is a role in it's own. Some might say it's easy mode, whatever, maybe some builds can be easy noob stompers but thief has probably the highest skill floor of all classes in pvp. As for pve. It's definitely more limited in what it can do than any other class. And it really varies from 1 button mashing top dps builds to highly complex.

[FalsePromises.6398]

On 6/21/2024 at 7:36 AM, StraightPath.3972 said:

First off the Ranger which is so glorified here has a massive complexity spike with each e-spec you unlock.
Druid? - entire astral force and form management (and he's the tame one among ranger e-specs).
Soulbeast? - Beastmode management is critical for your success. Wrong pet, wrong pet swap, wrong merge time = trouble.
Untamed? Better have that green goo on the right character (you or pet). Else watch your dps dip, defenses get weaker, wrong pet skills get triggered or your boonshare fail.

I feel like this is exaggerating an issue that isn't really there.

Astral force management is not really a problem unless you're being nitpicky about certain interactions (of which deadeye has much worse versions) or trying to strictly adhere to a rotation in suboptimal environments. 

Soulbeast's "beastmode management" just... doesn't exist. You pick a pet and merge with it and call it a day. You might unmerge and swap pets for a spare beast skill or two in fringe cases, but that's an extra-mile solo play trick that's fun to do, by no means a requirement nor expectation anywhere else. You're largely you're just sucking in your pet for some stat boosts and a few neat skills and that's it.

Untamed might get complex at its peak but it's otherwise lax: you can easily goof around and juggle the mechanic between you and your pet with zero repercussions on your own since it's practically zero cooldown. Worst thing that'll happen is you swap the mechanic at the wrong time and have to wait maybe a second to swap it to your pet and back to get it at the right moment. 

Of the three medium armor professions, ranger is the easiest to get into, use universally, have variegated roles with, and enjoy yourself at any skill level since it's very forgiving. 

[StraightPath.3972]

1 hour ago, FalsePromises.6398 said:

I feel like this is exaggerating an issue that isn't really there.

Astral force management is not really a problem unless you're being nitpicky about certain interactions (of which deadeye has much worse versions) or trying to strictly adhere to a rotation in suboptimal environments. 

Soulbeast's "beastmode management" just... doesn't exist. You pick a pet and merge with it and call it a day. You might unmerge and swap pets for a spare beast skill or two in fringe cases, but that's an extra-mile solo play trick that's fun to do, by no means a requirement nor expectation anywhere else. You're largely you're just sucking in your pet for some stat boosts and a few neat skills and that's it.

Untamed might get complex at its peak but it's otherwise lax: you can easily goof around and juggle the mechanic between you and your pet with zero repercussions on your own since it's practically zero cooldown. Worst thing that'll happen is you swap the mechanic at the wrong time and have to wait maybe a second to swap it to your pet and back to get it at the right moment. 

Of the three medium armor professions, ranger is the easiest to get into, use universally, have variegated roles with, and enjoy yourself at any skill level since it's very forgiving. 

To each their own i guess. To me the extra swaps needed to be performed and were an issue in actual combat.
For others initiative management is a horror story while smooth sailing for me.

[FalsePromises.6398]

13 minutes ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

To each their own i guess. To me the extra swaps needed to be performed and were an issue in actual combat.
For others initiative management is a horror story while smooth sailing for me.

The worst (and really only) offender of annoying mechanics on ranger is untamed, purely because it's just so many buttons with new binds plus having to keep an eye on that ambush buff. 

Meanwhile thief is probably okay to use freely in open world, but endgame and large scale content makes it start to get tedious, with regards to tiny healthpool, big punishment for weakness/blindness/downstate on deadeye, cleave issues on condi builds (think venoms and scepter), lots of forced movement or movement restrictions among its styles, annoying ally target mechanics on heal specter, etc etc etc... I mean, thief is LEAGUES better than it used to be, with how its conditional damage modifiers used to require you to stay above 90% health with 11k hp or else you lose crit rate and crit damage, and how venoms are being updated to not erase each other with multiple thieves present, but it still strikes me as more trouble than its worth.

Like I hope I'm not dragging thief too hard, but ranger just seems like a better all-rounder investment, both for an exploring player and as an endgame option.

[AliamRationem.5172]

29 minutes ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

To each their own i guess. To me the extra swaps needed to be performed and were an issue in actual combat.
For others initiative management is a horror story while smooth sailing for me.

What extra swaps?  You mean Let Loose?  So, don't use it.  It's a DPS loss anyway.  You can generate near full quickness uptime just using Enhancing Impact and loading up on CC, then take Ferocious Symbiosis for that juicy 25% damage boost instead.  Simplified playstyle and more damage!  Everything below a champion dies so fast you can just run around in unleash pet and toggle it off to proc ambush during your opener.  Like this.  Easy.