Simplest (not best) class for soloing as much PvE content as possible?

[sutasafaia.4872]

Specifically simplest, not best. I have a messed up hand and currently can't get a gaming mouse to make it easier to play. I am asking for solo because I'm not sure I could currently keep up in any kind of group content that required rapid skill clicking/dodging/etc as it causes me a fair amount of pain and I really don't want to drag a group down. That said, if there's something that is very simple to play and allows me to contribute to a party, even better. For reference, the last time I played was right around the launch of the first expansion, so I'm more than a little out of the loop.

The last time I played I remember a very simple setup being a full signet (is that the right word?) LB/GS ranger. You only needed a couple attack skills while solo and all your other abilities were passive buffs. Is something like that even viable anymore?

The other one was a full pet necro, basically along the same lines as ranger with all your abilities basically being passives outside of some weapon skills. I remember it being a fair bit harder to play though since you were generally in melee (reaper pet necro was pretty popular if I remember right) and you had do a bit more clicking? I don't know, as I said, it's been a while.

I have no idea if either of those setups are going to fall into what I'm looking for anymore.

I know the old story of "play what you like" so I will say that pet classes are what I like. I want to stay at ranged where it's generally safer for me to play since I don't need nearly as much reaction time. I want the simplest class that requires the least frantic playstyle. As long as it falls within those lines I don't really care what it is I'm playing, I just want to be able to enjoy my playtime. First and foremost I want to be able to solo as much as possible. Hopefully that's enough info to give advice.

Thank you in advance, I really miss this game and want to give it another shot, hopefully you can help me get an idea of what to play.

Also, if this should have been in the Professions forum instead of this one, my apologies, feel free to move this or ask me and I will post in the proper section.

[Holykitten.3064]

Power Reaper is probably the easiest. I love mine for OW.You can play with or without the minions. (Full power with Spite, Soul Reaping, Reaper. Or tougher with Spite/Soul Reaping, Deathmagic, Reaper.)

[Josif.2015]

@sutasafaia.4872The most beginner friendly professions that are not too complex are warrior, ranger and necromancer. Play either core warrior or Spellbreaker, core ranger or Soulbeast, core necromancer or Reaper.

[windbliss.3158]

Will agree that Necromancer does give you a slightly easier time. While you won't be killing quickly, it should be enough of a pace to accomodate your handicap. I personally use 1-1-1 for the Death Magic trait lines; however, if you don't like sudden poison-field popping minions, 1-1-3 will give you a panic buffer as long as you have a decent amount of life force for shroud should it activate.

[Dawdler.8521]

Simplest? I would say there is two options for that.

Minion master condi/healer bunker. Basicly immortal and heals his own pets so they dont die.

Condi soulbeast because the rotation is braindead (there is no rotation on shortbow) and unlike the druid/ranger the soulbeast mechanic makes the pet immortal.

[sutasafaia.4872]

Well it definitely sounds like the old minion necro is still a good option, the problem is going to become which setup to use. Power and condi are both apparently good for reaper and apparently there are some good builds for minions for scourge so that's on the table as well? So many options >.>; Referencing Bootts scourge build, in case anybody is curious, I haven't found anything specific for either reaper yet, just lots of mentions of them.

[Josif.2015]

@sutasafaia.4872 said:Well it definitely sounds like the old minion necro is still a good option, the problem is going to become which setup to use. Power and condi are both apparently good for reaper and apparently there are some good builds for minions for scourge so that's on the table as well? So many options >.>; Referencing Bootts scourge build, in case anybody is curious, I haven't found anything specific for either reaper yet, just lots of mentions of them.

Reaper is still better as a power specialization rather than a condition or even a hybrid one. In open world PvE, you're better off using power builds so you can kill mobs quicker instead of having them wait to die from conditions.

[Holykitten.3064]

@sutasafaia.4872 said:Well it definitely sounds like the old minion necro is still a good option, the problem is going to become which setup to use. Power and condi are both apparently good for reaper and apparently there are some good builds for minions for scourge so that's on the table as well? So many options >.>; Referencing Bootts scourge build, in case anybody is curious, I haven't found anything specific for either reaper yet, just lots of mentions of them.

If you want to play condition, using Scourge is far better than a Condition Reaper. Both are viable but Scourge is far easier at application and survivability than Reaper is.Reaper after several years is actually more tuned to serve power better than it is condition. And I personally find Power Reaper fun for OW content. I use Spite Soul Reaping and Reaper lines, I have Greatsword, Axe Warhorn, everything Berserker except earrings and rings which are Valkyrie, so I’m at about 50% crit chance and 100% in shroud, the extra vitality is a buffer, giving me about 22k HP.

[sutasafaia.4872]

So I guess that would mean power reaper or power scourge. Thanks for all the help from the various posters by the way, got far nicer responses than I expected when asking for help. This is the power scourge I was looking at before. I haven't found any guides for power reaper yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xlideTziy.8 You just need to take the . out, I was trying to avoid making a gigantic window in the post.

[Khisanth.2948]

Scourge doesn't have much to offer for power and you sacrifice the defense from shroud ...

[sutasafaia.4872]

Easy enough to start leveling a power necro than. Any opinion on weapons? I know for trees I'll likely want death, blood, and...something...until I can get reaper? Spite?

[Pepper.3901]

I will add, Druid.

Pets make the difference between usable and not usable.

[Gudy.3607]

@sutasafaia.4872 said:Easy enough to start leveling a power necro than. Any opinion on weapons? I know for trees I'll likely want death, blood, and...something...until I can get reaper? Spite?Spite/Blood Magic/Death Magic gives a very survivable necro with reasonable damage and some minion buffs, so that looks fine to me for what you want. As for weapons, I never saw the point of using ranged weapons with such a setup - they sacrifice quite a bit of damage for what seems to me to be little gain. So I'd go with dagger mainhand and dagger/focus offhands. Keep a warhorn around in case you need the daze or swiftness.

[Biff.5312]

IMO full minion necro. Don't use a dagger and play melee - equip a staff or scepter. Any fight you get in, you should be able to stand back and let your pets do the job if you have to. This way if you have any pain etc. you can just stop and let the pets play out the fight. It's very rare that you have to dodge/move much as long as you stand a little way away from what you're fighting, and you can use the 5 staff skill to fear anything that gets too close.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Biff.5312 said:IMO full minion necro. Don't use a dagger and play melee - equip a staff or scepter.

Scepter (condition) or Axe (power), I'd suggest instead.

[Dawdler.8521]

@atheria.2837 said:I will add, Druid.

Pets make the difference between usable and not usable.

If pets is your thing then you definetly dont want to go druid. Even a full minstrel druid with all pet traits cant heal its pet as good as a full zerker soulbeast with no pet traits. Its called immortal for a reason. Well, immortal on a couple seconds cooldown. Close enough.

[Tarasicodissa.7084]

MM necro could possibly work out, although in your case a much better pick would be a staff power daredevil. Unlike most other classes (for example the ranger you mentioned), thief actually has signets that are useful because they boost your damage. You can also pick a trait that heals you based on outgoing critical damage, which means you can spec fully into offense while still being very survivable - and you won't have to suffer waiting 1000 hours for everything to die. The rotation is extremely simple - you basically only autoattack since it provides most damage out of your skills. You also dodge randomy every once in a while to keep your endurace below maximum which is another 2 solid damage modifiers.

Out of the many options others mentioned, this seems the most sensible one. Of course you could theoretically go full minstrel anything, pick the most defensive traitlines and become completely invulnerable, but then you'd take hours to kill anything with the few buttons you can press. Power thief is a very solid build, because it's incredibly simple to pull off, has very very few buttons to press and still somewhat resembles actual meta gameplay and deals decent amount of damage, especially in a solo situation.

[Sagramor.7395]

For MM Necro you could go Axe/Dagger and Dagger/Horn for weapon setup. You could go for 25% movement with Blood trait when Dagger equipped. Also minimized ground target skills compared to Staff which may or may not be an issue for you. Stay at range and stack up Vuln for your minions, or dive in blow Horn #5 and cleave (2 targets) with Dagger AA.

[starlinvf.1358]

If you stay in Core Tyria, Ranger remains the most brain dead open world survivalist with at least minimal investment in Wilderness survival (which has most of the Classes condition mitigation traits). Pet is also a viable tank in most cases, the majority of champs are either single target or cone; thus the pet tanks and you flank. But once you start getting to Post-Core content, starting with Drytop, things start to change. More mob AOE and controls come into play, with pets not having the durability to handle the more dicey situations. In silverwaste this gets cranked up to 11.5, as the feral mordrem are designed to countered by AOE, and dish it out left and right. Passive rangers start having trouble dealing with the collateral AOE, and the long bow on its own can't keep them at bay, which occasionally forces you into melee where you're weakest if not speced correctly (and if you're full marksman, you're usually not). You can learn to kite, but thats about as far in PvE as you're going to get without stepping up your playstyle. Anything HoT or PoF requires you to be a lot more mobile, do a lot more damage, and have access to a lot more AOE CCs...... things which Core Ranger (as a mostly single target CC class) will face challenges with.

If you have Heart of Thorn, then the most forgiving build is the Flesh of the Master Power Reaper. Its combination of Blood, Death Magic and Reaper traits to offset your need for precision, and lets you use Valks/Zerks hybrid stats to invest in more Vitality. This increases your Life Force for more extended HP in shroud to tank more damage (it doesn't affect skills or LF generation, since those are all % based). Death Magic does several things to improve how minions work, which becomes your condi purging avenue while boosting toughness. Blood Magic gives you access to Life Steal for you and your minions, and is the only way to get healing when Shroud is active (a benefit which makes you even more durable on offense). Its also extremely cheap to gear up (using core stats), and can run exotics with basically no loss to its performance. More importantly, it rewards aggressive play rather then punishing you for not.... and thats something you're gonna need if actually want to do anything beyond Core Tyria.

You NEED to get more active in fights, you NEED to get smarter with your builds, and you NEED to learn how Mobs fight, so you can counter play them. "Play how you like" doesn't mean, nor has it ever really meant that the game will reward/accommodate you no matter what. They tried that once, and it nearly killed the game with player apathy. What I think you need to shake this stigma is a simple change of perspective...... and not big one either. Don't look for the "simplest" or "easiest"..... you don't need a build to do those, but nothing will reward you for it either. What you want is something thats more "Forgiving", so you can more easily observe the game, and how it works. Everything you'd said so far seems to suggest this; and learning that distinction is the only way you're going to get what you want with navigating PvE areas as the game consciously puts more pressure on you.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAR3dnM0At1gdbCe1As3glpBbqldBOWxfwU4LUaAUACAA-jBSBABFt/QFHBAsU+hnuBHuIA5o+DAPAgFVCCA-e

[Martimus.6027]

Firebrand. ..

[Izianova.5467]

I play a mm condi reaper... and it works. For everything pve. Yes, condi reaper was nerfed to hell and back, power reaper uplifted, because Anet wants to shoehorn people into specific builds for whatever reason. But I put on death magic, blood, and reaper and I'm immortal. Pets steal health giving necro basically it's only way into health regen that matches its huge health pool, it has its support niche as a ressbot, getting people up and keeping them from dying when downed better than any other class, and having an emergency tele of downed members to you with revive and heal tied to your biggest damage combo. Full vipers gear, and still very survivable, and helpful. I use this for t4 fracts, because it allows me to be extremely lazy, and still plenty useful, if low on dps. Use pets for heavy cc along with all your chill for hefty breakbars if you like, but otherwise, you have 5 buttons you never really need to press. You'll practically never die... even when downed your pets will keep you alive through things no other class could hope to survive through. You can carry teams with one hand. It's fun, it's easy as the game gets, and it's fast enough for overworld trash while still holding condi damage for higher stuff like fractals. Since it's full vipers, I can flip to scourge for wvw by switching out a few weapons, and it's good to go. Maybe through in some trailblazers or celestial jewelry if I wanna go blood sage and support there.

[Anthony.3207]

Flame thrower maurader engineer for pve and world questing.

Just press 1 every 2 seconds and do free damage. Shoots in a cone so you can cleave monsters in your face aoe wise.

Not very good for wvw but it's basic simple does good damage and survives ok

Take the juggernaut talent in firearms and you will almost always be immune to crowd control.