Need help in Choosing a Class :)

[TheShade.7162]

Hey Guild wars Community :)

I just bought Guild wars 2 a week ago and i would like your opinions.

Im having trouble with picking a class, whats the most fun class in your opinion :) ?

[Veluna.7316]

If you think of the game in major roles such as support (boon or healing), tanking, damage output (power based or condition based), then Mesmer to me is the most fun because you can pretty much do all of it and take your pick. There is a lot of mixing and matching you can do and still be effect even with various weapon types.

I have only tried bits of guardian, elementist, ranger, and mesmer so far.

[Anchoku.8142]

Think about what kind of play you like. Ranger, Necromancer, Engineer, and Mesmer all have pet-type support that make exploration of Tyria easier, especially the first two. About the only professions without an AI to help as you get used to combat mechanics are Warrior, Revenant, and Thief but each have strengths that more than make up for that.

Of course, all professions have advantages and complex back-stories so feel free to try something you think as cool and interesting.

Play the story with any profession that piques your interest and try WvW and PvP to see how the professions work at level 80.

[Josif.2015]

A fun profession is a very subjective term. Anyone can say that a profession is fun, but you'll never know if you don't try it. Assuming that you're a new player, I'm just going to give you some advice on the three most beginner friendly professions. Keep in mind, this is me giving you advice from both a personal and a PvE perspective:

1. Necromancer

Scholar or light armor profession, one out of the two professions with the highest health in the game. Necromancer has lots of sustain thanks to their shroud mechanic and minions. Shroud basically gives them a second health bar, allowing a necromancer to tank a lot of damage.

Necromancer has always had the reputation of being bad in fractals and raids, that it provides nothing for the group, but thankfully the elite specializations have helped to negate that reputation. Power reaper is good for dealing damage and stacking vulnerability and scourge can be played as a support build that focuses on rallying allies, a build that in my opinion is only worth using when your raid group tends to feed raid bosses.

2. Warrior

Soldier or heavy armor profession, the second profession along with necromancer to have the highest health in the game. Warrior has a good balance of sustain and condition cleansing or resistance. If you enjoy seeing high damage numbers, warrior is for you.

In fractals and raids, berserker is the specializations that most warriors play, but for open world PvE play either core warrior or spellbreaker with greatsword (cleave damage and mobility) and axe/axe (high AoE cleave damage).

3. Ranger

Adventurer or medium armor profession. Ranger has the best ranged combat via longbows. If you're the sort of person who loves having pets, then ranger is for you. There are many types of pets you can use as ranger, but if you're having difficulties with choosing a starter pet, do yourself a favor and always go with the feline pets like jungle stalker.

Felines are glass cannon pets: they deal lots of damage, but have weak sustain. You don't need to worry about this as power builds dominate open world PvE, whether it's core longbow ranger or soulbeast. Druid on the other hand is one of the best support builds for PvE and it's one of the reason why most, if not all rangers play druid in fractals and raids. While it does have healing capabilities, it's mostly played for the offensive buffs like might, fury etc.

[gateless gate.8406]

I would recommend guardian (self-healing paladin), necromancer (controls several undead pets), or ranger (archer with a pet) for beginners. They will allow you to explore and learn the game at a nice pace without too much frustration.

[TwiceCookedPorkins.8940]

So everyone puts Necro in their recommendations for a first class. I'll say this: do it, but don't run a minion build (or at least not an exclusively minion build). Minion builds are strong, but they're boooooooring. And Necros have a ton of awesome, fun abilities to play with. (It's a bit different when you get Reaper but that won't be for a while.)

[SoulSin.5682]

There is no really "hard build" or "easy build".Even tough the "Necro, Warrior, Ranger" combo offer the easiest start for people that lack in game knowledge, you can still play a "harder class" like thief just by spamming Pistol #5

In the end, all 9 classes of GW2 offers different ways to interact with the game. Its better to list then instead of "difficulty".

Also, don't worry about Raids and PvP/WvW yet. You are most likely not gonna use your first character for that.Grinding alts on GW2 is a easy job, where some people walk around with so many Tome of Knowledge that they could grind many chars to 80 instantly. You don't need to worry about a "class for high end content" right now.

PS: "Hitting Hard", "Being tanky", etc matters little on Gw2. Anyone with Power/Precision/Ferocity equipment will hit hard. Same guy for Tanky setups.For grinding tough, anything that raises your damage is a bonus.

Now, how do classes play:Writing from the Head:

Warrior:High sustain class that can use any physical type weapon of the game. Dual wield pretty much anything (axes, sword, maces) and can freely combine those as well.Mechanics is "adrenaline" where by fighting for some time you fill your "adrenaline" bar to use special skills. Then fight more to fill it again and spam more skills!Its tanky, hits hard, have a wide array of skills to do mostly anything. Great starting class.

Ranger:Class with plentiful of ranged choices, with some pretty good mellee as well, that collaborates with a Pet.You can carry up to two pets in battle and can change from a pool of many others outside combat. They can help you with boons, dealing damage and even tank for you.One fun minigame for Rangers is that they need to go all around the world to "recruit" their pets. After that you can just change freely.

NecromancerClass with death like mechanics that specializes in:

• Summoning Minions
• Leeching life
• "Fear" and "Chill" crowd control
• Having a special transformation called "Shroud" that changes your abilitys on the fly.Alas, summoning an army of minions is an easy way to enjoy Necromancer. But if you like to spam tons of AoEs in the foot of your enemys that also works as well.

Guardian:Your "Paladin" class that revolves around holy/Burn themed skills.In practice, its a Damage/Support class that can fight and give support to allies at the same time. People get healed simple by staying around you.Your weapons also are a mix between damage, healing and Buffs. Just as well your utility skills.

EngineerFirst of two classes for people that enjoy pressing a lot of buttons.Engies mechanic is that they get an additional skills effect (on F1,F2,F3,F4) depending on what utility skills they have. They also get bundled skills that change your 1~5 for a limited time, changing your gameplay on the fly. They also build and place turrets of different effects that deal damage, CC and even heal you.A mixed kit with a lot of choices describes Engineers very well.

ElementalistSecond class for people that enjoys pressing a lot of buttons.Basically you carry one weapon with 5 skills. Than Eles have 4 elements that change all your weapon skills for said element.Wich means that, for the base Ele class, one single weapon has 20 different skills to use on the fly. And I am not even taking in consideration your utility skill slots yet.They can also summon elemental weapons for even more skills!The closest of your common "mage class", you have weapons and skills for both ranged and mellee combat skill for any mage player to enjoy.

RevenantHearth of Thorns expansion exclusive class.Mist Warriors that invoke the spirit of legendary figures to change their gameplay on combat.They also use a "energy" based system where you need to control the amount of energy you spent on your skills.Besides carrying weapons like other classes, Revenant utility skills and elite changed based on the legendary figure they are attuned to. So in practice you can carry up to 10 weapons skills on 2 weapons and 10 utility skills on 2 legendary figures. Pretty diversed gameplay, as each Legendary figures can change your role completely.

ThiefThieves do not share the "cooldown" mechnaic of other classes. They have a global resource called Initiative shared by all their weapon skills. This means that meanwhile you can't spam skills mindlessy, you can use the same skill 2~4 times in a row if you so wish.Boast the highest mobility of the game with a wide array of teleport (shadowstep) and stealth skills. No one but yourself tell where you can and can't walk.Have a diverse set of weapons where different weapon combinations can lead to a few extra different skills. As well as stealth-only special interactions.

MesmerPretty unique class compared to other games, GW2 Mesmer class specializes in summoning Illusions, either clones of phantasms, to fight. Gameplay revolves as summoning illusions and using then as resources for your own skills, then summoning even more illusions and repeating the cycle.Class also specializes in "active defenses", from dodges, invulnerability frames and stunning/interrupt enemys. A squishy class where your survival is at your finger tips.

Lastly, if you purchase expansions, at lvl 80 you can unlock specializations that may improve or even change your class completely.But that's another story for once you reach max level.

[ScottBroChill.3254]

When you picture yourself killing things, how do you go about it?

[Veluna.7316]

@"SoulSin.5682" said:Also, don't worry about Raids and PvP/WvW yet. You are most likely not gonna use your first character for that.Grinding alts on GW2 is a easy job, where some people walk around with so many Tome of Knowledge that they could grind many chars to 80 instantly. You don't need to worry about a "class for high end content" right now.I would disagree with this idea. Grinding a lv80 character from a fresh account will not be bursting with the free +1 lv ups even after the first lv1-80 character. After making one character and doing it all over again on another that went on to do all the story content I came out with about ~20 free +1 lv ups. This was picking them up without really paying attention to where they came from.

Grinding a character takes a lot of time particularly if you are not maximizing stuff like the best exp resources, maximizing a new classes damage output, and possibly having or not having mounts such as Springer and Raptor to save time on traveling between things. First character sort of matters, but at the same time its hard to get an idea of what a character is like until you can pretty much unlock all of there utility skills and 3 specialization lines along with the elite lines and actually try out the class and abilities yourself.

[Xxnecroxx.4039]

Don't pick necro unless you like being the but end of all jokes and hitting enemies with the power of a wet noodle and being disappointed time and time again when the balance patch every season comes around just to NERF YOU SOME MORE

[Opopanax.1803]

I think it is a great idea to PLAN on having more than one class at 80 eventually.
Some good ones that have lots of options at end game in Raiding, Open world PVE, WVW, and PVP are:

1. Guardian
2. Mesmer
3. Ranger

All of these have a lot of good things about them, the guardian and ranger being far easier than mesmer.

Plan around with the classes and see what you like the most!