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Which Profession(s) Have the Most Build Diversity and Flexibility?


Jaykay.9641

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Hi Everyone.

Been playing GW2 for about a year now after a 5 year hiatus. Started playing again just at the start of the Icebrood Saga. Mainly PvP/WvW player but do enjoy the open world content as well. Not really in to raids/fractals, but I'd still like some discussion on it.

One of the things I really enjoy about Guild Wars 2 is the sheer amount of horizontal progression this game offers. It's one of the few games where you can truly make your profession and build your own. There are so many options for customization from your profession, specializations, traits, weapons, sigils, runes, food, etc. I love it all. For the past year, I've been playing mainly Revenant with some sprinkles of Guardian and Engineer. These three have some variety in regards to playstyle and roll, but I'm growing stale of the same meta weapons and trait lines for most of these professions.

With that said, I'm wondering which profession or professions have the most build options, customization, and flexibility. I'm looking for input on other professions that can fill multiple roles, have the most build diversity, have great trait lines, have nice weapon options, and branch off in different playtyles.

If anyone has input, I'd love to hear your response.

Thanks!

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For WVW: Guardian, Engineer, Elementalist, Necro.

  • Guardian can run as support FB (the highest stability output) , condi "offheal" FB, power DH/core guard ... stability is pivotal
  • Engineer can run as holo DPS or scrapper support / DPS. As long as superspeed and bulk cleanses are relevant it is a solid option. Caveat: if you run support scrapper you won't get many tagged enemies while in med kit
  • Elementalist can run as power DPS weaver, support tempest , or condi "offheal" tempest ... the existence of elementalist in the meta is iffy at times but the un-strippable nature of auras remains strong and Soothing Mist affects 10+ people
  • Necro can run as power DPS reaper if people can deal with shroud well, or scourge as a corrupt source (both power and condi variant as well as hybrid offheals in the form of barrier) --- due to boon corrupt interactions with Purity of Purpose on scrappers, it requires wells to be dropped in a well timed manner

Honorable mentions:

  • Warrior can run as support spellbreaker (CC/boonrip) or DPS ... part of the original GWEN comp
  • Revenant (herald) is typically run as power DPS with boon output (including stability via Inspiring Reinforcement), but sometimes some people run it as a condi rev with boon rip (more common in roaming) --- it is important to note that the boon interval is 3s which is why it remains relevant even in a corrupt-heavy or boon rip heavy environment
  • Mesmer ... Chrono is rarely run as DPS , usually as boon rip and roaming is mostly core shatter or core condi (mirage is one dodge so needs energy sigils)

Probably not a good idea:

  • Ranger is mostly run as power DPS with immob (soulbeast) unless people are roaming (insert lone ranger memes)
  • Thief is almost always power DPS with a staff , there's some fringe roaming psitol condi thieves
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You may already be using some the best options available. Broadly speaking, I'd say the professions that have versatility in builds would be Guardian, Revenant, Ranger, Engineer, and the three scholar professions. In a PvP/WvW context, a lot of the PvE versatility of mesmers and rangers doesn't really apply. If you're looking for a range of weapon options, elementalist is somewhat limited in that regard. Necromancer doesn't get a lot of demand in high-end instanced PvE, but it does fairly well in sPvP, open world PvE, and I think in WvW, and has a range of weapon options - that's probably the best option after what you already have.

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I’ve played all 9 professions and kept swapping between them until I hit engineer and now exclusively play engi in open world/meta events, pvp, wvw, and fractals/raids.

Wvw: mentioned above but holo for roaming (or flamethrower scrapper for memes and plenty others), flamethrower/bomb scrapper for Zerg dps or support scrapper for Zerg.

Open world/meta: holo or scrapper. Holo more engaging, scrapper for laziness.

Pvp: plenty of builds here, again holo or scrapper mainly.

Fractals/raids: power holo for most but also decent condi holo (although a lot more effort than say a CFB). I play cholo for CM100 then power for rest. I also have legendary armor so very easy to swap stats/runes.

All in all, guardian has the most meta and flexible builds but since you mentioned engi, figured I’d comment on that since I main it. Most builds can be picked from metabattle, snow crows or discretize and tweaked as you want.

Good luck!

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Are you looking for "meta" flexibility or general flexibility? And in which gamemode?

Objectively, half, if not all, the professions are played rigidly by the playerbase ignoring large part of their potential in favor of builds that are in line with what have been determined to be the "most effective tactic available" (or meta) and gameplay prejudice. The truth is that all professions can build themselve into a large variety of roles but not all are equally effective (or answer properly to the need defined by the players).

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Blue class obviously.

-WvW HB Support (god tier, there is, or should be one for every 5 players in a squad)-PvE HB Support (god tier, literally the best support atm)-Power DPS DH (still good on benchmark raid runs)-Condi Fireguard (god tier dps on CMs + T4s, its even the only condi class that performs insanely good on cm99 and cm98)-Quickness + Condi Firebrand (really good with some compositions)

HB is the only viable support that can tank in raids besides chrono.WvW Core burn guard was considered a silly efficient build against large zergs (not sure if nerfed)

Only thing a guardian can't do is give alacrity.

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Guardian, because it has 3+ meta/off meta builds in all areas of the game, and all specs are utilized. Pretty sure it's the only class that has 1 - 2 meta builds per area of the game for each spec and not just for one or two. The only exception being roaming in WvW because Guard is a mediocre roamer, but Dragonhunter and core are both at least decent.

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Thief has like one build (power staff berserkers), but I really like the flexibility of the build because I'm often changing my offhand weapon, traits or skills to suit the situation (generally to provide ranged damage or utility like stealth, cc, projectile blocks, shadowstep, spammable blast finishers, shadow portal and cc).

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  • 1 month later...

@Jaykay.9641 said:Hi Everyone.

Been playing GW2 for about a year now after a 5 year hiatus. Started playing again just at the start of the Icebrood Saga. Mainly PvP/WvW player but do enjoy the open world content as well. Not really in to raids/fractals, but I'd still like some discussion on it.

One of the things I really enjoy about Guild Wars 2 is the sheer amount of horizontal progression this game offers. It's one of the few games where you can truly make your profession and build your own. There are so many options for customization from your profession, specializations, traits, weapons, sigils, runes, food, etc. I love it all. For the past year, I've been playing mainly Revenant with some sprinkles of Guardian and Engineer. These three have some variety in regards to playstyle and roll, but I'm growing stale of the same meta weapons and trait lines for most of these professions.

With that said, I'm wondering which profession or professions have the most build options, customization, and flexibility. I'm looking for input on other professions that can fill multiple roles, have the most build diversity, have great trait lines, have nice weapon options, and branch off in different playtyles.

If anyone has input, I'd love to hear your response.

Thanks!

If you want to use it for PvE content, mesmer is the way, can support, tank power dps and condition dps, all of them (except condi) are super in meta.

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Thief is a counter example. There are many fun and very different playstyle even amongst the melee or range options themselves. You can tweak your traits and gears to make almost every style playable, but many won't really be that effective in many circumstances or will have wide open flaws, such as an inability to engage certain types of mobs/situations, or although playable your damage will drop significantly by anywhere from 10 to even 80% of meta builds.

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@"Shaogin.2679" said:No class in the game has more build diversity than Guardian. You can play something new, but once you get used to playing that new class, you'll just run into the same issue again.

Used to be that way, but at the moment Guardian is at a very bad place in PvP: FB is just bad, core is weak and DH runs a PvE build which only works vs bots and A.I. level players. Otherwise yeah, Guardians are fantastic both at PvE and in WvW zergs. I would say that currently Revs have better variety in the sense of "different builds which pwerform great at every game mode".

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@Buran.3796 said:

@"Shaogin.2679" said:No class in the game has more build diversity than Guardian. You can play something new, but once you get used to playing that new class, you'll just run into the same issue again.

Used to be that way, but at the moment Guardian is at a very bad place in PvP: FB is just bad, core is weak and DH runs a PvE build which only works vs bots and A.I. level players. Otherwise yeah, Guardians are fantastic both at PvE and in WvW zergs. I would say that currently Revs have better variety in the sense of "different builds which pwerform great at every game mode".

Burn DH is still a meta level PvP class that spawns plenty of complaint threads in these forums. What is even more significant, is that no matter how much Guardian is nerfed, some new build always claws its way back up to being meta. Revs are great too, sure, but they have no viable power dps build for PvE content. Currently, they are forced to play boon support. Even their condi build pales in comparison to the Firebrand condi build, which is the only meta condi build in existence for fractals due to how bursty it is.

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@Shaogin.2679 said:

Burn DH is still a meta level PvP class that spawns plenty of complaint threads in these forums. What is even more significant, is that no matter how much Guardian is nerfed, some new build always claws its way back up to being meta. Revs are great too, sure, but they have no viable power dps build for PvE content. Currently, they are forced to play boon support. Even their condi build pales in comparison to the Firebrand condi build, which is the only meta condi build in existence for fractals due to how bursty it is.

Burn DH trapper is an AoE burst one-trick-pony build which farms bad players, but has very little defense (cleanses, stunbreaks, stability... ) in order to be bursty. I don't think they are meta at all (at high level play), is just that is popular because the other Guardian builds (specially Firebrands) are at so poor state in PvP that almost every Guardian player choses to run that glass cannon in order to get nukes. In teamfights is easily countered by stability and/or condi transfers.

Albeit not meta, power Renegade works great at PvE (less damage than condi but way larger sustain). I'll conceed that burn FB are the kings of burst (and power DH amongst the kings of power burst), but as a player which former mained a Guardian I dislike the lack of continuity between what works (for a Guardian) in PvE and what works in WvW and PvP.

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