Help Me Decide

So I'm getting excited about the upcoming launch and have been playing around with what profession to go with.  (Disclaimer: I haven't done beta, didn't have the time or the money and didn't want to spoil the nerdvana the takes place when I enter the game fresh :) )

In the past the main professions that  I've played have been: Hunters/Shaman(WoW), Bright Wizard and White Lion (WAR) with my main in GW being Mesmer/Monk.  The classes I'm looking at for GW2 atm are:

Mesmer, Ranger and possibly even Warrior or Thief in that order.  I've ruled out Necro, Ele, Eng and Guardian just for my own preferences.  (Now I know that there will be some altitis but I'm really really really going to try and narrow it down to 2 hopefully even just 1 this game) 

Of the Mesmer, Ranger, Warrior or Thief which one are you most looking foward to play and why?  

I've always enjoyed crowd control and managing the field of battle, but  I don't want to be pigeon holed as simply support and want to be able to contribute to the group as a whole.  Which is why I'm still leaning heavily as a mesmer to start with.

PS - Do we have a pole up anywhere on the site that tells what profession most people will be starting wtih?  If not I think that might be kinda of cool on the big picture sort of scale.

Anyway, share your thoughts and enthusiasm for GW2!

Tserash (soon to be known as something else once GW2 launches!)

After reading your post, the image that comes my mind almost immediately is you, at a lottery draw with all the names of GW2 professions in that rotating ball thing, eagerly awaiting the results. :P Sorry, I'm a little burned out from paperwork at work. For me I'm going with warrior because besides the Guardian, I feel I can make the Warrior pretty awesome at being tanky. And then if I completely fail at that or just don't enjoy it, well offensive warriors are super easy to make and I can have fun with that instead. Plus as a tanky warrior I can build him to be a paladin/warrior priest of sorts and just be a royal pain the backside to kill. Not completely unlike the character I played in Warhammer. :P I haven't played the other there that you mention so I really can't make any good comments for those.

» Edited on: 2012-08-08 15:30:16

Warrior and Ranger seem to be the most popular choices so far. Warrior has a ton of weapons to use and much diversity between them. The Ranger has the best support role discovered so far with the warhorn and the spirits. The Mesmer is an interesting class, very trickster and widespread confusion. The Thief hits fast and hard, but the unique initiative mechanic makes them need to rest between fights a bit more than normal.

My only thing against the warrior was that he had too many weapons to learn how to use and then once I learned the skills it was too hard to just pick a main and swap weapon set. I felt like I had to have a whole bag spot devoted to weapons. As for the ranger if you played MM build with little use of your pet except as a wet paper bag then the ranger is for you. The pets tend to die very quickly, even the bear, so they are more like a DD with some extra skills then an actual member of your party. I have always felt that your pet is like family in a ranger (i.e Drizzit) or White Lion class it seems less so in this game. Dont get me wrong my third char is a norn ranger but I had originally envisioned him as my main until I played him in the BWE's. The thief was fun and I am not sure as to why people complain about the resource management as there are traits to help. If you liked the E resource in wow for a rogue then you will reasonably enjoy the thief. Except stealth is very limited.

Did anyone give the mesmer a good run through?

I played one to around 14. I honestly can't say much about it. It's one of those things you have to try for yourself to really understand. I played with dual swords focusing on creating illusions and shattering them while avoiding damage as much as possible. It seemed to work well, but I didn't try much else. The greatsword was pretty flashy but not very effective at anything, or at least I wasn't with it. I also didn't try PVP with them at all. I imagine the illusions and clones would be extremely effective against other players, especially if you traited a bit to blur the line between them and yourself.

» Edited on: 2012-08-08 19:26:48

I liked the Mesmer! It was the easiest for me to solo play and was quite unique!

Of those four, I am looking forward to Warrior the most. Rifle was great in the BWE's. I like the fact that all classes have melee and ranged options. Warriors can be good in a support role as well with their shouts depending on how you trait. I didn't get into that too much - I was having too much fun with rifle. That said, I'm rolling engineer as my main at launch. I tried all the classes through a few levels and some to their teens and I liked how the engineer played the most.

The mesmer looked like a pretty interesting class, and I was considering playing one until I started investigating the thief more. Of course, I haven't played any of the BWE so all my info is secondhand from forums and videos. Regardless, I tend toward characters with a lot of tricks over those that are necessarily powerful anyway, and it seemed that mesmers and thieves had that going for them. The ranger, though, didn't look particularly interesting to me really.

First off, I tend to like a class because of the promise of what it can do visually AND I lean heavily towards magic casters. I like all the pretty spell effects and how they are presented so, ultimately, it's the special effects of the skills I'll have access to that suck me in. That said, going in to the first BWE I had my heart set on a mesmer as my main until I saw the spells of and tried out, the elementalist. With the mesmer, I just couldn't understand how to get the illusions or clones to work and decided I'd make a mesmer but it would probably be pushed back to third or fourth alt. During BWE3 I played around with the mesmer a lot more and found that they were much improved (or I just understood the concept better). Now I can follow my illusions and have a better idea of when to shatter them, or when to pop a clone. I can't quite put my finger on what seemed better about the mesmer, it was just... everything! My weapon of choice was the great sword and I discovered in BWE3 that the farther away I was from the bad guy the more damage the greatsword did. That was something I didn't know during my first try with the mesmer/greatsword. Understanding this may have helped me like the mesmer more the second time around. The other class I'll be working is the thief. I've always liked the idea of being able to stealth about and cause havoc but, again, visuals pull me in and the thief was no exception. Once I tried dagger/dagger and slotted the utility skill Scorpion Wire, well, I was in love. I'd use the wire to pull the enemy to me (they land on the ground and take a second or so to get up), use skill Death Blossom (you leap/spin over the enemys head while slicing and dicing), use it again and then finish them off with Heartseeker. I was fighting alone at a centaur camp armed only with my daggers and a bow. I'd drop caltrops at the choke point, shoot a few aoe poison arrows, switch to d/d, pull them with the wire and viola! NEXT!! I held that camp by myself for quite a few waves. It was a blast! I tried a warrior out as well and didn't like it at all until I got a bow and picked up a couple of axes. Yeah, now we're talking... lol Of course each profession has multiple bags of tricks to discover and I think you'd cheat yourself by not trying out each one as you can. P.S. Both the thief and mesmer have taken second place in my character line-up. Myk

» Edited on: 2012-08-09 04:04:24

I've managed to play around a little with several of the classes managing to be in just about every BWE and stress test I could get my hands on. I haven't gone far with a mesmer at all though I like the idea, I had issues working it into my play style. They definitely have worked on improving the class so I know BWE3 was far better than the first. Most classes seemed better in the third weekend. So I am going to have Briseadh as a Norn Guardian and seriously thinking of an Asuran thief, which I got to try out BWE3. And others due to being an altaholic, but those two will be my primaries. BTW, the awesome thing with this game is how you don't get stuck in a particular role and have the ability to do a nicely rounded set of things. The classes seem more like different flavors instead of unique items and within each class you can chose weapons, skills and traits to adjust it all the more to your liking. They definitely killed the holy trinity of most MMOs with this game.

I guess my great hangup with going either mesmer or ranger is the thought of using pets again. I conjure up all sorts of WoW hunter and WAR WL nightmares of pets and funky AI. How were the pets/minions in GW2?

Tserash, watch Buildcast 1 from Gamebreaker.com. Taugrim evaluates a mesmer build that basically uses the mesmer illusions as disposable but allows the mesmer to make his opponents drop target. Could be something that you'd like because you really don't worry about your pets. Pop them and let them die, but they serve a really good purpose. Let me dig up a link. Here Taugrim in general has been well known for very good builds throughout mmo games so I'd keep on eye on his own webpage before and after launch. A lot of his tips for warrior builds have made their way as alterations of my own planned tank build.

» Edited on: 2012-08-10 10:08:03

I have played a bit with all classes in the beta weekends, and being an altaholic I find I liked them all. The way Guild Wars 2 plays is different from most of the MMO's I have ever played before (having not played Guild Wars). I loved the Mesmer, going with the disposable illusions build. I found it to be a very survivable build in the lower lvls because even if I did go down I was able to pop 2 more clones that normally got me back up. I think I played with the staff and switching into something and tourch. But I found it fun at the sametime. The Ranger I started of playing, though it worked and I had little problems with my pet (had the naked bear, and the northern bear like thing). I found that it didn't fit my play style as well for a ranged class. I love warriors and will always play one so not much help there. As for the thief they played the way I thought a thief would but be warned they are made imo to jump in and out of fighting. That is why I think alot of ppl thought they were really squishy, the best way I found to play them was double dagger up close and them dodge way and double pistol and a lot of movement. That again is my play style and thats what it really comes done to. Each class will play differently to different ppl based on how they like to play, and what weapons they play with. My best advice would be to play around a little bit with classes and then pick the one that feels the best to you. :) Hope that helps a little bit.

PS: Charr Rule! LOL

I'm looking at this as a clone condition build http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.8.3.7.20.0.1.0.0.0.180.196.199.184.205.4.4.1.0.0.0.546.0.0.559.560.0.576.0.0.588.595.0.0.15.25.10.20 Tell me what you think.

I like that type of build. One small issue which is not your fault - the talents have changed so all of these talent builders are now wrong. The Dueling 15 point talent is now the "Illusions inflict bleed on critical hit" and the "create a clone when you dodge" is now a 2nd tier talent you have to explicitly choose. So if you want the clone on dodge trait, you have to dump 20 points into the Dueling line. I will probably do something like this, running staff & greatsword (as good as the sword is, I much prefer a purely ranged build): http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgQQNAW8alwziq3UzhGaNJx5DRHlCs7dSFUdZG4u2A or to put it another way: 10(III)/25(II,VI)/0/15(V)/20(III,X) With this you get: - illusions inflicting more damage - illusions have fury - clone on dodge - phantasms have 20% more health - 3% more damage per illusion and 20% faster recharge ... in addition to all of the auto traits you pick up Signet of Illusions give them even more health, meaning they'll last a good long while. Null Field and Disenchanter get rid of conditions You can summon your phantasms pretty often (12 seconds for a Warlock? 14 seconds for a Berserker? I'll take that).

» Edited on: 2012-08-23 19:54:37

» Edited on: 2012-08-23 19:55:02

» Edited on: 2012-08-23 19:57:35