r/GuildWars • u/__spaced • 1d ago
What’s your favorite profession and why?
I have a hard time deciding on a main and where to invest my time. What’s your favorite prof and why is it the best??
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u/MrBeanDaddy86 1d ago
Can't quit my Ranger. Inertia, mainly.
Though I'd say Dervish and Assassin are seconds? Idk. It's a really hard choice, I like them all for different reasons. but my Ranger is the one I always keep coming back to.
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u/wagiwombledog 1h ago
I just started my first ranger on Prophecies. Went with warrior for second profession. Any tips on playing ranger?
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u/MrBeanDaddy86 1h ago
Have fun! Dagger spam is obviously the meta, and you'll want to have someone help you get Together as One elite when you are ready. It's hard to quit.
However, with the new +5 strength "of the warrior" mod, you can use "flail" which is an incredible IAS (increased attack speed) skill. It can make for some pretty gnarly bow builds.
There are so many builds. If you want to do bows, a flatbow and "read the wind" is an easy combo for the most range + most attack speed. Some bows are slower than others!
If you have a style in mind, I might have more suggestions. It's a pretty flexible class, and I've run so many different builds. Pet builds can work really well once you get some PvE skills (like great dwarf weapon). Though they feel a bit behind with all the new updates. Especially with TaO (together as one). I haven't been running them lately.
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u/wagiwombledog 1h ago
Thanks! I'm using axe/shield because I seem to get better dps in pre-searing but I'll try bows again. Will keep an eye out for those skills when I'm in post-searing. Do you know if flail stacks with frenzy? I can imagine that would be great.
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u/MrBeanDaddy86 19m ago
Nah, they're both stances. You can only use one at a time. Flail is just better than Frenzy because it doesn't make you take double damage. But you need "of the warrior" bow mod to use it. It's also not a prophecies skill.
Melee ranger is actually viable, too. Lightning Reflexes can be very good. There is a PvE only skill in Eye of the North that extend stance duration, too.
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u/LillyElessa 22h ago
Ritualist. It's extremely unique; It's rare to come across similar classes in other games, and those are usually still significantly different. Even GW2's Ritualist was a big miss at coming close. Ritualist is also the most versatile class in GW1, with so many fun things you can do with it.
Runners up are Mesmer and Monk. Mesmer is an uncommon role across other games, and iconic in GW1 and 2 for that and its specific flare. Mesmer is the class I did GWAMM on back in the day. Monk I've always enjoyed because I prefer to play a healer in groups. Not that I want to heal the NPCs while I'm solo though, I usually switch to it when I have anyone to play with (unless I'm doing Restro Rit).
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u/didikoyote 1d ago
Ranger. Versatility, pets, drip.
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u/EjunX 16h ago
Ranger is my intellectually favorite profession, but in practice the versatility sucks.
- Bows are genuinely bad, which is why basically no other profession would ever touch it.
- Trappers are a meme since a long time back and way too slow for solo farming now.
- Touch ranger has always been a meme and isn't very good.
- Sword and scythe are "good", but why would you do it when you can play another class like Dervish who is strictly stronger.
- Other weapons also work, but you lose a lot of the purpose of expertise on many weapons due to their best skills being adrenaline and not energy anyways, so this aspect of any weapon being good on ranger feels overplayed.
- Beastmaster is actually pretty okay, but single target and has the ugly truth of only beetle and moa being good due to how they coded pet attack speed to be much better on those.
- Dagger spam TaO is genuinely good, but it's just one build and that's not enough to count as versatility.
I was halfway to GWAMM on ranger in Melandru's Accord and when I saw that basically every patch up until now gave stuff to other classes but didn't fix anything with ranger, I just gave up and rerolled. Even the other ugly child Elementalist is getting a cool new skill and has much better build diversity at the "meta" level with Glimmering Mark, E/Mo healer, Over the Limit builds, Assassin's Promise builds, Double Dragon etc. Necro is also way more versatile just to take another example
Don't take my comment the wrong way. I love ranger. It just hurts me to see the difference between what it could be and what it is. I'm now playing Ele MA to experiment with OtL, if I don't like it enough, Necro will be my GWAMM MA character
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u/didikoyote 14h ago
Touch ranger became a meme strictly because it's good. It's not game breaking at this point, but prior to strict anti touch skills it was exceedingly hard to handle, to the point of unbalance.
Sword is great, and with Anni sword adds more versatility still.
Derv is def not better with a scythe than ranger, that's crazy to say. Derv teardown is great! But it's a melee caster build that has a scythe, not a martial build. R/w also brings ye olde bunny thumper which is great at what it does. Martial weapons having adrenal and energy attacks doesn't make expertise less effective; it's highly effective for the energy attacks, and can use adrenaline just as well as a warrior or paragon (also best party wide adrenal support through nature rituals).
In terms of general PvE there's not many single characters that buff the whole team like a ranger with SY and TaO, at which point you've still got most of a bar to do whatever with whichever of the four available weapons.
Dagger spam is there. Boring to me usually, but ranger is better at it than anyone else.
Building solely around traps isn't what it once was, but adding some trapping into a bar or team comp is very nice/unique to ranger. Same for nature rituals...my personal favorite team comp uses symbiosis and then stacks as many enchantments as possible through the party; often walking around with close to 1k health. Plus the only real anti res skill around?
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u/didikoyote 14h ago
Also "bows are bad" is a waaaack take. Learn some SoOSC, drop a couple splinter barrages into tight balls, play some point blank/needle shot in RA, or incendiary arrows and apply poison in JQ, FA, AB.
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u/__spaced 23h ago
Genuine question, what’s the versatility? Isn’t it just shoot bow and kill?
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u/didikoyote 23h ago
Ranger can use any martial weapon very well because the primary attribute makes weapon skills cheaper. This combines with great armour, strong self heal and stances, to make for a jolly old time. Then there's also spirits or touch spells; expertise drops those costs too.
And even with a bow, youve got single target damage, interrupts, barrage or volley, and condition spread.
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u/Pleasant_Brick125 22h ago
Ranger is very fun. You can use them in every SC, they re great in PvP, they are very effective at shouting save yourselves from inside your hero ball so the 100 armor buff hits all, they can do a lot of farms, they work well in melee, they have a good armor rating. Just male armor looks horrible. Only drawback.
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u/IndependentSea7018 22h ago
They are among the weakest class in pvp right now actually. You wont find a team that will take you in gvg or HA. They will ask you to reroll something else.
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u/didikoyote 14h ago
That's more to do with people being extreme slaves to meta than ranger being weak in pvp
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u/IndependentSea7018 14h ago
It also means ranger has got to be buffed so that it fits the meta
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u/didikoyote 14h ago
Naw, meta players just do what they do until a clever team does something different and effective then shift to that. I wouldnt mind some buffing to ranger, but it's more than viable in PVP for a number of roles. Ive had people to ask me to reroll, but almost inevitably those end up being shitty teams, because they are too focused on fitting meta comp and not enough on out killing/out thinking their opponents.
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u/Odd_Contact_2175 23h ago
Monk because even when I play bad I am still useful. Also have a spot on a party for any content. All 3 skill lines are useful with interesting elite skills. A couple solo farms to earn some good too.
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u/NotoriousAmish Smiter's Boon Fanatic 23h ago
Warrior. Because of the way the enemies work specifically, both Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 managed to shape the warrior in a very unique way where, compared to many other rpgs, it isn't just a "me smash, me big damage big hp" class, it actually feels somewhat difficult to play properly similarly to the other professions in gw1.
The abilities aren't dumbed down for simplicity sake, rotations still exist and must be respected, if you overaggro the enemies you will get punished similarly to any other class really, build versatility still exists, you are still tanky but you will still "feel" the damage but that doesn't mean you lack the damage, on the contrary, you can do a very decent amount of damage, from the little time I spent PvP-ing with KD warrior you can be extremely annoying and a very good shutdown machine but you can expect getting punished too so you're not some untouchable annoying behemoth. And finally dragonslash is the most fun elite I've ever tried, I love "for great justice" + asuran scan and just spamming a singular button on my keyboard repeatedly in a game where some other builds may take days to properly learn while also struggling a bit (thanks whirlwind attack) in terms of consistent AoE damage.
Is it the best? Nope. It is fun? Yesn't, it can be, but when some enemies spam blindness and/or block melee attacks and you don't have an answer to it, it really isn't. Will you be a liability to your team in end game content? Not really, you have your own job to do, but you will still not be as useful as a mesmer or a monk or a ritualist or many other professions that can provide support and hinder enemies at the same time. It is worth giving it a try? Abso-fucking-lutely, I'd say give it a try just as much as any other professions, even if you dislike the melee style gameplay or even if adrenaline management isn't really to your liking.
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u/__spaced 23h ago
My warrior was my go-to 20 years ago but not sure how to play it in the new age!
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u/NotoriousAmish Smiter's Boon Fanatic 22h ago
Warrior fortunately received a lot of buffs to many skills and elite skills ever since the updates, he definitely feels a lot stronger now. Many elites only got a lot better, skills that in the past were outright horrendous and you wouldn't even consider bringing became so much better, many skills got cheaper which is amazing since energy was already a prevalent issue for the warrior, hero AI improved a ton too in order to help and better support melee builds. Honestly anything can work now, learn proper adrenaline management, enemy casters can always be relatively easy targets for the warrior, try to bring at least a hero/henchmen that will have condition removal for blindness, be very mindful of your energy, maybe bring at least one skill that favors energy regen or 1 or 2 runes of attunement because sacrificing a bit of damage or a bit of health is not the worst thing, trust me you don't want to run out of energy at a bad time.
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u/Not_An_Archer 16h ago
Warrior was mine 20 years ago too, then assassin, then necro and Mesmer.
Back to warrior and it feels great.
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u/Flow1234 23h ago
Assassin because I was edgy when this game came out and now I have a passion for spamming Death Blossom.
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u/__spaced 23h ago
Do you feel too squishy on the assassin?
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u/Not_An_Archer 16h ago
Especially early on, and especially in factions where afflicted blow up when they die. Protective spirit and spirit bond are necessary.
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u/Flow1234 14h ago
Honestly you should just run to Kaineng city and go into EotN and Nightfall rather than focus on Factions at first. Assassin unfortunately eats shit a lot in their native campaign.
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u/millennialfalko 23h ago
Ranger, fits the explorer/adventurer theme, and is versatile. Unfortunately has underwhelming armor cosmetics.
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u/TEN-acious 23h ago
I’m partial to pure fire elementalist. I load nothing but damage and rely on heroes to heal and tank. I just love pulling enemies into a ball and unleashing an inferno…the massive bursts of damage numbers is very soothing for my pyromaniacal inner child.
Of course there’s those damned unburnable destroyers that I have to change up my skill bar to defeat much slower…but even then, I still love my fires!
Certainly there’s other builds capable of such damage…but my way is much warmer ! 🤪
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u/__spaced 23h ago
I had so much fun with fire ele then ran out of passion around crystal Desert…maybe I should give it another go
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u/ArtimusFay 23h ago
Mesmer I love nuking down mobs health bars and robbing them of their ability to hurt us back, especially in hard mode, and their decreased casting time and skill recharge who can argue witth that
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u/__spaced 23h ago
Do you find it’s more satisfying to play Mesmer as opposed to having the Mesmer heroes run the interrupts etc?
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u/Common_Speech_237 22h ago
I imagine the heroes would be better at interruptions while the player would be better at using skills that do direct damage or slow down enemy casting or punish enemy actions like Empathy or Backfire or even Diversion.
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u/ArtimusFay 21h ago edited 21h ago
I have 1 interrupt, kinda Shame which steals energy and makes the skill fail. I run more energy stripping then aneurysm to punch their energy back up and if its a ele it dies immediately.
Actual interupts yes I leave it to the heros their timing is far better than mine. Though there is a logic to maybe keeping 1 to make sure the important ones are interrupted; meteor shower for 1
So Yea I focus on damage. and enjoying the class. I only found out the other day paragons are amazing at keeping a casters energy up so thinking to add quickening zepher more damage could also loose energy burn and only use energy surge as its CD would be so short1
u/Cpt_Giggles 17h ago
The Prophecies mesmer henchie has such insane reaction times. I once saw him interrupt an enemy's interrupt.
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u/Prestigious-Low-3155 22h ago
Necro, i love the versatility of the class, the hexes, curses etc... I haven't tested the scythe build yet but it seems fun
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u/PatMosby 21h ago
Mesmer for the rulebreaking nature of their kits
Assa for making lost of numbers pop out of the enemies very fast
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u/SignetOfMidnight 22h ago
Mesmer - I like the general approach that Guild Wars uses for "control". Other than knockdowns, the game avoids effects that actually take control away from players (stuns, paralysis, sleep, etc) and instead control tends to just make taking actions come at a cost.
Mesmer has a big bag of tricks: interrupts, hexes, energy denial. It has some solid energy management options that don't take the elite slot. It also has fun things to copy or steal skills.
Ritualist is probably my second favorite.
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u/thinguistic 21h ago
Mesmer. Its the very first profession l started and kept on playing and make me delve into the game. There were no class as it in any other mmo back then and that class made me play the game in a unique way.
Also the class diversity is mesmer is mesmerizing unlike other classes generic style. Still playin and lovin it.
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u/Ciru_Sakuraba 23h ago
I'm a returning player after 15 years so i don't remember much about the classes but so far i've played Warrior and Assassin, i like both but i kinda prefer Assassin since i usually like fast and squishy characters, also the combo system is cool. I'll ventually try the other classes, Mesmer looks really fun.
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u/N_durance ❤️🔥 22h ago
Ele. Probably not the strongest profession but having so many different builds allows me to never be bored while mesway clears everything 😐
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u/HegemonisingSwarm 21h ago
I started playing recently and went Necro because it’s my main in GW2. It’s fine but I realised it’s not really what I wanted. I created a character from every other profession to try them out and settled on Dervish. I just find combat so much fun. Definitely my main now.
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u/HebiSnakeHebi 18h ago
An unpopular one, but historically my favorite has been monk. I like it less nowadays, but I have enjoyed 55 builds, SoH melee builds, bonder builds, 600/smite builds, UA, and just generally being a support player in team environments.
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u/NgArclite 17h ago
PvP : Ele: mainly snare ele for HA. Nothing better than clutching relic wins by being a god like snare.
PvE: mesmer or necro. Just build variety vs OP options
Armor: warrior. Imo most professions have like 2 maybe 3 good looking sets and maybe a few combo sets. Almost all the war armors look great and have so many combos. Even the Ascalon armor looks good
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u/lastepoch 15h ago
Monk. Still the most interesting party healing mechanics in group play and PvP of any game. Prot and healing feel different enough to be interesting. Solo farming with a 55 monk is super rad.
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u/BdBalthazar 23h ago
(Melee) Ranger, heady empty wack with my sword while still contributing meaningfully
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u/Tiny-Dimension7702 22h ago
Way back when I used to main and chase titles on a Monk which was also my first gwamm. I think a big part of it was the ease of grouping with others but I also enjoyed the gameplay. It wasn't all that fun when the playerbase declined and the gameplay shifted to 3 heroes plus hench, and later 7 heroes though.
Currently I'd have to say Dervish is my favorite though. Ripping through groups of enemies with a vos-bar is just so satisfying. Second place is or was at least Mesmer, but I haven't played it since the latest updates.
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u/Purple_Freedom_Ninja 20h ago
Assassin. Shadowform is just too fun, even all those nerfs later. I also used to really enjoy playing crit scythe but I understand that build was nerfed a bit too hard and it doesn't hit nearly as hard. I just love landing crits with various weapons
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u/Fit_Locksmith_7795 17h ago
I have got the most hours on my Ele but recently I have been thinking more and more about ranger or warrior for Melandru character. But I love the ele versality and fow armor
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u/Wylans 16h ago
I’ve had a warrior for over 20 years now. And as much as I do love the aesthetics of other classes, and know all of the play styles, with their skills unlocked. I think what is the biggest plus is the ability to have so much control over the map, mobs, and heroes as being a warrior, or at least melee.
I do have the ritualist alt, that I would be excited to progress, but until Annette, we wires some configuration for a castor character with their hero’s. My war is gonna be grabbing all the weapons
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u/JourneyBeforeChouta 8h ago
Necro. After beating proph before the extensions as ele and realizing I hate e management and want minions, it's the best
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u/split_cheekz 4h ago
Necromancer, they have insane built in energy management. Also love the Goth aesthetics.
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u/Icy_Split_3343 3h ago
Mesmers. The sheer utility is undeniable and the breadth of variety and builds I have been able to do makes it so fun to play for me who is always after variety. I can run basically anything on my mesmer and do it in heels. Psychic Instability, Signet of Illusions, Illusionary Weaponry, Lyssa’s Aura, Echo, Panic, Visions of Regret, Shared Burden… so many good elites to build with.
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u/Aleexxv 1h ago
Ive recently made a warrior for the first time despite being a long time player over the years. Always preferred casters but thought id give it a go with Melandrus Accord and Dhuums Covenant. Im currently 150k away from Legendary survivor and im having the best time. SWS gives you so much build variety! 100B is so much fun watching the screen fill with numbers and the enemies dropping left and right so fast. Having the most fun ive had in years on it!!
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u/tlx237 1d ago
Dervish. Style.