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Most Strategic Profession
zonzai
Member Posts: 358
I'm just curious. I played GW1 and there was a lot of strategy in having 160+ skills to choose from and build characters with. But I'm getting really bored with GW2 PvE. There's not much strategy to my warrior or elementalist. I can pretty much just mash buttons and defeat 99% of the PvE game content. Is there a class that allows you to have a variety of strategies to deploy? Is there a way for me to be entertained by the strategy portion of this game? I haven't found it yet.
Please don't turn this into a discussion about how much strategy GW2 has, how strategic PvP is, or the merrits of the GW2 system. I'm not complaining and I don't care if you like GW2 better, didn't like GW1 or anything else. I just want to know what does have strategy.
Thanks in advance for the help.
-EDIT 1- For clarity, when I say that the warrior and elementalist are not strategic enough for me, I mean in terms of their strategy of build. I can kite and swap attunements/weapons already. It's a different type of strategy so please quit talking about how strategic attunement/weapon swapping is. It's irrelevant.
-EDIT 2- Since posting this I have been playing an engineer. I will play it until I get to a point where I can see how much build strategy is involved. Thanks for all of the great posts that lead me to try the engineer.
Comments
Engineer allows for a great deal of strategy from setting up combo fields that you can use even while solo to knowing which kit to use.
They don't have 2 weapon sets like other classes, what they get instead are utility skills that allow you to completely change your play style. Tool Kit is a melee kit that has pretty good damage and some stuns as well as a pretty awsome shield. Flame Thrower is a mid ranged Condition damage weapon that has a variety of strategic options. Elixer gun also offers a completely different style of play. Bomb kit turns you into a kiting machine. I like having fun with turrets in sPvP. Supply Crate + Rocket turret + Flame Turret + Net Turret + Healing Turret = one frantic group trying to hold a control point while I mess with them dropping this all in on them at once muah haa haa haa.
In any case, if your looking for the strategic side of PvE go to the dungeons.
I agree. Engineer by far.
you could also try a mesmer - as it actual require some finesse to use the different illusions and phantasm to their fullest potential. But just like the engineer there is a setup time where you want to shape the encounter into something favorable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDpEbcBoWkA while this video looks like button mashing- it also require some skill to do it right. And the variation in playstyle and setup that is possible when a mesmer moves from a shatter fokused build as in the video to an phantasm build through a "on kill build" is actual quite huge.
Alot of it is actual also about all the Mesmers utility skills are quite strategic in nature, and change the setup in an encounter alot
And finaly the focus skill 4 temporal curtain is by far the skill with most varied uses, that anyone can use quite some time to master.
I think one thing to remember when playing engineer is there is quite a bit of difference between using pistol vs using rifle.
Rifle has more combo finisher options, however it also rely on kite more since you are less tanky.
Pistol is quite tanky because of confusion shots, but only has 1 type of combo finisher by default (unless you take shields).
Its also very capable AoE healer, supporter.
I miss DAoC
Question:
You tried a double dagger elementalist yet?
It's not a easy combo for sure since you do quite a few melee ranged strikes that can end up to your own death pretty fast if not played properly and is a challenging combo that makes you to a battle mage instead of the supportive/buff/debuff/damage based staff or other combos with a scepter/focus or scepter/knife.
As far as I heard warriors is quite fun for many people because they can use the most weapons which give them a huge pool of skills and combos to select from.
Other than that I agree that the engineer is one of the more difficult and strategic classes to play.
It depends on your supportive skills and how you use them though.
Good luck!
Elementalist, Mesmer, Guardian and Engineer is one of the most Strategic depedning on playstyle.
1. Elementalist
2. Mesmer
3. Guardian
4. Engineer
5. Necromancer
6. Warrior
7. Thief
8. Ranger
That's what I like about my mesmer.
It's powerful, versatile yet can die easily if you don't pay attention.
I use greatsword and sword/pistol focused on melee but with mastery even in dungeons specially the Hotw one all the team died like 2-5 times (Only 1 died 5 times a noob) I didn't die once. I also remember while leveling there was some event with a ot of risens and we were like 10-20 people when suddenly they were dying one after another and I was left alone vs the lot of them holding them own downing them slowly while reinforcement arrived.
There's always something like this when playing my mesmer which keeps me from trying a new class.
Plus mesmers have a good variety of utility skills that can aid vs different types of enemies.
Feedback makes a barrier around an enemy and ANY enemy that uses projetiles attack will get the attack reflected back for 6 seconds.
Blink helps a lot vs aoe spam bosses.
Portal helps people in puzzles/traps.
A phantom that removes boons from enemies and removes debuffs from your team.
A phantom that takes half the damage you sustain till it's alive.
An aoe that leaves a barrier on the area that removes boons of enemies and also removing debuffs from the team in the area.
An aoe haste skill that lasts 10 seconds for anyone in the area casted.
And more.
Engineer definitely - I can't play any other profs (which is both good and bad)
How you can say an elementalist is NOT strategic is beyond me. WTF and how are you playing it? That's a rhetorical question, as I don't really care, but elementalists are indeed strategic. But if you want to think that....who can change your mind? Doesn't matter to me.
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you ele is IMHO proably the most strategic just for the sake of needing to juggle the 4 elements to really be effective.. That on top of how damn squishy they are even with heavy toughness spec you have to be on your toes constantly moving, CCing, and dodging. But much of it in any class comes down to traits/utility skills and how you have your character setup
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I've played all classes at least some (I have 8 slots
) and I have to agree that the ele is the most strategic although all the classes have quite a bit of variety depending on traits, skills and weapon choices.
It's the 20 skils per weapon set (5 X 4 alignments) you need to manage to play it well that makes the ele different. I'd put the engineer a close second because of all the belt and kit options.
Guardians (my level 80) Warriors and Rangers by contrast have the simplest game play.
Thieves are strategic in PVP mostly due to needing to pick your fights carefully--especially with an assasin all-out damage build.
I'd put mesmer and necro in the middle.
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i also have all 8 and would have to say ele.
playing an ele is easy, but playing a good ele isn't.
I've been playing a necro at 80 for quite a while now as a dagger/focus and staff power build. Still finding little nuances here and there. Managing death shroud normally isnt a big deal but there's several different ways of using it that are all suitable in different situations. Knowing when to switch to your staff is a fair bit more nuanced than "My stuff is on cooldown so lets weapon switch" too.
You have a fair bit of control with dagger/focus (dagger 3 immobilize, focus 5 chill) and death shroud (fear, chill) and staff (more chill, condition manipulation) along with good survivability in a build that has a lot of toughness. I do all power/prec/toughness and it drags fights out enough that enemy players are taken out of their comfort zones when their first batch of cooldowns aren't enough to wrap the fight up.
!!SMALL WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!!
Played all classes, did alot of wvw and pve.. but also quite a bit of tournaments. Atm i yust started doing real spvp on my main (finally managed to choose :P ) and already glory rank 24 because of testing -_-
elementalist is the most strategic, slightly feeling weak atm (more the fact that even in glass cannon, even warriors do more dmg.. defensewise elementalist is fine (reason people started experimentating with defensive staff builds etc.) requires lot of skill to master. Anyone can make suicide jumps at enemies.. but the real masters manage to kill people before they see you and once they see you, your already gone again)
ranger is most effective if you like spamming 1 button and stacking 25 stacks of bleeds in 3 seconds
thief is way to easy to play, but tbh i got quite annoyed by the fact that you can kill people in a matter of seconds, but you cant survive for more then 5 seconds when targetted
necromancer is nice, with a good build (which people usually dont have with necro so they whine) you can get quite nice conditiondmg, even though i feel like an pet focussed build works better, since an targetted necromancer usually is dead meat
engineer... well.. kinda balanced... does require more strategic planning then other professions (apart from elementalist) .. at least.. if you want to be strong. (i do hate people using grenade/bomb kits... seriously, if you only run after people with bombs or keep missing grenades you dont even deserve to whine about an profession) its not that hard to play once you have a good build. Yust know how to counter every kinda of tactic and done
guardian.. according to alot of people overpowered because of great knockbacks etc... totally not true, yust because those people think they should be able to kill every class with 1 build doesnt mean the guardian has no counterbuilds... learn to build, learn to win
mesmer.. alot of strategics, but once you know them.. its all you ever use. considered overpowered because there are very very few people run with areadmg build. If you run with direct dmg or condition dmg... mesmer will F you up. Considered the most OP class atm, though im not entirely sure if they deserve that title.
warrior .. i did not play my warrior that much, i tried out an hundred blades build (which unless you have some nice stuns, always gets avoided) and an shout heal build (defensive guardian + more heals - the knockbacks).. it seems as if warrior is what people expect from one.. solid, though, sort of 1-way route.. but easier to counter then other proffesions once you have studied them
I myself play an Staff using Elementalist and im doing 100% tournaments and some hot-join in between. Instead of the standard defense/heal builds people tend to go for i made my elementalist to go defense/dodge/power .. i know how to survive on my own against multiple people, but still am able to pack a nice burst and meteor storm gets them on their knees :P
especially combofields are REALLY usefull if you have people who know the game. I and some guildies have learned all the combofield, before a match i trow down lightning field while my thief guildy uses shortbow as blast finisher (1.2 minute of swiftness before start of the match already for everyone). Then later in the game i trow down an lavafont in the middle, using blast finishers we stack up 25 stacks of might for everyone. And then whenever we can guildmembers yust use my combofields to get areahealing, stunning attacks, flaming projectiles... anything
So the strategic part of the proffesions isnt 100% at yourself, but also the people you play with :P
(ALL ABOVE ARE PERSONAL OPINIONS, I DONT NEED TO BE REMEMBERED BY PEOPLE WHO ARENT FEELING THE SAME WAY)
https://ashesofcreation.com/r/Y4U3PQCASUPJ5SED
Forget all those boring rush thru the game professions spsssh, you need a leather clad scout profession.
Engineering, Thief, Ranger (sans the short bow of course) Wanna talk strategy? those are the professions to choose. They have utilities for everything, you gotta pick the right ones, you gotta get the right kits together, you gotta make sure you get the right pet out. It's not just some run around faceroll profession we're talkin about here.
I think the kind of "strategic" between elementalists and engineers are very different.
Elementalist got high base dps, but they got to manage survivability. They don't have to use combos to be effective.
Engineer is even on everything, but they got pretty slow dps. They can survive if they play smart, but HAVE to learn to use combos if they want to do good damage. Lvl 70 onwards will be very difficult if you don't learn to use combos.
Thanks for the great replies everyone.
There is a certain amount of strategy to the elementalist but it is a different sort than the GW1 elementalist (which I played a lot). How you build your character isn't actually that important in the case of the GW2 elementalist (at least not for PvE). Weapon choice is of course much more important than other classes due to only having one weapon. But that's the kind of thing I want to avoid. I want to have to micromanage what skills I take not, simply what weapons I take and when to use which skills, which is mostly what elementalist calls for. Not that it isn't strategic and fun to do so. It's just not enough for me.
I've enjoyed my warrior but he is really the character I will go to when I don't want to have to think. There are times when I get bored with that. But maybe the Guardian will be more interesting if it can provide me a balance between strategy and mindlessnes. I'll give it a shot anyway.
I'll also check out the mesmer since it sounds like skill selection is actually very important. That's one of the main things I miss about GW1 and one of the things that kept me interested in it for so long.
The way GW2's system is setup, each class can be as strategic or as simple as you make them out to be. I know that sounds like a cop-out answer, but take the elementalist as an example:
On the one extreme, you can play elementalist as a condition spammer, practically staying in earth attunement the entire fight, or doing the same with fire. And yes, that would be extremely boring, as you are just using the same couple of skills forever, with very little timing involved.
However on the other extreme, you have arcane heavy elementalists, who build off of the attunement swapping mechanic. This can be a lot more challenging to play, as you have to not only keep an internal clock of various cooldowns, but also guage attunement cooldowns with using various attacks in different orders. The benefits, though, are you can chain lots of buffs together, you can stack some powerful conditions together before applying a heavy-hitting spike attack. Attunement swapping also can give you an insane amount of CC with certain weapon setups. There's a lot of strategy involved w/ that.
Overall, though, the strategy in GW2 is more obvious with certain classes than others, as it's less hidden. Mainly, the Mesmer, Elementalist, and Engineer are the easiest to see this with. All classes have a lot of potential strategy involved, though, but as with GW1 it really depends on your build. If you spec your class to just spam a few skills and have a bunch of passive buffs, then you're class will appear extremely simple. If you spec your class for lots of varied synergies and application, then it will be a lot more complex.
- In addition to what I stated above, the strategy compounds once you get into organized group play. For example, how you setup your class synergies can greatly change how a dungeon run goes. Some combinations even make dungeons insanely easy when used correctly.