Pros and Cons BWE2 - Professions.

[Deleted]

As the title say, after playing the latest beta event, what are your thoughts on the professions you played?

(Half-ass Template for those who want)

Profession:
Favourite weapon set(attunement if you play elementalist):
Level:
Pros:
-
-
-
Cons:
-
-
-

Your thoughts on the current state of the profession, is something missing? Is the damage output enough? Survivability?
Other:

[Dodrin]

Elementalist-

Level 23, favorite weapon/attunement-staff/fire

Best thing about Elementalist is it is the most diverse class in battle. having four attunements all with different quirks and roles is insanely useful, and quite OP compared to most classes sometimes. Being able to drop all my fire AoEs on the ground, then switch to earth/air for kiting, and water for quick heals is just crazy.

My least favorite thing was that I loved the dagger abilities (especially for water), but 3/4 of the attunements require you to be almost in melee range, which in this game just causes problems, especially as a clothie.


Warrior-

Level 25, favorite weapon set Axe/Axe+Rifle

Best thing about warrior is how much burst they can do, as well as just being in melee and messing stuff up. I also liked how they could switch to ranged and be viable.

Worst thing is that you can't play a warrior 100% melee (in PvE). This to me is upsetting, because I don't roll a warrior class to play ranged 60-70% of the time on hard fights. I really hope Anet tunes bosses better so playing in melee isn't just silly unless you have a defensive setup.


Mesmer-

Level 11, favorite weapon set Staff+Greatsword.

Best thing here is just the crazy control mesmers have. Illusions were cool, but I don't like the fact that they don't do damage anymore. Sort of makes them useless in PvE. but being able to knockback with your greatsword, then switch to staff and place the condition AoE on the ground is great.

Cons are, as I already said, illusions doing no damage, as well as the sword setup for Mesmers being so fun, but so pointless because they get messed up in melee.

[Sentinel]

As a Warrior, you can take hits and dish out damage at a much better rate compared to other professions. Unfortunately, many weapon combos just aren't right for the PvE world (sword/shield comes to mind); plus, it's difficult to kill certain veterans and even champions solo without a Rifle. I kited a spider champion around for 4 1/2 minutes with a Rifle, felt satisfying but I knew if I pulled my greatsword out I was good as dead.

Maybe this is how it's supposed to be in the 25+ zones, though... I mean, they ARE champions... Just doesn't seem right to lock someone out of open world stuff because they are alone, though.

[Deleted]

Profession:
Favourite weapon set: Sceptre/dagger or dagger/dagger-Fire.
Level:27
Pros:
-Very good damage in PvE areas.
-Attunements, swapping about as & when situation needs it (done more healing in this then any game, ever)
-They are fun to play, big time.
Cons:
-Not that great in PvP conditions, especially WvWvW so I levelled Staff just for the extra range, not keen on the spells though with staff.
-Weapon swap, such a pain searching for what I had, then setting to main-off hand etc.
-extremely squishie.
-Lot more spells to level up due to attunements.

[Jovanaar]

Warrior
- Greatsword
- Level 35

Pro's

- Easy to learn
- Dynamic and Fast
- Puts out a lot of damage


Cons

- Melee's are squishy, so you need to pay attention what you're doing. You can make the first 15 levels without much effort, but after that dodging and movement is crucial!
- Too strong (yes the Greatsword Warrior, is way too strong)

[Deleted]

Profession: Ranger
Favourite weapon set: longsword and longbow
Level:21
Pros:
-felt very fluid and fun in most weapon sets. the melee was great, had me jumping all over the place, doing dropkicks realy cool.
-bear. bear was awesome, I think he is the actual tank of GW2
-good survivability with bear, could solo most things that werent OP. quest boss spawning 3 ice elementals right on top of me, frozen, defeated, x30... ragequit cmooon.
Cons:
-Most pets are useless. Die in 2 seconds, run around pulling aggro all over the place when you are trying to heal. bear however, as I may have mentioned, was a brick shithouse.
-The melee has a lot of skills that jump you around, and this part of the game needs work. often you jump to completely wrong place. jumping down off higher elevations simply doesnt work, you jump then fall vertically as if you had walked off normally.
- respawns. ugh. since i am at range, I am usually attacking from where the last mob was, and it spawns on top of me.

Your thoughts on the current state of the profession, is something missing? Is the damage output enough? Survivability?

Needs work definately, there are many bugs in this class. swapping weapons with an enemy targeted causes you to attack it, auto targetting means you often pull extra mobs without wanting to. pets need work for sure. resurrecting them is very slow, and they die almost immediately. the movement on melee skills often didnt work as described, or throws you off the edge of a cliff. Damage output seemed high, a trade off for being a little squishy I guess. Survivability in groups is excellent, or using bear. soloing without a pet seems tough though.

[Ynna]

Stealing the template:

Profession: Guardian
Favourite weapon set: Staff + Anything with a Shield or Staff/Greatsword
Level: 19 (but did mostly sPvP this weekend)
Pros:
- Flexible: You can feasibly do everything you could possible want, and do it more or less okay.
- High Survivability: Unless you specifically make your build terrible, you won't go down easy.
- Nice defensive and control options
- You can spit motherfucking fire.
- Greatsword
- Using conditions on you as an offensive recourse (with the right build)
Cons:
- No decent ranged option.
- The traits are badly designed (and I'm looking at Zeal specifically)
- Scepter and Hammer (unless you take both and then they become kinda okay)
- Low mobility (outside of a couple of builds)
- People complaining about how the Staff is a terrible weapon (it's awesome).

[ssambakd]

Really nice thread; I was looking for something like this
I can't add much to the discussion right now because i haven't played any class past level 4 yet (only got to play a little yesterday), but I'll try next time!

[nelly676]

profession: Engineer
Level: 25

pros-
Great looking armor
Great looking spells.
ALOT of escape / kite abilites
ALOT of different play styles. (can be a potion guy who jut runs around throwing/drinking potions/can be a medic/ can be a guy who throws mines....bombs....a flame thrower....or shoots elixirs from a gun, or a guy with CRAZY fun technology).
TURRETS...SO MANY TURRETS...AWSUM TURRETS
The ability to move in and move out of ranges is flawless. rocket jump in, net shot, shotgun to the face, then launch them away from you.

Cons- Sometimes class feels slightly stayle
Not a very reliable heal, it has multiple effects on it so sometimes u can get unlucky
Gun with shield build does very little damage
Hi high cooldowns.

Overall GREAT GREAT GREAT FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN class. def should give it a try

[apepi]

Profession:Engineer
Favourite weapon set: Dual pistols, Flamethrower
Pros: Holy versatility Batman! You have so much weapon sets you can use, a wrench, elixir shooter thing, flamethrower and more.
You can change how you fight , you don't have to stay the same. If killing this Ranger with dual pistols don't work next time try with a flamethrower.
Cons: Turents are a little clunky
The options can be overwhelming at the start. If you change up to much you will not have the best experience then just sticking to one.

Profession: Necromancer
Favourite weapon set: Staff
Pros:The minions work great, they each have their own niche.
- Having all your minions out all at one time can make other players feel overwhelmed
-I have not a problem with any melee, kiting is easy
-Not only your minions attack and are a meat shield they also have abilities you can use.
-The life force is a little cool mechanic, it has saved me a few times.
Cons: You can not heal your minions
-Some times the minions don't attack the enemy(though using their abilities might fix this

All my feedback is from pvp.

[personn5]

Don't have any higher level insight, most of my time was spent exploring and trying out many different classes

Profession: Necromancer
Level:18-19
Favorite sets:Staff, Axe+Dagger, Dagger+Focus
Pros:Minions-Each have their own ability after you summon one that helps, more damage, a quick blind, immobilization, etc.
- Death Shroud: Neat mechanic,switching out to it would often save me from death, and usually enabled me to finish out an event when everyone else was down
-As above, kiting was easy for me on necromancer, could solo many of the veteran mobs without being hit once
Cons:Minions- No heal for them, or passive/out of combat regeneration for them, occasionally they'd sit and be useless. For my tastes, they have too little health, but anything more and they'd probably be annoying at higher levels. (Dunno how well their damage output was, I never really paid attention to it. I mainly used them as meatshields and for the abilities)
-Even when I wasn't getting hit, sometimes death shroud would end before the bar completely depleted (may just be a bug)
-Death shroud skills don't change(unless you're in the water), I'd like to see them change depending on weapons(maybe do something similar to mesmers and such)
-Another personal taste, but at times, wasn't a fan of every single skill for staff being a Mark,kiting and waiting on cool downs to come up only to have mark triggered early/not at all got annoying, and to me, the auto attack wasn't that great.

[barackopala]

Profession:Engineer
Favourite weapon set: Dual pistols, Flamethrower
Pros: Holy versatility Batman! You have so much weapon sets you can use, a wrench, elixir shooter thing, flamethrower and more.
You can change how you fight , you don't have to stay the same. If killing this Ranger with dual pistols don't work next time try with a flamethrower.
Cons: Turents are a little clunky
The options can be overwhelming at the start. If you change up to much you will not have the best experience then just sticking to one.

Profession: Necromancer
Favourite weapon set: Staff
Pros:The minions work great, they each have their own niche.
- Having all your minions out all at one time can make other players feel overwhelmed
-I have not a problem with any melee, kiting is easy
-Not only your minions attack and are a meat shield they also have abilities you can use.
-The life force is a little cool mechanic, it has saved me a few times.
Cons: You can not heal your minions
-Some times the minions don't attack the enemy(though using their abilities might fix this

All my feedback is from pvp.

To add from the life force mechanism, it can be used while on fear state, allowing you to survive some quick bursts (worked wonders on pve when im on less than 500 hp and i just have to wait like 5sec for heal)

[mafao]

Profession: Guardian
Favourite weapon set: Sword + Torch
Level: 20
Pros:
- PvE: great damage, excellent survivability, fun abilities, dynamic gameplay with a 1H sword
Cons:
- Some aspects of the class system are underwhelming, like Virtues and Symbols
- Virtues: Aegis (block) - great if it blocks anything significant, but almost impossible to use in a tactical manner (I am looking at you, PvP)
- Virtues: Resolve (regeneration) - utterly useless
- Symbols: take lots of time to cast (roots you in place), useless in offensive situation, and even in a defensive situation you are probably better off using a different skill
- Elites are basically useless
- No viable ranged option (John Peters commented in a thread that he considers buffing this)
- Didn't have any fun in PvP. If defensively/support specced, you can survive much (but not even close to a necro), but you won't be able to kill anything. If offensively specced, you die very quickly. I also tried a offense/defense spec (Zeal+Honor) and running with a Greatsword, and had big problems killing the enemy. The warrior will outdamage you and you have hard time getting to casters.

[Delias]

To add from the life force mechanism, it can be used while on fear state, allowing you to survive some quick bursts (worked wonders on pve when im on less than 500 hp and i just have to wait like 5sec for heal)

Indeed, it seems to break most CCs. That + the fact that it's basically a separate health bar when we already have the highest health pool in the game (tied with warriors and engies) makes it a very valuable tool.

[apepi]

Indeed, it seems to break most CCs. That + the fact that it's basically a separate health bar when we already have the highest health pool in the game (tied with warriors and engies) makes it a very valuable tool.

I believe lich form also increases your health.

[Delias]

I believe lich form also increases your health.

Lich Form increases your health, but I was talking about Death Shroud. Which basically gives you a completely different health bar in the form of a timer that goes faster if you take damage for it's duration.

[apepi]

Lich Form increases your health, but I was talking about Death Shroud. Which basically gives you a completely different health bar in the form of a timer that goes faster if you take damage for it's duration.

I know, I just thought it deserved a mention since you mentioned health pools. With it all I think necromancers would end up having the highest health pool with both of the ablties, although you can not use them at the same time; Chaining them works wonders though.

[oplawlz]

Guard, lvl 20
Guardian is frikkin amazingly fun. The diversity of ability make weapon swapping necessary, but very very rewarding. Staff with the uncrossable line is hilarious in pvp, and a quick swap to a shield for punting makes for some truly epic keep fighting in wvw and support in spvp. Also amusing to watch a ranged kill themselves with the reflect shield ^.^

Only real con would be mobility, but you can work around that with clever use of skills.

[Eliandal]

Elementalist-

Level 23, favorite weapon/attunement-staff/fire

Best thing about Elementalist is it is the most diverse class in battle. having four attunements all with different quirks and roles is insanely useful, and quite OP compared to most classes sometimes. Being able to drop all my fire AoEs on the ground, then switch to earth/air for kiting, and water for quick heals is just crazy.

My least favorite thing was that I loved the dagger abilities (especially for water), but 3/4 of the attunements require you to be almost in melee range, which in this game just causes problems, especially as a clothie.

Yeah, I found this as well - I can't see them keeping Elementalists as they are currently though - since they can be just NASTY if you know how to play and time switches right (Try dropping an air stun on people and then unloading with the fire AOE's - especially right as the keep door breaks...it's just..glorious - and messy ) I did comment on that - since I would think that the CD's should cross specs - but we'll see!)

[Blufossa]

Profession: Ranger

Favourite weapon sets:
-Longbow
-Axe/Warhorn

Level: 18

Pros:
- Very fun, at least while at range.
- Sexy armor for what it's worth at low-level.
- Their signets were some of the best I'd come across Profession wise- suited for them.

Cons:
- Too damn squishy while trying to melee (15+ areas).
- Every pet was useless except for the Brown Bear, even the Polar Bear and Arctodus were useless (part of the Bear Family).
- I dislike that the Spirit utility spells have such a long-ish cast time when you "need it now" solo-wise.


Your thoughts on the current state of the profession, is something missing? Is the damage output enough? Survivability?:

Pets need buffing, especially all non-bears! Ranged damage was fine. Melee was a bit meh, especially the slightly annoying twirling that comes with wielding a 1h sword. Torch and Warhorn were especially fun in group battles. I only went into Marksmanship Traits, so I can't say much on the others, but Opening Strike was a much-loved buff for me.

All in all I would give the Ranger an 8 out of 10.