picking a profession based off difficulty to play

[Riavan]

Erm, that's not an insult. And games are not people to feel insulted.

But as to why, it's right there in the second sentence; Some are more work for the same or lesser result.

For example, an Engineer wishing to do ranged damage is at a disadvantage compared to a Ranger with a longbow. The latter does more damage with fewer issues. As an Engineer you would need to use 1 weapon set, 2 turrets and hope the RNG of elixirs pushes you into the same realm as a Ranger. Meanwhile a Ranger with a Longbow hits 3 buttons and delivers almost 4x the damage. Without the pet alive.

More work for a worse or no better result is sloppy class design.

I agree with you. Which is a pity cos I really liked the premise of engineer.

---------- Post added 2012-08-09 at 07:53 PM ----------

Since when mesmers are considered harder than anything else?
I just think those that want to play mesmer just want to shift the attention of people away from the fabulousness of the profession towards challenge.
Mesmer's going to be my last choise. Butterflies and shit aren't for me.

Well in gw1, mesmers were considered harder than most other classes.

[Deleted]

Some classes are harder than others to do well at.
You can play any pretty simply but some have more nuance.

Warriors and elementalists are probably at the "simpler" end of the scale. Up to Mesmers and guardians at the more complex.

Warriors for example are pretty simple in approach...hit it hard unti you build up resource then hit it harder.
Mesmers have more complex mechanics with shatters and more reliance on conditions and so on. Guardians have to balance group/solo benefits of their F-abilities, make up for a more resticted ranged weapon set and thier abilities often tend towards tactical play rather than straight dmg (not that you cant do straight dmg if you want, but a more complex option is there).

thats not saying one is beter than the other, but Anet have stated the desinged is that way to offer a range of options for players.

[Deleted]

so i was thinkin today

alot of people still claim mesmers as being really hard to play and complex.but i mean,i still like the deception and trickery aspects of the profession but is it really worth not picking a profession based off how hard it is to play or is it more based off your build or other things that dont rely on mechanics and profession in terms of difficulty
if i remember right i eather saw this argument or had it on another forum and it seemed like there was a easy way of playing every profession so im wondering if playstyle and other things should come before difficulty in terms of picking a profession

I really want to play a Thief, but I suck at it. It's a tough prof that is quite unforgiving, and I find the point system it uses to be a bother.
So I've gotten fond of the Guardian. Tough survivor and team player. Great for soloing tough stuff too. Or maybe I'm just good, I don't know I have no point of reference

[Deleted]

Just looking at this thread its pretty obvious everyone thinks different on what profession is the hardest/ easiest to play, so its pretty difficult to say "this is the most challenging profession." :P
I suggest you just simply try out the ones you feel fits your playstyle or what you feel you identify yourself with the most, you can jump into the mists if you want to feel it out at lvl 80. Play around with some dummies and traits... And see if its something for you or not.

[mafao]

For example, an Engineer wishing to do ranged damage is at a disadvantage compared to a Ranger with a longbow. The latter does more damage with fewer issues. As an Engineer you would need to use 1 weapon set, 2 turrets and hope the RNG of elixirs pushes you into the same realm as a Ranger. Meanwhile a Ranger with a Longbow hits 3 buttons and delivers almost 4x the damage. Without the pet alive.

I am not sure about that. In BWE3, I didn't feel like doing less damage playing pistol Engineer versus my Longbow Ranger.

[Kululu]

Okay so ive seen alot of people saying mesmier is the hardest to play. But my question is (keepingin mind i havent played any BW's for the game as of yet) isnt a profession being difficult a matter of opinion?

On to the actual topic of the post i enjoy a challenge but i pick based on if i enjoy it granted a challenge can be enjoyable but it also has a point that it just becomes aggrivateing.

[Porco]

I don't think that is sloppy design, some professions are better in some areas than others, it's like asking for a guardian to have the same burst as a warrior. Homogenization is bad.

On topic: Are you talking about PvE or PvP?

[mafao]

Warriors and elementalists are probably at the "simpler" end of the scale. Up to Mesmers and guardians at the more complex.

This is again an assessment I can't agree with I don't find Guardians particularly complex (Mesmer with its shatters and clone management is WAY more complex), in contrast, properly playing an Elementalist is IMHO rather challenging due to the attunement switching.

I think this thread shows that different people will have very different assessments of classes — which is a good thing, as it shows that ANet did a good job designing the game.

P.S. Still, I think we will all agree that Engineer, Thief and Mesmer are the hardest ones to play

[Ynna]

I don't think that is sloppy design, some professions are better in some areas than others, it's like asking for a guardian to have the same burst as a warrior. Homogenization is bad.

It's okay if a Warrior has better burst damage and the Guardian has better sustained damage, as long as they have the same damage over the course of a couple of minutes. What would be a problem is if the Guardian had to use (for example) one utility and two weapon moves to get roughly the same result as a Warrior who has to use (for example) 2 utilities, a weapon-swap and 4 weapon skills. In that case the Warrior is significantly harder to play (or at least more annoying) than the Guardian for no reward. I think that's what Fencers was talking about.

[Balfire]

I really want to play a Thief, but I suck at it. It's a tough prof that is quite unforgiving, and I find the point system it uses to be a bother.
So I've gotten fond of the Guardian. Tough survivor and team player. Great for soloing tough stuff too. Or maybe I'm just good, I don't know I have no point of reference

I feel this way as well. I've always really enjoyed the thief archtype (Mained rogue/druid for 7 years in WoW) but I've never been very good at playing assassins in PvP. I'm hoping I can get some kind of bruiser build working so I can still main my thief If not I'll switch over to guardian because they were a blast and playing tank/healer roles in games has always been super fun for me. I love being the hero. I originally wanted to warrior just because of the shieldblock ability video. I pictured rolling infront of teammates and blocking dragon fire and was instantly in love, but Guardian is more this playstyle it seems after my beta weekends.

[Sesethi]

well thats kinda why ive been on the fence with mesmers.i like the whole deception and trickery thing they have goin on but it just seems like ive heard alot more people talk about how hard it is to play a mesmer then people talk about how easy it is and i dont want some super hard complicated class to play

to be honest, I find the clone mechanic for mesmers very weak and clunky, because, the clones disappear when a target dies(at least it was like that last time i checked), but if you really like mesmers, I think you should stick with the class, ArenaNet is balancing the classes via traits and mechanics during all those BWE and Stress Tests and probably will change even more before the game goes Live, some people thought it easy, other thought it hard. From what I've seen from Beta feedbacks mesmers and engineers are in dire need of some love while warriors and rangers were needing a little nerfhammer, altough I think warriors were nerfed a bit on BWE3.
So just be patient and wait I guess.

[Ticktox]

I personally found elementalist to be the most difficult, but thats just an opinion. They're basically stance dancing all day with 4 different elements, basically constant weapon swaping between 4 different weapons. And since I never liked the idea of stance dancing with warrior in WoW it's the one thing that turned me off on elementalist.

[Futhark]

I only did PvE at lower levels, but I'll second something Fencers said: I don't enjoy classes as much that involve more work for the same result. This is why in every BWE I had more fun playing an Elementalist over a Mesmer. Ele gameplay is straightforward and easily effective against multiple mobs where with the Mesmer I constantly found myself challenged against single mobs and frustrated by packs.

That said, I'm still playing Mesmer at release. I just cannot resist playing a teleporting, giant Viking-mage that shoots lazors from Greatswords and melees with swords in robes before stealth/cloning away. I'll play it no matter how broken it is, and I'll just have to work with what the class will give me no matter how frustrating. (Maybe I'll get better?)

[Ticktox]

It is awkward at early levels due to illusions dying when the target dies. That's why I just went scepter so I could keep the clones rolling. But for PvP I did a heavy illusion build where I hardly even used a breaker, and it actually felt pretty strong. It does feel awkward and somewhat weak in PVE at low levels but my guess is that tends to mean it's just balanced around how strong it is at high levels. Of course that's just a speculated guess. But I did find mesmer pretty good in sPvP.

[Porco]

It's okay if a Warrior has better burst damage and the Guardian has better sustained damage, as long as they have the same damage over the course of a couple of minutes. What would be a problem is if the Guardian had to use (for example) one utility and two weapon moves to get roughly the same result as a Warrior who has to use (for example) 2 utilities, a weapon-swap and 4 weapon skills. In that case the Warrior is significantly harder to play (or at least more annoying) than the Guardian for no reward. I think that's what Fencers was talking about.

That is not how GW2 is supposed to work, you can't be only a DPS, therefore you can't compare two professions solely on one aspect of the 3 (support, damage, control). As a warrior you can't have the same level of group support as a guardian, so you can have better damage, both burst and overall. Even if you build your character for full damage you will still need to do other things.

And this is totally off-topic btw.

On topic: It really depends on what you want to achieve with your character at any given time. There are some builds that are hard to play, like Dragon Tooth elementalist, but in the matter of professions I didn't see a clear distinction of difficulty. Some builds are really simple and straightforward, but that doesn't make them easy to play... just easier to counter .

ps. I'm talking about PvP, because in my modest opinion I don't find PvE difficult, once you realize that it's programmed to lose you just need to find a winning strategy and execute it without major mistakes.

[Ynna]

That is not how GW2 is supposed to work, you can't be only a DPS, therefore you can't compare two professions solely on one aspect of the 3 (support, damage, control). As a warrior you can't have the same level of group support as a guardian, so you can have better damage, both burst and overall. Even if you build your character for full damage you will still need to do other things.

I know this is whining, but I'll still do it:
This is one of the things I dislike about this community (the other is people defaulting to: "If you don't like it, it's not the game for you."). I give a purely fictional, theoretical example and someone jumps on it explaining how Guild Wars 2 is supposed to work, which is in no way a response to my post. (And I'm not really singling you out, I've noticed it enough for it to start bothering me.)
I would suppose that I'm posting enough here that people should at least suspect that I know what I'm talking about and know how Guild Wars 2 works. Should I become a Mod before people stop assuming I'm an idiot? (I probably shouldn't seeing how most of the regulars here are already Mods.)

What is worst is that it's not even correct. A Guardian will have an easier time building for support (and a Warrior for damage), but if they build for a certain role/aspect/whatever they should be somewhat equal.

[CrunkJuice5]

I don't think that is sloppy design, some professions are better in some areas than others, it's like asking for a guardian to have the same burst as a warrior. Homogenization is bad.

On topic: Are you talking about PvE or PvP?

pvp

i guess i should of specified that

[Deleted]

I don't find any profession more difficult to play than the others. Some are more work for the same or lesser result- pass on that. It's just sloppy design in some cases; Engineer or Thief, for example.

Ah, know, I agree that some classes seemed like more work for the same result - but I found thief really easy, whereas mesmer was like swimming fully clothed...and tied to a shopping cart.

[Porco]

pvp

i guess i should of specified that

Yes you should . This game is really well balanced (considering it's in beta) in PvP, and no profession is that much harder or easier to play in PvP, dodge gives a lot of depth to the combat that even the simpliest build becomes complex against a good opponent. So go with the profession you enjoy most, but don't get fooled with the "Every profession can perform anything equally" because that's just not true (and the game would be extremely boring if it was).

->Ynna> Sorry man, not turning this thread into a flame war

[Fencers]

Ah, know, I agree that some classes seemed like more work for the same result - but I found thief really easy, whereas mesmer was like swimming fully clothed...and tied to a shopping cart.

It seemed like a lot to get good results out of a Thief. I played one as melee in xAC with Sword/Dagger and Dagger/Pistol. Pistol/Pistol for a few fights. Wasn't really worth it as initiative is very easy to burn in high mobility situations. I also felt at the time like the trait lines promoted a lot of split builds; 15/25 and so on.

In sPVP they fared far better. Though not so much in general PVE. Just too soft, too ineffectual for that environment.