Guild Wars 2 Profession Choosing Guide

Guild Wars 2 Profession Choosing Guide by Deniara Devious

After completing the personal story many times and playing all 8 professions and doing quite a lot of WvWvW, I decided to make a guide, which would help players to choose a profession.

Explanation of the guide:
Ratings: * = the worst, ** = average, *** = the best
Melee damage = closer than 300 range damage output
Ranged damage = ranged damage output
Area Damage = Area of Effect damage output
Support = skills and traits to help your allies, crowd control
Survivability = avoiding death
Mobility = Ability to move fast, teleport, hide in stealth, leap
Beginner Friendly = How easy the profession is to begin with
Weapon of Choice = most popular / easiest weapons
Essential utility skills = to help players to choose efficient utility skills

Warrior
Melee damage: ***
Ranged damage: **
Area damage: **
Support: **
Survivability: **
Mobility: **
Beginner friendly: ***
Weapon of Choice: Greatsword, axe, rifle
Essential utility skills: “For Great Justice”, “Shake It Off”, Signet of Stamina, Banner of Discipline

The classic heavy armored warrior is a very easy profession to begin with and very popular in dungeons and other forms of pve. Warriors are very good at dishing out melee damage and their heavy armor gives them decent durability. Warrior can support its team using banners and shouts. They are not very good at getting out of combat situations, which puts them at huge risk in player-vs-player.

Why should you play a Warrior? You want the ultimate macho character and be in the front line, smashing many enemies at same time

Guardian
Melee damage: **
Ranged damage: *
Area damage: **
Support: ***
Survivability: ***
Mobility: *
Beginner friendly: ***
Weapon of Choice: Greatsword, Staff, Scepter
Essential utility skills: Contemplation of Purity, “Hold the Line”, “Stand Your Ground”, “Save Yourselves”

Guardian is the mixture of classic healer and fighter, aka “paladin”. Guardian can burn its foes, get regeneration and block attacks using its virtues. While guardian lacks in mobility and ranged attacks, it is perhaps the best profession for tanking, but nobody in Guild Wars 2 can tank like in some other games. Due its superior support skills guardian is very welcome addition to any team.

Why should you play a Guardian? You want good survivability and ability to buff and heal your allies in many ways

Engineer
Melee damage: **
Ranged damage: **
Area damage: **
Support: **
Survivability: **
Mobility: **
Beginner friendly: *
Weapon of Choice: Rifle, use one of the following weapon kits
Essential utility skills: Elixir S, Grenade kit, Tool Kit, Elixir Gun

Engineer is a versatile profession, capable of doing a lot of crowd control, buffing its allies and doing area damage. Engineers have a unique feature called kits. Equipping a kit replaces all weapon skills and each utility skill gives a specific toolbelt skill, potentially giving engineer using many kits more skills at same time than any other profession. This versatility comes with a price. The slight lack of direct damage and the complexity of the profession make engineer the most difficult profession to play efficiently. Engineer can create turrets, which automatically attack enemies, but the turrets are usually easily destroyed. Many consider engineer as the weakest of all professions and certainly it is the rarest.

Why should you play an Engineer? You want quirky fun and challenge

Ranger
Melee damage: **
Ranged damage: ***
Area damage: **
Support: **
Survivability: **
Mobility: **
Beginner friendly: ***
Weapon of Choice: Longbow, Shortbow, Greatsword
Essential utility skills: Signet of the Hunt, Signet of Renewal, Signet of the Wild, Quickening Zephyr

Ranger is the master of single target ranged damage using its bows. Rangers are also great underwater. Rangers can create large variety of traps and they are always with a pet, which can not only attack enemies, but also provide support, depending on the pet type e.g. Bear type pets are great at soaking up damage, while the ranger can safely attack from range. Rangers can always have two different pets equipped and swap between the pets at will. Ranger is a good all-rounder choice, unless you want fast burst damage. Being jack of all trades, rangers aren’t particularly good at anything (except long distance damage), making them not that welcome in dungeons.

Why should you play a Ranger? You want to attack your foes from range, place traps to hinder foes and have an array pets to assist you

Thief
Melee damage: ***
Ranged damage: **
Area damage: *
Support: *
Survivability: **
Mobility: ***
Beginner friendly: ***
Weapon of Choice: Dual daggers, shortbow
Essential utility skills: Shadow Refuge, Signet of Shadows, Caltrops, Shadowstep

Thief offers one of the highest burst damage in the game, while at same time being able to become invisible (stealthed) at will. Thief can also do short ranged teleports (shadowstep). Thieves are often squishy, but this is more than offset by their amazing ability to get away. The combination of fast high damage burst, extremely mobility and stealth, makes thieves the most hated profession in the game.

Why should you play a Thief? If you want to surprise kill your opponent fast and then get away easily

Elementalist
Melee damage: **
Ranged damage: ***
Area damage: ***
Support: **
Survivability: **
Mobility: ***
Beginner friendly: **
Weapon of Choice: Dual daggers, Staff
Essential utility skills: Glyph of Lesser Elementals, Mist Form, Signet of Air, Cleansing Wave

Elementalist is perhaps the closest to the traditional mage / wizard. It can change between the four elements (air, earth, fire, water) at will, giving it more versatility than any other profession. Elementalist is the master of area damage. It has great mobility and durability. It can also heal and buffs its allies and summon elementals to attack its enemies.

Why should you play an Elementalist? You want to blast your foes, heal your allies and move fast like a lightning

Mesmer
Melee damage: **
Ranged damage: **
Area damage: *
Support: ***
Survivability: ***
Mobility: **
Beginner friendly: **
Weapon of Choice: Greatsword, Sword, Focus
Essential utility skills: Signet of Illusions, Portal, Veil, Decoy

Mesmer is the master of illusions. It can confuse its foes and avoid damage, by swapping places with a clone, which looks like itself. The illusions automatically attack enemies, until destroyed. Destroying the illusions can great a powerful spike. Despite being a light armor profession, mesmer is great at soloing group events. Mesmer has perhaps the two most powerful elite skills in the game: Time warp and mass invisibility, which grant quickness and stealth to its allies. Mesmer’s portal skill is essential in the current meta.

Why should you play a Mesmer? You want to confuse your enemies and let them attack your clones instead of you

Necromancer
Melee damage: **
Ranged damage: **
Area damage: ***
Support: **
Survivability: ***
Mobility: **
Beginner friendly: **
Weapon of Choice: Staff, dagger
Essential utility skills: Signet of the Locust, Plague Signet, Epidemic, Spectral Grasp

Necromancer is the master of conditions and undead. It has the ability to summon undead allies aka minions, but they are rather weak and many necromancers don’t use them. Necromancer has the unique ability to enter a state called death shroud. It is basically another health pool. Having two big health pools and ability to drain life from its foes gives necromancer great survivability.

Why should you play a Necromancer? You want to be different and make your foes run away in fear and suffer