New wanderer in a strange world - Class choice question

Oshari · November 21, 2020 at 5:26 AM

Welcome,

I am completely new in guild wars 1, just jumped in after playing GW2 ocassionaly. I must say i really understand the appeal, and i regret that i had not a chance to play this gem earlier. I had move really good time testing few characters, even doing LDoA on my Mesmer. But now, after i jumped to post searing i feel, like this class is not for me, maybe because i am still locked from many skills, maybe because i don't understand game enough. point is, i am kinda disappointed with my choice. That's why i am considering starting anew, but now i kinda wanted gather more information. I also tried to look for some recommended builds, but that made me even more undecided than before. That's why i decided to ask there, what i should choose as my character?
There's list of my goals with gw1:

First, i want to experience most, if not all story and content of gw1, then do GWAMM/HoM rewards

I would like to play rather more straighforward than complicated class, at least for the start.

Because my playtime is highly irregular and i don't have anyone to drag with me to this particular gmae, i would rather aim for solo play with heroes/henchmen.

Because i am more inclined to stick with single characted, due to my completionist nature, i would like to versatile character, with at least few viable different builds to choose from. It would be perfect, if i could use this class to play at least some time with every other class as secondary, but just having decend melee and caster build will be good enough.

Speedclears, Hard Mode or min-maxing/optimising my char isn't my real goal here, unless it is required to complete GWAMM/HoM rewards and i don't know about it. That being said I might decide to do something like that later, if i stick long enough, so that being a choice would be nice too. I am just willing to give up that point.

If just playing support/tank for my heroes is a decent option, and not something, which will make my playtime harder than necessary i am ok with playing something like that too.

Besides that i want to ask if there are any places, where i can find guides, gather some info or just learn about the game? So far i know only about PvX. Also is there any active guild wars guild, even if only just to chat once in a while?

As a bonus, my first accomplishment here.

justice · November 21, 2020 at 5:54 AM

Mesmer is pretty gg and has build variety options. But if you want simple but a choice of running melee or caster I think assassin might make more sense.

Judging by that presearing skillbar, even with presearing's limited skill selection, your troubles with mesmer are due to not being very experienced at the game and that is ok. I played an Illusionary Weaponry mesmer build for a couple years. Its a mesmer melee build.

Can play assassin as dagger spam which is pretty simple hard striking melee damage with some aoe splash.

or

Assassin's Promise caster that summons ebon vanguard assassin support and norn damage shouts.

You can get pretty weird on sin too with its often forgotten caster attributes.

Before you give up on mesmer you should pickup some of the post searing mesmer skill quests in Ascalon. In the ruined Ashford Abbey there is a new named town called Sardelac Sanitarium where you can talk to Vassar to get more quests and skills. After the first quest you get a spell called Chaos Storm which will help you out quite a bit.

For everything guild wars,

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

ardunain · November 21, 2020 at 3:46 PM

Definelty as person above mentioned it would be good to try Mesmer with more skills. Every profession wouldn’t be that enjoyable with starting bar. Mesmer is rly fun and great for gwam. On the other hand maybe you should try other type of class. My fav core class is warrior but right now I’m enjoying my paragon. The class that would be pretty versatile IMO is dervish instead of sin. Assassin is very squishy and instead of plying ap spam sin, mesmer is much more fun as caster.

Edit. Also maybe look on some armor/weapon looks to see which style you would like.

PS. It’s hard to stick to only one character in gw so maybe try some classes before picking one for GWAM

Ravi · November 22, 2020 at 7:48 AM

All professions have at least one build that is straightforward and powerful and, since you already have 1 maxed title on your Mesmer, I suggest you keep going for GWAMM on that character. And GWAMM will most definitely require you to finish most of the content in HM and think about how to optimize your builds.

Since you plan on playing solo most of the time, I suggest you don't bother trying the Monk (few offensive options) nor the Dervish (which can be annoying to play in areas with a lot of enchantment removal).

Since you want a profession that is good at melee and at casting, then you may want to try the Assassin and the Ritualist, but I still think you should stick with your Mesmer.

Log88 · December 20, 2020 at 7:57 AM

If GWAMM is your goal I think you will need to plan on farming and making money since you will end up needing a least a few costly titles you. Mesmer is not a popular solo class but there are farming build for them still. Also they are quite a big deal in many SC team-builds (notably and the very profitable DoASC) so continue working on them is not a bad idea although they are one of the class that is not very effective and hard to get started for early to mid game especially if you have to do it by your self.

Quote from Ravi

Since you plan on playing solo most of the time, I suggest you don't bother trying the Monk (few offensive options) nor the Dervish (which can be annoying to play in areas with a lot of enchantment removal).

I think you may overlook these two classes especially Derv since they are one of the current meta classes now but they may need some capitals to get the equipped since their stuff are expensive due to popularity . Solo monks has fall out of favor compare when GW started but they still can solo some certain areas for a reasonable profits. Assassin and Ritualist are also the other 2 classes that can solo places. The former is also the backbones of many SC teams while the later can solo pretty much almost everywhere, at least in NM, so if you really want to try other class they are the 2 you should also consider.

Ranger can substitute for Sin with the right builds, cons and experience and necro can do some comparable damage to mesmer or run some other crucial roles for some more forgivable but still popular team farm/SC but not as popular compare to the other 5.

The only classes I would not recommend if your main goal is to max GWAMM are Warrior, Paragon and Elementalist because although they are quite fun to play with in general (my GWAMM is Paragon for almost similar reason as yours that I maxed a titles or 2 on him and I love to play my Warrior), they have very few tricky role to almost no roles in SC teams especially the popular ones.

Also contrary to popular believe, GW1 is still pretty active so you can still join guilds to get help from real ppl instead of having to solo the game most of the time. It might be harder than before to find ppl to do general campaign play with since most players move on to end-game contents but I think you should be able to get help more than often.

TLDR, stick with your mesmer, join an active guild to get some assistance, and if you really want to change you main I suggest Sin/Derv if you prefer melee or Rit if you prefer caster but I think it is best to try them all especially those 4 then decide. That is my opinion from my own experiences have been playing all the classes.