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new comer wants to know what profession to be
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Here's a rundown on the professions for you:
Warrior: Master of melee combat and frontline defense. Sword and axe attacks are quick, while hammer skills can knock down enemies. Tactical stances and shouts protect the warrior and allies.
Ranger: Uses a bow, can have a pet, and uses other wilderness survival skills. Can deal good amount of damage using focused bow fire, can interrupt a target constantly, and can ignite or poison arrows. Later in the game, can use traps. Other survival skills help the ranger escape danger.
Monk: The defensive spellcaster of the game, you'll probably be a healer or protector which really helps your party survive, but you can use smiting prayers for offense if you like.
Elementalist: High amount of magical offense, fire nukes large areas, air zaps, debilitates, and knocks down single foes, water slows down enemy movement, and earth specializes in defense which affect either you or an area.
Mesmer: Screws around with enemies' minds, most Mesmer skills shut down enemy abilties. Domination magic does this the most, and damages the enemy in the process one way or another. Inspiration magic also thwarts enemies to a degree, but helps the casting Mesmer gain energy/other benefits from enemy skills.
Necromancer: Uses death and self-sacrifice for own benefit. Blood magic involves life stealing spells and blood sacrifice for benefits. Death magic mostly involves the exploitation of corpses, which can even help the necro gain an undead army.
Then there's the issue of a seconary profession. You get time in the game to test out a secondary profession with your primary, so just stick to picking a primary first.
Unlike many online RPG's, this game doesn't have a useless class; all classes have their purpose from the moment you start until the final mission. Therefore, pick whatever you think sounds fun. Warriors are fun if you like melee combat. Likewise, if you enjoy shutting down enemy abilities, go Mesmer. As long as you learn your class well, or even learn to play it well alongside your secondary profession, you'll never be useless in a group.
Warrior: Master of melee combat and frontline defense. Sword and axe attacks are quick, while hammer skills can knock down enemies. Tactical stances and shouts protect the warrior and allies.
Ranger: Uses a bow, can have a pet, and uses other wilderness survival skills. Can deal good amount of damage using focused bow fire, can interrupt a target constantly, and can ignite or poison arrows. Later in the game, can use traps. Other survival skills help the ranger escape danger.
Monk: The defensive spellcaster of the game, you'll probably be a healer or protector which really helps your party survive, but you can use smiting prayers for offense if you like.
Elementalist: High amount of magical offense, fire nukes large areas, air zaps, debilitates, and knocks down single foes, water slows down enemy movement, and earth specializes in defense which affect either you or an area.
Mesmer: Screws around with enemies' minds, most Mesmer skills shut down enemy abilties. Domination magic does this the most, and damages the enemy in the process one way or another. Inspiration magic also thwarts enemies to a degree, but helps the casting Mesmer gain energy/other benefits from enemy skills.
Necromancer: Uses death and self-sacrifice for own benefit. Blood magic involves life stealing spells and blood sacrifice for benefits. Death magic mostly involves the exploitation of corpses, which can even help the necro gain an undead army.
Then there's the issue of a seconary profession. You get time in the game to test out a secondary profession with your primary, so just stick to picking a primary first.
Unlike many online RPG's, this game doesn't have a useless class; all classes have their purpose from the moment you start until the final mission. Therefore, pick whatever you think sounds fun. Warriors are fun if you like melee combat. Likewise, if you enjoy shutting down enemy abilities, go Mesmer. As long as you learn your class well, or even learn to play it well alongside your secondary profession, you'll never be useless in a group.
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Don't worry about what seems easy or hard to play; you get PLENTY of time to try out new skills as you get them. If you want to play an interrupt ranger, you have to get good at watching your enemy's casting bar and firing an interrupt shot to prevent the full cast. Of course, a damage-dealing ranger plays differently, so you'll be practicing managing your shots, possibly while keeping your arrows ignited. On the other hand, if you want to play a fire nuking Elementalist, you have to get good at firing off your area of effect spell(s) at the right time in the middle of a group. If you go Air Elementalist, you'll want to manage your single target damage-dealing with your other support skills, such as knockdown. Elementalists must constantly keep an eye on their energy reserves.
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Not ranger. Great class, horrible to start with - hits its stride late in game (9+ Expertise with decent gear).
Not Mesmer, too weak in most ways in early game, powerful skills reserved till too late, no PvE area control, gimped energy management makes inspiration a laughingstock.
Warrior, Monk and Ele are all easy to play, and Necro is not bad so long as you put points in Soul Reaping and forget about using minions till you get a decent minion heal (minimum Blood of the Master, preferably Verata's Sacrifice).
I'd say take Warrior/Monk if you want a hand to hand guy, take a caster like Ele/Necro if you want to play a caster, and take a Monk if you want to be instantly popular :P
Not Mesmer, too weak in most ways in early game, powerful skills reserved till too late, no PvE area control, gimped energy management makes inspiration a laughingstock.
Warrior, Monk and Ele are all easy to play, and Necro is not bad so long as you put points in Soul Reaping and forget about using minions till you get a decent minion heal (minimum Blood of the Master, preferably Verata's Sacrifice).
I'd say take Warrior/Monk if you want a hand to hand guy, take a caster like Ele/Necro if you want to play a caster, and take a Monk if you want to be instantly popular :P
I've had fun with Warrior, Elementalist, Necro and Monk so far:
Warrior: Easiest to play, hard to master, combines well with most secondary skills. Expensive to outfit (superior runes). Fun to switch off between swords, axes and hammers. Monk makes a great secondary for a warrior, although you have to be careful with the build because Warriors don't have a whole lot of energy to deal with.
Elementalist: Devastating damage dealers, don't underestimate their interrupting skills like the simple Gale spell (knockdown). Fire and Air for max. damage, Earth for more defensive and team-supporting capabilities. A good Elementalist can make those difficult missions/quests a lot easier and quicker to conquer.
Necro: Excellent support classification that can, properly set up, be a significant damage dealer. I prefer Curses necro play, using things like Feast of Corruption, Faintheartedness, Desecrate Enchantments and Rend Enchantments/Malaise, which really screws up Monks. Many people also enjoy being a Minion Necro, concentrating on building up huge hoards of minions and utterly taking over any mission/quest/level/farming mission they're on.
Monk: Always in need at every stage of the game, PvE and PvP. Great secondary class, too. I prefer healing monk for PvE. It's also one of the only classes that can effectively solo. Smiting monks are to be taken very seriously as damage dealers. Protection monks can make teammates much more effective in difficult missions.
I haven't played Mesmer or Ranger primaries yet (wish we had six-eight slots, Anet), so I won't comment on those. My sons both tried Ranger primaries, however, and enjoy trapping/interrupting with them. From observation, I agree with the earlier comment that Rangers aren't that effective until later in the game, which probably has something to do with how they are treated like 2nd class citizens until then.
In the end, if you put the time in, you'll find that each of the classes offers its own unique pluses and minuses. One final comment: one of the best ways to learn how to DEFEAT a particular class/build is to play as that class/build and see what messes YOU up.
Warrior: Easiest to play, hard to master, combines well with most secondary skills. Expensive to outfit (superior runes). Fun to switch off between swords, axes and hammers. Monk makes a great secondary for a warrior, although you have to be careful with the build because Warriors don't have a whole lot of energy to deal with.
Elementalist: Devastating damage dealers, don't underestimate their interrupting skills like the simple Gale spell (knockdown). Fire and Air for max. damage, Earth for more defensive and team-supporting capabilities. A good Elementalist can make those difficult missions/quests a lot easier and quicker to conquer.
Necro: Excellent support classification that can, properly set up, be a significant damage dealer. I prefer Curses necro play, using things like Feast of Corruption, Faintheartedness, Desecrate Enchantments and Rend Enchantments/Malaise, which really screws up Monks. Many people also enjoy being a Minion Necro, concentrating on building up huge hoards of minions and utterly taking over any mission/quest/level/farming mission they're on.
Monk: Always in need at every stage of the game, PvE and PvP. Great secondary class, too. I prefer healing monk for PvE. It's also one of the only classes that can effectively solo. Smiting monks are to be taken very seriously as damage dealers. Protection monks can make teammates much more effective in difficult missions.
I haven't played Mesmer or Ranger primaries yet (wish we had six-eight slots, Anet), so I won't comment on those. My sons both tried Ranger primaries, however, and enjoy trapping/interrupting with them. From observation, I agree with the earlier comment that Rangers aren't that effective until later in the game, which probably has something to do with how they are treated like 2nd class citizens until then.
In the end, if you put the time in, you'll find that each of the classes offers its own unique pluses and minuses. One final comment: one of the best ways to learn how to DEFEAT a particular class/build is to play as that class/build and see what messes YOU up.
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