Professions: did beta change your opinions about professions, and if so, how?

[Guided Daggers]

Guardian was awesome, both on the offensive and supporting my allies. I played Elementalist, Thief, Warrior and Guardian, and somehow my Guardian had the highest damage output (wut?). I also love the 5th greatsword skill (pull enemies towards you).

Elementalist was more fun than I thought, but unlocking all skills on the starter weapon took me until level 10, which is WAY too long, because I could only use scepter-dagger effectively at that level. That means unlocking all skills on an Elementalist would take ages, while on a guardian I had unlocked all weapons my level 8.

Warrior disappointed me a bit. I had been hoping for a really cool sword-sword 'hard hitting assassin' type of gameplay, but axes-axes was pretty cool.

I didn't try a lot of the Thief class, but I found the initiative mechanic irritating (not because it's bad, but because I had gotten too used to cooldowns being the only resource needing management after all those hours of playing G/W/E).

[Khanisaurus]

Guardian and Warrior and Thief all slid way down my list, as I had serious issues with melee combat. Of those Thief was interesting and I loved how fast they could take down mobs. Part of my issue with the melee classes was I played them all in the Charr area and it was a massive zergfest. I will try again before passing judgment.

1. Mesmer - Still king of the hill for me
2. Engineer - Much more fun than I had expected, actually challenging for the top spot now.
3. Elementalist - Moved way up.

I didn't try a necro or ranger, they will be on the list to try next time I guess.

[teina]

Engineer isn't really about damage, but if that's your thing, you should go with grenades and/or flamethrower. Guns work decently too. But engineers are more about versatile play.

Actually, grenade damage is what I'm referring to. It's horrendous. And yes, I understand about versatile gameplay, but until you get those skills, you have to kill things, especially in your own personal story.

-T

[RD]

How is that different from playing mesmer in tutorial GW1 areas, where most mobs die before you can put 2 hexes on them?

It's a lot different because in GW 1, the whole game is designed around you and your party. In GW 2, you could be against a mob and two+ other people might jump in to help you kill it. The GW 2 system works well in pretty much every situation except for Mesmer shatters, in my opinion. Assuming your clone is your first skill, by the time you activate the spell, hit the shatter, and the clone runs over to the mob to shatter, it is close to dead.

Downside: pet is awfully soft. My pet spent most of its time in the downed state if I'm fighting more than a couple of enemies.

Yeah, I had this problem, too. It was also kind of annoying to think I was ressing another PC, but it was their pet.

Elementalist skills unlocking is a pita. You have weapons and 4 elements to unlock per weapon. I spent most of my time on the ele unlocking skills rather than experimenting with them. I hope Anet gives us a better (faster) way to unlock skills after the first set or two. Otherwise it's really grindy if you want to unlock everything for some professions.

Yeah, this looked like it was a problem from my limited experience with Ele. I only played it for a few hours because I got annoyed with a Charr quest. There are fewer weapons for an Ele, but everything is x4.

[teina]

Yeah, I had this problem, too. It was also kind of annoying to think I was ressing another PC, but it was their pet.

Yes! That's another annoyance, especially in big events when you're trying to revive people for the next wave.

Yeah, this looked like it was a problem from my limited experience with Ele. I only played it for a few hours because I got annoyed with a Charr quest. There are fewer weapons for an Ele, but everything is x4.

I think eles have roughly the same number of weapons as other casters? Anyways, it's not a small number like the engineer. That was one nice thing about the engineer, I didn't feel like I had to grind out the skill unlocks.

-T

[Guided Daggers]

Did anyone else feel like melee is underpowered, by the way?

[Alaris]

Actually, grenade damage is what I'm referring to. It's horrendous.

Oh. I used grenades in a large group, so clearly I didn't get a good gauge of its effectiveness.

I see engineer as having many tools to survive longer, so his damage is reduced to kill slower to compensate. Though I assume that you can spec more damage with traits so you can be as much as dps as any... but so far yes, some professions kill faster than engineers do.

The GW 2 system works well in pretty much every situation except for Mesmer shatters, in my opinion. (...)

Yeah, I had this problem, too. It was also kind of annoying to think I was ressing another PC, but it was their pet.

About mesmer, I agreed that it was a problem against low-level foes. I expect it to get better later. I worked well in PvP, and I assume against foes that don't die too quick.

About pets, they died really quick in WvW, but I had not much problem in PvE. Mind you, this was with a ranged pet, I don't know about melee pets.

I think eles have roughly the same number of weapons as other casters?

The problem is that afaik elementalists have to grind each element separately for each weapon. Engineer by sharp contrast doesn't have to grind his kits, which, in a way, are his version of weapon swaps.

That makes it super-easy for engineers to unlock weapon skills, and pretty long for elementalists and warriors.

[Malhavoc Adhamar]

Ranger: Loved and played how I expected it to. Most of the time I was running around with a shortbow for the conditions then switching to the greatsword to mop up. Later on, however, I started to use the longbow then using the shortbow to kite them to death. Just need to fix pet AI and I'll have my No 2 class.

Necro: Again I enjoyed it but it needs some more work if I'm going to be honest. Minions were a tag buggy but that was a overal issue with pet AI. For melee ranged weapons, the dagger main hand needed far more life draining bolted onto it. I liked the concept but I don't have the armour to survive for that long, unless I've getting regular healing from somewhere. Otherwise I enjoyed it, using the staff to lay down some marks before switching to axe + horn for damage.

Engineer: Still my top class, though the kits need some work. In their current form they lack the damage needed to compete with other classes in PvP. Only way I found to be effective in PvP was to run around the enemy when they were clustered dropping bombs, and grenades...yeah they're only going to useful in WvW when someone is knocking at a fort door. That said I still love the idea of hotswapping my role in a battle like the ele can.

[teina]

Did anyone else feel like melee is underpowered, by the way?

Nope, at least not warriors and guardians. The biggest problem I had with them is in early game, before weapon swap, you can't pull and switch to melee weapons. In many situations the mobs are not connected, but standing closely to each other. If you go charging in because you're equipped with only a melee weapon, then you get pounded. If you equip a ranged weapon, you're stuck using it for that fight. In GW1 melee can pull from level 1 to avoid the over aggro problem.

I don't know why they restrict weapon swapping early. I think a lot of the early melee problems would go away if people can just pull and swap.

-T

[kokabel]

I only got to try Elementalist and Guardian. Elementalist was pretty much as expected, and I enjoyed it, apart from ALL those skills on all the attunements that need unlocking, that was frustrating.

Guardian was the 'random choice' class for this beta, and I was so surprised by how much I liked it. I was bad - melee IS hard to learn and I sucked at it quite a lot. I simply could no resist the temptation of using the leap ability on Greatsword into a mob that was often a good few levels above my natural level. I wasn't expecting to make a Guardian for the release but I've changed my mind and it will have to happen.

I ran Scepter/Shield and Greatsword mostly - I spent most of my time running up to stuff and pulling either SoA or Sanctuary and being all 'hey, watch this!' - loved seeing stuff run into my bubbles and bounce off, or being pushed out of my way and generally being denied the right to go anywhere. Chains of light is a nice quick snare for catching stragglers. Leap of Faith and Binding Blade were insane when used correctly, letting me close great distances and pull enemies away from other people. Oh, I have SO much love for this profession now, I could babble all day about it quite happily... *squee*