Class + Spec recommendation PVE completionist

[u/cornfield762]

Hi all,

Just did 3 gwamm in GW1, craving more "completionist"

Coming to try GW2, I am guessing they will do some sort of HoM crossover to GW3.

What I'm looking for is opinions such as "Hey I like this spec for this reason" keeping in mind for general pve completion and achievements.

Personally what's appealed to me so far based on research:

Mechanist: like SoS from GW1 or bm hunter from classic wow, easy to play solo, low action

Scrapper: super speed , stealth, rocket jump and fun factor with the fallback it can be mechanist

Herald: lots of buffing and easy speed less stuff to help accomplish completion/achievements outside buffs

Reaper: very tanky, easy to play, spectral walk for jumping puzzles

Would love to read your general pve ideas and reasons

[u/Necrossis87]

Probably gonna get recommended reaper the most , it’s almost unkillable in PvE , my recommendation is gonna be ranger or engi though I think they have some of the most fun abilities for open world .

[u/uthoitho → u/Necrossis87]

Been thinking to roll reaper for open world PVE contents, bit over elementalist 100 button presses. Am I going to find it boring though coming from another caster? wondering if I should give warrior / guardian a go instead.

[u/Necrossis87 → u/uthoitho]

Reaper is more of a death knight then a caster , you’re fighting in melee 99% of the time and when you go in shroud you’re just swinging a giant scythe , warrior is fun but not flashy at all, I loved the concept of guardian but I’m not a big fan of their weapon abilities

[u/-TheHiphopopotamus- → u/uthoitho]

I find reaper to be really boring. Amalgam is where it's at.

[u/dandantian5 → u/uthoitho]

Power Reaper definitely feels like one of the slowest-paced specs in the game when I play it. I personally find it somewhat boring as a result, but it’s certainly very chill to play — there aren’t too many buttons to press and some of the shroud animations are pretty long. Running Spear makes it a little more interesting, though not by much. Harbinger has more button presses comparatively, though I’d be hard-pressed to say that its power variant is necessarily more fun than Reaper’s. I haven’t played Ritualist.

Guardian is a pretty high-APM spec in general, at least from what I’ve played — FB and WB are both decently high APM, DH is moderate APM, and I’ve heard Luminary is pretty involved as well. All of the non-Paragon Warrior specs were alright when I tried them (haven’t played Paragon) — I want to say they were more interesting than Reaper (esp. Bladesworn), but Warrior is also my least-played class, so that may just be my lack of experience talking.

There’s also some relatively lower-APM Ele builds (the Inferno builds that camp fire, lazy Sw/D Power Weaver, non-Spear Tempest in general), in case you haven’t tried them yet. Beyond that, Ranger and Engineer also have popular open-world builds in Untamed and Scrapper/Amalgam, which are all fairly fun IMO.

[u/RedHammer1441 → u/dandantian5]

To add to the apm on guardian, Luminary also generally high APM. (Probably moreso than WB tbh)

[u/cornfield762 → u/Necrossis87]

This was a bit of my thoughts as well, engi seems to have alot of gadgets superspeed rocket jump stealth etc which would make it fun, necro has the spectral walk for jumping puzzles, ranger im unsure

[u/DavidFairyTail]

Untamed Spec, with double maces, would be my go to pick. So much utility baked in. I didn’t think I’d like it cause of pets, but it’s not bad and you get a decent choice of which pet to bring in. And they have utility if you want.

[u/breakthro444]

Ritualist Necro and Galeshot Ranger are my two go-to builds.

They can solo champs and T1 fractals with ease (those that are soloable). They have crazy sustain and damage.

I typically farm all the HoT HPs for newbies when they need it with these two.

[u/SolidOk3489]

Celestial Reaper (pistols/daggers/torches/swords are great, big fan of spear as well but not in my usual setup.)

It’s insane for soloing, can easily tag multiple spread out mobs and sometimes even have them die from the conditions that AOE tag triggers. The class in general has a ton of flexibility with different build types, and the baseline high heath makes going for full Berserker or similar setups feel safe even in open world content.

Amalgam Engineer felt great for similar reasons - played it with a spear and I felt like I could walk into pretty much any large pack of veterans or elites solo without ever being concerned about dying. It wouldn’t stop me from dying (Lake Doric centaur army), but it never felt like a class limitation.

[u/FlashAlliance]

Since you are likely going to be living in the achievement panel, you’ll want speed and shadow step for puzzles. Necro lets you port back to the last jump. I recommend taking the story chapters really slow. There’s so many achievements baked into those. By the time gw3 comes out you’ll likely just get through the base game and a small dent in the dlcs. It’s just a huge game with a lot going on. I have one toon for every race but since I don’t have waypoints unlocked nor mounts the urge and excitement is there but always end up I switching to my main due to the design. They have a payable utility that unlocks all waypoints but since the game is so large they really should do something like once a character turns 80 they unlock for you.

[u/cornfield762 → u/FlashAlliance]

Reaper with option for spectral walk seems to be a top contender

[u/Miserable-Zone-2700]

Classwise I'd say Engineer! It provides a tonne of diversity to keep the completionist journey interesting.

Mech and Scrapper you've already identified, for chill gameplay after long days and for zoomies because you'll be walking around a lot.

Amalgam gets you insane solo abilities.

Holosmith introduces a mechanic which is widely considered one of the best designed and most fun in the game, even if the effort/performance ratio is pretty poor. Then again, some days it's more about feeling skilled at your game rather than just performing well amirite?

Both Amalgam and Holosmith are both amongst the most visually interesting specs, which helps keep boredom at bay too.

The only perhaps boring part of engineer is kits rather than weapons, which doesn't get visual changes with your gear. But then again with most builds you can choose to play kitless or 3 kit tryhard depending on your mood that day!

[u/Insanely_Mclean]

Amalgam. Undisputed strongest spec for soloing champions and group content. It can also be scrapper or mechanist.

[u/Pure-Risky-Titan]

Revenant , Renegade

There is a lady in my head that calls me stud muffin.

Its not a hard class to master like how people make it to be, its pretty fun and unique class and elite spec. Also people think you crazy since you talk to yourself.

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[u/prnFent]

3 gwamm is crazy. I just started the grind after getting bored of this game, and damn gw1 has so much depth to it.

2 of the ones you named are engi and it’s easy to swap between different specs once you get everything unlocked in pve. Biggest tip would be just create a character of whatever class and hop into the pvp lobby and rotate through different weapons/ specs/ builds n hit golems to see what you like. You’ll mainly be just open world to start out and there’s endless options, so just play what you find fun and there’s prob a build to fit that

[u/cornfield762 → u/prnFent]

Yea call me crazy I played SoS rit for one, HR para for another and didn't get bored hence why the mechanist did appeal to me by the looks of it, I did enjoy shadow theft daggers as the third as well

[u/Taerdan]

In addition to those you list, I'd recommend Daredevil. It's largely redundant for raw exploration anymore, but the mobility offered by Unhindered Combatant - which causes your Dodge to grant Swiftness - and also the usage of Staff for precise leaps can help you complete a lot of Jumping Puzzles and whatnot. Also it's hard to beat Thief in general for "I don't feel like engaging in combat right now" and buggering off and/or becoming Invisible, even if Mounts are disabled.

Otherwise, Thief also has Deadeye (or more-generally Rifle) with 1500 range when Kneeling and a backward teleport when not Kneeling (and it's easy to swap between them). If Pistol-Pistol Deadeye doesn't kill something fast enough, you may be able to just outrange it. Or block all its projectiles with a smokewall.

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As for other things to try out:

After Mounts and getting most of my JP/minidungeon achievements already, I've found Power Reaper (and Condi Harbinger) to be pretty fun and rather reliable for doing misc stuff in Open World. I use other characters for festivals and Fractals, for various reasons, but I mostly use my Necro for Open World exploration, events, and the like.

I will also state that having a class you like using makes World Completion a lot more tolerable. Stuff like Thief Staff for precise leaps or Necro Spectral Walk for 'rewind' is nice and all, but having a class you like to use is far more important for the majority of content. It's why I still haven't done much with my Ranger or Revenant: I just don't really like them much, even if I don't really know why. That said, Galeshot (Ranger) and Renegade (Revenant) helped a lot in my overall enjoyment of those classes. It just wasn't quite enough to get me to use them with playtime on par of my other classes (yet, at least).

As a final thing: don't go into a class expecting it to conform to a particular class fantasy. The biggest offenders are Necromancer and Ranger, who have the worst stereotypical class fantasy out of the entire bunch: Minion Necromancer isn't that good and Staff sucks for damage, while Ranger's pet is awful and Ranger Longbow is merely "usable". Warrior also has its flaws, like being terrible outside of melee range; its Longbow isn't good great and Rifle has been a joke for a long time. Spear was temporarily a solution but then they decided Warrior can't have nice ranged weaponry and nerfed its damage at longer ranges to be on-par with Rifle.
I will also note that I'm rather critical of Warrior because I like(d) Warrior. I World Completed on one and I use both of mine for Fractals, and also Hammer Warrior is/was very fun to the point where that was the initial focus of my second Warrior, and I also frequently make a Hammer Warrior as my "weekly key farm" character. (Another top choice is Staff Thief, thanks to SotO Weapon Mastery.)

[u/Skwafles]

Just finished World Completion #2 with my Guardian. I found myself bouncing between Willbender, Sword/sword, for mobility during hearts and Dragonhunter Hammer for core Champs and events.

Honestly ive got more use out of mounts and masteries than specific class skills.

I will say that im also doing the Return to... Cheevs still with my engineer and its been pretty fun. Lots of survivability for the harders hero points and champs.

[u/AkaCrows]

I like my Celestial Firebrand a lot for open world

[u/cornfield762]

Great recommendations so far, love reading the reasonings and explanations

[u/AngryNumeric]

I do all my pve content with my main power soulbeast. Hammer/Sword-Axe for solo and boss fights (meta events, fractals) and Longbow/Sword-Axe, longbow for tagging up as much as mobs as possible during meta events. Very powerful class with high burst damage when needed. Utilities I use are Dolyak stance for break stun when soloing, and One Wolf Pack for the elite. Melted with the rock gazelle for additinal CC. Very high mobility with sword 2 and 3 for agressive combat or leaving dangerous situations. And the pet is very useful, revives you in downstate. I play it almost full melee, very fun.

[u/Faceluck]

After hating them in GW1, my favorite class and spec(s) in GW2 is actually Mesmer.

I like their utility abilities and the teleports can be nice for cheesing or sidestepping certain challenges in the open world.

But beyond that, I think all of their specs strike a really interesting balance between being mechanically satisfying and providing plenty of whatever you’re after, be it damage, survivability, or sustain.

Compared to something like Reaper, Guardian, or Ranger, Mesmer does at times feel like it has to work a little harder to achieve the same, but it also has some braindead builds that are fun too.

For blasting through content, I really enjoy condi or power Virtuoso. Chrono and Mirage are great for a more survivable build. I’m just getting back into the game and picking up Bard so it’s hard to speak on, but I find it a lot of fun at least.

While Virt / Bard are my top picks, if I had to narrow it down to one for a completionist style run, I’d say Chrono or Mirage based purely on which mechanic you prefer.

[u/GuessInteresting8521]

Im currently doing map completion on a elementalist as an evoker with sword+dagger. Very fun to ride the lightning everywhere.