Professions and their place in combat

When I first started playing gw, I figured casters were the coolest, but they could not stand toe to toe for long since their abilities were best "ranged", and warriors were good for "melee" attacks at close range. To that end, I figured each profession has it's strong points and weaknesses. For example casters have lower armor compared to a warrior, but warriors have limited energy.

My question is this, have the roles of each profession become blurred? It seems to me nost players want to be a tank and charge in and fight. If they die frequently they cry nerf. If they encounter players with more skill or experience in combining moves again they cry nerf. (I don't know what devs are paid but I'm sure it's not enough) .

I thought/think they go as follows (profession roles in combat):

First in warriors, they are the bullet bags and meat sheilds they take max damage and are expendable. They should get used to dieing alot. It goes with the gig as it were.

Caster and monks act as air support, healers and protectors.
Rangers/Paragons act as ranged or air support as well and Paragons act as feild generals.

Assassins/Dervishes act as gorilla fighters moving in and out quickly to hit and run.

Are these concepts accurate?

I think you're more or less set, except for the Dervishes. They can tank a crapload if the build is right.

Also, these general concepts don't mean much as sometimes people use their secondary more (think of me wiping people up with a 'Sin skill bar while having an R/A - priceless).

These are the 6 original classes, and whats special about them:

Warrior - high armor, middle damage, resistance, low energy (takes a lot of damage and deal a bit)
Ranger - middle armor, middle damage, condition spreading, interrupting (stays in the background dealing some damage, spread conditions and interrupt)
Monk - low armor, low damage, healing, protecting (stays in the background avoiding damage, heal and/or protect)
Necromancer - low armor, middle damage, minions, hexes (stays in the background dealing some damage and summoning minions)
Mesmer - low armor, low damage, interrupting, degens, weakening (stays in the background dealing degens and weakening opponents)
Elementarist - low armor, high damage, aoe spells, high energy (stays in the background dealing a lot of damage and casting aoe spells)

These are the 4 additional classes, and whats special about them:

Assassin - middle armor, high damage, fast movement, quick attacks (quickly gets front, deals a lot of damage and retreats to recover)
Ritualist - low armor, high damage, spirits, items, slow attacks (stays in the background dealing some damage and summoning spirits)

Paragon - high armour, low damage, chants, shouts, low energy (stays front taking some damage, uses shouts and chants)
Dervish - middle armour, middle damage, enchantments, conditions, avatars (deals a lot of damage to nearby enemies whilst healing himself and dealing conditions with enchantments)

Its pretty clear what every class is supposed to do and whats special about each class. What you notice is that the first 6 classes totaly fit to each other and the new ones are just intrudors to the system.

There's a secondary profession mechanic in the game. Understand the kind of options it provides. Take a look at the huge number of skills in the game (with extremely different functions) and the number you can slot at one time. Do this for a long time and you'll see that Guild Wars isn't so rock-paper-scissors when it comes to professions.

I made revisions . This kind of characterization is extremely, extremely flawed though. You can't account for the massive pressure scythes allow you. You can't account for a Thumper. You can't account for a smite monk. *Spears deal more damage than bows*

I wouldnt call a mesmer low dmg -- probably medium dmg

you forgot to mention how good mesmers are at countering everything!
specifically to *spiking* players who attack or cast


just for context, a common Mesmer antimelee spike illusion build (with illusion of 16) is
Ineptitude, Clumsiness, Images of Remorse
-- casted on an attacking melee target, creates a spike for 294

all 3 hexes can be casted in less than 5 sec

Mesmers = 1v1 Bane.

Is their an anti mesmer build?

I duno, but I do love Broadhead arrow. Best elite ever!

The best bit about Guild wars is that their arnt always set roles for players. Depending on the build, in a team one of the monks may be doing more damage then the elementalist in the team, and the elementalist may be being more of a nuisance(conditions, KD etc) then the Mesmer.

Saying that one class is high damage or low damage is a bit too oversimplistic to get a decent idea of what is going on. Some professions may do high damage, but it is generally single target damage, whereas another profession may be better at dealing AoE damage (ex: warriors to eles). Also, I think the perception of eles being medium damage is a bit outdated. With the release of Searing Flames and Sandstorm, eles can deal very large amounts of damage. Even with milder AoE spells, an ele can still outdamage a warrior by virtue of inflicting smaller amounts of damage to a larger number of targets (yes, warriors have some AoE capability like Cyclone Axe, but it is much smaller in range than many ele spells.)

I would say that the roles of classes blurs, but for the most part, it's only with certain classes. Rangers can build for damage dealing and do very well at it, such as in a Barrage or Thumper build, but they can also build for shutdown/disruption as well (i.e. interupts and debilitating shot). Mesmers are also like this in that they can deal very large single target damage under the right conditions, but they can also build to completely shutdown targets without inflicting much damage at all. Elementalists can now build to do some very strong damage or they can play a strong support role with heals, snares, and condition removals with the right secondary.

Theres a concept that every class can tank. It all depends on what skills are on the bar. There have been many solo builds that are not dependent on any supporting characters.
Take a barrage/pet team of 5 rangers, 2 necros, and 1 monk. No tank, no ele, 1 monk.
The concept of professions having their place in combat would be dependent on the situation. And as you know, every situation is different so having this concept is....well....a waste.

The existance of exceptions does not negate the prevalence of generalizations.

It's somewhat pointless to assign roles to primary classes. A b/p team is doesn't have a single tank, yet goes against mobs that one-hit kill casters. A warrior with max armor is nothing compared to dolyak warrior with 1500 health. A 55 build, indestructible without enchant removal (almost). And so on.

Your build determines the role. So when talking about professions, it's better to consider the roles a primary class can perform well.

Gandulf with a sword?

If you're traditional view on casters are those mages throwing fireballs in the back, then you're so wrong! Casters are actually much stronger in melee range than range, because...of touch spells.

Touch spells are usually two to three times stronger than ranged spells. Vampiric Touch for example. And Blackout, Starburst, Restore Life, Renew Life, are all touch range spells and they are VERY powerful.

When I saw this I sound out loud 'What the hell is this noob smoking?'

I'm pretty sure Ensign proved the Warrior has the highest dps and if not The highest, one of the highest spikes in the game with the Eviscerate, Executioners Strike combo.

Yeah, and now with the addition of Critical Chop you can add about 70 damage per spike attack vs a squishie so quickly it's almost un-healable.

If there was an anti mesmer build there would be an anti anti mesmer build. Mesmers can counter anything 1v1.

the mesmers counter? another mesmer. Or if u can hit a mesmer in 5 seconds with enough damage to kill them

@ Fluffyx There is a good reason so many people speak against 1 x 1 battles. As a warrior, if knew I was facing a mesmer one on one, I'd go W/Me and use Blackout and Distortion and kill you with my axe.

If you think you can kill someone in 5 seconds with axedps go for it buddy. Thats giving you max blackout 5sec (domination line)

Missread this while in a hurry

i think it is pointless to assign a role to each class(with the exception of warrior they mostly tank, run, and farm)

for example: spell caster as you stated are support, however, spell caster can also be the one to deal the most dmg in a group ex: spiker build.
angers are not just for ranged either. youve got the bunny thumper build(tho its not too great) but that does give the ranger a option of going melee

a class cant be assigned to a role in the party. people just do it. a 55 monk can do melle just as well as a w/mo

If you list the various kinds of function, most can be performed by several classes. For example:

AoE damage -- Elementalist, SS necro, Barrage ranger
Healing -- Monk, Ritualist, Dervish (?)
Protection -- Monk, Ritualist, Elementalist, Warrior, Paragon
Tanking -- Most or all of them
Disruption -- Ranger, Mesmer, knockdown warrior, and almost any caster who carries a couple of Inspiration interrupts to boost energy