Professions to start with

Hey, i just bought the game and i was wondering if a mesmer/necromancer is a good combo to go with? I prolly will be doing alot on my own or with 1 friend of mine. So im looking for a profession combo that will be decent when playing solo and one that i will still be good once i get to lvl 20 content.

Mesmer and necro profession sounded cool to me, so thats basically why i picked them .

cheers

As a brand new player I would tend to discourage you from playing mesmer. To be honest, my first character was a mesmer and these days it is one of my favorites, but to be honest the learning curve on mesmers is pretty steep. In some ways, necros are similar. For a new player I would recommend a ranger, warrior, or maybe paragon if you're playing Nightfall. Those are much easier to play... and this game has a lot to learn.

The thing about mesmers is that in many ways you need to use your secondary profession to make them most efficient (or wait a long time to get the better skills). Mesmers have the weakest armor and generally don't cause much damage. Necros often have the same problem until later in the game, and many of the most efficient necro builds are better run on heros (NPCs) anyway.

You might consider Monk, as they have good survivability, but many people find monking challenging (and sometimes boring as you're not really killing anything). Monks are great for farming however. You might also find elementalist relatively easy... in the beginning of prophecies an E/Me is arguably one of the best combos, especially in pre-searing.

Good luck with your character creation, and welcome to guild wars!

i would say warriors are THE easiest to start with, then i would say ele and maybe ranger. as a mesmer your required a lot of skill as well as ability to understand each skill in order to shut the enemy down. a necro isnt that hard specially most of the build they run are simple builds to understand. monk i would again discourage you to play in the beginning because your whole part depend on you and if your able to bear that responsibility go right ahead.

My first guy was also a mesmer (still my favorite class), and I agree with the idea that you probably shouldn't start with one. Necros, on the other hand, are probably the second or third easiest class to play behind Warrior, and I suppose Elementalist as well (from a PvE perspective). Here's how to play a necro:

1. Find a mob.
2. Hex/curse the crap out of said mob.
3. Get retardedly huge amounts of energy from Soul Reaping.
4. ????
5. Profit!

All the above said, if you think you'll enjoy a mesmer, by all means make a mesmer! The game is all about having fun and if bringing failure to other people is what makes you happy (it does me), you'll probably enjoy it. Welcome to Guild Wars, welcome to Guru, etc. etc.

Quote: Originally Posted by crook

Hey, i just bought the game and i was wondering if a mesmer/necromancer is a good combo to go with? I prolly will be doing alot on my own or with 1 friend of mine. So im looking for a profession combo that will be decent when playing solo and one that i will still be good once i get to lvl 20 content.

Mesmer and necro profession sounded cool to me, so thats basically why i picked them .

cheers Crook...

If Mesmer/Necromancer is what you want to be, then play your character in that combination. The game is meant to encourage customized class combos. Try not to give in to any of those comments where they involve, "Dude! Try the other combo! It's more leet!" Well, anything of the ilk. You know what I mean, right? Anyways, be your own character and make it work. Each class has their own difficulties and weaknesses. All of which can be coped. Be who you want to be, that's all that matters. I hope this helped.

I think ill stick with my current professions. I really want to try a mesmer cuz it sounds so different than the usual classes u get in rpgs (which ive played alot of).

So if id stick with Mesmer/necro, any advise on builds? I mean, is there a certain combo i should avoid at all cost? Or should i just go with whatever sounds more appealing?

And thanks!

If you don't have nightfall then you don't get Cry of Pain...not good because that's one of the most useful pve mesmer skills :/ Since you have necro secondary you could make a degen build...or anti physical. Decent mesmer skills to consider:
Backfire
Shatter Hex/Enchantment
CRY OF FRUSTRATION
Wandering Eye(or its equivalent skill I forgot the name)
Power Spike/Drain/Leech
Channeling for energy management....
I'm honestly not that into Mesmers, cept for their awesome looking armors and elegance. Hopefully someone else will provide more help than I.

Welcome to Guild Wars! Don't let the sarcastic veterans that QQ about no more content get you down...this game is pretty long as long as you don't literally play over 9000 hours.

Quote: Originally Posted by illidan009

i would discourage playing as a mesmer. i've done my share with a e/me (close enough you purists :-p) and it takes a while to get used to playing as one. plus you need to have a level of awareness thats not required of many other classes.

i would recommend elementalist, warrior, paragon. in that order. for eles, you basically see the enemy, then a small explosion happens due to your spells, then the enemy isn't there any more..

if you want to make a mesmer/necro go for it, you'll have more fun doing what you want to do than conforming to what people tell you would work better. for instance i was playing a warrior to begin with coz thats the class people told me to start with, i didnt particularily like the class but i went with what i was told. I got him to lvl14 then i saw dervishes and thought they looked awesome fun so i dropped my warrior on the spot and switched to derv, havent ever looked back (warriors still lvl14 lol). point being if you think that a mesmer/necro looks like fun you'll likely have more fun playing it, even if theres a steep learning curve, than if you conformed to an easier class. besides you can allways use guild wiki to help with any problems you have with your class choice.

warrior is easiest to pick up but challenging to master.

mesmer/necro hard to pick up but easy to get the feel of things and feel comfortable w/ only a few skills since necro and mes are most versatile class in-game.

P.S @ cpt bulldozer. mes do tons of dmg, u just cant see it. *cough, illusion, *cough*

Quote: Originally Posted by Azeren Wrathe

Play what you want.

Honestly, I started as a warrior, and I love my warrior, but ever since factions came out I wanted a sin and never bothered because they aren't as useful in the aspects of the game I enjoy, but then a couple of months ago (when I came back from WoW) I rolled a sin. Now my sin is basically all I play... but my warrior is still the one who sees all the elite content and is spoiled beyond belief (alongside my monk).

I'm also a Mesmer player and I love the class. It's so much fun to shut enemies down.
However, as has been pointed out, the Mesmer is probably the most difficult class to play in Guild Wars. To effectivly be able to shut enemies down you need to know what they can do and how to counter it. On top of that the interrupts have to be well timed.

About the secondary profession: Later in the game you will be able to change your secondary. Either through quests (Prophecies) or through paying 500 gold to a NPC (Factions and Nightfall). So you can start out with Me/N and try something else when you feel like it. I myself startet my Mesmer als Me/E and got a few fire magic spells. Especially if you aren't level 20 already, some direct damage helps. Grabbing Signet of Illusions with an Elite Mesmer Tome also helps (with it, all your spells use the Illusion attribute to cast - since attribute points are rare in the beginning it's very powerful there).

About mostly playing alone: No you won't. Guild Wars is a team game and it is basically impossible to play really alone. Even if you have no human players with you, you can fill the group with NPC. In every outpost there are henchmen and if you own Nightfall or Eye of the North you can also pick customized heroes instead of those henchmen to follow you. The henchmen will do a decent job and with them you can beat the story, good heroes (the ones you can customize) are actually better then most real players.
What I'm trying to say here: There is no need to try to get some kind of allround character for playing solo since you will never really be playing solo. Just get a Monk henchman (or two when the party size increases to 8) and fill the rest of the available party slots with Mages or Rangers. The melee AI is very bad so I'd avoid those - but sometimes having one melee fighter may be handy.

Find out for yourself.

If you want boring classes, go with warrior ele and monk. As if you havent seen those before.


If you want thrill, fun, and dont mind using your brain - Mesmer is the best you can get. It's probably the most fun class.

Also, don't listen to strength comparisons. PvE is easy, profession won't be of critical important (although I never tried assassin in pve). If you find PvE difficult with mesmer, let me tell you it's not because of a Mesmer. I play Mesmer in PvE too, and while I don't plow through some areas as I did with Dervish, I have no problem doing any quests or missions. I do a lot of damage, and am often the key element in a party (*fondly remembers Thirsty Mission done recently*). You will need to multitask a lot, instead of having a tunnel vision like a warrior. But that's the fun of it - you play, you learn, and you're amused with various different skills your class offers. Your skills wont be 100 ways to inflict direct dmg, as with some classes. But I'll repeat - you will need to "know thy enemy". Warrior or ele will always deal damage no matter what, and can use pretty much the same build in almost any area, but you need to combine and change skills every now and then. Which is fun.

Mesmer was my first class (in PvE), or maybe ranger - I dont remember since it was a long time ago but in that case mesmer was second and just as important. I learned the game with these two, and it was lots of fun.

Check how you want it

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Area...uick_reference