Caster Class Recommendation?

I've just picked up Guild Wars and I'm excited to play. I enjoy playing caster classes in RPGs, and prefer to do lots of damage, rather than serving in a healing or a buffing role. I'm thinking about the Elementalist, because they have a ton of high damage spells that look like they can kill foes quickly. The Mesmer also looks interesting because it has a variety of damage options, and it also has utility with condition spreading and weakening the ability of mobs. (I also like their armor better.) I plan on soloing with AI aid most of the time. Which class seems like it would be good for me?

Well, not Ele. Once you get into the later parts of PvE/Hard Mode the armor levels of foes reduce your damage to crap and you're better off with armor ignoring damage spells like those from the Mesmer or Necromancer. Ritualist may also be of interest.

From the strongest to weakest in current meta I'd say Ritualist > Mesmer > Necro/Elem. Not too sure about necro to be honest, I guess the SS nuker build is alright though. Might be better than elem. Ritualist is certainly the strongest for PvE and especially solo PvE, being able to move the spirits at will(and also heal them) lets you do a lot of stuff that you can't do through heroes, and spirits do ridiculous damage. Mesmer is also good though, but I'd say you generally want heroes and their incredible AI handle mesmer since they can interupt basically everything. Elem definitely bottom of the barrel, but in the current game and as some people will say, you can play with an empty skill bar and still do content with 7heroes, so if you want to play Elem you could go for it and do fine.

Well its difficult for anyone to make that decision for you as it is important that you are happy.

Any of the caster classes is more than capable of being a major damage dealer throughout all the game.
Once the game has been completed you can do it again in hard mode for greater rewards and challenge.
At this point the armour level of opponents means many skills become less effective and armour ignoring damage becomes the way forward.

This is a problem with the Elementalist but not a great one, firstly because you can simply use your secondary class skills more and also because this is a team game.

Each of the classes has a prime skill line that is unique to that class.
Elementalist can have a very large energy pool.
Necromancers Gain energy upon the death of a creature
Mesmers can increase their casting speed "important because they use interrupts a lot"
Ritualists can have much stronger Spirits.
Monks have a line that increases their healing skill.
They all have runes that can be added to their armour to boost skill lines ie Fire Death Healing etc though you can only use runes of your primary class.

So an elementalist/Monk can be a very effective healer but will never be able to heal as well as a monk while a Monk/Necro will not be able to make as strong an undead as a pure necro.

You have several character slots make a few likely characters and see what appeals to you.

Quote: