Profession for blasting 30/50 or 50/50?

Just wondering opinions on what profession is most efficient at "blasting" through this. I am thinking A/* considering the amount of things it can solo (since money is a huge part of 50/50) or maybe D/, but was curious what others think.

Did Rt/ but it was just not my cup o' tea.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game in itself and am not just hopping on to grind out HoM then quit, so I am just trying to be efficient and have fun without having to go through 10 professions to figure out which I like and is good at it.

Also, I did check GWPvX, but most of those builds are dated and contain mostly high-end "feat of strength" solo type content.

I am really leaning towards either D/ or W/. I think W/ would be fun just for the fact it gets SY!

I have all professions but many things have changed since I got full HOM or gwamm.
My easiest for me was my N/A Mark of pain spammer, of course this was still in the 3 heroes and the rest henchmen period.

I now favor my warrior and mesmer. But it comes down in the end what is most fun to play, for me at least, because it takes time to get 50/50 and gwamm.

Yeah, definitely a time gap there. The reason I am trying to figure this out now is because with the amount of time it takes to 50/50 GWAMM I won't be able to roll all classes and experiment. I need to find that one prof thats most efficient overall at everything needed and do it.

The more I look into Warrior the more I like it. I have a 20 Rt SoS and it seems the melee hero AI is just piss-poor, so I am wanting to do a melee prof so I can use ranged AI.

I would also recommend a melee class for that reason. My main is an assassin and I find it a lot more enjoyable to play it than caster professions in PvE. Getting GWAMM and 29/50 so far wasn't hard, just time consuming. Remember that if you want SY!, you can simply get a */W too.

Once you've got your character, start thinking about your party setup. It is equally - if not more - important to determine how fast you'll blast through everything. You'll be spending a lot of time with them, so don't be shy to modify their builds as you progress, i.e. if you get annoyed that your paragon is always casting aggressive refrain at the weirdest times or that hero X is lagging behind always casting an enchantment, just tweak it and see how it works! My setup changed drastically throughout my GWAMM progress and I think I've found my sweet spot now, I hope you'll find yours too.

my main at first was my warrior then someone how got further into the game with my sin so now im sitting at 44/50. in all honesty during my gameplay with my sin i kept thinking of how i wished i used my necro or my mesmer but im already so close i might as well finish HoM with him. just to answer your question it wasnt hard to get 30/50 using a sin.

I recommend a ranged class for hero play, because you have a better overview over the battlefield. As melee, you don't have eyes on your back and don't see how just half of your heroes have been slaughtered by a patrol that just arrived from the back. You also don't pull your heroes into the aggro of the enemies.

I vanquished all of Tyria with 5 classes so far, did every EOTN dungeon in hard mode and did every mission in hard mode: elementalist, necro, monk, ritualist, mesmer. Most easy was mesmer (by far the easiest), necro a bit more difficult, then ritualist (almost the same difficulty level as necro), then monk, then elementalist.

With the other classes, I did every dungeon in hm and all missions in hard mode, but vanquished only selected areas so far. Mostly EOTN and Nightfall for the reputation points. Really lackluster were warrior and paragon. It sometimes was as if you didn't carry even one skill at all, especially as paragon. Warrior was slightly better than paragon, but all in all it was still awful. Very good (same difficulty level as ritualist) was assassin. Dervish was about the same difficulty level as with the monk, ranger also ok (same difficulty level as with the elementalist).

Elementalist should be better these days - after the hard mode enemy armour and elementalist elite skill update this year. He is now probably between ritualist and monk. Apropos monk - I didn't heal as monk in a party full of heroes but used smiting prayers, pve and necro skills. You cannot call targets for your heroes, micromanage your heroes with the flags and heal them all at the same time.

I am working on gwamm with my main monk, however for the HoM you can use all characters on your account---especially for armors as some are not available to all classes (like no kurzick or luxon for dervish or paragon).
I got the armors I liked for the characters I liked ---my monk has only like 3, my ele and mes have 6 each.
also I spread my minis over several character (since you can see only 20 at a time and that is considered a 'full' monument), as well as the weapons.

If you have played your rit--get her some armor that you can put in the HoM--so that character can at least be useful.

I'd say Warrior too, for some of the reasons you already seem to know yourself.

It's simple and easy to pick-up, but fast, powerful and effective.
With the potential to also bring a perma-Save Yourselves to the field, it can make some areas that would otherwise seem difficult a walk in the park (without sacrificing your ability to do damage in areas you don't need SY, unlike a Paragon).

The point you made yourself on melee hero A.I. is also a good and valid one. It's best to do the melee yourself, and by playing the melee, it opens up a range of solid tank-and-spank options even for solo play.

Finally, when it comes to making money, there is a tonne of NM solo farm options for a Warrior, and a handful of HM options too. Plus, there is a place for Warriors in the odd team-farming build, if you ever come to do that.

It's certainly a strong starting point. My main these days is a Paragon, but my first character was a Warrior (whose still my second most played), and he really helped me get on my feet in the game all those years ago.

While some of these arguments may be valid for Assassins and/or Dervishes too, neither class is as simple to pick-up and play as a Warrior is.

For me its any none melee class, Necro is what I use, rit mesmer ele are just as good.
Its my heroes that do all the work I am just general and target caller, I choose my skills to compliment and support my team.

Play the class you like and then pick your hero team depending on where your fighting.

If you played support why would you go none melee, wouldn't a W/* or */W - especially user-controlled Imbagon, be ideal for that situation?

Don't see how you could be any more "support" than a SY! build.

He's using the word "support" as in "complement," not so much as "provide buffs and heals."

And it's true -- when you play as the lone human on an AI team, what profession you are really matters very little. You're only a small fraction of the team. With a good hero team (which you may not have right now if you're new with few good heroes/skills for them unlocked), they're the ones who really do most of the work.

I would dump the melee heroes as soon as you can, though. Melee AI sucks (they promised to fix it but I guess that got shelved). And you don't have to feel obligated to take on a melee role yourself to fill the gap -- there is no "holy trinity" in Guild Wars. A necro with a bunch of minions often provides all the meat shield you need.

Maybe you could tell us what you disliked about the ritualist so we can better nudge you in a direction you might enjoy.

Just the items/spirit dependance in general. I thought SoS spirit spammer would be fun, but found myself summoning and then just literally standing around. If my spirits were targeted and died, even with 50% damage reduction and crit immune with leech aura, then I was useless for 20 or so seconds until I could recast them. I did well in VQ, sure, but it was just so boring - and the reliance on spirits turned bad in more than one occasion.

I'm looking for melee so I can ball up and destroy groups, which I guess would be either a SF sin or a VoS derv - for some reason though Warrior really appealed to me. How is their damage?

Another big thing I did not like about Rt was the squishiness, and with SoS spammer build I had no free skill slots for a secondary class/PvE skill. I'm looking for something that can hold it's own and solo from ability immunes or just protection, so I can brute force my way through things in a sense. But not a Paragon, being pigeonholed into Imbagon sounds awful.

So right now on the table it looks like Dervish, Warrior, or Assassin...

And Chest Running would also be on my to-do list, obviously, and I think SF sin takes the cake there. Maybe a VoS derv, too?

Honestly all are good candidates. It really boils down to personal preference in the end; some don't like the bulkiness of the Warrior, while others don't like the "flimsy teenager" look of the Assassin.

Anyway some pointers for you to ponder on:

• With a Warrior you have more weapon options to choose from, thus more builds to play with if you want to switch your style. With Assassin and Dervish you'll likely just be sticking to their primary weapons, so their play styles wont change that dramatically when changing builds (unless you're doing some kind of farming/running gimmick).

• Warriors and Dervishes have ways to deal large scale AoE damage with their primary (Hundred Blades & Vow of Strength), Assassin's do not. However Assassin's do great single target damage.

• Assassin's have Shadow Form as their primary making them the no1 tanking profession. This also gives them a wide range of soloing/running options.

• Dervishes are easily the fastest runners in terms of pure running speed, as they have a stance skill linked to their primary attribute that allows them to maintain a permanent 50% IMS. They can also maintain Shadow Form 100% as well due to their 4 pip regeneration.

• Warriors have the most armours, weapons and skills compared to the other two due to being one of the 6 core professions. This also means when getting weapons for your HoM you're more likely to put them to use with a Warrior (Swords, Axes, Hammers, Shields etc).

Hope some of those help pick out the profession for you.

melee characters are simply not needed at all. As was mentioned, minions do the tank part perfectly. Plus spirit spamming lets you pay attention to what is going on, now what button you need to press next. At this point GW pve is commanding a team more than playing a role. Step back, look around, flag the heroes far enough apart, and figure out how to slaughter things.

They do. Forgotten about Mobius Strike + Death Blossom? It's a little trickier but works just aswell in most cases.

I have watched movies of SF soloing and it seems they have 100% uptime on SF, with the skill being available for recast when there is still about 1/4 of the time remaining on the buff. I looked at the wiki and it seems impossible (~20 second uptime, with 30 second recharge). I dug through the wiki history and it seemed it is always like this.

Am I seeing something wrong?

In the good old days I played the game mainly with other players I was usually Necro or Ele and my build was important as it had to work with and not against what the other players were using, that is how I meant support.

When I am using heroes they follow my lead and generally attack what I attack.
I find a melee build/class makes it very hard for me to run the battle I am just too close to the action to see danger to my team and react accordingly.
Some missions you have additional ai forces and often its important to the mission that they survive, If I initiate a melee attack they tend to get to close and die rapidly.

So I use a caster because my style of play it to pick a place and draw the enemy to me.
When they arrive their first target is a number of spirits they unload their initial attack on those spirits.
Then they get struck by my party attack usually a mob of undead and skills designed to knockdown slow cripple interrupt etc by that time my spirit wall is back up and adding to the carnage.

Alright so I think I decided on Dervish for my main HoM farming character. Still considering Warrior though due to how much armor he has access to.

Are they on par with AoE damage? Or is Dervish (I'm think this is true) miles ahead?

Dervish is a fine class and the scythe hits multiple foes, they also benefit from a skills boost a while back intended to make them stronger though some were later reduced in power a little.

Their enchantments that provide health and protection and their unique flash enchantments that have no cast time make them pretty good.
Dervish armour is only a little less than the warriors.

Warriors can also hit multiple targets with skills like cyclone axe and Hundred Blades and have slightly better armour.

I think he meant more "armor styles".

Dervishes can be often more effective than Warriors, but all melee classes in general are pretty strong thanks to the wide variety of buffs to melee damage support classes can offer you.

So, once you have narrowed down your choice to these two classes, you should choose the one you find more appealing - in terms of both appearence and playstyle.

Both work well. You won't regret either of them IMO.

Dervishes can use avatars, Warriors can knock down all adjacent foes with Earth Shaker (run to enemies BAM!! run ... BAM! funny at least at the beginning).

They use Deadly Paradox or Glyph of Swiftness to reduce the recharge time and a enchants last 20% longer weapon (like a totem axe or xxx of enchanting) to extend the uptime. Can also reduce recharge times with consumables (an essence of celerity)

If you have a weapon with +20% enchantment and use Deadly Paradox before casting, then it allows you to keep it up without any problem. Add to that some HSR and you're in heaven.

edit: damn ninjas!

Melee aren't for tanking even though they can, if you think they are you're playing the wrong game. A good melee is about half the damage output of the team. You can c-space through most of the game with your damage output and enough prots, it's definitely easy mode.

Aye this is true, but what I meant by the "large scale AoE" was mainly aimed at what we commonly find speed clears (namely fowsc).

Although MB+DB doesn't go as far in damage to mobs as the other two, it sure is more sustainable/reliable as the others are mostly situational.

Warriors are more situational, they're either mediocre or amazing depending on the group they fight.

Dervish on the other hand is between good and great vs all groups all the time. Overall I find dervishes to be a lot better!

That really depends on your team. If you've got SoH and are in NM, then yeah. In HM, not so much. Plus, as melee, you spend ages moving about the field to get to targets, while casters are sending them to hell.

I run splinter weapon, mop and wota. The damage compression is great, I can unload 500+ aoe before searing flames is even finished casting, most monsters are dead before the second death blossom hits. And being melee, you're able to charge in head first and grab agro, so they naturally gather around you anyways, all you have to do is c-space most of the time. HM changes didn't do much, it only equalized armour respecting damage and made crits with weapons hurt more, armor ignoring damage still rips through mobs.

You can do most of pve easily (missions, vanquish, dungeons) with this setup. And elite missions with a few modifications and some effort depending on the area. Everyone has their own play style, it's easy if you know what works.

WoTA with SY/melee with consistent damage
MM with mop
SoS with splinter
Ineptitude
Panic
Hburst or resto/utility necro
UA

1st Check the guide on how to quickly get 30/50 etc.

Then concentrate on setting up yourself and heros as nicely as possible with 1 or 2 team builds in mind. Builds like rojway, sabway, discordway, etc work for the vast majority of HM areas still. If you plan to get titles like VQ, Cart, and skill hunter, try to do all 3 at same time and use a primary class with running skills. This will allow you to run around and cart after you flag your heros to either fight or clean up. As long as your main has decent running skills, you can bring any 2nd to cap skills and still run. Research each area 1st for proper 2nd and cap additional skills in NM. I usually brought 2 skill caps jic I found something new.

Wars, dervs, SINS are good choices for running skills.
Sins are still great for farming to help get you money for other titles and items.
But play what you like. My gwamm is a ranger. Though not ideal, that's who I wanted to use.

I would say either Necro, Mesmer or Warrior. My only bit of solid advice is this... DO NOT use a Ranger..... Easily the worst profession in the game, good for nothing. This is coming from experience, unfortunately my main that I got 50/50 with is a ranger... Every minute I was playing I was wishing I was a mesmer or a warrior

Rangers are ok if you don't mind playing as a ritualist

I'm in that exact boat at 49/50.

Lol, very true Remember playing as a Rit a lot on my ranger Spent more time using a staff, hammer, axe, spear, daggers and scythe than I did using a bow to get my 50/50

Bunny Thumping was fun for a while