Inquiring as to "Best" duo composition for PVE (somewhat new here)

Before anyone asks, yes, I searched first, and was actually surprised to only find one thread that sort of answered my question, but not really (it used a lot of jargon/acronyms that I don't have the first clue about).

My gaming partner and I are looking at tackling the prophecies campaign, (to bone up on the world for GW2) potentially getting the trilogy. We are experienced MMO players, and I am somewhat experienced with GW, but my info is rather outdated, and I don't know the first thing about all the acronyms used by "in the know" players. Please keep this in mind should you choose to respond and help me.

Straight up, we've found that we almost always gravitate, as a duo, into tank and healer modes, just because we know then that "the hard part" is handled by skill we trust. I get mixed messages as to whether or not "the trinity" is in place in GW, and to be frank, if "the trinity" doesn't hold true in GW, it'd be nice to break free from it for once.

My inquiry really boils down to this:

We're less concerned with "playing what we'd rather" if it means we have an easier time in a complex game with a potentially frustrating play experience (as I said, I'm somewhat experienced with GW, and I know how nuanced combat and builds can get), and are wondering what the smoothest "duo composition" is for the direct point a-b of the story. We know that our group will be filled out with henchmen/heroes, and we were wondering what roles are best left for these automated allies.

I'm guessing that she will go primary monk, but my main class depends a lot on what I hear here (and in other inquiries of the same nature that I've heard elsewhere). I could be "the tank" via warrior, but if I can get away with something more ranged and squishy, as I said, I'd enjoy a break from "tanking".

We're not looking to "be challenged" more than need be (meaning we don't want to hinder ourselves by picking "the wrongest build"), we're looking to enjoy ourselves with as smooth a transition as possible. "That build that's just mindless but always wins" is far from a turnoff in this vein.

Thank you for reading and thank you in advance for any and all constructive replies

Everyone will inevitably offer up what it to them their favorite class(es), the truth is you guys can play whatever you like, and things will be essentially just as easy.

The "trinity" does not hold up in GW as in other games, in GW the more health/armor you have the less likely holding aggro becomes.

A tank in GW, really has to go into the frey well before anything else or balling enemies is hard if not impossible, since they are happy to break aggro and chase a monk around (which is sensible).

Other games where the so-called "trinity" works as easy as clockwork are rather boring

* Oh btw, nice to see you searched, many are too lazy, in any case you questions seem perfectly reasonable to me so I doubt Mods will frown at you asking them

Tanking is somewhat "gimmicky" in GW so in normal play there is no real tanking as in holding aggro. Monsters will not go for the guy with the most armor but rather the squishy ones.

Playing monk is very fun and you can play as both healer and dish out heavy damage with the right skills. The point in GW is that you change your attribute points and skills all the time. No need to pick a skill tree and stick to it

Apart from warrior, all the other core classes are normally ranged. And if you want to take a break from tanking you can still pick warrior if you want.

The easy mainstream builds are often a mix of skills from the 3 campaigns and expansion so you will be limited in the beginning if only playing prophecies. But by all means of course it is possible to play through it anyway

first of all going duo isn't to be recommended. you can bring a party of 8 (4 or 6 in the early stages). When you can't bring 8 real players (wich is a lot of the time) fill your party with henchman.

A good party composition for a 4 player area is:
1 melee (warrior,assasin,dervish)
1 healer (ritualist, monk)
2 casters (ele, necro, mesmer, paragon, ritualist)

So if your playing a melee character, and your friend a monk, add two henchman casters to your party.

There really isn't a best combo as such but the one thing I would say definitely helps is if one of you plays a melee.

It's more for pulling than for tanking though. As a melee player you have a much easier time balling up foes quickly so that when you engage, your area of effect skills will be more effective.

Balling is irrelevent for c-space builds (Known as c-space builds because "c" is the default key to target nearest enemy and space to attack) where you will just be killing one foe at a time anyway. So ignore this advice if you plan on taking that route.

You could leave the healing to the AI and abuse the power of a Warrior for balling and using the skills Hundred Blades and Whirlwind Attack (Requires Night Fall) with a Necro using the skill Mark of Pain. This produces a very large amount of AoE damage and the only reason people don't run it more is because it requires coordination which could be rewarding for you guys to pull off.

At the end of the day if one of you goes Melee your heroes can do everything else.

About the only time the "holy trinity" come into play in Guild Wars is in end game content. In those areas the damage output by mobs demands that someone stand out front to take at least the initial hit. Like it has bee pointed out its difficult to keep enemies focused on one player. We don't have any skills that can specifically draw aggro or anything like that. The best part about guild wars then is that the game puts you into a party of 4 then 6 then 8 players. You get to pick a play style that you enjoy and then you get to throw in heroes/henchmen to fill in the gaps. So my vote is for both you and your friend to try something different and have some fun with this game.

In short there are several ways to go about this. But no matter how much you look at it, one fact remains. And that is that one of the characters should have the oppurtunity to either tank or be a superprotter like an ER Bonding elementalist or ST ritualist. As this allows you to easily complete the hardest dungeons in the game using only a hero team.

http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:E/Mo_ER_Infuse_Bonder
http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:Rt/any_Defensive_Spirits
http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:P/W_Imbagon
And in last place you have the general shadowform tank.

In short that means that one of the characters should either be an elementalist, ritualist or assassin. Because while the imbagon is extremely effective, it is unfortunantly also the only effective build Paragons have available and there's only a few areas in the game where you would want this kind of heavy prot. Elementalists, Ritualists and Assassins on the other hand always have some kind of effective build available. Which one of these you pick, would mainly depend on the other character.

The other character can be just about anything, as long as it is effective in general PVE. But this is also where you have the oppurtunity to boost the effectiveness by creating a synergy between the builds.

If the first char is a ritualist, it is hard to create any kind of synergy. So this char can be pretty much anything and you just play what you want to play.

If the first char is an assassin though, you could pick a necromancer as the second character to create a synergy between melee attacks and curses. Or you could pick an elementalist, and go A/E AP caller on the assassin and E/A AP caller on the elementalist. And pick up Ebon Vanguard Battle Standard of Honor to boost the damage for both characters massively. You could however also pick something like a fevered dreams mesmer in order to spread conditions to the entire opposing team and shut down importaint casters. Picking an elementalist would also allow you to combine the power of Shadowform with the ER Prot to create a booster ER tank.

If you pick an elementalist on the other hand I would reccomend either grabbing a necromancer or another elementalist as the second character. But this time playing the necromancer as a AP Death Magic bomber.


There is probably other synergies here that I have missed, and you could also simply pick a monk for your first character. And regardless of what class combination you pick you will be able to get through the entire game with ease. I would however reccomend you not to pick two melee characters though.

something to note, to get a lot of the skills to really flesh out your builds, you need all the campaigns. sure, you can play with just one, but i feel that a few really good skills come from factions, nightfall, and eye of the north. also, you won't have any heroes without nightfall, and this game can be difficult with just 2 people and henchies, though, in normal mode it shouldn't be too bad.

Thanks for the first wave of helpful info, here's a little more from me:

I've settled on getting her the trilogy (I have every campaign from my first "attempt" years ago) to open up all classes and skills, the next question is more a memory jogger.

Since it's looking like I'll be playing an assassin, but we'd like to get to the prophecies story as soon as possible, how doable is this? I know we'll miss out on pre-searing, but I can't remember if the first mission post-searing is opened up immediately to characters porting from factions to prophecies. I also can't recall, from the factions end, how early that option opens up.

I mean, sure, if she's playing a monk, the option is open to simply roll factions characters, and we might do that, but the prophecies campaign (more importantly, its story) is our goal here. How backwards will that goal be if I play an assassin, and she a prophecies monk?

You as an assassin starting in factions, can crossover to tyria when you reached Kaineng Center (KC). With normal play you'll be around level 15 orso. From KC you can go to Lions Arch (LA) in tyria.

From there you can choose to "wait" for your partner to get there aswell, or run all the way back to Ascalon. With the latter you will be able to pretty much play the entire story together. Note that there will be a significant difference in your two levels, but it will only help speed things up in the early stages of tyria since you will do alot more damage.

If you choose to get to Ascalon, and need a guide or run there feel free to pm me ingame (IGN Chris Le Noir). Should take about half an hour if you already arrived in LA.
Either way, have fun on your adventures together

Alright, sounds like I'll make a warrior to play with her TO L.A., and get an assassin (on my solo time) to L.A. to rendevous with her.

Thanks again for all the info, looking forward to a better attempt than my last