Which Profession do you feel is the most underated and why?

Mesmers

Last Thing you see called for in ToA for UW & FoW.

Because of this i made a monk for FoW and a Ranger for UW after my mesmer completed the game.

I miss my Mesmer

As a necro I'm the least to worry when the monk is poor or absent.

I don't do assloads of dmg, but I can take a beating without worrying so much. I can do significant dmg to single targets (particularly if they're not undead or golems) and I can keep my health nearly capped in the process. I took necro for RP reasons, but I've come to truly appreciate that they are indeed a force to be dealt with.

Having played a Me/E for a few days, I've gotta agree that in PvE mesmers get the shaft. I've been lucky to get what groups I've been able to get, and most of them have been simply abysmal. I suspect the big problem with mesmers, besides the obvious that newbs don't know what to make of them, is that there's so many things they CAN do, and so many ways they can do it.

Domination: Empathy to screw warriors over, and a disgustingly huge list of skills that damage/drain/disable other spellcasters.

Illusion: Home of the ever-popular conjure phantasm and IW skills, a whole mess of other things to screw with warriors, a few skill/spell-duplicators, and migraine for elite-level caster hurting.

Inspiration: More for personal benefit than damaging enemies, although most of those benefits come at the expense of the enemy.

So 3 different attributes, 3 entirely different options. And even within those 3 attributes there's skills with wildly different purposes. Add in skills from a second class, and well...yeah, mesmers are kinda impossible to predict what you're going to get when you sign one onto your team. Warriors are probably going to be running up and beating on the enemy in some way or another, monks are probably going to be either healing or protecting(unless it's a smiting run), and elementalists are probably going to be damaging the hell out of stuff with their spells. But mesmers? I could be a caster-killer, a warrior-killer, an energy drain expert...but odds are most of the kiddies out there are going to just see me as an inferior version of an elementalist or something.

The whole point about this game is to make any class successful. If you have the skill and are actually able to make the build work, then you will be successful. Obviously if you think that Rangers suck, a) it is your own opinion but b) my opinion is that if you think they suck, you obviously aren't skillful enough to make the profession work.

I'm sensing that you're a hack/slash/heal kind of person then?!

If you can't be successful with particular professions, leave it to those who can - don't bag 'em just because you can't do it.

Not all classes are equal and it's not just skill that limits certain classes from doing as well as others can. Just look at necros in PvP.

Mesmer, definitely.

Try finding a party when being a Mesmer...

I have henchied (and guild partied) my Mesmer all the way from Ascalon to (now almost) Desert because nobody wanted to have her in their party. Being a monk player normally, this experience is kinda... strange at least.

quoted for Truth.

I am Mesmer/Warrior specializing in Illusion/Weapon/Inspiration. Imagine the trouble I get finding PvE groups. and I'm not an IW character either(though I do sometimes pull up IW just for chits and giggles).

I started out and played most of the game(this is my first character) as a Pure Domination, Anti-Caster, Backfire/Empathy Mesmer , because I thought, you know...that's what Mesmers are SUPPOSED to DO. It took a great deal of thinking and talking with Guildmates to convince me to give Illusion a shot once I ascended and switched my class to Warrior. I had it in my head that any Mesmer worth his salt HAD to be an Anti-caster Domination Mesmer.

Mesmers have so much variety and so many different playstyles to them it is rediculous, and I am just now starting to really notice that. I thought I'd make a crappy PvE Caster/Melee Hybrid, but that just isn't seeming to be the case, I am doing quite well actually, even if I am still learning. (Distortion is wonderful for a melee character, and so is Illusion of Weakness).

yesterday i had a group doing Iron Mines of Moladune, and as I was the only Infused one, I jumped up in front of a Mursaat Boss and tanked it with Clumsiness, Illusion of Weakness, Distortion, Ether Feast and Savage Slash. and some healing from our HenchMonk of course.

nobody else was infused so they all stood WAAAAY back, making sure not to become a target.

my group was shocked when the Boss dropped.

a lot of people are surprised when we port into a Mission or Zone, and they see me carrying an axe or sword.

I'm going to have to say, the ranger. No one really talks about them, and when they do, 90% of the time 'spirit spam' is somewhere in there. Besides that build, what else do people know what they're good for?

Sure, to the trained eye you could probably list a wide array of tactics and builds and what not. But to the average Joe, they just shoot arrows, run and stuff. Honestly, people know more about what necros can do than rangers.

My main character is N/E. I have to say, I use Soul Reaping as a thowaway bin of attribute points. It's fairly useless, even in PvE. In PvP, I'd sooner settle for using Necro as a secondary class, but I don't have the skills to make the necessary changes. I can make an E/N and use the build like a Necro, but the Energy Storage gets depleted very quickly, simply because it's there to use, and I involuntarily eat it up. After that, it's just wasted points.

I like to use Blood and Curses for the degens and regens. I've often gotten into fights against dozens of enemies or three or so PvP people, and have remained essentially invincible because I'm regening about 10 health a second and they're all losing about 4-9 health a second. I can either art around one or two attack spells as a finisher or some curse spells to act as a support class. I'd say necro is my favorite class for this reason. For its intended use, however, as a corpse user, I hate necros. There are never enough dead bodies to do much of anything, and when there are, it seems like the corpse you want to use is putrid-explosioned or used up before you can get to it.

Not that it matters, but expertise effects glyphs. It also effects attack skills, stances, anything marked "skill", nature rituals, and shouts. My ranger has 14 expertise, which makes those skills cost only 2 energy if they originally costed 5. Also, Oath Shot, which can recharge all of your skills every 20 seconds, uses expertise (14 expertise assures no failure with OS).

I am convinced that a R/E *could* be a nuker if they played it smart. I mean, really, the only thing seperating rangers and eles is the energy storage and 1 pip of regen. Pack a glyph or two, Oath Shot, and your [element] Attunement skill of choice and you're good to go. Since you can tank reasonably well with Whirling Defense (19 seconds with 14 expertise; it's a stance, so you can activate it while you're casting something else), you can even make use of some of those nice AoE skills that are centered around you.

To the question at hand, rangers are the most underrated in PvP and mesmers are the most underrated in PvE. However, the problem with any given profession is that some people only want particular builds, leaving any build that doesn't conform to that expectation as "underrated".

ranger, i think they are a wonderful asset to a party, simply because they do all types of elements damage, they can trap, but wait! theres more, they cripple use spirits, and many other things! so i think since they are so versatile they are great!

What's the most underrated profession? I'd have to say just about anything besides a monk or warrior, considering that all mission groups seem to think they must have 2 monks and 2 warriors to be complete.

I would have to agree with those who say that mesmers are the most underrated. This is probably because few know how to play them effectively, so few people have any experience or knowledge of their true capabilities. There is just something intensely satisfying of knowing your opponent can't do anything, and if he does, he kills himself doing it. It's fun to have the control!

Right behind Mesmers are Necros and Rangers of course. A friend of mine plays a necro primary, don't even think of telling me it's useless. When you have a dozen lvl 18 bone minions out there, who needs a warrior for a tank? And when they get low on health? Death Nova. Heck, he'll even cast Death Nova on us if we get low on health (I know, sort of sadistic, isn't he? ), and if we die, he always raises a minion from us before rezzing. Anyway, the army of minions always tramples the opposition. As my friend always says, "why have a team of 6 when you can have 16?"

And anyone who says a Ranger is no good must not have spent much time in the underworld, where rangers are practically a must. I don't know any other profession that forms entire groups of just their profession to go into the UW. Ever see what happens when 48 traps go off at once? It's a beautiful sight. And as for expertise, in a game where energy management is key, being able to do everything at half cost is plenty useful. Sure, they may not 'spike' as much damage as other classes, but that's not their role. Each profession in the game is unique, and if you try using them exactly the same as another profession, of course you are going to fail. Making the most of each profession's abilities is what really makes them powerful.

I would have to say smiting Monks no one wants them in a group or party.They don't realize how effective they can be at keeping the group alive if the healing Monk gets killed and the smiter won't and can res the healing Monk when they are fineshed.If they are fortunate enough to have signet od judgement on them.I was the only Monk in the Wild and no knew I was a smiter at thhe time or asked and we were going into mission before I hd chance to tell them and of course when they started going down I got the blame.

A lot of this nonsense about rangers having low damage output and only can run around doing nothing but spirit spam is just assinine. That said, I'm going to have to go with ranger as the most underrated. Rangers can do far more than spam spirits. As was pointed out, rangers can dominate the UW with trapping. I haven't had a better character for damage output than my barrage/tiger's fury/judge's insight/ spammer. When people see spirit spam, it seems to trigger some misconception that rangers can't do anything BUT spirit spam. People complain about the lack of variety in rangers, yet they seem to possess more options than any other class.