Quintessential Damage Dealers

I am trying to tempt my friend to join me in Guild Wars. He plays damage dealing classes usually: for example, a Rogue in WoW, a Wizard in Everquest, etc.

Could you recommend some of the high damage class combinations?

I was going to recommend a Fire based El/Me or a Smiting Monk or a Warrior; but I do not know which are the 'highest damage' combinations for him.

Thank you!

ele's are your standard nukers. air has very good single target nuking. fire has quite a bit of AoE, water has integrated snares with their AoE (and its quite fun to use, i got an ice ele myself). and earth can deal damage, as well as adding extra defenses

EDIT
forgot to add this
an easy choice would be Elementalist/Monk. a few points in smiting at the right part of the game can significantly help boost your damage output (missions in kryta anyone?)

The highest damage DEFINITELY comes from the elementalist.

Due to the way the skills are doled out, Fire is kind of the default for the beginning of the game. You get some good skills in the other elements, but IMHO not enough to create a cohesive character at first.

Any casting secondary profession would work well with an elementalist primary.

I have to agree with this, and with the free attribute distributions now, points can be put into smite and taken out as needed. Smite in some areas where double damage can be done is a great help.

if you want 4v4 you cant beat a ranger or a mesmer. I can drop a warrior before he reaches me.

From my understanding Rangers and Warriors have the highest sustained damage, while Elementalists and Warriors have the highest spike damage. With that said, the warrior would be the best overall damage dealer, as you are free to choose from sustained or spike damage as you please. However, many of the damage dealing skills that make a warrior worthwhile come very late in the game.

i dont think warrirs are best and ive played my warrior for around 400 hours, my monk can do way more in pve and im sure my ele can do more then my monk

Let me guess... sword warrior?

Just because a certain build sucks for damage, doesn't mean all builds of the same class do as well.

yes rangers and warriors can deal good DoT (almost constant adrenal/bow attacks respectively) but the biggest damage would come from an elementalist. although a curse/arcane echo necro/mesmer touting Feast of Corruption can spike very well (not to mention no damage reduction against FoC in terms of armor)

Well it all depends on how you use it of course, but eles having the largest energy pool can probably just cast/echo their nuking spells more often, resulting in more damage, AoE or spike. Wars and rangers are usually concentrated on more or less consistent damage. And people usually expect a lot more damage from them (warriors) their first time around playing.

It's true that ANet intended elementalists to do the largest amounts of damage; however, I think that at the current point in time they're not quite cutting it. A properly done warrior can out-damage an elementalist easily, and yes, I have played both classes extensively. The only real reason to choose one over the other is counters, in my opinion. If you're running into a lot of blinds or things such as Ward Against Melee, a warrior's going to be having a very difficult time. However, all it takes is one interrupting mesmer or ranger and an ele can be dead in the water.

As far as PvE is concerned, you're not likely to find enemies that counter either damage dealing builds of the warrior or elementalist variety at all effectively. So in PvE, if you want to deal damage and nothing but, all the time, then you probably want to go with elementalist. Right from the start you'll see the damage. If you want to be the best damage dealer that can adapt to any situation, and you don't care how many hours it takes for you to start seeing that happen, then you probably want to go warrior.

The warrior has by far the most efficient spike damage in the game for the time and energy spent...

I can give you a hint at how he does it...

it's based on his secondary class.....

If you can't figure it out, then I have every right to say you're just a noob...

I can race an elementalist with my warrior and kill foes faster because of 3 things...

Frenzy
Armor Killer + Conditions
Crits...

All with only 15e. cost... and 3s. total damage time from the opening strike...

Don't even think about mentioning counters... For a warrior, he can punch through any defense. For a Spell Caster, Spell Breaker is all it takes...

What about Throw Dirt + Empathy + Spirit Shackles? To this day, my R/Me PvP build has yet to be bested in 1v1 by a Warrior.

Or even Enfeeble + Shadow of Fear, followed by lots of life steal.

I'm really wondering why counters existing against a warrior is being brought up like this. Counters exist for elementalists too. Backfire, Blackout, energy denial, and two full classes worth of interrupts. Do counters prove anything? Not really. Every class, every damage dealing strategy, can be countered. If and when certain counters appear, then they become important. However, you can't say Elementalists are better because Throw Dirt and Enfeeble exist any more than you can say Warriors are better because Backfire and Power Block exist.

I've played sword, axe & hammer, and I agree with him that a monk does more damage faster also than an axe warrior. Warriors are pretty weak in PvE, IMO.

My suggestion for maximum damage dealing: ele-mesmer. For Echo.

I believe you'll find they brought up warrior counters because of the post that Yukito Kunisaki made - about how good his (her?) warrior was and that you shouldn't mention warrior counters because a warrior can punch through any defense. Which of course is a load of doodoo - The warrior might be able to remove 1 condition, but it'll likely just be put back on.. and maybe remove 1 hex before it gets put back on.. but if the warrior is spending his time trying to remove hexes and conditions all the time.. their dps is 0

Ah, I suppose so. I took the "punch through any defense" line to be in relation to the warriors strength attribute and how beneficial that permanent armor penetration is -how it allows a warrior to literally punch through AL. In other words, I read "defense" as "armor." I don't know if that's the way Yukito meant it, but I thought so after the reference to Weaken Armor.

I thought warriors were more tanks then damage-dealers. They're there more to soak up the damage then dish it out. And while they stand in the middle of a crowd of mobs, the ele's hits 'em with his/her AOE damage.

I'll add that I've found a good Necro can do more effecgive AOE damage with negative life pips.

Playing an Ele/Monk, Primarily to heal my friends, I'd recommend an Ele/Necro for the biggest damage dealing in PvE. The Necro's curses are also very varied and can be used defensively extremely well. eg. A rush of Minotaurs on the way to Galrath can be pretty vicious as they're hard to drop and can kill your healer quickly, but slow and weakness effects render them impotent. Plus the Ele's Mana pool is advantageous. As a Necro secondary you don't miss out on anything with Ele as your primary, so you get the best of both worlds.

Edit : BTW this is for PvE. PvP might well be different. Also the mobs seem to have been smartened up in PvE. I used to cast Firestorm and they'd just sit there, but now there tend to move out the way a bit more. My Ele's AOE damage isn't as effective as it used to be.

Hehe, why do you think so many counters exist for warriors? It's because they provide the best source of sustained DPS coupled with spiking capabilities in the game.