Help me pick a new class - currently DD ele

[bokiz333]

So I have been an ele since the start, back when they were considered UP and free kills. Ran the bunker DD ele build before it became popular and now it seems everyone and their uncle is starting to run it. I picked the class because I liked it, and then stayed with it because only few people ran it so I found it fun to play a class well when most peopel couldn't. That is no longer the case...so I'm thinking about trying out a different class and I would reallyappreciate if people coud give me their thoughts as to what I should try. This would be 97% WvW and 3% spvp btw,

Right now, based on my exposure to the classes, I am thinking mesmer. It has decent survivability, seems like a challenging class to master, and has portals and time warp which are very useful in WvW. But since I've only rolled some other classes to spvp with them and learn their "tricks" I haven't actualyl played anything other than ele outside spvp...so any thoughts as to what to play and why (and what not to play and why) would be welcomed. My dream scenario would be something like....hey most people think this class is UP but it has several trait lines that synergize and can actually be a crazy good class if played right. TIA

[Zorac]

Well I have a mesmer, was my first toon and I still consider it my main, and I love it. But if you are building a mesmer because you want to get away from what everyone else has well... I see lots and lots of mesmers in WvW, not as many as I used to but still alot. And pretty much every enemy mesmer I see uses portal and time warp as if that's all they know how to do which disgusts me. Portal and time warp are of course very useful, but they are not the only skills the profession has.

I use sword/pistol and greatsword and am mainly speced for power/vit/crit damage, which again I think is one of the most common builds, but I I use blink (the tele skill I think thats what its called lol), null field, the 2x clone skill (forget what its called) and moa morph (cause it is just cool to turn crap into moa's). The way I play is mostly solo, in PvE or WvW. I will group up if others are needing help with something, but otherwise I run around taking stuff down on my own with little problem. I have 25k hp which I think is awesome, but well that's me.

Don't think that I'm encouraging you to use my build, it may not be for you. But there are a lot of mesmers out there that all they can do portal bomb or run with groups and time warp and portal are skills that benefit groups more than soloing which is why I use what I use.

As always try things out see if you like them. I love my mesmer hope you love one too. But if not, I have a lvl 80 thief I love too, and a 80 guardian I love (though lack of good range irrates me) Got my ranger up to 30, can't say I love him yet, but I enjoy playing him. And well I also have a ele and a warrior, started both of those and well still working what build I want for my ele, lack of weapon choice is a downer and so many using DD now, makes me want to do something else too. As for my warrior, well I love him so much I tend to run in meele aoeing and dieing cause I did too much

Anyways I love all my toons, I haven't tried necro since beta and I haven't tried engineer at all, but I'll get to them eventually.

[Cariad]

The D/D Ele curse - where every other class is just dull in comparison.

[bokiz333]

Well I started a mesmer so we'll see how it goes...I only got a few lvls on it since I sold most of my crafting mats earlier and my server was getting owned in WvW and I needed to use my ele with the commander icon the last few days just to keep us from falling appart. I hope to be able to do more leveling later this week. So far...I'm not sure how I feel but I barely have anything unlocked and prob won't have a feel for it till about lvl 30ish.

[Bell]

Well, I think you can't really tell if a class fits you in WvW until lvl 80, sadly. The way the scaling works you'll get owned all the time at lower lvls, regardless of how well you play.
That's why all my twinks are currently resting and not advancing as fast as I'd hoped. Because I'm a bit bored by everything other than WvW and can't really stomach much PVE heart/DE-grinding anymore and in WvW I can't do anything, because now everybody and his dog plays with a lvl 80 there...It's disheartening.

[Zorac]

Well, I think you can't really tell if a class fits you in WvW until lvl 80, sadly. The way the scaling works you'll get owned all the time at lower lvls, regardless of how well you play.
That's why all my twinks are currently resting and not advancing as fast as I'd hoped. Because I'm a bit bored by everything other than WvW and can't really stomach much PVE heart/DE-grinding anymore and in WvW I can't do anything, because now everybody and his dog plays with a lvl 80 there...It's disheartening.

I agree with you that the scaling is messed up for WvW, but I disagree that you get owned unless you are 80. Both my thief and my guardian I lvled up mostly in WvW and I am doing about 50/50 with ranger (who is only 30) and I was never owned, (unless you call getting rofl stomped by 5+ owned) 1 on 1 fights on my theif vs others I would win hands down, still do, very rarely do I lose or retreat from a 1 on 1 (and no I don't stealth with my theif like most do) My guardian I can't say I owned others, but I can say I was never owned, but that was mainly do to it being a guardian I just didn't have the firepower to bring people down, but they couldn't take me down either so I had quite a few long fights that ended when one or both of our team mates showed.

As for starting a mesmer, well use the dodge bokiz. Until I got up in lvls on my mesmer dodging was must even though I had used a mesmer in beta and knew mostly what I was doing I still couldn't stay up until I got my traits up. Once you get your traits up and you get used to using your clones/phatasms dodging will only be an occassional thing from a boss that is doing an aoe that you want to avoid.

Enjoy the mesmer, and if you are seeing 4 of you on the screen you aren't high nor did you hit your head, you are just doing it right

[Bell]

How often do you upgrade your equipment, to be able to hold your own as a non lvl 80 against lvl 80 exo players? I've had my fair share of duels against both lvl 80s and lower lvled players on my DD ele and against lvl 80s I have to work to get my kill, but if the enemy is lower than 80 they melt very fast.

[Zorac]

If I am using the toon for WvW I keep their gear as high lvl as I can and of highest quality I can, which costs, but not a lot, plus I also use the hundreds of transmutation stones I get from map completions too keep my gear looking cool

My guardian I always had to work for the kill lol, I haven't taken my ele in to WvW yet (lvl 20 now still getting the feel of her) My ranger has as high of grade as he can as well with runes (I use 6 different of the basic runes this way I get +10 to the stats always where as if you use 2 of the runes you get +10 and like +6 or some other stat like longer switfness) But once I got to lvl 15 his last 15 lvls have all been WvW, I use shortbow/longbow, not smart I know but I'm making it work, in the future I'll probably have a sword or something in my bag to switch to for dungeons (since dungeons love reflect mobs sometimes) but for now switching back and forth in combat has been pretty effective in pew pew pewing people to death.

I think an ele in general more squishy toon and being under 80 is harder to keep up with true 80s in WvW than some other classes. But with everything in this game it comes down to skill. If you are more skilled than your oppenant the difference in stat points don't effect you as much, where as if your enemy is as good or better than you that difference can be life or death.

I won't say I'm a super skilled player (as I know most of the people I fight just aren't, there are some good ones out there against Darkhaven in WvW, but not a lot) but with close to 6k kills total and usually only 2 to 3 deaths a night tops I think I a pretty decent player sometimes I get my butt handed to me sure but I always have fun.

[Avariz]

So I have been an ele since the start, back when they were considered UP and free kills. Ran the bunker DD ele build before it became popular and now it seems everyone and their uncle is starting to run it. I picked the class because I liked it, and then stayed with it because only few people ran it so I found it fun to play a class well when most peopel couldn't. That is no longer the case...so I'm thinking about trying out a different class and I would reallyappreciate if people coud give me their thoughts as to what I should try. This would be 97% WvW and 3% spvp btw,

Right now, based on my exposure to the classes, I am thinking mesmer. It has decent survivability, seems like a challenging class to master, and has portals and time warp which are very useful in WvW. But since I've only rolled some other classes to spvp with them and learn their "tricks" I haven't actualyl played anything other than ele outside spvp...so any thoughts as to what to play and why (and what not to play and why) would be welcomed. My dream scenario would be something like....hey most people think this class is UP but it has several trait lines that synergize and can actually be a crazy good class if played right. TIA

From my experience today when my Mesner took to the breached outer and inner walls of the Valley keep of the EB, I found the profession to be limiting and restrictive as it can only spam clones. Hope it did Not affect anyone's game play.

Edit: The Mesner class I've found to be more support orientated of others than soloing as the clones are low in health and damage.
Edit: The latter being the case while others led the support profession (Mesner) must follow, so yes I was just a follower today. I don't make the decisions.

[bokiz333]

Well my mesmer (made her a red head so I wanted to name her Red Sonja but it and other variations of Sonja were taken...so I named her Ginger Sonja ) is only lvl 5 so its way too early for me to get a feel for the class. I don't have weapon swap or even all weapons skills unlocked. (staff, greatsword and torch still need to be worked on)

I'll level her a few lvls a day I hope so in a month or so, we'll see how she works.