19 replies to this topic

[kofman13]

whats the best profession to solo with?
guardian?

[My Sweet Lily]

Ranger. Equip a Shortbow and use a bear, and you're good to go.

Other good solo-ers are Guardian and Warrior.

[Heart Collector]

If were talking leveling I find the Thief pretty good to solo with, especially after 30 when we can get the Thieves Guild elite. That combined with crazy evasion, sustainable condition damage and lots of "slip away" tools enable me to solo pretty much everything barring some more massive group events and champions - which is pretty much the minority of open world content anyway. Dunno how it will be at end game though.

[Xunlai Agent]

Warrior and Guardian solo very well in my experience.

[Symbiont]

moving fast, without spending any dime on waypoints is done best with a thief equipped with a shortbow and a lot survivability with stealth.
but killing things fast solo is done greatly with a warrior. either way i think the thief is the best solo profession.

[BLONDE WENCH]

I found so far that the easiest for a melee character to Solo with is the Guardian, & the easiest for a ranged character is the Ranger (with Brown Bear pet).  Also, from my experience, Mesmer & Necromancer are much harder to master if you're a Solo player.

[Rashid ad din Sinan]

I play as ranger and use longbow and great sword. My pets can tank pretty much everything and you just shoot/swing at it... And you don't get lonely since you always have your pet to hang with

[Brizna]

I have played to 80 thief and guardian, guardian is a good solo classs and has more survivability, but not that much more than thief in general PvE which is easy by all standards anyway and in exchange gets:

Fast Speed:
Allows you to run away if you mess, always. If you fail to run away it's either becuase you ran away too late or poorly.
Gets you from point A to B faster, soloing has you on the move all the time.
Stealth:
Makes even easier to fix a mistake, stealth and run away.
Also lets you move faster around, that unconvenient mob in your path ... np stealth and run through it no need to kill it or go around.

As a result thief is most certainly the fastest class to get to level 80 or anywhere in Tyria you want to be.

Edited by Brizna, 26 November 2012 - 01:29 PM.

[Eyebrows89]

Depends on what you consider Soloing

For killing stuff fast and being kinda bulky, Warrior or Guardian
For killing stuff kinda fast and having very good mobility (getting from mob to mob) but rather frail, Ele or Thief
For killing stuff at a rather slow rate but have the survivability to solo 1v20 or Group events or Champions, Mesmer

I've soloed way too many things on my Mesmer that I am near positive that I wouldnt be able to do on any other Profession.
Albiet our normal 1v1, 1vFew damage is quite low, we make it up by being able to survive most encounters.
Its one of the reasons why Mesmers do so well in PvP.

[Venereus]

BLONDE WENCH, on 25 November 2012 - 05:29 PM, said:

I found so far that the easiest for a melee character to Solo with is the Guardian, & the easiest for a ranged character is the Ranger (with Brown Bear pet).  Also, from my experience, Mesmer & Necromancer are much harder to master if you're a Solo player.

No need for Brown Bear, any bear will do.

Edited by Venereus, 26 November 2012 - 07:56 PM.

[TGIFrisbie]

Symbiont, on 24 November 2012 - 02:12 AM, said:

thief equipped with a shortbow

Moving through content quickly is pretty darn good on thief, but Heartseeker spam is faster and requires less mouse interaction.  However Warrior with banner and extended banner trait can be faster.

Venereus, on 26 November 2012 - 07:56 PM, said:

No need for Brown Bear, any bear will do.

Brown bear has shake it off, black and white do not.  I too vote brown bear.

As long as you aren't fighting in very confined spaces Ranger is probably tops overall, but not so significantly as to say others are gimped.

Edited by TGIFrisbie, 26 November 2012 - 08:01 PM.

[wolfpaq777]

TGIFrisbie, on 26 November 2012 - 07:58 PM, said:

Moving through content quickly is pretty darn good on thief, but Heartseeker spam is faster and requires less mouse interaction.  However Warrior with banner and extended banner trait can be faster.

Heartseeker spam is absolutely not faster.  Every time you cast it your character stops moving, then performs the animation, then stops moving again for the landing animation.  Not to mention that any nook or cranny or even potential target nearby will make the animation stop well short of its potential.  Please actually play the thief before making suggestions like this.

Also, warrior can't touch the thief's ability to move from A to B.  They have high uptime on swiftness, and that's it.  There is no extended banner trait.  A smart thief has 4 bIinks, stealth to avoid unnecessary combat, and permanent 25% movement speed.  A skilled thief could even take the withdraw heal for a long distance roll every 15 seconds with a bit of camera manipulation required (hotkey for change direction would be useful here).  No warrior could possibly compete with that.

In case people reading this post were wondering what the details are on theif movement:

Shadowstep (utility skill 1) - 50 second cooldown (40 traited) - usage: ground targeted
Infiltrator Arrow (shortbow 5) - 6 ini cost, 0 cooldown - usage: ground targeted
Infiltrator Strike (sword 2) - 2 ini cost, 15 seconds effective cooldown (shadow return) - usage: target any neutral/enemy target outside of shadow step range.  you'll get the full 600 yard teleport.
Steal (class mechanic) - 45 second cooldown (32 with full traits) - usage: can only be used on creeps unfortunately, using it on enemies would place you in combat, using it on enemies out of range does nothing (I'm 99% sure of this).

Signet of Shadows - passive 25% ms boost

Withdraw - heal - 15 second cooldown - removes immobilize, cripple and chill, takes you the distance of roughly 3 dodges backwards.

You could easily throw blinding powder into this build for an ondemand stealth for detection avoidance.  Alternatively, seeing as 4 shadowsteps can be a bit redundant since 2 of them are weapon skills you can remove shadowstep and use shadow refuge for another on demand, long duration stealth skill.

I simply do not believe a warrior can compete with this level of mobility over any amount of ground.

Edited by wolfpaq777, 27 November 2012 - 12:51 AM.

[TGIFrisbie]

wolfpaq777, on 27 November 2012 - 12:50 AM, said:

Heartseeker spam is absolutely not faster.  Every time you cast it your character stops moving, then performs the animation, then stops moving again for the landing animation.  Not to mention that any nook or cranny or even potential target nearby will make the animation stop well short of its potential.  Please actually play the thief before making suggestions like this.

Also, warrior can't touch the thief's ability to move from A to B.  They have high uptime on swiftness, and that's it.  There is no extended banner trait.  A smart thief has 4 bIinks, stealth to avoid unnecessary combat, and permanent 25% movement speed.  A skilled thief could even take the withdraw heal for a long distance roll every 15 seconds with a bit of camera manipulation required (hotkey for change direction would be useful here).  No warrior could possibly compete with that.

In case people reading this post were wondering what the details are on theif movement:

Shadowstep (utility skill 1) - 50 second cooldown (40 traited) - usage: ground targeted
Infiltrator Arrow (shortbow 5) - 6 ini cost, 0 cooldown - usage: ground targeted
Infiltrator Strike (sword 2) - 2 ini cost, 15 seconds effective cooldown (shadow return) - usage: target any neutral/enemy target outside of shadow step range.  you'll get the full 900 yard teleport.
Steal (class mechanic) - 45 second cooldown (32 with full traits) - usage: can only be used on creeps unfortunately, using it on enemies would place you in combat, using it on enemies out of range does nothing (I'm 99% sure of this).

Signet of Shadows - passive 25% ms boost

Withdraw - heal - 15 second cooldown - removes immobilize, cripple and chill, takes you the distance of roughly 3 dodges backwards.

You could easily throw blinding powder into this build for an ondemand stealth for detection avoidance.  Alternatively, seeing as 4 shadowsteps can be a bit redundant since 2 of them are weapon skills you can remove shadowstep and use shadow refuge for another on demand, long duration stealth skill.

I simply do not believe a warrior can compete with this level of mobility over any amount of ground.

Let me sum it up, you are wrong, I am right.  My toon doesn't stop with Heartseeker, maybe your's does?  Also the issue you mention Heartseeker having is one I find happens more often with shortbow.

Warrior with Banner and Sig of Rage is 33% move speed up time 100%, can knock off 1% for recasting banner if you like, your call.  33% faster > 25% with some gimped shortbow or even heartseeker as initiative is being used.

In any event travel speed wasn't the topic, now was it?

Failed to mention I have 80 war, thief and ranger, out of my current stable of 5 80s.

Edited by TGIFrisbie, 27 November 2012 - 12:55 AM.

[Heart Collector]

TGIFrisbie, on 27 November 2012 - 12:53 AM, said:

My toon doesn't stop with Heartseeker, maybe your's does?  Also the issue you mention Heartseeker having is one I find happens more often with shortbow.

Wait - are you sure? My thief stops - or at least slows down a lot - for a split second when casting HS and DB. I think it's because of the animation, the animations don't seem to blend seamlessIy from movement to cast. It may not always be noticable in the heat of combat, but if you try it OoC it is very noticable (and annoying).

[MrForz]

Noone mentioned the Engineer? Sure we're not the most mobile class (although not far), we don't have the highest damage output. But you're going to flood your ennemies under so much turrets and crowd control that it gives you plenty of time to solo.

[Mekkakat]

In terms of survival:

Thief
Guardian
Warrior
Ranger
Engineer
Mesmer
Necro
Ele

In terms of mob killing speed (single target):

Thief
Mesmer
Warrior
Engineer
Ranger
Guardian
Necro
Ele

In terms of mob killing speed (large groups):

Warrior
Ele
Thief
Engineer
Necro
Ranger
Guardian
Mesmer

(just my opinions)

[escada_assassin]

Been playing Guardian, Thief, Elementalist, Warrior (just up to level 20, then I got bored with it) and Mesmer. Out of those 4 (except Warrior who I couldn't get any higher than 20)  I would have to notice this :
- on my elementalist I could handle more than 3 mobs at a time, but that involves a lot of dodging and avoiding aggroing even more mobs;
- on my mesmer - well...fighting more than 3 mobs at a time often meant certain downed state for me; sometimes clones, illusions would die in an instant;
- on my thief - I could handle even more than 3 mobs pretty easy, using Thieves Guild and lots of shadow steps, but pretty easy;
- on my guardian - hell, I wouldn't even wanna start a fight, unless there's more than 4 mobs at a time. So I just pull as many as I can and start cutting through meat.

Edited by escada_assassin, 27 November 2012 - 02:53 PM.

[Drekor]

Guardians are probably the best. Not necessarily the fastest but if you fell asleep on your keyboard you would probably wake up and realized your guardian grinded it's way to 80 and got a full set of exotics.

[TGIFrisbie]

escada_assassin, on 27 November 2012 - 02:53 PM, said:

Been playing Guardian, Thief, Elementalist, Warrior (just up to level 20, then I got bored with it) and Mesmer. Out of those 4 (except Warrior who I couldn't get any higher than 20)  I would have to notice this :
- on my elementalist I could handle more than 3 mobs at a time, but that involves a lot of dodging and avoiding aggroing even more mobs;
- on my mesmer - well...fighting more than 3 mobs at a time often meant certain downed state for me; sometimes clones, illusions would die in an instant;
- on my thief - I could handle even more than 3 mobs pretty easy, using Thieves Guild and lots of shadow steps, but pretty easy;
- on my guardian - hell, I wouldn't even wanna start a fight, unless there's more than 4 mobs at a time. So I just pull as many as I can and start cutting through meat.

Things change as you level up.  All this Guardian boasting is laughable, while they are good, they just aren't the gods many like to say they are.  They are also no more exciting than a warrior.

Mesmer can easily handle multiple mobs.  In fact better than an Elementalist.

However, in general, for levelling taking on more than a single mob at a time is really just slowing you down unless you have a fantastic AoE build and are downlevelled.  Talking solo here, if you have more peeps contributing then taking on multiples can speed some things along, like events requiring morale of mobs be brought down (faster you kill lots, quicker event ends).

[wolfpaq777]

TGIFrisbie, on 27 November 2012 - 12:53 AM, said:

My toon doesn't stop with Heartseeker, maybe your's does?

Stopped reading here.  Like I said before, get back to me when you've actually played thief.

Every thief stops before and after HS.  It's part of the skill animation.  There's nothing toon specific about it.

As for you being right, 900 range blink on shortbow > 8% movement.  Nuff said.

Edited by wolfpaq777, 29 November 2012 - 07:07 PM.