On 6/17/2024 at 10:27 AM, Grey.8719 said:
I main Willbender and am looking to diversify my portfolio to fill the gaps that Willbender can't, but also to fulfill the multiple professions to complete The Ascension achievements. I have all expansions up to EoD and am looking to pick up SotO in the near future for the weapon mastery.
I know easy is subjective, but I find Willbender easy to play. Something along the lines of Willbender that has combos is ideal. My rank is Gold 1.
Well you could just pick up Dragon Hunter. It fills a different archetype to willy with different strengths and weaknesses. That being said,I'm personally an advocate of multiclassing to break up the monotony of it all. maybe you share perspectives. This game has been hom*ogenized so much over the years that at this point, pretty much every class has a tanky build that's not too difficult to play, but I digress.
Quick disclaimer: I will not be discussing revenant in my suggestions, cause kitten Dat class
I'd say there are three solid options for a 'tanky' teamfighter that are both relatively easy to pick up, yet have cool synergies within the kit that feel satisfying and combo driven. Basically a moderately high skill ceiling with room to improve. Willbender is more or less a zugzug spec in that it's kinda braindead and lacks finesse. The first 3 specs I'll mention require a little more though process, yet I'd considere noob friendly.
Condi reaper - there are many build paths to choose from. Pair either Death Magic, or Blood Magic with Curses for tankier variants. Curses + spite provides more damage, but is suboptimal when compared to the tank specs and seldom ran. Speaking to it's versatility, there are many nuances to the build path to better tailor your success bases on enemy teamcomp. For instance, rabid ammy makes you EXTREMELY hard to take down VS full power team comps. Keep things like this in mind when playing condi reaper for the best results. This is THE strongest build in the game ATM IMO.
Spellbreaker - typically ran as a side node spec, but is formidable as a teamfighter when running hammer specifically. Hammer is a versatile weapon in that you can pair it with pretty much anything power based. My favorite is Hammer/greatsword with Defense + Discipline and zerker ammy. Stability spam renders this spec useless, so never play it VS a core support guard.
Shadow Arts Deadeye - the hardest to play out of the three with by far the highest skill ceiling. I'd consider it easy to play at a baseline though. That might sound contradictory, but it's because it's just extremely strong right now and deceptively hard to kill. Also pewpewing from afar is easy enough. The skill cap comes from its plethora of combos and versatility of your non damaging skills and utilities. The number one tip for picking up deadeye is utilizing all of your stealth sources effectively to both proc your traits and maintain that 'tanky' factor. Stealth spam is what makes deadeye so extremely hard to lock down. Practice and get clean with your kneel -> smoke wall -> stealth port combos.
HARDER OPTIONS TO PLAY BELOW
A fourth option would be a few variants of dagger/focus elementalist. Support tempest would be my go to spec for ease of learning. Although it's considered a 'support' build, in actuality it's played as more of a Frontline bruiser with moderate damage contribution. You're mostly focused on your CC, healing, and aurashares via overloads, but it's damage is still very relevant. Bonus points: dagger/focus is about to recieve some very strong buffs come the june 25th patch.
There are a few more damage oriented elementalist variants such as Lightning Rod builds with Cata or Weaver. I can't personally speak to it's effectiveness in the meta cause I don't play it, but I'd consider those 'tanky' teamfighters. Tempest in general has a lot of build paths and it's the easiest ele elite spec to play, with weaver and cata having moderately high skill floors.
Ranger is probably the most versatile class in the game, fulfilling many playstyles with a huge variation in gameplay across it's elite specs. It has a huge finesse factor and not straight forward to play. Finally, It has by far the most flexibility in build paths; every talent tree brings worthwhile contributions to an overarching spec/game plan. There are too many things to cover on Ranger and it's higher skill cap in general is why it's so low on my list.
Briefly I'll mention rangers most willbender like spec: Soulbeast. Power soulbeast is near and dear to my heart and maybe my favorite build in the game. Its harder to play and requires huge finesse factor to fully utilize your pets, both merged and unmerged. However i consider this build quite tanky teamfight/roamer, so it matches your criteria. The standard setup is skirmishing + beast mastery with sword/warhorn plus X weapon. I prefer longbow, but greatsword is more popular option. Both are viable. Soulbeasts Eternal Bond trait and smoke scale pets are non negotiable requirements for this spec. Take these every time. For my second beast, I prefer any pet that has the Unflinching Fortitude merged beast skill, but most players will opt for any beast that has Prelude Lash merged skill instead. Unflinching Fortitude greatly increases survivability.
Yes, I have a few more suggestions for mesmer lol. Sorry for the long response. You mentioned wanted to complete an achievent playing all classes, so im trying to run through a variety of options. That being said, I saved mesmer for last because of its skill requirements(pink class highest skill ceiling). Condi Mirage is a tanky teamfighter/roamer that's extremely rewarding to play. I'd consider this spec both hard to play and hard to master. An easier to play option would be power virtuoso, which is fortunately about to recieve a complete gamechanging buff in Ether Feast(heal skill) on June 25th. Power mirage is currently the strongest DPS spec, but is both hard to play and not tanky, however it's the most fun IMO.
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Edited by WhoWantsAHug.3186
