Okay, let this be my first official contribution to the guild. I'm not 100% sure of the order yet, but here goes.
1. Guardian. "You shall not pass!" jokes aside (thanks, Sir Ian McKellan), the Guardian is totally boss. I mean, it took me a while to learn how to be effective as the Guardian, but once I did, good god. Nothing touches me allies if I don't want it too. Just on weapon skills alone, the Guardian has more: 'No, you're not allowed to do that' skills than any of the other classes. I mean, the hammer alone has three separate CC skills. Banish (arguable the coolest ability in-game - especially when punting players off castle walls) for that epic knockback/knockdown, the chain slam so people/mobs can't move, and the ground seal that enemies can't cross (useful for keeping a friend safe behind a wall, or trapping an enemy inside big AoE effects and the like). And that's just three powers. On ONE weapon. What the Guardian did was teach me what GW2 is all about - conditions. He with the least conditions/most boons wins. And the Guardian has an amazing skillset for removing conditions and adding boons. He doesn't push many on to his opponents, but that isn't his job. The Guardian's job is to keep his friends as condition-free as possible. And you do that by not letting enemies hit them, which can be achieved by getting in the way, knocking them around, and otherwise keeping them where the hell you want them. Or you can pop skills that will free your friends (or yourself) from nasty conditions, allowing people to function at maximum capacity. The Guardian is the king of team support by helping allies in the same way the Mesmer is king of team support by weakening enemies (see below). And helping my friends out is why I'll be playing a Guardian.
2. Mesmer. One of the few classes to return from GW1. An amazing class there, and the only one that made me cackle with glee when I was killing stuff. Seriously, having your opponents kill themselves with their own spells was priceless. Those of you who played GW1 will know what I'm talking about. Sadly, that seems to be a thing of the past to a certain degree in GW2. Oh, you can still play epic min games, but you can just solely use them to kill your opponents. Instead, now we have illusions. My GOD, illusions. I will totally play an Illusion Mesmer forever. The ability to just confuse the hell out of your opponent is excellent. and then explode your illusions for an effect and then turn around to summon more illusions. I think sword/torch + staff or greatsword will be how I go with this one. The Mesmer is sort of the reverse of the Guardian, in my opinion. For starters, one is a cloth-wearer, and the other uses plate. The Guardian removes conditions and controls the opponent through physical blocks and straight up denial powers. The Mesmer pushes conditions onto his foes, and controls the opponent through those conditions and their illusions along with just never being where the enemy expects you to be. You are untargetable, pretty much. And these reasons are why I want to play a Mesmer.
3. Elementalist. I played this class the most during the BWE's, and the class I ran the first dungeon with. Elementalist's are HARD. It took me a very long time to get down the idea of switching attunements ALL THE TIME. So I might do something like this: "Okay, that dude's about to throw a big hit down, switch to Air and blind him. Then throw down the stun AoE, switch to fire, rain some fire down, drop my firewall, oh, that guy is a bit hurt, switch to water, drop a geyser and my freeze, switch to earth, push that dude away, keep attacking. Oh, he's dead." And all I've done is talk about the weapon skills. The elementalist has TWENTY skills for every weapon combo. HOLY SHIT. That is double the number of any other class. They are the most versatile class in the whole damn game, bar none. NONE. And that's while I'll be playing an Elementalist. And that high skill cap will make me pretty rare, I think.
4. Thief. Less wall of text here. The Assassin is back, and is awesome. I'll be teleporting around, stealing things and otherwise stabbing fools in the kidney's. More evasion than anyone else is AMAZING. You are slippery as hell, and get to stab fools in the process. And it shall be glorious.
5. Necromancer. Trist, just FYI, you don't HAVE to be a minion master. Its a viable build for the Necro, and in GW1 it was the 'easymode' build, but you don't HAVE to do it. You could be the AoE conditions guy. Its the creepier Mesmer while the Mes spams illusions to be the minion master. I don't like the minions either, so I won't be using them. Condition application and some EPIC powers in the form of death shroud. Do I need another reason to play this class? Didn't think so.
Now, these are the five classes I'll be playing solidly, based on my BWE experiences. That doesn't mean I dislike the other classes, I just like the classes MORE.
