Over the beta weekend, I played four professions: Mesmer, Thief, Elementalist and Warrior. As I’ve mentioned before, I spent the majority of my time with the Mesmer, but I will attempt to give an accurate and impartial review of my first impressions with each profession.

Mesmer

This profession requires quite a bit of finesse to truly master, but can be quite disruptive and influential on the battlefield if well executed. The Mesmer’s primary damage is derived from Confusion, a debuff that they apply on enemies through several varying abilities. Confusion is a stackable debuff that inflicts damage to an opponent whenever they use an ability (Pokemon players may feel a faint twitch about now), with more damage inflicted the more stacks are applied. However, the Mesmer’s damage output, while appearing not much of a threat until it’s too late, is made complete by their illusions – the Mesmer can have up to three clones at any time which will disappear when they are destroyed, shattered, or when their enemy is killed. The clones allow for quite an interesting dynamic, as they not only add to the Mesmer’s arsenal for damage output, they bring about confusion both as a game mechanic and a literal sense!

I can’t begin to tell you how much fun I had on the WvW battlefields while playing a Mesmer, watching as enemies would attempt to dogpile on me only to find out that they’d been pouring their strongest attacks into an illusion. I was capable of handling two enemy players at once due to the unpredictable nature of the Mesmer class, though I certainly did not feel extremely overpowered to the point where I was face-rolling people without any effort.

Summary: Very fun and tricky to play, high degree of skill needed to keep from becoming predictable in WvW, has quite a lot of potential to provide support if played well.



Thief

The thief class is a very fast paced, visceral and tricky profession to play. It requires almost constant movement, accurate dodging and quick timing in order to properly perform, but I can see the thief becoming an unholy terror to its opponents so long as they aren’t too cocky. They are capable of putting out a lot of quick, burst damage, but do not have the survivability as some of the other professions, lending them to become an “attack of opportunity” driven profession.

I didn’t take the chance to try them in WvW, but from what I saw and experienced, players well skilled with the thief were able to destroy their opponents with a savage efficiency.

Summary: Fun to play, very intense and rapid gameplay that requires a lot of situational awareness.



Elementalist

Not so much a glass cannon as many would envision casters to be, the Elementalist is more of a Swiss army knife – a Swiss army knife that is made of several glass cannons, that is. With four elements and several different combinations of weapons, the Elementalist can be somewhat daunting to play, as they have up to 40 possible spells to bring to the battle at a moment’s notice, not including skill specific abilities.

Still, the Elementalist can bring a massive amount of damage at a moment’s notice as well; or, if needed, a massive amount of support, whether through healing (yes, a profession that can throw heals – not game-breaking ones, of course) or mobility.

Summary: Very complex but with a huge potential of versatility, quite a lot of flashy and entertaining abilities; needs a lot of practice.



Warrior

I've played a Warrior in WoW for ... years. I've always had an affinity for the tried and true "beat things until they stop moving" style of play, as it's amusing and rather therapeutic at times; while the Warrior in GW2 sticks to this style to an extent, there's a degree of difficulty in merely staying alive long enough to get any satisfaction out of this profession. I found myself opting for a longbow more often than not and merely peppering enemies from afar rather than risk the inevitable mad dash for survival in an attempt to delve into melee combat. Guild Wars 2 has a way of making its battle scenarios a little too realistic, what with the whole "oh god oh god I'm going to diiiiiiiiie" every time you're engaged in melee combat. I'm okay with that with the lighter armored characters, but I shouldn't be punished for being a bloodthirsty savage like the warrior has always been.

Hopefully the melee survivability will be addressed and compensated for later on in the beta. I didn't get much of a chance to play as a warrior in the beta weekend, personally - maybe the issue was addressed?

Summary: Lots of potential, needs work by the developers.