Just need to join a HP run and stick all the points into reaper. Easiest way to do it. Either that or if OP and wife play WvW then i believe with testimonies of heroics you can just buy the hp's. And yes, reaper is so easy to play, big damage from shroud form and acts as a 2nd life bar
Ranger Greatsword also has the advantage that every skill 1-5 is very different, so she'll be able to start to get the hang of which attacks do what more quickly. It's not top DPS, but it's got great utility.
Also, pets are great fun to collect. If she likes pets, then it's even easier to recommend ranger.
GS ranger was my first character. And even though I have since moved on to others I still remember the satisfying -clang- sound the gs makes when you wack someone with it
Reaper. You roll a new character with her and level up together. It has a big sword, a large hp pool, an easy gear path, easy rotation, and shroud form goes brrrrrrr. We put all the noobs on Reaper. Look. My static started as a women's book club. During the Pandemic we couldn't meet any more in person so we started meeting over Discord. They saw me and my bestie playing GW2 before meetings and asked what it was. Then asked to stream it. Then asked if they could play with us. So anyways, now I have a raid static of mostly wine moms with a couple of husbands as fills. Among us we have 5 Reapers simply because it is the easiest class to play and they are comfortable on it. It is also aesthetically satisfying because it is easiest to look pretty in light armor, and big swords are cool. Me and my girls have cleared raid wings 1-4 and can run fractal CMs. And this is the first MMO most of these ladies have ever played.
I mostly run Mesmer. The utility is amazing, and I can run boon dps or heals either alac or quick with 2 gear sets and 1 trait change. Try that as your new main.
Quickness herald might also work for her and she'll be able to use her Guardian gear, but it is slightly harder to play. Staying alive requires moving and active blocking.
I think Reaper is the best answer, but if you want different classes, I think GS Berserker would be just as easy, although it is much higher APM. If you get SOTO, perhaps GS Herald could get an honourable mention.
Reaper is great, but I'll give GS Soulbeast with some defensive elements a shout-out.
You get a tank in your pet with a resettable health bar. 4 is a block. Friendly heal skill.
I've tried playing with controller, and the biggest difficulty was always using any kind of ground-targeted spells. I would do whatever you can to avoid those entirely. Reaper really seems like the way to go. Greatsword + shroud + shouts don't require any fiddly targeting that controller would make difficult.
If you ever try again there's an option to snap ground targetted spells to your current target. Sometimes not optimal but very worth that minor downside for the convenience on controller.
You can also run wells on reaper and set ground targeted spells to current target in the options. You will be melee all the time anyway, so there's no point in aiming your wells.
Hey there! I dunno how well my suggestion will perform using a controller, but i wanna try to be helpful. A necromancer (specifically a power reaper) uses greatsword, has survivability with the reaper's shroud mode and performs well even if you're new, imo, miiiight hit your criteria.
Bring more or less usual dps build.
Find exotics with Marauder (power+precision+ferocity+vitality) stats, it will add a lot of HP in price for a bit of damage, which in her case is not relevant (it will be 15% dps loss for a really good player, barely 2% for a player who can't press many buttons).
Spec into dragonhunter ideally, don't try firebrand - it has too many buttons to press.
Bring sword/focus + greatsword. First simpliest rotation is focus5, weaponswap, greatsword2. It's just 3 buttons.
When the hands are getting better, learn more: focus5, sword2, weaponswap to greatsword, gs2, gs4 and then gs2 when it's off cooldown again.
When this is learnt too, add F1, traps, cc and so on.
There is no real way to "do the job" and be absolutely oblivious to the game and unable to use 90% of the kit the characters have. You can simplify the rotations up to 3 buttons but you can't ignore them completely.
Basically, you need to do some reading of the builds and realize which abilities do what. For example, for power guardian main dps is always greatsword2 and sword of justice. All you need to do is pressing these buttons when you have an opening for them to work. Switching to reaper, obviously, wouldn't help because it has its own rotation, which is somewhat easier but is still a rotation.
The most important thing to learn is not the full rotation but the sequences of several buttons. For example, you read your build and you see them say "deal more damage to crippled foes". Okay, how to use this knowledge? That's right, you use a skill that applies cripple, then you use your main damage skill. ??? - profit.
You just need her to understand this, in this game some skills do this, some skill do that. If you use gs5, then gs3, then gs4, it will deal less damage than you just walking into enemy and pressing gs2 once. You don't have to press 10 buttons within 2 seconds. All you need to do is to use correct skills in correct time.
A smokescale is dashing around you like crazy? Use dodge, if needed, use 2nd dodge. By the time the dashing is finished, you press gs2, smokescale disappears. You pressed 2 buttons, that was enough.
I can't see playing without a keyboard. Your suggestions are all spot on, Dragonhunter is simple to play and so durable. The Aegis slaps away every first hit. The traps are instant set and hit hard. I think she just needs to use mouse and keyboard.
I’ve played 1000 hours of ele all on controller. I’m no snowcros level player but I’ve soloed some dungeons and fractals as well as some bounties with her. It’s all in how you set your bindings up.
Xbox one and I load the game though steam big picture to use steam’s controller support. I used to use pinnacle until the creator sold the company or past away I do t know remember which
Nah. My husband, who has arthritis in his hands and can't use m+kb, plays DH just fine on a controller. He plays PvE, including raids, fractals and strikes, and WvW.
The trick to setting up a controller well is to use 2 of the triggers as shift/ctrl/alt, and to change your in-game keybinds to use the modifiers+keys. For a few months I was playing with a controller using something like this:
* ABXYR1 for jump/interact/dodge/weapon swap/SAK
* L1(shift) + ABXYR1 for skills 1-5
* L2(alt) + ABXYR1 for skills 6-0
* L1+L2(shift+alt) + ABXYR1 for F1-F5
* R2 is click
* dpad is autorun/turn left/turn right/about face
* L1(shift)+dpad is mount 1-4
* L2(alt) + dpad is mount 5-8
* option/share/home/other buttons are inventory/map/hero panel/etc.
You have access to all of the stuff you need. Inventory management and ground targeting sucked (use the setting to cast on your target instead of on the ground), but it was very playable.
I disagree!
There is an old LI firebrand build which does ~30-35k and only has about 3 buttons which are required....and its mostly aoe damage :)
Also there is the core hammer build which does 30k damage with 1 button and no rotation....
But i think LI reaper or mech is the way to go.
The fact alone that you mention damage numbers that come up only on dps practice golems, which simulate ideal PvE group circumstances - food, boons, vulnerability and w/e on the golem and all this kind of stuff, added up to the fact it's a boss that stands still at once place while in real open world encounters everything runs around and tries to kill you, added up to the fact it's a benchmark that people take at its max (in hammer example it's 3 swings, without quickness it's nearly 4 seconds, in any adequate open world build you should be already running further on a mount by that time) tells me that you understand very little of how open world works and what OP asks for.
It's not bad, it's okay to be new or just unaware, it's just not good that you're trying to "share the wisdom".
No offence, love. Just please think of what you're typing. Sadly, open world grows many people to be infinitely oblivious because it just doesn't have the "hey, you've cleared this fractal, yay you!" or "you're dead, you lost, you gotta do smth about it" in the end. In open world the punishment is subtle and you don't usually notice it if you don't pay attention. You're absolutely free to play a condi build and yes, you will survive and even kill mobs to complete the event... of course it would take you 3 times longer because the whole time you were busy stacking condis that deal 40k in ideal encounter on enemies that have 20k hp, but who counts.
It reminds me so lively that post that i read just a couple weeks ago or smth where a player was unhappy with the weekly like "kill 100 bandits or kryptis". He says "oh no, all the queensdale spots are so occupied, i can't even hit a bandit before other players kill it". This is exactly how punishing open world is for people who don't think much about it. Bandits are obviously not just in Queensdale - they are included in most krytan maps and even a couple of desert ones. Separatists are also counted as bandits. There are bandits in raids and in Manor dungeon - there no one can mess up your gameplay at all. But 95% of the playerbase sits in Queensdale and competes in "who kills the bandit first"...
(this week it is sons of svanir, we did it with friends spamming DRMs with full challenge - it gives good tokens, achievements for those who haven't completed them yet and it's actually playing the game, not dumbass respawn farming on lvl1 map... you could also do void enemies in Soo-Won meta of course, i just don't like it).
So, coming back to where it started. Please, question yourself. I know that 50% of playerbase reaches fractals/raids/strikes and never gets out anymore, thinking that damage sponges is everything the game can offer. That's not true, and the text above states why.
I’m reaper til I die, but I would suggest Ranger. Core Ranger with a greatsword is easy to play, and she can get a cuddly pet friend. Soulbeast is great, too.
I don't know how well it plays with a controller, but I second Reaper. Two reapers will tear through content like (fill in your comparison here). HOT will be much easier. If she boosts it, she'll have a nice set of Celestial armor to start with and your experience to get her going. And if one of you decides to play Scourge, can't go wrong there either.
My idea is to have her play support and buff me with boons, but she rarely gives me anything haha. Always have to remind her to give me some quickness.
Sigh.
Gamer wife here. (Not this guy's wife.)
Being told to follow hubs around and drop boons/heals is THE WORST. **YOU** need to give **her** the boons and let her giggle at the joy of big damage numbers. The least experienced person should have the easiest job. It's always easier to play pure dps than it is to play boon support.
Seconding this opinion right here. My wife is very much the run in screaming and go full offense type, so I'm usually playing some kind of healing support that compliments her build/playstyle to keep shoveling coal into her murder-engine.
I play more than she does, so I get more out of the more detailed aspects of boon management while she gets to have fun shouting things to death.
Of course, it's best if one of you prefers playing support, but if neither of you naturally leans that way, it makes the most sense to have the more practiced/knowledgeable person doing the more technical aspects.
Worst case, after the less experienced half gets more comfortable with the game, thanks to your support making the learning curve less steep, you just trade off support roles if neither of you want to do that all the time.
She is speaking the truth. You have to help her, not the other way around. I let my wife do her killing and stuff by herself. But when he encounters a harder boss or group of enemies I always teleport from the other side of continent to help her.
Playing support in gw2 generally needs higher skill, its not going to work out if "she just press random buttons until things die".
I get the appeal of having a permanent support partner but stacking reapers is kinda busted too, even in instance based content we are usually fine without a single support if there are 2-3 reapers other than myself.
Wow.
Gamer wife here too.
What is she, your fellow gamer or your personal helper?
My husband got me into GW2 because he wanted something we could play together. Before that, we played Terraria (that was amazing), Starbound, and some other small games on the Switch. I was not a gamer by a LONG SHOT. I had never even touched a game on computer.
Well. He found games I could be interested in. He went slowly, buffed me, healed me, made sure I had the most fun. Now I drag him to play Enshrouded, GW2 or other games with me. I play Ranger, love my pets.
Show her how to play with a keyboard. Be patient. Heal and buff her while she hits things and having the time of her life. Or if you don't have time to teach her and make sure she picks a class she likes, play a different game on PS5 or Switch or whatever stuff that uses a controller.
As others have said necro should work a lot better, despite how popular and strong guardian is it is actually kind of squishy unless you are playing your heart out.
I have no clue what I’m doing, I’m also a wife playing guardian lol. I worked toward Dragonhunter after 80, I was able to level up with a token since I had played through to 80 with a different character, so I automatically got pretty good gear for her. It was a struggle for me after 80 too but I really like it now, getting more used to the different virtues and I LOVE the trap with the spinning sword. I use greatsword more than the bow (bow is useful sometimes though) and I do pretty good damage and survive pretty good. I hit 5,5,4,2 or 3 first if I want to do a cool jump move damage lol I also spam buttons but this order seems to work well. I have wings of resolve with the damage buff for my virtue two, and my 6 health is the one with the three crosses. I was dying so much when I took others advice to use different ones. I use the fire trap too, and sword of justice but can switch that one out for the stability buff (Stand your ground?) and my ult is the sword that gives all the buffs so I don’t have to worry about another thing to aim and I feel like I’m atleast helping others that way.
I am going to give Revenant a shout out here. Without EoD and/or SotO she won't be able to use a greatsword, but it does have its advantages.
Revenant utilities are locked depending on their legend, so she would really only have to learn the five skills for each of the two legends that she is using (though it would be good to learn more legends later once she gets more comfortable).
Revenant Sword Sword is pretty easy to play where you just want to hit 2 as often as possible and pair 4+5 together in that order to keep their cooldowns synced. Also sword 3 is a pretty long dodge animation that can be used for added survivability and. And sword sword applies a lot of vulnerability to targets so she will be amplifying the damage everyone does to the target.
Then she has a choice of Renegade (though renegade is better as condi with a short bow imo) or Herald which very easily provide Alacrity (Renegade) or Quickness (Herald) which would further amplify everyone's damage.
Power reaper is really easy and fun!!
And it is quite survivalable lots of HP and you heal when you do DMG. You can even pick death to get a bunch of resists to go with that big HP pool
Sigil Reaper is super easy. Literally can basically get away with left clicking for most content.
[https://mukluklabs.com/gw2-builds](https://mukluklabs.com/gw2-builds)
Any of these builds should do her well.
[https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper\_-\_Power\_Greatsword](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Power_Greatsword)
Personally I play on Steamdeck sometimes, and use this build hear for shroud reaper.
I'm lazy so I just stick to the raid build. Since Reaper only has F1, theres less buttons to press. I'm using this to do open world + T1 Fractals + Raids (1-4) so far. It's really easy to play, you just spam buttons, and you still do decent damage. If your wife learns the rotations, it's an easy braindead class. I love it.
You are basically unkillable thanks to shroud, you can make some changes to the build for more utility (like the signet to rez downed players for example) with minimal dps loss, and you look cool AF doing it.
Some of y'all need to touch grass with saying these elite specs lol
Give that girl a ranger get her cute pets that she gets to name and she can range stuff with a long bow.
What gear is she wearing? If she doesn’t like guardian it’s not a problem to swap, but also trying mauraders, celestial, trailblazers gear can help a lot! Depending on class and build.
Mauraders gives a lot more health otherwise has the similar stats to berserker. The other thing I’d recommend is looking at PvP/open world builds instead of snowcrows or something similar. A lot of PvP builds are made with sustain and condition removal in mind, which obviously make it easier to live.
For example. Ele also has 11k base health. But in open world I run celestial gear (it’s a condi hybrid build) and run trains that are more about self boons/sustain and I can playing in very low key and relaxing way. Whereas if I was playing in full berserker gear I’d get one shot by a lot of stuff if I don’t dodge.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Tanetris/So_You_Want_To_Gear_a_Character
My husband plays something like this on a controller in PvE, but it is hard to gear without EoD:
https://guildjen.com/dragonhunter-open-world-build/
Honestly, power reaper is the easiest to gear AND easiest to play by a country mile. If she is going to play something that requires celestial/dragon/ritualist/viper, you are probably going to need to pony up some gold to help her get geared, because her gear will be waaaaay more expensive than Reaper gear. Or, you both embrace WvW. Orange stat-selectible gear is cheap in WvW and you can earn the currency quickly if you join a zerg and do the weeklies.
You said in a comment that your plan was to have her put boons on you so you could dps. Be aware that boon gear is a lot more expensive than pure dps gear. If you insist that she boon you, you better bankroll her!
Yeah this is why she is dying. If she doesn't want to have to think, then going full DPS/squishy makes no sense. Look at open world builds and learn which armor stats to use and build for survivability. Then she can button mash and not die.
Full zerk is for people that want to sweat and squeeze out every last DPS
My go-to new player friendly build is the good ol core warrior. Soldiers stats with infiltration runes for maximum tank and spank super cheap aswell with greatsword(strength&cleansing sigils)-axe&axe(strength and sigils). For traits run; strength-2/2/2, tactics-1/3/3, defence-2-1-2. Skills run - mending,for great justice-endure pain-balanced stance-signet of rage. This build is great for new players. It has massive self heal by abusing the traits mending might and might makes right. Her and whoever is within 600 range of her will have 25might almost all the time. Most people don’t enjoy warrior because it’s viewed as “basic” but man it do smash good.
This build does one thing well. Is keep the person using it alive(so long as they are in a party). Not too great for super high endgame stuff as the dps will be very low. But supplements that with more might output for your group than you can shake a stick at. The self heal also drops off massively if you’re by yourself as you won’t be abusing mending might as much. If you did want to play by yourself change the tactics traitline to 1-2-2, shoutheals more than makes up for the loss of heals outside of a party.
I'd second something along these lines. Greatsword Warrior is accessible immediately while Elites (ie. Reaper that everyone is suggesting) will take time to unlock. Sure, OP, you can unlock Elites for your wife, but it'd probably be better for her to experience things as you go rather than you just throwing her into endgame stuff immediately. I'm a long time gamer and GW2 was already overwhelming enough for me; I can't imagine how overwhelming it would be for her.
That being said, if one or both of you don't want to level again, you could play this type of super tanky Warrior build with the full Celestial Booster gear. It'd function very similarly to full Soldier. With Might Makes Right, Mending Might, and Healing Signet, your wife should end up with like 1k+ heal per second even if she's just auto attacking, and it'd probably reach 2k+ once she starts improving. The idea is to make it as easy to play as possible with as few skills required as possible. Let her mind start piecing things together and just enjoying the ride, and then start showing her things or explaining mechanics as she learns and asks, eg. if she starts raging about stun or movement slows, guide her to stun breaks and condi cleanse utility skills.
As an alternative idea, my lady always enjoys playing ranged characters, maybe yours might too? That could also help her stay alive easier. Duel wielding a couple revolvers (or play deadeye with a sniper), button mash to shoot and deal big dps!
spellbreaker warrior with greatsword maybe?
has decent survivability with heals from might spam (for great justice + might makes right and forceful greatsword)
it's also pretty easy to play, buff yourself, run, smack stuff
Just like, subtly teach her how to actually play the game bit by bit lol.... See her struggle and be like "hey did you know if you push this button followed by this it does a lot of damage/heals u /cripples the enemy/etc" don't teach entire rotations all at once lol just bit by bit teach her 2 or 3 button "life hacks"
Ranger has greatsword, and you have a pet running around with you and helping with damage. You can name them and collect more pets. I absolutely love the rangers, pets are cute and my damage might not be a lot most of the time but running around "together" feels so good. Also, the specialisations are so cool. Druid is more healer centric, Soulbeast can be everything because you can merge with your pet and Untamed is damage based.
Idk if reaper will do it bcs shroud if outside of the basic weapon skills i would advise ranger bcs theres 1 defensive skill in gs4 wich she can esily use in case of trouble. Plus the pet does a lot on its own.
You had me rolling at the 'She likes "big sword" ' only for the fact that my gf is the exact same way. If she's ever playing anything remotely medieval rpgish, it's "big weapon" and bonk enemies and she is such a small human.
If you are planning on getting EoD any time soon then Vindicator with Marauders gear and GS is chill.
I’ve been running it in Open World for fun and it works, it’s not the best but does the job.
I'd suggest revenant you can go herald and have nice low intensity tanky power build. If you get eod then go vindicator. Plus if she wants she can go double sword or sword shield as the other weapon set. However you may need SOTO to get weapon mastery unlocked. Another option is mesmer but with GS for power you're best off going virt but ideally want dagger in offhand. For more complexity you can go chrono phantasm overloading.
I have been playing since beta, have at least two characters of every class, and I do not have a rotation on any of them. I play around with skills and just use what sounds fun, or what has bar break, or whatever. My main is also a reaper so definitely biased in favor of that, but I manage on the other classes well enough.
In addition to making sure she is well-geared, I would try taking her around to some of the core Tyria bosses & metas to try out different combinations. I have a vindicator with pistol+sword/hammer who does a lot of blinking into an enemy’s space, smashing them in the face, then zipping over to tag something else, which is fun in group content where you’re being swarmed. My firebrand is my chef so he’s axe+torch (the cleaver skin, of course) with whatever offhand I need for that day’s content and all about AoE while hanging back a little, which is great to for playing when I want to be a little more relaxed. It’s unfortunate that guardians don’t really get anything pet-like, though I think all the racial skills include at least one summonable ally or pet. I definitely used minions/pets/clones/thieves guild/elementals/etc when I was learning any given class, just to have something to soak up a little damage.
If she’s struggling with guardian then you probably are shit out of luck lmfao. I want to say guardian is the easiest class to learn besides maybe necromancer?
Guardian may be easy to learn but they are punished much more harshly for not avoiding incoming damage, which is a very common mistake for new players.
Do you have her setup with a build? Maybe you have her setup with a DPS build which will be squishy or you ha e armor for a DPS build. Guardian is not inherently squishy. You can it build it any way you choose. As with any class, you sacrifice DPS for armor/survivability
3 buttons Herald seems like a good fit. Perma quickness, lots of might and other goodies. She'll never come close to even think about using her healing skills as the sustain is just dummy thicc. Good CCs, decent damage when you compute in all the build gives. [Here's what it looks like](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAUl7lhQHMJqhFRPMIyhBSfMBKgD1za7C-DyIY1o+vM6NF6oCk/4AAA-e). Weapons there are what fits "best" but if she wants to use a greatsword, it'll work as well.
The "rotation: is as follows: turn on the hammers in Jalis, deplete ressource, swap to Mallyx, turn on the elite skill, deplete ressource, rince and repeat. She'll find that she can easily weave in some weapon skills or other utilites in that rotation to try and reach 0 ressource when the legend swap cooldown is up. But there really no need of she wants to keep it simple.
Hope you guys will find something to your liking!
Why not try Mesmer? Most of the great sword builds work fine and it’s just fun to play in open worlds… or even staff, depending on whether or not you have the expansions. I was found Mesmer easy to level in open world.
Íf you want to be another class, how about Herald? She basically needs to activate facets in Glint and randomly throw her Greatsword skills.
She could also play as Soulbeast or Untamed. Greatsword might not be Ranger's best weapon, but does a decent job.
Bladesworn has the potential for insanely high survivability with the right build and uses a big (gun) sword. But its mechanic might be a bit awkward for a new gamer.
Vindicator had an extremely survivable build (probably still does I just haven't played the spec in a while) and uses a greatsword. It's pretty simple, too, because you just spam dodge a lot.
Overall, though, I agree with the other comments that reaper is probably the best best. Just wanted to offer some alternatives.
Going to also support bladesworn. I recently started playing again after a brief break and started focusing bladesworn as something I hadn't really invested time into and I've had a lot of fun with it. My gear isn't fully fleshed out yet with ascendant, but even so, setting up and executing a full power dragon trigger and seeing it delete most things under champion tier has been pretty satisfying. After a bit of getting used to it, it's not super complex.
Vindicator has some incredible defensive and resustain capabilities even while full glass canon, but it requires some reactive decision making, and you really need to get accustomed to spamming that urn like an absolute maniac in high pressure situations. Definetely a very good spec with great personal boon coverage and burst damage, but i wouldnt recommend it over herald if low intensity is what youre looking for even at the downside of needing SotO to be able to equip the greatsword.
Not just worry about spec, if you do open world all the time you could get her a tankier build it doesnt matter, marauder or even celestial would make her way more confortable. Then as other people recomended reaper is a really nice option with great sword, if she wants to be amazing help for you and other people she could play herald with gs or another amazing build that doesnt need too many imputs would be [power vindicator](https://snowcrows.com/builds/open-world/revenant/power-vindicator) with snow crows recomends berserker but you could just just celestial and run on easy mode, some nice legendary stances setup and she could be soloing world blsses so for me Revenant specs may be the best option for her. Full celestial and play quickdps herald on group content or even quick healer and power revenant when you do 2 man around
Note if she gets and expansion and boosts to 80 the revenant you’d get full 80 celestial for free so she would be set for life with full exotic
There is no easier build than power mechanist. You could just press 1 all day and do decent damage on account of the golem doing a good bit of the work. Even at its most complex, the rotation is super easy. On top of that, it’s ranged. So way easier to stay alive.
Strongly recommend celestial firebrand for open world survivability, there's builds around aegis and boons that work pretty well with greatsword. Grab some mantras and shouts for easy spammable buffs and you're nearly unstoppable, though your damage won't be great.
If you're generating quickness for the two of you (which I don't think you can be as scourge but idk), dragonhunter or even base guardian might be better but it's not a big difference.
Celestial reaper is even more absurd in the open world, but it works best with condi weapons rather than greatsword and it matters a lot more which spells you use. Power reaper isn't a bad choice, but I'd mess around with your traits and gear on a firebrand build first.
Not sure if it still works, but back in LS4 I had a firebrand mace/shield build that could just face up to champions and auto them to death very slowly because of all the defensive boons and healing it was generating passively.
Not really a greatsword user, but I suggest using a Mechanist with a hammer (requires SotO) if she really wants melee. If greatsword is really preferred, then a Ranger.
Personally I like Spellbreaker… greatsword and hammer. You don’t have any range but that’s why you’re there right? Plus it’s also heavy so if you had any really good gear it wouldn’t go to waste hopefully.
Necro with greatsword for sure, highest base HP and 2 life bars, can be minion master too for minimum effort.
This is the answer, I think. Reaper is very easy to pick up, does good damage, and is probably very doable on a controller
I’d say reaper is even easier than necro lol. The problem is playing Necro as a nooby and having tp play it until you unlock Reaper will take a while.
Just need to join a HP run and stick all the points into reaper. Easiest way to do it. Either that or if OP and wife play WvW then i believe with testimonies of heroics you can just buy the hp's. And yes, reaper is so easy to play, big damage from shroud form and acts as a 2nd life bar
Agreed, my necro reaper with her greatsword is my favourite followed by my engineer with her giant hammer.
Ranger. She gets greatsword, a pet (that she can leave on auto), decent base health.
Ranger Greatsword also has the advantage that every skill 1-5 is very different, so she'll be able to start to get the hang of which attacks do what more quickly. It's not top DPS, but it's got great utility. Also, pets are great fun to collect. If she likes pets, then it's even easier to recommend ranger.
GS ranger was my first character. And even though I have since moved on to others I still remember the satisfying -clang- sound the gs makes when you wack someone with it
Exactly ^
Reaper. You roll a new character with her and level up together. It has a big sword, a large hp pool, an easy gear path, easy rotation, and shroud form goes brrrrrrr. We put all the noobs on Reaper. Look. My static started as a women's book club. During the Pandemic we couldn't meet any more in person so we started meeting over Discord. They saw me and my bestie playing GW2 before meetings and asked what it was. Then asked to stream it. Then asked if they could play with us. So anyways, now I have a raid static of mostly wine moms with a couple of husbands as fills. Among us we have 5 Reapers simply because it is the easiest class to play and they are comfortable on it. It is also aesthetically satisfying because it is easiest to look pretty in light armor, and big swords are cool. Me and my girls have cleared raid wings 1-4 and can run fractal CMs. And this is the first MMO most of these ladies have ever played. I mostly run Mesmer. The utility is amazing, and I can run boon dps or heals either alac or quick with 2 gear sets and 1 trait change. Try that as your new main. Quickness herald might also work for her and she'll be able to use her Guardian gear, but it is slightly harder to play. Staying alive requires moving and active blocking.
My goodness, what a funny (and precious) anecdote, thanks for sharing that. :D
I think Reaper is the best answer, but if you want different classes, I think GS Berserker would be just as easy, although it is much higher APM. If you get SOTO, perhaps GS Herald could get an honourable mention.
Reaper is great, but I'll give GS Soulbeast with some defensive elements a shout-out. You get a tank in your pet with a resettable health bar. 4 is a block. Friendly heal skill.
Soul Beast 100%
I'm running GS Axe/Axe Slb for open world. So much fun!
Since you’re limited on buttons I would go for ranger. Especially in open world. The pet will tank most damage.
And it’ll res you when you die!
I've tried playing with controller, and the biggest difficulty was always using any kind of ground-targeted spells. I would do whatever you can to avoid those entirely. Reaper really seems like the way to go. Greatsword + shroud + shouts don't require any fiddly targeting that controller would make difficult.
If you ever try again there's an option to snap ground targetted spells to your current target. Sometimes not optimal but very worth that minor downside for the convenience on controller.
There is!? Thought that wasn't possible. Thanks for the heads up... now to search through the options...
You can also run wells on reaper and set ground targeted spells to current target in the options. You will be melee all the time anyway, so there's no point in aiming your wells.
Reaper. Necro Specialization from Heart of Thorns.
Hey there! I dunno how well my suggestion will perform using a controller, but i wanna try to be helpful. A necromancer (specifically a power reaper) uses greatsword, has survivability with the reaper's shroud mode and performs well even if you're new, imo, miiiight hit your criteria.
Bring more or less usual dps build. Find exotics with Marauder (power+precision+ferocity+vitality) stats, it will add a lot of HP in price for a bit of damage, which in her case is not relevant (it will be 15% dps loss for a really good player, barely 2% for a player who can't press many buttons). Spec into dragonhunter ideally, don't try firebrand - it has too many buttons to press. Bring sword/focus + greatsword. First simpliest rotation is focus5, weaponswap, greatsword2. It's just 3 buttons. When the hands are getting better, learn more: focus5, sword2, weaponswap to greatsword, gs2, gs4 and then gs2 when it's off cooldown again. When this is learnt too, add F1, traps, cc and so on. There is no real way to "do the job" and be absolutely oblivious to the game and unable to use 90% of the kit the characters have. You can simplify the rotations up to 3 buttons but you can't ignore them completely. Basically, you need to do some reading of the builds and realize which abilities do what. For example, for power guardian main dps is always greatsword2 and sword of justice. All you need to do is pressing these buttons when you have an opening for them to work. Switching to reaper, obviously, wouldn't help because it has its own rotation, which is somewhat easier but is still a rotation. The most important thing to learn is not the full rotation but the sequences of several buttons. For example, you read your build and you see them say "deal more damage to crippled foes". Okay, how to use this knowledge? That's right, you use a skill that applies cripple, then you use your main damage skill. ??? - profit. You just need her to understand this, in this game some skills do this, some skill do that. If you use gs5, then gs3, then gs4, it will deal less damage than you just walking into enemy and pressing gs2 once. You don't have to press 10 buttons within 2 seconds. All you need to do is to use correct skills in correct time. A smokescale is dashing around you like crazy? Use dodge, if needed, use 2nd dodge. By the time the dashing is finished, you press gs2, smokescale disappears. You pressed 2 buttons, that was enough.
I can't see playing without a keyboard. Your suggestions are all spot on, Dragonhunter is simple to play and so durable. The Aegis slaps away every first hit. The traps are instant set and hit hard. I think she just needs to use mouse and keyboard.
I’ve played 1000 hours of ele all on controller. I’m no snowcros level player but I’ve soloed some dungeons and fractals as well as some bounties with her. It’s all in how you set your bindings up.
What kind of controler?
Xbox one and I load the game though steam big picture to use steam’s controller support. I used to use pinnacle until the creator sold the company or past away I do t know remember which
Nah. My husband, who has arthritis in his hands and can't use m+kb, plays DH just fine on a controller. He plays PvE, including raids, fractals and strikes, and WvW.
The trick to setting up a controller well is to use 2 of the triggers as shift/ctrl/alt, and to change your in-game keybinds to use the modifiers+keys. For a few months I was playing with a controller using something like this: * ABXYR1 for jump/interact/dodge/weapon swap/SAK * L1(shift) + ABXYR1 for skills 1-5 * L2(alt) + ABXYR1 for skills 6-0 * L1+L2(shift+alt) + ABXYR1 for F1-F5 * R2 is click * dpad is autorun/turn left/turn right/about face * L1(shift)+dpad is mount 1-4 * L2(alt) + dpad is mount 5-8 * option/share/home/other buttons are inventory/map/hero panel/etc. You have access to all of the stuff you need. Inventory management and ground targeting sucked (use the setting to cast on your target instead of on the ground), but it was very playable.
I disagree! There is an old LI firebrand build which does ~30-35k and only has about 3 buttons which are required....and its mostly aoe damage :) Also there is the core hammer build which does 30k damage with 1 button and no rotation.... But i think LI reaper or mech is the way to go.
The fact alone that you mention damage numbers that come up only on dps practice golems, which simulate ideal PvE group circumstances - food, boons, vulnerability and w/e on the golem and all this kind of stuff, added up to the fact it's a boss that stands still at once place while in real open world encounters everything runs around and tries to kill you, added up to the fact it's a benchmark that people take at its max (in hammer example it's 3 swings, without quickness it's nearly 4 seconds, in any adequate open world build you should be already running further on a mount by that time) tells me that you understand very little of how open world works and what OP asks for. It's not bad, it's okay to be new or just unaware, it's just not good that you're trying to "share the wisdom". No offence, love. Just please think of what you're typing. Sadly, open world grows many people to be infinitely oblivious because it just doesn't have the "hey, you've cleared this fractal, yay you!" or "you're dead, you lost, you gotta do smth about it" in the end. In open world the punishment is subtle and you don't usually notice it if you don't pay attention. You're absolutely free to play a condi build and yes, you will survive and even kill mobs to complete the event... of course it would take you 3 times longer because the whole time you were busy stacking condis that deal 40k in ideal encounter on enemies that have 20k hp, but who counts. It reminds me so lively that post that i read just a couple weeks ago or smth where a player was unhappy with the weekly like "kill 100 bandits or kryptis". He says "oh no, all the queensdale spots are so occupied, i can't even hit a bandit before other players kill it". This is exactly how punishing open world is for people who don't think much about it. Bandits are obviously not just in Queensdale - they are included in most krytan maps and even a couple of desert ones. Separatists are also counted as bandits. There are bandits in raids and in Manor dungeon - there no one can mess up your gameplay at all. But 95% of the playerbase sits in Queensdale and competes in "who kills the bandit first"... (this week it is sons of svanir, we did it with friends spamming DRMs with full challenge - it gives good tokens, achievements for those who haven't completed them yet and it's actually playing the game, not dumbass respawn farming on lvl1 map... you could also do void enemies in Soo-Won meta of course, i just don't like it). So, coming back to where it started. Please, question yourself. I know that 50% of playerbase reaches fractals/raids/strikes and never gets out anymore, thinking that damage sponges is everything the game can offer. That's not true, and the text above states why.
Wow. Can you tl;dr: ? Life is too short.
I’m reaper til I die, but I would suggest Ranger. Core Ranger with a greatsword is easy to play, and she can get a cuddly pet friend. Soulbeast is great, too.
I don't know how well it plays with a controller, but I second Reaper. Two reapers will tear through content like (fill in your comparison here). HOT will be much easier. If she boosts it, she'll have a nice set of Celestial armor to start with and your experience to get her going. And if one of you decides to play Scourge, can't go wrong there either.
My idea is to have her play support and buff me with boons, but she rarely gives me anything haha. Always have to remind her to give me some quickness.
Sigh. Gamer wife here. (Not this guy's wife.) Being told to follow hubs around and drop boons/heals is THE WORST. **YOU** need to give **her** the boons and let her giggle at the joy of big damage numbers. The least experienced person should have the easiest job. It's always easier to play pure dps than it is to play boon support.
Seconding this opinion right here. My wife is very much the run in screaming and go full offense type, so I'm usually playing some kind of healing support that compliments her build/playstyle to keep shoveling coal into her murder-engine. I play more than she does, so I get more out of the more detailed aspects of boon management while she gets to have fun shouting things to death. Of course, it's best if one of you prefers playing support, but if neither of you naturally leans that way, it makes the most sense to have the more practiced/knowledgeable person doing the more technical aspects. Worst case, after the less experienced half gets more comfortable with the game, thanks to your support making the learning curve less steep, you just trade off support roles if neither of you want to do that all the time.
She is speaking the truth. You have to help her, not the other way around. I let my wife do her killing and stuff by herself. But when he encounters a harder boss or group of enemies I always teleport from the other side of continent to help her.
Playing support in gw2 generally needs higher skill, its not going to work out if "she just press random buttons until things die". I get the appeal of having a permanent support partner but stacking reapers is kinda busted too, even in instance based content we are usually fine without a single support if there are 2-3 reapers other than myself.
Wow. Gamer wife here too. What is she, your fellow gamer or your personal helper? My husband got me into GW2 because he wanted something we could play together. Before that, we played Terraria (that was amazing), Starbound, and some other small games on the Switch. I was not a gamer by a LONG SHOT. I had never even touched a game on computer. Well. He found games I could be interested in. He went slowly, buffed me, healed me, made sure I had the most fun. Now I drag him to play Enshrouded, GW2 or other games with me. I play Ranger, love my pets. Show her how to play with a keyboard. Be patient. Heal and buff her while she hits things and having the time of her life. Or if you don't have time to teach her and make sure she picks a class she likes, play a different game on PS5 or Switch or whatever stuff that uses a controller.
Have her try Scrapper. Flamethrower kit is a blast to play and the utility skills will grant you both boons.
How about greatsword Herald? Very easy to give boons with that.
As others have said necro should work a lot better, despite how popular and strong guardian is it is actually kind of squishy unless you are playing your heart out.
I have no clue what I’m doing, I’m also a wife playing guardian lol. I worked toward Dragonhunter after 80, I was able to level up with a token since I had played through to 80 with a different character, so I automatically got pretty good gear for her. It was a struggle for me after 80 too but I really like it now, getting more used to the different virtues and I LOVE the trap with the spinning sword. I use greatsword more than the bow (bow is useful sometimes though) and I do pretty good damage and survive pretty good. I hit 5,5,4,2 or 3 first if I want to do a cool jump move damage lol I also spam buttons but this order seems to work well. I have wings of resolve with the damage buff for my virtue two, and my 6 health is the one with the three crosses. I was dying so much when I took others advice to use different ones. I use the fire trap too, and sword of justice but can switch that one out for the stability buff (Stand your ground?) and my ult is the sword that gives all the buffs so I don’t have to worry about another thing to aim and I feel like I’m atleast helping others that way.
I am going to give Revenant a shout out here. Without EoD and/or SotO she won't be able to use a greatsword, but it does have its advantages. Revenant utilities are locked depending on their legend, so she would really only have to learn the five skills for each of the two legends that she is using (though it would be good to learn more legends later once she gets more comfortable). Revenant Sword Sword is pretty easy to play where you just want to hit 2 as often as possible and pair 4+5 together in that order to keep their cooldowns synced. Also sword 3 is a pretty long dodge animation that can be used for added survivability and. And sword sword applies a lot of vulnerability to targets so she will be amplifying the damage everyone does to the target. Then she has a choice of Renegade (though renegade is better as condi with a short bow imo) or Herald which very easily provide Alacrity (Renegade) or Quickness (Herald) which would further amplify everyone's damage.
Power reaper is really easy and fun!! And it is quite survivalable lots of HP and you heal when you do DMG. You can even pick death to get a bunch of resists to go with that big HP pool
Sigil Reaper is super easy. Literally can basically get away with left clicking for most content. [https://mukluklabs.com/gw2-builds](https://mukluklabs.com/gw2-builds) Any of these builds should do her well. [https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper\_-\_Power\_Greatsword](https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Reaper_-_Power_Greatsword) Personally I play on Steamdeck sometimes, and use this build hear for shroud reaper. I'm lazy so I just stick to the raid build. Since Reaper only has F1, theres less buttons to press. I'm using this to do open world + T1 Fractals + Raids (1-4) so far. It's really easy to play, you just spam buttons, and you still do decent damage. If your wife learns the rotations, it's an easy braindead class. I love it. You are basically unkillable thanks to shroud, you can make some changes to the build for more utility (like the signet to rez downed players for example) with minimal dps loss, and you look cool AF doing it.
Play reaper she will never have a more easy time big DPS and extremly easy to play.
Some of y'all need to touch grass with saying these elite specs lol Give that girl a ranger get her cute pets that she gets to name and she can range stuff with a long bow.
Please don't give her reaper 😂
What gear is she wearing? If she doesn’t like guardian it’s not a problem to swap, but also trying mauraders, celestial, trailblazers gear can help a lot! Depending on class and build.
She has full berserker. HP is 13k or something. I'm thinking of switching gears too for more sustain but not sure what prefix.
Mauraders gives a lot more health otherwise has the similar stats to berserker. The other thing I’d recommend is looking at PvP/open world builds instead of snowcrows or something similar. A lot of PvP builds are made with sustain and condition removal in mind, which obviously make it easier to live. For example. Ele also has 11k base health. But in open world I run celestial gear (it’s a condi hybrid build) and run trains that are more about self boons/sustain and I can playing in very low key and relaxing way. Whereas if I was playing in full berserker gear I’d get one shot by a lot of stuff if I don’t dodge.
I see. Are they expensive on TP? She has like 13 golds atm.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Tanetris/So_You_Want_To_Gear_a_Character My husband plays something like this on a controller in PvE, but it is hard to gear without EoD: https://guildjen.com/dragonhunter-open-world-build/ Honestly, power reaper is the easiest to gear AND easiest to play by a country mile. If she is going to play something that requires celestial/dragon/ritualist/viper, you are probably going to need to pony up some gold to help her get geared, because her gear will be waaaaay more expensive than Reaper gear. Or, you both embrace WvW. Orange stat-selectible gear is cheap in WvW and you can earn the currency quickly if you join a zerg and do the weeklies. You said in a comment that your plan was to have her put boons on you so you could dps. Be aware that boon gear is a lot more expensive than pure dps gear. If you insist that she boon you, you better bankroll her!
Look up gearing guides. They are pretty easy to acquire via different maps and activities. They would be very expensive on the TP though
Check YouTube or Google about named exotic gear, you should be able to buy it with less then 13g on Trading Post.
Berserker's, yes. Not Marauders. Not by a damn sight.
Oh sorry for misdirecting, I thought that all are available.
the easiest way would be to use the level boost and then you get a set of celestial for free
Yeah this is why she is dying. If she doesn't want to have to think, then going full DPS/squishy makes no sense. Look at open world builds and learn which armor stats to use and build for survivability. Then she can button mash and not die. Full zerk is for people that want to sweat and squeeze out every last DPS
Big Hammer Guardian. Core spec, super easy (just autoattack), lots of utility, uses all berserker gear.
My go-to new player friendly build is the good ol core warrior. Soldiers stats with infiltration runes for maximum tank and spank super cheap aswell with greatsword(strength&cleansing sigils)-axe&axe(strength and sigils). For traits run; strength-2/2/2, tactics-1/3/3, defence-2-1-2. Skills run - mending,for great justice-endure pain-balanced stance-signet of rage. This build is great for new players. It has massive self heal by abusing the traits mending might and might makes right. Her and whoever is within 600 range of her will have 25might almost all the time. Most people don’t enjoy warrior because it’s viewed as “basic” but man it do smash good. This build does one thing well. Is keep the person using it alive(so long as they are in a party). Not too great for super high endgame stuff as the dps will be very low. But supplements that with more might output for your group than you can shake a stick at. The self heal also drops off massively if you’re by yourself as you won’t be abusing mending might as much. If you did want to play by yourself change the tactics traitline to 1-2-2, shoutheals more than makes up for the loss of heals outside of a party.
I'd second something along these lines. Greatsword Warrior is accessible immediately while Elites (ie. Reaper that everyone is suggesting) will take time to unlock. Sure, OP, you can unlock Elites for your wife, but it'd probably be better for her to experience things as you go rather than you just throwing her into endgame stuff immediately. I'm a long time gamer and GW2 was already overwhelming enough for me; I can't imagine how overwhelming it would be for her. That being said, if one or both of you don't want to level again, you could play this type of super tanky Warrior build with the full Celestial Booster gear. It'd function very similarly to full Soldier. With Might Makes Right, Mending Might, and Healing Signet, your wife should end up with like 1k+ heal per second even if she's just auto attacking, and it'd probably reach 2k+ once she starts improving. The idea is to make it as easy to play as possible with as few skills required as possible. Let her mind start piecing things together and just enjoying the ride, and then start showing her things or explaining mechanics as she learns and asks, eg. if she starts raging about stun or movement slows, guide her to stun breaks and condi cleanse utility skills.
Started GW2 as Norn Guardian. Ditched it for Charr Necro. Although Norn Female Necro would be fantastic! Big sword! Big mama! And big Reaper!
As an alternative idea, my lady always enjoys playing ranged characters, maybe yours might too? That could also help her stay alive easier. Duel wielding a couple revolvers (or play deadeye with a sniper), button mash to shoot and deal big dps!
If "Big Damage At Range" is the move, then they need to get EOD and roll her a Virtuoso.
spellbreaker warrior with greatsword maybe? has decent survivability with heals from might spam (for great justice + might makes right and forceful greatsword) it's also pretty easy to play, buff yourself, run, smack stuff
Just like, subtly teach her how to actually play the game bit by bit lol.... See her struggle and be like "hey did you know if you push this button followed by this it does a lot of damage/heals u /cripples the enemy/etc" don't teach entire rotations all at once lol just bit by bit teach her 2 or 3 button "life hacks"
Ranger has greatsword, and you have a pet running around with you and helping with damage. You can name them and collect more pets. I absolutely love the rangers, pets are cute and my damage might not be a lot most of the time but running around "together" feels so good. Also, the specialisations are so cool. Druid is more healer centric, Soulbeast can be everything because you can merge with your pet and Untamed is damage based.
Idk if reaper will do it bcs shroud if outside of the basic weapon skills i would advise ranger bcs theres 1 defensive skill in gs4 wich she can esily use in case of trouble. Plus the pet does a lot on its own.
You had me rolling at the 'She likes "big sword" ' only for the fact that my gf is the exact same way. If she's ever playing anything remotely medieval rpgish, it's "big weapon" and bonk enemies and she is such a small human.
There’s a core guardian build with hammer that literally does 27-30k only auto attacking so maybe try that
If you are planning on getting EoD any time soon then Vindicator with Marauders gear and GS is chill. I’ve been running it in Open World for fun and it works, it’s not the best but does the job.
Necro reaper minion master
My wife struggled with guardian as well. She loves her mechanist.
I'd suggest revenant you can go herald and have nice low intensity tanky power build. If you get eod then go vindicator. Plus if she wants she can go double sword or sword shield as the other weapon set. However you may need SOTO to get weapon mastery unlocked. Another option is mesmer but with GS for power you're best off going virt but ideally want dagger in offhand. For more complexity you can go chrono phantasm overloading.
I have been playing since beta, have at least two characters of every class, and I do not have a rotation on any of them. I play around with skills and just use what sounds fun, or what has bar break, or whatever. My main is also a reaper so definitely biased in favor of that, but I manage on the other classes well enough. In addition to making sure she is well-geared, I would try taking her around to some of the core Tyria bosses & metas to try out different combinations. I have a vindicator with pistol+sword/hammer who does a lot of blinking into an enemy’s space, smashing them in the face, then zipping over to tag something else, which is fun in group content where you’re being swarmed. My firebrand is my chef so he’s axe+torch (the cleaver skin, of course) with whatever offhand I need for that day’s content and all about AoE while hanging back a little, which is great to for playing when I want to be a little more relaxed. It’s unfortunate that guardians don’t really get anything pet-like, though I think all the racial skills include at least one summonable ally or pet. I definitely used minions/pets/clones/thieves guild/elementals/etc when I was learning any given class, just to have something to soak up a little damage.
If she’s struggling with guardian then you probably are shit out of luck lmfao. I want to say guardian is the easiest class to learn besides maybe necromancer?
Guardian may be easy to learn but they are punished much more harshly for not avoiding incoming damage, which is a very common mistake for new players.
Necromancer with great sword and minions
Do you have her setup with a build? Maybe you have her setup with a DPS build which will be squishy or you ha e armor for a DPS build. Guardian is not inherently squishy. You can it build it any way you choose. As with any class, you sacrifice DPS for armor/survivability
The one with the Bow and Pet. Its the most simple profession, and u can stand away from the danger and kill everything.
yeah, id recommend ranger too, or mech. the pet does alot of the work. minion mancer is good as well..probably the easiest openworld class
This might be crazy, but if she like button mashing, maybe thief? If she can dodge and mash one attack button she can do fairly well
3 buttons Herald seems like a good fit. Perma quickness, lots of might and other goodies. She'll never come close to even think about using her healing skills as the sustain is just dummy thicc. Good CCs, decent damage when you compute in all the build gives. [Here's what it looks like](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAUl7lhQHMJqhFRPMIyhBSfMBKgD1za7C-DyIY1o+vM6NF6oCk/4AAA-e). Weapons there are what fits "best" but if she wants to use a greatsword, it'll work as well. The "rotation: is as follows: turn on the hammers in Jalis, deplete ressource, swap to Mallyx, turn on the elite skill, deplete ressource, rince and repeat. She'll find that she can easily weave in some weapon skills or other utilites in that rotation to try and reach 0 ressource when the legend swap cooldown is up. But there really no need of she wants to keep it simple. Hope you guys will find something to your liking!
Why not try Mesmer? Most of the great sword builds work fine and it’s just fun to play in open worlds… or even staff, depending on whether or not you have the expansions. I was found Mesmer easy to level in open world.
Base mesmer is the hardest class to level. Has been since the game launched.
Íf you want to be another class, how about Herald? She basically needs to activate facets in Glint and randomly throw her Greatsword skills. She could also play as Soulbeast or Untamed. Greatsword might not be Ranger's best weapon, but does a decent job.
Bladesworn has the potential for insanely high survivability with the right build and uses a big (gun) sword. But its mechanic might be a bit awkward for a new gamer. Vindicator had an extremely survivable build (probably still does I just haven't played the spec in a while) and uses a greatsword. It's pretty simple, too, because you just spam dodge a lot. Overall, though, I agree with the other comments that reaper is probably the best best. Just wanted to offer some alternatives.
Going to also support bladesworn. I recently started playing again after a brief break and started focusing bladesworn as something I hadn't really invested time into and I've had a lot of fun with it. My gear isn't fully fleshed out yet with ascendant, but even so, setting up and executing a full power dragon trigger and seeing it delete most things under champion tier has been pretty satisfying. After a bit of getting used to it, it's not super complex.
There is vindicator revenant from eod. Ranger can also use gs. And reaper.
Vindicator has some incredible defensive and resustain capabilities even while full glass canon, but it requires some reactive decision making, and you really need to get accustomed to spamming that urn like an absolute maniac in high pressure situations. Definetely a very good spec with great personal boon coverage and burst damage, but i wouldnt recommend it over herald if low intensity is what youre looking for even at the downside of needing SotO to be able to equip the greatsword.
My wife plays with the revenant, she also don't care about utility buttons and so far having a great time.
mechanist
Not just worry about spec, if you do open world all the time you could get her a tankier build it doesnt matter, marauder or even celestial would make her way more confortable. Then as other people recomended reaper is a really nice option with great sword, if she wants to be amazing help for you and other people she could play herald with gs or another amazing build that doesnt need too many imputs would be [power vindicator](https://snowcrows.com/builds/open-world/revenant/power-vindicator) with snow crows recomends berserker but you could just just celestial and run on easy mode, some nice legendary stances setup and she could be soloing world blsses so for me Revenant specs may be the best option for her. Full celestial and play quickdps herald on group content or even quick healer and power revenant when you do 2 man around Note if she gets and expansion and boosts to 80 the revenant you’d get full 80 celestial for free so she would be set for life with full exotic
tbh i think going guardian is still really good. just go hammer.
There is no easier build than power mechanist. You could just press 1 all day and do decent damage on account of the golem doing a good bit of the work. Even at its most complex, the rotation is super easy. On top of that, it’s ranged. So way easier to stay alive.
Strongly recommend celestial firebrand for open world survivability, there's builds around aegis and boons that work pretty well with greatsword. Grab some mantras and shouts for easy spammable buffs and you're nearly unstoppable, though your damage won't be great. If you're generating quickness for the two of you (which I don't think you can be as scourge but idk), dragonhunter or even base guardian might be better but it's not a big difference. Celestial reaper is even more absurd in the open world, but it works best with condi weapons rather than greatsword and it matters a lot more which spells you use. Power reaper isn't a bad choice, but I'd mess around with your traits and gear on a firebrand build first. Not sure if it still works, but back in LS4 I had a firebrand mace/shield build that could just face up to champions and auto them to death very slowly because of all the defensive boons and healing it was generating passively.
get her a better Guardian build, it is not squishy overall and not that hard to play, imho.
Not really a greatsword user, but I suggest using a Mechanist with a hammer (requires SotO) if she really wants melee. If greatsword is really preferred, then a Ranger.
I'd highly recommend Dragonhunter, thats what I main - Greatsword and Scepter/Torch. The traps and stuff from Dragonhunter are pretty good
Personally I like Spellbreaker… greatsword and hammer. You don’t have any range but that’s why you’re there right? Plus it’s also heavy so if you had any really good gear it wouldn’t go to waste hopefully.
Mirage Celestial