Guild Wars 2

So you run dungeons, with pugs and want to know the best builds for you that can help yourself do lots of damage/help the team out so you’re not stuck running with 5 altruistic guardians buffing eachother constantly and doing no damage?

There are alot of great guides out there for dungeons, but the main factor you need is DAMAGE.
people say blah blah you need healing PVT guardians to support!
Myself and alot of people say GTFO with pvt guardians and tanks.

So here you can discuss the type of builds you run- what you think suits you and your team best

There is no set class that is best to run dungeons with. It’s about the group composition. As you said, if five AH guards are just buffing and healing each other and not doing that much damage, it’s just going to prolong the fight.

It is no argument that Warriors have the highest direct damage with GS and Axe/Mace.

AC P1 -

1 . Ele with Frost bow for borrows and FGS for boss when stacked together.
2 . AH guard with condi removal on shout and healing for boss fight cleansing, agies and stability.
3. Mesmer for Feedback, Nullfield and Time Warp.
4. Any DPS class
5. Any DPS class

AC P2 -

1 . Mesmer for Feedback, Nullfield and Time Warp.
2 . AH guard with condi removal on shout and healing for boss fight cleansing, agies and Wall of Reflection.
3. Any DPS class
4. Any DPS class
5. Any DPS class

[The last boss can be burst down with one trap but it’s best to have the next charged. Therefore, Feedback and WoR should be sufficient.]

AC P3 -

1 . Ele with Frost bow for borrows and FGS for boss when stacked together.
2 . AH guard with condi removal on shout and healing for boss fight cleansing, agies and Wall of Reflection.
3. Mesmer for Feedback, Nullfield and Time Warp.
4. Any DPS class
5. Any DPS class

The above is just an example, you get the idea.

Wolfgang Michael.8217:

It is no argument that Warriors have the highest direct damage with GS and Axe/Mace.

…
…
… ele says hi

personally; guard… its just so much easier to carry bad pugs
projectile reflect/deflect in wor/sota
blinds
aegis
prot
… a tiny bit of might (not including empower)
vuln
stab
condi cleanse (although all i have in my build normally is symbol+whirl/focus#4)
good reliable damage (if… you arent being a tanky scrub)

Warrior+ warrior+warrior warrior mesmer uhhh no warrior all the way
Did i say warrior ?

Ignore Wolfgang’s post, he has practically no idea what he’s talking about.

Best class to use in a PUG dungeon I’d say would be guardian because of the fact that you ooze utility and have pretty solid DPS so you can make up for the shortcomings of weak players in bad gear, plus you can interact with boss mechanics better than other classes (a warrior can’t reflect raving asura’s projectiles, and can’t spam condi cleansing in COE p1 in alpha fights).

Just waiting for everyone else to get here to explain everything properly, I’m too hung over to bother.

Tryhard Ranger so you can switch to bearbow and join in on the leeching if they’re terrible.

Why carry pugs when they 99.9% of the time aren’t going to be grateful/acknowledge your carry/don’t learn anything from you anyway?

I don’t really think there’s a ‘best’ class to carry PUG’s with. In a dungeon like Arah, the best class to carry on will be whatever class that you can play well enough to solo, or almost solo the boss encounters. If you’re a Mesmer, you can even portal people past skips.

Easiest to carry with? Probably Guardian. Good combination of team support and damage.

a t s e.9614:

Warrior+ warrior+warrior warrior mesmer uhhh no warrior all the way
Did i say warrior ?

lol

so clueless

zencow.3651:

Why carry pugs when they 99.9% of the time aren’t going to be grateful/acknowledge your carry/don’t learn anything from you anyway?

because otherwise the run fails/gets extremely frustrating

Really depends on the situation and how good you are with said class but in average, like other people said, guardians, since you’ll mostly be carrying the team and a good mesmer /ele can make the run a lot smoother too, warriors are ok too I guess, but we’re talking about the average situation.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

a t s e.9614:

Warrior+ warrior+warrior warrior mesmer uhhh no warrior all the way
Did i say warrior ?

lol

so clueless

Do you trust everybody in forums lol? If you do then send me 2000g and i will give
5 dusks in return.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

zencow.3651:

Why carry pugs when they 99.9% of the time aren’t going to be grateful/acknowledge your carry/don’t learn anything from you anyway?

because otherwise the run fails/gets extremely frustrating

Alt-tab, watch a movie/troll forums and come back to press 1 once in a while.
I guess I’m petty like that, either everyone puts in some effort or none.

The thing is, Dungeon wise Warriors and Guardians can nearly match DPS whilst being traited/geared correctly.

The main difference between the two is Warriors have offensive utilities and Guardians have defensive utilities, but like Cookie said, for the more ‘harder’ dungeons it’s probably best you play on a character you know you will do good on.

Serious responses start here:

1) Grenade engineer to stack might and vuln and output consistent DPS for when pugs insist on range stacking. Also heals, CCs, stealths, reflects, etc. God tier carry for bads in general.
2) Mesmers for portals. Run through half of Arah, portal rest of pugs through.
3) Rangers for fury. Most pugs don’t stack fury, so that area fury alone is a blanket 15% extra DPS or so.
4) Elementalists for raw DPS. With the terrible damage of most pugs, you’ll probably double or even triple the party’s total DPS as an ele.
5) Guardian for protection stacking and Aegis. Nice because pugs don’t dodge so damage negation is important.
6) Warrior for banners and shouts. Limited in usefulness because pugs don’t carry banners usually.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Serious responses start here:

1) Grenade engineer to stack might and vuln and output consistent DPS for when pugs insist on range stacking. Also heals, CCs, stealths, reflects, etc. God tier carry for bads in general.
2) Mesmers for portals. Run through half of Arah, portal rest of pugs through.
3) Rangers for fury. Most pugs don’t stack fury, so that area fury alone is a blanket 15% extra DPS or so.
4) Elementalists for raw DPS. With the terrible damage of most pugs, you’ll probably double or even triple the party’s total DPS as an ele.
5) Guardian for protection stacking and Aegis. Nice because pugs don’t dodge so damage negation is important.
6) Warrior for banners and shouts. Limited in usefulness because pugs don’t carry banners usually.

Sorry to say but you’re wrong in a few things there, Rangers is a NO as well as Engineers. No room for them in good dungeons.

Guardian is great for a few things, but if you run an altruistic guardian GTFO.
Berserker or go home tbh
Warriors, do not use shouts. Shout warriors can also walk home with the Altruistic Guardians, Warriors are for pure DPS, Full zerker. There is no other use for them.

oh dear here we go

Ebi.8561:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Serious responses start here:

1) Grenade engineer to stack might and vuln and output consistent DPS for when pugs insist on range stacking. Also heals, CCs, stealths, reflects, etc. God tier carry for bads in general.
2) Mesmers for portals. Run through half of Arah, portal rest of pugs through.
3) Rangers for fury. Most pugs don’t stack fury, so that area fury alone is a blanket 15% extra DPS or so.
4) Elementalists for raw DPS. With the terrible damage of most pugs, you’ll probably double or even triple the party’s total DPS as an ele.
5) Guardian for protection stacking and Aegis. Nice because pugs don’t dodge so damage negation is important.
6) Warrior for banners and shouts. Limited in usefulness because pugs don’t carry banners usually.

Sorry to say but you’re wrong in a few things there, Rangers is a NO as well as Engineers. No room for them in good dungeons.

Guardian is great for a few things, but if you run an altruistic guardian GTFO.
Berserker or go home tbh
Warriors, do not use shouts. Shout warriors can also walk home with the Altruistic Guardians, Warriors are for pure DPS, Full zerker. There is no other use for them.

grabs popcorn

Ebi.8561:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Serious responses start here:

1) Grenade engineer to stack might and vuln and output consistent DPS for when pugs insist on range stacking. Also heals, CCs, stealths, reflects, etc. God tier carry for bads in general.
2) Mesmers for portals. Run through half of Arah, portal rest of pugs through.
3) Rangers for fury. Most pugs don’t stack fury, so that area fury alone is a blanket 15% extra DPS or so.
4) Elementalists for raw DPS. With the terrible damage of most pugs, you’ll probably double or even triple the party’s total DPS as an ele.
5) Guardian for protection stacking and Aegis. Nice because pugs don’t dodge so damage negation is important.
6) Warrior for banners and shouts. Limited in usefulness because pugs don’t carry banners usually.

Sorry to say but you’re wrong in a few things there, Rangers is a NO as well as Engineers. No room for them in good dungeons.

Guardian is great for a few things, but if you run an altruistic guardian GTFO.
Berserker or go home tbh
Warriors, do not use shouts. Shout warriors can also walk home with the Altruistic Guardians, Warriors are for pure DPS, Full zerker. There is no other use for them.

You can DPS with shouts. A/M and LB, Heal Surge, Discipline Strength, FGJ, Warbanner. What do you run, Endure Pain? Frenzy? Dolyak Signet?

pffft who needs fury and might? imma sit here on my heal sig, regen banners, adrenal health, and cleric gear yo

So far, I’ve found grenadier engineers to be really good with pugs. You get a lot of the support abilities that guardians have, and you can dish out a lot of AoE damage at a distance.

Of course, I haven’t leveled up my guardian yet, so I can’t compare the two.

I can see engineers being excellent alternatives to guardians…. but aegis too stronk

Personally giving engineers a unique condition reducing boon (say a boon that reduces x condition damage/duration) and making sure that only it and other classes (say necro and mesmer) can apply it reliably and that would -probably- make engineers a lot more viable. That’s just 2c, though.

Best class is warrior for some reasons:

Most parties accept 2-4 warriors, while except some fractal parties they just want 1 guardian and 1 mesmer or thief.

Warrior differently from guardian mesmer etc is easy to play and if you mess up, YOU go downed.

In most situations if you mess up with guardian or mesmer etc your Whole party wipe

Erm I don’t know bout you but for those discussing classes best to carry pugs, carrying pugs is generally thankless and unrewarding. At least for me, I wouldn’t choose a class so that I can carry pugs. But hey, if thats your thing then more power to you.

LordByron.8369:

Best class is warrior for some reasons:

Most parties accept 2-4 warriors, while except some fractal parties they just want 1 guardian and 1 mesmer or thief.

Warrior differently from guardian mesmer etc is easy to play and if you mess up, YOU go downed.

In most situations if you mess up with guardian or mesmer etc your Whole party wipe

Most pugs are uninformed and behind the meta. Which is fine since most play casually, but that also means you shouldn’t be trying to follow pug trends as any reliable source of information. Hell, even the current “meta” is pretty off at times; see the LH versus staff thread for some insight into that.

Ebi.8561:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Serious responses start here:

1) Grenade engineer to stack might and vuln and output consistent DPS for when pugs insist on range stacking. Also heals, CCs, stealths, reflects, etc. God tier carry for bads in general.
2) Mesmers for portals. Run through half of Arah, portal rest of pugs through.
3) Rangers for fury. Most pugs don’t stack fury, so that area fury alone is a blanket 15% extra DPS or so.
4) Elementalists for raw DPS. With the terrible damage of most pugs, you’ll probably double or even triple the party’s total DPS as an ele.
5) Guardian for protection stacking and Aegis. Nice because pugs don’t dodge so damage negation is important.
6) Warrior for banners and shouts. Limited in usefulness because pugs don’t carry banners usually.

Sorry to say but you’re wrong in a few things there, Rangers is a NO as well as Engineers. No room for them in good dungeons.

Guardian is great for a few things, but if you run an altruistic guardian GTFO.
Berserker or go home tbh
Warriors, do not use shouts. Shout warriors can also walk home with the Altruistic Guardians, Warriors are for pure DPS, Full zerker. There is no other use for them.

Oh my god.

You guys do remember this is the bloke who bragged about doing Arah and then whispered Brazil a bunch of questions, right?

Pretty sure 5 AH zerkers guards could do any dungeon easy.

Not very fast though.

LordByron.8369:

Best class is warrior for some reasons:

Most parties accept 2-4 warriors, while except some fractal parties they just want 1 guardian and 1 mesmer or thief.

Warrior differently from guardian mesmer etc is easy to play and if you mess up, YOU go downed.

In most situations if you mess up with guardian or mesmer etc your Whole party wipe

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha

nice logic you got there!

Ebi.8561:

Sorry to say but you’re wrong in a few things there, Rangers is a NO as well as Engineers. No room for them in good dungeons.

You have no idea of what you’re going to unleash.

/popcorn

Anyway, best class to carry a pug?
A good player.

Honestly, I’d vote engi for a pug. It brings arguably the highest dps with a ranged build, so you are less likely to be downed because of confusion, mis-communication, or lack of defensive support for melee.

Actually i have no idea what will be the best classes for pugs but here is what i usually run with:
1.Warrior
2.Guardian
3.Mesmer
4.Thief
5.Ele or Necro

Necro! Necros are the best class for dps in the game! make sure to always have at least 2 necros in your party when you run dungeons. It’s a plus if they run Shaman’s gear!

But for the record, rangers definitely do have their place in dungeons. They are AMAZING for certain party compositions.

wana know what the best class for PuGs? the one you’re good at :P why is this so hard for people? as long as you’re speced for DPS (knights and rabid count in my book) then your pug will do fine.

Assuming each is being played optimally, Guardian or Mesmer with a slight edge to guardians. Pulls/reflects are huge. The mesmer has more reflects but the guardian has better boon support.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Ebi.8561:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Serious responses start here:

1) Grenade engineer to stack might and vuln and output consistent DPS for when pugs insist on range stacking. Also heals, CCs, stealths, reflects, etc. God tier carry for bads in general.
2) Mesmers for portals. Run through half of Arah, portal rest of pugs through.
3) Rangers for fury. Most pugs don’t stack fury, so that area fury alone is a blanket 15% extra DPS or so.
4) Elementalists for raw DPS. With the terrible damage of most pugs, you’ll probably double or even triple the party’s total DPS as an ele.
5) Guardian for protection stacking and Aegis. Nice because pugs don’t dodge so damage negation is important.
6) Warrior for banners and shouts. Limited in usefulness because pugs don’t carry banners usually.

Sorry to say but you’re wrong in a few things there, Rangers is a NO as well as Engineers. No room for them in good dungeons.

Guardian is great for a few things, but if you run an altruistic guardian GTFO.
Berserker or go home tbh
Warriors, do not use shouts. Shout warriors can also walk home with the Altruistic Guardians, Warriors are for pure DPS, Full zerker. There is no other use for them.

You can DPS with shouts. A/M and LB, Heal Surge, Discipline Strength, FGJ, Warbanner. What do you run, Endure Pain? Frenzy? Dolyak Signet?

I don’t think i got my message across as well as i wanted to, I’m talking about warriors that run OMM/SIO/FM in dps fights, i’m talking about in-experienced warriors.

And in response to the “no rangers” I’ve just had bad experience with rangers, never met a good one that i’ve had time to watch and play with, i know they can buff greatly and do some good damage, i have watched DnT’s CoF P1 run with the ranger, which i was impressed with.

But i stand by my egineer quote, i do not like them, personal preference, we’re not on this forum to agree with one person, everyone shares a different opinion and you can’t target out someone with one that’s not equal to yours. ^^

Ebi.8561:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Ebi.8561:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Serious responses start here:

1) Grenade engineer to stack might and vuln and output consistent DPS for when pugs insist on range stacking. Also heals, CCs, stealths, reflects, etc. God tier carry for bads in general.
2) Mesmers for portals. Run through half of Arah, portal rest of pugs through.
3) Rangers for fury. Most pugs don’t stack fury, so that area fury alone is a blanket 15% extra DPS or so.
4) Elementalists for raw DPS. With the terrible damage of most pugs, you’ll probably double or even triple the party’s total DPS as an ele.
5) Guardian for protection stacking and Aegis. Nice because pugs don’t dodge so damage negation is important.
6) Warrior for banners and shouts. Limited in usefulness because pugs don’t carry banners usually.

Sorry to say but you’re wrong in a few things there, Rangers is a NO as well as Engineers. No room for them in good dungeons.

Guardian is great for a few things, but if you run an altruistic guardian GTFO.
Berserker or go home tbh
Warriors, do not use shouts. Shout warriors can also walk home with the Altruistic Guardians, Warriors are for pure DPS, Full zerker. There is no other use for them.

You can DPS with shouts. A/M and LB, Heal Surge, Discipline Strength, FGJ, Warbanner. What do you run, Endure Pain? Frenzy? Dolyak Signet?

I don’t think i got my message across as well as i wanted to, I’m talking about warriors that run OMM/SIO/FM in dps fights, i’m talking about in-experienced warriors.

And in response to the “no rangers” I’ve just had bad experience with rangers, never met a good one that i’ve had time to watch and play with, i know they can buff greatly and do some good damage, i have watched DnT’s CoF P1 run with the ranger, which i was impressed with.

But i stand by my egineer quote, i do not like them, personal preference, we’re not on this forum to agree with one person, everyone shares a different opinion and you can’t target out someone with one that’s not equal to yours. ^^

I met a berserker sword ranger (frost spirit and all) in a pug once.

oh
my
god
/brainasplode

Could tell he/she was definitely doing a fair share of dps

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Ebi.8561:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Serious responses start here:

1) Grenade engineer to stack might and vuln and output consistent DPS for when pugs insist on range stacking. Also heals, CCs, stealths, reflects, etc. God tier carry for bads in general.
2) Mesmers for portals. Run through half of Arah, portal rest of pugs through.
3) Rangers for fury. Most pugs don’t stack fury, so that area fury alone is a blanket 15% extra DPS or so.
4) Elementalists for raw DPS. With the terrible damage of most pugs, you’ll probably double or even triple the party’s total DPS as an ele.
5) Guardian for protection stacking and Aegis. Nice because pugs don’t dodge so damage negation is important.
6) Warrior for banners and shouts. Limited in usefulness because pugs don’t carry banners usually.

Sorry to say but you’re wrong in a few things there, Rangers is a NO as well as Engineers. No room for them in good dungeons.

Guardian is great for a few things, but if you run an altruistic guardian GTFO.
Berserker or go home tbh
Warriors, do not use shouts. Shout warriors can also walk home with the Altruistic Guardians, Warriors are for pure DPS, Full zerker. There is no other use for them.

You can DPS with shouts. A/M and LB, Heal Surge, Discipline Strength, FGJ, Warbanner. What do you run, Endure Pain? Frenzy? Dolyak Signet?

I figured I’d chime in and say “hi” and say “are you seriously going to argue with Guang?
Or are you trolling?”

For the weary / popcorn eaters: Confirmed: I sometimes have to use red moa in addition to my warhorn to make up for PuG lack of fury. RED MOA

Sword & board baby, traited frost and spotter with fury along with offhand axe Path of Scars and warhorn Call of the Wild and a bird? Mega burst.

Ebi.8561:

So you run dungeons, with pugs and want to know the best builds for you that can help yourself do lots of damage/help the team out so you’re not stuck running with 5 altruistic guardians buffing eachother constantly and doing no damage?

There are alot of great guides out there for dungeons, but the main factor you need is DAMAGE.
people say blah blah you need healing PVT guardians to support!
Myself and alot of people say GTFO with pvt guardians and tanks.

So here you can discuss the type of builds you run- what you think suits you and your team best

4 dps warriors
1 dps guard or Mesmer.

Don’t even know who he is, dont care.

I wouldn’t say any is best in terms of “carrying” because “carrying” is likely to fail most of the time and I would avoid trying. In terms of making dungeons with random groups go faster, I’ve found ele’s and warriors seem to add the most in terms of team damage, which if the group is minimally able to avoid damage is the major variable in determining dungeon speed.

Warriors are good for fairly obvious reasons – banners, FGJ, the empower allies trait, their own high dps, their ability to stay up in a fight even when they mess up. Ele’s who stack might and fury in between bouts of lightning hammer to spam blind and high DPS also tend to add a lot to a group’s overall DPS if you are not running a warrior heavy group who will have fury up all the time. With scepter dagger you can stack a minute or so of fury at the beginning of the fight and then pound away with your hammer if you want. Ele’s can also condi remove nicely with cleansing wave.

I have also had luck with – believe it or not – engineers. Their biggest downside is the collective groan they will elicit from bad groups. But they actually can bring a lot to a group. You can get up around 20 stacks of vuln pretty easily with grenades, which is huge if you don’t have other people stacking it. (And pug’s don’t stack vuln.) You can also stack area might on your group pretty easily with engineer, using some combination of the fire field on bomb two, the bomb toolbelt, turret detonation, and so forth. Engi’s can also condi remove pretty well. You have to hit a lot more keys than with the ele, but playing engineers is supposed to be fun, not simple.

Thieves get a shout out from me too. A lot of dungeons involve a lot of skipping, and thieves make it oh so easy. Running CM with a thief is easier, as is getting a bad party to the end of AC. If you think you might want to fractal, they are also a good choice because of their ability to stealth parts of the dredge (if you pug 48’s you will likely die many, many times on dredge without a thief) and snowblind fractals, as well as providing a backup projectile barrier. (Which people always forget!)

DeathPanel.8362:

Ebi.8561:

So you run dungeons, with pugs and want to know the best builds for you that can help yourself do lots of damage/help the team out so you’re not stuck running with 5 altruistic guardians buffing eachother constantly and doing no damage?

There are alot of great guides out there for dungeons, but the main factor you need is DAMAGE.
people say blah blah you need healing PVT guardians to support!
Myself and alot of people say GTFO with pvt guardians and tanks.

So here you can discuss the type of builds you run- what you think suits you and your team best

4 dps warriors
1 dps guard or Mesmer.

I sure hope that “DPS” Mesmer doesn’t use Greatsword…

Edit: As a gesture of good will, I should warn you that encouraging people to stack Warriors is the fastest way to get laughed off this forum. I understand that it is the dun thing to do with PuGs but just… Not here.

On topic, depending on the content I’d say Thief for oversimplifying trash skips and emergency revives, but pretty much anything you’re good at playing. As an example I PuG AC on Ele so I can carry lousy DPS players with Fiery Rush and frost bows.

Why the hatred for cond necro?

My main is cond necro in Rabid armor and Rune of the Undead and I have no problems getting groups for dungeons when farming and am doing good dmg with guild group when running fractals + high survive meaning no downtime to get rezzed, regen etc.

Sure, not getting into them “We only want warriors blah blah blah” groups, but kitten that, I don’t need the extreme speed runs.

condi is terrible in pve, pretty decent for solo content but in a group your bleed stacks are likely overwritten by other classes with bleed on crit traits and such.

You think you’re doing good damage, but you’re not.

If you want to go condi necro, go rampager hybrid. The single target dps doesnt drop off too much and you get better sustained aoe.

Dolan.3071:

DeathPanel.8362:

Ebi.8561:

So you run dungeons, with pugs and want to know the best builds for you that can help yourself do lots of damage/help the team out so you’re not stuck running with 5 altruistic guardians buffing eachother constantly and doing no damage?

There are alot of great guides out there for dungeons, but the main factor you need is DAMAGE.
people say blah blah you need healing PVT guardians to support!
Myself and alot of people say GTFO with pvt guardians and tanks.

So here you can discuss the type of builds you run- what you think suits you and your team best

4 dps warriors
1 dps guard or Mesmer.

I sure hope that “DPS” Mesmer doesn’t use Greatsword…

Edit: As a gesture of good will, I should warn you that encouraging people to stack Warriors is the fastest way to get laughed off this forum. I understand that it is the dun thing to do with PuGs but just… Not here.

On topic, depending on the content I’d say Thief for oversimplifying trash skips and emergency revives, but pretty much anything you’re good at playing. As an example I PuG AC on Ele so I can carry lousy DPS players with Fiery Rush and frost bows.

GS might not be the best option, but it’s our best range option. Compared to staff and scepter, GS is the right option.

With that being said, if I know I can full melee the fight, I just go Sword/focus + sword/sword.

I might use GS 10% of the time in dungeons.

I find scepter better than GS. :P

spoj.9672:

I find scepter better than GS. :P

Not if you’re phantasm =)