Guild Wars 2

This is not a thread for arguing what is best and what is not, this is just a place to share your experiences with various group compositions and about the one that stood out for you in any sort of meaningful way. Doesn’t mean it’s all about the min-maxing, perhaps what you had the most fun with more importantly.

I randomly grouped up with some people for AC Explorable, the group ended up being 3 Guardians and 2 Warriors. Needless to say, we could be hectic and extremely careless yet no one was ever in danger.

During the bonus spider event, one of our members got too close and accidentally pulled the patrol of gravelings in that passage. If it were most group make ups, that would have been trouble. But for this group, everything was cleaved down via the melee blender that is 5 heavies four of which rocking greatswords. With three Guardians keeping boons up in addition to the bulky nature of the classes, none of our health bars even dipped below 70%.

We went for all three paths and finished without a hitch all with mindless but speedy efficiency. Was good times.

Healing tank guardian and four fire eles.

Any group comp that isn’t considered “functional” but with player skill is just as effective as more typical fare. I have done…
…A group with no melee or heavy (fwd/fwd TA)
…A group with no engineer or ele (Hodgins and Tzark AC)
…A group with necros and mesmers instead of eles and guardians (my usual group for everything from HotW to AC).
…A group with a support thief (AC, all paths)

Any comp as long as the people I’m playing with are my friends/guildies. Seriously coordination is so important.

That being said, we run Guardian(not heal/tank), dps war, con necro, mesmer, ranger. Works great, sometimes the mesmer or warrior is a thief. We actually notice the warrior missing the most, their dps is just crazy.

I’ve run my best dungeons with:
Support Guardian
2 Cond Necros
1 Ranger
1 Ele

The combo fields are nuts!

5 mesmers. Watch the boss try to pick a target for the entire fight. Hilarity ensues.

Hammer Guardian
Mace warrior
extra people.

Guardian gives perma-protection.
Warrior gives perma-weakness.

Protection gives a 33% damage reduction boon. Weakness gives a chance for glancing blows which gives 50% damage reduction. This means large damage reduction.

Have not seen an engineer listed. I think it’s funny how they’re almost never seen in the game, but one of the most useful classes, and especially so in dungeons. Anyhow, I like:

Engineer (elixirs/elixir gun generally, switch to FT/bombs as needed)
Warrior (hammer and sword/sword for CC on trash mobs and crazy bleeds on a boss
Ranger (tanky pet, Longbow or shortbow and axe/torch)
Mesmer/thief (the usual supportive builds with plenty of area stealth to make rezzing easy)
One more of any of the above

Because guardians get boring after a while.

Group members in the best gear that follow directions from whomever knows the most about the dungeon and who do not insult other people in the group.

I could care less about the profession make up of a group and I don’t mind running with bad players as long as they are nice to each other.

For Arah:
- Guardian (Support)
- Mesmer (Support)
- Ele (Damage)
- Necro (Condition Support)
- Last slot is free, but I have to admit I had the fastest runs with another Conditon Support Necro

Guardian, Mesmer, Warrior + filler is what I’ve had the most success with. Everything works though.

Medkit/Flamethrower Engineer
Staff Guardian
Hammer/Shouts Warrior
Staff Elementalist
Greatsword Mesmer

My favorite group make up is simple:

Literate, Adult, Not-completely brain dead.

Works for every single dungeon.

gaurdian, gaurdian, warr, warr, and a warr heavies are rocksuace. You want a speed run throw 5 greatswords on these guys stuff goes down like nothing. Got to go ranged no problem heavies can do that too and still have mucho survivability.

5 Warriors, don’t you guys know? Warriors are Anet’s FOTM man!!!! But really, seriously speaking, you’d be surprised how efficient a 5 man Warrior party can pummel through any dungeon like a mice in heat…

I would be surprised at 5 warriors :P

0 combo fields. minimal healing. some condition removers. Add to that melee are relegated to ranged weapons ALOT and that’s not their bread and butter. Try running a condition heavy dungeon with 5 warriors.

I’ve always liked Warrior/Guardian/Necro/Mesmer/Elementalist

@Gurubu, we do have 1 combo field, it’s F1 from longbow fire, add this with longbow skill 3(blast finisher) and you have a might boon on everyone in range. If the warrior isn’t complete glasscannon spec then you don’t need lidicrous healing (you can pull off a non glasscannon GS spec with minimal dps loss for better survivability). There might be a few bosses that are complete melee unfriendly, but most are managable if you know when to dodge/block.

Back on topic, Dungeon setup: Guildies. Always run with guildies, they listen, they give tipps, strategies and should be more tolerant to newbs(me most of the time) and explain what to expect. As long you are capable of listening and learning(switching up your traits and skills as necessary) and expect the others do aswell then you are good to go.

Favourite set up:
1) Has brain, class: any
2) Has brain, class: any
3) Has brain, class: any
4) Has brain, class: any
5) Has brain, class: any

Gurubu.1693:

I would be surprised at 5 warriors :P

0 combo fields. minimal healing. some condition removers. Add to that melee are relegated to ranged weapons ALOT and that’s not their bread and butter. Try running a condition heavy dungeon with 5 warriors.

I’ve always liked Warrior/Guardian/Necro/Mesmer/Elementalist

Clearly you have no clue about warrior healing.

Guardian/Warrior/Engi/X/X

Tank, fury, vuln, healing, damage. All you really need as a core.

honestly no preference, but the fastest i’ve done all dungeons(and smoothest) was with 5 melee. the best result was 3x warrior, 1x guardian, 1x thief followed by 2x warrior, 2x guardian, 1x thief.

The best set up I ever played in was:
1 mesmer
1 Engi
1 Guardian
1 ele
1 Warrior
I am sure most of the reason this worked best for us is because we are a guild team, sit on TS and know how the others play. I must say tho that a-net have done a great work with balancing classes, you can only really gain anything by picking specific classes if its a unique skill just that class have. Other then that its a mater of player skill and about learning what just your class can contribute with.

Depends on the dungeon. For TA I really like to have a guardian – the staff auto-attack is amazing at destroying blossoms in a wide area in front of the group. They make that annoying dungeon mechanic much less stressful. I’ve also loved to have necros for their pull skill. I don’t like the idea that a pull skill exists or that it’s specific to some classes, but I can’t deny it’s nice to have it when it’s there. Pulling a Nighmare Court Knight away from a mob so it can be DPS’d safely and alone is always going to make a run much smoother. Honourable mentions have to go to the mesmer for being able to portal past some content (like if you die at the final fight, they can go to the left tunnel and portal people back up) and rangers because they have multiple single target damage longbow skills which help make those max range fights faster (while other classes will lazily auto-attack). I’ve also had an all guardian/warrior frontline group before. Things went very smoothly with that run, which I found surprising.

For Ascalonian Catacombs I’ve found that the only class I care about having is an elementalist for the graveling burrow encounter. The rate at which they can destroy burrows and AoE graveling mobs is much higher than other classes. It’s a luxury to have one on the team for that. Honourable mention goes to the engineer for grenade kits which have the same benefits.

Ultimately I’ve found any class set up works. Some elements of dungeons are smoother with certain classes, and some set ups can be better than others, but any party set up can bring the skills it needs to succeed if you work together and tailor your build to your party.

My normal group
I play a yelling warrior

Warrior with Healy shouts
Warrior with Healy banners
Engineer because he’s always online
Ranger who does whatever rangers do
Staff guardian or a greatsword glass cannon warrior who knows how to dodge.

No engineer love… that’s what you get for being second best at everything

lol

“Favourite set up:
1) Has brain, class: any
2) Has brain, class: any
3) Has brain, class: any
4) Has brain, class: any
5) Has brain, class: any
"
I agree with this