Guild Wars 2

Hi all,
Not much of a PvE hero here, haven’t done a dungeon in a good 3 weeks. I’m planning on making a new main class for PvE and WvW after I deleted my ONE 80 to transfer to Maguuma. I was just wondering what the best classes are for fractals. I already have a few classes in mind, but I just wanna make sure they’re viable. From what I’ve heard:

1. Warrior
2. Guard
3. Ele
4. Teef
5. Ranger
6. Mes

1001. Engi

99867. Necro

I’m mostly just wondering if Teef is viable for High level fractals and dungeons :P. Teef 4 Life

1 guardian seems to be the only thing really needed to make a party efficient.
Aside from that generally you’d want one warrior, one ele, one mesmer.
Thief can’t really replace any of them as far as party utility goes, but can still deal fine single target damage and fill in the last spot.

They’re fine for fractals, but you don’t really see people looking for them.

Thief is decent for clowncar, havent really found them useful for anything else. Rangers though? I’ll take a condi necro before I take one of those abominations.

guardian, mesmer = T1
ele, thief, warrior, engi = T2
ranger, necro = T3

not sure why you thought warrior was t1.

Rangers though? I’ll take a condi necro before I take one of those abominations.

well apparently, rangers can cleave, necros can’t, and fractals have a lot of trash mobs.

maha.7902:

guardian, mesmer = T1
ele, thief, warrior, engi = T2
ranger, necro = T3

not sure why you thought warrior was t1.

Rangers though? I’ll take a condi necro before I take one of those abominations.

well apparently, rangers can cleave, necros can’t, and fractals have a lot of trash mobs.

If I know you, if I’ve run dungeons with you, if I know you’re not a complete moron, if I know you can play ranger better than most fools, yea, I dont mind a ranger in a Fractal party. Pug? kitten no I dont want a ranger in it. A great condi necro is leagues better than a bad ranger.

A great anything is better than a bad anything.

I’d take a good ranger over a bad mesmer.

If they’re a bad anything and I’m looking for decent players, I don’t want you no matter what class you’re on.

There’s no need to discriminate on classes if you can’t think of a practical reason not to take them, rather than just personal dislike.

I personally love necros and prefer to run mine when I can but it is a fact they lack decent cleave, their AoEs even when traited are on long cooldowns and offer nearly no real group utility/synergy outside of assisting with condition management w/the group which personal removal is more than enough in most cases. In real-world situations their debuff access really isn’t going to help as much as boons from other classes that have also have access to more dps/cleave/aoe dmg. Not to mention the lack of mobility, no vigor access etc..Rangers are usually going to be in a better spot than them in terms of group utility/dps especially on trash, hell even a ranger can slot off hand axe for certain bosses for reflects and stack vulneraility better than a Necro.

Tbh, a necro that can consistently apply weakness, especially on a boss, is far more valuable than a ranger. Not to mention a necro with an axe is going to be stacking more vulnerability than a ranger.

1. Guard, because relatively high dps, reflects, protection, aegis, weakness spam, general survivability without reduction to dps
2. Mes, reflects and general utility
3. War, DPS (plus banners, phalanx, and other dps related stuff, oh btw dps)
4. Thieves, perma blind plus ok dps, dazes, stealth etc.
5. Ele, (a surprizing amount of people suck at ele even in high lvl fractals), Necro’s personally I like em, but condi’s are only real advantage and the important ones are snagged by war, mes, guard. and engi’s ok dps, blind spam, aoe, various condi’s, lack buffs, and other key utilities (unless randomly generated)
6. Rangers… sorry guys

I’d say depend on team composition.
But for the best high level FOTM (40+) composition, any team should have at least one of the following:
1. Warrior for Banners, Empower Ally, and/or Phalanx Strength
2. Guardian with Wall of Reflection, Shield Avenger
3. Mesmer with traited focus 4 and focus 5, invisibility also helps.
(Pull AND permanent projectile reflection is really nice)

Rest of two spaces you can have any class because you’d have a smooth run with the above 3 classes mentioned.
However I think one more guardian will make the difficulty even easier.
One more Warrior can add one more banner and one more battle standard.

I’m not being biased or kitten, but this is my true experience.

Two guardians are nice with at least one hammer guardian.

A warrior for banners.

Mesmer for extra utility.

Last slot can the variety part. A dagger/pistol thief can provide to many enemies almost permanent blind. Thief must be traited nicely and can provide excellent buffs if fully steal traited. Steal cooldown reduction helps keep the buffs up even more. Also stealth and nice single target DPS.

You can also bring a second warrior or another class if the person has a good amount of skill and brings something nice to the table.

Rage.9723:

Two guardians are nice with at least one hammer guardian.

A warrior for banners.

Mesmer for extra utility.

Last slot can the variety part. A dagger/pistol thief can provide to many enemies almost permanent blind. Thief must be traited nicely and can provide excellent buffs if fully steal traited. Steal cooldown reduction helps keep the buffs up even more. Also stealth and nice single target DPS.

You can also bring a second warrior or another class if the person has a good amount of skill and brings something nice to the table.

No, you go sword/pistol on Thief for trash pulls, dagger doesn’t cleave but sword does. Thief brings constant blinds for trash mobs, group stealth for skipping, and high single target dps for bosses.

If I am using sword I would much rather use sword/dagger.

Fractal sword skin club.

Actually thinking this over some more sword/pistol probably better in many situations in PVE than sword/dagger. A lot of Arah path 2s are solod with sword/pistol. Sword/dagger is nice for high level PVP though if you have a good team.

I run 50s near-daily with LFG and rarely have issues regardless of group composition. My guild has a strong “bring the player, not the class” philosophy and I think it serves us well. I’d rather have 4 other attentive light armor-wearers than sleepy mcgoo grab-baggers tryin’ to 1111111 their way through content. Some professions & builds increase overall efficiency, but it’s a matter of 4-5 minutes’ savings in the long run. I’d rather a slightly longer run with interesting, good players than to shave those extra minutes by only allowing a specific group composition.

That being said, fractals at 50 do somewhat self-select. You need a lot of money, time, or dedication to get sufficient AR.

If you’re alert and situationally flexible, and know when to swap in an obscure utility skill to really speed up an encounter, you are the best addition to the party regardless of profession and spec.

(And my last advice to you or anyone for fractals – please communicate. If you don’t know how to do something, have to wheel your grandma out of the bathtub, whatever; hit the ol’ /p and share with your temporary fractally friends, eh?)

OP, you obviously have no idea of the amazing team composition that comes true only when you have an engineer, a necromancer and a ranger in your party.

I ran lv49 fotm daily for 3-4 months religiously, what worked best for my group was mes/guard/2warr/thief. Ele and ranger are also amazing for fotm if played right.
In overal Id say the follow is most true for running fotm:

Most useful class: Guardian/mesmer (reflects are your friends)
dmg increase classes: Warrior/thief/ele/ranger (fury/might/empower allies/banners/spotter/perma blinds)
garbage class: Engineer/necromancer

Don’t underestimate 2 guardians in group damage wise. Most good guardians nowadays roll zerker and still survive with well timed blocks. Two guardians with well timed blocks can provide a great amount of team blocks. Obal from the guardian forum has a video of himself doing massive damage with the greatsword number two attack. Also hammer guardian can provide non stop 33% protection buff with the #1 attack repeated.

I play ranger in fractals, with my guild only (if you want numbers, up to level 38, which is not that low in my opinion)
.
One of the two:
1 – they are extremely kind and carry an useless player playing an useless class without complaining too much.
2- Once all players in group knows how to play, it makes a little difference which class you play (no, I’m not saying 5 rangers is a good and balanced group composition).
Is really that hard to think a bit out of the box in this game?

you generally want
- 1 guard for reflect/aegis
- 1 warrior for banners

others are optional
- ele for might/fury stacking and reflects
- mesmer for reflects and TW
- ranger for spirit of frost (but no ranger runs it anyways so you wanna kick any ranger that joins your group)

if its a pug group i would recommend go 1 warrior and 4 guardians unkillable combo

maha.7902:

guardian, mesmer = T1
ele, thief, warrior, engi = T2
ranger, necro = T3

not sure why you thought warrior was t1.

Battle standard!
Sustained damage.

P.S:
T10: players that goes on aggroing stuff following their usual routine and ignore chat.
I know some nice tricks (almost legit… or maybe not because requires to use tactics different from straight DPS) for fractal but some players tends to aggro before i finished writing “wait, let me pull”.

you’ve never played a necro OP, have you?

I’ve played with almost full necro teams. fracs are easy mode.

battle standard is only for bad groups who already start losing :>