Guild Wars 2

Hi guys!

Im IQ, a returning PvP veteran (about 1000 hours spent in PvP) and a WvW enthusiast (about 500 hours spent there) who decided to get into PvE now that I have come back to Gw2. I was away from it since HoT went live, because I was kind of disappointed in it when it hit, came back a few days ago, loving HOT now.

I found a nice guild that is mainly PvE oriented, and I want to get into PvE aswell, seeing as not much has changed in PvP and it’s a bit boring now (to me), and WvW is kind of broken right now (my humble opinion). What I have trouble with though is, in my 3 years of playing Gw2, I’ve only done about 5 dungeons total and 1 or 2 fractals.

I don’t know any of the PvE mechanics really, but I want to get into it. That being said, I want to select the right profession to help me get into it. You may call me a FoTM picker, or say I just go with the wind or whatever; I don’t care. I just want to be really good at PvE.

I really love playing the next classes, so if one of these could do the trick that’d be the best, but I am ready to adapt to anything really (except engineer, I don’t want to play that): Revenant, Elementalist, Warrior, Mesmer, Thief, Necromancer

Here’s what I am looking for in a class:

1. Being viable in raids; I am mainly going to be doing raids with the guild, fractals occasionally. I want to play a class and a build that is viable; be it in terms of support, damage or any other utility.

2. Being survivable; I just don’t want to get 1shot by anything that’s walking around. I want to be able to take even the least amount of damage without collapsing.

I prefer support roles, such as boon spreading and stuff, because I think that contributes the most to the fight, but I am not completely sure. Any input on that is appreciated.

So, I would be really grateful if you guys could share your ideas;

What are the best PvE classes right now for raids and fractals, what builds should they run, how hard are they to play, to master, how much coordination (from the group) they require, etc…

Thanks alot in advance.

Regards, IQ

Wow, loaded post. Okay, where to start? Well, let me start off with my personal opinion/experience.

I run primarily Druid and Chronomancer in both Raids and Fractals.

Druid is a diehard healer but is generally the “better” healer because of the buffs they can offer

• Spotter: +150 Group Precision
• Frosty Spirit: 75% chance to proc 10% more power damage
• Sun Spirit: procs 2 stacks of burning (great for condi users)
• Grace of the Lane: Stacking damage buff to both power and condi

I run a more Spirit focused build so I’ll also have Water Spirit for perma regen and Nature spirit for heavy hitting moments. Gear is a bit of a toss-up right now, and it mostly depends on what the comfort/skill of your team and how much they lean on your for heals. Difficulty wise it’s not difficult in that you’re healing even through your AA, but if you don’t manage your Astral Force well you’ll find you can’t burst heal when needed. You can tank with Druid in the second boss fight and be the designated decoy in the third fight.

Chrono is another support character since they have low personal damage output but dramatically compensate through high uptime on alacrity/Quickness. In a Utility role you are a bit more relaxed in that you just have to be mindful of your own rotation. Though, messing up our rotation does mean a drastic loss in team buffing. Chrono’s also have a very excellent role as a tank in the first and second encounters since they are able to both provide the same support utility while simultaneously tanking the boss through their abundance of blocks, evades, and invulnerabilities. You’re gonna want to hug your Rev if you don’t have native + boon duration equipped.

As far as the other classes? Here’s very very short descriptions.

Warrior

• PS: Bannerboy + high might uptime. high Power DPS, +Power to team members
• Burnzerker: Banners, excellent condi damage (bugged atm so you only want 1 on your team)

Rev

• Herald: BoonBot (might, fury, regen, swiftnes, and Protection). Low-Moderate damage, breaker of bars, +Ferocity to team members
• Ventari Healer: sustain healer

Guard

• Hammertime: Perma protection + trickle heals. Excellent Power Damage

Ele

• Staff: Excellent AoE Power damage, Group burst healing
• D/W: High Power damage, group burst healing

Engi

• Viper: High condi damage, rather complex rotation, breaker of bars

Thief

• Staff: Excellent Power damage
• Tank: access to various evades and blocks, personal healing through critical attacks

Necro

• MM: Tanking capabilities through minion damage mitigation
• Condi manipulator: excels in team with multiple sources of conditions (from palyers and bosses) since they can pulls conditions from team members, move them to boss, and spread them to adds.

Difficulty depends mostly on your team comp and strategy. Other than Engi, the rotations are very difficult.

/my2copper

Best profession right now for raids in no particular order.

First the best profession are

Tempest : The best dps right now, it also very good at mechanics for Gorseval and Sabetha (Staff for orbs at Gorseval and Lighting Flash for platform at Sabetha). D/W Fresh air and Staff are both very powerful build. He can also make a good healer, but not much group use it in that role since you miss all the offensive Druid can provide. It’s a bit squishy.

Thief : Pretty much the same role as Tempest. The 2nd best dps and a bit squishy.

Guardian : 3rd best dps, but it provide a bit more support than the first 2 and he’s more tanky than the first 2. He’s especially good for average skill group and pugs since he boost the survivability of his sub-squad and have one of the easiest rotation. He provide perma protection, and a bit of fury and quickness.

Mesmer : One of the 3 best offensive support profession. He provide perma quickness for his sub-squad, and with the expensive concentration sigil can provide near perma quickness for the whole squad. He also provide alacrity, boosting even more the dps of the squad. But it have very limited dps himself and can be hard to master. Pretty much all raid squad want one, but rarely 2.

PS Warrior : Another of the 3 best offensive buffer. You usually want 1 at VG (some group want 2) and 2 for Gorseval and Sabetha. His role is simple, give 25 might, banners and EA to his sub-squad.

Druid : He have two role. It’s the best healer of the game and one of the 3 best offensive buffer with Frost Spirit, Spotter and Grace of the Land (Sun Spirit if heavy condi team). The build itself can change a lot, but those 2 core role remain. You can go full healer to healer to help your team, you can go more dps in direct or in condi damage. You can bring 1 full healer or 2 more dps healer to bring buff to both sub-squad or some good group just bring 1 Druid in more dps setup because they don’t need as much healing. It really depend on your group.

Tank : The tank is only for Gorseval and VB and almost anything can work well here. The goal here is to bring a build with the highest toughness of your group (it can range from 1200 to 1800 depending on your group) and enough surviability to not die. But a good tank will also bring something else to the fight than just tanking. Like a chronotank that bring his offensive buff or a engineer that bring his op cc for gorseval. But really, almost all profession can find a way to fill that role.

Then you have still good profession, but not as good as the one I listed.

Reaper : The condi build can be the 4-5th best dps, but it need a ramp up time for double horrors, your healer need to keep your horrors alive and you need 2 reaper to double Epidemic on boss with alts (so only Gorseval and Sabetha). It can be powerful, but need specific situation for that. But his ability of pulling down players to him can be live saver for new groups.

Engineer : The condi build is 4-5th best dps, but he have the hardest rotation to master. He still bring a lot of support like CC, heals, etc so it’s always a nice quality of life to have for a group, but most people have a bad dps with it because of the hard rotation.

Herald : It used to be one of the best profession with good dps, powerful cc and high support. But the recent update changed that. It’s still a very good professions, but not as essential as before. Most group still have at least 1 of them but mostly just for the 50% boon duration for the Mesmer. Don’t get me wrong, he can do other things, but not as good as other profession now.

As you can see most profession have a role in raid.

Got any details on the hammertime Guard build? Googled it but only found stuff from 2012. Thx

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Dragonhunter_-_DPS/Support

What kind of details you want?

Could a D/D Elementalist have a role in a raid?

Because I am the most skilled as playing D/D; is it alot worse than a D/W? I don’t mind rolling a tempest.

So heralds should always be in a raid? Cause my guild doesn’t have a herald yet, so I would probably take on that role then !

Tyvm for the responses.

Dagger’s (Fresh Air Traited) main damage sources come from OL Air, Lightning whip, and, Burning Speed

With Warhorn you get Lightning Orb and Wildfire for damage, and you have Heat Sync for a bit of boon distribution. To a lesser used extent, you also have access to more group heals and can spread protection as well.

Off Hand dagger doesn’t pack as much of a punch, and the weapon skills are rather “meh”

But yes, you should be rolling Tempest over Elementalist. You become less squishier and gain access to a few traits/skills that complement damage builds.

Herald doesn’t always have to be in a raid, but it’s good to have. Sadly, the last set of patches put Herald DPS in a really odd spot so they’re mostly brought to fill the BoonBot roll. Chrono + Herald work very well in their own team though since Chrono gets the benefit of extended boon duration, and Herald gets [near] perma-quickness to bring their damage more in line with the other heavy hitters who may not be getting the full duration on the Quickness boon. Though it also depends on your team comp. If you have a Commander Chrono and a Wrathful DragonHunter, Quickness uptime starts to take care of itself.

IQGoesgwii.9273:

Could a D/D Elementalist have a role in a raid?

Because I am the most skilled as playing D/D; is it alot worse than a D/W? I don’t mind rolling a tempest.

So heralds should always be in a raid? Cause my guild doesn’t have a herald yet, so I would probably take on that role then !

Tyvm for the responses.

No reason to bring a D/D over D/W. That said, the lost in dps isn’t that big. I would still suggest that you take train a big with D/W, but if you really prefer D/D, you will still have a good dps.

As for Herald, they are not obligatory, but the 50% Boon duration for the Mesmer quickness is pretty awesome. A lot of squad are using an Herald and a Mesmer into their own seperate sub-squad to provide quickness to the whole squad. Which i doudt you can do without an Herald, but I could be wrong. That said, you can complete the raid with no herald at all with no problems. If you have no Mesmer, your mesmer is not using the quickness build or he is just bad at it, then you are problably better off without any herald.

You don’t have to run warhorn to use the tempest traitline. The tempests overload is working with any weapon, and is absolutely great.