Guild Wars 2

I was thinking about what’s the best composition for tourneys and I have a couple of questions for everybody:

1) often the discussion about professions is quite short-sighted because it revolves around 1v1 which is one of the possible scenarios in tournment but probably not the one you see more often. Is it really so appealing to have somebody that can 1v1 very well but it’s not so useful in a teamfight? For example 1v1 builds often need surviving traits to work cause pure damage would be too fragile: in a teamfight the problem could be solved.

2) this leads me to the second point. Control abilities are often used for bunker builds but could be used in combination to let the dps builds dish up more damage and let them unequip their control/defensive abilities. I dont deny a bunker or maybe even 2 (depending how u wanna play your team) are necessary but couldnt we have 1 proper bunker and 1 high survivability controller? Or it’s a waste in your opinion?

3) Support: 80-90% of cases discussions about support end up being discussions about healing. Support could be other things. While i dont deny the usefulness of defensive support and healing there are support builts that can grant many stacks of might or even permafury. Again: i’m silly to consider offensive support as useful as defensive one?

4) Condition vs power: this is not quite a question but more like an opinion. Isnt the game a bit biased towards condition builds? Except a few high burst builds direct damage seems to be falling behind in general. Or am i horribly wrong? This idea may actually be connected with point 3 since it forces at least one of the team to be condition cleanser (support necro or ele very often) therefore limiting possibilities.

5) After all this please give me your favourite composition for tourneys, being specific about who does what. I’m just curious about what people consider “best in slot” for a team.

Regarding point 1. my point of view is that GW2 is all about team work in pvp so if you want to do good you need to make a build that makes your team better so 1vs1 builds often don’t find a usage in pvp.
I would like to get some new type of maps where you can use your skills as a single pvp player because speaking of me, I don’t have time to go into a team or guild, I am mostly play after work and can’t afford a schedule to play with a team so I usually go for 1v1 builds and I do really nice in spvp. Regarding tpvp for me is a pain because I need a very good communication and in pugs team this won’t happen.
I wish they give us pugs vs pugs and maps where you can go and get points just from killing players, no npcs , no capping points. Diversity is good in all.
As for condition builds vs power builds I am not sure that condition builds are the best, power builds do really nice also, as a power necro of power ranger you can do crazy dmg too and faster.

1) Most Specs/classes that are considered “imba” are ones that excel in various different scenarios. If I’d make a rough categorization of “roles”, I’d call them: “Burst/DPS”, “Movement”, “Survival/Sustain”, “Teamfight/Support”.

Lets take Thief for example, widely considered as IMBA and very frustrating to play against (I think it’s by far the most imbalanced class and for me personally, ruins much of the fun of sPvP)

- Burst/DPS: Thief has by far the most Burst-Potential in the Game, with very short CD’s between spikes, short drawbacks if the Spike doesn’t work etc. [5 out of 5 points]

- Movement: With Shadowsteps “en masse” and the hightened movment-speed from the sigil, Thief is probably the fastest Char on the Map. [5 out of 5 points]

- Survival Sustain: It’s clear that burst-specs with the thief cannot hold points very well, but for it being considered a glass-cannon, the sustain is absolutely ridiculous. The amount of Stunbreakers/Shadowsteps and instants to negate DMG is only surpassed by the vast amount of time a Thief can stay in stealth, negating most of the DMG he would get in between spikes. There aren’t even many “half-DPS” builds like Ele with Valk-Amu, that have such good sustain. [2.5 out of 5 points]

- Teamfight/Support: The Bow is amazing during Teamfights, gives you good AoE and a Poison-field. Besides that, Shadow Refuge is great for Rezzing/Stomping and a hard to kill Burst-Char is always very good in teamfights. Besides, theres no other Char that can “clean up” a teamfight after a late arrival. I’ve often seen Teamfights which got completely turned around within seconds by 1 Thief joining in and kicking butts. [3.5 out of 5 Points]

—> Good builds need to be able to fill different roles, but there are builds that are just too good at too many things and that is what makes them imba… at least in my opinion. The Thief could 1-hit me (which he nearly does anyways) all day long, if he would be slow like a snail or also die with 1 hit, but thats just not the case…

2) I’ve found that in GW2, you cannot be too specific about roles; with just a 5-man team, you cannot just have a char that is only good at Support or Controlling the opponent etc. There are builds that use heavy amounts of Knockdowns and Stuns and such, but they need to be able to deal DMG or tank well or sth. else. But there are, as stated before, builds that kinda do what you’ve suggested: Necro (fear, chilled, crippled, Blind, weakness etc. are all decent control-effects and the Nec has a lot of it), there are also nice Hammer + Mace/Shield Warrior builds around with loooots of stuns and I’ve seen ranger-builds that dish out insane amounts of chilled during teamfights and have good interrupts and Knockbacks etc. too.

3) Again, you will not find a build that is simply there to provide buffs and support (the closest one would maybe be the Staff-Ele, but we don’t see them as often anymore and the main thing about them was the healing to make it almost impossible to get a guard off a point). There are also quite a few builds that make it their sole purpose of supporting others if they have to sacrifice their own power for it. There is nothing like a blinding-bihatch, a water-ele, a oldschool GW Diversion/Interrupt/Manadrain-Mesmer, that on their own don’t deal much DMG, don’t have high sustain or are particularly good at anything and only work in teamfights. The Teams of 5 are too small and the game-modes make it easier to avoid teamfights – those builds would simply not work in GW2 (at least I haven’t seen one pure Support in that “oldschool-sense”).

4) I don’t necessarily see a big discrepancy between condition-dmg and power and I personally think that COnd vs Power is well implemented in the Game as a mild “rock-paper-scissors” or “metagaming” component with cond being good against certain builds, but pretty bad against others and vice-versa (with power I mean). But it’s still not too drastic to make it a pure rock-paper-scissor-meta: just a sort of little advantage/disadvantage you have to adapt and learn to play with as a team against certain other builds.

5) My Fav team atm:
1 Guard (Bunker – guarding mid)
2 Eles (S/D or D/D, which roam around and cap points on Glass-cannon, then switch to a toughness/Healing-Power Amu for Holding)
1 Mesmer (Portal-guarding 1 point)
1 Thief (cuz they IMBA and you’d be stupid not to play at least 1)

man i’d like to think the thief isnt OP. but lately ive been getting destroyed by good teams thieves stealthing the downed guy. (we down their team, i go to invuln stomp with mist form, they stealth and rez him).

so in general, i think being able to coordinate rezzing/stomps is a very important part of the meta (stability, knockbacks, stealths, etc). rezzing and teamwork are overpowered.

u almost definately need a good tank it seems like (guard, eng, ele). mobility is important (mesmers portal, eles, thieves), as well as having a good 1v1 guy (for side points, treb). and necros are incredibly valuable for team fights.

but anything can work as long as u have a good mix of skills/roles and teamwork. and a tank. n maybe a pro thief that can solo the lord without downing the door

The meta right now for high level pvp in NA is pretty much:

Thief (glass burst)
Guardian (bunker)
Mesmer (glass offpoint/roamer)
Necro (glass wells aoe/support)
Ele (some teams run glass some slightly tankier)
Note: A couple of teams run warriors in place of thief but it’s rare.

This sort of comp excels at team fights as well as skirmishes. The aoe potential is huge and there is still a good level of res utility throughout the team.

Physical damage is king right now. The majority of burst damage classes rely on high physical damage attacks that are supplimented with short duration, high damage conditions (Ele burning, mesmer confusion). The necros are generally keeping teams honest and making sure they are packing some form of condi removal and not just stacking physical defense on their bunkers.

1. Most of the best TPvP builds are also strong 1v1 if played well, but that isn’t their primary purpose. A build that is only good 1v1, but brings low damage and no support to a team fight is probably not versatile enough to fit in a tournament comp. Being able to reliably win a 1v1 against almost any matchup is useful, because it forces teams to overcompensate for you, but if you instantly die when it becomes 1v2 or are dead weight when a fight escalates to a 2v2 then it’s not really accomplishing much in the long run.

2. Yes. 2 Bunkers is not even good. You want 1 bunker and some support, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a “support” build on your team, it’s not like you need healing, so you just bring a dps ele and necro that also provide good support with aoe heals, CC, condi removal and resurrection. The ele could be semi tanky, but it could also be glass and still do all that.

3. If you aren’t gearing for support it hardly feels right to call a build a “support build”. But like I said, eles, necros and mesmers all bring a lot of utility to the team even in their damage builds. I think the danger of setting out to make a “support build” is that you might sacrifice damage when it’s not really necessary, you can be a damage dealer and provide some support at the same time.

4. Hm.. horribly wrong imo. Most US teams only run 1 condi and 2-3 power, and that condi is usually a carrion necro, so condi/power hybrid really. Euros like engineers, but I never see them played here. They have a different playstyle.

5. Bunker guardian mid, shatter mesmer back point, turret condi necro for teamfight pressure/support, dagger/dagger ele for roaming dmg/control/support (can be glass or tanky dps), and thief or warrior as glass cannon primary damage dealer.

nurt.5401:

1. Most of the best TPvP builds are also strong 1v1 if played well, but that isn’t their primary purpose. A build that is only good 1v1, but brings low damage and no support to a team fight is probably not versatile enough to fit in a tournament comp. Being able to reliably win a 1v1 against almost any matchup is useful, because it forces teams to overcompensate for you, but if you instantly die when it becomes 1v2 or are dead weight when a fight escalates to a 2v2 then it’s not really accomplishing much in the long run.

2. Yes. 2 Bunkers is not even good. You want 1 bunker and some support, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a “support” build on your team, it’s not like you need healing, so you just bring a dps ele and necro that also provide good support with aoe heals, CC, condi removal and resurrection. The ele could be semi tanky, but it could also be glass and still do all that.

3. If you aren’t gearing for support it hardly feels right to call a build a “support build”. But like I said, eles, necros and mesmers all bring a lot of utility to the team even in their damage builds. I think the danger of setting out to make a “support build” is that you might sacrifice damage when it’s not really necessary, you can be a damage dealer and provide some support at the same time.

Couldn’t have said it better,

Thinking about this topic, the Staff-Ele was pretty much what one could describe as “pure Support”:

- His Healing and even DPS is mostly AoE, therefore it was only worthwhile in teamfights.
- The Staff-Ele, disregarding what some ppl think, is neither a tank nor a pretty good pointholder: in a 1v1 vs. a glass-cannon or any1 with good knockback/fear etc. it’s only a matter of time before you loose the point, just because you deal no DMG in a 1v1 and a pointholder cannot rely on ppl coming back to him within 20 or so seconds in a simple 1v1.
- He has decent CC and combofields, but again, this doesn’t get you any kills.

-> This is probably the best example for a pure Support build and it’s no wonder we almost never see him getting played on maps other than Khylo, where he gets a pretty important bonus-role; treb-control.

So I don’t think that in the current Meta, pure support is really viable, or in other words, more viable than builds with maybe less support, but other roles they can fullfill.

*Edit: Being an oldschool GW1 GvG-Player (most noteably having played in Bruderschaft der Verdammnis [BdV] and Capita Cerberi [CC], in Top-30 and Top-50 respectively) I even messed around with other “support” builds and tried making equivalents of a GW1 Mesmer (lots of interrupts and CC) or Support Eles (I tried making a S/D Blinding Bihatch) or Rangers with Interrupts and CC, but it was always the same: It’s just not worth sacrificing DPS or tankyness for those kinds of things and the more I focused on DPS, the better the builds worked in general… But I guess thats just because it’s 5v5 and the attention is spread out between 3 points and another “point of interest” on the Map.

Maybe if we had a simple deathmatch or King of the Hill Scenario or sth like that, we could see some more support-builds popping up, but not in the current meta and game-mode.

Not to say that thats necessarily bad, it’s just how it seems to work out.