Guild Wars 2

Hi there!

I was talking with a friend about sPvP and he said to me that a profession I wanted to play was more ABLE than others to fit a sPvP role.
Being a WoW player, i’ve noticed that WoW’s roles(the tank, dps, healer, ccbot, dot pressure, for example) don’t apply to GW2.

What is actually expected from someone in a PvP scenario?

Or… how is the current “meta” on team composition in sPvP? This way I can understand what a team expects from me and how I can be a better team player.

Thanks in advance!

Point Holder

Roamer

Decapper

There’s also Team Support and DPS. But those roles are a little more blurred along class lines nowadays.

If you don’t understand the terminology, let me know and I’ll explain.

Builds can fill multiple roles, but they can be broken down into solo/skirmish oriented ones and teamfighting ones. Solo/skirmish would be roamers or being able to contest a point 1v1. Team fighters would be bruisers, support, and general damage builds (which can also be divided into condi or power).

So for example, cele engineer is a good example of a bruiser build, and condi ranger is a solo node build.

The current “meta” at the highest levels is (generally) 3 cele (bruiser,support… which are warriors, engineers, and elementalists basically) builds with 2 damage (thief, mesmer, longbow ranger, med guard…) builds. You can get away with other comps though, it doesn’t really matter. Can run triple or quad damage builds and a bunker (which is basically a tank, like AH Guardian) if you want to be old school.

The game really has 5 types of builds:

Bunker: A support role, but defined as extremely hard to kill and something which is intended to stand on the node

Bruiser: A tanky DPS build that can teamfight and has good 1v1 capabilities. Examples would be Celestial Engineer, Hambow Warrior, D/D Ele

Support: A build focused not around dueling or node holding but which brings valuable healing, boons or ressurection abilities. Examples: Staff Elementalist, Spirit Ranger

Duelist: A primarily duel focused build, intended to fight 1v1 on a node to win it. It’s not currently seeing a lot of play, but it did exist in previous metas. Examples: Condi Ranger, Beast Master Ranger, Condi Mesmer

Burst: A build intended to win fights quickly with overwhelming damage. Examples: D/P Thief, Shatter Mesmer, Fresh Air Elementalist, Power Necro

By the way, these archetypes could be used to create a very fun Solo Queue matchmaking system. Class stacking has almost nothing to do with whether a match is good or not.

bssbruno.1487:

Hi there!

I was talking with a friend about sPvP and he said to me that a profession I wanted to play was more ABLE than others to fit a sPvP role.
Being a WoW player, i’ve noticed that WoW’s roles(the tank, dps, healer, ccbot, dot pressure, for example) don’t apply to GW2.

What is actually expected from someone in a PvP scenario?

Or… how is the current “meta” on team composition in sPvP? This way I can understand what a team expects from me and how I can be a better team player.

Thanks in advance!

Each class is supposed to be potentially viable for multiple roles: there are no classes that can ONLY be played as tanks / damage dealers etc. However, at any moment in time, for each class there is a role that it is deemed best fitting (‘viable’) by the majority of active players (the ominous ‘meta’). Since it is very easy (and free) to change everything in your build in pvp (in particular the amulet, which determines your stats), playing anything else than this current best role will be considered as placing a burden on your team. This, however, is only important if you take pvp really seriously.

Current state of affairs seems to be: engi, ele, warrior with celestial amulet (role: tankish support/damage/conditions hybrid) and thief with berserker amulet (burst damage) are fully viable, any other class with berserker is to some extent viable (role: burst damage), except for berserker on the engi. All other builds (among them some arguably decent ones) seem to have become much rarer.