Guild Wars 2

In terms of SPvP, I would like to see the community here rank from 1-8 (1 being best)(8 being worst) classes based on their tank build performance in SPvP.

I like the Tank role in PvP, but some classes are better than others. I would like to see your opinion on this.

True tanks do not exist within the mode;

You got Bruisers who are akin to it, are capable of dealing sustained damage. Examples are;

• Shoutbow Warrior
• Hambow Warrior
• D/D Cele Elementalist
• Staff Cele Elementalist

These differ from true tanks due to the fact that you can very well take them down fast with a coordinated burst, and bring some kind of support to the table. Comparable to these is also Celestial Engineer – but this one is more frequently used in the role of an Assualter/Roamer

And then you got Bunkers – not capable of dealing a ton of damage, but more capable of defending themselves against numbers. Guardians, though not frequently used within this role, are unparalleled within this role due to their uptime of block and invulns (which is the only way to mitigate a full burst).

The main reason as to why true Tanks do not exist is because they are inherrintly selfish… It is not impossible to make a tanky build on any profession, but your usefulness will eventually decline when you compare yourself to other roles

As brandon said, Best bruisers to worst ?

1 being best, 8 being worst I would say

1: Elementalist (the amount of protection & health regin is amazing & they can do it while helping allies & providing a decent mix of condition damage and control.)

2: Warrior (high base health with strong health regen. They also provide good condition damage & control)

3: Engineer (Lots of blocks, conditions removal & health regin if you do it right. They also provide good condition damage & the best CC in game.)

4: Guardian. (Insane survivability but it’s tied to allies being nearby to proc altruistic healing. Good condition removal also. Sadly it’s control & damage output is a joke. Lets see how that improves in the expansion)

After that its a matter of perspective. Though if played right I would say the mesmer can be insanely tanky due to how much damage you can simply not get hit with.

There are tankier builds that do work, but because they aren’t nowhere near as tanky as before and won’t be able to last long against even 2 dps (holding 2 dps indefinitely was possible way back when…) and because they lack DPS compared to the bruisers, they need tons of teamsupport. Best in this category is very likely Altruistic Healing Shout-Guardian.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAW7elsApVo1CxfH8DRBDRkjNYnFOedRTAA-TpQWAAeZAY/BA

depending on how tanky you really wanna go you can choose offensive/defensive sigils or even go for a mace….

I think Staff-Ele is also viable as fulltank/support:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAWhcM6cW4wyBr0AiAB5slqRBlnHTB-TJxHABcs/QtXAAkKDAwDAAA

They are viable mostly because they can tank a little bit more than bruisers, but have a tons of teamsupport to compensate for the lack of DPS. I like the Staff-Ele, because he also has very good decap, so if you can’t teamfight for whatever reason, he can easily get decaps and maybe even caps against 1 Opponent and hold the point, maybe ven 2 players, if they have rather low dps builds.

Those builds are only really viable if your team focuses on Teamfights and has enough DPS.

valk shout warrior is very hard to take down