Guild Wars 2

Hey sPvP Community,

I am hoping to spark some conversation about the various roles and aspects of play within a tPvP setting. Ideally this thread can become a hub for newer players to come to and find information about which professions are capable of fulfilling the roles they intend to play, while also containing information beneficial to more experienced players. I have no desire to discuss how OP or UP any given build is, but rather want to discuss each profession’s ability to fill different roles (again, not who is best, but simply who could fill it successfully, and with what traits/weapons/utilities), as well as defining the various roles (I certainly don’t know them all) that come into play throughout a match. I intend to update this post to flesh out the list of roles and professions capable of filling them with a degree of success as I see responses and discussion from you, the community.

- Please note that I understand the same build is capable of fulfilling multiple roles at once, and would love to see discussion on how different builds achieve this, as well as discussion on which roles are central to any team, vs which roles are situational or optional.

Thanks,
Ice

Role Breakdown

TL;DR: What roles are there to consider within tPvP and what professions/builds are capable of filling these roles with some degree of success (not necessarily THE best, but not completely useless).

Bunker/spike/pressure are imo the the necessary three, leaves two spots to fill as team pleases. There is great synergy in having guardian/shatter mesmer/thief filling those roles, makes for a very easy play of stripping all boons>setup spike>easy blind + stability finisher, that’s mixed with very high damage and very high escapability. IMO in tpvp necro/engi are both desirable for condition pressure, for teams against a warrior I’d rather take engi [or we’d spend the entire game trying to peel warrior from necro], for teams running double guardian or any boon-heavy setup I’d rather take necro

This might be seen as a ‘golden oldie’ view of tpvp nowadays, but from what I’ve seen, still effective. At one point every single team was guardian/mesmer/thief/ele +1
I do enjoy playing against team who are set on doing things differently, I have seen some very well played condition thieves for example

Warrior Warrior Warrior Warrior and Warrior

Darnis.4056:

Warrior Warrior Warrior Warrior and Warrior

How dare you speak the truth

azuzephyr.7280:

Bunker/spike/pressure are imo the the necessary three, leaves two spots to fill as team pleases. There is great synergy in having guardian/shatter mesmer/thief filling those roles, makes for a very easy play of stripping all boons>setup spike>easy blind + stability finisher, that’s mixed with very high damage and very high escapability. IMO in tpvp necro/engi are both desirable for condition pressure, for teams against a warrior I’d rather take engi [or we’d spend the entire game trying to peel warrior from necro], for teams running double guardian or any boon-heavy setup I’d rather take necro

This might be seen as a ‘golden oldie’ view of tpvp nowadays, but from what I’ve seen, still effective. At one point every single team was guardian/mesmer/thief/ele +1
I do enjoy playing against team who are set on doing things differently, I have seen some very well played condition thieves for example

So you have stated bunker, spike, pressure (in your example damage (both direct and condition) pressure) as roles, and given examples of professions. You also elude to boon control (creation and removal), stomp control (stomp securing vs stomp prevention/res), peeler and lockdown as other, in a sense secondary, roles, again with examples.

For the sake of our community would you mind elaborating on how these professions fill these roles – what utilities/traits/weapons etc. make, for example, a necromancer a good condition pressure class (I certainly understand, at least mostly, what contributes to this, but I want this thread to be a collaborative effort from the community, not simply my own personal opinions and understandings).

I will update my OP as necessary to reflect them. Looking forward to further discussion.

Ranked by efficiency:

Bunker / defensive Support:

1. Guardian
2. Engi
3. Warrior
4. Staff-Ele (maybe even D/D or D/F)

(note that nearly every class can bunker, but they mostly just survive for a longer period of time and don’t offer good support or CC to compensate their lacking damage if there’s a group-fight)

Roamer / Spike-Damage: (good mobility + (single-target)-DMG)

1. Thief
2. GS-Warrior
3. S/D-Ele

Pressure in Group-Fights / offensive Support:

1. Nekro
2. Spirit-Ranger
3. Shatter-Mesmer
4. Warrior? (easy acces to stability -> good for rezzing (maybe even banner-rezz) and stomping)
5. Ele

• Note that eles can fullfill all roles but is always only last choice. That’s why nobody plays with ele.
• Guardian, Nekros, Rangers and Warriors are the most common classes in tPvP atm. Nearly every team runs one from each of them and any of those 4 may be even picked twice in a viable team:
  • Guardian is the best bunker+supporter -> first choice for bunkering, every team needs a bunker
  • Nekros and Spirit Rangers are OP in team-fights and also 1v1 -> seen in every team, mostly even 2 or 3
  • Warrior has insane mobility and overpowered CC+damage or can be used as pure bunker -> seen in every team
• One or two spots are left which are commonly given to Engi, Mesmer or thief.
  • Engi has great support while doing good damage and adding nice CC to a fight. Can also replace Guardian or Warrior bunker.
  • Mesmers deal nice damage and most importantly have portal.
  • Thiefes deal extremely high spike-damage and therefore are the best roamers.

A few more questions to spark discussion:
What makes a good bunker?
What roles do they fill?
Is there more than 1 type of bunker?

Bunker has to carry utilities for ressing/stomping, but the number one role is point control.

For example there are some necro specs which are hard to kill, certain Mesmer specs which are hard to kill, thief specs which are hard to kill. However if they lack stability and point control then in my eyes they are not a bunker, they are just a hard to whittle down pressure role. Bunker has to be able to stay on point despite enemy pressure and without totally relying on stealth/invuln/kiting to do it

The lsit in your OP is very good, but it might be worth noting that just by class design some professions regardless of their role will always be efficient for CC/peeling/ressing, examples being warrior bunker/necro pseudo-bunker are still strong on CC, spike thieves are still good ressing/stomping. So they mix & match

Darnis.4056:

Warrior Warrior Warrior Warrior and Warrior

Spike Damage Spike Damage = All 5 Warriors dead

It’s interesting that the roles in this game are mostly about things you do in the map, either solo or in support of others.

I don’t hear much discussion of roles in a team fight (contrast to GW1 where a team fight is composed of several interdependent roles.)

I feel like teamfights in GW2 are mostly chaotic messes with only minimal importance of positioning, interdependence, front / mid / back line, etc.

Why isn’t meamer in burst sir? You obviously don’t know how to play please put mesmers on. Burst dmg preassure resurrection stomp secure stomp team utility boon removal. Everything gosh

All you need is:

bunker warrior
roaming warrior
condi warrior
burst warrior
and mesmer, cause he can open portal for them…….

but watchout in next balance patch warrior get some kind of portal, so no other profession needed anymore….

azuzephyr.7280:

Bunker has to carry utilities for ressing/stomping, but the number one role is point control.

I felt as thought “Bunker” wasn’t really a role, but a group of roles, and the first part of your post helped me to break that down a little, about to update OP to reflect.

azuzephyr.7280:

The lsit in your OP is very good, but it might be worth noting that just by class design some professions regardless of their role will always be efficient for CC/peeling/ressing, examples being warrior bunker/necro pseudo-bunker are still strong on CC, spike thieves are still good ressing/stomping. So they mix & match

I did mention that I understand different builds are capable of filling multiple roles in my OP. The idea of this thread is to define what roles exist, and then collaboratively determine who fills them and how.

CachoDm.4639:

Why isn’t meamer in burst sir? You obviously don’t know how to play please put mesmers on. Burst dmg preassure resurrection stomp secure stomp team utility boon removal. Everything gosh

I am still working to determine a set list of roles before I try to elaborate upon them with professions that can fill them with x/y/z.

This list could end up huge;

Mesmer -lockdown/team utility/res and stomp securing/burst/boon removal – also [it’s an oldie but a goodie] treb repair

necro -res and stomp securing/res and stomp preventing/cond pressure/burst/boon removal

guard – burst/bunker/point control/point defence/res and stomp securing/peeler/team utility/cleave/boon creation

Why do you want to differntiate between such a huge amount of categories? Many of them seem to be quite the same.
What’s the difference between Point Defense and Point Control? Burst, Direct Damage Pressure and Condition Damage Pressure are also quite the same. I would differntiate between AoE and single-target damage instead. Boon Removal is usually just one or two specific spells on some classes. I wouldn’t list that as a general strength of any class that can do it, since it happens rarely and boons are replaced very fast. Nobody will judge a class by its ability to remove boons. Stomp Securing, Stomp Prevention, Resurrection Securing and Ressurection Prevention all need mostly the same requirements.
Don’t know what you mean with Peeler; I only know it from WoW but it’s definition in WoW wouldn’t make sense in GW.
Though there are several types of support I think that Boon Creation and Team Utility are also quite the same.

Don’t make it too complicated.

The categories are a little bloated, yes, but boon removal is actually an integral part of gameplay and I do agree that classes are brought for their ability to remove boons [to an extent]. For mesmers it’s essential for setting up spikes, for necros it’s an integral part of stomp/res prevention. Regardless of whether you do have another class to spike/prevent stomps – you still need dedicated boon removal somewhere.

Boon removal could be the reason to bring 1x thief and 1x mesmer as spike, as opposed to 2x thief

Gorni, I have broken your post apart into separate quotes for clarity within my answers.

Gorni.1764:

Why do you want to differntiate between such a huge amount of categories? Many of them seem to be quite the same.

I feel that there are a number of roles that go unmentioned that I want to bring to light, as well as breaking up roles such as bunker into the roles that actually form it (point defense/boon creation/team utility/point control/res securing/stomp securing/stomp prevention etc.) – yes, I agree that some may be smaller roles, and that some do overlap (e.g. Guardians shouts fit within boon creation, team utility (especially when used as condition clear), and point defense (stability from Stand Your Ground), but still feel that they are different enough to warrant their own category, as they fit different aspects of the game play.

I am happy to take suggestions as to which roles can be grouped to reduce bloating, but still want to differentiate between the various roles instead of just saying “Bunker”. As Azuzephyr stated, there can be defensive builds that can’t “Bunker” and I want to help display why (lacking stability was part of their example).

Gorni.1764:

What’s the difference between Point Defense and Point Control?

Point defense requires stability and a build with high defenses, while point control is about neutralising/capping enemy points (such as an engineer might do with Big Ol’ Bomb, Overcharged Shot, Throw Mine etc.). I agree (as stated in OP), that some builds are capable of both (and more), but they are different aspects of play.

Gorni.1764:

Burst, Direct Damage Pressure and Condition Damage Pressure are also quite the same. I would differntiate between AoE and single-target damage instead.

Burst is exactly that – a burst of high damage in a very short time period, while direct damage/condition damage pressure is more sustained – would it help to group these into a role called sustained damage to help with clarity/reduce bloating?

Gorni.1764:

Boon Removal is usually just one or two specific spells on some classes. I wouldn’t list that as a general strength of any class that can do it, since it happens rarely and boons are replaced very fast. Nobody will judge a class by its ability to remove boons.

But boon removal plays a part within team play. Stripping boons from a Point Defender makes them a whole lot easier to kill or CC off point. It also helps with stomp/res situations like Azuzephyr said. I agree, you wouldn’t take a profession purely for their boon removal, but it is something to consider within a build/team comp.

Gorni.1764:

Stomp Securing, Stomp Prevention, Resurrection Securing and Ressurection Prevention all need mostly the same requirements.

But again are all different. A guardian can secure stomps with stability, but against another profession with stability, can’t prevent them, whereas a necromancer could (they have a number of boon removal abilities), hence the differentiation, but again, I am open to suggestions to reduce bloating.

Gorni.1764:

Don’t know what you mean with Peeler; I only know it from WoW but it’s definition in WoW wouldn’t make sense in GW.

A peeler’s job is to use CC/debilitating conditions/other means to hinder an opposing team members assault on an allied team member. E.g. Aura share elementalist giving Shocking Aura to friendly necromancer who is being locked down by opposing warrior.

Gorni.1764:

Though there are several types of support I think that Boon Creation and Team Utility are also quite the same.

Team Utility covers things such as Portal/Time Warp (just as examples) that certainly don’t fall under the Boon Creation role.

Whats up Hrarr! This is pretty cool and helpful for people.

Those categories would make a good team composition checklist for answering the important question of do we have our bases covered? Of course, everyone would have to examine their builds more, but isn’t that extra 10 or 15 minutes of discussion with your team worth filling in those gaps?

Hopefully people read this as a way to see the game as a bigger overall strategy.

Example of applying this:

Warrior LB/Hammer build

Roles:

• Lockdown – the CC from Hammer disrupts the enemy’s actions if they land
• Point Assault – Combustive Shot and Arcing Arrow make standing on the point painful
• Direct Damage Pressure – you don’t 1 shot people with this as much as take off chunks of HP
• Stomp Securing – you get a stability cooldown, so you have safe stomps vs. 5 classes upon downed state
• Stomp Prevention – your variety of CC can disrupt opponents from stomping
• Res Prevention – same as above
• Body Cleave – Both Hammer and LB can do a lot of PBAoE and AoE damage on opponents in downed state
• Peeler – you can help punish people attacking teammates with Immobs, Weakness, CC, and Cripple
• Roaming – Signet Elite gives 30s of swiftness to facilitate travel between points

Hey JMAT,

Thanks for the encouragement. It was definitely my hope that this would help both newbies and experienced players when deciding on a build/team comp, as wells as allowing devs to see where professions sit overall in the grand-scheme of “Every profession can fill every role”.

I’ll do Bunker Guardian breakdown to show why it’s so important for teams

• Point Defense – it’s pretty difficult to get a good bunker guard off a point, as they can use stability and plenty of endurance to dodge/absorb knockbacks and launches
• Point Control – hammer, shield, and immobilizes from multiple sources can be used to kick people off of points to decap while fighting
• Boon Creation – you’re spreading a minimum of Protection, Stability, Retaliation, and Regeneration to all your allies on point, plus any other shouts/staff buffs/etc.
• Team Utility – shouts and Virtues help your allies throughout a team fight
• Stomp Securing – stability makes for safe stomps, as well as Aegis if well timed
• Stomp Prevention – CC can prevent an unsafe stomp
• Res securing – the “bubble res” can kick out anyone trying to cleave/unsafe stomp
• Res prevention – CC also helps with this
• Peeler – You can blind, immobilize, launch, knockback, and other means of control on opponents focusing teammates

See how a well played Bunker Guard is so important to a team? Look at all you can do with it if you play it right!

Coming from an ele who has played since beta day 1 our main roles are (depending on build viarity ofcourse)

- Point Assault, we got decent ways to get to point quickly such as ride the lightning and lightning flash. usually also enough damage to kill a point defender in a reasonable amount of time.

- Burst, this is probably one the best things about being an elementalist. We are second best after thief, we got some good instant cast skills that deal nice damage.

- Direct damage pressure, don’t need much explenation here, pretty obvious since we don’t have any kind of condi pressure except for burning.

- Boon creation, We got some really great ways to stack might with combo fields aswel as giving protection through certain traits.

- Stomp securing, multiple ways to finish off people such as: Mistform, instant blind casts, Armor of Earth, blocking through arcane shield, etc..

- Stomp prevention, we got a reasonable amount to CC, such as earthquake and updraft.

- Roaming, second best after thief. We got multiple ways of gaining swiftness and having skills such as ride the lightning and lightning flash.

- Support? This isn’t really mentioned unless this falls under team utility. I would say an elementalist has great acces to supporting his team by giving regen, protection, swiftness, might and healing them.

Huge thanks to JMAT and Bsgapollo for their breakdowns of Warrior, Guardian and Elementalist – this is exactly what I was hoping to see.

Bsgapollo, I have thought that there needs to be another “support” role listed which covers AoE heals and the like, but am not sure of what to call it – any suggestions?

I will also continue to work on my OP so that it displays the information given to me by everyone contributing.

Thanks again,
Ice

Could I please get a Mod to add a post from me below my OP. I have just gone through and expanded on the roles section, adding definitions and information, but have a feeling my post is too long as it won’t update. I would really appreciate having a post added so that I can keep the OP together as it grows in length.

You’ll have to PM one, they’ll never see it here

In regards to the healing role, I have found in spvp that while it’s nice – it is next to useless, some of the biggest group healers do it through aoe fields like well of blood or healing rain, these just tend to not make much impact in spvp as people generaly wont have enough time/freedom to huddle together and spam blasts into it like you can in wvw.

Maybe the exception is a guardian using the healing book elite

fussak.9463:

All you need is:

bunker warrior
roaming warrior
condi warrior
burst warrior
and mesmer, cause he can open portal for them…….

but watchout in next balance patch warrior get some kind of portal, so no other profession needed anymore….

sounds about right lol

azuzephyr.7280:

You’ll have to PM one, they’ll never see it here

In regards to the healing role, I have found in spvp that while it’s nice – it is next to useless, some of the biggest group healers do it through aoe fields like well of blood or healing rain, these just tend to not make much impact in spvp as people generaly wont have enough time/freedom to huddle together and spam blasts into it like you can in wvw.

Maybe the exception is a guardian using the healing book elite

Thanks for the feedback. I have PMed a Moderator and am waiting for a response.

I spent some time earlier trying to clarify roles to reduce bloating in my OP, and decided that healing would simply be classed as team utility for reasons similar to yours.

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed so far, I will continue to work on my OP in an attempt to make it as informative and clear/concise as possible.

I still wouldn’t bloat it too much. Especially new players which need this most will get confused or deterred by too detailed information. Writing my list for eles I realised that there are several redundant categories (see below). I would make the list as follows:

• Point-Defense (Damage- and CC-Mitigation)
• Ress-and Stomp-Securing (may be similar to point above, but there are additional things that help like stealth; direct ress-spells may be a thing that don’t fit that category perfectly since they don’t secure stomps but I wouldn’t make an extra category just for that).
• CC (including Point Control, Lockdown, Stomp- and Ress-Prevention)
• Mobility
• Burst
• Sustained Damage
• Condition Damage
• Direct Damage
• Boon-Creation and Utility (things like Mesmer-Portal, AoE-Stealth or Ele-Conjures, etc.)
• Boon-Removal
• Condi-Removal
• Healing and Damage-Mitigation (Peeling?) on other players (things like AoE-Blinds or Projectile deflection)

There are still some overlapping categories but anyways, it’s your list and so I’ll just try to add some details to Bsgapollo’s post on Eles with the categories in your OP.

Point Defense: D/D is still good to fullfill this role but since the massive nerfs ele is quite inferior to guardians. 2 times stability through armor of earth (traited + utility), maybe even traited Rock Solid for stability every time you switch into earth + Boon Duration from Arcana and Runes will still get you lots of protection and stability. Lightning flash and mobility skills like RTL, Magnetic Grasp and Burning Speed will bring you back on point fast if you get CC’ed out of it. Vigor through Renewing Stamina and Energy-Sigill will let you do a ridiculous amount of dodge-roles which can help too. Nice heal and condi-cleanse through regeneration and Water-traits. But rather prone to extreme spike-damage and well-timed immobilize due to low armor, low health-pool and rather weak 5-heals.
Point-Defense with staff is only good on large capture-points like mid in Foefire since you need room to kite your enemies. This also applies to D/D but not to such an extent.

Point Control: Not much options on Ele. We have Knockback on Lightning Hammer (nobody uses it), Staff (Immob and Wards) and Updraft (Immob) on D/D. But they all have high CDs – we won’t get a player off a point if he has stability. Another Option is the AoE-Pull from Earth-Shield, but still this won’t be enough. Only good spell to decap a point is the Tornado Ulti. But nobody uses that either because it’s the only situation where this elite shines.

[Point Assault]: Sounds to me like roaming which consits of mobility and good damage. I’ll split that up:

Mobility: This is where eles really can shine in my opinion. Dagger offhand has great mobility through RTL and has also access to swiftness via Updraft (or Healing-Glyph and/or 10 points in Arcana and/or 10P in Air). Lightning Flash adds additional mobility. There’s also good mobility on Staff which gives you swiftness and has a “Leap” via Burning Retreat (which can also be found on Flame Axe Conjure). Signet of Air adds the standard 25% Speed if you don’t get much swiftness from your weapon-set or traits.

[continued in post 2]

Burst: Another speciality of eles. Fresh Air (30P Air) in Combination with S/D, Arcane-Utilities and traits like Stone Splinters, Vital Striking or Air Training give you a ridiculous amount of single-target burst. If there’s enough CC or Immob and you can land your fire-spells and maybe even Churning Earth you’ll get the best AoE-Burst in the game.
Even D/D does a good job here, but I think it’s too squishy to survive group-fights. Staff-berserker adds a kittenload of AoE-damage too which makes point-assoult in team-fights a lot easier. It requires good positioning though and a team that backs you up since it sucks 1v1. When focused, staff-ele is rather useless, therefore I wouldn’t recommend it in competetive play.

Direct Damage Pressure: Look above.

Condition Damage Pressure: Though eles have access to a wide range of conditions and seem to have been designed to be a hybrid between direct and condition damage the application of conditions is weak and inefficient compared to other classes. Your spells/attunements will always just apply one or two types of conditions (commonly with low duration/stacks; note that fire-traits are crap in PvP so you won’t get Condi-Duration through your build either]). This means that you lock yourself out of certain types of conditions as soon as you switch out of a certain attunement. Signets to cover your conditions are too weak to be used. Overall I’d say Elementalist is crap with conditions.

Boon Creation: I think Eles are quite good in this role. We have automatic boon-spam via 10P Arcana or 20P Earth and a huge amount of combo-fields + finishers. Staff can stack swiftness at the beginning of a match. S/D and D/D can stack might before group-fights. Aura-Share with D/D will provide swiftness, fury and even protection if specced. Staff has AoE-regeneration.
If you let AoE-Boons aside you’ll get an even higher amount of boons on the ele itself. Cantrips can be traited to give you vigor, regeneration and might. Renewing Stamina will give you nearly infinite Vigor. Might can be easily stacked via Sigill of Battle. Points in Arcana are usually standard so you’ll have additional Boon-Duration.

Boon Removal: non-existant

Stomp Securing: Mist form is excellent for this. Same goes for Armor of earth and Arcane Shield. (Instant) Blinds from Evasive Arcana, Signet of Air and Scepter or Glyph of Storms will also make stomping easy.

Stomp Prevention: There’s some kind of CC on every weapon-set (Dagger-Offhand might be best though), so you’ll always have one or two interrupts. Could be better but could also be worse.

Resurrection Securing: Again Mist-Form and Armor of earth are good for this. Glyph can ress up to 3 people but has a too long cast-time to be usefull. Wouldn’t say that this is a strenght of eles because of its squishyness when not moving.

Ressurection Prevention: See stomp prevention.

Body Cleave: AoE? See Burst/Direct Damage Pressure

Peeler: You already mentioned Aura-Share though I would just see that as CC or condi removal in general. Don’t know what to add besides that. Knockbacks? – also CC. Condi-Removal may be a point that is worth mentioning seperately, so I’ll write about that. Condition-removal is quite good on eles though it mainly comes from traits and not from spells. 30P in Water will remove conditions everytime you grant regen. 10P Water will remove a condition everytime you switch to water. Evasive Arcana or #5 in Water with Dagger offhand will remove conditions too. So does Staff with it’s healing rain (especially good with 30P in water).
Condi-Removal on the ele itself is extremely nice with Ether Renewal, Cleansing Fire or traited Cantrips and 30P in water. Fokus will also clean 3 condis every 25s.

Lockdown: CC in general? Already mentioned that.

Team Utility: Support in general? See boon creation. Besides that there isn’t much that eles can do except Conjures. It’s my personal opinion but I still think that conjures are too weak to be viable, even in coordinated play. Maybe Projectile-deflection on focus is worth mentioning.

Roaming: See Mobility and Burst/Direct Damage pressure

Healing: Very nice on ele. We have efficient AoE-Heals on every weaponset. Staff may be best due to its heal-combo-fields. Traits offer good AoE-heal too: There’s Healing Ripple and Soothing Mists in addition to Evasive Arcana and Regeneration from Elemental Attunenment.

Rachat, thanks heaps for that break-down of the elementalist. I have taken your feedback on board and have spent some time defining and cleaning up my list of roles, they can be found in the following few posts as my OP doesn’t allow enough room for the extra text. Would love to hear your feedback, especially given they are now defined (so you can see how I think they differ).

Roles Breakdown:

Point Defense
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of defending a node for an extended period of time, sometimes against multiple opponents. This is typically achieved through the use of defensive boons (Protection, Regeneration, Stability) and active defenses such as blocks, blinds, invulnerabilities and dodges.

Point Control
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of neutralising or capturing a node whilst it is defended. This is typically achieved through the use of knockbacks, fears and immobilizes. Boon removal helps in fulfilling this role, but isn’t a prerequisite.

Point Assault
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of quickly inflicting enough damage to the point defender to either kill them or cause them to retreat within a 1v1 scenario. This role ties in with both the Burst and Sustained Pressure roles.

Burst
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of achieving a high amount of damage within a minimal time-frame (usually <2 seconds), typically resulting in an opponent being downed. This can be achieved by both direct damage and condition damage, however direct damage is usually favored for this role.

Sustained Pressure
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of achieving a moderate-high level of sustained damage. This can be achieved with either direct damage or condition damage, however the preferred damage type usually depends on the opponent(s) build vulnerabilities. The pressure can be applied in both Single-Target and Area-of-Effect forms, with the preference again depending on circumstance.

Boon Removal
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of removing a moderate-high amount of boons, particularly at key times, by stripping, corrupting, or stealing them. This role compliments the Stomp Prevention and Resurrection Prevention roles, but doesn’t have to fill either within the same build.

Stomp Securing
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of guaranteeing most, if not all, stomps are successfully completed. This is achieved through to use of blinds, stability, blocks, teleports, stealth and invulnerabilities.

Resurrection Securing
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of successfully resurrecting most, if not every, downed team mate. This is achieved through the use of stealth, teleports, stability, invulnerabilities, blocks, blinds, “On Resurrection” trait procs, and increased resurrection speeds. While this role typically relies on Stomp Prevention, it does not require both to be filled by the same build/player.

Stomp Prevention
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of preventing most, if not all, stomps successfully. This is achieved through the use of Crowd Control, stealth and teleports. Boon removal also plays a part in this role, but doesn’t necessarily have to be filled by the same build/player.

Ressurrection Prevention
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of preventing most, if not all, resurrections successfully. This is achieved through the use of Crowd Control (knockbacks used against the downed player for displacement, and all Crowd Control used against anyone trying to resurrect) and poison. Boon removal and Body cleave both come in to play regarding this role, however neither are required to be fulfilled by the same person/build.

Body Cleave
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of applying a substantial amount of Area-of-Effect and/or Cleave damage to and around a downed opponent, making attempts to resurrect the downed opponent substantially more damaging to other opponents involved. This can be achieved both in melee and at range.

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Peeler
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of using Crowd Control, debilitating conditions and/or auras on an opponent to stop them from applying Sustained Pressure, Bursting, or Locking Down an ally.

Lockdown
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of maintaining a relatively continuous stream of Crowd Control and immobilizes to prevent an opponent from escaping/reacting to damage from both the Burst and Sustained Pressure roles.

Team Utility
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of providing meaningful buffs, services (such as portal), or healing to allies. This Area-of-Effect boons and condition removal, warrior banners, guardian consecrations, mesmer glamour abilities and time warp, etc. Resurrection abilities are also considered Team Utility.

Roaming
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of quickly moving between parts of the map. This is achieved through swiftness, teleports, leap (and other movement) abilities, and several traits which increase movement speed. Roaming is a role that is often tied to several other roles, and can be combined with most successfully depending on the profession/build. Effective roamers will also often act as “Scouts”, communicating with their team as to the whereabouts of opponents.

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Reserved for Profession Breakdown

Reserved for Profession Breakdown

Reserved for Profession Breakdown

Reserved for Profession Breakdown

Icetrinity.3804:

Warrior
Warrior
Warrior
Warrior
Warrior

Yep sounds about right.

I’d categorize the roles into support, and assault. Not trying to criticizing the posters, it’s just that newer players would not be able to grasp.

For example

Guardian – Support – Roles

• Point Defense (instead of using the word Bunker, I like your version more)
• Point Control – See X post/link (then we can refer to the describtion of the role)
• Resurrection Securing
• Team Utility

Guardian – Assault – Roles

• Roaming
• Burst
• Sustained Pressure

Or something similar. And then perhaps we can a brief description of the build in a particular roles, for example

Roaming
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of quickly moving between parts of the map. This is achieved through swiftness, teleports, leap (and other movement) abilities, and several traits which increase movement speed. Roaming is a role that is often tied to several other roles, and can be combined with most successfully depending on the profession/build. Effective roamers will also often act as “Scouts”, communicating with their team as to the whereabouts of opponents.

• Guardian – In this role, the guardian often equip a sword for mobility, and focus for defensive maneuvers. etc etc.

Oh boy, I could totally see a website dedicated to this!

Sesundar.3501:

I’d categorize the roles into support, and assault. Not trying to criticizing the posters, it’s just that newer players would not be able to grasp.

For example

Guardian – Support – Roles

• Point Defense (instead of using the word Bunker, I like your version more)
• Point Control – See X post/link (then we can refer to the describtion of the role)
• Resurrection Securing
• Team Utility

Guardian – Assault – Roles

• Roaming
• Burst
• Sustained Pressure

Or something similar. And then perhaps we can a brief description of the build in a particular roles, for example

Roaming
To fulfill this role the profession/build must be capable of quickly moving between parts of the map. This is achieved through swiftness, teleports, leap (and other movement) abilities, and several traits which increase movement speed. Roaming is a role that is often tied to several other roles, and can be combined with most successfully depending on the profession/build. Effective roamers will also often act as “Scouts”, communicating with their team as to the whereabouts of opponents.

• Guardian – In this role, the guardian often equip a sword for mobility, and focus for defensive maneuvers. etc etc.

Oh boy, I could totally see a website dedicated to this!

Thanks for the feedback! Not sure if you noticed the reserved posts beneath the role breakdown. I plan on doing something similar to what you laid out (though breaking it into assault/support etc. is a good suggestion and something I didn’t think of) with each profession, with a brief explanation of why they fill that role.

E.g.
Guardian
Team Utility
Shouts, Consecrations, Tomes (Elites), Staff, etc.

^ Only an example…

Reading your definitions, the categories seem to be fine. I wonder if it would be clearer to make the list based on the categories with all classes as sub-item in each category (and maybe highlight classes that are better at it) instead of analysing class by class. Like this:

• Burst
  • Ele: S/D Fresh Air + Arcane Utilities, etc.
  • Warrior: Mace+GS
  • Guard: not so good at bursting
  • Mesmer
• Utility
  • Ele: Conjures, Heal, Combo-Fields, Aura-Share, etc.
  • Warrior: Banners, Rezz
  • Thief: AoE-Stealth, Venom-Share

And as overview maybe a list of all classes with just their strengths listed but without further details. Like

• Ele: Roaming, Burst (Direct AoE-Damage), Utility, Point Defense
• Guardin: Point Defense, Ress-Secure, …
• Thief: Burst (Direct Single-Target-Damage), Roaming, Point Assault
• etc.

Hey Gorni,

Thanks for the suggestion, it definitely gives me something to consider as I look to incorporate information on the professions into this thread. I will give it some more thought and look to update it soon, possibly over the weekend.

How much detail do you think should be provided? I hadn’t planned to categorize every individual skill, but keep them grouped by Weapon Set or Type (Sword/Shouts/Banners/Glamours/etc.), otherwise the list would become far too long for each role/profession. Do you think it would be too confusing to have the same skill grouping across multiple roles (Warrior Longbow in burst/lockdown/peeler roles).

Should it look like:

Burst
Warrior

• Greatsword
• Axe
  * etc.

Thief

• Dagger
• etc.

OR

Burst
Warrior

• Hundred Blades
• Eviscerate
• etc.

Thief

• Backstab
• Heartseeker
• etc.

Just wanted to add that I want to avoid categorizing builds, as they tend to change with each balance patch, however a Profession as a whole (weapons/utilities/traits) categorized into the roles I have outlined likely wouldn’t change too much unless substantial buffs/nerfs took place, which is why I have chosen to do it this way thus far.

I think key-words about weapon-set, essential traits and utilities will do. Maybe an additional sentence to specific strenghts and weaknesses.
Something like

Burst:

• Ele: Scepter/Dagger with Fresh Air and 10% damage Modifier-Traits (+Scholar-Runes), Arcane Utilities; one of the best (instant) AoE- and Single-Target-Burst but relies somewhat on CC on the target and has zero defense, only mediocre sustained damage due to high CDs

Point Defense:

• Ele: Dagger/Dagger (or staff when defending large areas); 30P Arcane 30P Water + Cantrips; nice heal and boon-generation (stability, protection, regeneration) but low base-health and toughness – prone to immobilize and high burst-damage, therefore inferior to guardians and engis

Roaming:

• Ele: Dagger offhand (Ride the Lightning), Blink and easy access to swiftness creates great mobility in addition to nice burst-damage

Utility:

• Ele: Conjured weapons (rarely used though because weak), many combofields (most with staff, Fire-Field for might on every weaponset), good boon spam, boon-removal + heal via traits mainly in arcane and water (Aurashare); efficient heal-spells on every weapon-set

However, a problem is that newer players don’t really know how strong specific things are in practice (since any class can do literally anything to some degree). Therefore (though you don’t like it) I would suggest to add something like a 1-10 scale for efficiency.

Gorni.1764:

However, a problem is that newer players don’t really know how strong specific things are in practice (since any class can do literally anything to some degree). Therefore (though you don’t like it) I would suggest to add something like a 1-10 scale for efficiency.

I am happy to account for this and make it more “noob-friendly”. Would something like the following be more suitable?

Elementalist

• Burst: 9/10 (picked a number)
  Scepter/Dagger with Fresh Air and 10% damage Modifier-Traits (+Scholar-Runes), Arcane Utilities; one of the best (instant) AoE- and Single-Target-Burst but relies somewhat on CC.
• Point Defense: 6/10 (again, just a number)
  Dagger/Dagger (or staff when defending large areas); 30P Arcane 30P Water + Cantrips; nice heal and boon-generation (stability, protection, regeneration) but low base-health and toughness – prone to immobilize and high burst-damage, therefore inferior to guardians and engis.
• Roaming: 8/10
  Dagger offhand (Ride the Lightning), Blink and easy access to swiftness creates great mobility.
• etc.

Note: I feel that the traits that make the greatest impact to a profession fulfilling any given role should be mentioned instead of saying the number of points in a trait line (again, more “noob-friendly”). E.g. Necromancer Sustained Pressure: Dagger, Axe, Spite XII and Soul Reaping XII, etc. (I don’t play elementalist, so I can’t comment on them much).

roles like this don´t exsist. You can´t just say → I would like to fit these roles and make a build to fill them.

real roles are:

hammer longbow warrior
s/d thief
bunker guard
terror necro
spirit ranger
shatter mesmer

so if you try anything else, one of those builds above can do your job better, so you rather pick one of the listed builds and see in what roles you can use them.

The current trait system pigeonholes classes and does not allow for diversity cause you have to follow the synergies and op traits in the traitlines and you can´t balance traits without affecting other builds. A system where you choose your role/playstyle first and then get access to some trait choices is much better.

Blackjack.5621:

roles like this don´t exsist. You can´t just say -> I would like to fit these roles and make a build to fill them.

real roles are:

hammer longbow warrior
s/d thief
bunker guard
terror necro
spirit ranger
shatter mesmer

so if you try anything else, one of those builds above can do your job better, so you rather pick one of the listed builds and see in what roles you can use them.

The current trait system pigeonholes classes and does not allow for diversity cause you have to follow the synergies and op traits in the traitlines and you can´t balance traits without affecting other builds. A system where you choose your role/playstyle first and then get access to some trait choices is much better.

Ice did say that he isn’t making a tier list of who is better at what, just who can do what, and how they do it. I agree with your list btw, that just isn’t the idea behind this thread

Icetrinity.3804:

Would something like the following be more suitable?

Elementalist

• Burst: 9/10 (picked a number)
  Scepter/Dagger with Fresh Air and 10% damage Modifier-Traits (+Scholar-Runes), Arcane Utilities; one of the best (instant) AoE- and Single-Target-Burst but relies somewhat on CC.
• Point Defense: 6/10 (again, just a number)
  Dagger/Dagger (or staff when defending large areas); 30P Arcane 30P Water + Cantrips; nice heal and boon-generation (stability, protection, regeneration) but low base-health and toughness – prone to immobilize and high burst-damage, therefore inferior to guardians and engis.
• Roaming: 8/10
  Dagger offhand (Ride the Lightning), Blink and easy access to swiftness creates great mobility.
• etc.

Note: I feel that the traits that make the greatest impact to a profession fulfilling any given role should be mentioned instead of saying the number of points in a trait line (again, more “noob-friendly”). E.g. Necromancer Sustained Pressure: Dagger, Axe, Spite XII and Soul Reaping XII, etc. (I don’t play elementalist, so I can’t comment on them much).

perfect
I agree that listing specific traits is better than just the amount of points in a traitline but in case of the ele there often aren’t real key-traits that are worth mentioning (except Fresh Air, since the whole build revolves around it) or the choice is obvious. Water is traited mostly for the 5P and 15P traits and passive stats (Heal+Vit). It’s the same with Arcana. Most people take the same traits but they can be varied (maybe except 30P evasive arcana) – but again the most important thing you get from Arcana is boon-duration and lowered F-spell CD.
I wouldn’t add too much information because people can find guides and builds on the class-forums. However I can provide more detailed information about traits if you want.

That makes sense, I think I will only mention traits if there are specific key traits that strongly contribute to how well a build performs a role. Like you said, there are plenty of build guides available, and this is certainly not a compendium for builds – more of a starting point when considering a build for any given role(s).

Tyler Chapman.1832:

This is an awesome thread. Good information and tips here.

Thanks Tyler! Kind of surprised/privileged to see a dev post. Have any feedback, anything to add etc.?