Guild Wars 2

Hello.
I’m hoping that this is the correct place to ask this, but i would like to see the wvw veteran players opinions and suggestions.

we are bout 5-8 players in our guild who frequently play wvw, but roaming is starting to take its toll and i am looking to run more effective organized groups. But here is the Q.

Where do you start, is running 2 warrior, a d/d ele nd a thief a good place to start or would you suggest we start over with different classes?

we are a small group, but we are working on getting bigger\better

If there is a post to this please direct me to it nd thank you.

regards
dark

What are you usually up against in terms of numbers?

I’d actually replace the ele with a power mesmer and guardian instead of a warrior

We play the late night rounds, which mean we usually end up fighting guild groups with roughly the same numbers (7-12) with maybe 1-3 randoms tagging along with them.

To be 100% honest, we win about half the fights against even numbers. We still have alot to get use too, but wvw is where our interest lies.

i am was basically wondering, could a “havock” tipe group work nd what tipe of number you would start looking into zerg breakers.

any chance off any1 knowing of a guide of some sort that could be viable in assisting us?

regards

2 warriors 1 ele and 1 thief is perfectly fine.
Its more about the builds you run.

Imo the problem with 5 man group raiding is 99% of wvw population is running in <3 or >20 groups.

A bunker/support guard is a must have for any serious havoc squad.

I’m assuming you’re on a lower tier server then if you’re talking those kind of numbers., since “zerg busting” guilds in T1 are generally 20-25 player groups fighting against 50+.

The 5 man team my guild runs for havocing is 2 mesmer, 1 thief, 1 guard, 1 necro OR 2 guard, 1 mesmer, 1 thief, 1 ele

The issue with warrior is, once a warrior is on low hp, it’s very hard for them to get their health back up, essentially removing them from the fight. Ele and guards can continually heal up with very short cooldown heals and thieves and mesmers can stealth away to heal and reposition.

The strongest 5man comp I’ve seen so far was 2 guardians, 2 mesmers and 1 ele from tM (NSP).

Jeknar.6184:

The strongest 5man comp I’ve seen so far was 2 guardians, 2 mesmers and 1 ele from tM (NSP).

+1 to the tM/SPCA/Holy group. With the exception of the bunker guard, I don’t think any class or build is necessary to be an effective 5 man group — so long as you have different individuals play specific bunker and dps roles (as opposed to 5 hybrid builds). Individual skill and group synergy are much more important.

That said, roaming groups seem to frequently include Shadow Arts heavy thieves, PU mesmers, and nike warriors — basically, being able to disengage and reset a fight is important, however frustrating.

tM is definitely super good.

You should also consider including an engineer in a 5 man team, they’re incredibly useful in a small team, the bombs, elixer gun, device kit, etc. and they also pack instant water fields if you’re all in some kind of voip. With an engi you would not need a dedicated staff ele, and their damage output is insane. check out vincecontix’s recent posts like this 1 https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/The-Immortal-hybrid-engi-wvw-Video/first#post4143988

To get more into zergbusting you’re probably going to need one of those staff eles, and a few necros for the damage.

A lot depends on exactly what you plan to do, builds and how well those classes are played. Our 4-man swat team runs with 2 staff eles and 2 necros. We are running custom specs that work with our individual strengths as well as providing group synergy. There’s enough dps/defense to hold our own against 12-20 man groups, and we can still take lords fast enough under pressure in a scouted keep or tower.

We’ve also run guardian/ele/2 necros and all of us have experimented with warrior. Necros are staff/dagger (one is dagger/warhorn, the other is dagger/dagger).

Looking at it from the other side, generally we don’t have problems going up against warriors/thiefs/eles/guardians. Well-played mesmers can give us fits.

Experiment, play what works well for each of you. Don’t go “cookie cutter” or “best practice” if it doesn’t work for that individual player; that can end up creating the ‘weakest link’ which can impact the group. Good luck and most of all: have fun.

-For whatever that’s worth

The general roles are (loosely coined terms :P )

-The Leader AKA driver AKA the guy/gal who selects the targets for assist AKA the initiator
-The Stomper (Many a times enemies get rezzed in battle because of being outnumbered) Also the rezzer. Usually thieves
-The sustain fella (Those that can sustain damage for long durations) – Dnd Eles, guards,warrs,engies, and the list goes on
-The Boon givers and healers – Guards and eles and warrs
- The death dealers aka damage class – Mesmers , thieves,etc
- Boon transfers/strippers – Necros/Thieves,etc
-Stability/etc
-Bomb squad – Hammer trains,eles and other aoes

I have tried every possible combination and its like what someone mentioned, its a big variable.

On another note, i wish anet would increase the group cap to 8 for wvw.

At 5-8 people, its easier to remove the things you definetly dont need – Ranger.

Everything else is fine no matter the combo, even an Engineer can be there for healing/ccing/cond, but good luck finding anyone decent at it. The most important thing is very good players with very good builds.

You want an anchor (a player that the other players hover around for buffs often responsible for call targeting and soaking up damage), you want at least one control player (often a warrior or guardian) and in the current meta 3 alpha striking condis.

Want a ridiculously dangerous 5 man team: necro, D/D ele, hammer warrior, engi and <insert any condi bunker here>. Any random group of 10 or less that gets near this coordinated group will get annihilated. Epidemic in this group is obscene… scary scary good.

in my experience any decent 5 man team must have 2 guardians, without those the lack of stability and sustain will generally kill you, especially when facing much bigger numbers. guardians also bring the aoe pulls which, when well coordinated, can wipe other groups really fast.

you’ll generally need a warrior too, for the aoe stuns, cleave damage and the all important banner ress and fury.

that leaves 2 slots open, at least one of them (and ideally two) for aoe damage like a well necro, shatter mesmer or d/d (or s/d) ele.

sadly I dont think engies have any room in a good 5 man team. neither do rangers. thieves might be a good option at times but single target burst is second to coordinated aoe spikes.

a corruption necro or venom share thief as the 5th can also work, but that doesn’t mean you should build your team around conditions. that doesnt work anymore.

Thank you very much folks, every1. I atleast now have a starting point

I’d agree with Maskaganda about 2 guardians and one warrior, but disagree that engi doesn’t have place in such setup. Cleric ele fits, mesmer as well, another warrior or engi – all of them fit to fill 2 places left.

My view on small group wvw is that the composition is not as important as each players skill and knowledge of there class, so it best not get person to play a class they are less familiar with because you think its a ‘better comp’, but have them play the class they are best at.

well played classes > not so well played ‘ideal’ classes
also, Team in voice comms and working together > then a team not working together

A variety of classes is you best bet, and make sure that you have some AOE soft and hard CC, some AOE damage some, AOE heals and buffs and some high single target damage.

Lert.6287:

I’d agree with Maskaganda about 2 guardians and one warrior, but disagree that engi doesn’t have place in such setup. Cleric ele fits, mesmer as well, another warrior or engi – all of them fit to fill 2 places left.

This setup was extremely powerful prior to the explosion of condi bunkers in skirmish fighting. Now heavies in skirmish are still hard to kill but either lack the alpha strike condis bring or are brittle by comparison.

We used to run a similar setup but have switched almost entirely to conditioning with the exception of a hammer warrior. Load up condis and watch it all melt. If they do manage to clear it, repeat the process. Epidemic being up every 15s with call targeting is so good it feels like cheating. Everyone on the team is heavy bunker AND outputs great damage. Getting near our anchor applies enough passive conditions from the group to drop most players. We pull back when we are on cool down to reset fights when necessary. Only the necro needs cover fire for the reset.

Try it and tell me I am wrong.

Straegen.2938:

Lert.6287:

I’d agree with Maskaganda about 2 guardians and one warrior, but disagree that engi doesn’t have place in such setup. Cleric ele fits, mesmer as well, another warrior or engi – all of them fit to fill 2 places left.

This setup was extremely powerful prior to the explosion of condi bunkers in skirmish fighting. Now heavies in skirmish are still hard to kill but either lack the alpha strike condis bring or are brittle by comparison.

We used to run a similar setup but have switched almost entirely to conditioning with the exception of a hammer warrior. Load up condis and watch it all melt. If they do manage to clear it, repeat the process. Epidemic being up every 15s with call targeting is so good it feels like cheating. Everyone on the team is heavy bunker AND outputs great damage. Getting near our anchor applies enough passive conditions from the group to drop most players. We pull back when we are on cool down to reset fights when necessary. Only the necro needs cover fire for the reset.

Try it and tell me I am wrong.

tried it and moved on from it almost a year ago. actually, my group was goofing around yesterday and we went with a condi heavy/epidemic setup like the one you described and had to change back to power after a couple of fights since it was just too bad compared to what we run nowadays.

it’s nowhere near as effective as a power setup, times to kill are too high, any groups with capable support will shrug off your conditions like they don’t even exist and if you bring no “heavies” you have no reliable stability. you’ll either get swallowed up by a bigger group and cc’d to death or kite away doing some damage but not really killing any faster than they ress. you’ll also be very dependant on one skill, epidemic.
don’t get me wrong, it can work somewhat, it’s just not as effective in most situations, epecially if you’re facing more organized players.

@ op: a few typical party setups for us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUumySSbag8

Jeknar.6184:

The strongest 5man comp I’ve seen so far was 2 guardians, 2 mesmers and 1 ele from tM (NSP).

Those guys are beasts

For a 5 man comp it can really vary, as the builds are much more important than the professions themselves. Once you get to the 10-15 range the class composition becomes much more important. If you do ever get 10 people together, I would go with 4 guards, 2 wars, 2 eles, 1 necro, and one utility (thief, mesmer, etc.)

johnpoc.8732:

Jeknar.6184:

The strongest 5man comp I’ve seen so far was 2 guardians, 2 mesmers and 1 ele from tM (NSP).

Those guys are beasts

Yup strongest 5man group I vs and even individually among the best duelers as well.

vincecontix.1264:

johnpoc.8732:

Jeknar.6184:

The strongest 5man comp I’ve seen so far was 2 guardians, 2 mesmers and 1 ele from tM (NSP).

Those guys are beasts

Yup strongest 5man group I vs and even individually among the best duelers as well.

I can’t even be mad facing them. You learn something new every time.

The nastiest setup I have seen is a leg specialist condi warrior that calls the targets and spikes, and there’s not a kitten thing most classes can do about it.

As for what you add to that, it depends on what you’re doing. If it’s just killing players, basically anything works, whether it’s a physical damage spike or condi load. If you’re doing havoc type stuff, mesmers are always good to have because of the things portal and mass invis enable the group to do (more on the fly than refuge). Add a cleric guardian to that for healing, boons for days, and condi purging. Finally add one more utility type player like a d/d ele, bomb engi, or DPS oriented guardian, and you have a well-rounded group.

I agree with the comment though that you should base the group on what the players you have are able to play best. There’s tons of players that have heavies, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Finding good non-thief anything else is usually the tricky part, usually engis, eles, and mesmers in particular.

Condi kinda bad in a 5-man group. You are going to have much more success running a very powerful spike combined with good cleaving on downed. Don’t bother with Necros or Warriors or Engis, decent groups will pick them apart in seconds.

Toughest 5 man fights imo are 2 guardian and an ele (important that they stay within 300 rangeof each other at all times), cheese condi thief for cheese and refuge, and either pu mesmer for cheese and mass invis or warrior for annoyance and cc.

does bamf joe know we’re talking bout him lol

kRAVen.4195:

Toughest 5 man fights imo are 2 guardian and an ele (important that they stay within 300 rangeof each other at all times), cheese condi thief for cheese and refuge, and either pu mesmer for cheese and mass invis or warrior for annoyance and cc.

a pu mesmer and a condi thief in a 5 man group? why would anyone want that? a condi thief with venom share can be interesting but other than that those are both utterly useless builds to have in a group.

Hamster.4861:

does bamf joe know we’re talking bout him lol

Why don’t we talk about the 5 man PAXA then?