Guild Wars 2

what’s your best idea for a roaming 5 man?

Sidenote: If you’re going for stealth roaming 8’s don’t work. 4 is the max for a stealth group.

we have a stealth group, which is fine. we’re putting together a regular 5 man. We have a few ideas, but it always helps to get an outside perspective.

A guardian and thief are extremely beneficial. The rest of the classes can be worked out but those two work off each other exceptionally well.

Without using mesmers and thiefs for stealth groups.

Building a group with a guardian ((for heals / protection)) 1-2 shout warriors ((heals, boons, condition removal, solid CC, and good dps)) with then 2-3 dedicated dpsers such as a staff ele, LB ranger, grenade / tool belt engi, works really well.

You can get a lot of nice synergies going such as stacking fear with warriors / necros.

Confusion with bomb engi’s / mesmers.

Group swiftness and protection with engi / guardian

But combing shout warriors with support guardians and then a few heavy dpsers with at least one being focused on conditions works really well.

But a roaming 5 man has a lot of limitations. The scale at which you can fight larger numbers is pretty low even if build in a lot of burst / CC.

The downed state is the bane of your existence.

For roaming 8-14 works a lot better. You can get enough dps and rotating cc to have teams dedicated to downing, and teams for finishing. Your also get a front line that is beefy enough to soak up damage.

Minon master necro’s and spirit rangers can be a nice addition in 5 mans for the very same reason. The pets make your group seem larger from afar, and they help to reduce a bit of the dps pressure you take.

Any roaming group will be extremely successful if each member builds around having a lot of maneuverability. Vigor for endurance regen, teleports/charges, and stealth.

1) Altruistic Healing Guardian
2) Meditation Healing Guardian
*Note: Both use Greatsword/Hammer so they can draw people in with GSword, and trap them with hammer. They both also use the healing tome, which will need to be coordinated in Vent.
3) Elementalist to maximize the Guardians GS/Hammer Trap, but also able to bunker down with them as well.
4) Confusion AE based Mesmer.
5) Warrior, or Engineer.

Realistically you just need an all Thief group with a heavy stealth build focus firing one player at a time. No other professions required. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could take out a group twice their size.

2 guardians, 2 eles, 1 engineer (grenade) Stack up together on inc, guardians rotate light fields/bubble, eles drop water field and aoe into enemy, engineer just spams #1 grenade at his feet to proc retaliation/heals…enemy blows themselves up on reflected dmg…….profit

Sixpax.8360:

Realistically you just need an all Thief group with a heavy stealth build focus firing one player at a time. No other professions required. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could take out a group twice their size.

That’s true but your building a group around exploiting the culling bug, and on thieves OP burst damage in DD builds.

If and when the metrics shift and the culling bug gets fixed, and thief damage adjusted you’ll be in a bad state.

The more diverse the professions and builds in your group, the healthier it is in the long run.

If engi condi removal / healing gets nerfed, you can bring in guardians, warriors, or necros.

Swapping 1-2 professions out will not hurt as much as having to completely redo everything.

Thiefs / mesmer offer things that are very unique from other professions, they have roles that are not duplicated in part or in full on other professions. This uniqueness is both their benefit and their weakness. Because eventually it will be either nerfed or mirrored out.

Karast.1927:

That’s true but your building a group around exploiting the culling bug, and on thieves OP burst damage in DD builds.

Not true. I’m suggesting a group built around exploiting stealth that doesn’t break from damage and can be activated repeatedly in combat.

It’s the stupidest implementation of stealth I’ve ever seen in an MMO.

Sixpax.8360:

Realistically you just need an all Thief group with a heavy stealth build focus firing one player at a time. No other professions required. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could take out a group twice their size.

We run all stealth groups all the time, as we are an all thief guild and it’s never a problem taking on many many more than we have. We love playing the stealth game and have in done it in several games. That being said, a few of us played a lot of 8-mans in DAoC and miss it. When DAoC started it was much like this game, pretty much zergs, but once realm points came out, the 8-mans started in full force. The stealth game will always be the Pink Monkeys [DEVS] focus, but playin’ a 5-man will be fun too.

Any setup that allows you to chain knockdown or chain immobilize. Since there aren’t diminishing returns, you can CC lockdown someone to your heart’s content. The vast majority of players don’t run with a lot of condition removal. Hammer Warriors are good at this, as are Engineers.

I found though that any comp can do well if you learn to play together and know each other’s specs well enough. Calling targets and focusing them down quick helps, and calling out who plans on downing the player (with some sort of stability or invulnerability while doing so), much like the old assist train in DAoC.

8v8 groups? whats that

Simple answer is, don’t bother.

Run 10 minimum.

Cant kill squat, at least on our server as every other server runs 50 man.
Small scale is dead from the start unless you enjoy flipping supply camps.

The key is to have everyone in the party be able to disengage combat at will. Obviously, stealth is a great
way to do this. Others?

GS Warrior
D/D Elementalist
S/P no stealth thief

I’m sure there’s others.

All Mesmer with a single engineer would be amazing, anything that gets in the way is smattered with a wall of illusions to cut through and absolutely bathed in conditions, especially considering all of the weapon #1s for engineer can combo with the mesmer’s ethereal fields

Guardian, thief, Mesmer, ele, war

I miss 8manning, its nice to see bringing it back to MMO’s. Personally the closest thing I have seen to this on our server/wvw matchup is newl.

Hate getting rolled by them because I don’t have a competent grp to fight them but watching them destroy superior numbers always makes me smile.

Nuzt? Nifelhiem? or w/e?