Guild Wars 2

No 5 man party will be able to take down a truely organised zerg, but what do you guys think the optimum 5 man team is for taking down enemies are general WvW gameplay? For me they need to largely be bunkery characters who can hold their own in a 1v2 situation, while also offering a lot of support to their team mates.

This is what I’m looking at at the moment, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it:

Engineer, Healer
The groups main source of healing, providing full uptime for regen at over 362 healing per second, provides huge condition clears with fumigate and healing mist on elixir gun. Also the chief combo man, water fields, fire fields and smoke fields and tonnes of blast finishers to boot.

Elementalist, Auramancer
One of the main boon providers, gives tonnes of protection from auras and attunement swaps. Another provider of combo fields and finishers (especially with the staff in the bag for the godly lightning field) and provides auras to allies that stun/chill all foes attacking. Also puts out decent damage and can set up aoe bursts using dodges in earth attunement.

Guardian, Healway
Based off the healway guardian but taking the emphasis completely away from shouts due to condi clears provided by other classes. Primary roles are ressing and stomping, along with large group heals in emergencies from elite. Provides good damage and can lock out enemies using wardings. Despite lack of shouts, another good boon provider, with an abundance of stability.

I think that these three classes supplemented with a mixture of warriors, mesmers and thieves make the best set up. I hate PU mesmers with a passion, and since we’d want the Mes to actually burst we’d use a shatter. It would be a fairly typical Hambow warrior, with cavalier weapons and trinkets and soldier armor, and a typical fairly zerker thief, with a bit more defence, maybe soldiers gear, zerker everything else. The mesmer and thief bring shadow refuge and mass invis which are of course hugely useful, and while the aim would be to build some support in they are mainly there to burst down targets.
Warrior

Am I overlooking Condition Necros? For me they just make too easy a target as they have little ability to escape. Are Rangers better than I think in this kind of scenario?

I’d be interested to hear thoughts from people that have done this successfully in WvW and how they managed it.

Cheers all

For destroying unorganized zergs: two support guards, two zerker well necros, with lich form, and an aura sharing ele. We don’t run it that often, but when we do we consistently wipe groups 4 – 6 times our size. Proof is in the sig.

Sadly, I cant be cloned so the best 5 man havoc can’t exist outside of pure theory

Kayzi.9752:

For destroying unorganized zergs: two support guards, two zerker well necros, with lich form, and an aura sharing ele. We don’t run it that often, but when we do we consistently wipe groups 4 – 6 times our size. Proof is in the sig.

Its actually SPCA’s stuff that inspired me to do this as you can see! I find it a lot less interesting as a comp, but it certainly seems to be very effective. Will bear it in mind

jonnis.2946:

Kayzi.9752:

For destroying unorganized zergs: two support guards, two zerker well necros, with lich form, and an aura sharing ele. We don’t run it that often, but when we do we consistently wipe groups 4 – 6 times our size. Proof is in the sig.

Its actually SPCA’s stuff that inspired me to do this as you can see! I find it a lot less interesting as a comp, but it certainly seems to be very effective. Will bear it in mind

Hey that’s great to hear! And you’re absolutely right, it is less interesting. The original SPCA comp was guard, engi, thief, mes, ele. Everyone usually plays whatever they want, which is fun, because we get to test the strengths of lots of different comps. It does get interesting sometimes, especially when Mugi and Yam both run their glass longbow rangers. xD For fighting against skilled opponents, however, a boon strip shatter Mesmer is a must (plus extremely fun to play).

nice stuff spca

It really depends on what tier you are in. i find that the higher the tier there are more heavies and they are more organized than what was shown in the vid. it was a really good vid, really well play but high tiers are 90% guild groups hammer train so you may need more mobility/stealth than what spca proposed

and you might consider more dps in the OP proposed team set up
my rule is 1 pure support per party

5 mesmers, maybe switch one for either a guard/thief/necro.

the most successful overall 5 man group setup we tchuu came up with was 2 healway guards, 1 power necro with wells, aura sharing d/d ele and a hammer warrior. other setups are better at some other times, tho.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NefteepGLCI#t=80
ignore first 1:20 unless you want to see a 5 man group getting portal bombed by 20.

regarding the OP, healing engie doesn’t really bring much to a 5 man group. sure, it heals reasonably well, but the damage is minimal and outside of blasts it provides little boons to the team. I think a healing tanky staff ele works better than a healing engie, but both are second choices to guardians.

condi necro does work, but you need to build your team around it and babysit him alot. your initial burst against a larger group will be considerably lower than with a power setup and anything above 12+ enemies will cleanse stuff mindlessly, even if disorganized, due to the way aoe cleanses work. epidemic is alot of fun, especially with an engie and/or venom sharing thief.

and everyone saying 5 of x class is wrong :p

Just make 5 PU mesmers and kaboom

I’d go with D/D ele, 2 guardians and either 2 warriors or one swaped for mesmer.

1. Hammer/GS Warrior
2. Power Mes
3. D/D ele
4. Thief
5. Med Guard (or alternate: Engi etc)

That is what a group I used to run with had a lot of success with.

3 thiefs and 2 engineers.

Kayzi.9752:

Hey that’s great to hear! And you’re absolutely right, it is less interesting. The original SPCA comp was guard, engi, thief, mes, ele. Everyone usually plays whatever they want, which is fun, because we get to test the strengths of lots of different comps. It does get interesting sometimes, especially when Mugi and Yam both run their glass longbow rangers. xD For fighting against skilled opponents, however, a boon strip shatter Mesmer is a must (plus extremely fun to play).

As luck would have it the guy I’ve been roaming around with at the moment is a shatter Mesmer. I play an Engineer which is why I’m keen on the idea of including one! Could switch to guardian though.

Vi Au.8341:

It really depends on what tier you are in. i find that the higher the tier there are more heavies and they are more organized than what was shown in the vid. it was a really good vid, really well play but high tiers are 90% guild groups hammer train so you may need more mobility/stealth than what spca proposed

and you might consider more dps in the OP proposed team set up
my rule is 1 pure support per party

I’m in tier 2 on the Gandara server. I agree that we’re not going to be able to take on a guild group on any moderately high tier, but I think any composition would struggle with that. This is more for dispatching unorganised groups that are a bit all over the place.

In terms of dps I actually don’t consider the Ele or Guardian to be running support there. Yes some of the traits are relatively defensive but they actually have relatively high damage gear on, full zerker just wouldn’t work for me in this kind of composition. I don’t think GW2 is an either or in terms of support, both these classes provide some support to their allies without sacrificing too much damage from what I can see.

Maskaganda.2043:

the most successful overall 5 man group setup we tchuu came up with was 2 healway guards, 1 power necro with wells, aura sharing d/d ele and a hammer warrior. other setups are better at some other times, tho.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NefteepGLCI#t=80
ignore first 1:20 unless you want to see a 5 man group getting portal bombed by 20.

regarding the OP, healing engie doesn’t really bring much to a 5 man group. sure, it heals reasonably well, but the damage is minimal and outside of blasts it provides little boons to the team. I think a healing tanky staff ele works better than a healing engie, but both are second choices to guardians.

condi necro does work, but you need to build your team around it and babysit him alot.

and everyone saying 5 of x class is wrong :p

I presume you saw Rackin Stackins stuff on SPCA? They relied on their Engineer quite a lot for heals and I do genuinely think Engineer provides more direct healing than other classes. I wouldn’t consider the Engineer a main source of boons, other than regeneration, as I said most of that comes from the Elementalist/Guardian, but they’re also able to be damage dealers. I’m yet to try any of this out yet though and its all total speculation, so I look forward to giving it a go.

I won’t be taking a condi necro then! Totally agree on 5 of x class being wrong, mostly because its dull! 5 Thieves would definitely be annoying though, but yeah, thats not the kind of thing I’m looking for. Great vid btw! Seems like a zerker Necro is your primary source of AoE and then you have heavies running around protecting him for most of it.

Thanks all for your responses!

The most effective setup i’ve seen so far was
- 2 support/tank guardians
- 1 mesmer with signet of inspiration
- 1 Warrior
- 1 Necro or some aoe dps spec

This setup relies quite heavily on pre-fight boon stacking, but there is some sweet stuff you can do with soi.
As long as you build close to the standard aoe builds most party compositions work though. I eventually got fed up with 5man groups since it involved too much kiting and running away.

Since they didn’t get the attention they deserved, here is a video from PSY:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDVNR5XX1c8&list=TLdj5Phw6hGG3oZDv7nitkspMfw0DXlEiI

Seems like having two support guards for the near 100% stab uptime is generally recommended?

They just provide too much support and double empower means they still do great damage. It’s a class that fits well into every setup and provides a solid backbone.

Guard is a must
Ele is a must, if you dun have staff, then bring “Conjure Lightning Hammer”. That way you+ally both get access to static field. Also the hammers DPS is amazing.
Venomshare thief for CC + torment spammage.
If you go DPS medi guard, then bring spirit-shout condi BM ranger. If you go healway guard then bring trap ranger.
Engi of any sort
Last spot – epidemic + terror necro

Why bring ranger?
A – If you bring Thief with SB and an engi you get tonns of fields to blast in addition to the ele’s fields
B – Apothecary gear on a ranger with shouts equals permanent 290-350 (depends on food and if you use life stack sigil) HPs healing in addition to condi cleasing, CC, protection or direct damage increase. Sword + Dagger and Axe+Torch and you have enough evades to hold your own.
C – Common knowledge; Rangers are ALWAYS targeted first, therefore the ele and necro which is more squishy, are more likely to survive longer.
D – Trapper + Venomshare = condi overload on one target. Add epi and you can kill off a group in seconds.
E – In small parties, spirits and pets actually work very well. And with the upcoming fix to F2, making it way more reliable (their changing it so Pet F2 cancels all current pet action to ensure that pets perform their attack. Pets are still susceptible to interrupts and damage). When the pets work, rangers arguably got one of the best utilities in game, unfortunately, atm, pets are broken, so no hurry about finding a decent ranger yet.
F – There is no bigger shame then getting killed by a ranger (atleast that’s how people feel). troll roll ranger and any group is bound to get famous quickly. Fame = more fights, good or bad.

2 support guardians with staff will give 25 might, pretty much perma retal (which with 25 might backing it up hurts) and plenty of stability, protection and vigor (form PoV conversion). You’ll need to back this up with some heavy damage, Power Necros are really the best option as the wells and marks synergise so well with successful Guardian pulls, rings and walls, a D/D ele with aura share also helps pump the damage up while providing differing utility to the Guards.

The thing you need to concern yourself with if you are going up against mid-high tier small zergs is that most of the Warriors will be running War Banner, getting people downed isn’t hard killing them off fast is the problem. On top of that there is also the fact that a lot of these zergs (outside of primetime) in the higher tiers will be made of people from half decent raiding guilds at which point you are looking at charging into a mass of retal’d up 3K armour hammer Guards and Warriors with Necros behind em, not much fun.

For a Gandara example, you can do this sort of stuff against AM, Drakkar, Ranik, even Augury to an extent (though zerker PUGs in insane numbers is pretty bad as well) but against a server like Gunnar’s where half the tags in the group you spot are from 25 man raiding guilds it just doesn’t work.

i believe reflect shatter mesmers are slightly more effective than well necros just because they have more damage, better survivability and more team support. necro is cute but mesmers just dominate (you could probably run 1 mes and 1 nec)

Epic.3950:

i believe reflect shatter mesmers are slightly more effective than well necros just because they have more damage, better survivability and more team support. necro is cute but mesmers just dominate (you could probably run 1 mes and 1 nec)

depends – if your team runs power – i agree. If they run condies, necro wins out due to epi.

SPCA huh. You guys still running on NSP?

Considering returning. Waff still play?

-Zel

Kayzi.9752:

For destroying unorganized zergs: two support guards, two zerker well necros, with lich form, and an aura sharing ele. We don’t run it that often, but when we do we consistently wipe groups 4 – 6 times our size. Proof is in the sig.

All I see is a bunch of SPCA meanies preventing some poor, helpless SF PvErs from getting the grub’s loot chest. My heart goes out to the victims of this terrible tragedy. Killing people in a pvp zone is just rude.

jonnis.2946:

No 5 man party will be able to take down a truely organised zerg, but what do you guys think the optimum 5 man team is for taking down enemies are general WvW gameplay? For me they need to largely be bunkery characters who can hold their own in a 1v2 situation, while also offering a lot of support to their team mates.

This is what I’m looking at at the moment, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it:

Engineer, Healer
The groups main source of healing, providing full uptime for regen at over 362 healing per second, provides huge condition clears with fumigate and healing mist on elixir gun. Also the chief combo man, water fields, fire fields and smoke fields and tonnes of blast finishers to boot.

Elementalist, Auramancer
One of the main boon providers, gives tonnes of protection from auras and attunement swaps. Another provider of combo fields and finishers (especially with the staff in the bag for the godly lightning field) and provides auras to allies that stun/chill all foes attacking. Also puts out decent damage and can set up aoe bursts using dodges in earth attunement.

Guardian, Healway
Based off the healway guardian but taking the emphasis completely away from shouts due to condi clears provided by other classes. Primary roles are ressing and stomping, along with large group heals in emergencies from elite. Provides good damage and can lock out enemies using wardings. Despite lack of shouts, another good boon provider, with an abundance of stability.

I think that these three classes supplemented with a mixture of warriors, mesmers and thieves make the best set up. I hate PU mesmers with a passion, and since we’d want the Mes to actually burst we’d use a shatter. It would be a fairly typical Hambow warrior, with cavalier weapons and trinkets and soldier armor, and a typical fairly zerker thief, with a bit more defence, maybe soldiers gear, zerker everything else. The mesmer and thief bring shadow refuge and mass invis which are of course hugely useful, and while the aim would be to build some support in they are mainly there to burst down targets.
Warrior

Am I overlooking Condition Necros? For me they just make too easy a target as they have little ability to escape. Are Rangers better than I think in this kind of scenario?

I’d be interested to hear thoughts from people that have done this successfully in WvW and how they managed it.

Cheers all

Our group runs with a healing ranger, he has perma regen and swiftness, tics at 380 for regen. Then he has the heal spirit elite (which is insane) and the normal heal spirit, plus he runs with the -33% damage reduction spirit. Fantastic overlooked healer IMO. He also has 3.3k Armor. Not easy to take down.

A warrior .. no need to say more.

2 Necro’s, one is toughness/precision/condition, melts people like butter. One is fear spammer.

And an Ele.

I’m not contesting the ability to heal as a ranger or engie or any other class. The thing is, in a 5 man group you’ll need to bring something else to the group other than heals alone to be effective.

Two healing guardians will take care of all the defensive boons, aoe cleanses and area pulls while keeping 25 might up with 100% uptime, the only thing missing will be fury which an ele or warrior can bring.
A healing ele can bring a ton of fields, couple of blasts, alot of boons, healing mist, cc, aoe pressure , a completely safe stomp and fgs.

Outside of those two classes, I have a hard time justifying having any other class as a healer in a 5 man group, except maybe shout warriors, because as I said, they don’t bring much else into the group.

atm nothing is better support than a double guardian setup.

1. Tanky healing guardian focused on support and revival/stomping.
2. DPS guardian with shout spec but more damage / cc orientated build.
3. Power well necromancer as glassy as possible for burst damage.
4. Hammer warrior with warhorn to provide vigor and blasts as well as damage.
5. Staff support / DPS ele to assist the necro with AoE damage and giving water fields.

This setup is fairly mobile with good damage, perma stability and swiftness along with good burst heal and condi removal.

Two support guards in a 5 man is cheesy as kitten.

Maskaganda.2043:

I’m not contesting the ability to heal as a ranger or engie or any other class. The thing is, in a 5 man group you’ll need to bring something else to the group other than heals alone to be effective.

Two healing guardians will take care of all the defensive boons, aoe cleanses and area pulls while keeping 25 might up with 100% uptime, the only thing missing will be fury which an ele or warrior can bring.

When you run Spirit Shout Condi Bunker Ranger you should at all times use Soliders Runes, this gives you 1 condi cleanse/12 sec + perma regen + perma swiftness. Since you run 5 man teams you must expect to fight forces ranging between 1 and 15 players at least. Sometimes you get zerged, but you cannot base a party upon “who can survive hopeless odds”. When you get zerged, only individual skills and knowledge of your profession can save you, regardless what you play.

When looking at small encounters, look at ranger pets. They provide a LOT of utility, and depending on the rangers build (I prefer to run 0/10/0/30/30 BM Clerics Bunker, but you can also run 10/0/0/30/30 BM Condi bunker, in which case you can be insanely strong 1vX).
The spirit shout build only require 40 trait points, the remaining 30 is up to you. Many think that you MUST use Empathic Bond/Wilderness Survival line, however if you slot soliders runes and Natural Healing you get enough passive healing to survive with 1condi/12 sec cleansing. Add in a brown bear and your party will have plenty of condition removal at hand when they need it. If you often meet condition burst enemies, the ranger can slot Signet of Renewal. This will kill the pet, but in return the entire party will have their conditions wiped instantly.
As for boon application;
Fury; Moa’s and warhorn.
Protection; Moa’s and Stone Spirit
Aegis – N/A
Stability – Self; Elite Skill, Signet if Traited (Signet is great if you trait for BM as it increases pet DPS, and you also get a lot more passive healing at average your passive healing will peak at around 470-490, permanently)
Might – Very poor stacking, but rangers can apply long lasting fire fields for thieves or engineers to blast spam.
Swiftness – Permanent through shouts, permanent+++ if using Warhorn.

Spirit Bonuses worth mentioning;
Burning on attack (10sec ICD) not very good with guard in party, as your burn will be overwritten by a weaker burn
+10% raw damage (rumor says its bugged and applies constantly. 10sec ICD tool tip)
Protection on attack (3-4 seconds every 10 seconds, makes for decent uptime)
Healing on attack (850-910 every 10 seconds. Ranger healing power decides how much you heal from the attack. Great choice if you got a staff ele to bring waterfields, lack of condi cleansing from Healing spring may be an issue)
Condi removal/instant revive; Elite spirit – revives 3 players in an AOE, or removes 5 conditions from 5 players. Can only be used once every 180 seconds.

Other bonuses you can get;
Vigor on pet swap – allows for 6 seconds vigor every 16 seconds
Vigor on healing – allows for 6 seconds vigor every X Seconds (depends on healing CD)
Spotter – +7% crit chance
Instant full condi cleanse – signet, 60 sec CD
Can apply “Revealed” debuff on annoying thieves and PU mesmers (This shout will add even more regen and swiftness to the party, ontop of sending the pet into terminator mode)

When you run shouts, you use Guard almost exclusively, this makes investing in pets a smart move. Not only does their damage go up, but Guard allows you to stack nearly permanent protection on the pet, this means your pet is much much more likely to survive, therefore, it instantly becomes much much more reliable.

These are just some of my preferences when running spirit shout, and i cannot stress the importance of NOT dismissing the pet’s performance when you run with shouts. The regen, swiftness and protection help them become infinitely more reliable both in terms of survival and hitting their targets. If you choose to run direct damage, the ranger pet, atleast in encounters up to 5v15, can almost be considered at 6th player. Best thing is, that extra wheel on the wagon, does not rally the enemy, so investing in it and seeing it focused (you do not want to ignore a BM DPS pet for long) is not a great loss other then a minute with less DPS, but a different sort of utility.
If you do not want DPS then the pets can buff you, heal you, cleanse conditions, apply very strong AOE CC on quite low cooldowns.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Two support guards in a 5 man is cheesy as kitten.

This entire game is cheese.

Oozo.7856:

King Amadaeus.8619:

Two support guards in a 5 man is cheesy as kitten.

This entire game is cheese.

Fonduewars 2
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King Amadaeus.8619:

Two support guards in a 5 man is cheesy as kitten.

W(h)ine and cheese in one comment.