Guild Wars 2

Interested to hear peoples’ thoughts on this. What do you think is the best all round WvW class? To be the best all rounder it must be in the top few classes for blobbing, small zerg, group roaming and solo roaming/1v1s.

I think possibly guardian except for the fact that it has very low escapability and below-par survivability in non-bunker builds.

Thoughts?

Ele’s are overall pretty good.

Guardian for zergs.
Thief for solo.

Whatever you like for small groups.

Guardian I’d say. Also strong in duels if specced for it.

As far as playing for yourself, tagging stuff and doing a little of everything, the top are:
Elementalist (carry a staff for zergs)
Thief (shortbow for zergs)
Warrior (carry a bow/hammer for zergs)
Engineer (grenade kit for zergs)

If you zerg only:
Guardian (staff)
Necromancer

Nah.
An Ele isn’t a good solo. In fact there aren’t any good solo classes apart from thief.
Ele’s Not particularly good at anything else either – skill mechanics are too clumsy, far too many sub-par skills. D/D is survivable in melee (barely) useless at range. Staff is OK’sh (very slow) at range but helpless when closed.
Any sort of Ele is hopelessly vulnerable to CC.

I think Fadeaway got it right.

Sorry but I’m not sure Fadeaway did get it right because they didn’t understand the question properly. Let me clarify. The question is not: which class is best for solo and which is best for zerging. That has been discussed to death i think. The question is: what class do you think is best able to perform well in all of those situations

Saying that no class is good solo besides thief is beyond ridiculous.

Having thought more about this I think now it may be warrior. They are great in zergs (huge health pool means full pvt isnt an automatic requirement which is nice) and have great mobility for roaming/havok play and can even do well in 1v1s.

Warriors.
Every singe patch is just another buff for them. The class has best mobility and burst damage. Best legendaries, heavy armor, healing and support skills. Best elite. There’s a rumor about them getting stealth in next month. Warriors have hidden magic find stats. WvW? Nah, warrior is simple the best class in the game. Dunno why we even have those useless necros and engies…

If you try to be all-round good at each scenario in wvw, you will be sub-par in all of them.
I can’t imagine a reason why you would want to do that. You either join wvw knowing you will follow a zerg, or join wvw knowing you are going to roam.
If I had to pick one it would probably be thief, at least then you can keep your slipperyness and add in shortbow #4 for zerg tagging. The other zerg classes (guar/war/nec) just can’t escape mobs of enemies chasing them well enough, stealth is too good for solo.

I’ve tried quite a few of my 80’s for extended periods in WvW.
I enjoy warrior overall the most.
I spec for PVT. One ranged weapon and swap to warhorn.
Shout heal build and the signet elite.
With the traits to give shorter cooldowns on shouts, warhorn skills, and signet skills if I recall, I have 100% uptime on speed buff, 3 shout heals. Really good for group play and zerging.
Tons of survivability, can breakup the front end of the enemy Zerg, or knock enemy off of siege weapons with shout fear. Other shouts heals keep allies alive longer around you. Helps keep people alive on rams under AC fire. Warhorn speed buff every 15 seconds moves dolyaks along quickly.
Not the best spec for taking camps solo, but there’s generally lots of people around to help.

Hard to tell, it’s constantly shifting, you know. Like, two months ago it was guardian riding on his personal arrow cart.
I did some www stuff less than a week ago and it is now arrow cart riding on it’s personal guardian.

Hmm that’s a tough one.. if were going to take into consideration a class that is both great at solo or zergs, possibly ranger. Their solo abilities are well known, but if spec’d properly, they can do both heavy damage to zergs as well as offer great healing to allies.

If your looking at strictly zerg combat, then guardian is probably a close winner

Contiguous.1345:

Nah.
An Ele isn’t a good solo. In fact there aren’t any good solo classes apart from thief.
Ele’s Not particularly good at anything else either – skill mechanics are too clumsy, far too many sub-par skills. D/D is survivable in melee (barely) useless at range. Staff is OK’sh (very slow) at range but helpless when closed.
Any sort of Ele is hopelessly vulnerable to CC.

I think Fadeaway got it right.

This person could not be any farther off, I assume this is some fail attempt at a troll. An elementalist is crucial to a zerg because of the support and CC we provide through water fields, ice fields, CC, strong wall AOE, and much more. If you ever have played WvW you will hear commanders constantly calling for CC and water fields. As for roaming S/D is very strong now and with the right gear you can burst people down very quickly. However, thieves are probably still a better roamer but in zergs they are worthless.

Engineer for roaming and 1vX. Sure, you could roll a thief, but do you really want to have to rely on broken mechanics to win fights? If you’re new/bad at the game, go thief. If you want a challenge that pays off, roll an engi. See video link in sig for motivation.

Also, I can’t tell you from experience because I mostly only solo roam, but engineers are extremely versatile & can do just about anything you gear/trait them to.

Both elementalist and engineer are great in all phases of wvw. This makes sense, as they are the “jack of all trades,” so they can play every role reasonably well.

Solo and small group:
-S/D and D/D ele survives well with decent burst and good mobility
-Engineer with rocket boots has good mobility, and can output good condi or burst damage with many specs

Zerg:
- Ele with staff is awesome for static field, aoe-fields, and water fields. As your group gets bigger than 7, staff is the best ele weapon, and only a few utilities/traits change
- Engineer is great in zergs as the healing turret does great healing, grenades can output some good aoe condis (watch out for retal), and some great control/cc for isolating targets.

Ele is crucial to a zerg, I agree. However you only need a few to cover your tactical fields, and you only need a few mesmers for veil/portal. These things are incredibly important and powerful, but it does not make them the best wvw class.

There is no best class in a zerg, but there is a best addition to a pre-existing zerg which already has it’s mesmer/elementalist : another guardian, you can never have too much of them.

I know an ele who had 8000 kills (low by EU standards, but high by NA standards) by the end of October. Admittedly he was playing so much he was burnt out quickly (on and off), but the feat in itself was impressive.

But that answers what is the most “effective” WvW class. There is no “best” class, only what is best for you. I’ve seen rangers and engineers (often derided as not being good for PvP) who managed to find the right occasions to be very effective.
You just have to build for WvW and find a guild that matches your playstyle and be willing to tweak yours to match theirs.

Chris.3290:

I know an ele who had 8000 kills (low by EU standards, but high by NA standards) by the end of October. Admittedly he was playing so much he was burnt out quickly (on and off), but the feat in itself was impressive.

But that answers what is the most “effective” WvW class. There is no “best” class, only what is best for you. I’ve seen rangers and engineers (often derided as not being good for PvP) who managed to find the right occasions to be very effective.
You just have to build for WvW and find a guild that matches your playstyle and be willing to tweak yours to match theirs.

i completely agree with you.
I got a ranger myself, and through solo play, iv’e racked up 4500 kills, from defending keeps alone. It may sound little, but i only started doing WvW back in march….

Depends what you want to do. There is no one overall best class

For zergs:
—Hammer Warriors
—Staff Guards
—Necros

For roaming:
—Thieves
—Mesmers

If you want to do both, go ele.

If we’re talking numbers, I’ve only been playing WvW for a little over a month. I’ve only played engineer. I never zerg. Sometimes I might run with 5, but the vast majority of the time I only solo roam.

I’m rank 77, and I have over 4,500 kills. I’ve accumulated over 3,500 badges of honor.

I would say having and ele and a engi DO NOT run ELE. you will NEED ascended gear just to keep up with others exotiv. ele survivable sure if you really just want to run from any and every fight in game currently. Otherwise face perma lockdowned with lowest healthpool and weakest armor (you tell me how long you think youll live).

Sorry right now thiefs are king, go full zerker gear (you have clock = invincible unless stupid enough to stand in aoe). get best burst and then pwn ppl way above you rank. That’s what im doing. Waited for months for a net to fix thief and they haven’t so now rolling thief and what a surprise all I see in wvw anymore p/d thief hmm think there is a problem ANet?

srry Love/ becoming Loved your game but this is getting a little beyond stupid, even other thiefs are hating on thief class now please OPEN your eyes.

oh and my engi is shanks build which is kitten good but thief is still KING

Contiguous.1345:

Nah.
An Ele isn’t a good solo. In fact there aren’t any good solo classes apart from thief.
Ele’s Not particularly good at anything else either – skill mechanics are too clumsy, far too many sub-par skills. D/D is survivable in melee (barely) useless at range. Staff is OK’sh (very slow) at range but helpless when closed.
Any sort of Ele is hopelessly vulnerable to CC.

I think Fadeaway got it right.

lol this is wrong on so many levels. There are fantastic solo classes other than thief available such as engis mesmers and surprise – eles. D/D eles with a strong build can move in and out of group fights very easily and do a lot of dmg and keep up a lot of pressure. Staff ele is a MUST for any group fight – ask those with talent such as top GvG guilds or WvW roaming guilds. They will never have a fight without a staff ele.

As far as eles being vulernable to CC you should go a duel a proper D/D ele – one of the hardest classes to deal with because of their sporadic movement.

I think you either have never played an ele; have never seen eles; or got roflstomped by them and now you’re hating. In sPvP they are a very strong contender for top tier dueling that they give mesmers and engis a run for their money. At the end of the day you will not find a 10+ composition without an ele in it.

What you should’ve said is that it’s just based on the talent of the ele. For ex Intigo from RG is amazing he has alot of group play and duels against very very good people. He fought one of the best mesmers we have Osicat and did ridiculously well – even Osicat said he has not had a problem with eles in a very long time until fighting him.

Eles are the best on wvw but depending on situation you have to change equipment and some of traits to be good on 1v1 and good on suport in zerg fights. I got an ele and got 7.5k kills. Im not good on 1v1 but I think I got realy nice support build on wvw and its not VIT/tou/pow !!! it’s HEALING/tou/power !!! And its good to pick Eles becouse i was fighting in lots of zerg’s/bloob’s and only once there was 4 eles with staff. Usually i’m alone or with plus 1 ele even if it is more than 40 people in a zerg. I often have situations where the opponent is sitting on the arrow cart and allies flee from the gate in order not to die. I have to call them and say that I will heal them, they do not die because I can heal them 2000hp/sec. if you want to have a good zerg fight and lots of kills u have to have in zerg 2 plus staff eles because otherwise people will die too fast.

Obviously each class has strengths and weaknesses.

Thieves and Engineers are awesome roamers but less desirable in other aspects of WvW.

Overall I’d vote for Warriors and Elementalists being the overall “best” WvW classes. Both can be highly mobile for roaming, both have a role in zerg fights and both can be a great asset in smaller scale fights as well.

With the current Meta;
Zergling (front line) Guard, Warrior, Ranger (latter demands top notch skills and awareness)
Zergling (back line) Ele, necro, engi
Zergling (utility/sniper) Mesmer, thief, ranger
Roaming (solo) Mesmer, Thief, Ranger, Necro
Roaming (duo) Thief or Ranger (synergizes perfectly with anything. Both can fill condi spam roles or DPS spike roles without problem while still having support for an ally or two)
Havoc (5 man) Ranger, Ele, Guard, Thief, Mesmer
Havoc (10 man) 2x Guard, 2x warrior, 1x necro/ele, 1x thief, 2x ranger, 1x mesmer
Havoc (15 man) 5x Guard, 2x warrior, 2x necro/ele, 1x thief, 2x ranger, 1x mesmer

EDIT:
Whoever gave this guy a shovel, probably got to give him a new one by now. He’s been digging deep.

There is no the best. You need warrior, guardian minimum. 2-3 good ele and 3-4 good necro make the life more easy. 1-2 mesmer for the utility skills. The others are just weights.
And never forget: in wvw stone beat paper

wvw meta is predicated by movement & the ability to regen/rejuvenate/heal/purge off that movement. Shadow’s Rejuvenation & Assassin’s Reward with VIT/healpower/condition gear & the right buffs has had me trolling entire zergs since it got boring to instanuke people with Steal/Mug/BackStab. Get your toughness from Momentum Sigil and buffs. No class out snares a thief with the right build and that’s all I really need to do…out stealth/out maneuver/out dodge/out evade/out survive you or your zerg. Someone else will be along shortly. Now I might be forced off my preferred role for a time but it’s just 2-3 seconds until i’ll be out of range standing at my next vantage point ready to flank whatever my target happens to be…
why did you dig this corpse up anyways

AoE cc, a kittenload of health and armor by default, lots of blast finishers…
Warrs are definitely supreme in WvW imo. (talking zerging ofc, roaming isn’t really wvw imo)

Condition Necro
Guard
Warrior

Mesmers. They have a great team effect with mass invis, veil and portal entre. Very useful for different reasons.

Unholy Power of Necro!!!!! A thread from last July????

We don’t have classes, we have profession.
We do not have Pvt, we have Ptv!!!!!!! PTV… can we all say PTV!
grrrrr….. pet peeve

For Races, Asura. For Profession, Thief is the Golden Child of the devs.

Warrior for solo
Warrior for group play

Bearbow ranger!

McWolfy.5924:

Bearbow ranger!

not actually that weak if played right. If played wrong – worst rallybot in game, even worse then zerker ele.

Can’t go wrong with warrior, guardian or elementalist ( altho the latter is more and more turning into a water-field bot that commanders rage on if he misses a regroup )

Any class other than ranger that you can play properly is good in WvW.

CrazyDuck.4610:

Any class other than ranger that you can play properly is good in WvW.

somebody didn’t learn to play ranger it seems.

Warrior, guardian or ele for zergs. Necro, mesmer and theif for solo.

Warrior. Pretty much the only class that excels at nearly all aspects of WvW. Moreover it is the only class that can roll one build and do very well in all parts of WvW. Even more impressive is just how easy the class is to play.

Zerging: Incredibly tanky, great support, decent damage and excellent control.

Skirmish: Warriors bring some of the best control and are a great anchor class for a team.

Roaming: Sprint warriors are some of the fastest builds in the game. Extremely slippery and very hard to bring down.

Dueling: Warriors are only mediocre in this space but still serviceable.

I am not saying Warrior is the best class, but it certainly is the best overall WvW class.

sinject.4607:

Shanks R Us.2489:

Engineer for roaming and 1vX. Sure, you could roll a thief, but do you really want to have to rely on broken mechanics to win fights? If you’re new/bad at the game, go thief. If you want a challenge that pays off, roll an engi. See video link in sig for motivation.

Also, I can’t tell you from experience because I mostly only solo roam, but engineers are extremely versatile & can do just about anything you gear/trait them to.

LOL

you do realize condi engineer is the most broken thing in the game right?

People say that about condi necro, but engi has way more mobility/boons/cleanses, so engi is better for 1vx

Warrior all the way.

Hammer – Sword/Warhorn
shout-heal and double stability from trait + 1 utility, healing signet and adrenal health.

I think I lost my last 1v1 in WvW with this spec in 2013 against a blackwater mesmer, which I got extremely close to beat.. with the only difference that I CHOOSE to stay and fight while he HAD to stay and fight.

Awesome for small scale and ZvZ thanks to Hammer CC, sword leap, 2 short CD shout-heals/traited warhorn, extremely good health pool and HP regeneration.

I’m surprised I didn’t see more people suggesting this!

Warrior. They’re supposed to be the versatile profession and they clearly are. They have the largest selection of weapons, highest mobility and plenty of survivability. They may not be the fastest camp flippers but I’ve more than a few times come across some random Warrior from either my own or another server who is literally standing in the middle of all the NPC’s DPSing them down. I don’t know how everyone else does it but I prefer to pull one or two at a time not dive in and risk getting killed to AI.

Anyway back on topic, if used properly any profession can be good at all aspects of WvW. But that argument can be used for anything. Warrior is pretty much the best choice for beginner or veteran. Still, as someone has said, if you want to be good at all aspects of WvW you’re going to be sub-par at all aspects. You don’t usually go in thinking you’re going to do a bit of everything, or at least I know I don’t. I have two sets of gear myself, one for zerging and one for solo roaming.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Warrior. They’re supposed to be the versatile profession and they clearly are. They have the largest selection of weapons, highest mobility and plenty of survivability. They may not be the fastest camp flippers but I’ve more than a few times come across some random Warrior from either my own or another server who is literally standing in the middle of all the NPC’s DPSing them down.

Once a player learns where to stand to group all the NPCs together, camp flips go REAL fast with melee. They are only slow if those stupid scouts are allowed to continually blind from a distance. I usually clear a camp in less than a minute and probably closer to the 30s mark.

All classes have their role in WvW. Even certain ranger builds are highly viable.

Best overall is guardian, followed by elementalist. Both are highly flexible in terms of play style.

Guardian roamers are really underestimated.

Reverence.6915:

All classes have their role in WvW. Even certain ranger builds are highly viable.

Best overall is guardian, followed by elementalist. Both are highly flexible in terms of play style.

Guardian roamers are really underestimated.

That’s because roaming is not only having the ability to fight and win when required but also to be able to flee a fight when you can’t win or out numbered.

Thus why so many classes are actually not good at roaming. The ability to break combat for a roaming class is more powerful then the ability to kill on one.

Azreell.1568:

Reverence.6915:

All classes have their role in WvW. Even certain ranger builds are highly viable.

Best overall is guardian, followed by elementalist. Both are highly flexible in terms of play style.

Guardian roamers are really underestimated.

That’s because roaming is not only having the ability to fight and win when required but also to be able to flee a fight when you can’t win or out numbered.

Thus why so many classes are actually not good at roaming. The ability to break combat for a roaming class is more powerful then the ability to kill on one.

So true. I used to be an ele roamer, but always had a hard time against necros, so I made one. Necromancers are truly awesome in 1v1/x, but I get so frustrated when I get zerged because I can never disengage.

Seigfried.5938:

Azreell.1568:

Reverence.6915:

All classes have their role in WvW. Even certain ranger builds are highly viable.

Best overall is guardian, followed by elementalist. Both are highly flexible in terms of play style.

Guardian roamers are really underestimated.

That’s because roaming is not only having the ability to fight and win when required but also to be able to flee a fight when you can’t win or out numbered.

Thus why so many classes are actually not good at roaming. The ability to break combat for a roaming class is more powerful then the ability to kill on one.

So true. I used to be an ele roamer, but always had a hard time against necros, so I made one. Necromancers are truly awesome in 1v1/x, but I get so frustrated when I get zerged because I can never disengage.

Oh I know since I main a necro, but roam on mesmer.

The classes who can disengage more easily usually make the best roamers.

Azreell.1568:

Seigfried.5938:

Azreell.1568:

Reverence.6915:

All classes have their role in WvW. Even certain ranger builds are highly viable.

Best overall is guardian, followed by elementalist. Both are highly flexible in terms of play style.

Guardian roamers are really underestimated.

That’s because roaming is not only having the ability to fight and win when required but also to be able to flee a fight when you can’t win or out numbered.

Thus why so many classes are actually not good at roaming. The ability to break combat for a roaming class is more powerful then the ability to kill on one.

So true. I used to be an ele roamer, but always had a hard time against necros, so I made one. Necromancers are truly awesome in 1v1/x, but I get so frustrated when I get zerged because I can never disengage.

Oh I know since I main a necro, but roam on mesmer.

The classes who can disengage more easily usually make the best roamers.

Yep. I roam on a Necro and although I can fill the bill for winning battles, tapping towers, killing yaks, flipping camps, etc. etc. If a zerg comes by I’m toast. I have to be constantly on edge when roaming, which is a big part of why I enjoy solo roaming with a Necro. It adds a lot of excitement to it and I really have to pick and choose who I’m going to fight. I don’t engage every person I see because if it’s a dangerous spot to fight I won’t be able to get away if more come. Still, as long as you have Spectral Walk you can be surprisingly viable by yourself as a Necro, just don’t go fighting every person you see or you’re going to get rolled by zergs a lot.