Guild Wars 2

Support Warriors are pretty kitten :P

Sovereign.1093:

Best:

…

Worst:

Guardians

Yep, nothing to see here move along please. Engineers are completely and utterly broken. We can’t kill anyone and we were are of no use in WvW. Please do not make an engineer.

kktksbye!

Rangers underestimated. Chills + Immobilizes galore. Controls are important surely ;P?

Without a doubt, mesmer and elementalist are by far the most sought after in any group on my server. They both bring a huge amount of utility to the field – the former in the form of portals, confusion bombing, invis, and all out chaos; the latter in the form of great aoe and siege destruction and also protection (swirling winds) for trebs, catapults, etc. Other than these two, necro and guardian are the next most sought after.

Best siege: Mesmer. Greatsword AoE range vs structures is insane.

I am surprised that ppl don’t like ranger, but like guardian so much. In small groups, I think rangers are really good. A good (bow) ranger knows how to maintain distance between his foe, and all the stuns are great against those guys that keep jumping around. Also good for defending position, towers, keeps.

Regarding guardian, I have had success in the past, but recently I’ve been struggling. Primarily because I’m in the front lines and as soon as a zerg (of equal or greater size) comes along players run back. I put faith that they will back me up, but I end up by myself being stunned x10 and overwhelmed while everybody runs away. I’m trying out new things and builds at the moment.

The last profession I have experience playing as is Elementist. They are good, but I have not played much WvW as ele compared to ranger and guardian, so I can’t add much to what has already been said.

But Mesmer- I still fear them because of this one guy. After my guild group of five took out 2 of the 3 opponents, this Mesmer was able to keep himself alive, and wiped out the five of us one by one(1 commander, 3 experienced players, 1 inexperienced wvw player). Mesmer definitely have the most potential.

CAA.9653:

I am surprised that ppl don’t like ranger, but like guardian so much. In small groups, I think rangers are really good. A good (bow) ranger knows how to maintain distance between his foe, and all the stuns are great against those guys that keep jumping around. Also good for defending position, towers, keeps.

Regarding guardian, I have had success in the past, but recently I’ve been struggling. Primarily because I’m in the front lines and as soon as a zerg (of equal or greater size) comes along players run back. I put faith that they will back me up, but I end up by myself being stunned x10 and overwhelmed while everybody runs away. I’m trying out new things and builds at the moment.

The last profession I have experience playing as is Elementist. They are good, but I have not played much WvW as ele compared to ranger and guardian, so I can’t add much to what has already been said.

But Mesmer- I still fear them because of this one guy. After my guild group of five took out 2 of the 3 opponents, this Mesmer was able to keep himself alive, and wiped out the five of us one by one(1 commander, 3 experienced players, 1 inexperienced wvw player). Mesmer definitely have the most potential.

My question to you is, who was the mesmer – I want lessons lol!

All those saying engineer is bad haven’t met a good HGH condi engi- which is the only viable build atm for engis.
I think most people run into those useless flamethrower/turret engis and cut them down easily, leading to a perception of the class being bad when really it’s them not knowing how to build their class.

Stone.6751:

From observation (I’ve not played all classes at an equal level) there are a few classes that seem to hold a lot of value in WvW – Mesmers, Thieves, Elementalists and Guardians.

I find that Necromancers are also very useful and perhaps undervalued. They are great for AoE against walls when attacking and also do well defending from walls. They can wreak havoc on zergs and can alternate to single-target power attacks with pretty good survivability. They don’t have the special utility of a mesmer, or the tank-survivability and team buffs that the guardian brings, but when used effectively they are magic in WvW.

I earn way, way, more badges with my Necro than I ever did with my Guardian, and I can actually feel my contribution when I drop Spite-Epidemic-Fear and watch the enemy zerg retreat, or when I charge in with Plague-Blind and watch the enemy zerg around me swing wildly and miss at everything.

Plague/Blind is my favorite elite skill in the entire game for this exact reason. At the same time, nothing is more heartbreaking than diving into an enemy team to keep them all blind only to have the people I’ve been running with fail to follow up because they expect me to explode…

Light armor does NOT equal glass cannon!

I almost always survive the full twenty seconds of the elite, and I use it to just stare at my teammates in disbelief.

Anyway, my input is to totally agree with the sentiment about necros. I use staff marks (<3 fear)/epidemic for large scale fights and switch over to scepter/dagger for smaller skirmishes against one or two people.

I enjoy my Mesmer for small roaming groups and my Necro for larger groups. As a Necro I have access to so many aoe’s. I can essentially charge into a zerg with Axe/Warhorn and lock them down and then pop into plague for mass blind giving my group a chance to take them out. Its actually a thing of beauty. But like so many have said it all depends on play style. My play style was always back of the line, but I’m finding that I like getting in there and causing chaos. FYI Engi’s aren’t broken. They have access to so many things and I wouldn’t under-estimate 1. They can be crazy hard to kill and that’s coming from someone that’s been killed and have killed on my Engi. I just main a Shatter Mesmer and a Necro.

Best class: Warrior
Worst class: Warrior

I wanna say ranger is worst. Their selection of AE abilities is somewhat lackluster and that’s what you need for most of WvW. They’re easy to spike, too. They can be deadly 1v1 but come’on, it’s WvW, how many 1v1s do you see? The pet buff was great but still they’re more of a 1v1 class. Maybe they need a good AE pet, like a small firebreathing dragon. (There are some pets with AE abilities but they’re secondary and not very powerful.)

Rifle warriors are awful too. They should at least get penetration on their shots or something. (I think engineers are better rifle warriors than rifle warriors are.)

Best is still either thief or elementalist. The other classes have their uses but thief and elementalist are hard to go wrong with for effectiveness.

deviller.9135:

Best class: Warrior
Worst class: Warrior

QFT

KinkyWarrior.1879:

Rangers underestimated. Chills + Immobilizes galore. Controls are important surely ;P?

Yeah definitely. Rangers have a ridiculous amount of “soft CC” with very little cooldown. It’s crazy how little respect these types of conditions get.

Still, I feel useless in group fights as a ranger compared to when I play as my mesmer. Ranger is definitely more of a roaming class, but I’d say it’s one of the best if you’re alone or in a small group (<5).

Best class: Elementalist ( Great solo roamer and even better in teams )
Worst class: Ranger ( Thiefs nr#1 target )

For personal best class I would just say play whatever makes you happy.

From a meta standpoint I would put them in tiers.

Tier 1: Mesmer, guardian, ele

• The more guardians and eles the better. Tons of boons, hard to kill, good aoe, good mov skills, etc. With mesmers, the usefulness starts to taper off. In a zerg, I would say you only need 2 or 3 coordinated mesmers to reach max usefulness

Tier 2: Warriors, thieves

• Warriors bring some good boons and CC. Leg specialist can be utilized pretty well. Thieves have their specific places where they can be of great help. They are also #1 in stacking might with sbow, followed closely by hammer guardian

Tier 3: Rangers, engineers, necros

• These are still useful, just less so. For instance, a mesmer and necro team can work together to stack a crap load of confusion, then use epidemic to spread it. Rangers could work with ele or thieves to use traps/entagle to stick people in dagger storm or meteor shower.

Honestly just know what your role/usefulness is and do it well. Also, coming from a mesmer, we have a hella tough time getting badges/bags. Our Aoe is crappy at best, and most leaders will ask you to have portal and veil as utilities. Since blink never leaves my toolbar, that means I have no room for null field/feedback.

In WvW…I prefer my Guardian (s). I have 2…a lvl 29 & a lvl 80. I play my Mesmer the least of all the classes.

Best: Ele or Guard
Worst: Ranger imo (good small group, large group they’re a water field bot).

Tier 1 (good): Mesmer, Elementalist, Thief
Tier 2 (average): Engineer, Ranger, Necromancer
Tier 3 (bad): Guardian, Warrior

Seriously, for the supposed tank and damage monsters of the game, why are you guys so kitten easy to kill? I have no problems with killing Guardians and Warriors in WvW, but yet I’ll encounter decent challenges from Engineers, Necromancers, and other Rangers. Does anybody else get the irony of this?

Ethics.4519:

For personal best class I would just say play whatever makes you happy.

From a meta standpoint I would put them in tiers.

Tier 1: Mesmer, guardian, ele

• The more guardians and eles the better. Tons of boons, hard to kill, good aoe, good mov skills, etc. With mesmers, the usefulness starts to taper off. In a zerg, I would say you only need 2 or 3 coordinated mesmers to reach max usefulness

Tier 2: Warriors, thieves

• Warriors bring some good boons and CC. Leg specialist can be utilized pretty well. Thieves have their specific places where they can be of great help. They are also #1 in stacking might with sbow, followed closely by hammer guardian

Tier 3: Rangers, engineers, necros

• These are still useful, just less so. For instance, a mesmer and necro team can work together to stack a crap load of confusion, then use epidemic to spread it. Rangers could work with ele or thieves to use traps/entagle to stick people in dagger storm or meteor shower.

Honestly just know what your role/usefulness is and do it well. Also, coming from a mesmer, we have a hella tough time getting badges/bags. Our Aoe is crappy at best, and most leaders will ask you to have portal and veil as utilities. Since blink never leaves my toolbar, that means I have no room for null field/feedback.

I agree mostly with the above list.

One can make some conclusions based on the popularity of the professions in WvWvW. I think most players play something, which they find effective and reasonably easy to play.

According to my observations, which are from EU tier #1 in past few months, the most common professions are:
1. Guardian
2. Thief
3. Warrior
4. Elementalist
And probably in that order as well.

Mesmers are always wanted in any party and often requested by good commanders. Mesmers still have several powerful builds: shatter burst, immortal and phantasm, plus some of the best utility skills in the game. Necromancers also get requested for big group fights, but they are less common. I have a hunch necromancers are actually very good in WvWvW, just that they are so rare in pve that affects also WvWvW. My necro is still level 48, so I should test it when I get her to level 80.

You probably ranked warriors a bit lower than me, because they are not that effective in solo roaming, but I can tell you that hammer + sword/warhorn immobilize stun lock warriors are extremely effective in Desolation style pain train (melee train) together with guardians. Warriors can also bring in a lot of group utility with shouts and banners.

Elementalists can provide great AoE and group heals and buffs, plus they can still have good mobility and be bunkers. That is why many commanders also choose the elementalist.

Thieves are the best profession for roaming, but despite the common claims “thieves are useless in big fights”, I see a lot of thieves in every big fight and also as a commander. Best blast finisher in the game, dagger storm and amazing ability to get away, plus do stealth stomps, murder the tail of a fleeing enemy zerg for easy badges. Thieves lack group utility besides providing blast finishers, smoke fields and area stealth.

Rangers and engineers don’t really bring much anything unique, which is required in WvWvW. Rangers are amazing in 1-vs-1, probably the best profession for small scale fights at the moment. They are also the best profession underwater, very difficult to kill a ranger there plus pet going up to about 4000 range plus harpoon gun reaching 1500 range (with eagle eye trait), is amazing. But they lack AoE and group utility. I really don’t know how to fix the rangers that would easily make them too overpowered for spvp/tpvp. Any ideas for a WvWvW specific change?

Engineers are good at doing ranged AoE and conditions, especially with the grenade kit if properly traited for that. That kit makes them 2nd best underwater. In addition to that engineers can do really solid crowd control, but unfortunately many engineer CC skills affect just one target. Engineer could benefit a lot from fixing their numerous bugs and reverting some of the balance updates for pve and WvWvW. Turrets will not be viable in WvWvW big fights (besides overcharging and exploding healing turret right away) without reducing their hit box and increasing their health 5-6x times and making them more or less immune to Arrow Cart damage. I seriously doubt that Arenanet would increase the turret health to same level as ranger pets, though.

By terms on fun, I guess it really depends on playing style.

Slamz.5376:

Rifle warriors are awful too. They should at least get penetration on their shots or something. (I think engineers are better rifle warriors than rifle warriors are.)

Only the auto attack of the engineer rifle pierces and it has 900 (untraited) range compared to warrior’s rifle’s 1200 range. Crack shot trait does exactly what you requsted. It makes warrior rifle and harpoon gun attacks pierce, plus reduces their cooldown by 20%.

Read my analysis of warrior vs engineer rifle at this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/3-5-rifle-skills-are-short-range/first

Both have their good and bad points, but I would say warrior is a winner here. For some really strange reason engineer’s rifle #3, blunderbuss does maximum damage at 100 range (yes, lower than melee range!) even if you use the rifled barrel traits (which should increase the range). The trait messes up the jump shot animation, making slow and thus engineer hovers in mid air.

Wow… I find it very interesting how rangers are still so down-played in WvW, particularly when talking about a ranger’s usefulness in a large group. I play ranger and run with a GS and Longbow mostly, and I really love ZvZ battles. It’s where I really pincushion and cut-down many a foe. And don’t let me go dual bows… Lord help you! (I just can’t get out of trouble as easily w/o the GS equiped.)

Bottom line: you guys just keep thinking rangers suck – I don’t want to see more toons like me running around that I have to deal with in WvW.

It’s not that rangers “suck”, really, just that other classes are a good deal superior at AE and large group effects. The ranger’s superior 1v1/small group abilities don’t play out as well in WvW where the guy you’re trying to focus down just runs behind the screen of 50 enemies.

T/D – Staff condi Necro’s are probably my favorite thing to play you can DESTROY zergs. Also its amazing to split a zerg with your fear especially when you trait into it and make half of them run off a cliff allowing you to even the numbers up.

Find it funny people still comment thieves as being zerg un-friendly.

Last night and on many other nights for months ive watched or had thieves literally charge our zergs target on me or some other light armor wearer bring them down in a few seconds then run back to their zerg full health only to return 10 seconds latter for another target… if anything a zerg with more thieves is better than one without any.

Now people might say, your zerg needs to get them or aoe them, well… if our zerg focuses on the 1 or 2 thieves running around inside it then the thiefs zerg is suddenly not being concentrated on… so in many ways its a loose/loose situation, ignore the thieves start loosing comrades quickly (either through kills or tying up individuals) or try and kill the thieves and get aoed heavily by the thiefs zerg.

Thieves from my own experience (sure might be different on teir 1-2 where you have 50+ zergs as the norm, but for most of us 10-20, with 10-14 as average is the norm for zerg size) are pretty much one of the best professions in WvW, the only place they probably dont excel is taking fortifications given they cant really do all that much apart from take out respawners coming back (which really is again a very important and pivitol job, although maybe not on 1-2 teir matchups given the population).

Frankly ive found my necro to be the funnest wvw class so far though, my original main was an engineer… took me a while to learn my lesson with that one (ugh there terrible at basically everything outside of farming), then my new main was a guardian, sure they have survivability (if you consider lasting 3-5 seconds longer than every one else but still dying and getting hardly any badges to boot fulfilling) is great but meh, they might prop up others but you dont get anything from doing that and why would i want to spend all my time working so others can get the rewards.

My necro though, at least I can hit (I wouldnt say kill) things and i can do some interesting stuff, like others mentioned plague blind is great… if every one else in the zerg takes advantage of it, which is rare. And good survivability to boot.

I do have an ele, but unless you go DD or fire staff there isnt to much point to them, ive tried a few other set ups but really they just pale compared to those and are just not that fun (Hate the 3 second delay on earth staff bleed aoe completely ruins that otherwise neat skill), and id rather play something taht isnt a cookie cutter than everyone else.

Ive almost tried to make a thief myself, but it just feels dirty… one day i will.