Guild Wars 2

My favorite part of WvW is solo or small group action on my Memser. Sometimes though I join the zerg (usually to farm bags, WXP or achievements). Until now, I’ve always done it on my Mesmer because WXP was per character. I survive pretty well but am not sure I pull my own weight. Now that WXP is account wide, I’m thinking I need a second character for zerging.

So what do you guys think would be the best profession/build?

There’s a reason the Guard staff is called the Loot Stick. Can’t really beat it for “farming bags and WXP or achievements”. The only downside is low mobility on guard so if you fall behind it’s tough to catch back up, but you can always leave a GS in secondary for the leap.

Find any class that wears Heavy Armor and can hold a Hammer. Put a Sigil of Celerity & a Sigil of Strength on your Hammer. Make sure to have at least 50% of your gear PVT stats. That’s pretty much it, if you want a simple place to start with your WvW zerg build. After doing the above, find out what sort of meta your guild or server runs, and build around that.

GS/staff guard with PVT/celest + soldier runes and 0/0/30/30/10 traits

also for utility use SYG, Hold the Line, and purging flames. Heal skill is optional but shelter is the best one imo, also elite should be support tome for heals.

Guard is one of the most important classes for WvW since they’re one of the few that can give AoE stability as well as face tank all the damage

Jerus.4350:

There’s a reason the Guard staff is called the Loot Stick. Can’t really beat it for “farming bags and WXP or achievements”. The only downside is low mobility on guard so if you fall behind it’s tough to catch back up, but you can always leave a GS in secondary for the leap.

Agreed; I mainly run my Guardian with a staff and GS. I also runed up my armour with Superior Runes of the Traveler, it gives +25% speed boost which helps a lot. I highly recommend using those runes in WvW.

I’m not sure there is a “best class” for zerg roles. Nearly every class has something they can bring to the table.

Necromancer: Marks can put quite the pressure on enemy groups, as well as epidemic bombing the downed. Life blast pierces and hits quite hard in power gear, and also necros can give the entire zerg protection with their area denial skill. Necros aren’t too bad at roaming, either. With a full Life Force bar, a necro can overcome most 1 vs 1 fights by sheer statistical advantage alone. Necros are great at getting loot bags and world experience, but you gotta have/be a good leader, because Necros aren’t too good with escapes.

Engineer: AKA the “ranged guardian”. Grenades can rain destruction and hellfire against zergs, doing both direct damage and condi damage. The engineer’s toolbox means that, no matter what you do, you’ll always have the tools for the job. Stealth? They got it. Blocks/invulnerability? They got it. Fire fields? They got it. Reflects, water fields, movement skills, permanent swiftness, richochet attacks, long range, AoEs, blast finishers, light fields, blind fields, stability, soft CC, hard CC? They have got it. Combine this with potent self buffing abilities, and the engi is a dangerous enemy. You have to worry about retaliation damage, though.

Elementalist: The ele has what is arguably the deadliest attack at range: meteor storm. When in staff, the ele has a variety of very useful skills, many of them the best in their category. For area denial and CC they have static field, unsteady ground and frozen ground. For damage they have all of fire attunement, along with chain lightning. For heals they have geyser and healing rain. For whatever they’re missing, the ele can use utilities to fill the gaps. Other weapon sets are better for small scale fights and skirmishing.

Warrior and Guardian: These are the infamous hammer duo, who usually run around in hammer chains. The guardian has more utilities, whereas the warrior as a frightening amount of bulk.

So, as far as zergs are concerned… the only classes I can’t really recommend are thief, mesmer, and ranger. They are far from useless, though. The thief and mesmer both have great pulls, stealth, and projectile management. The mesmer can summon phantoms to harass players on the walls, whereas the thief is great for targeted kills and burst. I don’t know much about rangers, other than in zergs they’ll send in their pet to harass players while they run away.

If somebody says class and build doesnt mater that never played wvw. X warrior 2X guardians, 1-2 mesmers 2-4 eles 3-6 necros and end of line. CC, team support, heavy armor builds.

Depends on what role you want to play, but warrior is certainly one of the more useful and fun classes for zerging. They can fill a variety of roles, but are best on the frontlines. You can’t really have too many warriors in a zerg.
It’s also a class that can easisly zerg without needing any voice input from the commander, once you understand the general tactics people use.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Engineer: AKA the “ranged guardian”. Grenades can rain destruction and hellfire against zergs, doing both direct damage and condi damage. The engineer’s toolbox means that, no matter what you do, you’ll always have the tools for the job. Stealth? They got it. Blocks/invulnerability? They got it. Fire fields? They got it. Reflects, water fields, movement skills, permanent swiftness, richochet attacks, long range, AoEs, blast finishers, light fields, blind fields, stability, soft CC, hard CC? They have got it. Combine this with potent self buffing abilities, and the engi is a dangerous enemy. You have to worry about retaliation damage, though.

I lol’ed. This is true, but you need at least 9 utility skills to do what you’ve listed…. Ele is far better than Engi in zerg.

thief isn’t the best for zergs but i play a thief and try to be useful when zerging.

sb 2 blasts are where it’s at. Thief is great for buffing the zerg as long as people are dropping fields. When the zerg ball moves in, i continue to drop sb2 blasts on the front line for dmg and support.

clean-up/precision finishers – while heavy classes make up the bulk of the zerg, a good thief can pick up the scraps as enemies scatter and can quickly finish downed enemies.

I guess it depends on what you want your role to be or what your goal is while zerging. Warrior has the highest survivability and mobility so it’s terrific for wxp when you are trying to capture defended stuff since you are more likely to be able to make it to the capture circle. Guardian has great group support with its utilities and traits and then staff skill 1 to get tons of loot. I have found elementalist to be an extremely underrated profession for zerging because you can equip a staff and meteor shower down arrow carts up top on walls that no other profession can reach. The water fields are very useful when placed on rams and your big water when traited with condition removal on regeneration is very useful to your team. I would stay away from thief, ranger, and engineer since they are generally not as good at zerging and more for roaming. Mesmer would probably be the next worst after those 3 but it’s still far more useful than those because of it’s veil for stealth before zerg v zerg, portals for squishies and golems and porting people into SM or other stuff, time warp for golems, and pulling enemies off walls. Once the zerg v zerg confrontation is underway, mesmer can’t do as much as some of the other professions. Necromancer has decent survivability for a light armor class and has terrific AoE damage among the wells and marks. I have played Necromancer some and it gave me (just barely) better loot than guardian staff skill 1 which is pretty impressive. It’s deathshroud skill 4 is also good for damaging AC’s above. I would definitely pick from Warrior, Guardian, Elementalist, or Necromancer.

The current Meta for hammer train raids is “GWEN”
Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist, Necromancer.
If you have one of these you’re golden.

Guardians- Your role is broadcasting stability to your party and controlling enemy movement. Your goal is to stick to your commander’s tag like tree sap while dropping your Ward CCs. You’re also now the best source of swiftness on your party/zerg now that the staff skill symbol of swiftness stacks correctly. Staff/greatsword or staff/hammer, depending of if you want damage or control. “Stand Your Ground” has a permanent slot on your utility bar.

Warriors- Your role is disruption and absorption. You absorb the CCs meant for other targets in your zerg and deliver disruption. You can also dish some hefty damage with greatsword. There are multiple varieties you can use here. My personal favorite is greatsword/hammer. Like the guardian you’ll stick to your commander. Open crashes with the Greatsword throw and whirlwind attacks. This fills your adrenaline. Swap to hammer and hit the burst on the back of the enemy’s flow. Roll into hammer 3, 2, and 4. Balanced stance will have a permanent slot on your utility bar.

Necromancers- You’re the source of DPS in a hammer train as well as boon cleansing. You’ll run full wells and plague form. Your heal is up in the air (I use consume conditions). Staff/axe horn for my necro and a trait spec that makes my wells drain health. That trait spec makes my necro nearly invincible. Open with the wells and roll into plague form if it’s available, else use the axe/horn set with the locust swarm and roll into death shroud. You’ll shift between frontline and peripheral positioning with your aoes targeted on your commander’s position. Remember, that’s where the CC’d softies are! Light em up!

Elemenalists- You’re support and CC from range. Eles are the best condition cleansers for a zerg and the best CC. DO NOT USE STATIC FOR SWIFTNESS. This isn’t 2013 and guardians are out swiftness-ing you anyway. Open with that static field on the enemy zerg before it crashes. Then roll into water attunement and hit the water fields on your frontline. They’ll be blasting alot and the active heals will mop up the damage your frontline takes. Switch attunements to earth and fire for dps and then back to water to keep a water field up for each crash. If your raid caller wants to save water for when he wants it then stay out of water attunement until he calls for heals.

Tagging targets:
Warriors: Greatsword is your friend
Guardians: Greatsword and staff are your friends
Necromancers: lol If you didn’t tag 30 guys with your wells try to aim next time. It’s not that hard
Eles: Frost fields, lava fonts, static field… love em.
Other classes: maximize aoe hits on the enemy zerg. You only have to hit each target once to get credit for it.

That’s the GWEN metagame

Tanky guardian with sigil of restoration and water.

If you play in EU, the hammer meta is only one of two-three metas out there. In NA – hammers is all that matters.

So…
OP wants to be able to roam/duo roam but still just hop into a zerg at any time and join the lulz. The question now boils down to which classes can actually build “zerg/roaming hybrid without being a liability in either”.
That means – warriors and guards are out. Because their roaming builds are not that effective in zergs. They work, alright. But they are sup-optimal. If you use zergling builds with warrior/guard in roaming, you are asking to die. All you are to any roamer is just a piece of meat packed in a few layers of tinfoil.
Mesmers – i cannot comment on builds for these, but they generally only need/want to bring 3 things for zergs. Nullfield, Portal and Veil. Doesn’t seem like anyone cares if you got something else. In Roaming, mesmers are close to being the undisputed king.
Engineers – Top marks here. A Condi bunker engi may not seem the most optimal choice for zerging, but they can pump out so many condies that they can “cover” other more important ones, such as immobilize, chilled, crippled and poison from being cleansed in time. Also – lots of bags with minimal effort. In Roaming, they are the single most annoying enemy to fight after mesmers.
Elementalist – Their roaming builds differ so greatly from their zerging builds, that going hybrid will hurt you (got a 80 ele myself. Followed advices from lots of ele players, nothing worked out that well)
Necromancer – equip staff, Dire gear and you are off to a good start no matter what you do. Some tinkering may be needed to adjust your build, but this one shouldn’t go wrong anytime soon.
Rangers – Unfortunately, the way rangers is designed, they are hard to build for dual purpose. In zergs, the pet is horribly weak and is a liability to you no matter how good you are. Micromanagement can lessen the impact, but it will be hard to make good use of it. Rangers can build for dual purpose (zerg and roaming), and these builds are split in two;
Glassy condition trapper – loads of AOE damage and CC + condition spam
Heavy duty bunker – medium-high cleave damage, great mobility (sword + GS), great utility, but NO SPIKE DAMAGE. Your maximum possible spike will be just short of 4.5k on a glassy target even in full ascended gear. On the upside, you get an evade on your AA rotation (tonns of damage mitigation right there). Extremely high armor, extremely high regeneration (upwards of 540 permanently, spiking at over 1500/sec for 10 seconds when you activate your healing). Unfortunately, the most efficient way to build a ranger to last in zergs, is also the bad way to build it. You need to invest in beastmastery, either you like it or not, to make the most of your build (5 points min to get the GM minor). And you must have 6 into natures magic for healing from shouts. That leaves 3 points, which i normally put either 1 more in BM and two in Skirmish or 3 in Wilderness Survival. For zerging, WS is best, for roaming, 1 in BM and 2 in skirmish is best.
Luckily, you can change around easily.
Thief – their zerg builds and roaming builds are not very “interchangable”. I suggest just running valkyrie/cavaliers with stealth on steal and 100% crit chance while in stealth. Find a target and shoot it down ASAP. BTW thief SB is amazing once you get the hang of it. Remember to watch your initiative though.

I’m keeping my Mesmer for roaming, so i don’t need a new build that can do that.

I always liked hammer on Warrior. I guess I’ll try that first.

Thanks guys

Markus.9084:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Engineer: AKA the “ranged guardian”. Grenades can rain destruction and hellfire against zergs, doing both direct damage and condi damage. The engineer’s toolbox means that, no matter what you do, you’ll always have the tools for the job. Stealth? They got it. Blocks/invulnerability? They got it. Fire fields? They got it. Reflects, water fields, movement skills, permanent swiftness, richochet attacks, long range, AoEs, blast finishers, light fields, blind fields, stability, soft CC, hard CC? They have got it. Combine this with potent self buffing abilities, and the engi is a dangerous enemy. You have to worry about retaliation damage, though.

I lol’ed. This is true, but you need at least 9 utility skills to do what you’ve listed…. Ele is far better than Engi in zerg.

You would. Thankfully, utilities are really easy to switch in and out as needed. Whenever I use engi in WvW, I never sit in one utility loadout for long. Whether I’m in zerg vs. zerg. attacking a keep, defending a keep, roaming, havoc build, jumping puzzle, I’m always moving things around.

Besides, kits are actually really versatile. Half the stuff I listed can be found in the bomb kit alone.

lioka qiao.8734:

The current Meta for hammer train raids is “GWEN”
Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist, Necromancer.
If you have one of these you’re golden.

Pretty much what this guy said.

All classes contribute; anyone who thinks a ranger is useless for a zergball hasn’t played one properly. However, for guaranteed “pulling your weight”, GWEN is where its at.

Guardian for loot, warrior for the fun. Everything else is too far back from these zerg winners to even see.

First night on EB as War and no repairs!

Straegen.2938:

Guardian for loot, warrior for the fun. Everything else is too far back from these zerg winners to even see.

What build for guardian?

0 0 6 6 2 figure the traits and armor alone it is easy

for tagging, nothing beats a well Necro

yeah i wouldnt recommend mes for zerging, the cc, condi spam melts u in seconds and u dont have aoe to contribute to zergfight with viable dmg. unless u wanna veilbot, id recommend ele,war,necro or guard. after the most recent patch i’ve decided to shelf my mes and am playing my power necro. necro is useful, has aoe dmg and can corrupt boons and fear counting as an interupt now is very useful…

The last few weeks I’ve been running a glamour blind confusion build. Feedback becomes especially fun.