Guild Wars 2

Time for the Bunker vs. GC debate xD.

So i have both high burst damage classes and Bunker classes so i can relate to both sides.
I have a Thief which is probably one of the best Burts/ GC class there is and a Guard which is prolly the best Bunker/tank class there is. I believe that i am fairly good at both classes and have a good amount of experience on the game.

Bunkers/ Tanks- So, i personally think that Bunkers might be better. I mean on my guard if a thief or a mesmer or something tries to burst me down, all i do is heal out of it and attack them. They usually waste mostof their cooldowns when they open on me, so as soon as i heal out of it, for the next 30 seconds or so the guy is easy pickings. Also Bunkers are a whole lot better in group staged fights, due to their ability to withstand high amounts of dmg and take on many people at once. A prime example of this you can see in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ8d-K64wOI
In this video, its 3 bunker type classes from the Guild REV, Myself, Christia Dawnheart, and Stef. Video credits to Christia Dawnheart :p. We pretty much take on a long string of 18 or so SoR people. Now before you say “Oh they are all leveled up” into the middle of the video u can see that there are a good 4 or 5 full lvl 80s. Now this couldnt of happened if at least one of us was a glass cannon, because we would have just gotten focused down faster than you can blink. But, the one down side of Bunker is that if you arent patient, you should definetely not spec into a tank class/build, because you will be in VERY long fights.

Glass Cannon/Burst- Now this build is the build you want to play if you just want to feel like a boss and wreck some trash players, also if you arent very patient. With GC builds, u can really only take on someone in a 1v1 situation, maybe 2v1 if you are experienced and skilled in your class. If you come across someone in the jumping puzzle or roaming about randomly and they arent a bunker, its time to wreck some face. GCs can wreck other GCs or people off guard in mere seconds. they can definitely be a lot of fun to play, and make you feel really good about yourself xD. However, if you fight a bunker on a GC, you are more than likely gonna die. Ive fought many bunkers on my thief 1v1 and ive lost many of those times >_<.

Group Situations/Zerg Situations- Bunkers will probably be more useful in small to medium group situations, although depending on the group compisition each can be better in certain situations. For example, if there is 3 GCs all coordinating bursts, any bunker is just screwed, cuz they cant heal out of that many bursts. In Zergs bunkers are prolly better overall because when pushing Towers and Keeps you can run through all the AoE w/o getting wrecked.

Balanced builds- I can see balanced builds being fairly good to suit everyones different playstyle, but as far as following a guide online for a “balanced build” i strongly suggest that you dont do that. In order to really be succesful with a balanced build i feel that you really have to make one yourself and have it suit your playstyle to the mark or else you are not gonna have a very good time with and extreme one sided build. If you can make a fairly decent build to suit your playstyle, you can be succesful in WvW.

TL;DR- Bunkers are In my opinion better than glass cannons if you have the patience for them.

Thanks for taking the time to read this Please leave your guys input and opinion

Great post! You are the first sensible guy with a well reasoned post in a while. I completely agree with the balanced builds part. As much as bunkers are extremely effective against burst type players, a balanced build will allow a player to effectively assume many roles in a group and thus improving utility.

I have a similar experience where I made a complete tank warrior, and most 1v1s end up being my opponent leaving after not being able to do significant damage. But having low dps can be not as gratifying and my effectiveness often situational.

Too many people miss the point that wvw is not about 1v1s. The video is a great display of coordination, skill and well thought out builds. (R.I.P. – my guildies o.o )

P.S. I am on SoR and am happy to fight/ study builds with you guys!

If bunkers and glass cannons were at equal skills, bunker will always win in the long run unless he screws up something.

whoami.3012:

Great post! You are the first sensible guy with a well reasoned post in a while. I completely agree with the balanced builds part. As much as bunkers are extremely effective against burst type players, a balanced build will allow a player to effectively assume many roles in a group and thus improving utility.

I have a similar experience where I made a complete tank warrior, and most 1v1s end up being my opponent leaving after not being able to do significant damage. But having low dps can be not as gratifying and my effectiveness often situational.

Too many people miss the point that wvw is not about 1v1s. The video is a great display of coordination, skill and well thought out builds. (R.I.P. – my guildies o.o )

P.S. I am on SoR and am happy to fight/ study builds with you guys!

Thanks! Just trying to give back to the community :p. there are definietely many situations in which Balanced builds have the advantage over a heavily sided build

Good post and I tend to agree. I play a bunker thief and just now I was in a 1v1 with a bunker guardian while I was trying to cap a sentry point. After at least 5 minutes of back and forth we acknowledged that neither of use could beat the other and went our seperate ways. If I had been GC, I wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds.

I think that bunkers in WvW are underrated simply because they don’t have that flashy role that GC’s have. Secondly, while bunkers can be annoying because they live so long, I’m sure that it’s nowhere near as annoying as being burst down in a few seconds.

The argument isn’t strong for bunker builds or glass cannon. This isn’t spvp. It’s WvW/mass pvp. I don’t care about dying to a thief on my ranger. And I don’t care about owning a thief.

My job is to pew pew as many people as possible to make it easier for my team to do w/e objective they’re trying. I can stay behind them and run in and out of range on my ranger. I don’t need to be a bunker build and nerf my damage to do that. You can play smart with glass canons…

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

The argument isn’t strong for bunker builds or glass cannon. This isn’t spvp. It’s WvW/mass pvp. I don’t care about dying to a thief on my ranger. And I don’t care about owning a thief.

My job is to pew pew as many people as possible to make it easier for my team to do w/e objective they’re trying. I can stay behind them and run in and out of range on my ranger. I don’t need to be a bunker build and nerf my damage to do that. You can play smart with glass canons…

Were not talking about rangers though. Were talking about the bunkers that you hide behind so you can Pew pew from safety and run away. Were talking about roamers and scouts. Were talking about tanky players that initiate fights from the front lines. Bunkers have a very different job than rangers. Just because you play a ranger doesn’t make the OPs post invalid. Its just a different way or thinking than you.

I keep hearing this same argument that WvW isn’t spvp and that roamers, small parties or scouts are not affective in WvW. This simply isn’t true in fact the exact opposite. Scouting, taking camps, and killing other small groups of roamers is extreemly important in WvW. Soloers and Small partys can also ninja towers and tacticalaly destroy enemy siege with surgical precision. All while everyone else is mindlessly zerging around without a clue what is going on and what needs to be done. Just following a commander that might be just as clueless.

Edit, A solo roamer or even a 2 can turn the tide of a entire battle by disrupting enemy supply lines. Or scouting enemy positions and reporting them back in chat. These are people with real map awareness and know the layout of the land. People that are in the know. Taking small objectives like destroying quggan weather nodes can stop siege from being destroyed by lighting. Killing Dolys to prevent Towers and keeps from being upgraded. Taking sentrys for harassment. Solo attacking guards to contest a Waypoint so the enemy cannot port to their keep. These things as small as they seem are a huge help and Is way more helpful than someone who is just zerging in the back pew pewing. And if these things are left unchecked becasue all people want to do is zerg they dont get done fast enough or get done at all untill some commander gets the bright idea to lead a zerg to it. Which maybe a long time or never. Then they wonder why all of their camps are flipped and no one seems to being doing anything.

There’s this problem in WvW where people build to beat 95% of players, but the 95% of players are terrible and you could beat them with any build. I think pure bunker builds fall into this trap. In reality you should be aiming to beat 100% of players, even if it makes your victory against the 95% not as easy as it was before.

I say this because if we’re talking about good squad vs good squad, a pure bunker is pretty ineffective. We will see your profession and weapon set, your food choice, and then test the waters. In about 6-7 seconds we know you’re not worth the trouble and kill your friends, because your pressure is no threat. Balancing survivability vs pressure is basically group PvP in a nutshell, and going too strong toward one or the other is a mistake.

nah bunkers and glass cannons serve different purposes in WvW

saying bunkers > glass cannons out-right isnt really true

in fact …… i kinda feel any kind of build works in WvW when your part of a 20 man zerg as long as you know what you are doing

Bunkers>glass cannons maybe in Spvp and small group fights

But i dont think its true in zerg vs zerg fights which is usually what WvW is about

Pinko.2076:

There’s this problem in WvW where people build to beat 95% of players, but the 95% of players are terrible and you could beat them with any build. I think pure bunker builds fall into this trap. In reality you should be aiming to beat 100% of players, even if it makes your victory against the 95% not as easy as it was before.

I say this because if we’re talking about good squad vs good squad, a pure bunker is pretty ineffective. We will see your profession and weapon set, your food choice, and then test the waters. In about 6-7 seconds we know you’re not worth the trouble and kill your friends, because your pressure is no threat. Balancing survivability vs pressure is basically group PvP in a nutshell, and going too strong toward one or the other is a mistake.

Like any good tank, the hallmark of a well played bunker is that you force the enemy team to kill you first. You can do this in several ways, but I’ll speak from the perspective of the mesmer bunker. Firstly, I will be providing massive uptime on projectile reflects, meaning any ranged classes that I choose to lock down will become completely useless. Additionally, I clog up your screen with clones and phantasms. Phantasmal defender soaks damage from my teammates. If I choose to run with a mantra trait, I can actually spam mantra of pain for 2.5k aoe healing every few seconds. All this is happening while I am immobilizing and crippling targets, and dropping ethereal combo fields for confusion stacking projectile finishers, not to mention shatters adding large stacks of confusion with a large aoe effect.

I don’t play a bunker to simply not get killed. I play a bunker in a way that absolutely forces an enemy group to kill me. Being extremely difficult to actually pin down, focus, and kill is just the icing on the cake that makes the build extremely effective. If glass cannon thieves or mesmers or whatever try to bypass me and jump onto the glass cannons I run with, then I simply jump onto whatever character tried to pull that stunt, call target, and lock them down until they die with immobilize and continual dazes.

Other classes can do similar things, with guardians being able to do massive healing, as well as projectile disruption and knockbacks, and elementalists having REALLY massive aoe healing, along with (assuming staff) huge numbers of persistent combo fields. Underestimating and ignoring a well played bunker is a fantastic way to lose every fight you get into.

I’ve been a mesmer since release, and I think bunker mesmer is quite terrible for the reasons outlined in my other post. I see huge use in it for zerg busting, but that’s because most people in a zerg don’t know what’s going on, and most players don’t know how to deal with bunker mesmers. They are a great distraction, but again, that’s only against the 95%.

The reasons you said would force people to attack a bunker mesmer are actually the reasons I would call a different target. You’re doing jobs that other professions do ten times better, and not doing the one that makes the profession worth paying attention to. Mesmer mantra healing is really, really bad if your purpose is group support.

Bunker in WvW?

there is only 2 things in WvW

STRONG and weak.

Pinko.2076:

I’ve been a mesmer since release, and I think bunker mesmer is quite terrible for the reasons outlined in my other post. I see huge use in it for zerg busting, but that’s because most people in a zerg don’t know what’s going on, and most players don’t know how to deal with bunker mesmers. They are a great distraction, but again, that’s only against the 95%.

The reasons you said would force people to attack a bunker mesmer are actually the reasons I would call a different target. You’re doing jobs that other professions do ten times better, and not doing the one that makes the profession worth paying attention to. Mesmer mantra healing is really, really bad if your purpose is group support.

^This

Also, the Mesmer class, in and of itself, is very survivable. I run a full-on, Berzerker geared, glass cannon Mesmer…and I VERY rarely die. Basically, if I die it’s because I made a mistake (overextend, poor positioning, bite off more than I can chew). And I run more-or-less solo.

I see where you’re going with this OP, but I really don’t think it’s quite as simple as you suggest. Player skill plays a much bigger role than build and gear, in my experience.

Warlord.9074:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

The argument isn’t strong for bunker builds or glass cannon. This isn’t spvp. It’s WvW/mass pvp. I don’t care about dying to a thief on my ranger. And I don’t care about owning a thief.

My job is to pew pew as many people as possible to make it easier for my team to do w/e objective they’re trying. I can stay behind them and run in and out of range on my ranger. I don’t need to be a bunker build and nerf my damage to do that. You can play smart with glass canons…

Were not talking about rangers though. Were talking about the bunkers that you hide behind so you can Pew pew from safety and run away. Were talking about roamers and scouts. Were talking about tanky players that initiate fights from the front lines. Bunkers have a very different job than rangers. Just because you play a ranger doesn’t make the OPs post invalid. Its just a different way or thinking than you.

I keep hearing this same argument that WvW isn’t spvp and that roamers, small parties or scouts are not affective in WvW. This simply isn’t true in fact the exact opposite. Scouting, taking camps, and killing other small groups of roamers is extreemly important in WvW. Soloers and Small partys can also ninja towers and tacticalaly destroy enemy siege with surgical precision. All while everyone else is mindlessly zerging around without a clue what is going on and what needs to be done. Just following a commander that might be just as clueless.

Edit, A solo roamer or even a 2 can turn the tide of a entire battle by disrupting enemy supply lines. Or scouting enemy positions and reporting them back in chat. These are people with real map awareness and know the layout of the land. People that are in the know. Taking small objectives like destroying quggan weather nodes can stop siege from being destroyed by lighting. Killing Dolys to prevent Towers and keeps from being upgraded. Taking sentrys for harassment. Solo attacking guards to contest a Waypoint so the enemy cannot port to their keep. These things as small as they seem are a huge help and Is way more helpful than someone who is just zerging in the back pew pewing. And if these things are left unchecked becasue all people want to do is zerg they dont get done fast enough or get done at all untill some commander gets the bright idea to lead a zerg to it. Which maybe a long time or never. Then they wonder why all of their camps are flipped and no one seems to being doing anything.

Lol. None of this really applies to populated WvW.

Roaming =/= valid WvW strategy. It’s an excuse people use when they suck at team play.

I agree with your concepts but to the extent that build is secondary in WvW to situational awareness.

Speaking from a player that plays his elementalist and ranger equally, if you’re traveling in a small group picking off supply camps/dolyaks and you’re using staff (ele) or longbow (rang) you may as well be wearing a sign that says ’I don’t know how to play my class, free kill here’.

I don’t care whether you are a glass cannon or a bunker, those two weapons were designed for large scale support and siege breaking. Playing them in an open world setting (unless your with a zerg) is to intentionally hinder yourself. There is no thief regardless of build that should lose a 2v1 against a staff ele and a longbow ranger. It’s not a matter of thief being overpowered or having a strong build, it’s a matter of the ele and ranger lacking the situational awareness to know they should be using a dagger off hand (ele) and a torch off hand (rang).

If you move the above situation from open world to a tower and put the staff ele and longbow ranger on the wall and put an infinite number of dagger/dagger thieves on the ground, the ranger/ele would win that fight 100% of the time until the thieves eventually got the door down.

So many players fail at weapon choice for their particular situation that builds become moot and pointless. Builds only come into play once you get beyond that initial step.

You’re right as a blanket statement, however certain classes better suite certain builds for certain situations of course.

For example, a bunker condition thief is a nice addition to any 5 man squad raiding supply camps, and is indeed the kind of thief I myself play. However on the flip side, depending on what you are up against, a glass cannon may fair better. I find bunkers far superior verses a defended in any way supply camp. However naturally, in the party of 5 or whatever it may be, verses an undefended one the glass cannon is far superior just for the speed of camp capture.

Additionally in zerg situations the glass cannon thief is, on the whole, better due to cluster bomb. A condition thief in a zerg isn’t as useful until you start to push back, at which point the dagger storm with signet of malice combo proves highly effective. Aside that the raw damage of cluster bomb, as it’s mainly direct damage, far outweighs single target condition damage which in a zerg is easy to cleanse and even if dead, it’s but one target.

Necromancer’s are somewhat different. I think a condition based bunker Necromancer is one of the very best classes in a zerg. Especially when pushing forwards. With the sheer AoE you can put out, and the importance of chill, the Necromancer is just amazing. Fear people off siege weapons from great distance, good life reserves and the blinds. Dear lord a plague form Necromancer group coordinating in a push into the enemy lines, using the blind/poison (even better with the chill on blind trait) absolutely wreaks havoc.

Then again for small supply raid groups the Necromancer is just like the Thief. Bunker condition, lovely for any 5 man group. Better than any GC build verses a defended camp, but any GC build is better vs one that isn’t.

That’s just a couple of examples really showing the differences between classes and within classes. Everything has its place. The trouble is the players that don’t build their class around where they consider themselves spending the most time. Who would spec a bunker condition thief only to run around in large groups? Who would spec a glass cannon Guardian to head up the front of the zerg?

Too be honest, Ive, never really played a Mesmer but i have many friends that do play a mesmer. The thing with mesmer is that, they are one of the only classes,if not only, that can really survive and excel with a pure glass cannon build. Because of their superb defensive abilities even when they are glass cannon, makes them very difficult to kill and very easy for you to be burst down. If you are not very experienced as a bunker, a good GC mesmer will get you every time.

Peetee.9406:

I agree with your concepts but to the extent that build is secondary in WvW to situational awareness.

Speaking from a player that plays his elementalist and ranger equally, if you’re traveling in a small group picking off supply camps/dolyaks and you’re using staff (ele) or longbow (rang) you may as well be wearing a sign that says ‘I don’t know how to play my class, free kill here’.

I don’t care whether you are a glass cannon or a bunker, those two weapons were designed for large scale support and siege breaking. Playing them in an open world setting (unless your with a zerg) is to intentionally hinder yourself. There is no thief regardless of build that should lose a 2v1 against a staff ele and a longbow ranger. It’s not a matter of thief being overpowered or having a strong build, it’s a matter of the ele and ranger lacking the situational awareness to know they should be using a dagger off hand (ele) and a torch off hand (rang).

If you move the above situation from open world to a tower and put the staff ele and longbow ranger on the wall and put an infinite number of dagger/dagger thieves on the ground, the ranger/ele would win that fight 100% of the time until the thieves eventually got the door down.

So many players fail at weapon choice for their particular situation that builds become moot and pointless. Builds only come into play once you get beyond that initial step.

Of course, if you dont know how to play your class well, you are most likely gonna die in a lot of situations. Each class/build/weapon does have its strong points, but its a matter of having those in you inventory when the situation comes and you need that weapon. I personally usually switch weapons when attacking towers or keeps so i can be of more use to my team. However, in the situation that the people that are fighting all know how to play and are experience with their class, the builds do matter. I wish more people would be like that because it makes for more fun fights

Katsumoto.9452:

You’re right as a blanket statement, however certain classes better suite certain builds for certain situations of course.

For example, a bunker condition thief is a nice addition to any 5 man squad raiding supply camps, and is indeed the kind of thief I myself play. However on the flip side, depending on what you are up against, a glass cannon may fair better. I find bunkers far superior verses a defended in any way supply camp. However naturally, in the party of 5 or whatever it may be, verses an undefended one the glass cannon is far superior just for the speed of camp capture.

Additionally in zerg situations the glass cannon thief is, on the whole, better due to cluster bomb. A condition thief in a zerg isn’t as useful until you start to push back, at which point the dagger storm with signet of malice combo proves highly effective. Aside that the raw damage of cluster bomb, as it’s mainly direct damage, far outweighs single target condition damage which in a zerg is easy to cleanse and even if dead, it’s but one target.

Necromancer’s are somewhat different. I think a condition based bunker Necromancer is one of the very best classes in a zerg. Especially when pushing forwards. With the sheer AoE you can put out, and the importance of chill, the Necromancer is just amazing. Fear people off siege weapons from great distance, good life reserves and the blinds. Dear lord a plague form Necromancer group coordinating in a push into the enemy lines, using the blind/poison (even better with the chill on blind trait) absolutely wreaks havoc.

Then again for small supply raid groups the Necromancer is just like the Thief. Bunker condition, lovely for any 5 man group. Better than any GC build verses a defended camp, but any GC build is better vs one that isn’t.

That’s just a couple of examples really showing the differences between classes and within classes. Everything has its place. The trouble is the players that don’t build their class around where they consider themselves spending the most time. Who would spec a bunker condition thief only to run around in large groups? Who would spec a glass cannon Guardian to head up the front of the zerg?

Yea, each build has its useful situations but in my opinion the way to decide what build you want to play is to weigh what each build can do in different situations, and see how they fit your play style. When i am feeling lazy, i jump on my thief because i dont want to spend 15 minutes killing a bunker ele on my guard. It all depends on if the builds suit you and if you are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to play that build.

Kylar.5127:

Too be honest, Ive, never really played a Mesmer but i have many friends that do play a mesmer. The thing with mesmer is that, they are one of the only classes,if not only, that can really survive and excel with a pure glass cannon build. Because of their superb defensive abilities even when they are glass cannon, makes them very difficult to kill and very easy for you to be burst down. If you are not very experienced as a bunker, a good GC mesmer will get you every time.

As a pure glass gannon Mesmer myself,
I can tell you I very rarely get defeated, I can go hours in zerg combat without being defeated. (This is not to say I don’t have worse days where I take on way more than I can handle without paying attention and die a lot.)

I can always tell when I’m fighting someone who knows what they’re doing and when I’m fighting with noobs,
Bunker builds tend to give me the most trouble, I can usually outlast bunker guardians unless they happen to be extremely skilled.
D/D eles can go either way, even when I win I hate fighting them.

The thing about good bunker builds, again, is that they force you to deal with them. Calling another target is all well and good, but it doesn’t help if you have a disruptive bunker sitting on top of you.

With regards to mesmer bunker specifically, the mantra healing was a fun thing I tried for about 20 minutes and then ditched cause it is, in fact, horrible. The real tricks of a bunker mesmer is providing 100% uptime of aoe regen to their entire team with the proper use of phantasms, and having 50% uptime on chaos armor, and easily 100% uptime on retaliation on the mesmer itself, as well as retaliation on all phantasms. The utility of the regen is obvious. The retaliation, however, is a bit more interesting in that it means that every time this bunker mesmer puts itself or phantasms in your way, you take damage. Use of phantasmal defender means all damage you deal to any allies in a decent aoe deals retaliation damage to you. Bunker mesmer is amazing at not dying, due to being a mesmer, and excels at damage mitigation (high uptime on protection/regen/distortion/blur effects), and additionally excels at damage return (projectile reflects from focus/feedback, and retaliation spread everywhere). While obviously a massively different playstyle from glass cannon mesmer, the bunker mesmer build played properly will kill any class, any build 1v1 (I have not lost a single 1v1 fight in wvw in this bunker build, ever). It takes a while, and thieves can obviously run away pretty easy, but it is an extremely effective build that can roam safely, take camps quickly from retal and projectile reflects, and easily melds into a team comp to everyone’s benefit.

In our teamfight I feel we need both setups in team.- some bunkers/defensive to add solid survival and cc, but you need some high dmg to get other players down in burst if needed. I say both styles are valid especialy in teamfights.

Not that I play glasscannon but I like my “Bunker Buster” spec. Enjoy,

/Osicat

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Warlord.9074:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

The argument isn’t strong for bunker builds or glass cannon. This isn’t spvp. It’s WvW/mass pvp. I don’t care about dying to a thief on my ranger. And I don’t care about owning a thief.

My job is to pew pew as many people as possible to make it easier for my team to do w/e objective they’re trying. I can stay behind them and run in and out of range on my ranger. I don’t need to be a bunker build and nerf my damage to do that. You can play smart with glass canons…

Were not talking about rangers though. Were talking about the bunkers that you hide behind so you can Pew pew from safety and run away. Were talking about roamers and scouts. Were talking about tanky players that initiate fights from the front lines. Bunkers have a very different job than rangers. Just because you play a ranger doesn’t make the OPs post invalid. Its just a different way or thinking than you.

I keep hearing this same argument that WvW isn’t spvp and that roamers, small parties or scouts are not affective in WvW. This simply isn’t true in fact the exact opposite. Scouting, taking camps, and killing other small groups of roamers is extreemly important in WvW. Soloers and Small partys can also ninja towers and tacticalaly destroy enemy siege with surgical precision. All while everyone else is mindlessly zerging around without a clue what is going on and what needs to be done. Just following a commander that might be just as clueless.

Edit, A solo roamer or even a 2 can turn the tide of a entire battle by disrupting enemy supply lines. Or scouting enemy positions and reporting them back in chat. These are people with real map awareness and know the layout of the land. People that are in the know. Taking small objectives like destroying quggan weather nodes can stop siege from being destroyed by lighting. Killing Dolys to prevent Towers and keeps from being upgraded. Taking sentrys for harassment. Solo attacking guards to contest a Waypoint so the enemy cannot port to their keep. These things as small as they seem are a huge help and Is way more helpful than someone who is just zerging in the back pew pewing. And if these things are left unchecked becasue all people want to do is zerg they dont get done fast enough or get done at all untill some commander gets the bright idea to lead a zerg to it. Which maybe a long time or never. Then they wonder why all of their camps are flipped and no one seems to being doing anything.

Lol. None of this really applies to populated WvW.

Roaming =/= valid WvW strategy. It’s an excuse people use when they suck at team play.

Not really. I know how to zerg and I know its necessary. But, small teams are very usefull for keeping the enemy busy by conquesting enemy’s supply camps. I’m a guardian and I do that with a thief firend. We feel we help much more by doing that than by joining the zerg. BG is owning SoR becouse they have small groups everywhere and not only a huge brainless zerg (I know that becouse I play at SoR). Zergs are needed, they just don’t get all the job done.

Also, I would like to say that was an awesome video. Could you please tell me your build? I would love to try it sometime.

Edit: I’m refering the fist video, linked at the original post.

GC mesmer is an exception to the rule since like other said it has good defense regardless when played well. Not only that, but shatter build is a hard counter to bunker ele and bunker guardian with shattered concentration. The only thing i’ve seen that mesmer is really weak against is a good p/d thief in wvw.

Peetee.9406:

I agree with your concepts but to the extent that build is secondary in WvW to situational awareness.

Speaking from a player that plays his elementalist and ranger equally, if you’re traveling in a small group picking off supply camps/dolyaks and you’re using staff (ele) or longbow (rang) you may as well be wearing a sign that says ‘I don’t know how to play my class, free kill here’.

I don’t care whether you are a glass cannon or a bunker, those two weapons were designed for large scale support and siege breaking. Playing them in an open world setting (unless your with a zerg) is to intentionally hinder yourself. There is no thief regardless of build that should lose a 2v1 against a staff ele and a longbow ranger. It’s not a matter of thief being overpowered or having a strong build, it’s a matter of the ele and ranger lacking the situational awareness to know they should be using a dagger off hand (ele) and a torch off hand (rang).

If you move the above situation from open world to a tower and put the staff ele and longbow ranger on the wall and put an infinite number of dagger/dagger thieves on the ground, the ranger/ele would win that fight 100% of the time until the thieves eventually got the door down.

So many players fail at weapon choice for their particular situation that builds become moot and pointless. Builds only come into play once you get beyond that initial step.

I understand the point you’re making, but I don’t think it’s fair to completely tie weapon choice to particular WvW situations. For an example, check this guy out …

How does a bunker help in a siege? Even in a smaller fight, smart players will just leave the bunker till last then dog pile him. The sPVP meta is poisonous to WvW and does not mesh at all with what needs to be done if you are actually interested in achieving the designs of the game mode.

I find balanced builds to be the most useful here. You don’t want to be so squishy that a thief can jump out and kill you or that one accidental position will wipe you in a large zerg fight, but you also don’t want to be so tanky that you aren’t contributing much at all in sieges, in destroying siege, helping get players killed, etc. That’s more excessive fear of dying, which isn’t that harsh of a penalty in this game/mode. Might as well play thief or DD ele if you simply fear dying over all.

If all you do is the exact same group setup and a specific role every time you play WvW then maybe there is a useful place for the bunker. But can’t imagine it being good to say flip quaggan nodes, solo or two man a camp, defend a dolyak, make a strike on an enemy siege position before their zerg is aware. In these situations you need some damage to be done quickly, more than you to last 5 minutes in a sustained fight.

But to digress, if you are playing WvW to win, the vast bulk of your important fights will be sieges inside walls or outside attacking them. A bunker is not good at pushing attackers off a gate, not good at ranging down someone managing a siege, likewise not good at pushing defenders off their wall positions, killing siege on walls. Outside fights it may do better, but most of those which are against your odds, are easily enough to avoid in this game, if you are anywhere near the battle front between where your side of the map meets the enemies.