Guild Wars 2

How do you rank the new Elites? My rankings are based on fighting them or with them in solo or small group fights. I have only seen one zerker and one tempest so far so those ended up on the bottom possibly unfairly. Dragonhunters, Chronomancers and Heralds have been all over the place.

Tier 1: Chronomancer, Dragonhunter, Reaper

Tier 2: Druid, Herald, Scrapper

Tier 3: Berserker, DareDevil, Tempest

I know this is entirely subjective and relatively meaningless but it is sad to see a wall of disappointing threads that has been posted after HoT into the WvW forum.

Mind if I ask what puts DrDvl in T3 if measured against a T1 Elite? Is it the three steps to land?

I think dragonhunter will drop a tier once people get xp fighting them and druid will go up.

Herald is T1, will be mandatory in larger groups.

I told everyone Dragonhunter would be strong and no one believed me \D:/

I only really solo and duo roam in WVW so for me, I rank the elites as:

T1 – Dragon Hunter, Scrapper, Herald, Chronomancer
T2 – Berserker, Daredevil
T3 – Tempest, Druid

I put Scrapper in T1 because of how many stuns it has. Then Chronomancer because its Chronomancer, and Chronomancer is OP. Herald because Celestial set gives it a lot of survival power. Then Dragon Hunter because once again, lots of CC to help you dictate the flow of a battle when roaming.

For the other classes, I put Berserker at T2 because even though condi’s hurt a lot, I feel that once you’ve exhausted your combo rotation, you’re left very vulnerable. Usually I can drop lower armored classes in just 1 combo, but if I miss even one part of the combo, then i become a sitting duck. Daredevil I put T2 as well because I feel like Thieves roam better currently without the use of the Daredevil trait line as it is.

As for T3, I don’t think Druid needs much of an explanation since I’m coming from a Roaming standpoint. Druid is more or less just for stalling time for someone else to come kill them. I can kind of see how decent it can be when paired with Staff/Greatsword because it allows you to reset fights very easily with such low cooldown, but the damage is just too low. Tempest, I just don’t see the point in. Personally when I play ele in wvw roaming, I go with d/d celestial, so I’m always dodge rolling everywhere. Having to channel the overload skills just leaves me vulnerable to stun.

Chrono / Reaper are strong, no doubt.

I think herald is probably a stronger elite than Dragonhunter

You can play a Guardian without playing Dragonhunter (plus DH means you give up some party support), playing a Revenant without Herald is significantly harder.

However Revenant/Herald is unfinished: underwater fighting is still not working properly.

kash.9213:

Mind if I ask what puts DrDvl in T3 if measured against a T1 Elite? Is it the three steps to land?

I actually play DareDevil and while it is fun going that route cuts damage substantially. They can be annoying but when I see one I know they aren’t generally heavy hitters and are easy to blow up if caught with no escape. The exception to this has been a friends pistol whip build which is running pretty well… for a thief. It is a one trick pony but that trick is killing an awful lot and dying very little.

Balgus.3468:

Then Chronomancer because its Chronomancer, and Chronomancer is OP.

See, this is the awesome kind of reasoned arguments we need for power adjustments. It is OP because it’s that class and it just is, what a joke.

As for my ranking I’d base it on both roaming and zerging, however I will not be ranking just the elite specs in a vacuum. I’ll be ranking them based on how the classes, both base and elite, are now in WvW.

T1. Guardian, Necro, Revenant, Ranger.
T2. Engineer, Elementalist, Mesmer.
T3. Warrior, Thief.

T1. This is where I feel the classes have been rounded out and are great in zerging, small scale combat and roaming whether elite spec or not. They will always be a choice. Specifically guardians are as much a backbone as ever but now have ranged and better roaming abilities.
Necro, again same thing but reaper now provides a bit more of a melee capability and more stability to counter its weakness in roaming.
Revenant can support a Zerg as well as any guard with jalis/ventari and roaming have many options, not sure about after PT nerf but we’ll see.
Druid brings a lot of healing to a zerg as well as stun breaks and with longbow plenty of ranged pressure, small groups this support will be unmatched (see the last ESL) and solo it’s no worse than before.

T2. These are the ones I feel have improved in their role and might have a few more options in the other aspects (whether it be zerging, small group or solo) but generally are still niche.
Engineer is probably going to be a roaming nightmare with scrapper and all the CC with high regen and good stealth access and detection.
Elementalist is still great however I feel its role has been diminished by how much better other classes can perform various functions of it. Druid heals more and provides AoE CC and with meteor being the major damage but high cast I expect zergs to drop down to 1-2 eles. Roaming it can still compete and tempest offers a little more flavour to small groups.
Mesmer is improved in roaming but the wells are worse than spamming mantra of pain for damage. It’s become great at non stealth roaming and the chrono line brings many improvements to class weaknesses in that area, still niche in zerging and alacrity will mess up times/inconsistent.

T3. These are classes where not a whole lot has changed. It doesn’t mean they’re bad it’s just they got left behind in some ways.
Warrior, berserker might open up some more burn condi roaming options and allow for the niche of kills hot warrior in focus groups. It’s still good for warbanner but in general I think other classes are needed more.
Thief is in largely the same place but got the option to trade stealth for dodges. It’s still a great roamer but daredevil only expanded the options with maybe a slight improvement depending on build. Maybe a marauder build might do well, we’llhave to see. I think it’s borderline T2 but I just don’t have enough experience with DD to comment further.

After a while now looks like Chronomancer and Reaper are clearly the toughest of the new elites.

Reaper may be slow getting places but is a total beast. Chronomancer is ridiculously hard to nail down and when it wants to run even my DareDevil with a shortbow couldn’t keep up. Tack on a ton of stealth and nice burst… ouch.