Guild Wars 2

With my necromancer recently completed, I’m looking for a new class to start gearing up for wvw. My necro tends to be a slow class whose power comes from grouping up with others and whittling down health. I figure the opposite of that is a roamer.

What classes are good at roaming (that aren’t thieves because apparently everyone gets upset when they die to a thief)?

I’m biased in I think engineers are awesome, but I recommend an engineer. You can have permanent swiftness up with kit switching and good surviability from potions. There is also many CC options, myself when I use rifle/flame thrower.

If you want to roam at maximum potential, roll a thief or a d/d ele. None of the other classes come close to total (solo) roaming potential just because of the sheer mobility and potential to choose your fights.

If you don’t care about being as good as possible, then just play whatever looks fun to you.

dreztina.4820:

sheer mobility and potential to choose your fights.

Quoted because this is what roaming is really about. You don’t need a profession that can win fair fights, you want a profession that never has to fight fair. Mobility means only engaging in fights you know you’re going to win.

Well a d/d can avoid fights for sure in most cases and has speed to get around the map fast

dreztina.4820:

If you want to roam at maximum potential, roll a thief or a d/d ele. None of the other classes come close to total (solo) roaming potential just because of the sheer mobility and potential to choose your fights.

If you don’t care about being as good as possible, then just play whatever looks fun to you.

definitely agree with thief/ele, IMO warrior can also work.

Thief/DD elementalist/GS banner warrior

There may be more classes but these 3 are the only ones I played with roaming potential.

Shea.3572:

I’m biased in I think engineers are awesome, but I recommend an engineer. You can have permanent swiftness up with kit switching and good surviability from potions. There is also many CC options, myself when I use rifle/flame thrower.

now is a bad time to roll an engi. hit up the engi subforum. recent threads are mostly asking for anet’s intentions and warning people away. wait for buffs.

Insanemaniac really? I’ll have to take a gander at the forums. I just dusted off my engie the past day and didn’t have any trouble in wvwvw. I think mainly since my build was buffed slightly with the sigil in regards how I play and I haven’t seen any negatives tot he nerfs. Thanks for the heads up I’ll check it out.

well, last patch hit the best dps build really hard, bugfixed our support into oblivion, and previous patches have nerfed bunkers and conditions to mediocrity. engis excel at nothing any more. better to roll a class that does. unless youre playing for the steampunk flavor. no other class can match the flavor of engis.

Insanemaniac,

I have to disagree, my flame thrower engineer does well:

1.) Damage:
My #1 attack does 1,500-2,000 direct dmg from a full stream to all the targets it hits. This is followed by a burn for some more dmg.
My #2 attack does 3-5k dmg upon exploding
Traits that give me ability to cause vulnerability for each crit & cause burning.
Runes that take advantage of burning.
2.) CC:
Flame thrower #3 – Frontal knock back
Flame thrower #5 – AoE Blind
Rifle #4 – Frontal AoE knockback and gain distance
3.) Surival:
Traits that decrease cool down on elixirs allowing me to re-use them frequently.
Trait turning my small and breaking CC when at 25% for a few seconds.
Also elixir to break CC and turn me invul for a fwe seconds.
Elixir to give turn all conditions to boons.
Ability to throw elixirs and remove conditions.
Racial (Sylvari) plant a’bunch of turrets giving me more dmg in my area and also giving me those extra seconds of invul.

Now I apologize for being too lazy to look up the elixir names and I realize the sylvari elite isn’t engineeer specific, but the point I am making is that maybe some builds are broken now. Though definitely not all and I consider engineer to be a class to be reconded with.

For roaming I suggest finding:

1. A build that can reasonably stand toe to toe v a roaming Thief, you’ll meet many

2. A build that can solo camps

Bonus points if your build is good underwater.

Shea.3572:

Insanemaniac,

I have to disagree, my flame thrower engineer does well:

1.) Damage:
My #1 attack does 1,500-2,000 direct dmg from a full stream to all the targets it hits. This is followed by a burn for some more dmg.
My #2 attack does 3-5k dmg upon exploding
Traits that give me ability to cause vulnerability for each crit & cause burning.
Runes that take advantage of burning.
2.) CC:
Flame thrower #3 – Frontal knock back
Flame thrower #5 – AoE Blind
Rifle #4 – Frontal AoE knockback and gain distance
3.) Surival:
Traits that decrease cool down on elixirs allowing me to re-use them frequently.
Trait turning my small and breaking CC when at 25% for a few seconds.
Also elixir to break CC and turn me invul for a fwe seconds.
Elixir to give turn all conditions to boons.
Ability to throw elixirs and remove conditions.
Racial (Sylvari) plant a’bunch of turrets giving me more dmg in my area and also giving me those extra seconds of invul.

Now I apologize for being too lazy to look up the elixir names and I realize the sylvari elite isn’t engineeer specific, but the point I am making is that maybe some builds are broken now. Though definitely not all and I consider engineer to be a class to be reconded with.

anyone does fine in wvw when they have experience to back them up… with any build. you have the advantage of a lack of knowledge. you have the advantage of being 80 against upleveled. etc.

but try tpvp or 30+ fractals. and then this post will make more sense:

Thenoob.1480:

The basics of the engineer are: you play at 100% to match others at 80%.

as for your anecdotal evidence:
for 1, rifle auto does about 2-3x the dps. it doesnt take 2 secs to go off. it has double the range. you should be using FT auto only for crit procs and gates/thin walls. not for its damage.
for 2, you dont really need the cc in pve (or the enemy is immune), and in pvp/wvw its great against pugs but any serious pvper will have stability on demand.
for 3… yeah S is great. and i dont tend to bother with condition removal. medkits usually enough. however, requiring a 20 point trait to make tossed elixirs worth ANYTHING is ridiculous. because all but 1 tossed elixir grants a random effect. unpredictable is terrible design.

Tulisin.6945:

dreztina.4820:

sheer mobility and potential to choose your fights.

Quoted because this is what roaming is really about. You don’t need a profession that can win fair fights, you want a profession that never has to fight fair. Mobility means only engaging in fights you know you’re going to win.

Well as a Thief and d/d Ele I can win any fight, so I only engage when I want to. Has nothing to do with only choosing fights I think I can win because I can win them all with both, every now and then I loose to a well played Thief or Ele.

Tulisin.6945:

dreztina.4820:

sheer mobility and potential to choose your fights.

Quoted because this is what roaming is really about. You don’t need a profession that can win fair fights, you want a profession that never has to fight fair. Mobility means only engaging in fights you know you’re going to win.

I solo roam with my ele, and my favorite fights are 1v2, 1v3, 1v4… And I never know if I will win those fights, the only fights i try to avoid are 1v5 +. So I disagree with your “fair fight” argument, but you are right that, if we need to run away, we can usually get away.

I solo roam with my guardian, not very mobile but I can kill all the other roaming thieves and eles so it doesn’t really matter. Just have to make sure to avoid zergs.

Solo roaming with a warrior is very viable too, just make sure to carry a greatsword and whirlwind attack away then rush. Might wanna carry consumables that restore hp on crit aswell.

Make a Mesmer!

…oh wait…

Any class as long as you’re good with it and can win 1v1s with thieves. Personally, I can do that with almost any class but engy because I never played them.

From what I played, my Mesmer is great at it.

My Guardian not so much. Worst escape mechanics. So if you get in a fight over your head or run into a zerg. It’s fight or die. With you dead most of the time.

Mesmer is not bad… i run solo on mine a bit and stir up some kitten.

I would go Thief or Elementalist… both have heaps of getaway tricks if the situation starts going south.

I do it on a guardian. zergs are the worst of your troubles.

If you build smart and play well you’ll win most any 1v1 except the mobility options are low. Thieves dont bother you and you can kinda ROFLstomp most of em. So can warriors, and a good warrior can just about outrun anyone actually.

I would suggest Warriors and Eles. They get a lot of love from Devs.

Thieves are definitely the best roamers if you like playing solo, but I’ve had a lot of trouble catching ele’s with their mist form and ride the lightning, so maybe you should try that.

Aieo.2815:

Thief/DD elementalist/GS banner warrior

There may be more classes but these 3 are the only ones I played with roaming potential.

The warrior can be a great roamer with sword/warhorn as second weapon set. Permanent swiftness, sword-2 is a great leap to get in or out of fights, the horn also can remove conditions.

Warrior.

Sword/warhorn with bulls charge. Warhorn build for constant speed, and if you need to get out of trouble sword 2 and bulls charge puts a huge distance away from attackers and you won’t get caught.
Keep “shake it off” in traits and skills with mending to clean off cripples and you should be good.

Thief and Ele are simply by far the best. If your intent is to be the best kitten roamer you can be, picking any other profession is just silly.

D/D ele is fantastic, incredible mobility and very strong against multiple foes. I went a norn so I also have Snow Leopard as my elite (stealth+dash) which has saved me so so so many times against the masses. I also play a mesmer which can roam very well but I feel it requires centaur runes to do so (pretty much permanent swiftness). I would sueggest the ele though as it is very fun too.

Necros are the bane of ele. I believe a well played necro can beat any class 1v1. If you want to annoy those pesky roamers you should stick with necro :O