Guild Wars 2

fadeaway.2807:

WIWith the dominance of range, i’m surprised many people suggest warrior.

warrior is not necessiarily a melee class. it has a number of ranged dps options.

in fact there are no melee or ranged classes in gw2, there are just classes that have ranged and melee options to varying extents*

*i’m aware engi and ele don’t really have fully melee (160-300) range options, but they do have short ranged melee ish options.

warrior outfitted with long bow or rifle or both is very effective in wvw. perhaps one of the best group oriented dps focused classes for wvw there is, depending on your strat, and the spec of the warrior.

yes you can have a completely ranged warrior, and it’s very effective in wvw.

now some might argue that guardian does not have viable ranged skills, bu the guardians in my guild are quite effective with them, and count amongst our best wvw players.

I am an altoholic and in my experience Mesmers and Thieves have the edge in utility, escapability and firepower.

Mesmers utility includes pulling people off walls and portals whilst they have confusion and reflection in large scale fighting and if you are in a one 1v1 what class is more annoying to face?

Thieves have Shadows Refuge and due to their speed skills/traits are tremendous scouts.

In 1v1 their massive stealth burst damage wins before their opponent even knows they are fighting and Shortbow is OP in large battles especially if it explodes mid air.

Elementalists are also good.

All other classes need ANet to make them more relevant

As an aside I play WvW alot and pretty much everyone that plays as much as I use a Ele, Thief or Mesmer for WvW

Mesmer and Elementalist in my opinion.

Mesmer = king of team support with their portals.

Elementalist = AOE FTW if 2h Staff. If D/D or S/D than you can roll 2v1 majority of the times.

Interesting how people genuinely seem to think warrior ranged options are decent. I find arcing shot to be a terrible version of cluster, and combustion to be almost useless if another warrior or even burn ele has a similar plan.

Long story short… All the classes have strengths and weaknesses. All are very effective if the player plays it well. On the other hand… if ya suck at the game, playing a thief or warrior would be the way to go. Not saying they’re OP, just saying… they’re easy classes to be good at, lol.
Thief- stealth allot, backstab, and spam the 2 button.
Warrior- stun a bunch, use hundred blades.
All other classes… Well, would take too long to list how to play any of them effectively.

edit- neither of those classes even need to bother with weapon swap to be effective, lol. Either one can win with 3-4 buttons. I’m not trolling, I’m being honest. It’s that easy.

Guardians and Mesmers are really the only classes that can change the outcome of battles in WvW.

Pistol engineers are lethal against clumps of enemies, just wall suppression will be more difficult.

Narkosys.5173:

The thief sucks for WvW now that we have been nerfed into the ground and expect further nerfs till there is no thief class left.
So I run my engi which destroys everything and is in reality OP.

Mesmers and Warriors are also very good.

I’ve been playing Mesmer since beta, I’m quite good at it and best most any other Mesmer I come across. Tonight I saw a Thief on my team that put my Mesmer to complete shame.

If you want to be simultaneously unkillable and a killing machine, the clear choice is Thief. Mesmer or Elementalist is a distant second choice.

The highest ranked WvW servers have a ton of Thieves; coincidence?

How do you know that last part to be true, erebus?
That said, i wonder how much of the thief answers to this thread are because of rendering issues… I hope they don’t get nerfed too badly before the technical issue is fixed.

The problem with previous comments is that they focus on one special situation and then generalize it. This makes it sound like some professions are much better than they actually are. Peak performance does not equal average performance.

The best example for this is Mesmer. Peak performance: great. You can Portal people inside the keep. You can teleport Golems. You can teleport your voice comm guildies.
Average performance? Just how often does keep-portalling succeed for you personally? I’ve done it once in a lifetime, few other times I tried I’ve been found and killed. How much time do you sit in a keep, idling, waiting? Then, how often do you really teleport golems? And when your group is teleporting golems, are there enough mesmers already and do you feel wasted?

With Feedback, how often does this give satisfying results? Peak performance of Feedback is great. At choke points, the skill is amazing. But how often in your playtime do you fight at choke points? For me, out of 100 uses of Feedback, one might be at a choke point. Other times damage is average to useless.

Temporal Curtain. Oh wow this skill is super-cool… yeah.. Peak performance? Fun. You can pull few people down, maybe push them off the cliff. How often does this happen in practice? Almost never. People learned you can pull them down. I don’t know how it is on low tier servers but in tier2 enemies are just not stupid enough to stand on top of the tower. Some professions like Engineer or Ranger don’t even need to. The best use of this skill is when fighting people in jumping puzzles. And even then it won’t kill them, they will fall into water.

And before someone says I’m biased: Mesmer is my main profession, has been since GW1. I am merely trying to give unbiased opinion based on my own experience (might as well be wrong).

There is a huge difference in Mesmer performance between small-scale warfare and bigger battles. 1 on 1 you’re good to go, 20 on 20 and I’d recommend some other profession. But since this is WvW and not sPvP, I don’t think 1 on 1 performance is that important unless someone specifically requests a roaming profession.

fadeaway.2807:

WIWith the dominance of range, i’m surprised many people suggest warrior.

I wouldn’t suggest Warrior, but I disagree with the dominance of range.

GW2 WvW is the exact same as large-scale PvP in every MMORPG ever released:

Ranged classes start fights and manipulate fights, where melee break fights and end fights.

No fight is ever finished by ranged pew pew classes running away to heal up. No standoff is ever broken.

Mesmer or Ele.

Elementalist can equip a staff and defend/assault a structure and be incredibly useful with meteor storm/healing rain/static field, and then switch to D/D for smaller fights and become a monster.

The best example for this is Mesmer. Peak performance: great. You can Portal people inside the keep. You can teleport Golems. You can teleport your voice comm guildies.
Average performance? Just how often does keep-portalling succeed for you personally?

Every day.

You need to be more creative / more dynamic about it, and your teammates need to be faster and more mobile.

How much time do you sit in a keep, idling, waiting?

Depends which keep and what situation. I’ve sat in keeps between 2 minutes and 30 minutes (that one was epic btw, I swear the enemy thought were were hacking, because it was one of the most slick portals ever — people on our server even asked if we hacked because they couldn’t believe we had a Mesmer in the keep).

Then, how often do you really teleport golems?

Every time we have a golem squad.

And when your group is teleporting golems, are there enough mesmers already and do you feel wasted?

No, because 5 portals aren’t enough for golems as well as bombing. And if we really have that many Mesmers doing portals, I can always swap that utility slot for something else (WOW!).

It’s not like Mesmers are at a lack of incredibly powerful Utility slot abilities like Feedback, Blink or Null Field.

With Feedback, how often does this give satisfying results?

At a cooldown of under 1 minute, and a rate of 50%, I’d say every 2 minutes.

But how often in your playtime do you fight at choke points?

All the time?

If you’re hitting a keep, you’re at chokepoints all over (gate, wall, more gates, lord room tunnel, lord room itself). If you’re in the open field, someone is turtling, which is automatic Feedback bait as far as I’m concerned.

How often does the enemy use portals? All the kittening time (just like we do). How often should you be dropping a Feedback on enemy portals? Every single time.

engineers with grenades can really help maintain pressure against defenders in towers by spamming grenades. Ofc eles and rangers will have stronger aoe, but we have consistent aoe damage (as well as 1 spike and a few condi ones). :p go engineers! \m/ I’d reckon a rifle engineer is better in wvw, but I still can’t find a decent rifle (and it kinda clashes with my playstyle :P)

Mesmer,

because anything other classes can do, Mesmer do better.

They can do anything other can do.

Yes they can!

Do not chose classes which are for now OP because when a nerf will come, you will be disapointed by a class in which you did not like the mechanism but the strenght.

The best for you is to try every class in WvW for about 1 or 2 hours and to choose by yourself. Every class are really different, so it is easy to find yours.

I have 5 different 80s.

Ele, really fun offensively in a large group. Fast.
Mesmer, can go offensive or defensive (glamour). Really slow.
Ranger, good in any sized group. Reasonably fast.
Necro, same as ranger…can do anything.
Guardian best overall in small groups. Limited range options can get frustrating in zerg vs zerg range standoffs.

If I’m completely solo queuing and have no idea what to expect, necro and ranger are great in any situation. The other classes are much more min/maxed and shine in the right situations.

@lanervan Thank you for your awesome, unbiased feedback. I am leveling my Elementalist now.

@Everyone, Good info! Great opinions!

Altaholic…I didn’t think there was a word for it, but I guess I am one.

However, I have a mad passion for my Guardian. She’s currently playing a support build. Focused on Healing and Toughness. She uses a Staff, and Mace/Shield, for giving protection to mass allies, and Might to mass allies, as well as healing and keeping people alive.

I rolled her with that build as a direct counter to thieves that try to use the same general “Omg glass cannon build” and kill me, or my friends. (Inb4 hate posts directed at me for talking about thieves in a negative light. I want no part of that song and dance.) I don’t think thieves are Imbalanced, since even in my DPS build I’ve never had real trouble with one omgspiking me, but with this build, I can comfortably take on several people.

2 Thieves tried to gank me in the jumping puzzle when I was getting my daily drops from the chest, and they both summoned thief support and did the whole backstab deal, and I still managed to escape them. (Not kill them, I literally don’t do enough damage to kill them, since I run in groups of friends/guildies/ Randoms if necessary)

I can’t stand the concept of not getting tags because you were supporting or healing instead of doing damage…

hi i’m also an altaholic and i want to focus on WvW.

i want to focus more on small scale skirmishes (because my pc is kitten), i’ve read some of the suggestions above but they are for large scale sieges and zergVSzerg’s

I have a 80 tank axe&shield shout heal warrior, and a tanky mesmer.

For solo queue mesmer is great, I just standing around in bad positions waiting for thieves to attack, can escape from just about anything and decoy finishing is pain free.

when 2 zergs are at a stalemate theres nothing better then just charging with a giant norn warrior and having everyone follow and smashing through the lines and destroying the enemies. Warriors are fun and visceral but you have 0 escapes, if you get jumped by a group on the way somewhere, it isn’t going to end well.

when you do that on a mes no one follows you, they just stand around wait for portal.

Happyfool.8951:

hi i’m also an altaholic and i want to focus on WvW.

i want to focus more on small scale skirmishes (because my pc is kitten), i’ve read some of the suggestions above but they are for large scale sieges and zergVSzerg’s

Hands down.. the thief. If you end up getting zerged, they can never catch you. Fighting outnumbered, you can stealth to do your finishers all day long. Also, a thief can drop most average players in just a few seconds, even with a fairly defensive build.

fadeaway.2807:

I can’t stand the concept of not getting tags because you were supporting or healing instead of doing damage…

This +1, it would get me back to my guard so fast.

And yes i know i can spec dps my guard.

think if you heal, when those you healed for x ammount should extend the tag

ie i heal x player for whatever the tag amount is when they tag someone it counts for me too. Then again this gonna make ELEs even more tagalicious than currently but idc

I have to tell you:

Even tho Necromancers are really broken ( mean even their + heal doesn’t scale as it should do not go for this stat!) I love playing it in WvW.

Then again, it’s the only character at level 80 that I’ve played, and she’s full exotic now. Very few things can take me down one on one.

I play a very supportive necromancer, which gives all of my mates healz <3 (even if they don’t scale :P)

merry.3247:

ranger long bow , full berserker and you can insta kill ppl from 1500, ele is not friendly beginner at all, mesmer stinks when it comes to chase your ennemy, warrior is just not a solo class, guardian same thing than warrior, thief most oped class in this game but so so so boring to play after a day or two, necro lol why does this class even exist yet ? only good at sticking a zerg and feeling pretty useless, engineer can insta kill thing with grenade barrage and big oil bomb sync but then you are pretty much dead cuz this class has no dodge skills at all

to sum up : thief 1st choice for kitten ranger second choice for kitten 3rd choice for kitten none

you are so incorrect about engineer i almost feel the need to blunderbuss you. yeah we do a lot of damage, and yes theres a steep learning curve to this class, buuuuut once you find out how to get over the curve, (i mean it takes 2-3 people to down me) you’re basically spitting lead.

Guardians are key when fighting outnumbered. Our wall of reflection and bubbles are almost a necessity when coming under heavy enemy fire

Schwahrheit.4203:

Mesmer is the most broken class in-game. You are simply garbage if you can’t carry with this broken class. Seriously can’t wait til it gets nerfed to balance so enjoy it for now.

Hate to say it, but yes in WVW Mesmer is the most brokenly op class there is.

People will rage, but that’s just the truth. I hate thieves backstab, but honestly mesmers need to be balanced before anything else gets changed. Then they can balance thieves etc.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Schwahrheit.4203:

Mesmer is the most broken class in-game. You are simply garbage if you can’t carry with this broken class. Seriously can’t wait til it gets nerfed to balance so enjoy it for now.

Hate to say it, but yes in WVW Mesmer is the most brokenly op class there is.

People will rage, but that’s just the truth. I hate thieves backstab, but honestly mesmers need to be balanced before anything else gets changed. Then they can balance thieves etc.

people base the OP of mesmer on staff and sword/pistol mesmers. that’s quite possibly the dumbest thing ever. they’re SO easy to kill.

If you want to accumulate badges, don’t go elementalist.
If you make him tanky, you don’t dish out enough damage. If you go dps you will just die quickly since it’s got super low base hp and no armor.

Thief or Mesmer or maybe warrior are the way to go for badge farming.

Elementilist is the best WvW class out there, its a bit OP really, i mean it has everything, and all it takes to play it well is a brain. so requisition one from the supply Sargent and get to killing soldier

ComeAndSee.1356:

Guardians and Mesmers are really the only classes that can change the outcome of battles in WvW.

this person has a good understanding of the wvw meta.

you are battling for ground in wvw, and there are two methods to get it. short cut with mesmer, or brute force with guardian. you are kidding yourself if you think any other class is as good a pusher as guardian, or better at shortcutting than mesmer.

Necromancers are easily the most important class in WvW for their superiority in zerg vs zerg battles.

Example: I can stack 16-18 bleeds in a few seconds by myself, if a guardian pops “save yourselves” I can corrupt that into a whole heap of Aids, and then epidemic every single thing to a large group. After the initial epidemic I just pick one target who is already infected by the Aids bomb, and stack more bleeds until it is time for another epidemic.

I am a badge farming machine with 1600+ cond dmg, and no one really targets me because people still don’t understand how OP necros are.

Mindvibe.4630:

ComeAndSee.1356:

Guardians and Mesmers are really the only classes that can change the outcome of battles in WvW.

this person has a good understanding of the wvw meta.

you are battling for ground in wvw, and there are two methods to get it. short cut with mesmer, or brute force with guardian. you are kidding yourself if you think any other class is as good a pusher as guardian, or better at shortcutting than mesmer.

Elementalist in the right hands is a better pusher than guardian. It’s jut there’s not that many good ones out there.

Staff Elementist are just amazing when it comes to taking down that pesky arrow cart and ranger on the roof, but when it comes to overall effectiveness the Mesmer is unmatched to be honest, no competition.
Mesmers can save your server allies a hour on the Eternal JP, portal bomb, yank people off of roofs, improve golem movement, make golems attack faster and kite for days if you want to.

I’m a Mesmer and we are by far an OP-Face Roll class.
A bad mesmer is easy to kill, and it takes a lot to be a good mesmer.

We come with portals, 10 seconds of quickness and a whole array of good weapons to pick from, so pick Mesmer if you want to be the cherry on top, but make sure you go in with the knowledge that we’re not an easy class to play.

@Latinkuro This is not a rage about balance thread, there are plenty of those. This is about what class you enjoy! Please stay on topic <3

FrozeNuggz.7219:

Elementilist is the best WvW class out there, its a bit OP really, i mean it has everything, and all it takes to play it well is a brain. so requisition one from the supply Sargent and get to killing soldier

The single best thing i find my Ele is good for is roaming as D/D. Fast travel and decent 1v1 ability if built tanky. D/D is close to useless in a zerg situation however.

Ele AOE is very overrated IMO, the 5-enemy cap means it’s really only good for killing siege. The support (heals + control) aspect of staff is IMO far more powerful. Staff is really frustratingly bad in a single target/1v1 situation as almost every attack is AOE… IMO it’s a very poorly designed weapon.

Overall Ele is a decent choice for WVW support but for killing stuff in a ranged standoff it’s really not very effective unless you go full glass cannon and don’t mind being 1- and 2-shotted by everything (ps: it’s not fun).

If you want to roll over people – Thief or Mesmer. If you choose one of those classes only because they are so overpowered in PvP then I await your future crying when they get nerfed.

As for having fun with it, whatever suits your playstyle.

Wreck.2634:

@Latinkuro This is not a rage about balance thread, there are plenty of those. This is about what class you enjoy! Please stay on topic <3

Yet most of the answers have nothing to do with what class a person enjoys, but which class is OP / has the most impact.

Thief- Best Skrimisher. While his durability is questionable at best, they can be amazing at moving in, doing damage, and then retreating before the enemy knows what’s going on. Having them in the pre-cursor to a major push can heavily soften the enemy, especially with dagger storm.

Mesmer- Best utility. Already said before, portal, null field, etc.

Warrior/Ranger Best atop the wall defenders. 1500 makes a much bigger difference when 600 of that is the wall downwards.

Guardian- Group protection, and pushing

Ele- Siege buster

Necro: I dunno, haven’t looked close enough at the class

Engie: Offensive siege support. Great at creating an area that’s comparatively safe with healing turret regen, med kits, and turrets galore.

Lightsbane.9012:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Schwahrheit.4203:

Mesmer is the most broken class in-game. You are simply garbage if you can’t carry with this broken class. Seriously can’t wait til it gets nerfed to balance so enjoy it for now.

Hate to say it, but yes in WVW Mesmer is the most brokenly op class there is.

People will rage, but that’s just the truth. I hate thieves backstab, but honestly mesmers need to be balanced before anything else gets changed. Then they can balance thieves etc.

people base the OP of mesmer on staff and sword/pistol mesmers. that’s quite possibly the dumbest thing ever. they’re SO easy to kill.

Just so you know I’m not one of those that just thinks mesmer is op. I have a mesmer, he is OP. That’s not even up for debate. Thief is OP when you do a backstab build, but if you actually want to play a non gimmick build they are weak. I don’t know how they plan to balance that nightmare.

With my mesmer, I just don’t think they can balance it. s/p is stupidly broken by the way.

Mesmer and thief are currently the best. I’d give the nod overall to mesmer for the added utility, but a thief is better at gibbing stragglers.

I mostly play an engineer, and a grenade specced engineer is decent at defense and zerg vs zerg standoffs, but if your idea of an engineer is ‘turrets’ then don’t bother, you will be extremely disappointed. Turrets die very fast, have a limited range, tend to shoot at things you don’t care about, and have long cool downs making them very frustrating to use (they are handy to use while operating siege weaponry though).

Antiriad.7160:

If you want to accumulate badges, don’t go elementalist.
If you make him tanky, you don’t dish out enough damage. If you go dps you will just die quickly since it’s got super low base hp and no armor.

Thief or Mesmer or maybe warrior are the way to go for badge farming.

Lol, 600 badges and counting in 3 weeks on my ele. 1500 wvw kill, etc. When I RTL into an enemy group for every attack I see red numbers of 2k+ popping up and my churning earth finisher crits for about 8k. Oh and unlike other high burst/spike classes all my attacks are AoE so I’m doing all this damage to 3-5 people.

^ lies. feel free to post a video to prove me wrong though.

i don’t doubt that you can get those numbers with a full glass build, however you’d be getting insta-gibbed right after, and won’t be collecting any badges as a result.

Kuthos.9623:

Mindvibe.4630:

ComeAndSee.1356:

Guardians and Mesmers are really the only classes that can change the outcome of battles in WvW.

this person has a good understanding of the wvw meta.

you are battling for ground in wvw, and there are two methods to get it. short cut with mesmer, or brute force with guardian. you are kidding yourself if you think any other class is as good a pusher as guardian, or better at shortcutting than mesmer.

Elementalist in the right hands is a better pusher than guardian. It’s jut there’s not that many good ones out there.

any time someone says another class “if played well” beats another class, it doesnt. the guardian skillset is designed for pushing with almost every weapon choice. spamming aoe damage does not equate to pushing. you can jump into 20 people and make them move on a guardian. you can jump into 20 people and respawn on an elementalist. we both know unless youre in someones face with any class, they arent moving. in a 50v50 ranged battle in south borderlands ruins, as im sure every server has had the unfortunate experince of seeing, the battle never goes anywhere. its back and forth kiting around the ruins, with very very few people ever dying. you throw 1 guardian on either team, and the other is suddenly pushed to their tower within 5 minutes. its not a coincidence. sure the meteor showers hurt, and people will inevitably die to aoes, but as much as people say ranged are op in wvw etc, they really arent. you want melee on your team to bully the other zerg around. if no one hard engages on the other zerg, group, whatever, the fight is always a stalemate. theyll shoot lasers at each other for hours with no real progress.

other classes can push, its not guardian specific. guardian has by far the best skillset for doing it. especially so if factoring in the cooldowns on those skills.

I enjoy the warrior, mainly for the flexibility in play style. I can give support, or go more offensive/defensive or do all at once without much sacrifice. IF you can learn the playing curve you will enjoy WvW as a warrior a LOT.