Guild Wars 2

For winning fights against 5 other players and up to 10 unorganized pugs, making ppt based plays (sieging, desieging, using golems), and all other purposes.

5 men are a roaming party. I think 2 thieves, 2 mesmrs (good roamers and can port golems) and maybe a warrior with condi tank build to sit in rams

It’s been discussed before.
A 5v5 is alot different than fighting larger unorganized groups, but it generally goes something like:
2 guardians (25 might, stab, prot, cleanses, heals)
1 d/d , d/f ,, s/d or s/f ele (burst, fury, auras)
1 warrior (swiftness, fury, cc, warbanner)
1 engie, mesmer, thief or necro

Remember that when fighting a 5v5 both groups will generally focus one target till it’s down so having something like a necro that can’t escape/stealh/be immune is generally a bad idea.

In contrast, if you are fighting some unorganized pug group having a zerker necro or zerker medi guard is devastating and when properly setup will down 5 people in one push.

inb4 someone says 5 of X class, which never ever works, except for some giggles.

basically what maskaganda said. Most effective team (at killing everyone else) I ever saw was 2 shatter mesmers, 2 guardians and 1 D/D ele

1x bleedstack condi ranger
1x condimancer with epidemic
1x DPS mediguard
1x healshout warrior (hammer + axe/sword and warhorn)
1x perplexity condi mesmer (with portal)

Reasoning behind this setup:
The ranger is there primarily as the “focus” player alongside the guardian. Ranger can apply more damaging conditions faster then ANY other class (takes mere 7 seconds to reach 22 stacks of bleeds if you do it right), however the ranger cannot apply this amound indefinetively, as enemies will hopefully know by now that allowing any ranger to pewpew is bad. So here comes necromancer with epidemic, and BANG, all enemies get 22 stacks of bleeds, some poison, and whatever else you stacked onto the first target. Granted how a ranger can quickly stack up lots of bleed, we can safely assume that the stack then epidemic combo will work aslong as there is a driver calling targets or the ranger + necro is able to cooperate between themselves.
Ive found that with the amount of boon ripping going on in small scale fights ( necros, mesmers, thieves seems to be plentiful), trying to maintain stability is futile, so instead of maintaining our footing, we opt to maintain our HP, this is where the healshout warrior comes in, by using monk runes the warrior can easily heal its allies for 2.2-3k depending on build. Couple that with AOE CC and the ability to remove conditions through warhorn, we got ourselves a solid support unit.
The mesmer should preferably run conditions to further boost the effect of epidemic, but mantras could be useful, especially the AOE stunbreak one. Ive found that while underrated, mantra mesmer with healing enabled is actually very handy, perhaps not the most threatening thing on the planet, but a force to be reconed with behind the scenes.

If you swear towards a more power based setup then this is probably the better choice:
2x Longbow Glass Rangers (for ranged spike)
2x DD or SD thieves (for melee range and stealthing the rangers when they get in trouble)
1x minionmancer (wait wut? minions? why? – because when you are all glass, you cannot eat AOE – solution, minions eat AOE instead and you can keep fighting against pug groups of 10 with staff eles and wellomancers trying to kill you)

3 Medi guards
1 Thief
1 Zerker necro

Medi guards get up close a personal, thief baby sits the necro until the badies are busy dealing with guardians, necro waists all of them with lich form and a well bomb, end of fight.

5v5s are not like 1v1s or zerg battles, winning a 5v5 is all about every one having huge dps, being sure you down one of their players in under 5 seconds and an unholy amount of target focus. A party wasting space with healers will loose to brute damage consistently, sure you might win the first fight but once the zerkers realize you have a healer crutch then they can just focus him down and then dps bomb you when your whole party jumps on him to try and rez. Trust me, [shot] from BG tried this for about 3 months after they came to T1, they never could get it to work with any consistency, and they are one of the best organized havoc guilds I ever fought.

While I posted a spec, most team comps will work to one extent or another as long as every one can do very large amounts of dps, 5v5s are more about the individuals being very comfortable with their class, and their positioning.

That said I would avoid.

DPS Ele: generally just to easy to bring an ele down, low hp and bad healing (at least for being focused) make it a first class first target to burst and get a quick “free” down.

Healers of any kind: There isn’t a monk in GW2, think about it from a numbers perspective, can your healer build out heal a zerker build of any class…..no……..not even close GW1 sure but not hear its 2015, drop the healer idea already.

Low burst/aoe condi specs: Mesmer, Ranger and Ele all have low overall condi damage they might be great in 1v1 (I play condi regen ranger, its 100% op in 1v1s) but this isn’t a 1v1 you need either really fast application (Theif and Warrior) or really good aoe (Necro and Engie) without those you aren’t going to be as good for your team as just taking another medi guard. Ranger and Ele can get a bit of a pass because they are the most focused classes and can make great decoys/tanks.

Your party spec really should be dictated by what your fighting, sit down think about your opponents and counter them.

Me plus 4 others.

most of time 2/5 are guardians. The rest can be whatevers. But i’m the best so there is no need for a 5 man group!

Healers are not bad for a 5 man team, but you cannot spec for ONLY healing, that wont work. A warrior can easily be effective with healshout by just bringing 500 healing power, which is something that isn`t that hard to achieve (200 from traits, clerics amulet + monk runes and you are pretty much set).
Previously, many would use HPOT healers such as guardians, which heals little by little with either symbols, weapon skills or utility skills. Unfortunately, against spike damage, your best bet is burst healing, at which warrior, engineer and DD ele is very adept at. The ability to within an instant just outright deny a spike by supplementing 4-9k healing, without using a healing skill, is more often then not more efficient then trying to maintain someones HP high.
Best example of of spike heal vs HPOT heal can be seen in rangers. Most of their healing is HPOT, subsequently, they have few or no methods to effectively heal other then sitting things out, this is why rangers struggle against thief and shatter mesmer if they cannot prepare for the incoming attack. On the contrary, engineer and elementalist have very bad HPOT heal (yes they can heal pretty good with HPOT but nowhere near that of ranger or warrior, so lets not get carried away with semantics). Instead ele and engi relies on multiple sources of direct healing. such as blasting waterfields, heal on attunement/toolbelt skills, heal on dodge/elixirs. These sources of healing allows them to constantly mitigate bursts, and while the heals are not strong, they are usually strong enough to heal for more HP then the attacker does to you. Coupled with protection, and you got a very efficient way to regain your HP.
HOWEVER, these types of heal, is again weak to sustained damage, simply due to sustained damage being a constant source, thus you must use your heals wisely or else you will not be able to outheal the incoming damage. .

5 Zerk thieves!
:D

I never struggled vs mesmers and thieves. As a condi ranger, they are the easiest to kill. A pu mesmer would be a lot easier considering how effective i can cleanse condis and how ican burst aoe’s on them using my spirit active skills. I wouldnt choose any class to roam with as long as they realky understand how to play their class.

SilverWF.4789:

5 Zerk thieves!
:D

Perfect party, until you meet a party with a trap ranger or staff ele. Then not so effective anymore.

5 cele eles will wreck everything.

Idk if this is any help, but here are some 3-man specs, we run on lower tier roaming/zerg wiping.

1) Tanky Tanky
- Dps warri [0-0-6-2-6] -> crowd control and dps
- Condi warri [0-6-6-2-0]-> keep the dots on, use stances to mitigate
- Medi guard [2-0-6-6-0]-> burst + sustain

Dps and control will keep you alive. You are fast and you are resilient, but you can still focus down most any other groups, your limits on groups will be 10-15. Each of you has the ability to mitigate damage:

• The dps warrior can use his gs to evade regularly, endure pain to become undamageable during the hot of the battle and hammer stuns to control those who are high dps and finish them first. On top of that, should need arise, you can back off very fast through the GS rush and bull’s charge. Similarly you can be upon an enemy in a blink.
• The condi warrior, while being the least mobile of the group, has the highest armour, vitality and overall defence. He also can help out his friends using Battle standard, timing it carefully. Stances are his main way of surviving, yet do not waste them unless you are about to take a lot of dmg. Also don’t activate multiple the same time, that’s a total waste unless you are being assailed by players throwing lots of condi, raw damage AND CC on you. If this is the case, you won’t last either way so you have to take them out or get out. For this player it might be hard to extract from a fight.
• Finally the Meditation guard is an incredibly strong spec (both on the defensive as the offensive) for roaming. He is a valuable asset for this team, healing at the right time, area blinding foes and blocking whenever he’s in danger through Shelter, focus 5 and Renewed Focus. The meditation guard has some incredible sustain, and will still take out targets very fast.

2) Sneaky Sneaky
- Any mesmer -> distract and dps
- Crit thief [d/p – d/d or s/d]-> eliminate targets with low health
- Condi thief -> keep those dots on

This team will mainly work on stealth, distraction and killing large groups through continued attack and retreat, scatter and wipe. The roles of the players should be pretty clear, and the tactics are simple; each of you tries to offset the enemy by vanishing whenever you’re being focused. In turn you will pick off the enemy group one by one. Players will try to save their buddies, focus on the survivors, rinse and repeat. The main defense here will be stealth, that also means AoE is your biggest enemy. Try to stay in the clear, where you don’t have to fight in limited quarters.

3) Bursty spec
- Shatter mes [6-0-4-0-4]
- Burst ele
- Anything that is heavy damage paired with decent mitigation (e.g. the zerk warrior or meditation guard will fit perfectly in this role)

The last spec I really like is one where your victory lies in the element of surprise and consequently swift execution of the enemy. If they manage to recover from the initial surprise, you either push harder or you slip away using the mesmer’s stealth, then bomb them again. So what you want to do is burst down foes in quick succession and hope it is enough, if it’s not… repeat and enjoy. ;D

Sorry, it turned out pretty long, I have given some suggestions as to traits/gear/skills but of course it’s up to you and your mates’ preferences. Also there’s certainly a place for other classes to shine as 4th or 5th player, for example engineers for condi, heal, cc. Rangers and necros are sadly not the best in this area of the game, due to lack of aoe dmg on rangers and lack of mobility on necros. Good players can of course mitigate this through strategic use of abilities.

Pack of medi guards with celestial eles and a necro anchor is ridiculously tough to beat.