Guild Wars 2

Hello
On my Server many Guilds say that Warriors/Guards/Necros are the only Classes who is viable in Zergfights? Is this so?
Why are then the others not Viable?

Because they are lying. Every class has a use in WvW.

Pretty sure they need a Longbow stealth buff before they’re viable in WvW.

To answer your question more exactly. All classes are viable in zerg fights. The only classes that tend to not be wanted as much are thieves and rangers.

Thieves are not as many people play builds better suited to roaming and duels and are quite glassy (rallybots). However, they are excellent squishy killers and general mayhem makers in zerg fights. They can spam poison clouds and effectively stop a regroup by themselves. They also can spike those pesky necros and eles.

Rangers tend to be looked down upon as other professions can handle what a ranger can do to a higher level. This includes CC, water fields, and ranged damage. That said, don’t let it discourage you from playing ranger in a zerg. I don’t know exactly what builds to use, but a melee ranger can be quite good while mixing in CCs such as Entangle. Just be aware that people will probably comment on it. Just live longer than them in the fight and laugh as you grab your loot bags.

That said, guilds tend to have compositions they want filled before having these two last professions played. The Warrior/guard/necro trinity at the moment is the meta and often times people only think those three professions are involved. Each guild is different so try asking around to see what they are looking for. Also, maybe roll and alt in one of the main zerg professions. It can’t hurt and would allow you flexibility!

While every profession has its uses, the current meta is skewed to make these 3 far more usefull then others. So if you can play a class that does superb CC, does well at both ranged and melee, superb damage, superb might stacking, provides a ton of survivability and stability, why would you play something that does not ?

There is a finite number of players a map can hold. Lets say for sake of argument that number is 60.

Lets say server A has a group runing around composed of:
20 warriors, mostly hammer and whatever off-hand
15 guards, running group stabilities and various other support buffs
10 necros, mostly wellomancers specced for max and unblockable marks as well as wells
5 Eles, waterfields + wide range AOE
5 Mesmers for veils / portals
5 All else combined

Server B runs the following:
5 Hammer Warriors
5 Support Guards
2 Necros
2 mesmers
48 All else

Assuming equal level of organization, skill, gear, etc. Which one do you think will win most of the fights except maybe occasional situational where group B will heave a height, range and choke advantage simoultaneously which will not happen very often.

Which one do you think will win most of the times in open field ?

Now, if you are taking up a slot because of que and MANY other players are as well, would you rather majority of the players on your side be the Server A or the Server B ?

I can tell you from experience we had to adjust our guild meta because of hammertrains and their counters, and it sucks because it forces people to play toons they do not enjoy playing as much.

And THAT is the problem.

@Tongku

Sign

Its sad to see that only 3 Classes are really viable in larg battles.

@Tibstrike
Yeah i play a Thiev and it is sad that this class has no place really in larger groupfights =/

Optimal zerg is 8 guardians, 1 mesmer, 2 eles, 1 necro, 28 warriors.

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Pretty sure they need a Longbow stealth buff before they’re viable in WvW.

Didn’t you know WvWvW means Warriors v Warriors v Warriors?

None of the other classes have the balance of damage, survivability and control that those three do. Heavy classes have just stupid survivability to damage ratios and necros are like eles with 4x the health, and the ability to pop their elite and make themselves almost unkillable for 20 seconds (dat blind).

well im surprised op didnt mention ele, because eles are very important in a zergfight due to the water fields and lightning fields. the top classes are warrior/guardian, ele and necro, that is correct. the only reason people want a mesmer in their zerg is because of veil and tw.
mesmers aoe is terrible and it is quite frustrating to be a utilitybot only. now im sure engis are pretty good in zergfights if played well, but they dont have a clear role in a zerg.
if there are thieves in a zerg they will be ganking the backline, but thats it. rangers have the same issue as mesmers as their class is based on ai and ai dies in seconds in a zerg.

thats where anet failed so far with class balance. rangers,thieves and mesmers are great in 1v1 and spvp, but lack in a wvw zerg. spvp will prevent those classes from getting the necessary buffs.

imo it would help a lot if aanet would split spvp and wvw balance again.

90% of the people in wvw are warriors because it’s the facerolliest class right now. There have been plenty of times where a commander will call for a veil or a water field and there’s no one around to do it because most are warriors or necros or guardians. And you usually hear someone be like “fine i’ll log off and come back as my mes if you REALLY need one”

When you going to wvw, what you see on loading screen? That’s right my friend.

Yep true there are only Warriors on that screen xD But its sad that only this classes are really viable =/
yeye i have now reroll to a warrior only for play in wvwvw

They’re wrong when they say that, but yeah the meta is generally: Eles, Heavies and Necros, I do not like to follow that “Inside the Box” thinking, although I believe this order is more important: Build> Skill > Meta.

Maybe I am wrong because I do not wish to reroll a heavy class for “easy mode” if it’s like that, nor do I just want to be a class like a Mesmer just to be a veilbot, I’ve felt it’s been much more rewarding trying to master my Build and Class to get the best of it, even on the frontlines.
Anet has failed to bring Build and Class diversity making them viable for all sorts of situations, especially for us Thieves and many other classes like Rangers,.
That shouldn’t stop you from playing the Class YOU want to play though.

Dunno, i think 30 mesmers could take out 30 of every other class.

It is my fantasy to see it happen, think of the mayhem.

there must be some issue in the current WvW meta,that’s sure.
Something is broken when u see a commander before a raid tipe things like this :
"Warrior set this way,guardian i need you to set this way , Necros do this , Staff elementalist do that , mesmers i need this , rangers i have no words,engineers i have no words , d/d ele i have no words , thieves i have no words " .

I can’t blame this kind of commanders , he simply adapt to the meta the developers build via game mode and general balance.

I must admit the thing is making me feel depressed atm , and i’m a dedicated WvW player since the day 1 , always with my engineer.
My class is viable , but i can’t give a huge support in DPS terms ,i barely tag anyone and if i do it the retaliation kills me very quickly.
I can spec for support either , yes i can use bombs and healing turret , but that’s far from a guardian or an elementalist potential support (and u wont tag a single enemy if u just go support) .

So actually go Heavy , or press esc→exit to desktop so the queque speed up.

Yep its sadly the current meta.I hope arena net doing something that pushes these classes who has not so good viable build diversity for wvwvw that they allowed to play also at frontline and bring some group stuff.
Thiefs have a to low HP pool or defence that they cant stand long enough at a frontline,and stealth doesnt help here.

Rangers need some dev love…just say’n

Like others said all classes are viable, but some are better than others.

Guilds have a fixed number of slots when it comes to fights. Guild vs. Guild is typically 20 vs. 20 and so in order to win you will want to bring the most effective classes.

And those simply are Warriors, Guardians and Necros. Elementalists get an honorable mention for their water fields and AoE damage. But often you don’t need more than a handful.

That’s just the way it is and I don’t see this changing anytime soon because this isn’t due to some ability that is easily changed. These advantages are fundamentally ingrained in the class design.

And we all know how ANet struggles to make even the smallest balance change.

The best part is the only thing that makes ele and necro viable in this meta is the stability from guardian.

the only class that is on this list that is self sustainable would be the warrior.

Actually, every class can be built to play important roles that can’t be gotten with just warr/necro/guard:

Eles: Rock solid (group stab) + water fields + ranged damage
Mesmers: Confusion builds (which can wreck a hammer train pretty hard as their null fields strip their boons and confusion stacks up high so they kill themselves), mantra healing + stab + condi removal, veil + null field in general
Engineers: Nades condi-spread (watch out for retal though) + healing turret water field
Thieves: cluster-bombing and back-line harass
Rangers: healing spring + barrage + more pew-pews + entangle

While some of these can be more useful than others, having a few of every class lets a group do more than just a hammer-train can do alone.

BlackBeard.2873:

Actually, every class can be built to play important roles that can’t be gotten with just warr/necro/guard:

Eles: Rock solid (group stab) + water fields + ranged damage
Mesmers: Confusion builds (which can wreck a hammer train pretty hard as their null fields strip their boons and confusion stacks up high so they kill themselves), mantra healing + stab + condi removal, veil + null field in general
Engineers: Nades condi-spread (watch out for retal though) + healing turret water field
Thieves: cluster-bombing and back-line harass
Rangers: healing spring + barrage + more pew-pews + entangle

While some of these can be more useful than others, having a few of every class lets a group do more than just a hammer-train can do alone.

This is assuming that people know how to play their class, from my personal experience most people have no idea what blasting a fire field does. lol

Samhayn.2385:

The best part is the only thing that makes ele and necro viable in this meta is the stability from guardian.

the only class that is on this list that is self sustainable would be the warrior.

NOT true. Ele’s have on demand stability with Rock Solid for a full party. Its pretty much the secret ele trait that no one wants to take because they are scared to lose EA.

Grebcol.5984:

Hello
On my Server many Guilds say that Warriors/Guards/Necros are the only Classes who is viable in Zergfights? Is this so?
Why are then the others not Viable?

I am a commander of a European wvw guild that plays on Black gate and i can tell you for a fact that every class have there uses and the difference between a solid commander and a numbers scrub is how he uses his fighters.

Yes the Warrior/Guardian/Necro combo is potent because what they do is super obvious. The Warrior is and Guard is running into melee and the Necro is dumping marks all over the place. So it is super easy to see there strengths.

Engis, Rangers, Elemtalists, Mesmer’s and Thieves on the ohter hand you don’t notice to the same degree.

The Engi can throw out solid amounts of Conditions, debuffs, DPS while still throwing buffs at there team mates.

The ranger have one of the best water fields, CC and solid DPS.

Mesmer’s are the technical class of the game and can change a fight from a defeat to win by correct uses of portals, vales and there fields.

Elementalists are a mix of field buffs that make every one better around them while throwing out DPS like crazy people. Having on the Demand static, fire or water can change a fight more then any one warrior ever could.

The Thieves have high AoE DPS mix with some nasty shut down CC plus there ability to scout around is almost unmatched by any one. You need something dead then they are the class for you. The reason they are ignore is mostly because 9 out of 10 Thieves you meet at Zerker’s that die when you blow wind at them.

Pretty obvious the reason why people play warriors is cause they are the only manly class out there.

Malik.6781:

When you going to wvw, what you see on loading screen? That’s right my friend.

Grebcol.5984:

Hello
On my Server many Guilds say that Warriors/Guards/Necros are the only Classes who is viable in Zergfights? Is this so?
Why are then the others not Viable?

It isn’t that other professions are not viable, but because warriors are THE MOST viable.

:D

People uses warriors/guardians/necros because its easier in zerg fights,

they are faceroll professions, hard to kill and good damage, you don’t need to be focused like other professions.

Professions like ranger or eles are a lot harder to play in zerg fights, every mistakes can get you killed, you really need to know what you are doing and never loose your concentration.

Hey, hey , hey, don’t hate the heavy because we have a purpose

My main and original character is a Warrior. Hammer Warriors weren’t meta for a long time. Every couple of months the dev’s shake up the meta. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hammer Warriors fall out of favor when the next balance update comes out. It’s already in the Dev’s cross hairs.

Hammer warrior is meta until they remove earthshaker. Warrior doesn’t really have any other good weapon.

Rinzler.8072:

Dunno, i think 30 mesmers could take out 30 of every other class.

It is my fantasy to see it happen, think of the mayhem.

Good luck finding 30 decent mesmers on the same server

The thing is:
-2-4 Mesmers are enough to make a zerg roll
-2-4 staff eles are enough to keep a zerg rolling
-4-8 necros are enough to stop the enemy from rolling
-warriors and guardians? Just get them in a bunch, so you get a discount. You will want a LOT! 30+ total of these is what you want in a big fight.

Thieves? Throw in 1 or 2 for some extra blast finishers and some pressure on the enemies eles. If it’s a real battle situation and not GvG, throw in some extra thieves for recon purposes. Let’s say, a total of 5 should never be exceeded. They just won’t cut it when things get rough.
Rangers? For what?
Engineers? Who needs a walking suicide squad?

Why is this so? First off, thieves got horrible group support. They can be built to evade/escape from pretty much every damage source and then strike from the shadows. In the zerg, there is nowhere to run and the need for group buffs and utility is omnipresent. You can not simply reset a zerg fight and try again. If you go invis to escape the fight, the moment, you are back up to full, the fight could already be over.

Ranger’s group support is alright until you realize, other classes can do the same thing, only better. Muddy Terrain alone doesn’t warrant a spot in a zerg. They can be made extremely resilient towards steady dps, but they just don’t have the means to survive huge damage spikes. And most, if not all of the tanky builds use the pet as damage source, which, due to lack of cleave, is just bad in group fights.

Engineers are very self-centered. Not as much group support, as you’d think. And nothing, an elementalist or guardian couldn’t do better. They can be built to shrug off pretty much everything, but then they just can’t deliver. Or they can be built to dish out tremdous damage, but then they will be weak as paper.
How would you play an engineer in a zerg? grenade dps? stacked up retaliation and you kill yourself, before you know, what hit you, reflect walls and you kill yourself AND YOUR GROUP before they know what hit em. Flame thrower? retal food. Bomb Kit?It’s horrible. The damage is there, but at the same time it is not. At least, it’s not where you want it. In a mobile zerg v zerg situation, you want front loaded damage, the moment, you collide with an opponent, and not draw some kind of trail of death behind you.

Now, I never said, all classes but warrs and guardians are bad in group fights. Yes. They are not needed inside those fights, but the zerg still needs them. The next time, you siege a castle/keep/tower, just make those rangers, engineers, thieves, whatever walk around the objective. It’s no longer “live by the zerg, die by the zerg”. You simply intercept any enemy trying to get back to the zerg or being late to the party. If the opponents can’t recover their forces, their commander can’t fight back as effectively, because they can never leave their walls without fear of leaving behind bodies, they will never be able to pick up. The big upside to this is, you will typically be fighting chars specced for zerging with chars specifically built for picking off stragglers.
Engineers, thieves and rangers are definitely strong, but they lose their usefulness, as the group size exceeds 10 players. If you are in a zerg vs zerg situation with those classes, just try to find a place, where you can utilize the strengths of your class. Picking off reinforcements is one of the things, you can do.

I can tell you from experience thieves are useful in a zerg, but the same build that will make you useful in a zerg tend to disappoint while roaming. There are some venom share power builds that I’ve seen tested that tend to work well (but are not very fun solo). Also, the trickery tree provides plenty of group buffs (though condis in zergs are no fun imo). As well, you can set your self up with similar d/d or d/p builds used for roaming (think constant initiative regen and permastealth) and blast the hell out of fields as you’re pushing through. I’ve used daggerstorm to break up 30 man groups by myself. Pug groups/commanders seeing this usually take advantage and proceed to mop them up. You’re not going to do that in glass though, and make sure you have shadow step to get yourself back out if they react to you effectively. Usually signet of malice will keep you up though as long as you’re not full glass.

DeWolfe.2174:

Hammer Warriors weren’t meta for a long time.

Hammer trains have been meta since launch.

Keiel.7489:

Pretty obvious the reason why people play warriors is cause they are the only manly class out there.

Takes a deep breath, is that testosterone i smell, nah totally mistaken again.

Must admit my main is a warrior, followed closely by a guardian and a thief, i keep the thief just because he is gorgeous and i definitely would.

The demise of the ranger i have seen and i agree they do need some serious lovin.

This thread has made me now seriously consider rolling a necro.

Engineers have several uses in a zerg fight. Elixir X helps out in a fight with the amount of CC’s it has, Mortar has many AoEs including a heal and a chill, the flamethrower (I believe) isn’t capped at five targets due to it being a cone of fire, piercing shots tag everyone in the ball, the glue shot immobilizes, etc. There are many uses.

Thieves aren’t usually meant to be in the zerg due to them being high burst damage against a single target. They’re handy for picking off the back line, but if they get caught in the frontline, well, they’re pretty much rally-bait.

Mesmers have their shatter abilities, along with Chaos Storm, Null Field, Portal, Veil, and a few other useful abilities but aren’t very useful other than that.

Ele’s have their fields to place, Necros boon-strip and Rangers have their AoE heal. Everyone has usefulness in a zerg but each class has varying degrees of usefulness.

Madora.9340:

Engineers have several uses in a zerg fight. Elixir X helps out in a fight with the amount of CC’s it has, Mortar has many AoEs including a heal and a chill, the flamethrower (I believe) isn’t capped at five targets due to it being a cone of fire, piercing shots tag everyone in the ball, the glue shot immobilizes, etc. There are many uses.

Elixir X: I’d rather have the original.
Mortar: Stationary as hell. If a zerg runs over you, it will not be helpful at all.
Flamethrower: 3 hits times 10 ticks = 30 ticks of retaliation damage PER ATTACK SEQUENCE or 12 retal ticks per second.
Piercing shot: With pistol, up to 25 hits per shot, amounting to 25 potential retaliation ticks per attack, with a bit less than a second per attack, you can do the math.
Glue shot: I’d rather have muddy terrain.

On a sidenote: Without heal, 100 retaliation ticks equal your death, even in full PTV.
Let’s not even talk about what retaliation or reflect walls do to you when you use grenades.

On the other hand, I just thought of a cheesy trollstrat: Stack up on retaliation on 5 very tanky team mates(best, if your crit is as low as possible), stack at one spot and shoot your grenades right into the enemies reflect wall, then watch him die to your retaliation on the reflected projectiles.

^^ Please keep thinking this, everyone pay attention. There is NO REASON to focus the engineer, they can’t do that much damage at range anyway!

:D

Yes, please ignore the engineer wiping out your necros and eles as he dances around your melee train and plays merry havoc.

I love the current meta- grab a height advantage (there are a lot more then you might think in wvw) and blast away at the squishies, or just dodge roll out of trains path and blast away at the back, slowing/freezing them and allowing others to wipe the support, leaving the melees without the necros they need.

Going back to something someone said earlier- I’ll take the 48 others over the melee train provided the 48 know their class. Hammer train isn’t that effective when it doesn’t have anything large to focus on and it’s an open field- throw in a couple of fears whenever they try and restack and it’s gg.

I am loving defending things- before it used to be dangerous to stand on a wall blowing the opposition to pieces, now just watch for the occasional mesmer pull or ele shower..and attacking up walls is fun too.

Yeah OP, unfortunately the pinnacle of WvW open field is guard/war/necro blobs in pvt armor.

I’ve played a warrior, an engineer, and a ranger in T1. Warrior is definitely the easiest, but all three are useful. What I’ve noticed hurts the engi in zerg fights is the lack of much on demand stability vs. rangers and warrs. Warrs have their stance and I run beastmaster signet on ranger so I can stab off that. Engi’s have 4s on elixir b toolbelt (which isn’t all that otherwise useful as a utility) and 1 on thumper turret toolbelt (it’s a turret, need I say more?) It’s less than either of the other two and both require a utility slot that is more precious to engi’s because you’re slotting at least one kit pretty much always.

The ranger is harder to play than the warr, no doubt about it. But it can be fun. The big ole water field is always appreciated by commanders, and you have some nasty immobilize options between entangle and the F2 on Krytan hound. (You probably won’t snag the exact five you were hoping for in a big fight, but you will get some people and they will die in seconds.) I think spirits are impractical, but you can run spotter with no effort and provide nice support between that and warhorn.

Entangle or drakehound in front of a portal when you’re trying to cut off a retreat usually kills at least a few people. Then you have sword, which I run with GS on switch, and it is so much fun. You will fly around zergs, jumping from person to person. You can pretty much murder anyone who attempts to run off, as the stickiness of sword that is so painfully annoying in PvE is absolutely deadly in WvW.

with the current balance – it’s the path of least resistance since those classes have the most survivability. But for wvw to really be at it’s best – each character has it’s role to play – …it just so happens that now, especially with imbalanced fights – there is no need to add beyond the basic warrior / guardian / necro – trinity …why risk anything less than steamrolling ? you will see more variety in lower ranked servers because the fights are more balanced with less people – so tactics / strategy / creativity have more space to happen. it’s easier fending off a 40 man zerg vs a 90 man zerg that can have your walls / doors down in seconds.

Grebcol.5984:

Hello
On my Server many Guilds say that Warriors/Guards/Necros are the only Classes who is viable in Zergfights? Is this so?
Why are then the others not Viable?

They are wrong.

Also staff eles are viable in zerg fights. And maybe 1 or 2 veilbot mesmers.

Other than that, yeah they are pretty much right.

I try make use of every single class when I’m commanding. Engis have pretty amazing cc and heals. Rangers have one of the best water fields of any class and very decent cc as well.

Both d/d eles and staff eles have their place in the zerg

Mesmers will always have a place in the zerg

Guards, warriors and necros are probably the mainstay of any zerg though.

Grebcol.5984:

Hello
On my Server many Guilds say that Warriors/Guards/Necros are the only Classes who is viable in Zergfights? Is this so?
Why are then the others not Viable?

All classes can contribute. Besides, there’s no way for them to stop you entering WvW or joining a Zergfight.

I think one of the main reasons there are so many warriors is not because they are so op but because there classes is the most balanced/finished. Pretty much every build option actually works with warrior. All of there weapon sets are useful. The trait lines make sense. They have lots of useful utilites. They can cleanse conditions very well. They have a long duration stability.
Then you look at a class like ranger. The pet is garbage. The trait lines are terrible. You have to spec 30 points to make a utility useful. Spirit build is really the only viable build yet im sure some rangers will try to argue that but everybody else would agree with me. They have terrible condition cleanse. They have one stability which again you have to spec 30 points to even use. Several of the weapon sets are very meh.

Tongku.5326:

While every profession has its uses, the current meta is skewed to make these 3 far more usefull then others. So if you can play a class that does superb CC, does well at both ranged and melee, superb damage, superb might stacking, provides a ton of survivability and stability, why would you play something that does not ?

There is a finite number of players a map can hold. Lets say for sake of argument that number is 60.

Lets say server A has a group runing around composed of:
20 warriors, mostly hammer and whatever off-hand
15 guards, running group stabilities and various other support buffs
10 necros, mostly wellomancers specced for max and unblockable marks as well as wells
5 Eles, waterfields + wide range AOE
5 Mesmers for veils / portals
5 All else combined

Server B runs the following:
5 Hammer Warriors
5 Support Guards
2 Necros
2 mesmers
48 All else

Assuming equal level of organization, skill, gear, etc.

A zerg of 48 HGH engis…. dear god. Nothing would survive that.

Grebcol.5984:

Hello
On my Server many Guilds say that Warriors/Guards/Necros are the only Classes who is viable in Zergfights? Is this so?
Why are then the others not Viable?

because they haven’t played the other classes, and/or can’t play the other classes properly