Guild Wars 2

Hey guys. I’ve searched high and low, and couldn’t find a definitive answer.

I’ve come back after a year’kittenus, and I’ve been primarily a WvW player since release. I mained Ranger, but quit because of several reasons. First being its most viable playstyle being a condition build rather than power (I like solid numbers over DOTs). Second being that it was a one or another type thing, where you’re either a condi roamer or a zerk zerg guy; and if you found yourself in a situation your build didn’t meet, you were pretty useless.

I don’t really wanna specialize at something. I don’t care about being the best at something. I just want to know that if I find myself alone, I can hold my own (roaming), and when I find a big group I can just jump in and not be useless (zerging).

It seems Thief is out of the question due to general uselessness in zergs.

I found Warrior to fit the criteria, but I am a mobile ranged character at heart (always played the hybrid DPS in every game I’ve played) and would like to be able to switch between melee and range at a whim without losing viability. This is where Warrior fails, because neither Rifle nor Longbow are particularly powerful, and a melee equivalent is still more useful in a zerg or defense situation.

Mesmer also fit the criteria, except their role in a zerg is to support and they don’t pose any real AOE threat. Again, this goes against my preferred playstyle of a DPS, and I’ve never willingly played a support role in any MMO I’ve played. I’m a pretty selfish player. Engineer also falls into this hole of being more of a supporter than a damage dealer.

Elementalists seem to have the highest variation of builds and play styles, which really appeals to me. I’ve never been much of a caster player, but the GW2 playstyle throws my general distaste for casters out of the window. So it SEEMS like Ele is the class to go, but I’d just like input from Ele players if my assumptions are correct.

That said, Staff is a given for zergs. But what about occassional roaming? D/D was really fun to play. How would that fare against other roamers? I’m hearing a lot about S/F or S/D, but I haven’t tried those yet.

You might like ele. D/D is my main weapon set. I love what I do with it.

I find I go from my Main spot — WvW — to dungeons, fractals and spvp even and do not have to change my build. I love that.

Warrior longbow is very strong FYI. The only things I can say are, ele can’t switch between ranged and melee. We only get one weapon set. You could use conjured weapons, but viably speaking, probably not always situationally the best choice over survival utilities. Ele staff has been popular in WvW. But it’s a stand back and aoe build which is boring to me. Big numbers, but you’re absolutely worthless solo. Last, ele is extremely squishy, be prepared to get one or two shot by a lot of things if you run zerker.

Good luck choosing.

x/x/x/30/30 classic build shold work, swap some traits when you switch between zerging and roaming. Start tanky and swap armor parts for more deeps the less you die.

And also, if you ever find a decent guild, and you totaly should if you´re interested in the best wvw can offer, you can start to specialise your build ofr whatever is needed.

Warrior is the class you’re looking for.

Staff ele is zerg-only and nothing but a free loot bag on his own. D/D is kinda able to roam and also not completely useless in group/zerg play, but you will need to put up with the fact that a Warrior does everything you do.. twice as good.