Guild Wars 2

Just like title says, I currently run a phantasm build which does well in groups but feels a bit selfish and I feel their are probably better small man builds out there. I know there are a lot of builds posted but wanted to see if anyone had a specific build for small roaming groups. Thanks.

A small kill team in wvw has different parts to it. There is damage, there is support, there is cc, there is disruption. As such, different mesmer builds will fulfill different roles in a kill team best.

Depends partly on the makeup of the rest of your team.

What group set up do you usually run with. ?

Do you just hunt for kills and take camps or do you do other stuff ?

Well we run pugs with whoever is on since we all have different play times but I find that most the time we have a lot of dps, But not a lot of support. I would like a build that I can still zerg with if needed and kill stuff but not as squishy as the zerker build. We usually take camps and fight other roaming groups or zergs.

Hmm, 5 man is tricky in my opinion, your at the stage where your in between what I would say is the best spec. Your on the higher end of the Condition Tanks Utility but lower end of the glamor Utility.

In my opinion the Condition tank is better than Glamor for solo play and upto around 4 or 5 people but if you play in mass WvW too then Glamor has the edge. Maybe deck your char out in Rabit gear and just respec as required ? Thats what I do.

@Tynee, for solo/smal team gameplay I nowdays use a high mobility, high burst survival spec. I call it Shatter Cat Mist and its just fantastic for roaming and smal group vs smal group. Its close to impossible for the other team to focus you down and you go like a mist into their lines down and stomp a player and out before they can counte. You can take down tanks and glas cannon thiefs cant one hit you. The utilitys for group play is wonderfull for smal scale combat as it involve portal and mass invis, also a short cd on chaos storm help alot.

Enjoy my latest move about the spec, first 1 min is the gear, can scroll pass it.

/Osicat

Ps would love try duel Pyroateist spec with my spec some day

I ran a 2x mesmer + 1 thief gp a few times. Both mesmers ran gs/staff thief we had was s/d. We did some crazy crazy stuff in wvw. The amount of clones we generated was the perfect cover for the thief. A s/d dagger thief floats in and out to attack people and stealth the rest of the time. He was able to attack people at will since they had no idea which one was our clone which one was him. On top of that both mesmers ran mass invis so we can stealth rez when one of us is downed.

edit: I honestly felt dirty in that gp . the ease of which we were able to pick out a target, burst it down, stealth stomp . Run away pull a few player with us from the zerg, kill them, go back to zerg do the same thing over and over. We were untouchable with the amount of invis and clone . I honestly believe it’s an unbeatable team. The only time we wiped was because a zerg ball ran over us with culling , we had no idea they were even there until they were on top of us.

Burst Shatter bomber w GS / SF – small teams is the bread and butter of this build. Staff is a waste of time in small man. You want 1200 for kiting and focus for pulling front lines to bomb/warrior spin attack etc. Synergizes well w guardian stability/might stacks, thief Dstorm, etc. Maybe confusion bomber for cleanup if you have another mes running shatter bomber. This is how we ran mesmers in AoN (typically 1 guard, 1 staff ele, 2 mes, 1 warrior) when i was in it and was quiet succesful in taking on pug zergs/pvdoor guilds.

I totally disagree with not using staff in small man. Staff is what I use to live when 2 thieves jump me, it is what I use to get away when 4 people all turn on me at the same time. I roam a lot it is quite common to run into 2 -3+ thief groups. Without staff 2 and chaos storm I’d be dead so often my head would spin.

Mogar.9216:

I totally disagree with not using staff in small man. Staff is what I use to live when 2 thieves jump me, it is what I use to get away when 4 people all turn on me at the same time. I roam a lot it is quite common to run into 2 -3+ thief groups. Without staff 2 and chaos storm I’d be dead so often my head would spin.

Not sure youre on the same topic. Im talking about something like 5 man (guild, on vent) vs 15-30 (maybe not an ideal situation for most, but if im small manning i want to take on the extreme odds), where staff provides minimal benefit over player positioning when kiting another PvDoor guild or a pug zerg. GS is more useful in getting adds off your group members that get pulled, CCd, left behind via phant/knockback. You also need 1200 to pick off priority targets. Staff is great for solo roaming or vs smaller odds.

Btw, If you have sloppy positioning and focused by a large zerg guild in vent, staff isnt going to help – its GG.

I agree when you run 5 man it’s a bit different. I don’t really run with more than 4. We use vent and I think in general we have different playing style. We like to roam, tag okittenerg and hit it from the side or the rear. Our goal is never to bust the zerg as it’s pretty much unrealistic to kill and down 20+ players with 2-4. We aim to feed off the zerg like a shark feed off a giant school of fish. Mobility is by far the most important thing. Esp the best way to peel off small chunk of a large zerg is by extending it. Make them chase you , never run off, always stay close enough so the closest guy to you can still hit you but most of the zerg can’t. Goal is to get the guy right on your heels to stay with you as his zerg gives up and turn back. For a setup like that staff 2 is gold, it’s a blink every 8 secs that breaks stun. I would never run without it.

it really depends on what setups the rest of your group is.

out of 5 people, you only really need 1, maybe 2 full GC for the burst damage, 1 full condition build, and 2-3 pvt/support builds

pick a role your small group doesn’t have yet, and spec for it.

something like 1gc mesmer/thief, necro, shout hammer war, shout guardian, dd ele.

Check out Seven Mirror’s Staff+sword/torch build. Works great. It is my ‘go to’ build right now for wvw.

I appreciate all the feedback, guess it comes down to trial and error and see what works but will definitely try several of the specs listed here