Solo AoE
At lower levels, use a Bear or Canine. They hold aggro a lot better than say, a Feline.
Use a Greatsword for AE Melee attacks or trait for Piercing Arrows and position yourself to hit all the mobs.
Traps (even without condi build) are still effective. But the best option is to have greatsword, it will do great.
Barrage, Torch off hand and traps. Although if you are having trouble against 3 mobs, you may find working on your survivability to be better. If those 3 to 5 mobs can’t kill you, you can simply take them out one by one at your leisure.
- Traps
- Axe/Torch
- Axe/Axe
- Greatsword
- Shortbow + Piercing Arrows + proper positioning.
- Pets to choice, but in PvE the Drake is awesome.
80 Thief – 80 Warrior – 80 Guardian – 80 Ranger
80 Mesmer – 80 Necromancer
I prefer sword over the axe. The axe bouncing between things can be a pain. It will often bounce to destructible objects instead of the enemy. Your pet will then auto engage the destructible object instead of the enemy. I’ve even had the axe bounce from an enemy, to some object, to an enemy that wasn’t agro’ed. Pulled 5 more mobs because of that.
Also, some pets work well with the torch. They will get a flame shield and provide additional AoE damage to any enemy within range.
If the mobs are melee, just walk backwards a bit before you start attacking them. They will clump up in front of you and you can hit multiple enemies using the sword.
Drake pet as it’s the only one with a cleave on it’s attack, greatsword or axe/sword+torch/axe.
Nothing mows multiple mobs down as fast and consistently as greatsword and drakes on a power crit spec though, the torch bonfire maybe with condition damage but it has a long cooldown with the greatsword you can just keep swinging and mauling all day long.