Guild Wars 2

(Please note, I wanted to make this comparison thread sooner, but I was afraid of getting either Mesmer, or any other class nerfed. Its a kitten shame that people are scared to make informative threads for fear of nerfing, Anet.)

Hey guys,

Guardians and Elementalists have been lauded as the best support classes in the game, and I was curious as to what makes them so special? This isn’t really a challenge as much as a comparison of what support these classes bring to a group and what makes them so valuable compared to other classes’ supportive abilities.

In case you don’t know, support Mesmers can bring:

- Up to 25x Might / Fury (AltruismRunes, Signet) / Perma Swiftness / Perma Regen / Perma Vigor / Aegis / Protection (a bit unreliably) / Perma Retaliation / 2.9k AoE burst heals every 3 seconds.

In addition to the usual Portals, Reflects, Rezz, blah blah… (If we kitten damage, we can do all of the above. If not, a lot of the above)

Would anyone knowledgeable on support Warriors be able to enlighten me a bit? Examples of different builds, traits, abilities? Perhaps pros and cons? I’d like to work on making a comparison of all the different classes’ support abilities.

It really depends on what aspect of the game you are looking at. Guardians bring hella support via staff, symbols and their elite support tome. Elementalist bring good support via water skills and the ability to give other classes healing blast finishers.

Warriors bring good support via banners even if they don’t spec for regeneration banners and shouts. The only problem with these are their area of effect. For example if you drop some banners in WvW as the zerg moves your banners become obsolete also since they have long cool downs and they barely serve you in a team fight well, you be finding yourself in quite the bad situation with em when you’re alone. Same goes for this build in spvp, sure you can give a massive unique buff to your team but once they move away from it your glorious buff is done for.

In dungeon however one warrior dropping the precision banner makes a huge difference as it is, for high crit damage with mid crit chance build this banner can give up to 30 - 40% more dps just from the crits. But yeah warrior support is very very situation based.

Warrior’s support is the ability to increase the group’s damage considerably. Especially with Banners. You can spec to get Banners with permanent regen on top of their huge stat bonuses. Between For Great Justice, Banner of Strength, and Battle Standard, you give the group 450 power and condition damage. With Banner of Discipline, Battle Standard, and For Great Justice you give the group 170 precision, 20% crit chance from Fury, and 15% crit damage.

Warrior’s can apply alot of single target vulnerability, great for bosses. When me and my bro are both running our Warriors we both take For Great Justice, On My Mark, Banner of Strength/Discipline, and Battle Standard. Helps melt down foes

Basically, Warrior’s support is offensive support rather than defensive

Chaos Archangel, I have read on your build on support mesmer and that build rocks just like a support guard.

Your build basically a buff bot giving a lot of boons with relatively long boon durations. Warriors in other hand give support if built for offensively. They provide mainly Fury and Might but with long duration and constant 15 to 20 stacks of Might with 2 warriors and Perm Fury. They can do little heals 1.5K to 2k per shout and cleanse conditions.

In short Warriors can do well in specialised offensive support whereas guards and mes can cover a wider range of support. In zerg context, we need both wide range support and specialised support, plus warrior is a beast doing specialised support and CC chain.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

(Please note, I wanted to make this comparison thread sooner, but I was afraid of getting either Mesmer, or any other class nerfed. Its a kitten shame that people are scared to make informative threads for fear of nerfing, Anet.)

Hey guys,

Guardians and Elementalists have been lauded as the best support classes in the game, and I was curious as to what makes them so special? This isn’t really a challenge as much as a comparison of what support these classes bring to a group and what makes them so valuable compared to other classes’ supportive abilities.

In case you don’t know, support Mesmers can bring:

- Up to 25x Might / Fury (AltruismRunes, Signet) / Perma Swiftness / Perma Regen / Perma Vigor / Aegis / Protection (a bit unreliably) / Perma Retaliation / 2.9k AoE burst heals every 3 seconds.

In addition to the usual Portals, Reflects, Rezz, blah blah… (If we kitten damage, we can do all of the above. If not, a lot of the above)

Would anyone knowledgeable on support Warriors be able to enlighten me a bit? Examples of different builds, traits, abilities? Perhaps pros and cons? I’d like to work on making a comparison of all the different classes’ support abilities.

Support warriors are inferior in every way.

The best support for a 5man:
Guardians, Hands down. Any ‘competitive’ support group runs 2.
Dagger eles come second.
The reason is the boon -and guardian class OP- abuse in PVE/WvW. Not nerfed yet.
Warrior CC>>>Mesmers. A good warrior can dish out AOE stuns every 7 seconds with scattered cc inbetween. Very disabling against ppl who don’t run stability or one stability.
Mesmer support: Superior to wars in every way except for the AOE stun but you have similar or superior survivability given the abuse of teleport hacks/stealth etc.
Never tested other support professions. Mesmers bring mass invis which is 10ppl max and is a game decider in a lot of situations. They also have the invis wall which is ok.

WvW:
-Mesmers 1st due to portals, invis wall. Game changers.

-Guardians 2nd ok heals, superior damage soakers given the heal block/ 2s of invulnerabiltiy, protection etc. Boons etc.

-Wars 3rd: Best AOE cc in the game, ok condi removal.

Healing banner warriors are ok but boon/healing guardians are superior. You can spec into a 1k heal every 3 seconds -330 every sec- but you have to be full cleric+food thus gimping your damage and your survivability a bit. You need good warriors to do this and preferably 2. The shout heals are comparitive in healing potency per overall time but they are situational and sometimes might be used inappropriately to get the other effects associated with the heals.

Support warriors have a clutch AOE rez with a 2sec channeling on a long cool down

Banners heal ppl around them regardless of where the warrior are and are dependant on the warrior’s healing. They also don’t stack with regular regen which is a big down side. The problem is a lot of the time ppl move away from where the banners are and no one bothers picking them.

-Ele staff 2nd/3rd Good large AOE heals for zergs, ok AOE cc.

I have a full cleric ele/war and a full invader war which I played extensively. I only judge the guardians and support mesmers from watching them in fights/talking to ppl who play them a lot. I don’t play mine anymore so my opinion about them is even less reliable.

Much appreciated guys. Out of curiosity, how much of this offensive support build deviates from a normal Warrior spec? Does it require any major trait/skill sacrifice or a few simple tweaks?

ChaosDoom.8459:

Chaos Archangel, I have read on your build on support mesmer and that build rocks just like a support guard.

Your build basically a buff bot giving a lot of boons with relatively long boon durations. Warriors in other hand give support if built for offensively. They provide mainly Fury and Might but with long duration and constant 15 to 20 stacks of Might with 2 warriors and Perm Fury. They can do little heals 1.5K to 2k per shout and cleanse conditions.

In short Warriors can do well in specialised offensive support whereas guards and mes can cover a wider range of support. In zerg context, we need both wide range support and specialised support, plus warrior is a beast doing specialised support and CC chain.

Much appreciated man. Yeah, Mesmer support ends up being through buffs, heals, and control (with random things like Portal mixed in). I’ve been getting some very interesting feedback from the other forums on the subject as well. Hoping to get side-by-side comparisons up soon.

I’ve really enjoyed reading these threads. As someone who isn’t much of a number cruncher and has limited experience with all the classes, it’s nice to get some solid (mostly factual) information about each classes’ support abilities.

So thanks :>

I just want to explain on my point “Warriors are good in specialised offensive support”. What I mean is warriors provide perm fury and good number of might around 15 to 20, and soaking up damage as frontline melee and dishing out mass chain CC, supplementing with little AOE heals and conditions cleanse.

Warrior best role is to mass chain CC and soak up damage as frontline melee. The rest comes as a plus points. I never believe in banners in wvw.

Mesmer are like boon bots ranked slightly below guardians. However their portals and veil give wvw tactics a new perspective, eg. flanking on veil, pbombs and etc.

By the way, my views on based on wvw on average 25 to 30 man zerg, not small scale groups. Therefore warrior banners may be very viable for small scale group, but I don’t know and never try out on that point.

lets not forget empowered, trait 2 in the tactics tree that gives 150 power to everyone