Guild Wars 2

As the title states, of all the classes, which is viable as a roamer and in zerg. I think all classes have a place, but really wanted to find what others think on this topic.

Cheers.

All except ranger, ranger only good as roamer.

As a guardian I can tell you that guardians are bad roamers. We get killed by any other class.

Just roll a warrior, they can do anything.

Class strengths
Zerg: ele, necro, warrior, guardian
Solo roam: thief, warrior, mesmer, engi
Small team: anything (team comp)

Never had an issue running with a zerg as a ranger – you fight from the tail end of the zerg or group you’re with. Much better chance of survival while providing ranged attacks with the long bow. Long bows do a fair amount of damage to more than one player.

Warrior, the manliest class.

Mesmer and warr can fit any role, for small groups, anything goes, as long as you coordinate appropriately.
The question is, what kind of solo and what kind of zerg do you want to do?
The mobile solo, which only hits priority targets (dolyaks, camps) and picks off stragglers or the more sturdy type, which also disrupts the enemy roamers, taking up 1v3 fights and pulling out ahead?
The backbone zerger standing in the front line with heavy cc and sustain or the utility zerger, which provides stealth, boons, water fields and portals for the team?

mobile solo: thief, ranger, warrior, (ele)
dueling solo: mes, ranger, engi, thief, (necro)

backbone zerger: warrior, guardian, necro. <-period.
utility zerger: mesmer, ele, guardian, necro, (ranger)

The only really noteworthy intersection between these two groups is the mesmer, because in both categories, he stands way above the rest. There is hardly a better class for dueling and there is no class, which can replace the mesmer for zergs.

Doesn’t mean, you can’t use other classes, but the thing is, facing down the initial burst of a tightly stacked zerg formation with a thief is simply not a good idea, so don’t expect your backbone zerger thief to do you any good

Warrior, just don’t use longbow/hammer set for roaming, you won’t have a very fun time with it.

ranger only good as roamer

Maybe I just didn’t encounter a lot of good rangers, but I don’t think they are that good at roaming either, they are usually the easiest target to take down.

Seveleniumus.5973:

Warrior, just don’t use longbow/hammer set for roaming, you won’t have a very fun time with it.

ranger only good as roamer

Maybe I just didn’t encounter a lot of good rangers, but I don’t think they are that good at roaming either, they are usually the easiest target to take down.

There are a lot of very poor players who run a zerker bearbow ranger build in wvw, the kind of guys who stand perfectly still while using rapid fire, and use barrage when being charged by my shatter mesmer. But the class can be very strong for roaming if played well.

All. Anything can roam solo, What they can offer to a zerg…

Mesmer – Time/bubble
Guardian- Boon/stability/blast
Warrior- Everything
Ranger- Water field/dps
Ele- Water field/dps/seige killer
Thief- On command blast finsher
Engineer- Multiple fields
Necro- Aoe dps/lag?

Araris.7839:

All. Anything can roam solo

Have you ever roamed solo as a guardian?

I have a mesmer trait point allocation that can swap from solo to zerg on the fly.

Zanshin.5379:

Araris.7839:

All. Anything can roam solo

Have you ever roamed solo as a guardian?

I was actually roaming solo as a guardian earlier. 1v1 I’d say I’m near invincible. 2v1 I’m usually fine. More than that and it gets tricky unless they’re playing glass cannon.

I seen your post earlier and meant to respond but I forgot. I’d recommend looking up some specs because you’re obviously not playing an effective build/set up.

Hell, you can use healway and take 3-4 on relatively easily but I find the build boring and use more offense.

My main is guardian, yes, roaming solo is more than viable.

Edit- PS: I play T1, so no, they’re not just terribad players lol

If you really want just the class that is viable for both solo roaming and zerging at the same time with the same build:

That would be Elementalists and Engineers

Since im playing engi as one of my mains. 3 Kits engi (grenade,bomb,elexir gun) with dire/rabid gear mix works really well. Since you will have a really good range and damage with your grenade kit, support with your elexir gun, and bombs for when you rush into melee.

I dont know too much about elementalists, but i think a cantrip build with soldier or soldier/berserker mix should work for both really well. Just need to carry 2 weapon sets, dagger/dagger for roaming and a staff for zerging.

There should also be mix builds for necro and mesmer, but those classes are not as mobile and you will lose some effectiveness from your specific builds.

As for the other classes, i dont think you can find a mix build that would be satisfying for both solo and roaming.

Zanshin.5379:

Araris.7839:

All. Anything can roam solo

Have you ever roamed solo as a guardian?

Someone’s a bad Guardian, lol…

Anyway, Guardian can do both, easy. Roll some Valkyrie gear and pull out a staff for Zergs. Easy tagging/lots of survivability. If you trait for it the symbols are even better for tagging.

Then switch to whatever solo build you want. I think the biggest Guardian weakness is speed/lack of escapes. But if you’re in for the fights, and won’t mistform/stealth away and reset, you’re probably all right.

Araris.7839:

Edit- PS: I play T1, so no, they’re not just terribad players lol

That’s amusing.

dreztina.4820:

Araris.7839:

Edit- PS: I play T1, so no, they’re not just terribad players lol

That’s amusing.

Not amusing. It’s sad that anyone actually thinks that way.

Lol, Not stating that T1 only has great players, but the “regulars” in T1 tend to be better geared, and have better knowledge of their class and other classes, than the lower tiers.

This isn’t supported by any statistical data obviously, just a feeling I get from the few times we’ve gone up against lower tier servers. Example: At the moment we’re fighting Maguuma and the players I’ve come across are hilariously bad.

Edit: I’m not talking about large scale battles here. Small group and solo/duo encounters.

If you don’t care about getting overwhelmed at times vs the likes for 1v3+ you can technically roam with any class. Or you can just hug the guards at keep/tower all day.

This has been rehashed time and time again, but normally when you talk about a good roamer you talk about a class that can pick its fights. I don’t know much about Eles and Guards, but I know Necros are not strong roamers simply because they have next to no mobility tools. Necros are extremely strong in fights, but when you get outnumbered you are almost guaranteed to die and start from spawn again. Also with no mobility tools, it means everyone can simply run away from you.

From what I’ve seen Guardians don’t have great mobility either.

Keiel.7489:

Warrior, the manliest class.

If it’s so manly then why do I see a lot of Warriors run from me when I roam? :P

I don’t know … I tend to use different classes for different WvW runs. For roaming I like mesmer or necro. For zerg I like necro or warrior. So, I guess necro for me is the “do it all” class.

I Covered Wars.4380:

Keiel.7489:

Warrior, the manliest class.

If it’s so manly then why do I see a lot of Warriors run from me when I roam? :P

They’re afraid your estrogen will rub off on them.

Araris.7839:

Lol, Not stating that T1 only has great players, but the “regulars” in T1 tend to be better geared, and have better knowledge of their class and other classes, than the lower tiers.

This isn’t supported by any statistical data obviously, just a feeling I get from the few times we’ve gone up against lower tier servers. Example: At the moment we’re fighting Maguuma and the players I’ve come across are hilariously bad.

Edit: I’m not talking about large scale battles here. Small group and solo/duo encounters.

That’s even more amusing.

By far the Warrior, easy mode in roaming and zerging and you dont need to think much with this class

Guardian, Warrior, Ele. All other classes not needed in big ammount in zerg but can be good in roaming aswell.

And tbh the biggest problems in roaming i had against guardians and engineers)

I think thieves are great at both.

pheroth.5306:

If you don’t care about getting overwhelmed at times vs the likes for 1v3+ you can technically roam with any class. Or you can just hug the guards at keep/tower all day.

This has been rehashed time and time again, but normally when you talk about a good roamer you talk about a class that can pick its fights. I don’t know much about Eles and Guards, but I know Necros are not strong roamers simply because they have next to no mobility tools. Necros are extremely strong in fights, but when you get outnumbered you are almost guaranteed to die and start from spawn again. Also with no mobility tools, it means everyone can simply run away from you.

From what I’ve seen Guardians don’t have great mobility either.

Well, guardians are in a tricky spot…
A guardian with sword mainhand and meditations could theoretically do pretty well in chasing down fleeing opponents, but they can’t run away from fights at all.
Guardians can have great combat mobility with all those instant speed teleports, but all those require a target, thus, their out of combat mobility is pretty low.

That’s what critters are there for.

and there will always be a critter nearby…

Zanshin.5379:

As a guardian I can tell you that guardians are bad roamers. We get killed by any other class.

Just roll a warrior, they can do anything.

I really hated roaming as a guardian before the traveler runes were changed, although it’s unfortunate that they’ve already become prohibitively expensive for many players. They have useful stats and effects for most builds in any class, and solve the movement speed conundrum without having to use or constantly swap swiftness weapon sets and utility skills you don’t want for combat.

A guardian built for zerging with ptv / knights / clerics gear will still have a hard time in 1v1s since they can take forever and tend to interrupted outside the windmill dueling area, but it’s a good small group roamer, or doing rounds for trash wxp (camps, yaks, sentries, guards).

I love the ranger hate. You may not see many good roaming rangers, but once you encounter one and get crushed you will feel ashamed and never share that story. So all you read is the bearbow ranger rally meat stories.

GOSU.9574:

I love the ranger hate. You may not see many good roaming rangers, but once you encounter one and get crushed you will feel ashamed and never share that story. So all you read is the bearbow ranger rally meat stories.

its even more fun if you run up against a BM power spec and that bearbow destroys you in seconds

All of them =.=

all of them except necro for solo roaming, you can do it succesful but u have to pick your figths or yolo since u dont have easy escapes like all the other classes.

Addendum:
You can build a ranger for both solo roaming and zerging, however, it requires you to play a specific playstyle, and you will be hard countered by certain professions’s builds in 1 v 1.
That is the price you pay for the ultimate versatility.

Juan Ignacio.8903:

all of them except necro for solo roaming, you can do it succesful but u have to pick your figths or yolo since u dont have easy escapes like all the other classes.

Arguably, “picking your fights” is what roaming is about for just about everyone.

Also, necros have better escape options than guardians and rangers

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Juan Ignacio.8903:

all of them except necro for solo roaming, you can do it succesful but u have to pick your figths or yolo since u dont have easy escapes like all the other classes.

Arguably, “picking your fights” is what roaming is about for just about everyone.

Also, necros have better escape options than guardians and rangers

Dunno how you figured necros are better at running away then rangers, care to explain how a profession with barely 0.5% mobility can do it better?

care to explain how you quantify mobility and assign it that specific value?

as for escape options: necros have DS and plague form for extended survivability, spectral walk and necrotic traversal to teleport, several sources of fear to create breathing room, better condition removal, being able to drop condition AOEs behind you to slow down chasers.

and rangers have half a minute of stability that is “protected” by fury and swiftness, in addition to a pet that can CC, GS#3, Sword #2, LR, Muddy Terrain and finally GS#4

All comes down to skill and build.
A bus build will be more team-centered (buff, debuff, heal, mass control)
A roamer build will be more self-centered/self sufficient.

As for the choice classes : War, Guard, Ele, Mesmer, Necros

The ranger’s problem in bus/zerg is it’s pet. It dies in seconds. And since part of the ranger’s DPS is in the pet, it’s base DPS is lower than that of other classes…
The buffs it can give are based on spirits – that are also dying in seconds in large-scale fights…
The combo zone it can create on-demand are few – Water field, with it’s heal; fire field with the torch. With pets and traps, he has more, but they are too “uncontrolled” to be useful in somewhat organised battles.
It doesn’t have many explosions (only one is controlled – with the horn)

The CC it has – 1 sec with entangle (an elite), 2 sec with muddy terrain, one sec with spike trap – isn’t much. He cannot throw the traps far ahead. Usually, with cast time, he’s on the zone of the trap when it finally casts.
He doesn’t have access to much stability – an elite (20 secs per 2 minutes), and a signet that demands a 30 points investment to work (8 secs per 60 sec). The signet that is supposed to make it so we do not take damage isn’t half working – we do take damage.

And our base vitality is lower that that of many classes – so rangers tend to die faster – and a player that dies might raise ennemies, so not welcome in zergs.

Despite its flaws, I love the ranger. I do play it in bus, in roaming, etc. But I also reckon that it is not the most loved/usefull class – All Anet seems to do is kitten it… Always less burst, less dps, less cc (muddy terrain, for instance touched 3 targets, instead of the more usual 5, and with the “evade” update, it touches even less players…)
But, since most of it’s CC also gives cripple – which stability doesn’t allow to evade – it is, I guess, somewhat not too bad.

As for the thief, it has a hell lot of explosion, with the bow. It can be a great finisher in bus vs bus, and depending on it’s specs, have other usefulness for the bus. It it often shunned out of a bus, though, because it is fragile – tends to die fast in bus vs bus, thus raises ennemies.

The Engi is also not often considered a must – despite it’s DPS/survivability – because 1- it’s been worst that the ranger for too long; 2- Nothing it does is specific to it (other classes do what it can do)

All the other classes have much to bring to a bus vs bus setting.

So, in brief, in BvB:
War: DPS/banner/cc,
Guard: buffs/support,
Ele: DPS; (with staff:) lots of combo field and some finishers, lots of cc,
Mesmer: veils, debuffs, portals,
Necros: buff/debuffs/protections,
Engi: Support/Heal/DPS
Thief: Combo finisher, revive allies, kill ennemies
Ranger: Water/fire combos – limited (but possible): support, cc, dps

Zephyrus.9680:

Class strengths
Zerg: ele, necro, warrior, guardian
Solo roam: thief, warrior, mesmer, engi
Small team: anything (team comp)

This ^^ with the one change that mesmer is critical to a zerg as well. So basically if you want to roam and zerg, the ideal class is either mesmer or warrior. Eles aren’t bad as a third choice.

style.6173:

Zephyrus.9680:

Class strengths
Zerg: ele, necro, warrior, guardian
Solo roam: thief, warrior, mesmer, engi
Small team: anything (team comp)

This ^^ with the one change that mesmer is critical to a zerg as well. So basically if you want to roam and zerg, the ideal class is either mesmer or warrior. Eles aren’t bad as a third choice.

i wouldt go as far as saying mesmers are critical to zerg battles. One can do without, but it certainly is a lot easier with even 1 mesmer in the zerg. As for “must have” in a zerg, its ele’s.
It is impossible to get too many static fields. Not to mention the waterfields and meteor shower for anti-siege is a god-sent gift. Ofcourse, rangers do have better waterfields, but then again, eles do provide more overall utility.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

as for escape options: necros have DS and plague form for extended survivability, spectral walk and necrotic traversal to teleport, several sources of fear to create breathing room, better condition removal, being able to drop condition AOEs behind you to slow down chasers.

Those aren’t scape options. Those will only get you a few more seconds before chasers catch up.

These are scape options:

and rangers have half a minute of stability that is “protected” by fury and swiftness, in addition to a pet that can CC, GS#3, Sword #2, LR, Muddy Terrain and finally GS#4

Only real necro scape option is spectral waking off a cliff.

is typing the letter “E” really that hard?

GrandmaFunk.3052:

care to explain how you quantify mobility and assign it that specific value?

as for escape options: necros have DS and plague form for extended survivability, spectral walk and necrotic traversal to teleport, several sources of fear to create breathing room, better condition removal, being able to drop condition AOEs behind you to slow down chasers.

All those necros summoning wurms and using necrotic traversal to escape need to be nerfed, too much mobility.

there seems to be some confusion here.. escape and mobility are two different concepts.

escape is being able to remove yourself from a losing situation long enough to regain parity.

ex: Mistform, one of the best escape options, doesn’t affect mobility at all.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

there seems to be some confusion here.. escape and mobility are two different concepts.

escape is being able to remove yourself from a losing situation long enough to regain parity.

ex: Mistform, one of the best escape options, doesn’t affect mobility at all.

escape and mobility is two separate things, unless you got enough mobility to successfully outmaneuver and shake your opponent.

The main grief of the necro is that while DS and spectral walk provides good defense, you can just hit him/her with a ranged weapon and keep them in combat speed. Necro’s cannot get out of conventional range (1200 for most professions, 1500 for warrior and engineer, 1800 for ranger longbow) before you can hit him. Thus in a chasing situation, the necro can be forced to “stay” within a speed that allows most professions to catch up.

Unless your necro got something to completely block attacks and conditions at the same time, you got no real escape possibilities.

Warriors, Guardians and Rangers got block and multiple gap creater/closer on-demand
Thief/Mesmer got invisibility
Elementalist got mistform
Engineer, well, i dunno about it, never played it. But iv’e seen em run away quite effectively.
Necros…. never has a necro gotten away from my ranger. Now this can come down to two things. Either every necromancer i have fought in EU must be ridiculously terrible, or they do not have any viable escape’s.

That being said, necromancers can be a hassle to beat, and they often end up being a “kill or be killed” type of profession, unless you can easily overwhelm them.

GOSU.9574:

I love the ranger hate. You may not see many good roaming rangers, but once you encounter one and get crushed you will feel ashamed and never share that story. So all you read is the bearbow ranger rally meat stories.

You got that right. I ran into a solo Ranger last weekend that started a 1v2. He didn’t win, but wow that guy was good. Of course, that was one Ranger in what, 15 months?

There is more than that “1 in 15 months”. Sadly Ranger pulls in all the Tolkien Aragorn and Legolas nostalgics that don’t put forth the effort it takes to play an effort required class well (unlike faceroll untargetting hammer spammers with LOLsignet healing).

I garontee. Eaten plenty of them hammerfacerollers on meh ranger.

GOSU.9574:

There is more than that “1 in 15 months”. Sadly Ranger pulls in all the Tolkien Aragorn and Legolas nostalgics that don’t put forth the effort it takes to play an effort required class well (unlike faceroll untargetting hammer spammers with LOLsignet healing).

I garontee. Eaten plenty of them hammerfacerollers on meh ranger.

I didn’t mean to imply that one guy is the only uber Ranger out there. Just that while they do exist, they are incredibly rare.