What should I play for WvW?

Hi!

So I just want to give some background on my WvW experience and what I have tried and what I have enjoyed. I want to play something that can be useful in a Zerg, but that I actually enjoy playing at the same time.

So I have had experience playing with 4 professions-Warrior-Mesmer-Necromancer-Thief

The most fun I had was on Mesmer, I tried both Chrono and Mirage and enjoyed them about the same, but ended up preferring a mirage with greatsword. I was mostly messing around, but I did not yet know how a WvW zerg works, and I began to realize that spamming GS ambush skills and phantasms on an enemy Zerg probably brought a minimal contribution. I began to realize that in WvW to play with a big group you need to pretty much be in melee and run in as a group with boons, corrupts, spellbreakers, heals, etc. Like a cannon ball made from players. From what I understand sticking on the tag is important and you want to move with the boons and the healing to have maximum impact and not get picked off. I enjoyed Mesmer because I had tool to avoid damage, break stun, go invisible, and teleport to rejoin the group. But I am honestly not sure if I had any impact or if I was just leeching kills, but it did feel good to see a lot of damage numbers on my skill use. After Mirage lost a dodge I swapped to something else.

Warrior was an interesting experience, I did not mind it at all, but I always felt a bit spare since I did not have any effective ranged damage. I had to position well to participate in the zerg and hit with melee skills and time my bubble well. Something I am half-willing to go for again, but I am convinced I would enjoy something else more, the purely melee experience frustrated me.

I do not really enjoy the thief at the moment, I have tried various approaches and I don't really feel like I have an impact on a zerg and I don't enjoy the solo roaming experience either.

Necro was my most recent attempt, it felt good in that I had ranged options as well as being able to run with the zerg and give barriers and condis at melee range. For solo capping camps or towers etc I could use Reaper and easily swap between the two based on what I need. I did not have the ease of mobility I enjoyed on Mesmer, but I did enjoy feeling more useful maybe. I however stopped WvW for a bit after the recent changes to Necro

I have been looking at Elementalist and Revenant a lot, and I wonder if I should try one of these. I see that both have builds for "backline" and I do not actually understand what role that is from my limited WvW experience.

Staff Weaver could probably do some decent dps from range with good evade and escape skills similar to what I had on Mirage. But surely tempest could have more impact in a zerg wrecking ball?

I despise Hammer as a weapon on Revenant, would much rather try mace/axe and shortbow or something, thinking of looking at a Mallyx build.

I am not sure whether my experiences thus far can help anyone make sense of what I should play. I could just stick with Necro, but would like to try something new.

Thanks for reading!

A lot of options.

As a necro you want to run power scourge for group play. Reapers aren't really wanted atm. So if you enjoy standing back and bomb, with the occasional push while in shroud, it's a both useful and fun class. Be sure to run power.

Mesmers are bit rare in zergs nowadays. Expect to be asked to do specifik tasks all the time, like providing veil for a push and portal ppl. Useful class and wanted in any zerg due to its rarity. But: since you wont find many in a squad they will trust that you do your job and also be on TS/disc if they are.

I play warrior main in wvw and wouldn't advise to play it in a zerg unless you have some experience with it. At least not in the current state of the class. Otherwise you will find yourself to be a "bubble slave" pretty quick. As such, you will run the risk of popping all your "oh shit" buttons to stay alive, thus missing the battle itself. Can also play support warr if that's your thing.

Thieves and rangers are not wanted in zergs and never will be. You just dont provide anything to your group. Weavers do solid damage but there are better options really. You play it if you love the class.

Revenant is another class that is always wanted. You can go frontline if you don't like the backline hammer play, and also almost give your party permanent resistance. And it's a nice roaming class too with several options on how to play.

Necro (scourge) is ideal if you're new to WvW and are playing in a group. It's low risk, high reward if you run trailblazer or celestial. Marks are forgiving , wells are forgiving as long as you drop them where you need to, sand shades are forgiving with the revert to shade skills affecting around the necro. Reapers can't be healed while in shroud and don't have the same level of group play support. The only time it's preferable to run a boon rip over a boon corrupt is when there's scrappers in bulk on the enemy team comp.

Chrono Mesmer is typically run for boon rip (Vicious expression, null field, sword auto) and CC (which removes boons due to Vicious expression) so you really need to be aware of what to do. It's typically run on minstrel's because sword power damage is lame in WvW. Veil is common as well but many commanders have grown accustomed to blasting stealth gyro.

Warrior is difficult to play well in this current meta; most people are playing support spellbreaker. The most requested skill is winds of disenchantment which can be interrupted. In theory with the amount of scrappers and necros running around with barrier, Warrior's Cunning with it's 50% damage bonus would be great to have if you were to run marauder spellbreaker with axe mainhand or greatsword. In practice you would need to run tactics,strength,spellbreaker or tactics,discipline,spellbreaker and that means not much sustain other than utilities and mending might.

Thief is difficult to play well in this meta and relies on positioning , if you run staff daredevil you need to be glassy to do any appreciable damage. It's a high risk medium reward class.

I would avoid elementalist unless you plan on playing aurashare tempest of some sort ; if you run weaver I'd suggest using twist of fate as a utility and running Master's Fortitude. Ranged power damage tends to be from power heralds with hammer on glint+jalis : passive fury boon output from glint is well sought after especially with draconic echo traited.

P.S. backline means you aren't charging into the enemy, you're ranged even if you are staying within range of your heals and boon output.

@"Magnuzone.8395" said:I play warrior main in wvw and wouldn't advise to play it in a zerg unless you have some experience with it. At least not in the current state of the class. Otherwise you will find yourself to be a "bubble slave" pretty quick. As such, you will run the risk of popping all your "oh kitten" buttons to stay alive, thus missing the battle itself. Can also play support warr if that's your thing.

The bubble slave aspect is why its one of the easiest and most casual classes to run a zerg.

Why? Because most commanders literally only care about the bubble, nothing else.

As long as you play spellbreaker and use bubble, you basicly have complete freedom over the rest of your build. The commander wont give a shit. I run mine as a mace/warhorn/rifle shout healer hybrid. It gives me the range that I want and the support that the commander want.

Mesmer is in a similar position, but necro will have heavy pressure to perform at pure meta spec, while thief is basicly non existant in zerging.

Thank you so much for the feedback thus far

I think my options at the moment are

Condi Herald https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Herald_-_Condition_Frontline

Celestial Scourge https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scourge_-_Celestial_Scourge

Aura Share Tempest https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Frontline_Aurashare

You might also consider an Engi, both Scrapper and Holo have builds that work with group compositions and can provide boons and cleanses to your group.