WvW classes and their roles in zergs

Hello, its me again!

Today I've come to forums with a slightly different question:

What are the current "meta" WvW classes for group play, and what is their purpose?

For example, I notice often a commander saying "We need more X class", or we lack damage, or whatever, and Im honestly sometimes baffled and unsure what exactly I can do to change it. I would appreciate it ALOT if somebody could review briefly what each class in WvW is currently designed to do and roughly what builds they have to use in order to achieve that goal. Here's my current understanding of how things work right now, please fix any misunderstandings I may have about the game as Im still somewhat new to the game and the mode itself even more so:

1. Warrior - these guys seem to be used as a "bubble" tool from my understanding; I think the spellbreaker spec has a large bubble on it that disables boons or something and thats the main reason why people bring these guys to zergs. They are generally prefered as tanks if I understand it correctly? There's no "viable" DPS builds for a warrior in a zerg is it?
2. Guardian - I seem to see a lot of these guys; mostly they seem to be supports though shouts (firebrand spec), but they also seem to be running DH or core guardian sometimes. Do they use power or condition damage generally if they wanna go DPS? Which weapons do they use?
3. Revenant - Hammer revenant seems to be the go-to build for ranged spikes and damage right now, so these guys seem to be brought in for DPS and a bit of boonshare. Thats it right?
4. Thief - These guys have no spots in zergs from my experience
5. Ranger - Same as thief, people dont seem to really like them. Or are there any viable builds for "zerging" as a ranger?
6. Engineer - Scrappers seem to be brought in a lot for their gyros (stealth especially) and superspeed.... Is that it? Or do they also do good damage, or whats the reason people bring them?
7. Necromancer - Power scourges seem to be an alternative to the hammer revenant. Are reapers of any use to the zergs? I really like the reaper spec and hate the scourge one. Is greatsword reaper of any use for example?
8. Mesmer - seem to be brought in for the stealth simillarly to engineers... Or am I missing something? Also, do these guys play DPS, or just support? Which weapons do they use?
9. Elementalist - Ive only seen a few tempests get spots in squads so far and they seem like a weaker version of support guardians (condi cleanse, support).... Am I missing something? Is there any DPS builds an elementalist can run to be helpful in zergs?

All in all, the most important question I have, and the one I cannot seem to find a good answer for is: Is anybody other than scourges and heralds actually useful in terms of DPS to a zerg? I really love playing strong cleave classes (ranger or necro or warrior or guardian with a greatsword, elementalist with daggers, elementalist with a staff....), but Im not sure if any of them are actually welcome in organised WvW environment.

Any insight would be MOST helpful and appreciated.

Thanks!

Warrior is mostly boon strip and secondary healer.

Guardian is primary stab, DH and core is DPS. All DPS are power, as condi is mostly useless against any organized group.

Rev is hammer, and brings useful utility with dwarf.

Thief and Ranger are mostly useless, yeah. There are some builds where they can find use, thief more so for small scale, and ranger have more viable builds for large scale, but generally you are better off taking something else.

Scrapper is main cleanse and PBAoE damage. The condis they cleanse turn into boons, so even trash condis are good for them to cleanse.

Necro was good for it's boonstrip and damage, but the nerfs to Scourge are kinda bringing them down from that. They aren't awful, but the average Scourge just isn't great. Reaper is good for melee hits.

Mesmer is good for boon strip, but not good enough that you want more than like 1 or 2. Generally you'll see a commander be the Mesmer, and maybe one other person. They do insane strips, but that's about it. That plus their pulls make them really good commanders.

Tempest makes for a good cleanser, but scrapper is inherently better since tempest don't convert condis into boons. They can cleanse a ton of condis though. Weaver can dish out a lot of damage, but it's delayed damage so against mobile groups it can be hit or miss. They also die really easily, so generally there are better classes to pick.

For the last question, yes, power guard is better then Scourge in basically every way. It can throw down about the same amount of AoEs, only all of them hit for a ton of damage.

@Rakan Buuyon.8576 said:Warrior is mostly boon strip and secondary healer.

Guardian is primary stab, DH and core is DPS. All DPS are power, as condi is mostly useless against any organized group.

Rev is hammer, and brings useful utility with dwarf.

Thief and Ranger are mostly useless, yeah. There are some builds where they can find use, thief more so for small scale, and ranger have more viable builds for large scale, but generally you are better off taking something else.

Scrapper is main cleanse and PBAoE damage. The condis they cleanse turn into boons, so even trash condis are good for them to cleanse.

Necro was good for it's boonstrip and damage, but the nerfs to Scourge are kinda bringing them down from that. They aren't awful, but the average Scourge just isn't great. Reaper is good for melee hits.

Mesmer is good for boon strip, but not good enough that you want more than like 1 or 2. Generally you'll see a commander be the Mesmer, and maybe one other person. They do insane strips, but that's about it. That plus their pulls make them really good commanders.

Tempest makes for a good cleanser, but scrapper is inherently better since tempest don't convert condis into boons. They can cleanse a ton of condis though. Weaver can dish out a lot of damage, but it's delayed damage so against mobile groups it can be hit or miss. They also die really easily, so generally there are better classes to pick.

For the last question, yes, power guard is better then Scourge in basically every way. It can throw down about the same amount of AoEs, only all of them hit for a ton of damage.

Thanks alot for your input! Few quick questions:

Which weapons do warriors generally use? Or Dragonhunters?

Do reapers go berserker stats with the greatsword for melee cleave, or whats the general consensus?

Do weavers use staff, or is there a better alternative?

Thanks!

Just adding a few usefull links.

gw2mists general guides

gw2mists profession guides (just 3 atm)

Metabattle WvW builds (not my personal fav but you will see what everyones purpose is and get a few insights in builds)

Metabattle WvW guides (additional to the gw2mists general guides)

@Zape.2094 said:

@Rakan Buuyon.8576 said:Warrior is mostly boon strip and secondary healer.

Guardian is primary stab, DH and core is DPS. All DPS are power, as condi is mostly useless against any organized group.

Rev is hammer, and brings useful utility with dwarf.

Thief and Ranger are mostly useless, yeah. There are some builds where they can find use, thief more so for small scale, and ranger have more viable builds for large scale, but generally you are better off taking something else.

Scrapper is main cleanse and PBAoE damage. The condis they cleanse turn into boons, so even trash condis are good for them to cleanse.

Necro was good for it's boonstrip and damage, but the nerfs to Scourge are kinda bringing them down from that. They aren't awful, but the average Scourge just isn't great. Reaper is good for melee hits.

Mesmer is good for boon strip, but not good enough that you want more than like 1 or 2. Generally you'll see a commander be the Mesmer, and maybe one other person. They do insane strips, but that's about it. That plus their pulls make them really good commanders.

Tempest makes for a good cleanser, but scrapper is inherently better since tempest don't convert condis into boons. They can cleanse a ton of condis though. Weaver can dish out a lot of damage, but it's delayed damage so against mobile groups it can be hit or miss. They also die really easily, so generally there are better classes to pick.

For the last question, yes, power guard is better then Scourge in basically every way. It can throw down about the same amount of AoEs, only all of them hit for a ton of damage.

Warriors are generally heal spec and use sword/warhorn, and hammer for CC/boonstrip. Guardian use Staff scepter/ then offhand can be shield, focus, or torch, or staff GS if you are doing a lot of melee hits.

Depends on the Reaper. If I'm running a more comfy build, or just not taking much damage, I'll run zerk, otherwise I'll run marauders. Greatsword staff, or GS axe focus.

Staff for weaver I think. I don't know much about them, as I don't care for ele so never really looked their builds up.

Thanks guys, this has been very helpful!! :)

In approximate order...

Essential (generally required in all groups):

Support Firebrand-- Offers stability , as well as protection and healing to deal with massive CC.

Support Scrapper-- Offers healing, stealth and massive condi clear

Scourge-- Condi corrupts/strips/damage mitigation/damage

Power Herald-- Stability, damage, CC.

Heal Tempest-- Auras, Immobolize, Cleanses

Shoutbreaker-- Cleanses, bubble

Off-meta (good, can be used in alternative compositions but does not directly replace an essential class)

Reaper-- Damage, Corrupts, Pulls

Power Scrapper-- Lots of 11111 mass damage

Power/Burn Guardian-- Same as above, though power is better against more organized groups

Immob Druid-- Entangle, and more.

Support Chronomancer-- Miscellaneous Utility, Res's, Stealth, and the source of much tears.

Power Spellbreaker-- Same as shoutbreaker but has really fallen behind.

Non-Essential Classes (Can work, but must maintain Social DIstancing-- not accepted into most generic groups)

Stance Share Soulbeast- Highly Survivable, Immobs, Additional Support, Very high point blank burst but the lack of aoe spam does hurt.

Pole Dancer Daredevil-- Mobile PBAOE that really pressures squishes that fall out of line while able to also keep up with your own blob, so high surviability, but ineffective in pirate ship situations and chokes. Extremely selfish.

Power Staff Weaver-- Very High spike damage, but needs to be babied. Selfish.

Power Beserker-- Ehh, still works I guess but gimmicky and selfish. (maybe meme banner?)

Ventari Rev-- A huge meme, but it's sure good for stopping disablers!

Quarantined (Please stay home and away from Zerg fights. If you must join a zerg fight, maintain maximum social distancing.)

Transfuse Necro-- When well played, in an organized group, it's strong. However, in the wrong hands, it's the best way to get your people killed. In general, do not pursue if you don't know what you're doing. Your group will probably have to know who you are before they trust you.

Most condi builds

Thieves (excluding daredevil and mebe venom share, but that pales in comarison to ele/druid)

Non-Support Mesmers

Core Engi

Longbow rangers, and anything else that relies on Projectiles.

Most PvE builds for doing WvW dailies.

Most players on my server

Squad meta doesn't matter to me on the other end as much as how well they can move together or recover if I dismantle one of their systems. What also matters is how scrambled or alert my side will be and how hard it might be to cover people. Whatever meta or rollout your squad is running around with, size up your people and decide how well you can recover and walk back out of something or flip the fight if the other side has dragged your front just a few feet out of our prepped area to not have full support but be within range for them to over cast then plow through your front and scramble your mid and rear. Us useless thieves and rangers who didn't fall for that shit and lived get tired of seeing that play out even in 2020.

druid is atm like a tempest just no auras but more heal instead and can be played in zerg. is just not widely spread because the build is not listed on the usual build sites so most people dont know the build and due to their lack of knowledge claim that ranger is not viable...

@ArchonWing.9480 said:In approximate order...

Essential (generally required in all groups):

Support Firebrand-- Offers stability , as well as protection and healing to deal with massive CC.

Support Scrapper-- Offers healing, stealth and massive condi clear

Scourge-- Condi corrupts/strips/damage mitigation/damage

Power Herald-- Stability, damage, CC.

Heal Tempest-- Auras, Immobolize, Cleanses

Shoutbreaker-- Cleanses, bubble

Off-meta (good, can be used in alternative compositions but does not directly replace an essential class)

Reaper-- Damage, Corrupts, Pulls

Power Scrapper-- Lots of 11111 mass damage

Power/Burn Guardian-- Same as above, though power is better against more organized groups

Immob Druid-- Entangle, and more.

Support Chronomancer-- Miscellaneous Utility, Res's, Stealth, and the source of much tears.

Power Spellbreaker-- Same as shoutbreaker but has really fallen behind.

Non-Essential Classes (Can work, but must maintain Social DIstancing-- not accepted into most generic groups)

Stance Share Soulbeast- Highly Survivable, Immobs, Additional Support, Very high point blank burst but the lack of aoe spam does hurt.

Pole Dancer Daredevil-- Mobile PBAOE that really pressures squishes that fall out of line while able to also keep up with your own blob, so high surviability, but ineffective in pirate ship situations and chokes. Extremely selfish.

Power Staff Weaver-- Very High spike damage, but needs to be babied. Selfish.

Power Beserker-- Ehh, still works I guess but gimmicky and selfish. (maybe meme banner?)

Ventari Rev-- A huge meme, but it's sure good for stopping disablers!

Quarantined (Please stay home and away from Zerg fights. If you must join a zerg fight, maintain maximum social distancing.)

Transfuse Necro-- When well played, in an organized group, it's strong. However, in the wrong hands, it's the best way to get your people killed. In general, do not pursue if you don't know what you're doing. Your group will probably have to know who you are before they trust you.

Most condi builds

Thieves (excluding daredevil and mebe venom share, but that pales in comarison to ele/druid)

Non-Support Mesmers

Core Engi

Longbow rangers, and anything else that relies on Projectiles.

Most PvE builds for doing WvW dailies.

Most players on my server

That was very detailed, loved it! Which weapon does the power scrapper run? Do they use a hammer? Or do they use one of their utilities as the main weapon to spam 1? :)

@"Zape.2094" said:That was very detailed, loved it! Which weapon does the power scrapper run? Do they use a hammer? Or do they use one of their utilities as the main weapon to spam 1? :)

metabattle power scrapperSpamming Bomb Kit #1

Yea Power Scrapper mostly uses bomb kit to spam 1. Kits work like an alternative weapon set for engineer but it takes up a utility slot.

You would run hammer just because there's nothing else to run and you're mostly dropping bomb anyways.

When it comes to thief,typically no. Even on my DE vs a properly stacked up blob my shots will be 99% blocked/reflected/destroyed,the one hit that does land will be instantly healed. But,on thief you can go for stragglers,and usually theres some able to be picked off. They are far from wanted because everyone does everything else better in blob fights,except getting those stragglers because of your high mobility,able to stealth finish and lock em down with immob spamms.

@Caedmon.6798 said:When it comes to thief,typically no. Even on my DE vs a properly stacked up blob my shots will be 99% blocked/reflected/destroyed,the one hit that does land will be instantly healed. But,on thief you can go for stragglers,and usually theres some able to be picked off. They are far from wanted because everyone does everything else better in blob fights,except getting those stragglers because of your high mobility,able to stealth finish and lock em down with immob spamms.IMO thief has a problem for zerg flanking - by design for the thief to be effective, it needs to be glassy. But if its glassy, its very weak to getting targetted. So while it does bring the damage, it has a tendancy to not be able to follow through.

But then again how effective this is often depends more on how good the commander is at herding the kittens than it does on the skill of the thief.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Caedmon.6798 said:When it comes to thief,typically no. Even on my DE vs a properly stacked up blob my shots will be 99% blocked/reflected/destroyed,the one hit that does land will be instantly healed. But,on thief you can go for stragglers,and usually theres some able to be picked off. They are far from wanted because everyone does everything else better in blob fights,except getting those stragglers because of your high mobility,able to stealth finish and lock em down with immob spamms.IMO thief has a problem for zerg flanking - by design for the thief to be effective, it needs to be glassy. But if its glassy, its very weak to getting targetted. So while it does bring the damage, it has a tendancy to not be able to follow through.

So which class would you suggest for such actions?

Im thinking ranger cause of the 1500+ longbow range, but it kinda lacks AoE (except for longbow 5, which makes you a sitting duck), or perhaps an Elementalist with a staff (1200range and good AoE)? Any ideas? Id really like to give zerg busting a go ^.^

Btw Caed, Ive heard of you busting people out on your deadeye, hope to see you ingame some time!! :)

@Zape.2094 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Caedmon.6798 said:When it comes to thief,typically no. Even on my DE vs a properly stacked up blob my shots will be 99% blocked/reflected/destroyed,the one hit that does land will be instantly healed. But,on thief you can go for stragglers,and usually theres some able to be picked off. They are far from wanted because everyone does everything else better in blob fights,except getting those stragglers because of your high mobility,able to stealth finish and lock em down with immob spamms.IMO thief has a problem for zerg flanking - by design for the thief to be effective, it needs to be glassy. But if its glassy, its very weak to getting targetted. So while it does bring the damage, it has a tendancy to not be able to follow through.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Zape.2094 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Caedmon.6798 said:When it comes to thief,typically no. Even on my DE vs a properly stacked up blob my shots will be 99% blocked/reflected/destroyed,the one hit that does land will be instantly healed. But,on thief you can go for stragglers,and usually theres some able to be picked off. They are far from wanted because everyone does everything else better in blob fights,except getting those stragglers because of your high mobility,able to stealth finish and lock em down with immob spamms.IMO thief has a problem for zerg flanking - by design for the thief to be effective, it needs to be glassy. But if its glassy, its very weak to getting targetted. So while it does bring the damage, it has a tendancy to not be able to follow through.

I dont think you understand what I mean by zergbusting.... I dont plan to 1v50. I plan to cloud the enemy zerg and pick off their tail, flank the enemy zerg and put a ton of damage down on their downed players to rally our zerg.

Generally I want to be behind the enemy zerg when my zerg is on the other side. When they clash, I want to flank and throw down damage, then quickly get away to safety. :)

Basically clouding.

@Zape.2094 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Zape.2094 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Caedmon.6798 said:When it comes to thief,typically no. Even on my DE vs a properly stacked up blob my shots will be 99% blocked/reflected/destroyed,the one hit that does land will be instantly healed. But,on thief you can go for stragglers,and usually theres some able to be picked off. They are far from wanted because everyone does everything else better in blob fights,except getting those stragglers because of your high mobility,able to stealth finish and lock em down with immob spamms.IMO thief has a problem for zerg flanking - by design for the thief to be effective, it needs to be glassy. But if its glassy, its very weak to getting targetted. So while it does bring the damage, it has a tendancy to not be able to follow through.

Ranger perhaps. Anything with the mobility to get away when youre being pushed back. De as he said,can do it but you rlly have to know what youre doing. But most of the time you can feel utterly useless though vs properly stacked up blobs or when fighting in close quarters,keeps/garri,it's really situational but you mostly can shine in open field. Whatever you run,positioning is mostly important. Hit the sides and the back,be as annoying as you can be,if 10 people suddenly turn to you,all the better for your main blob. Just make sure you can survive it.

Hope to see you aswell btw,otherwise feel free to pm me ingame.

Mesmer is good "clouding" class if enemy isn't totally organized. Just don't play any support kitten. Full damage spec and all possible stealths. Of course if enemy just stand in blob you can't really do anything. Even if you one hit somebody inside blob he just get ress instantly. Clouding problem is that it need to be organized clouding against tight blob. I know because our server mainly poke blobs 24/7 until enemy get bored and leave or start to make mistakes.

If you're planning to cloud pug groups:

For the TLDR though:Spellbreaker: Bubble botFirebrand: Stab botScrapper: Cleanse bot

for Wvw builds use gw2mists site... metabattle has often pretty outdated or bad sets for Wvw afaik

also this "zerg busting" isn't zerg busting, it's just a bad moving group if u can pick of single targets on roamerclasses. u shouldn't need any input on how to do this, it's generally just bad behaviour and happens all the time automatically that like 15 players try to gank a zerg's tail. some servers even cloud for hours in blobsize so yeah... many newbies in the format enable these bad habits - for both sides of the coin.

@kamikharzeeh.8016 said:for both sides of the coin.So what, there is a good side of the coin and a bad side of the coin now?

I use a back artillery support fire weaver outside of squad and at a fair distance, so as to not leech boons off of the squad. As Archon said, it is a Selfish build. I do not share boons, I do self generate them through the fire spec. Might is the only one that matters for it. In most cases, my attacks have very little impact until one critical point : When the two zergs collide. At that point, I have about 5 to 6 seconds to unleash as much AoE firepower on the center of the zone. Staff does help. So does Firestorm and the greater Elemental summon. Position matters relatively. By that point, most people will ignore sideliners, so provided you're not too close and you dont unleash too soon, the enemy zerg will ignore you entirely. Using a viper build has the side bonus of benefitting doubly from might for damage that is relatively noticeable regardless of condi. But the hidden enemy is the burning stacks. There will invariably be some condis that will be used during the fight, which a lot of enemies will immediately cleanse. But if you use a build that can continuously pour on condi stacks after condi stacks, not only will some cleansers will have expunged their cleanse earlier, most of them will also be distracted/CCed by your zerg.

You do Not want to strike before your zerg has engaged if damage is what you're looking for though. You can play a bit with area restrictions by attempting to redirect the enemy zerg by denying them movement with preemptive AoE, but that's hit and miss. Sometime they fear Meteor shower in spite of how innacurate and slow it is, and sometime, it's a good way to stop them from retreating in a straight line. Other times they'll flat out ignore it, or reroute to little benefit. Again though, hit and miss, and it's hard to gauge what your own zerg is doing if you're not in the squad. Providing artillery support during the engagement is more useful.

Burning has the side benefit of quickly finishing off any downed player, leading the zerg to move on faster. Expect to die a lot though. When that happen, rather than mist forming toward the allied zerg, I tend to mist as far away as possible, so as to not draw fire to it, or to lead some pursuers away from the group. If you've been cut down, you'll be more of a detriment to your zerg if you go to it. You also benefit better from being taken out of the fight and running back to the engagement than staying in the fight after you've been noticed. The above works better if the enemy zerg doesn't expect it. Once they've seen it happen once or twice, you'll be permanently marked for deletion if you're too noticeable.

I'm relatively new to WvW compared to most, but that has worked more times than it hasn't. Still prefer to use my revenant for AoE damage but that's for when I'm inside the zerg. Outside, elementalist feels more useful.

@Zape.2094 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Caedmon.6798 said:When it comes to thief,typically no. Even on my DE vs a properly stacked up blob my shots will be 99% blocked/reflected/destroyed,the one hit that does land will be instantly healed. But,on thief you can go for stragglers,and usually theres some able to be picked off. They are far from wanted because everyone does everything else better in blob fights,except getting those stragglers because of your high mobility,able to stealth finish and lock em down with immob spamms.IMO thief has a problem for zerg flanking - by design for the thief to be effective, it needs to be glassy. But if its glassy, its very weak to getting targetted. So while it does bring the damage, it has a tendancy to not be able to follow through.

The answer you are looking for is core guardian power build. It can spike as well as a staff weaver but its WAAAYYY easier to pull off, the cooldowns aren't as punishing, you have 2 invulns, and utility that actually helps your team: ALL AT THE SAME TIME. You give up a bit of range because it relies not just on staff but on scepter, but its 100% worth it. I was playing staff weaver in WvW zergs for awhile and just on a whim switched to power core guard. It feels like a cheat code.