5 Years of GW2: Top pvp builds.

I'll add builds per class that reached popularity off the top of my head, and see which classes had the least amount of viable stuff in all this time. Feel free to suggest some if I forget them.

Warrior

• Hambow
• Mace condi berserker
• Cele shoutbow
• Settler / cleric shoutbow
• Spellbreaker
• 100blades with frenzy (?)
• GS + hammer
• Cele axe

Guardian

• Vanilla meditation guard
• Symbolic DH(?)
• core valk hammer 2017
• Meta DH (1 trap)
• Trapper (HoT release)
• Firebrand
• Burn firebrand(?)
• Altruistic vanilla bunker

Revenant

• Meta herald
• Viper rev
• Ventari bunker

Thief

• Condi s/d daredevil
• Condi d/d daredevil (before s/d buffs)
• Acro vanilla s/d
• Crit strikes vanilla d/p
• Shadow arts vanilla d/p
• Panic strike vanilla d/p
• Acro staff daredevil
• D/p daredevil
• 2017 core s/d
• S/p on release (pw dmg nerfed immediately)
• S/p some years later (pw ini increased immediately and forgotten)
• Non acro staff daredevil(?) I remember a top thief said this was better than d/p at some point.

Ranger

• Vanilla spirit ranger
• Vanilla trap condi ranger
• Meta druid with smokescale / bristleback and ancient seeds (HoT release)
• Bunker druid 2017
• Pewpew ranger (pre point blank shot visual tweak)

Engineer

• 100nades
• Cele rifle
• Hammer scrapper
• Holosmith
• Static discharge rifle(?)
• Turret fucking engi
• Vanilla pistol condi engi(?)
• Soldier amulet rifle

Mesmer

• Bunker mesmer (HoT release)
• Condi chrono
• Condi mirage
• Vanilla power shatter
• Any mesmer with a portal

Necro

• Cele signet necro
• Chill condi reaper
• Power lich form necro
• Dhuumfire pre-nerf condi vanilla necro
• Curses condi scourge
• Blood magic condi scourge
• Minionmancer(?)

Elementalist

• Bunker tempest
• Bunker staff
• Cele d/d

Shoutouts to elementalists dominating pvp since release doe. /s

If I missed some, or if you think some of these builds were never top, then I'll remove them. My memory is blurry after all this time.

For engi you missed marauder rifle as meta right before HoT release and elixer engi which has been off and on since release of the game. Ranger for awhile right after the rapid fire rate increase had some power ranger sniper builds going on. Survival condi ranger was briefly meta during cele age. Wasn't super meta but FA ele has been a thing for most of the existence of the game (never dominated but has been present at times)

Those are the only ones I can think of outside of your list atm

I miss core necro. Fire, blood trait and minions. such a tankmode

@Ario.8964 said:For engi you missed marauder rifle as meta right before HoT release and elixer engi which has been off and on since release of the game. Ranger for awhile right after the rapid fire rate increase had some power ranger sniper builds going on. Survival condi ranger was briefly meta during cele age. Wasn't super meta but FA ele has been a thing for most of the existence of the game (never dominated but has been present at times)

Those are the only ones I can think of outside of your list atm

Yeah I thought about FA ele but it has never been a must pick, nor did it excel at any role over other comparable classes. Sad really.

Ele had cele staff

War had the Axe/bow build

The vanilla bunker guard you're looking for is the Altruistic Healing one

Probably still missing some but can't remember them atm. Remove soulbeast btw, not much better than Renegade.

Can't really say this is a matter of what's viable or what isn't. The meta doesn't change when something more optimal doesn't pop up. Further, tank/cele builds fell out not because of innate profession imbalance but because the defensive amulets themselves were removed.

You'd have to break it down in a timeline and look for overlap rather than just the number of builds in the meta over the years for a more accurate portrayal. Otherwise all you're really looking at is the number of times the meta has changed within the confines of the classes, which really doesn't speak anything about build diversity.

Which based on the low numbers for some classes, suggests the game is not at all diverse.

Cele axe/bow warrior (one of the best damage builds in game). Could 1v2 quite easily, 3v5 and getting kills was often. It was a lot better than hambow imo

Zerker stance warr was meta all pre-HOT

Warrior berserk gs shield mace non condi and condi was m/s lb. You forget rom playing gs hammer pre hot too in wts cologne.

Was 2 versions of shoutbow too one cele era and later on cleric/settler

Auramancer staff season 1 and 2 on cele/cleric.

Soldier rifle engi w/ nades

It really is amazing that Eles were pretty much gods till PoF. Now we're just good but overshadowed by better professions.

Eles are not good anymore?What do eles bring to the table anymore??And after the first set of nerfs to auramancer it fell off and just became good, not god-like

@Lilyanna.9361 said:Eles are not good anymore?What do eles bring to the table anymore??And after the first set of nerfs to auramancer it fell off and just became good, not god-like

In case you're responding to the above post I'm pretty sure that was sarcasm.

You also forget D/P SA thief pre hot, or D/P panic strike thief with old system 60206. You also played D/D soldier ele before cele existed, think cleric was also played. S/D ele was also played in the early stage of the game

ah the early days of Bullrush Frenzy 100b XD

@"Razor.6392" said:

• Ventari bunker

This wasn't even close to being "meta". Maybe in bronce-silver, but hardly saw one at gold and I guess it was extremely easy to counter by plat-legend players.

@bluri.2653 said:You also forget D/P SA thief pre hot, or D/P panic strike thief with old system 60206. You also played D/D soldier ele before cele existed, think cleric was also played. S/D ele was also played in the early stage of the game

I don't remember either of those ele builds being top tier. Especially S/D back when fresh air or lightning rod didn't exist. Maybe very few eles mastered it (not me) but I never stumbled upon it outside 1 dude in wvw.

D/D soldier's cele was used for a bit up until cele got buffed.

Valk Ele 2013 Phantaram (the amulet had Power + Toughnes (edit) + 20% crit) and he got Fury (extra 20%) from the Switch Attument trait

Mace or Axe+Shield / Hammer Warrior + a trait that increase damage done to stunned targets by 50% (the community created that spec 9-10 months after the nerf of Haste (in all classes) .When the trait was nerfed to 20% bonus damage to stunned , they gave them Cleanisng Ire + 25% speed ifthey have ameele weapon + Buffed Healing Signet ... then the procced to to Ban that Gorgeous Hairy Mesmer ....Then Sword/Bow condition was used (2 months later) .Then Axe-Shield / Axe-mace and too many F1 for 6-7kcrits :PThen we had some qualifiers tournaments ...and some random WvWvW team using the Hammerbow with Healing Shouts (was mocked by the twitch viewers as worthless spec) and later on used by the pros :PAnd then some hate about bunker wars 2 or something :P

@Buran.3796 said:

@"Razor.6392" said:

• Ventari bunker

It started becoming a thing in upper plat (EU) some weeks before the nerfs actually. Not meta but sometimes you'd even have 2 in a match and it was the most annoying thing ever. It could decap regardless of how many players were around, making it super forgiving to lose fights because the ventari rev could just erase the lead you got by spamming knockback.

@Razor.6392 said:

@bluri.2653 said:You also forget D/P SA thief pre hot, or D/P panic strike thief with old system 60206. You also played D/D soldier ele before cele existed, think cleric was also played. S/D ele was also played in the early stage of the game

That dude was a pro player and is/was the best thief in the entirety of GW2 so I'm going to say he's probably right on what pros played what :P

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@Razor.6392 said:

@bluri.2653 said:You also forget D/P SA thief pre hot, or D/P panic strike thief with old system 60206. You also played D/D soldier ele before cele existed, think cleric was also played. S/D ele was also played in the early stage of the game

Haha, are we thinking of the same guy? It was a male asura doing magic with scep/dag. Could never kill him.