Best class for all parts of WvW

[jaif.3518]

Is there one class that has good-great roaming, zerg-support, zerg-dps builds?  The idea is one class you can login to a queued battleground with, and flip between builds as the need arises.

[Xephir.7635]

Guardians and Elementalist fit those descriptions, maybe Revenant too.

[Shroud.2307]

Engineer.

Zerg/small scale:
Support Scrapper, Grenade DPS Scrapper or Holosmith, Inventions Prot (cleanse support) Holo

Roaming:
Grenade Scrapper or Holosmith, Inventions Prot Holo, Hybrid Scrapper or Holo

Edited October 2, 2021 by Shroud.2307

[ASP.8093]

Let's just go through all of them?

 

Guardian:

* Top-tier zerg Support: Healbrand, practically mandatory.

* Okay zerg DPS: Dragonhunter performs decently.

* Okay Roaming: afaik Meditrapper type DH is still part of the roaming meta; you can play a few other condi and meditation builds as well.

Warrior:

* Okay zerg support/DPS: Minstrel or Marauder Spellbreaker, respectively; either way you are a walking Bubble.

* Okay Roaming: a variety of builds are possible, various especs and gear types, but almost all will force you to use either Sword or Greatsword for the mobility; tends to have kinda "swingy" matchups imo.

Revenant:

* Top-tier zerg DPS: Hammer Herald. (Also "support" in the sense that you buff your allies with might, fury, Assassin's Presence).

* Top-tier Roaming: super mobile bursty builds, tanky Celestial or Trailblazer builds — great variety and power.

* No worthwhile pure support build for zergs.

 

Engineer:

* Top-tier zerg Support: Minstrel Scrapper for cleanses, superspeed, stealth.

* Marginal zerg DPS: I forget the exact build but people try to make themselves useful with stuff like Mortar and Bomb Kit.

* Top-tier roaming: Holo or Scrapper, usually with Grenades.

Ranger:

* Top-tier Roaming: various flavors of ranged pew-pew, plus condi tanks.

* Nearly no worthwhile zerg builds to speak of.

Thief:

* Top-tier Roaming: various Daredevil melee burst builds, Rifle Deadeye, P/D Condi Thief.

* Nearly no worthwhile zerg builds to speak of.

 

Necromancer:

* Top-tier zerg DPS: Scourge of maximum boon ripping or Reaper if you want some extra DPS on the melee engage.

* Incidental zerg Support: An interesting side-effect of playing Scourge is that you can give your allies a bit of Barrier while playing a DPS role.

* Okay Roaming: typically Reaper builds that aim to move fast and hit hard; slow tanky stuff is also semi-viable.

Elementalist:

* Okay zerg Support: Aura Tempest can get more cleanses than an engineer (but you miss out on group stealth and superseed).

* Okay zerg DPS: Meteor Weaver is a great blob-fight spec.

* Okay Roaming: lots of choices, including bursty builds like Fresh Air Scepter and tankier Celestial specs.

Mesmer:

* Okay zerg support/DPS: Gravity Well, pulls, Portal. Popular commander build and it doesn't hurt to bring one or two extra but you honestly don't do that much outside of your specific "moment to shine."

* Okay Roaming: some of the Power builds are still struggling right now but builds like Condi Mirage are doing alright.

Edited October 3, 2021 by ASP.8093

[Junkpile.7439]

Good wvw class need stealth. Hard to disable siege without stealth.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Junkpile.7439

[nerva.7940]

Revenant, otherwise maybe engie. Engie roaming builds are not top tier though .

[Zyreva.1078]

5 hours ago, nerva.7940 said:

Revenant, otherwise maybe engie. Engie roaming builds are not top tier though .

Engi (holo and scrapper to be more specific) has some of the best solo roaming builds, alongside thief and ranger, and is also very strong in small grp fights. Rev shines in grps but is not that great solo.

Edited October 3, 2021 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[kash.9213]

If you're mostly trying to move and work with scaled up groups from running around solo or two or three then you can probably spread out what you need among your build templates and take anything. I build to cover people and groups on my thief. I'll hang out in larges fights and be mostly fine, but there's no slot for me in those squads, gotta put other people in there. I guess you have to decide how core to group composition you want to be when you're vibing then make a spectrum scaling up and down with your build templates. 

[Chichimec.9364]

22 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

Let's just go through all of them?

 

Guardian:

* Top-tier zerg Support: Healbrand, practically mandatory.

 

Revenant:

* Top-tier zerg DPS: Hammer Herald. (Also "support" in the sense that you buff your allies with might, fury, Assassin's Presence).

* Top-tier Roaming: super mobile bursty builds, tanky Celestial or Trailblazer builds — great variety and power.

* No worthwhile pure support build for zergs.

I can vouch for these two specifically. My WvW main is a rev. In small groups and zegs I'll run hammer herald with marauder gear. For solo roaming, a condi renegade works well for me, with full trailblazer gear. Those are the two main builds I use. For times when I have to move faster I also have a herald build with traveler runes for a bit of extra speed to keep up with a fast moving zerg or to try to outrun enemies. For a zerg with excellent support, that rev also has a full set of glass cannon berserker build/gear. Given how old and slow I am, it does take excellent support to keep that glass cannon up and fighting but it does punch out the dps.  🙂

For the last few weeks I've been experimenting with a healbrand guardian using a full kit of minstrel's gear. The game play is more complicated than a hammer herald but it is a fun build for me and I like being able to give all the support a healbrand is capable of, which is a lot. One issue though is the lower reward level for support builds. Anet has said they want to rectify that in the future but the current reality was driven home to me earlier today. The squad I was in had a long, complicated battle to capture SMC. I was in the midst of it the whole time, pumping out healing, buffs, and cleansing as fast as I could while still shooting bits of damage at enemies when I had a chance. When we finally took SMC though, I did not get any credit for it, not even the daily for capturing a keep. Ouch! I haven't tried any other builds on that guardian yet, so I can't give any feedback on which other builds are effective for solo roaming and such.

 

[ASP.8093]

To me, what it boils down to is this:

Most of the time, if a group is straight-up crying for support, like "oh crap we can't play without more supports," what they're desperate for is Firebrand. (Whereas if they don't have enough Tempests or Scrappers they'll just go anyway and play a bit squishier than normal.)

So you can learn to play Guardian and give them that Firebrand. The main downside is that you might be constantly asked to play Firebrand.

Or, if you hate Guardian/Firebrand, you can pick up Revenant, learn the normal Hammer Herald playstyle, and then get some practice maximizing Stability and Protection output on that same build. This is an aspect of Hammer Herald that a lot of people ignore simply because they can (since the Firebrand also covers that), but knowing how to do it can be pretty clutch in certain situations. Then you just happily play your DPS spec and pretend you don't know anything about "support" (otherwise people will keep asking you to play support) while quietly saving the day from time to time.

 

If it turns out your actual requirements are more lax than this, then just about anything besides Thief and Ranger (I love 'em but don't go zerging with them) will do.

Edited October 3, 2021 by ASP.8093

[subversiontwo.7501]

The reality is that most classes can fill most roles, most other issues are a question of opinion, popularity, demand and demands.

Let's take another recent thread here on the forums about the Ranger:
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/102191-is-it-high-time-for-rangers-to-receive-a-support-class-as-an-e-spec-for-them-to-be-valuable-in-wvw-zerging/?tab=comments#comment-1478215

In it you can see discussions emerging about class, role and scale.

You can see the discussion branch out into different statements, for example:

1. Druid could use some help on the healing side. This is true, it could.

2. Druid is absolutely useless and not good for anything. This is not true, it has things it excels at.

3. Druid needs to be (more/exactly-) like Scrapper. This is not true and it would cheapen the mode.

All these arguments can be passed around at the same time and the same thread to shape the discussion and some of them can be entirely true while others are completely false. Responses in the thread will vary based on what someone is responding to.

So to bring that into discussion: the Druid could use some help on the healing side but it could also use a healthy shaving on the control side because immobilisation is growing more and more popular because it has become relatively stronger and stronger through recent changes. That affects things in reverse ways that I don't think most people pay attention to. Immob is getting to a point now, especially on Rangers, where it just oversteps conventional means of dealing with it. It may not affect every class but the balance of it is comming closer to where those less affected by it are only the classes with specialised means of dealing with it. Not the typical cleanse but very specific unique mechanics designed to defeat it. That is very poor balance and it is reminiscent of the discussion we've seen about stealth or Thieves for some time now. There are simply more applications of control than there are instances of counters so players can counter it yet have that be ineffective or still be affected by the control. Those unaffected have built-in cleanses on unique profession mechanics tied to exceptional cooldowns like swaps, dodges, leaps and the like. It's also such a powerful effect that if you don't get rid of it you can lose all recourse or just get killed without much of a chance of fighting back which just feels bad.

That is also important for larger scale because the relatively stronger and popular a certain effect becomes the more important becomes its counter. Again, reversal. So if you want to support as a Tempest or a Druid then things like condition-control Eles and Rangers are very much what makes Scrappers more so important. If there are less control conditions or if it is less decisive in combat then that opens up more options beyond "the best cleanser", the superspeed to defeat chill/cripple or the conversion into resistance (against the same control conditions).

Similar cases have been made about Guards/Firebrands. Too many people stare themselves blind at the appearant popularity (or commander pleas) for Guards but they want to adress that by nerfing their important stab or having other classes step into the exact same role, which is going to create the contrary where you need more of them or someone else always loses out. Nerf it and you might need two or you might need two of something else, pushing the outliers further away because the cause for their importance is still there. It is much better to make hard control less impactful and through that open up more variety in support needed for different parties or draw more attention to the fact that different parties do need different types of support.

One final thing I'd like to pass on is to think about scalability. Another lesser-known truth is that most things that players make work at smaller scale (eg., 10-15 man guild groups) also works at larger scale by simply scaling the single role to a party. The only limitation there is that it does require from you the ability to operate and function as a party. That's why those things are not meta. It isn't for everyone or it isn't for hopping into a group of 50 as an unproven solo player on. I think that latter is usually the problem people have more so than anything else when they look at the meta. They want to do a very specific thing (such as joining a 50-man squad as a solo player with no attachment to anyone else in the squad) but they also want to do it in their own way on their own class and that just short circuits. So if people want to do that, that's why meta builds exist. Same as if you want to play a Scrapper, play a Scrapper instead of making threads or posts on a forum about turning your Druid into a Scrapper.

So if you want to zerg as a Thief you can. You can't do it if you're not good enough or have no friends. Get experience and friends and you will see what unique flavour it brings and how to make it work. I think that speaks volumes for the game overall because GW2 has always been in this fundamental balance that classes have similar skill roofs but different skill floors. Even the most basic beginner build have vast depth to build into later. Scrappers in zergs can be incredibly basic both to its appeal and detriment but Scrappers in good guilds are an entirely different story, and on.

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Infusion.7149]

The answer is engineer. Roaming on holo/scrapper and largescale on scrapper.

Guardian is weak for roaming due to mobility and revenant gets shredded by heavy conditions and CC (because it only has one stunbreak regardless of legend and condi herald was nerfed due to torment changes).

 

[Leo.3428]

5 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

Then you just happily play your DPS spec and pretend you don't know anything about "support" (otherwise people will keep asking you to play support) while quietly saving the day from time to time.

Comically put, but sad.

If every squad member did part DPS, part support, would that achieve the same collaborative output of part of the squad doing only top DPS and part of the squad doing only top support? I suppose this has been tried already and it didn't work for some reason, so feel free to consider this a rhetorical question. But i'd like to understand why it wouldn't work. It may have to do with how the bar skill actions and the modifiers are bundled, forcing specialization for efficiency.

 

3 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

One final thing I'd like to pass on is to think about scalability. Another lesser-known truth is that most things that players make work at smaller scale (eg., 10-15 man guild groups) also works at larger scale by simply scaling the single role to a party. The only limitation there is that it does require from you the ability to operate and function as a party. That's why those things are not meta. It isn't for everyone or it isn't for hopping into a group of 50 as an unproven solo player on.

This is some light in the darkness, thank you. Here's hoping the upcoming restructuring will put a stronger emphasis on guild/alliance organization and team work, for some more variety in battle styles and builds. I once happened upon a strange mid-sized battle where neither side stacked all the time, instead deployed and played with the terrain and professions; I had never felt so awake (in my admittedly short experience with the game mode).

[ASP.8093]

2 hours ago, Leo.3428 said:

If every squad member did part DPS, part support, would that achieve the same collaborative output of part of the squad doing only top DPS and part of the squad doing only top support?

The secret of the boonball comp is that everyone in the boonball is doing at least *some* support, they're just specializing in providing either damage or healing alongside it. Look at Hammer Herald, for instance — it's the biggest burst DPS in the group (Scourge tends to provide a bit more "pulsing" DPS) but it's also providing:

perma Fury, 10-ish Might, Assassin's Presence (+Ferocity), Swiftness, Regeneration

small Stability stacks

on engage: Protection + 5 secs superseed + 5 seconds of 50% damage reduction

mediocre projectile block

light group condi cleanse (on staff)

[Leo.3428]

22 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

The secret of the boonball comp is that everyone in the boonball is doing at least *some* support, they're just specializing in providing either damage or healing alongside it. (...)

Thanks. Now I'm wondering if one can make a 99% DPS build - not that I'd want to use that except if I had two dozen loadouts for each and every situation (and I could switch in combat) (which subtly ties it back to the OP's question after I derailed the discussion).

[ASP.8093]

1 hour ago, Leo.3428 said:

Thanks. Now I'm wondering if one can make a 99% DPS build - not that I'd want to use that except if I had two dozen loadouts for each and every situation (and I could switch in combat) (which subtly ties it back to the OP's question after I derailed the discussion).

I mean, that's Meteor Weaver (with some small allowances for not dying instantly). Is it good? Your mileage may vary.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The three classes I picked for WvW were Revenant, Engineer, and Elementalist specifically because they could do all 3.  People have already talked about the Engineer and the Rev, so I'll talk about the Elementalist:

Solo/small scale:  I've had a lot of fun with sword weaver.  There are... so many builds you can make for small scale.  Whether you want to be pure DPS, pure condi, hybrid of both, or a hybrid of boons/heals/damage, weaver can do it all.  You just have to figure out which gear to choose.

Zerg Support: Tempest Aurmanacers can do a lot.  Not everything at once, but a lot.  The two most important auras to give out are magnetic and shocking, which can stop an enemy advance in its tracks.  The water line is a given, so your second trait line is there to choose which boons you want to give out.  Air gives fury and swiftness, earth gives protection, fire gives cleanses and might.

Zerg DPS:  Though its damage has been nerfed a lot, Staff Weaver can still be quite good for a zerg.  The main advantage they give isn't just damage.  It is CC.  Sit in Earth/Air to quickly lay down Static Field and Unsteady Ground.  This will fragment an approaching group, or bar them from leaving a losing fight.  Frozen Ground can also do this.  Meteor shower is still terrifying to enemy zergs, and if one is caught off guard it will rain loot bags on you.  

[Telgum.6071]

Elementalist works everywhere but can be hard on zerg play due to low HP, so you require a decent guardian or being extremely careful, or play from afar.

Revenant is cool too, works everywhere and is not extremely hard to play.

[jaif.3518]

Thanks all for the interesting discussion.

 

FYI, what prompted this was me playing a heal-bunny vindicator during the beta, which was fun, easy, and seemed to be pretty effective.  In smaller groups it was observably useful.  In larger groups, I can't be sure without overall stats, but I survived pretty easily in pugs, and certainly contributed lots of healing if nothing else.

 

Anyways, I have a hammer rev I play when I want to hang back and go **boom**, and a condi shortbow that I play when there are no groups, so vindicator looked like it would round that out.  That got me to thinking about other classes, hence the question.

 

Thanks,

 

-Jeff

[pcgamefreak.5208]

Condi Necro would be perfect for that if only the "Devs" respected conditional damage like power.  As a pure Condi Necro, meaning you only stack condition first, you're better served behind the front line, where you can spead conditions beyond the front line, turn a Zerg's boons into corruptions and inflict conditions on enemy players.

 

That all sounds great but the problem is conditional damage will never hit like power, which doesn't make sense.  If a player can have 2.5k power attribute and give you a good pop, why can't a Condi with 2.5k condition attrb deal 3+k damage per second in condition, with crits that go higher?  Conditions can be cleansed but you can't take back a good pop from a power build.

 

So unless your Zerg has like 10+ pure Condi Necros in it, you're not going to melt Zergs down because turning a Zerg's boons to corruptions is the other only way to dismantle a Zerg.  The other way is to just flat out, out-power them but that's usually the hard way, especially if there's hackers on the enemy side using those decryption hack-tools that can't be detected.  As a Condi Necro, you don't have any real burst and part of that is the fact Marks are too easy to dodge, they don't deal good conditional damage and the 'CC' from them is weak.  What's an interruption from a mark compared to a pull-down, where you're laying flat for seconds....  The staff period delivers nothing in terms of conditional burst and all that is do to poor game/concept design.  Now every class in the game is a Necro because the "Devs" have crossed all abilities from one class with another class, further adding insult to injury.

 

Just yesterday I watched a thief vanishing for long periods of time so just to make sure I wasn't crazy, I brought my thief in WvW to check the vanishing time on all the abilities that let you do it and saw that most of them were still 1 second of vanishing time, two at the most.  So when players do the long vanish, re-appear and repeat constantly...going way beyond the abilities that allow them to vanshing...it's dead obviously they're cheating.  Just about every thief in WvW uses cheats now because the class is a glass build class and would be super hard to stay alive with while surrounded by a tiny Zerg.  I use to see none-cheating thiefs from time to time, using the real vanishing skills and they are fairly easy kills when five players are chasing them but with the hacker theif, an entire Zerg will die by their hacking!

 

If the PvP was right in GW2, no one would feel the need to cheat the game.  A ridiculous amount of poor develepment decisions in the game makes it a bad "WOW" clone.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

1 hour ago, Horace.3184 said:

Condi Necro would be perfect for that if only the "Devs" respected conditional damage like power.

Ofcourse it was a necro, who else would dig out a topic that was dead for over a year.