Who Should Get Home?

[SaltyDogs.9073]

Which class is most suited to capping home in the beginning? I've always thought it was thief/daredevil because of high mobility, but I've seen some people in-game say thieves don't take home. So what exactly is the consensus?

[Abelisk.4527]

Anyone who can defend well and/or duel well.Mesmers are a popular option due to portal

[Hesacon.8735]

Thief or mesmer are a clear first choice. Thief can shortbow hop across the map like nobody's business.

Druid is a fair backup because of staff 3. Maybe ele as a backup backup. Even in high gold I sometimes have to get it on my scourge because communication is hard.

The most important thing is someone agrees to get it. And not multiple people. The quirks of pugs.

[Crius.5487]

Someone who is fast and is also good at winning 1v1's should always go home at the start. Thief is a bad option for this because thief is better at +1'ing fights and decapping uncontested nodes than winning a 1v1. It's better for the thief to go to mid, help to secure a down by pressuring whoever has lowest health, then as soon as that target is single downed disengage to decap far. Someone who is great at dueling, like a mesmer, should go home at the beginning in case someone from the opposing team rushes home.

[Crab Fear.1624]

Daredevil_-_Dagger/Pistol first usage bullet says "At the start of a match a D/P thief should never be the one sent to capture the node closest to its spawn. Always go to the middle point with your team or help someone push far and stack AoE stealth using the Black Powder+Cluster Bombcombo shortly before arrival."

Thief_-_Marauder_S/D doesn't really give the same advice because at one point this was quite a good dueling build, and still may very well be in capable hands

Note like the person above says, a good duelist or mesmer is a great choice.

Vallun, one of the best thieves NA says this in his video start at 1:07 if it doesn't automatically