Best 3 classes for Fractals and Raids?

[DrNixilis.1784]

In your opinion what are the 3 best classes for Fractals and/or Raids?

[maidiance.6920]

Guardian, pretty much any flavor.Mesmer, not much else has to be said about that.Someone who can pick up people. Scourge used to hard carry because of this. I think tempest can do this, but I don't play one.

[LucianDK.8615]

Mesmers used to be the undisputed king of fractals and raids. But theyve increasingly been hacked down to size, while guardians got overbuffed. Doing way too much with their firebrand kit.

Ah yes, Alacrigade revenants, the partner of firebrands.

[Cyninja.2954]

Guardian, Warrior and/or Revenant.

• Guardian works on any build and for multiple roles (dps, healer, offensive support).
• Warrior because banners are a thing on top of the classes great power dps and cc.
• Revenant because of alacrity Renegade

Basically thise three are the current corner stones of fractal groups.

[Agrippa Oculus.3726]

Guardian and Warrior for sure (reasoning: see posts above):

Then, because you (also) ask Fractals and Raids, I would still go for Mesmer, cause they still absolutely rule raids (Chrono and Mirage) and although not META anymore in fractals, they're on their own still much better than any other boon support (in the form of Chrono of course).

Very close outsiders: Revenant: because it completes the Firebrigade combo with (mainly) its Alacrity support.And don't forget Ranger: with its Spirits: still very potent and unique buff to the whole party.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

For raids mesmer, guardian, ranger and warrior.

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

Guardian, warrior and ranger. All meta for fractals and all meta dor raids. Mesmer is 4th since you use it in raids but not in fractals. Revenant would be 5th I guess.Guardian is now the top dog but I expect that some nerfs will come next patch.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

As far as fractals are concerned:

1. Firebrand/Renegade
2. Banner Warrior to go with
3. Any other 2x DPS classes. But if I had to slide one above the others for a 3rd place importance next to Firebrand/Renegade/Banner Warrior, I would say Reaper. Although there are classes that land more burst in a shorter amount of time, the Reaper's DPS is steady & consistent, which serves its purpose against mobs. The damage is large spread AoE always, and the autos hit hard in conjunction with quickness play. Its self sustain through shroud generally makes it a safe player, but this is a particular perk during bad instability rolls or when the party must divide & break formation vs. objectives. The Reaper can land relatively safe revives due to shroud use, but also through the use of Signet of Undeath. Reaper utilities are also nice vs. certain fractals, such as bringing forth minions to block projectiles, or using Flesh Wurm to bypass certain areas and complete a fractal more quickly.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

IMO the context is very broad. The 'best' classes will greatly vary depending on the situation - each for pugging/soloing/speedclearing dailies/recs/fractal CMs and pugging/fast/safe/speedclearing raids/raid CMs (could also be more).

e.g. Fractals at a high level is all about burst. The 3 best (and only relevant due to other classes lacking similar burst) classes are:

• DH
• power weaver
• power Slb
• Alacgade would be the next best because of the handy alacrity and lifesteal, but it doesn't have that burst that makes bosses phase fast which is the ultimate goal. Note the 3 above builds are played with slight differences compared to their raid counterparts (precast + prestack knowledge & use of different traits and skills are required).

However, the above does not work unless the comp is specifically setup as a burst comp. Hence, when commonly pugging the generic T4 fracs, it suddenly changes into:

• HB (healbrand)
• Alacgade
• a self sustain spec that provides its own boons, in case the above two are not present (prominent examples include reaper and pchrono, although these two have low tier dps and should be outmatched by other classes with a decent HB and alacgade. Other examples such as condi firebrand and banner zerker could fit in this slot)

So then there are even more situations such as having both or no HB and alacgade present, or having one and not the other, etc. There's too much to consider in just only fractals to be set specifically on 3 best endgame classes.

However, without going too deep into raid comps and like everyone else is practically stating, there is one profession that clearly stands out compared to the rest - guardian. With all the gear (and especs) available, you rarely can ever go wrong with a guard.

[Agrippa Oculus.3726]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:As far as fractals are concerned:

1. Firebrand/Renegade
2. Banner Warrior to go with
3. Any other 2x DPS classes. But if I had to slide one above the others for a 3rd place importance next to Firebrand/Renegade/Banner Warrior, I would say Reaper. Although there are classes that land more burst in a shorter amount of time, the Reaper's DPS is steady & consistent, which serves its purpose against mobs. The damage is large spread AoE always, and the autos hit hard in conjunction with quickness play. Its self sustain through shroud generally makes it a safe player, but this is a particular perk during bad instability rolls or when the party must divide & break formation vs. objectives. The Reaper can land relatively safe revives due to shroud use, but also through the use of Signet of Undeath. Reaper utilities are also nice vs. certain fractals, such as bringing forth minions to block projectiles, or using Flesh Wurm to bypass certain areas and complete a fractal more quickly.

You forget Soulbeast with Frost Spirit. Last spot can be any DPS, but also there is Guardian quite a dominant factor (Power DH).

[Safandula.8723]

Guardian, Guardian and Guardian.

[Painbow.6059]

Guardian is one of the best classes for fractals and raids. In fractals, you have Power Quickbrand, Condition Quickbrand, Power Dragonhunter (DPS) and you could even play Condition Firebrand if you wanted. In raids, you have similar options. Ranger is another class which is great in both forms of content, in the form of Power Soulbeast for fractals and far more build versatility in raids, including Druid, Power Soulbeast and Condition Soulbeast. Thirdly, I'm gonna say warrior due to banners.

[Dadnir.5038]

@DrNixilis.1784 said:In your opinion what are the 3 best classes for Fractals and/or Raids?

It depend a lot of what you want to do and how much effort you want to put into what you do.

• offensive support, you'll go with guardian, warrior (banner) and ranger (any)
• defensive support/heal, you'll go with revenant (ventari), elementalist (tempest) and necromancer (scourge)
• high potential DPS, you'll have elementalist (weaver), guardian (firebrand) and mesmer (chrono)
• high survivability DPS, you'll have necromancer (reaper)

[knite.1542]

Mesmer, guardian, ranger.

I think people are ranking warrior too high. I get that banners are great and all but I wouldn't put warrior in the top 3.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

FB/REN/berserker. Berserker DPS is madnessYou may lack some vulnerability and would like DH to precast traps for your "new record" video, and faster vulnerability application. But please, stop kicking a second berserker for obscur a priori.

[Nephalem.8921]

@knite.1542 said:Mesmer, guardian, ranger.

I think people are ranking warrior too high. I get that banners are great and all but I wouldn't put warrior in the top 3.

Mesmer is garbage tier in fractals and warrior is meta on every raidboss and in fractals. It can even out dps other pure dps builds as a banner supp in fractals. Mesmer isnt even meta on every raidboss.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

@knite.1542 said:Mesmer, guardian, ranger.

I think people are ranking warrior too high. I get that banners are great and all but I wouldn't put warrior in the top 3.

Warrior is meta in every fractal/raid unlike mesmer or guardian

[Cyninja.2954]

@knite.1542 said:Mesmer, guardian, ranger.

I think people are ranking warrior too high. I get that banners are great and all but I wouldn't put warrior in the top 3.

As mentioned, mesmer is not seeing use in fractals. Definitely a lot less than warrior. Mesmer is only viable as condi Mirage or chrono slave in raids, and even there, the second spot and sometimes both spots go to other classes (boonthief on some encounters). Highend raids groups run solo chronos on many of the other encounters leaving only Twins and Desmina for double chrono.

Warrior has a safe spot in raids and fractals and ever since the last balance patch and changes to Peak Performance, the rotations and output was increased even further. As banner warrior you get a super simple rotation, high dps, great cc if needed AND unique banner effects.

Warrior is in no way overrated. If you did any raid or fractal while banners were deactivated, you would have noticed how important they actually are. The rest is just insane gravy right now. One might even argue warrior output is even to high given the ease of rotation.

[Shaogin.2679]

Overall best classes are Guardian, Renegade, and Warrior. Honorable mention to Necromancer for being a great dps or support for carrying pugs.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

For FotM:1) Any Guardian2) Any Healer (can be Guardian if it is a DH)3) Any DPS other than DH.

A Quickbrand, a Druid, a Power Berserker (not Banners), a Weaver, and a Reaper can make mincemeat of any fractal. I used to run banners in my group. Having to place them and pick them back up just slowed things down. Had the weaver sweating bullets on DPS every fight though.

Honestly so long as you follow the below guidelines your FotM group should do fine:1) High group quickness uptime from anywhere ( FB or Chrono)2) A healer3) 3 competent Power DPS roles.4) Alacrity is a nice bonus, but is only really needed for speed running.

[Yasi.9065]

Fractals:

• Firebrand
• Alacrity-bot
• Banner-bot

Raids:

• Chrono
• Druid
• Banner-bot

Who cares about DPS. If your support stands, your dps can be the worst greeding monkeys and you still will be successful. If your support is bad, your dps can be the best players and you still have a high chance of wiping.

[Henry.5713]

Fractals

• Guardian (by a mile)
• Revenant
• Warrior

Raids:

• Warrior (ever seen a squad without banners outside of some rare Twins groups?)
• Ranger (Druid is about as must-have as ever plus some uses for Soulbeast)
• Chrono/Guardian/Revenant (depending on the squad - some people would certainly value Guardians higher than Mesmers, etc.)

[Nephalem.8921]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:For FotM:1) Any Guardian2) Any Healer (can be Guardian if it is a DH)3) Any DPS other than DH.

A Quickbrand, a Druid, a Power Berserker (not Banners), a Weaver, and a Reaper can make mincemeat of any fractal. I used to run banners in my group. Having to place them and pick them back up just slowed things down. Had the weaver sweating bullets on DPS every fight though.

Honestly so long as you follow the below guidelines your FotM group should do fine:1) High group quickness uptime from anywhere ( FB or Chrono)2) A healer3) 3 competent Power DPS roles.4) Alacrity is a nice bonus, but is only really needed for speed running.

Thats so wrong considering fractals. Either you run fb + ren and only one of them can be a healer or chrono + a healer who can stack 25might. But healer isn't meta in fractals anyways. Alacrity isn't a nice bonus, it's a massive bonus for dh, weaver and slb.Complaining about placing banners and picking them up is ridiculous. You can place banners before most bosses become targetable aswell.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:For FotM:1) Any Guardian2) Any Healer (can be Guardian if it is a DH)3) Any DPS other than DH.

A Quickbrand, a Druid, a Power Berserker (not Banners), a Weaver, and a Reaper can make mincemeat of any fractal. I used to run banners in my group. Having to place them and pick them back up just slowed things down. Had the weaver sweating bullets on DPS every fight though.

Honestly so long as you follow the below guidelines your FotM group should do fine:1) High group quickness uptime from anywhere ( FB or Chrono)2) A healer3) 3 competent Power DPS roles.4) Alacrity is a nice bonus, but is only really needed for speed running.

Thats so wrong considering fractals. Either you run fb + ren and only one of them can be a healer or chrono + a healer who can stack 25might. But healer isn't meta in fractals anyways. Alacrity isn't a nice bonus, it's a massive bonus for dh, weaver and slb.Complaining about placing banners and picking them up is ridiculous. You can place banners before most bosses become targetable aswell.

And yet banners never made the fight quicker for my group. Granted the our healer is a druid and the FB was running a Quickbrand build so the majority of the DPS was from the weaver and myself. Banners are the kind of skill that get better as they affect more people, so in our case running a higher DPS build myself was better for the group.

Alacrity is nice, but isn't needed unless you are speed running.

I broke this down beyond classes. You want a source of group quickness, 3 DPS, and a healer. If you want todo it without a healer, then take a DPS/support like banners. You seem to be coming from the Meta or GTFO mentality. Non meta comps are honestly 95% as effective so long as the players know what they are doing. And if the players themselves play well together, then they can be as good or better than a Meta PUG.

[RaidsAreEasyAF.8652]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:Alacrity is nice, but isn't needed unless you are speed running.

So is quickness and yet you mention it as something a group should always want to have.