PvE Balanced Team build guide

Some of the toughest Elite Missions may require specific builds, that often aren't typically used for other areas. But for general use, a balanced team build can be the most effective way to do most things in the game, including most hard mode missions and dungeons. What generally constitutes a good balanced team of 8 players includes 1 Tank, 1-2 Healers, and 4-5 ranged Damage Dealers.


TANK CHOICES (1)

Warrior - The Warrior tends to be the most ideal tank in most situations, with their equipment and skills combining to create incredibly reliable durability. The Strength and Tactics line of skills both include a lot of great tanking abilities, and focusing on those can cut down the damage you take even further. You can also invest attribute points into a secondary class attribute like Healing Prayers or Shadow Artsto boost your durability even further.

Dervish - Although lacking the Warrior's inherent equipment durability, the Dervish can hold its own as a tank by employing its many defensive enchantments. It can also borrow from a secondary attribute like Healing Prayers or Shadow Arts to become even more durable.

Assassin - Maintaining a permanent Shadow Form and Shroud of Distress can make the Assassin fairly resistant in a lot of situations, but the assassin's low armor rating can leave it vulnerable, especially in areas with a lot of potential enchantment removal. You may want to check into the area you'll be tanking to see how viable these skills will be as a defense on their own.


HEALER CHOICES (2-3)

Monk - The most obvious choice for a healer class, the Monk's skillset definitely makes them the most efficient and reliable healer class in most situations. You should generally always be sure to fill at least one healer slot with a monk, if not two.

Ritualist - The Ritualist's Restoration Magic line makes them capable healers, making them a good supporting class to a monk.

Paragon - The Paragon's Imbagon build can serve as a powerful protection build for the entire team, taking a lot of the pressure off of the other healer(s). This lets them effectively support a monk healer in particular, decreasing the amount of total healing that needs to be done for the team overall. Their Motivation skill line also includes a lot of useful party support abilities that can help to keep the team healthy.


DAMAGE DEALER CHOICES (4-5)

Elementalist - The Elementalist can dish out substantial damage with any of its attributes, but it tends to be best to focus on putting out as much consistent area damage as possible. Fire magic and Earth magic tend to be the best at accomplishing this, with the use of their powerful area-effect storm and spike damage spells. Water magic can also be effective in areas where there are a lot of cold-vulnerable enemies, but in general tends to be weaker than Fire and Earth.

Ranger - Rangers tend to function best in PvE by dealing area damage with the use of Barrage, combined with Splinter Weapon and/or various skills focused on shutting down and destroying single enemy targets quickly and efficiently.

Necromancer - Necromancers can be effective as Minion Masters, but only when there's going to be ample exploitable corpses for them to make use of consistently. Otherwise, a Curses build using Spiteful Spirit tends to be a more effective choice. Necromancers can also provide important party energy support with Blood Ritual, which should be included in any Necromancer build.

Ritualist - Spirit Spamming provides a devastating offense in just about any situation, using either Channeling or Communing.

Mesmer - Mesmers can be effective area hexers with the use of their PvE-only skills Ether Nightmare and Cry of Pain, in addition to their area-effecting Illusion or Domination spells. Their short term "trigger hexes" (Ineptitude, Clumsiness, Wandering Eye, Mistrust) can devastate entire groups of enemies in particular, and they have many ways of interrupting and shutting down numerous enemy targets at once.

a nice read! although i usually run with 0-1 tank (a mm often works instead) and 2-3 healers. it depends very much on the team as a whole, many individual builds are a mix of defense and offense and not strictly one or the other. so each defensive skill (wards, curses, knockdowns etc) on one of your "damage dealers" decreases the need for the second or third dedicated healer by a little bit.

This is awesome

Just wanna remind everyone that Rangers, due to expertise, can play a lot of parts. I use builds like spirit spamming, daggers or scythes. I just had to say something, cause I love Rangers that much >_<

Boy Soprano wrote:a nice read! although i usually run with 0-1 tank (a mm often works instead) and 2-3 healers. it depends very much on the team as a whole, many individual builds are a mix of defense and offense and not strictly one or the other. so each defensive skill (wards, curses, knockdowns etc) on one of your "damage dealers" decreases the need for the second or third dedicated healer by a little bit.

Yes, this is a great point. And I'd like to point out that in a lot of cases, the best defense can actually be a good offense. If you focus on maximizing the team's damage output, or including enough shutdown abilities to severely disrupt the enemies' ability to damage the team, you don't necessarily need as much defense or healing.
I include one tank in the team build because I'm aiming this guide at a balanced team that can do the harder areas, such as hard mode EOTN dungeons in particular, where a tank can definitely help a lot to contain aggro and absorb damage. For easier things though, this team build may certainly be more flexible, like as you mention might not even always need a tank.

AxelofMetropolis wrote:Just wanna remind everyone that Rangers, due to expertise, can play a lot of parts. I use builds like spirit spamming, daggers or scythes. I just had to say something, cause I love Rangers that much >_<

Sure, other classes can certainly perform functions as well. My goal in the guide is to point out what can most effectively be performed by each class though, as compared to other classes. I have a Minion Master build for the Mesmer for example, which works surprisingly well, but I know that it just can't match up to a primary Necromancer's potential Minion Mastering ability. As above, for easier things the team build may certainly be more flexible than I've laid it out, but I'm going for optimum effeciency in how I've set up the guide.

Looks great Scott. Everything I know about basic team building on Guild Wars matches up with everything you said. This is a great guide for everyone that needs help/trying to learn about building teams so you don't always have to find someone already putting a group together. This will definitely teach you to put your own teams together.

AxelofMetropolis wrote:Just wanna remind everyone that Rangers, due to expertise, can play a lot of parts. I use builds like spirit spamming, daggers or scythes. I just had to say something, cause I love Rangers that much >_<

Sure, other classes can certainly perform functions as well. My goal in the guide is to point out what can most effectively be performed by each class though, as compared to other classes. I have a Minion Master build for the Mesmer for example, which works surprisingly well, but I know that it just can't match up to a primary Necromancer's potential Minion Mastering ability. As above, for easier things the team build may certainly be more flexible than I've laid it out, but I'm going for optimum effeciency in how I've set up the guide.[/quote]


I know, I just wanted to point it out to show that it's always flexible