Warriors, as the lead component of front line control,are responsible for the attempt of engaging and maintaining aggro. Whether killing outright or absorbing heavy damage, this is undoubtedly the role that the warriors play.
The Role Of Control.
Dervish can be considered as a secondary melee component, by engaging as would a warrior, but should allow the warrior to gain leading aggro positioning. This can be done by trailing behind a warrior during the initial engagement. Also, a Dervish can be specialized for a particular area. They can be built to attack aspects of certain areas, while warriors are generalized for maximum aggro control.
The Role of Supression and Effective Target Elimination.
Assassins, as a rule of thumb, should not particularly engage the initial aggro situations, but should isolate and attack choice targets. That being said, the obvious choice for an assassin to attack should be the squishy(Most Vulnerable) or most dangerous of these squishy targets. For example, if you have 3 soft targets-mesmer,monk,and elementalist-which do you attack? Most would go for the monk, due to its healing abilities, yet in my experience, they are not always the most dangerous soft target on the field of combat. Look for the greatest dangers to the team. An ele doing major AoE damage is far more dangerous than a lone monk to your team. Analyze the field of combat with a eye focused on the threat that should be neutralized,
The Elementalist is the firepower of the team. The ele lays covering fire to the enemy lines. Most will play the "nuker", laying heavy fire damage into the enemy lines. This role is desired in enemy dense areas. Eles also play a support role, adding to defense and other aspects of group defense and damage mitigation.
Necromancers play many roles, but are mostly know for 3 particular roles in a team.Battery,Minion Master, or Curse/Condition spreader. These are rather self explainitory, save the battery necro, who's job is to replenish caster energy by sacrificing its own health.
Paragons/Rangers play similar roles as midline attackers.They support teams with any number of advance battle tactics or buffs that make the team less likely to fall in combat. I'll elaborate later.
Monks, are for the most part, the backbone of every team. These players can surely make or break any team with their choice of skills/spells. Damage mitigation is surely the greatest way to survive long battles, but big heals prevent the spike of heavy damage, as does the use of various enchantments. No monk will surely equal death of a team.
Ritualists have a role of backline multitaskers. They can heal,protect or attack with great effectiveness in any of their fields of influence. The role of Ritualist is a role of knowledge and skill, and should be played as such. I'll add to this later. This is just the beginning.
Second Installment:
Positioning And Role Playing:
In combat, there are 3 ranks on either side of any battlefield. The frontline, the midfile, and the backline or rear file. In traditional warfare,your frontline would consist of the more hearty attacking force who took the brunt of the attack. The midfile would consist of range attackers and/or officers to give orders to the frontline.The rear file consisted of medics, heavy artilary, and such that didn't readily need be used for the initial attack. Though different by GW standards, this way of combat order still applies. If the frontline holds, then combat moves as plannede in most cases, so warriors and dervish must play their roles well. Assassins fall more to the mid or rear file, due to their specialized attacks and the need to find their targets.
Ritualists and Monks are surely in the rear file, avoiding direct combat while boosting the defense and healing the front and midline. Paragons are the commanders during combat scenarios. Shouts and Chants bolster the frontline and increases the defenses of the whole team. From the midline, alongside the rangers, Paragons can assist with the rangers role of spreading conditions as well.
Putting Together A Team:
Depending on the combat situation you are about to enter into, your team's needs may differ in order to have the greatest success. Balanced teams usuall have a frontline consisting of 2 melee classes. For scenarios that call for higher counts of manpower, a Necromancer specializing in Minion Creation is employed from the midline or rear. 2 monks are desired on every team build that consists of 8 people. Any less would mean disaster. An Elementalist is also desired in a balanced team, in order to apply heavy damage that supports the frontline as they advance into the enemy.
The last 2 participants of an 8 man team can vary depending on the area, the enemies to be encountered, and the needs of the team. Some may go with a ranger and a 3rd monk, but this could be any type of combination of professions depending on the need.
Melee Characters And Their Various Roles:
In general, a melee character is responsible for entering melee(close quarter combat) range and engaging the enemy frontline in order to break through and allow for the defeat of the enemy unit. This job will also consist of being able to prevent the enemy from breaking the team's frontline and digging into the mid and rear to attack your casters. This is the major job of the melee classes. Assassins, from my experience, have never done this job well, and were never meant to be frontline. Though this is my opinion, the fact that an assassin, unlike his melee counterparts, can't commit to constant heavy damage engagement in any shape,form or fashion that is compareable to the others, makes this a testament to that way of thinking.
"Assassins are assassins, not meant to be seen, but more likely to be felt briefly as they eliminate their targets."
That means don't run out in front, trying to stop the enemies.Period. Let your heavy absorption melee characters do the heavy stuff. If a Dervish and a Warrior are on the same team, the Warrior should be the first to engage. Not because one is better than the other, but because the warrior's heavier armor gives it more protection, as well as it's easier for the rearline to support heavier armored characters. Also, in the case of enchantment hate being employed, a dervish would need to be less enchanted or to avoid being the primary engager. That is what makes a warrior needed, not that he/she is better, but that the steady reliability of the warrior class and its lack of frills to be effective.
Casters And Heavy Damage Application
The role of the "Nuker", that of the heavy artillery of the team, can come to be used effectively when employed to wash the front line with heavy damage. The more experienced elementalist will take the fight even further, by adding heavy firepower against primary targets as they are engaged by melee characters. The most experienced elementalists will take that thought one further by switching between targets in order to break the enemy faster. [skill=card]Meteor Shower[/skill]+[skill=card]Searing Flames[/skill]+[skill=card]Glowing Gaze[/skill]+[skill=card]Searing Flames[/skill]+[skill=card]Liquid Flame[/skill]=GG.
Of course, their are other strong elementalist combinations, but you get my point. Allow the ele to do his job, and the enemy will fall under the pressure of the frontline and the power brought to bear by the elementalist.
Monks do the exact opposite of their elementalist counterparts. Where eles deal out damage, the monk negates,redirects,or repairs the effects of damage. This role makes monks to be targets of heavy attacks and much scrutiny. A well played monk is loved by his friends and hated by his opponents, but monks in general are always targets. Ritualists also fall into this category, which also makes them a target.Casters,in general, are the most dangerous members of any team.
I'll elaborate on this later.
Third Installment
The Danger of Letting The Casters Live
When Casters are left to their own ends, most teams find their fights to be alot tougher than they first anticipated. The obvious caster target is the healer of the group. The monk profession is looked at as the healer in most cases, but the other casters can easily circumvent this role as well, making the "Chase And Monkstomp" gam to be a bad idea. E/Mos with Healing/Protection Prayers can be just as irksome as a monk at times, due to its larger energy pool. Ritualists using spririts and restoration magic can turn an easy win into a disgusting lose. All the while, the monk is a smiter
, and was never a healing threat, but the rest of the team has been offed by not focusing and falling to routine.As previously mention,Elementalists causing major AoE damage should be considered high priority targets. Though the sequence of spells I mentioned above is regaurded as simple and academic, one should realize the power behind the simplistic mage.
The Simplistic Mage is possibly the most dangerous part of your team, due to the overlooking of this simple mage's power. More complicated magicks, such as [skill=card]Deep Freeze[/skill]+[skill=card]Maelstrom[/skill]+[skill=card]Arcane Echo[/skill]+[skill=card]Sandstorm[/skill]+[skill=card]Churning Earth[/skill]+[skill=card]Sandstorm[/skill] Are usually overdone or not as useful as the previously mentioned, due to time constraints or the enemies all being dead already.Also, though the complicated magicks look awe inspiring, none can avoid interuption alone, like the simple mage's setup. So, at the point of thinking, the simple mage, though packing less power, will be far more difficult to stop. However, both should catch the assassin's attention. This is a dangerous target to be taken down as fast as possible.
PvE And The PvP Translation
This section is based strictly on my point of interpretation, and as such, may not be what all parties agree upon.
In terms of transfering your PvE skill usage to PvP, one must first analayze the typical flaws ina PvE build,as well as its strengths. I'll stick with The Simple Mage, so as not to confuse anyone new to the forum or this thread. My point of argument will be the Complicated Mage, also used previously in this part of the discussion.
The Simple Mage SF Build
[skill=card]Fire Attunement[/skill][skill=card]Aura of Restoration[/skill][skill=card]Liquid Flame[/skill][skill=card]Glyph of Lesser Energy[/skill][skill=card]Meteor Shower[/skill][skill=card]Glowing Gaze[/skill][skill=card]Searing Flames[/skill][skill=card]Resurrection Signet[/skill]
The simplistic use of this build seems to be all brute force in PvE, yet its effectiveness will multiply under the more scholarly elementalist. Though GG is slower on the recharge than it used to be, it is still one of the most effective followup spells one has to cast. SF, by far, is the gem of the Fire line, being fast and devastating when applied in closed quarters and in multi elementalist groups to cause huge spike damage to the unsuspecting. MS, the old faithful, with the new comer replacement of fireball makes for simple,yet effective clouting of the enemy in large numbers.
The Complicated Mage Sandstorm Build
[skill=card]Water Attunement[/skill][skill=card]Aura of Restoration[/skill][skill=card]Ice Spear[/skill][skill=card]Deep Freeze[/skill][skill=card]Arcane Echo[/skill][skill=card]Sandstorm[/skill][skill=card]Churning Earth[/skill][skill=card]Armor of Mist[/skill]
This build, takes some working with, and pacing. The normal joe shmoe ele can't play this without using energy and possibly needing a battery necro on his/her team. Admittedly, the Complicated Mage is packing amazing power, but he/she is ..well...complicated. If it all gets used, their will be alot of dead monsters, but can the ele recover in time for the next fight? The complicated build, using 2 elements, also has less energy managment than needed, so will need to be paced and played to great effect. Both can be used in PvE, while the Simple Mage has made vaious appearances in PvP in recent. Complicated Mage hasn't exactly reared his head in this incarnation, but in a similar form. More E management, and a res would make it doable, but not recommended.
This exact reason is why PvE builds are considered 'noobish'. If it's easy, it shows that you aren't experienced enough to make a new build, yet its overall effectiveness is what the experienced player should be looking at,imho. Complicated may throw a person off, and even may wipe out a team, but complex casting isn't the only way to play.
Next, Warriors and how to rend a whammo
