Guild Wars 2

Hello guys, I need to know which class specifically has a great time in FotM. Like best team buffs, high dps, etc.

I currently have a Lvl 80 Thief but she’s not that good in fractals, can handle most bosses at 1v1 with D/D.

Also got a Level 75 Elementalist but I haven’t geared her as of yet, and I don’t know if she will be good in FotM.

I want a class just to do FotM and dungeons in general, suggestions and builds?

All of them are good in some way. Elementalist is probably currently the “best” just because of having ridiculous damage output in general, but warriors are always essential because of their unique support buffs, and rangers are in the same boat. Guardians and mesmers are more limited towards specific defensive circumstances where you need the blind/reflect/protection, but there are enough of those that they do just fine. Engineers have ridiculous support and DPS but require a lot of button pressing, and people seem to be figuring out that they’re actually pretty good for speedclears too, but like with rangers and bearbows, don’t expect that to catch on for a while.

Just don’t roll a necro and you’ll be just fine in general. Unless you’re bad, then you’ll be in bad shape.

What would be the top ele and warrior builds for fotm/dungeons? I was always interested in a warrior in some way.

Guardian is amazing in Fractals, and are always wanted in groups.

Stratos.9375:

What would be the top ele and warrior builds for fotm/dungeons? I was always interested in a warrior in some way.

The top warrior build in fractals would be an Empowered Allies, double banner, and if needed, Phalanx Strength build. Build would need to be adjusted if you have more than 1 warrior in the group.

A massive guide for ele here, plus guide to play ele in every fractals.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first

This is purely my opinion, classes are ordered in terms of how much they contribute to a high level fractal group:
Guardian – hammer build provides great DPS, perma protection, aegis, reflects ect.
Warrior – easy to play, great boost to DPS with EA, phalanx, banners (including battle standard for aoe ress)
Elementalist – staff build = incredible damage. With phalanx warrior you don’t really need ele for might stacking, so it can utilise it’s full dps potential. Also earth elemental for tanking bosses.
Thief – stealth for skipping stuff + perma blind fields for trash mobs
Mesmer – reflects, condi cleanses, temporal courtain pull, overall good team utility

the rest of the classes can contribute as well, but imo these are the top-dogs for PUGs and semi-organised parties.

It’s very important to have a Guardian, even if you don’t want one as your main. That way, you will never have to rely on PUG Guardians to save your kitten with timed aegis and reflects while running an AH build, because you’re in control of that.

Both Warrior & Ele are absolutely necessary in every good group, because of the offensive support from Warrior, coupled with very fair damage, and ridiculous DPS from an Ele even without the Fiery Exploit Sword.

Either of those 3, really, rest is just a mishmash and changes depends where you are.

Faceroll lvl 49, 1 phalanxwarrior and 4 (good) guardians.

/throws up a little

Pick one of the 7 classes, the one you’re the absolute best at, learn its ins and outs, master it, then play it in fractals.

At my rock climbing gym there is a big sign that says:
The best climber is the one having the most fun

And ele is the funniest class to play.

Ele has to climb a lot… That I agree.

Flissy.4093:

It’s very important to have a Guardian, even if you don’t want one as your main. That way, you will never have to rely on PUG Guardians to save your kitten with timed aegis and reflects while running an AH build, because you’re in control of that.

Both Warrior & Ele are absolutely necessary in every good group, because of the offensive support from Warrior, coupled with very fair damage, and ridiculous DPS from an Ele even without the Fiery Exploit Sword.

Either of those 3, really, rest is just a mishmash and changes depends where you are.

On the other hand, for bad groups, I think an engineer actually boosts party DPS more than a Phalanx warrior does. We’re looking at like 10-15 stacks of might from Phalanx from an pug warrior with Forceful Greatsword, and incidental might and vuln, versus 6-12 stacks of might and between 15-25 stacks of vuln from a support-specced engie (i.e. Giver’s weapons and condition duration food).

It’s hard to quantify it because pugs are all over the place but my engie pug runs definitely seem to go faster in general. My slowest pug runs are typically with a mesmer since there’s no boon sharing going on at all usually, but at the same time those are really safe and AFK-proof too.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Flissy.4093:

It’s very important to have a Guardian, even if you don’t want one as your main. That way, you will never have to rely on PUG Guardians to save your kitten with timed aegis and reflects while running an AH build, because you’re in control of that.

Both Warrior & Ele are absolutely necessary in every good group, because of the offensive support from Warrior, coupled with very fair damage, and ridiculous DPS from an Ele even without the Fiery Exploit Sword.

Either of those 3, really, rest is just a mishmash and changes depends where you are.

On the other hand, for bad groups, I think an engineer actually boosts party DPS more than a Phalanx warrior does. We’re looking at like 10-15 stacks of might from Phalanx from an pug warrior with Forceful Greatsword, and incidental might and vuln, versus 6-12 stacks of might and between 15-25 stacks of vuln from a support-specced engie (i.e. Giver’s weapons and condition duration food).

It’s hard to quantify it because pugs are all over the place but my engie pug runs definitely seem to go faster in general. My slowest pug runs are typically with a mesmer since there’s no boon sharing going on at all usually, but at the same time those are really safe and AFK-proof too.

Phalanx is very easy 25 might in a matter of a few seconds. If anyone can’t attain it something is seriously wrong.

I tested phalanx strength in low-man Arah settings and it maintains 22-25 might with strength runes and a strength sigil. Guang doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Ikr, when I read 10-15 I couldn’t believe it and I thought he was talking about an engi blasting fire fields. Then I reread it…

I’d suggest taking your thief past fractal 30 and see how you fare. It’s easier to get groups with a heavy class and it’s more forgiving as a heavy class, but thieves can do ok. The point where you really need to make a commitment to a class is fractal 40+ since you’ll have to put some effort into ascended crafting, possibly a lot of effort into ascended crafting, to get AR 55. If you’re having problems with a thief getting to fractal 39 then it’s time to try out a heavy.

hendo.1940:

I tested phalanx strength in low-man Arah settings and it maintains 22-25 might with strength runes and a strength sigil. Guang doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Luckily his maths saves the day!

My DWA test tells me DWA is a 380,9% dps increase over using no DWA, resulting in a 200% higher damage output then an elementalist. I know it must be true because my raw tests in hotm and frame by frame recording make it evidient.

Who am I?

hendo.1940:

My DWA test tells me DWA is a 380,9% dps increase over using no DWA, resulting in a 200% higher damage output then an elementalist. I know it must be true because my raw tests in hotm and frame by frame recording make it evidient.

Who am I?

6u4n6m47h5 !

Did I get it right?

Darox.8069:

hendo.1940:

My DWA test tells me DWA is a 380,9% dps increase over using no DWA, resulting in a 200% higher damage output then an elementalist. I know it must be true because my raw tests in hotm and frame by frame recording make it evidient.

Who am I?

6u4n6m47h5 !

Did I get it right?

It was actually about warlord.

Another one:

Profession X dps is 3 times as high as profession Y’s dps. My maths tells it. Even if everyone’s tests prove that in reality, profession X’s dps is half as low as profession Y’s, my maths and therefore statements are correct.

hendo.1940:

Darox.8069:

hendo.1940:

My DWA test tells me DWA is a 380,9% dps increase over using no DWA, resulting in a 200% higher damage output then an elementalist. I know it must be true because my raw tests in hotm and frame by frame recording make it evidient.

Who am I?

6u4n6m47h5 !

Did I get it right?

It was actually about warlord.

Another one:

Profession X dps is 3 times as high as profession Y’s dps. My maths tells it. Even if everyone’s tests prove that in reality, profession X’s dps is half as low as profession Y’s, my maths and therefore statements are correct.

I’m not familiar enough with all the people who are bad at maths to answer your riddles

That one was actually 6u4n6m47h.

I still count with my hands and even I know that SLAYING POTIONS ARE A 20% (10+10!!) DAMAGE INCREASE PER PERSON, so that means it’s a 100% DAMAGE INCREASE WITH 5 PEOPLE.
:3

Oh, and a rampager warrior does clearly more damage than a berserker one. Their dps is soooo high!!

They do both direct damage AND condi damage

That’s right gurl. kitten right.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Flissy.4093:

It’s very important to have a Guardian, even if you don’t want one as your main. That way, you will never have to rely on PUG Guardians to save your kitten with timed aegis and reflects while running an AH build, because you’re in control of that.

Both Warrior & Ele are absolutely necessary in every good group, because of the offensive support from Warrior, coupled with very fair damage, and ridiculous DPS from an Ele even without the Fiery Exploit Sword.

Either of those 3, really, rest is just a mishmash and changes depends where you are.

On the other hand, for bad groups, I think an engineer actually boosts party DPS more than a Phalanx warrior does. We’re looking at like 10-15 stacks of might from Phalanx from an pug warrior with Forceful Greatsword, and incidental might and vuln, versus 6-12 stacks of might and between 15-25 stacks of vuln from a support-specced engie (i.e. Giver’s weapons and condition duration food).

It’s hard to quantify it because pugs are all over the place but my engie pug runs definitely seem to go faster in general. My slowest pug runs are typically with a mesmer since there’s no boon sharing going on at all usually, but at the same time those are really safe and AFK-proof too.

Strength runes with 10% & 5% on GS, I maintain 25 stacks of group-wide Might in PUGs without Warbanner. And, as has recently been emerged, pure GS > partial axe for personal DPS anyway.

Like I said:

Forceful Greatsword triggers Phalanx Strength for one stack of might for six seconds. A GS rotation should look approximately like 2 GS chains > HB > WWA > run back for an average of 6 + 9 + 4 = 19 hits every 10 seconds. Let’s round that up to 20 per 10 seconds and you get 2 hits per second. At 50% critical hit chance that means you get, on average, one crit per second. That equates to one proc of Phalanx Strength per second for 6 seconds, or a sustained 6 stacks. For Great Justice is 3 stacks of might for 25 seconds on a 25 second CD = 3 stacks sustained. PS gives an extra 3 stacks for 6 seconds = 3 × 6 /25 = .72 stacks average. All together: 6 + 3 + .72 = 9.72 stacks of might.

Add in boon duration and Strength runes = +75% might duration. 9.72 × 1.75 =
~17 stacks of might, BUT:

- PS through FGJ only gives might for about 10 seconds. That’s 10 seconds where you have +3 might, 25 without.
- FGJ only gives 3 stacks of might from the start and won’t overlap until 25 seconds in.

So in reality you’re looking at closer to 11 stacks of might for most of the fight, unless you burn your super-long-cooldown elite or the fight’s been dragging on a while.

I guess this is where you guys claim that math is for nerds and you don’t believe in it until I make a video of a warrior not getting 25 stacks of might etc. You know, same old deal? Or should we just skip to the part where I turn out to be right as always?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Like I said:

Forceful Greatsword triggers Phalanx Strength for one stack of might for six seconds. A GS rotation should look approximately like 2 GS chains > HB > WWA > run back for an average of 6 + 9 + 4 = 19 hits every 10 seconds. Let’s round that up to 20 per 10 seconds and you get 2 hits per second. At 50% critical hit chance that means you get, on average, one crit per second. That equates to one proc of Phalanx Strength per second for 6 seconds, or a sustained 6 stacks. For Great Justice is 3 stacks of might for 25 seconds on a 25 second CD = 3 stacks sustained. PS gives an extra 3 stacks for 6 seconds = 3 × 6 /25 = .72 stacks average. All together: 6 + 3 + .72 = 9.72 stacks of might.
Add in boon duration and Strength runes = +75% might duration. 9.72 × 1.75 =
~17 stacks of might, BUT:

- PS through FGJ only gives might for about 10 seconds. That’s 10 seconds where you have +3 might, 25 without.
- FGJ only gives 3 stacks of might from the start and won’t overlap until 25 seconds in.

So in reality you’re looking at closer to 11 stacks of might for most of the fight, unless you burn your super-long-cooldown elite or the fight’s been dragging on a while.

I guess this is where you guys claim that math is for nerds and you don’t believe in it until I make a video of a warrior not getting 25 stacks of might etc. You know, same old deal? Or should we just skip to the part where I turn out to be right as always?

What? Where are you getting 50% crit? Are you forgetting things, like banners, fgj, sor, and bs? Also CLEAVING plays a massive role.

Your warrior isn’t that good. And I’m not that great a warrior myself. But seriously.

1. “WWA and then run back”? Base your use of WWA against a wall, or add in 2 extra hit chances for Blade Trail if you’re “running back”.

2. 50% crit chance is terribly low, even if you’re by yourself, an ascended zerk warrior can achieve permafury and put themselves at 80% crit, or even 100% if you add in food/sigils.

3. I don’t see any use of Superior Sigil of Strength in your calculations.

4. You’re calculating assuming there’s only 1 target to be hit, which is fine, but remember that soon as you cleave, you’re increasing the amount of might you receive from Forceful Greatsword.

I whipped up a build real quick. Not even sure if this is the meta for Phalanx Strength.

66% crit chance +20 from fury = 86% crit chance.

Best profession is Guardian.

There is not even a discussion, every party wants 1 or 2…while you can play without any other, 99% of high level fotm parties won t even attempt a run without 1-2 guardians.

Other useful profession in order:
Warrior (the ress banner is enough by itself to want one).
Mesmer (reflect build possibly due to some tricks)
Thief (mandatory for some fractals)
Ele (but to be useful has to bring 2 armorsets, and a focus).

P.S. you will find most answers instead referring only to guild runs that are a completely different world from what you find on the LFG.
But its quite assured that if you roll guardian you will never be refused in fotm parties

Its like this:
1 guardian= OK we can start
2 guardians= nice we shouldn t have issues
3 guardians= Ok i can play afk and win anyway

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Like I said:

Forceful Greatsword triggers Phalanx Strength for one stack of might for six seconds. A GS rotation should look approximately like 2 GS chains > HB > WWA > run back for an average of 6 + 9 + 4 = 19 hits every 10 seconds. Let’s round that up to 20 per 10 seconds and you get 2 hits per second. At 50% critical hit chance that means you get, on average, one crit per second. That equates to one proc of Phalanx Strength per second for 6 seconds, or a sustained 6 stacks. For Great Justice is 3 stacks of might for 25 seconds on a 25 second CD = 3 stacks sustained. PS gives an extra 3 stacks for 6 seconds = 3 × 6 /25 = .72 stacks average. All together: 6 + 3 + .72 = 9.72 stacks of might.

Add in boon duration and Strength runes = +75% might duration. 9.72 × 1.75 =
~17 stacks of might, BUT:

- PS through FGJ only gives might for about 10 seconds. That’s 10 seconds where you have +3 might, 25 without.
- FGJ only gives 3 stacks of might from the start and won’t overlap until 25 seconds in.

So in reality you’re looking at closer to 11 stacks of might for most of the fight, unless you burn your super-long-cooldown elite or the fight’s been dragging on a while.

I guess this is where you guys claim that math is for nerds and you don’t believe in it until I make a video of a warrior not getting 25 stacks of might etc. You know, same old deal? Or should we just skip to the part where I turn out to be right as always?

We run a Phalanx Warrior for our group. Without external might stacking (or very little) we easily maintain 20~25 stacks of might for all fights (bloom hunger, trash mobs, etc) Based on in game experience.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I turn out to be right as always

Hm well, except when you are wrong?

Few things you overlooked Guang. A warrior can have nearly 100% crit chance in a solo situation. Also phalanx warrior takes a strength sigil on gs to boost might gained on crit. Everyone who has actually played one or with one knows they maintain between 20-25 might. And its not hard to suppliment that with a few blasts before the fight. Also im not sure your number of hits per second is right either. But then I havent bothered to check because I can simply go in game and see that a phalanx warrior maintains 20+ might instead of playing Spreadsheet Wars 2.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Like I said:

Forceful Greatsword triggers Phalanx Strength for one stack of might for six seconds. A GS rotation should look approximately like 2 GS chains > HB > WWA > run back for an average of 6 + 9 + 4 = 19 hits every 10 seconds. Let’s round that up to 20 per 10 seconds and you get 2 hits per second. At 50% critical hit chance that means you get, on average, one crit per second. That equates to one proc of Phalanx Strength per second for 6 seconds, or a sustained 6 stacks. For Great Justice is 3 stacks of might for 25 seconds on a 25 second CD = 3 stacks sustained. PS gives an extra 3 stacks for 6 seconds = 3 × 6 /25 = .72 stacks average. All together: 6 + 3 + .72 = 9.72 stacks of might.

Add in boon duration and Strength runes = +75% might duration. 9.72 × 1.75 =
~17 stacks of might, BUT:

- PS through FGJ only gives might for about 10 seconds. That’s 10 seconds where you have +3 might, 25 without.
- FGJ only gives 3 stacks of might from the start and won’t overlap until 25 seconds in.

So in reality you’re looking at closer to 11 stacks of might for most of the fight, unless you burn your super-long-cooldown elite or the fight’s been dragging on a while.

I guess this is where you guys claim that math is for nerds and you don’t believe in it until I make a video of a warrior not getting 25 stacks of might etc. You know, same old deal? Or should we just skip to the part where I turn out to be right as always?

This is where we tell you to go test it, watch how your party permanently have 20+ stacks of might and then you don’t bother replying again because you realise you were completely wrong.

I’m at 76% critchance on my warrior, with 100 power/70 prec food, no fury and no banner of discipline.

I actually cross 100% critchance just solo about 69% of all time, without banner im still at 98%.

Okay, the signet trait is honestly kittened. I’m getting up to 111% critchance with full BERSERKER (not a single assassin piece) equipment.

LordByron.8369:

Best profession is Guardian.

There is not even a discussion, every party wants 1 or 2…while you can play without any other, 99% of high level fotm parties won t even attempt a run without 1-2 guardians.

Based on experience, I can say that the reason why they want a guardian is because they are bad and want to be carried. You might not want that.

http://youtu.be/_ie1lVCVNeY

hendo.1940:

http://youtu.be/_ie1lVCVNeY

Haha Dub, I didn’t know you had recorded that Have you tested if it’s the jumping that triggers that like I suggested ?

I have absolutely no idea what does.
Too bad I didn’t get the kholer one… went up to the CEILING of the room, fell down and died to falling damage instantly.

Best one I’ve seen so far was during the Attack on LA event. Someone recorded themselves being pulled by a watchknight from the water and up into the skies. It was amazing :p

Oh by the way Guang, I’ve been telling you the same thing for almost two years now so maybe it’s time you take it into account: spells do not start their cooldown until their full casting animation is over. So the actual cooldown of WWA is 11 seconds not 10.

This goes in line with your view that PS does not provide that much might. However I have much more trust in people’s ability to look at the number displayed on their screen than your maths :p

Spoj The Second.7680:

Everyone who has actually played one or with one knows they maintain between 20-25 might.

Especially if they’re awesome like mahself
/purrs
And yeah, you figure how much might a phalanx gives just by playing the game.

Yeah I can figure how much PS gives and it’s not 25.

Most likely you are getting incidental buffs flying around, other pugs buffing themselves, etc. You putting yourself at 25 isn’t the same as putting everyone else at 25, nor is it the same as getting someone else to 25 when their own buffs are already giving them 5-10 stacks. Which is why you need to use math to properly calculate things rather than just going “well I’m channeling HB anyway might as well see how much might I’m stacking oh hey that guy is that 25 stacks I’m awesome”.

Also Sigil of Strength is only worth 3-4 extra stacks tops since you need to account for the internal CD and the fact that the warrior attacks don’t line up with the ICD that well. Similarly, pumping precision will get your Forceful Greatsword stacks up a bit higher (max double) but it’s not going to get that high. A zerk warrior has about 40% from gear and about 14% from Arms assuming you go 30 in. 70 Precision from food gets you an extra 3% and then Banner gives you about 8%, so at max you’re looking at 65% crit chance unless someone else is giving you fury, which is extremely unlikely given my general experience with pugs. Even assuming fury and banner and food, that’ll put you at 85%, which will average out to about 18 stacks after boon duration is factored in. Which I will note still isn’t 25 stacks unless you count the short boost from FGJ.

And before we forget the original point, 25 stacks of might on the average pug (PVT, doesn’t self-stack buffs) equates to about 40%. The banners come out to another 10% (Discipline is worthless on PVTs) so you’re looking at approximately a 50% buff to damage. Compare to support engineer spec (P/S, +100% condition duration, +55% might duration) who can get about 15 stacks of might and 30 vuln (halved by Defiant = 15 vuln) = between 40-50% extra damage depending on Defiant. So again it really is a close call depending on the pug comp.

Except, when I tested it with guildies in duo/trio Arah I purposely told them not to buff themselves. It was 20-25 consistently. I did Arah p2 up to Alphard later and then invited guildies in (Alphard I just find stressful soloing on warrior) and we ended up with me, 2 mesmers and 1 guardian because those happened to be the classes they were on. I maintained permanent 25 for them.

So take a break from the spreadsheets and actually test it in game, it’s so easily verifiable it’s kind of sad to see you argue about it.

It also sounds like you’re completely oblivious to the fact that warriors can give themselves fury, you don’t need a pug to do it.

Honestly, just stop.

Warrior can maintain perma fury on itself. Banner of disc should lasts for the full duration of almost every fight. Check warrior lupi solos for reference (perma fury and good uptime of banner). So crit chance is going to be around 100% for the majority of the time. If you have a low dps pug you can take inspiring banners in adept for perma 100% self crit chance.

My group often goes lazy mode with a phalanx warrior in our casual runs and that means the only one providing might after the start of the fight is the warrior. And it stays at about 20-25 might for the full duration. And even if it was only 15 might done by the warrior, thats good enough if we see ingame that everyone has 25 might most of the time. Please play the game Guang. Its all well and good calculating with maths, but you should back up claims with ingame testing aswell.

Wait he doesn’t test things in game, and yet argues validity?

Kinda, yeah.

So, using your own maths guang, but correcting for the fact that warriors get to 100% crit easily:

19 hits in 10 seconds = 1.9 hit/second
6s base might * might duration = 6 * 1.75 = 10.5 might duration
Total might sustained (forceful greatsword) = 1.9 * 10.5 = 19.95 stacks on average

Add a few more things like FGJ and sigil of strength and we get to the reality.

Essence Snow.3194:

Wait he doesn’t test things in game, and yet argues validity?

That’s what the detractors usually say when they know I’m right, the math is right, etc. but they don’t want to admit they’re wrong. It’s the classic “I know math, logic, experience, and common sense all support your agument but I totally did this one thing this one time and got a different result” argument that Warlord really brought back into the scene lately. Also keep in mind that the same people were playing the ‘hurr math is for nerds" card when I argued in favor of DPS guardians, DPS ranger, DPS staff ele, DPS engie, etc. And I don’t think I’ve ever been wrong on any major point.

That said, Phalanx warrior is still decent for pugs even at 15 might although you’ll probably still want to consider if it’s really worth the DPS loss. The overall boost is quite significant but the personal DPS goes to utter crap and there’s no guarantee that the other pugs are even doing any damage worth boosting. Double of nothing is still nothing.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I don’t think I’ve ever been wrong on any major point.

But deep down you know you have, and very often