Guild Wars 2

I was wondering as to what method do people use when they create a build for their character.

What starting point do you use?

I was thinking that it doesn’t really matter too much where you start as long as you start somewhere specific. Like a weapon set and the skill set that comes with it or with a particular utility set. Maybe even use your F# ability as the starting point. Basically, for me, the starting point is the center for which the build is based around. This includes some concepts such as condition, or spike w/ crit, or sustain with power, etc. Defensively it could be dodges and evades, lots of toughness and/or healing, etc.

Where do you go from there?

Do you then use utilities to compliment the weapon set (if the weapon set is the focal point of the build) and use traits to complement these or do you use traits and then pick utilities that work with the traits?

Gear.

Do you pick gear that compliments the above or do you use gear to simply get your numbers (stats) where you think they should be?

I start building my build not around the gear or class or anything that has to do with the class. I build a build for a certain aspect of the game. WvW has a totally different mindset than farming CoF. Therefore, a different build is required. You can even go as far to say that normal event farming has different requirements than dungeons (CoF in particular). Though the differences are smaller than my previous example, they are still present.

I start by looking at builds already published, to figure out what other people have figured out that seems to work well for them. Then I’ll try one or two that seem smartly designed, and eventually tweak them some more and design my own stuff as the profession and my own preferred playstyle start to become clear.

In addition, I’d say that different professions have different levels of flexibility. For example, I play Guardian and Mesmer. Guardian seems to have a lot of potential builds and I can play around with it a lot. In contrast, Mesmer has a couple of weapons with broken features, and in addition it recently got nerfed pretty hard, so the build flexibility for that profession is very restricted right now – most people are using the same stuff.

I start by making a goal. “What do I want to contribute in team play?” or “How do I want my character to be played?” Then from there, I form multiple answers such as “I want to be support damage yet still be an off-tank” to “I just want raw damage with some utilities” to “I want to be able to charge headfirst into a zerg and survive”.

From here, I try to look at all the traits, skills, and weapons a class has that helps answers those questions.