Guild Wars 2

colesy.8490:

/snip

Or how about if you’re someone who enjoys playing well? Aren’t we allowed to have fun?

/endsnip

Of course you are… If playing full DPS all the time, and not trying anything else is fun for you, then by all means, do it. What I am saying is that if you talk BEFORE you go on a run, it’s a lot less frustrating than gearing for a speed clear and THEN finding out halfway though that one guy isn’t geared for DPS and forcing you to take longer than you should.

DPS may be the most efficient way to do something. It is not the ONLY way. Communication is much better than “L2P” when you find out too late that someone isn’t traited and geared the way they should be for a speed clear.

JMadFour.9730:

everyone should just be Warriors and Thieves in “Zerker” gear.

Yep, I made the mistake of leveling all the classes, and that’s pretty much all I play now. Oh but you left out the ele, my staff fire ele (fire/earth) has nice aoe DPS, and pretty fair direct damage. Lots of power, knowing when to dodge and being aware of your surroundings to make a downed escape and revive. It’s harder to play than the war and thief, but you can get some pretty impressive aoe damage as long as aggro doesn’t catch up …and it will heh

How is staff ele hard to play? Camp fire attunement and use lava font when off cooldown? That’s about as hard as the guardian DPS rotation of pressing 1 on the 1h sword.

Also, you guys need to get it out of your heads that warriors are the only good PvE class, every single class is good apart from necro in dungeons because they lack utility. So if you roll your ranger in a dungeon, as long as you’re not some bearbow scrub but instead you’re using sword/X and you still get booted, then well they’re idiots.

colesy.8490:

How is staff ele hard to play? Camp fire attunement and use lava font when off cooldown? That’s about as hard as the guardian DPS rotation of pressing 1 on the 1h sword.

Also, you guys need to get it out of your heads that warriors are the only good PvE class, every single class is good apart from necro in dungeons because they lack utility. So if you roll your ranger in a dungeon, as long as you’re not some bearbow scrub but instead you’re using sword/X and you still get booted, then well they’re idiots.

I thought you were being serious until you mentioned ranger lol good one!

Yes, obviously serious DPS with an ele starts with lava font. Anyone that has ran with an FE knows that full well. In fact we just set that thingy to auto attack and go bio brk, come back 20m later and collect the loot. Hey… what was that? did I just hear the ranger forums calling for you? You better check on that heh

I’m being deadly serious.

And if you don’t believe me, check the dungeon forum, Guang and Zelyhn ran numbers and staff auto + lava font DPS is meant to be close to lightning hammer DPS which is extremely high.

Rangers are fine too, just because 99.9% of them are bearbow scrubs doesn’t mean the class itself is bad, it just means there’s a lot of bad rangers. Spotter is basically a second banner of discipline for your group, and frost spirit is a great DPS boost as well.

^^ That thread sounds to good to be true as I haven’t had the chance to test it out myself. So you’re saying I sit on 1200 and tick 7k on lava font?

colesy.8490:

I’m being deadly serious.

And if you don’t believe me, check the dungeon forum, Guang and Zelyhn ran numbers and staff auto + lava font DPS is meant to be close to lightning hammer DPS which is extremely high.

Rangers are fine too, just because 99.9% of them are bearbow scrubs doesn’t mean the class itself is bad, it just means there’s a lot of bad rangers. Spotter is basically a second banner of discipline for your group, and frost spirit is a great DPS boost as well.

I’m not sure that I’d say Rangers are “fine” (considering how much of our DPS is tied to a pet that’s about as intelligent as Lloyd Christmas)… but they are certainly more viable than you would think listening to its class forums.

Spotter + Frost spirit is a nice boost, and you can maintain permanent fury + 5might with rangers using pets.

colesy.8490:

How is staff ele hard to play? Camp fire attunement and use lava font when off cooldown? That’s about as hard as the guardian DPS rotation of pressing 1 on the 1h sword.

not sure if you are talking to me or not, but I never claimed Staff Ele was hard to play. just that it wasn’t fun to play (to me).

Also, you guys need to get it out of your heads that warriors are the only good PvE class, every single class is good apart from necro in dungeons because they lack utility. So if you roll your ranger in a dungeon, as long as you’re not some bearbow scrub but instead you’re using sword/X and you still get booted, then well they’re idiots.

thought we were on “DPS Only”…..utility optional or not needed at all…..?

colesy.8490:

I’m being deadly serious.

Rangers are a broken class no matter how you cut it. I’m not guessing, like I said, made the mistake of leveling all classes (in a now alt unfriendly game).
Numbers shnumbers, I’m speaking of ele due to the aoe ability, which thief and war doesn’t do well. Well, they have aoe’s and they are nice but you need to get the mob zerg pretty close together to be effective. But even for direct attack, lava font being more so but not entirely, there are better attacks that will always get 100% attention off of the warriors and onto you by the boss, such as with Umad the Modniir. And not even mentioning fiery rush stacks. That’s just not ranger, nec, mes, engi or guard. FE does very well with dps from my observation playing all the classes.

And I say that they are hard to play due to the huge amounts of aggro they get. They are a light class, with potentially heavy dps when geared out so. The only thing that makes them not unplayable is their downed skill.

uh-huh and rangers are not a broken class, just 99% of players need to l2p. yeah….

JMadFour.9730:

not sure if you are talking to me or not, but I never claimed Staff Ele was hard to play. just that it wasn’t fun to play (to me).

Hmmm… fun is my d/d stealth thief. And fun plus DPS in the right situations. I can usually regear him for the situation, but in some situations such as a grenth run, the ele is going to blast through the waves faster. Or say with aetherblade invasions etc. Anything where you are facing huge waves of nasty little zerging mobs… which Anet seems to luv. But that can work against the ele too, making it painful to play, so not a first choice for many. My warrior hardly ever goes down, lots of power and stacks of regen going (signet + food). Ele… sometimes three times a minute lol …but hardly ever dies.

yes full damage
full damage you kill faster no time waisted f around with mobs ptv is waist of time
i do ac p1 in 10 min in full dps party with ptv party it take me 2h CUZ EVERYONE IS JUST DIEING ANYWAY so ptv is a joke

champ.7021:

IMO this is how the game is meant to be played at the moment in groups doing dugeons. Why because in group play you do whatever you can to help each other and that means taking dps because thats the best solution for dungeons. But if you are doing solo content go ahead and take whatever you want. Or if your doing open world content/wvw/pvp. watch that condition warrior lupicus solo in 6 mins.

the problem i have is when people take builds that are absolutely terrible and slow groups down alot. It doesnt bother me that much usually because even when theres one tank the rest of the group is either condition or dps based so its not that noticable. But when i step away from a fight to see how much damage my group is doing and it barely matches my contribution then there is a problem….

there are a few exceptions
In Arah (and mostly P4) a tanky healing guardian with a staff and reflects is wanted.
High level fractals don’t really want glass cannons
Tequatl most definitely doesn’t want glass cannons
CoF P3 is easier with a few tanky guardians

The rest of the dungeons can be done better with full DPS, however non full DPS people are also accepted and normally nobody cares. People have builds that they’re comfortable in and perform best in. Putting Berserker on them sometimes means that they would spend more time down than doing damage.

colesy.8490:

Also, you guys need to get it out of your heads that warriors are the only good PvE class, every single class is good apart from necro in dungeons because they lack utility. So if you roll your ranger in a dungeon, as long as you’re not some bearbow scrub but instead you’re using sword/X and you still get booted, then well they’re idiots.

Actually necros have more utility than rangers and engineers. Healing wells, condition removal wells and the well of corruption for the bosses.
Though I have no idea why are you asking utility from necros, but full DPS from everyone else.

colesy.8490:

Or how about if you’re someone who enjoys playing well? Aren’t we allowed to have fun?

I hope by playing well you don’t mean “ignore all the mechanics in fights by bursting down bosses before their mechanics even work and then come on forums to complain that there are no mechanics in the game”, or “exploit the boss/mobs and defeat them without taking any damage, you need max dps because you don’t play, you sit there in your exploited position and need to kill the boss before getting bored”

Svetli.4276:

yes full damage
full damage you kill faster no time waisted f around with mobs ptv is waist of time
i do ac p1 in 10 min in full dps party with ptv party it take me 2h CUZ EVERYONE IS JUST DIEING ANYWAY so ptv is a joke

um…huh?

English translation: Full damage is faster and you don’t waste time with mobs (what is ptv?) He/she does Ascalonian Catacombs Path 1 in 10 minutes with a full DPS party but with a (ptv) party it takes him two hours because everyone dies a lot. In his opinion, (ptv?) is not optimal….I think that’s what he/she said

I understand that your way of doing things is fun for you, and I am not begrudging you, but some of us don’t mind taking the 2 hours because we value the time spent with friends more than we value a couple of green drops and maybe a yellow or two. We even like to experiment (i.e. take 5 of the same class each traited different) to see how we do. Lots of laughs and good times spent inside instanced content. Out in the world, however with some of the new boss mechanics, zerker gear and DPS builds may not be the best way to go.

As I said… go for it. If running content in minutes is all you’re happy doing, then by all means, do your thing.

thought we were on “DPS Only”…..utility optional or not needed at all…..?

Every single class can achieve decent DPS in dungeons, so the only thing that makes it worth prioritising other classes over others is utility. Necros don’t have relevant utility.

And I say that they are hard to play due to the huge amounts of aggro they get. They are a light class, with potentially heavy dps when geared out so. The only thing that makes them not unplayable is their downed skill.

Not really. Watch any lightning hammer elementalist gameplay video, they’ll get hit once or twice, disengage for a second or two to heal and the boss won’t pursue them at all. It’s more dependent on your group really, if you’re in melee and your team of bads is camping range, it’s more likely the enemy will pursue you since it prioritises your damage dealt and proximity in their aggro table versus that of your party.

uh-huh and rangers are not a broken class, just 99% of players need to l2p. yeah….

Again, I’m not joking. How many sword/warhorn rangers with frost spirit+ spotter have you seen? Zero?

Now how many bearbows have you seen, using their shortbow at 100 range while the party stacks in melee? Or longbow at 1200 range, again while the party stacks in melee? Rangers draw lots of bads, whereas more people go in to warrior thinking “i’m gonna whack people with a giant sword” and melee DPS is better than ranged DPS, so that generally serves them well.

The funny thing is, “ranger” doesn’t even mean to be a “range”-r, people just get the wrong idea of it.

In Arah (and mostly P4) a tanky healing guardian with a staff and reflects is wanted.

No. A zerker guard who isn’t a scrub is wanted.

High level fractals don’t really want glass cannons

Said no decent group ever.

CoF P3 is easier with a few tanky guardians

No. It’s easier with a team of five zerkers destroying everything.

Actually necros have more utility than rangers and engineers. Healing wells, condition removal wells and the well of corruption for the bosses.

Healing is irrelevant, other classes have condition cleanses too, enemies rarely have boons.

So what utility do they have again? Light and dark fields nobody uses? Zero cleave? No reflects?

Though I have no idea why are you asking utility from necros, but full DPS from everyone else.

Every other class has utility in addition to their DPS, necro doesn’t. If you want me to clarify, ask.

I hope by playing well you don’t mean “ignore all the mechanics in fights by bursting down bosses before their mechanics even work and then come on forums to complain that there are no mechanics in the game”, or “exploit the boss/mobs and defeat them without taking any damage, you need max dps because you don’t play, you sit there in your exploited position and need to kill the boss before getting bored”

I don’t ignore mechanics at all. If bursting a boss down fast enough means I can then that’s nice, but if I can’t I actually pay attention to their skills, animations and react accordingly. Though I get it, you clearly don’t like people who play better than you, hence the condescending “you sit there in your exploited position” comment. I honestly can’t even think of many exploits I’ve used, if any.

I find it pretty amusing when people say “you do things fast which means you are not having fun!”… now allow me use the same logic in here:
You went home after a hard day of real life obligations, you worked, studied, waited on a godkitten queue or something for like, ~6 hours… and when you get home, what you do? You spend 2 hours doing SEP2 because your party is made of two healways guardians, one pvt warrior that plays with rifle and rifle only and two condition necros using dire gear. How is that fun?

See what i did there?

I don’t know why a lot of people think glass cannons are less viable in higher level fractals. My smoothest runs (48s) are all with glass cannons. Whenever there is a bunker or 2 in the group the uninstallation button looked much more appealing

colesy.8490:

I hope by playing well you don’t mean “ignore all the mechanics in fights by bursting down bosses before their mechanics even work and then come on forums to complain that there are no mechanics in the game”, or “exploit the boss/mobs and defeat them without taking any damage, you need max dps because you don’t play, you sit there in your exploited position and need to kill the boss before getting bored”

I don’t ignore mechanics at all. If bursting a boss down fast enough means I can then that’s nice, but if I can’t I actually pay attention to their skills, animations and react accordingly. Though I get it, you clearly don’t like people who play better than you, hence the condescending “you sit there in your exploited position” comment. I honestly can’t even think of many exploits I’ve used, if any.

The two sentence were separate, I didn’t mean bursting down the boss quickly is an exploit.
However, if you are doing Frost in CM by going up the rock or pulling the Mossman next to the water in the Swamp fractal, or the Ooze in Arah, then yes, all you need is your amazing no-brain, no-skill, DPS. That’s what I meant with exploiting, those types of players really have no skill and all they need is their DPS gear to kill it fast before they die of boredom. Just go afk and wait for them to die and don’t tell me players are not doing that because they do, and there are loads of other examples too in dungeons.

If you are not exploiting them and do dungeons with full DPS gear on everyone in your groups then congrats. It’s certainly doable but it’s not what loads of groups are doing.

I find that going full atomic bomb on people as a D/D thief works best for 1v1’s. You give them enough time, those condition tanks will outlast you. As for group wvw, going tanky is better i think

colesy.8490:

No. A zerker guard who isn’t a scrub is wanted.

Never been in a group that asked for that.

Said no decent group ever.

Because when you need 5 guardians to all have the tome of courage out and press 5 just to get one or two people survive the maw, you surely want a place hogged up by a zerker warrior.

No. It’s easier with a team of five zerkers destroying everything.

Yeah. Been in those parties. Went nowhere.

Healing is irrelevant, other classes have condition cleanses too, enemies rarely have boons.

If healing is irrelevant then why the hell do healing guardians seem to be popular and wanted? Because nobody wants you to heal them?
And may I ask what utility does an engi or a ranger bring?

Though I have no idea why are you asking utility from necros, but full DPS from everyone else.

I don’t ignore mechanics at all. If bursting a boss down fast enough means I can then that’s nice, but if I can’t I actually pay attention to their skills, animations and react accordingly. Though I get it, you clearly don’t like people who play better than you, hence the condescending “you sit there in your exploited position” comment. I honestly can’t even think of many exploits I’ve used, if any.

To be honest no boss should be burstable. I think that they should buff such bosses like alpha to the ceiling, because they have a very easy to learn aoe mechanic with rock coronas and 1 ice spike, but people opt out of learning, because you can go full DPS and kill it in 30 seconds before even suffering damage.

Oxxy.7068:

one pvt warrior that plays with rifle and rifle only

Need to clarify here. For a ranged weapon choice riffle does so much more damage than a short bow. You should see how kittened berserker warriors look when they pull out a short bow (a condition based weapon) and run around slowly auto-attacking bosses.

Mirta.5029:

Need to clarify here. For a ranged weapon choice riffle does so much more damage than a short bow. You should see how kittened berserker warriors look when they pull out a short bow (a condition based weapon) and run around slowly auto-attacking bosses.

If a warrior pulled out a short bow on me i’d call him hax. And everyone looks funny to me after pulling a ranged weapon in most situations.

Also, if said warrior can’t spin to a wall, i’d rather have him to use a bow just to provide pre fight FF + BF.

Oxxy.7068:

If a warrior pulled out a short bow on me i’d call him hax. And everyone looks funny to me after pulling a ranged weapon in most situations.

Also, if said warrior can’t spin to a wall, i’d rather have him to use a bow just to provide pre fight FF + BF.

oops, meant a long bow. What’s FF and BF exactly?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_warrior_skills
From what I can see the box skills can not provide absolutely anything worth wile to the party to even be considered to be better than a riffle.

Fire field and blast finisher. >:
According to reliable sources changing to greatsword just to cast 100b is a 2% dps increase, which seems meh to me, meaning i’d rather have the utility from long bow skills (fire field and blast finisher) to increase the group overall damage than 2% selfish dps.
Rifle is a weak weapon because it just provides with damage, and every melee weapon is better at that.

Again.

Rangers = precision boosts via spotter and permafury (wh+moa), five might (if carrying stalker), secondary projectile reflect (on axe, party can stack inside ranger model while meleeing if necessary), blast finisher on warhorn, as well as acceptable personal damage.

Engineer = primary vuln stacker + assorted stuff (blast field finishers x 3 – 5, which can provide good burst heals if done in succession even in zerk gear/9-15 stacks of might/area stealth provider, secondary reflect via elixir u, and if we believe next patch stability provider and stealth provider via elixir b and s respectively.) That’s not to mention great CC (although you need to be a bit careful to pull it off), even when traited glassy. Also acceptable DPS.

However, if you are doing Frost in CM by going up the rock or pulling the Mossman next to the water in the Swamp fractal, or the Ooze in Arah, then yes, all you need is your amazing no-brain, no-skill, DPS.

You’re pretty much wasting your time trying to kill Ooze conventionally, Frost’s icethrower doesn’t track though so it can be evaded so he doesn’t have to be stacked on. Mossman just takes coordination of reflects and aegis.

Never been in a group that asked for that.

You’ve never been in a group that asks for a zerker guard?

Because when you need 5 guardians to all have the tome of courage out and press 5 just to get one or two people survive the maw, you surely want a place hogged up by a zerker warrior.

I’m pretty sure you just need one.

Warriors aren’t all that useful in fractals either, you want one for banners and fgj, but that’s about it (though that’s what they should be taken for in other dungeons anyway).

Yeah. Been in those parties. Went nowhere.

That’s a phenomenon called “bad players”. They wear all sorts of gear, from berserker all the way to magi.

If healing is irrelevant then why the hell do healing guardians seem to be popular and wanted? Because nobody wants you to heal them?

Because people for some stupid reason think healing is good. It’s not. And as for me, I don’t want to be healed, I want that player to stop being useless and give useful damage mitigation like aegis, protection and/or projectile reflection, not a lousy 2k heal dodge roll.

And may I ask what utility does an engi or a ranger bring?

Ranger brings frost spirit and spotter for group precision and damage increase, and off-hand axe has whirling defense for projectile reflection and vuln stacking. Another plus is a traited and untraited frost spirit stack. They also bring group fury, might and the bonus from whatever pet they bring.

Engineer has projectile reflect on shield, a ton of combo fields and blasts (most importantly, fire field + blast) and can maintain 25 stacks of vuln on a boss. Necro does literally none of these things besides maybe vuln stacking, and in that case all of the other classes can do that and more.

To be honest no boss should be burstable. I think that they should buff such bosses like alpha to the ceiling, because they have a very easy to learn aoe mechanic with rock coronas and 1 ice spike, but people opt out of learning, because you can go full DPS and kill it in 30 seconds before even suffering damage.

I personally wouldn’t have a problem with that, but what about bads in PVT? They won’t be able to mitigate damage from bosses with even bigger HP bars since they will run out of dodges and won’t be able to soak many hits.

colesy.8490:

I personally wouldn’t have a problem with that, but what about bads in PVT? They won’t be able to mitigate damage from bosses with even bigger HP bars since they will run out of dodges and won’t be able to soak many hits.

Why do you have this thought that everyone in PVT is bad? That everyone that experiments builds is bad? For example here my friend build P/T/H warrior. He goes out to solo champs with auto attack. He literally can not die. He, like me, has all sorts of characters and all sorts of builds raging from berserker all the way to PVT.

They’re bad because they need to use armour to mitigate damage rather than looking for tells and dodging.

What champions does your friend solo? I’m sure he could do it faster in zerker if he’s decent.

colesy.8490:

They’re bad because they need to use armour to mitigate damage rather than looking for tells and dodging.

What champions does your friend solo? I’m sure he could do it faster in zerker if he’s decent.

He solos champs in Frostgorge and Orr. Does it matter how fast it is? With over 3000 power it’s fast enough and you have the very nice ability to just auto-attack AFK. For example leave your character in front of the troll, set auto attack, go somewhere for 2-3 minutes and you’re done. You might want to call out at about 10% health for people to get there for free boxes.
Suggested him to go and solo dungeons as well. Might make a P/T/H guardian to compliment that and just go lol in some dungeons together.
Plus if you’re in a group where people go down a lot you can happily rez others while taking the aggro and standing in aoes.

Mirta.5029:

He solos champs in Frostgorge and Orr. Does it matter how fast it is? With over 3000 power it’s fast enough and you have the very nice ability to just auto-attack AFK.

And how’s that being skilled? lol.

He solos champs in Frostgorge and Orr. Does it matter how fast it is? With over 3000 power it’s fast enough and you have the very nice ability to just auto-attack AFK. For example leave your character in front of the troll, set auto attack, go somewhere for 2-3 minutes and you’re done. You might want to call out at about 10% health for people to get there for free boxes.

It matters when my point is that people use non-zerker gear as a crutch and it makes them bad. In the example you give, they’re just out-healing the boss, whereas a competent player would use active damage mitigation.

Suggested him to go and solo dungeons as well. Might make a P/T/H guardian to compliment that and just go lol in some dungeons together.

Tell him to solo Arah. Let’s see how long he can keep up dodges against Lupicus and his 1.5 million HP pool.

Plus if you’re in a group where people go down a lot you can happily rez others while taking the aggro and standing in aoes.

And if you’re in a group with zerkers you can all res together and get them up in like a second. Either that or battle standard works.

Over 3000 power? How the hell do you have that on a PTH warrior? Are you sure about those numbers, or you’re just making false claims for that?

Advent Leader.1083:

Over 3000 power? How the hell do you have that on a PTH warrior? Are you sure about those numbers, or you’re just making false claims for that?

Probably means 3000 attack. This is a common mistake.

JMadFour.9730:

Is that how Guild Wars 2 is meant to be played?

No matter what class you play, or what the classes are capable of, or what weapons they can use….

spec and gear for the absolute highest DPS you can get, to the exclusion of any and everything else. and just hit Q before a big attack.

that’s the correct way to play this game?

Depends on what your class is.

Personally I think guardians playing support are way more useful than zerk guardians. Zerk guardians are like a contradiction to themselves. They have no dmg at all and are almost negating their usefulness in a group. Every time I see a zerk guardian I want to tell him to roll a warrior if he wants dps then boot him out of the party.

But you also have to understand there is no trinity in this game though. It’s mostly about finding the most effective way to play your class. If you think doing that is by making your character full-damage then that’s obviously the way you like to play. When I think about it off the top of my head the only truly useful support classes are probably guardian and I’ve seen some ele’s do some really nice healing as well. Necro’s… meh I’d rather have a full condition dmg necro in my group than a support necro. Engi’s…. meh, totally useless.

Other than that though, your statement isn’t totally wrong. But it isn’t 100% truth either.

Shelledfade.6435:

JMadFour.9730:

Is that how Guild Wars 2 is meant to be played?

No matter what class you play, or what the classes are capable of, or what weapons they can use….

spec and gear for the absolute highest DPS you can get, to the exclusion of any and everything else. and just hit Q before a big attack.

that’s the correct way to play this game?

Depends on what your class is.

Personally I think guardians playing support are way more useful than zerk guardians. Zerk guardians are like a contradiction to themselves. They have no dmg at all and are almost negating their usefulness in a group. Every time I see a zerk guardian I want to tell him to roll a warrior if he wants dps then boot him out of the party.

But you also have to understand there is no trinity in this game though. It’s mostly about finding the most effective way to play your class. If you think doing that is by making your character full-damage then that’s obviously the way you like to play. When I think about it off the top of my head the only truly useful support classes are probably guardian and I’ve seen some ele’s do some really nice healing as well. Necro’s… meh I’d rather have a full condition dmg necro in my group than a support necro. Engi’s…. meh, totally useless.

Other than that though, your statement isn’t totally wrong. But it isn’t 100% truth either.

A DPS guardian isn’t actually a full on DPS guardian, it’s a guardian maximizing damage and taking advantage of either being an active protector through judicious use of blinds, aegis, and projectile denial to protect his team. In addition, he can provide a fair amount of vuln and more importantly, fire and light fields. Fire fields provide might stacks to the party as a group, making them deal more damage as a whole. We can also see the guardian be an effective condition cleanser if purely set-up for it (PoV builds)

We also have to take into account that they deal nominal damage AND is pretty much effective as damage-dealing anchors simply because their initial toughness when they aggro a monster + impressive and -active- party defense = party not being targeted… much.

DPS wise a guardian has also good sustain on their auto, so yes, DPS guardians as a whole are pretty impressive, but their only main weakness is that they need to play better to survive, and the have to time blocks, blinds and projectile fields right because they will most likely have aggro on them all the time.

You are also pretty much uninformed on engineers, as they provide considerable amount of vulnerability stacking (primary being vulnerability stacking) and they can supplement other class specs by way of them having so many blast finishers that they can either burst heal, burst might (3-9 stacks of might, and maximum I think is twelve or fifteen), and surprisingly burst stealth (they can give 10s of stealth to an area like shadow refuge). They also have access to chills and blinds, and while their damage is pretty lower in spectrum, they make it up for being able to fill gaps in party composition (they can provide projectile defense to the party with Mag Shield and Throw Elixir U). Also, if patch update in Oct 17 is correct from the posts here, they provide access to group stealth (Throw Elixir S) or stability (Throw Elixir .

Shelledfade.6435:

JMadFour.9730:

Is that how Guild Wars 2 is meant to be played?

No matter what class you play, or what the classes are capable of, or what weapons they can use….

spec and gear for the absolute highest DPS you can get, to the exclusion of any and everything else. and just hit Q before a big attack.

that’s the correct way to play this game?

Depends on what your class is.

Personally I think guardians playing support are way more useful than zerk guardians. Zerk guardians are like a contradiction to themselves. They have no dmg at all and are almost negating their usefulness in a group. Every time I see a zerk guardian I want to tell him to roll a warrior if he wants dps then boot him out of the party.

But you also have to understand there is no trinity in this game though. It’s mostly about finding the most effective way to play your class. If you think doing that is by making your character full-damage then that’s obviously the way you like to play. When I think about it off the top of my head the only truly useful support classes are probably guardian and I’ve seen some ele’s do some really nice healing as well. Necro’s… meh I’d rather have a full condition dmg necro in my group than a support necro. Engi’s…. meh, totally useless.

Other than that though, your statement isn’t totally wrong. But it isn’t 100% truth either.

DPS guardians deal more damage than warriors.

Also, you can support just as well in zerker as you can in trash cleric gear, so there’s no point using it if you can just DPS and support at the same time.

Mirta.5029:

If healing is irrelevant then why the hell do healing guardians seem to be popular and wanted? Because nobody wants you to heal them?

They are popular because people think they are being useful. Every person who likes playing a healer in other MMOs has created a healing guardian and wants to believe they can add something to the group, because they like that playstyle.

Wanted? Nope. I have never seen anyone ask for a healing guardian or even give positive feedback about healing guardians. Guardian, yes. Healing guardian, no.

colesy.8490:

Also, you can support just as well in zerker as you can in trash cleric gear, so there’s no point using it if you can just DPS and support at the same time.

No you can’t. Your heals are crap. Hmm, no heal on dodge or 2000 heal on dodge? 120/sec regen or 350/sec regen? Symbols healing for 350/sec or no healing symbols? 250/sec VoR to entire group or 80 VoR to just yourself?

You can claim that healing is inferior to DPS, but you can’t claim that you support just as well in zerker because your heals are trash.

colesy.8490:

Tell him to solo Arah. Let’s see how long he can keep up dodges against Lupicus and his 1.5 million HP pool.

If you can keep up dodges in zerker gear you can keep it up in other gear as well, even if it takes you 100000x as long to kill him. Dodging isn’t the issue.

Yaki, the problem with healing based supports is that the boss outDPSes the rate at which you can drop cover heals, which makes negation tactics (blinds and reflects) much more effective aside than healing.

No you can’t. Your heals are crap. Hmm, no heal on dodge or 2000 heal on dodge? 120/sec regen or 350/sec regen? Symbols healing for 350/sec or no healing symbols? 250/sec VoR to entire group or 80 VoR to just yourself?

You can claim that healing is inferior to DPS, but you can’t claim that you support just as well in zerker because your heals are trash.

Healing won’t mitigate attacks from bosses well enough, whereas blocks do, which any guardian can use. Reflects do, which any guardian can use. Protection does, which any guardian can use. I don’t even count healing as support, it’s literally just increasing your HP bar, but if you get kicked by Lupicus, unless the heals get your HP bar all the way back up, missing a dodge again will just get you downed anyway.

If you can keep up dodges in zerker gear you can keep it up in other gear as well, even if it takes you 100000x as long to kill him. Dodging isn’t the issue.

Uhuh.

The question is, what comes first, Lupicus dying or RSI?

Advent Leader.1083:

Yaki, the problem with healing based supports is that the boss outDPSes the rate at which you can drop cover heals, which makes negation tactics (blinds and reflects) much more effective aside than healing.

I’m aware of that. However, unless the fight is less than a defensive cooldown in duration (as is the case on some trash), prolonging the fight won’t decrease the chances of success and the extra heals may actually contribute to it’s success. You’ll just have slightly longer runs.

colesy.8490:

No you can’t. Your heals are crap. Hmm, no heal on dodge or 2000 heal on dodge? 120/sec regen or 350/sec regen? Symbols healing for 350/sec or no healing symbols? 250/sec VoR to entire group or 80 VoR to just yourself?

You can claim that healing is inferior to DPS, but you can’t claim that you support just as well in zerker because your heals are trash.

Healing won’t mitigate attacks from bosses well enough, whereas blocks do, which any guardian can use. Reflects do, which any guardian can use. Protection does, which any guardian can use. I don’t even count healing as support, it’s literally just increasing your HP bar, but if you get kicked by Lupicus, unless the heals get your HP bar all the way back up, missing a dodge again will just get you downed anyway.

Clerics guardians can do all that (and some of it even slightly better due to boon duration) in addition to the heals they provide.

Yaki.9563:

No you can’t. Your heals are crap. Hmm, no heal on dodge or 2000 heal on dodge? 120/sec regen or 350/sec regen? Symbols healing for 350/sec or no healing symbols? 250/sec VoR to entire group or 80 VoR to just yourself?

You can claim that healing is inferior to DPS, but you can’t claim that you support just as well in zerker because your heals are trash.

Your heals are crap but your reflects are much better.

Clerics guardians can do all that (and some of it even slightly better due to boon duration) in addition to the heals they provide.

Yup, they can. The problem is you completely demolish your DPS in the process.

Your heals are crap but your reflects are much better.

Technically no since reflects need precision to crit and the damage dealt is influenced by your critical damage.

Cleric guardians can’t even reflect projectiles better than a zerker, that’s kind of funny.

Also, last point @ Yaki: reducing your DPS means that you’ll be exposing your group to higher chances of getting trained, since while you ‘might not’ be that great of sustain DPS as compared to you group, built right your innate armor differences will be enough to equalize your DPS threat to the mob AI such that you’ll be focused down, leaving your team to maneuver properly.

Ergo, reducing your DPS as a guardian offloads your capability to hold aggro – in which case your allies will most likely get trained and go down faster than you can cover them as a result. That’s why clerics go down last in an untrained party of zerks because not only do they have defensive stats, their lack of DPS hurts the group as a whole with respect to being unable to hold mob aggression and the fact that even in clerics, they can only prevent higher mistakes done by the group and not all of them fully.

colesy.8490:

Tell him to solo Arah. Let’s see how long he can keep up dodges against Lupicus and his 1.5 million HP pool.

Colesy… Lupicus is not hard no matter what gear you’re wearing. When he gets to stage 2 if you’re on a guardian you can stop your personal DPS all together, kite and reflect. Plud, unlike most beserkers you can actually survive being bubbled by him.

And if you’re in a group with zerkers you can all res together and get them up in like a second. Either that or battle standard works.

Except that either a) your group will stack, but everyone will be too busy trying to bring the boss down to rez anyone, will all wipe and fail
or
b) It won’t be a situation where you can stack and anyone trying to rez will die from the first thing that hits them. If you have a tank in that situation then at least you can have tank rez everyone.

But what do I care? Play your way. If you don’t like other gear types, besides berserker, good for you, advertise your party this way! Stay away from my parties and I’ll stay away from yours.

Not meant, no. But currently is the best, but whatever, do what you like. I’ll get a nice hot shower from the ‘elitists’ on the forums for this, but it’s most important that you play what you like.

Free tip of the day: do play with likeminded people, whether that’s hardcore meta guys or casual don’t get a rats kitten people.

I’ve heard rumors about supporty builds getting some love though, we’ll see how that works out.

Colesy… Lupicus is not hard no matter what gear you’re wearing. When he gets to stage 2 if you’re on a guardian you can stop your personal DPS all together, kite and reflect. Plud, unlike most beserkers you can actually survive being bubbled by him.

People keep saying this, and people keep not providing videos of themselves doing it.

If it was so easy, PUGs wouldn’t range him.

If you get bubbled, you pop stability and dodge out anyway, you’re not meant to tank it so that’s a completely irrelevant point.

Except that either a) your group will stack, but everyone will be too busy trying to bring the boss down to rez anyone, will all wipe and fail

Being too busy is never an excuse, not res’ing is flat out from choosing not to. All you have to focus on is the boss’s animations and the big downed state symbol, oh look better res this guy.

b) It won’t be a situation where you can stack and anyone trying to rez will die from the first thing that hits them. If you have a tank in that situation then at least you can have tank rez everyone.

And what situation can’t you stack? And what situation will someone res’ing just die to a gust of wind? If you had a tank there, you would have just had a dead weight like they would be in any other case. You can’t reliably hold aggro in this game, and you either can’t tank boss hits or it’s a waste of time since you can just dodge (and your HP is slightly more valuable than the extra 0.5s of damage uptime from tanking a hit), block or reflect…. or whatever.

But what do I care? Play your way. If you don’t like other gear types, besides berserker, good for you, advertise your party this way! Stay away from my parties and I’ll stay away from yours.

I’m just trying to educate people about this game and they don’t like hearing that their support/tank/heal/scrub builds are all useless trash.

colesy.8490:

I’m just trying to educate people about this game and they don’t like hearing that their support/tank/heal/scrub builds are all useless trash.

Collesy im not gonna discuss any of what you said (not that i share your opinion in all points or even most), but if you are trying really to educate people, make so that your language, form of telling, things, etc is adecuate.

And to be exact, some of your posts are like reading a thug, and believe me, most sane people dont bother to think the thug is right.

colesy.8490:

And what situation can’t you stack? And what situation will someone res’ing just die to a gust of wind?

Well you don’t stack in fights that have actual mechanics. Like for example most fights found in Arah P4. And by the way I’ve seen berserkers being two shot more times than I can count.

colesy.8490:

If you had a tank there, you would have just had a dead weight like they would be in any other case.

Actually the dude switched when the party wiped. And wiped. And wiped. And wiped. And you know what? Having one dude with toughness that was able to get people up without dying saved the run.

I’m just trying to educate people about this game and they don’t like hearing that their support/tank/heal/scrub builds are all useless trash.

No, you’re being an elitist yelling “play my way, because my way is the only way to play!” which is not true. Everyone has the right to play how they want and similarly you have a right to find people to play with that fit your standards.