Guild Wars 2

I’m obviously showing what game I moved on from, but I admit to not understanding how to create DPS effectively. I know enough to use cooldowns when available, but does the concept of a “rotation” exist, or is it all about “combinations” (which I seem to create only accidentally). Thanks for the help!

Rotations do exist, yes.

For example, a warrior DPS rotation consists of vulnerabilty stacking on axe 2 and mace 4 and then bursting with greatsword 2 and 3 (preferably in to a wall so all four hits of whirlwind connect). You have fast hands (5s weapon swaps) so after doing gs 2 and 3 you swap back to axe/mace and if your vuln stacking skills are on cooldown you can use your autoattack. However, the axe auto chain’s DPS is backloaded so you need to perform the whole chain if you want to maximise your damage before swapping back to greatsword for 2 and 3 again.

Yes, elementalist for example has a nice might stacking rotation on both Scepter/dagger, scepter/focus and dagger/dagger. The combinations are put into a certain order (=rotation) to create helpful/damaging effects.

Like the others said they kinda do, but I came from “that other game” too and I can tell you it’s nothing alike really. In GW2 you aren’t penalised for not repeatedly pressing exactly the right numbers in the right order.

There are rotations for certain classes and builds, but in general, they tend to be more like “this skill complements this other skill” rather than long chains. In quite a few cases, sticking too strongly to long chains will endanger you, as the combat is about active play- adapting to situations and countering attacks.

Yes, there are many efficient rotations across all classes. More I think than the developers intended to be.

Do note that the “rotations”, even where they exist, are not mandatory in any form.

Yes, you will not be pushing out optimal DPS, but that doesn’t make you outright deadweight.

In majority of encounters, you can play “badly” and still come out alive without much trouble. Personally, I don’t concern myself much with “rotations” and “optimal dps”, but I rather play what I like.

colesy.8490:

Rotations do exist, yes.

For example, a warrior DPS rotation consists of vulnerabilty stacking on axe 2 and mace 4 and then bursting with greatsword 2 and 3 (preferably in to a wall so all four hits of whirlwind connect). You have fast hands (5s weapon swaps) so after doing gs 2 and 3 you swap back to axe/mace and if your vuln stacking skills are on cooldown you can use your autoattack. However, the axe auto chain’s DPS is backloaded so you need to perform the whole chain if you want to maximise your damage before swapping back to greatsword for 2 and 3 again.

@Colesy, are you sure it’s gs 2 and 3? 3 is the whirlwind attack which is pretty low damage output. Not trying to question you, but rather improve my DPS output.

To offset the loss if you don’t whirlwind in to a wall you use gs 4 and axe 3. Or you can just swap to axe/mace straight after hundred blades for the auto attack chain and axe 2.

colesy.8490:

To offset the loss if you don’t whirlwind in to a wall you use gs 4 and axe 3. Or you can just swap to axe/mace straight after hundred blades for the auto attack chain and axe 2.

Cool, thank you!

Yeah I came from the same game, in gw2 there is rotations for each class however half the skills are more utility based than DPS based… my 2 warriors from each game are quite different

On my mesmer I always rotate between my GS and Staff spawning only phantasms. So when I let my berzerker go I automatically switch to staff and spawn iwarlockittenep spawning them as they die in the fastest order of spawn. All of this while keeping my aoe’s on target as they come up.

Yes, the combat is very different from that other game. It’s much more situational, more focused on boons (short incombat buffs) and combos.

For combos, one person lays a field, the same person or anyone else can blast finishers in the field. Here’s a good tool to show you combos.
http://mastodonte.fr/outils/tool-combo#en

Here’s a video that highlights boons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm1A5c2dRY

Now generally in the open world it’s not that much of a concern as it is in more highly skilled combat situations like explorable dungeons, high level fractals or spvp. I do have a general rotation that I use when tooling around in the open world on my scepter/dagger elementalist:

1) AIR Ride the Lightening + Updraft (for the knockback/stun)
2) FIRE Dragon’s Tooth, Ring of Fire + Phoenix (sets up the dragon tooth finisher, lay the fire field under it, blast the phoenix thru = dead mob)

More difficult mobs and bosses require more complex rotations/synergy with teammates.