New to HoT, looking for a class playstyle.

New to HoT, looking for a class playstyle.

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Posted by: Vicus.5841

Vicus.5841

So I haven’t played the expansion and debating on coming back and giving it a go. With that said I am clueless on the class changes that came out with the expansion. I believe they all got new elite skills? In the shape of a new weapon? The only one I read about is the druid. My wife is looking to play one and I was wondering what would be a good class to mix with it.

I sadly have a picky play style. I am more of a fan of passives then constant button mashing and I prefer ranged. I also like to be pretty decent at self healing. Normally these are the easier characters to play but I just enjoy looking at the action around me then having to time every ability perfectly. I have a 80 warrior and like it but would prefer to play something that is more ranged focused and actually good at it. Warrior rifle/bow wasn’t very pvp/wvw doable back when I played, it was a greatsword fest.

Anyhow let me know if you have any questions but I hoping that some of the new epic abilities might have morphed a class into something more user friendly for me.

Thanks

New to HoT, looking for a class playstyle.

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Posted by: Fluffball.8307

Fluffball.8307

Your warrior turns into a “berserker” which now has very solid condi damage with a longbow, and you know how durable and simple to play they are already (but even damage druid has a lot of party heals, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.)

The new weapon would be an offhand torch for more condis, and you typically pair it with mainhand sword.

New to HoT, looking for a class playstyle.

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Posted by: Vicus.5841

Vicus.5841

Well thats good to know that Bows are useful in PVP. In PVE now are warriors not expected to be tankish. It’s what was kinda expected when I orginally played. If I walked into a dungeon with a bow people were freaked out.

Any of the new elite skills for other classes lower the amount of weapon swapping needed? I liked ranger but there is so much weapon swapping to increase dps speeed ect. Looking for something that stays with the same weapon alot.

New to HoT, looking for a class playstyle.

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Posted by: Fluffball.8307

Fluffball.8307

Are you planning on doing mostly PvP? Because ranger druid mostly camps staff and uses the autoattack there. Druids are bunker support builds so not terribly difficult to play. You just won’t do much damage.

The only other extremely simple, mostly ranged class that comes to mind would be a necro. Their elite spec reaper gives them greatsword, but you can ignore that and just basically become a ‘super necro’ and do the regular condi thing with staff and scepter. Basically just plop all your marks down with staff then spam scepter autoattack. Necros have next to zero defense, but if you duo queue with your wife she can semi-keep you alive with a healing druid.

For PvE, other than raids, no one is expected to be tanky. It’s all about the DPS.

New to HoT, looking for a class playstyle.

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Posted by: Toolbox.9375

Toolbox.9375

If you’re looking for a passive ranged class, you might actually quite like a Condition-based Scepter/Pistol Mesmer. It’s certainly not “meta”, as its damage falls behind amongst fully-buffed individuals and Mesmers are expected to play supportively in Raids and the like, but when you’re in smaller groups, open-world groups, or solo, it can actually put out a very large amount of damage comparatively.

It takes a short time to get your Pistol’s Phantasms out, but once they’re all spawned, you don’t have to do much else except respawn one in the rare occasion that it dies.

Main problems with it outside of its non-Meta status… Mesmers as a whole have pretty low movement speed due to a lack of Swiftness (though taking Signet of Inspiration and a Focus in your second weapon set can get you just shy of 100% uptime), and it can be rather slow to defeat groups of small enemies when simply traversing the map due to a lack of AoE functionality mixed with its need to build up illusions for maximum damage.

If your wife focuses on Druid and uses a nicely survivable pet, you should be able to pair up well with her pet keeping the enemy’s attention, her keeping the pet going, and you unloading relatively high damage on the enemy, at least in boss situations. You yourself won’t be super durable, but with the distraction of your wife’s pet and your own illusions, you hopefully shouldn’t have to even worry about the enemy trying to attack you.

Here’s the main framework of the build I’d used: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAra8NnsICFohNoBWoBlcDpMAo/WOD-TRhPABZq+DS6BAY/hNV+lvSQA-e Anything not filled in either isn’t terribly important, or has a number of options. For example, the third specialization could go to any of Chaos, Inspiration, or Chronomancer, as they all have their own benefits.

Chaos helps to simply increase damage and survivability, as well as stealth capability if you take Prismatic Understanding as well as use a Torch instead of the Focus… This can help with group damage a little bit, as the Phantasm on the Torch fires a bouncing projectile that Burns enemies. Still not super high damage in the short term, though, and you may be better off using the Focus’ ability to clump up enemies with Temporal Curtain and the Sword’s #2 ability. I know that’s not ranged, but smaller enemies tend to be easy enough to deal with, and the process is still pretty simple.

Inspiration can give your Focus improved functionality by reducing its cooldowns and giving both abilities projectile reflection, useful for certain bosses and for hitting the 100% Swiftness uptime mark. It also has a number of healing-oriented traits. Beyond those, though, it’s not super-impactful to the build; it’s mostly the Focus part that stands out.

Chronomancer has a few benefits; for one, you get a passive 25% increase to your movement speed, largely negating the need to the Focus to give yourself Swiftness, and opening up the Signet of Inspiration slot for something like Blink to move around a tad faster. If you’re willing to dance your fingers around the keyboard a bit, it can also let you get all of your Phantasms out right at the start of a fight by using Continuum Split, Phantasm, Phantasm, Signet of the Ether, Phantasm. And there a number of smaller potential benefits that I’ll leave you to explore on your own, as they’re all largely a matter of preference.

Hopefully that helps. X)

The class is always greener on the other side.