Guild Wars 2

Trailblazer/Wanderer/Commander/Vigilant/Crusader

These stat sets don’t get used much in meta builds. Whatever, that’s fine. However I have found situations where being a tank is helpful to aid others in being the more active defense, bouncing around, dps types they like to play. So the question I have is this:

What professions (and builds if you want to be specific) would work well with each of these stat sets and why?

Disclaimer: I know they won’t be meta, and they may not be the most optimal. I’ll be happy so long as they work well and are fun (to me) to play. Think of this as a thought exercise or experiment if you like.

I actually working towards using Trailblazers on my Condi necro and so far, it’s worked well in all PvE content.

Viper is the standard for condi necro, but for a condi-based build, the power/precision felt somewhat unnecessary. Yeah, the direct damage is a little better and crits do proc certain traits, but it feels so miniscule when compared to the Vit/Toughness I can gain instead. Sure, I’m down some small fraction of DPS, but the extra 10000 effective health keeps me alive longer – which in turn still leads to more DPS.

I’m using a combination of Soldier/Commander stats on my engineer. Jugg/ mass momentum with flamethrower work excellent, grant tons of might stacks and longer uptime of quickness and two stacks of stability (instead of one). Even the weak-considered Flamethrower autoattack does decent damage with this. It is not meta, but a lot of fun ^^.

I saw the post in the necro thread for your character Eneldiar, and Mr. I’m not gonna try to type that, I’ve considered that stat set along with the Vigilant one for that engi build! Glad to see I’m not the only one. Any other ideas?

Commanders is meta for chrono, isn’kitten At least with the exception of trinkets. May have changed since a year ago when I last checked though.

Ayrilana.1396:

Commanders is meta for chrono, isn’kitten At least with the exception of trinkets. May have changed since a year ago when I last checked though.

I think that was the set I was thinking about as a second set for my mesmer (my current being Viper for a condi build).

Commander’s is meta for Chrono…Commander’s leggings with a few trinkets added depending on if you want to use the expensive utility Boon duration buff or not.

The others I find are almost prohibitively expensive to create, needing so many freshwater pearls/maguuma lilies/some-other-over-priced-hard-to-get-mat that it’s ridiculous :/

A trick to reduce the cost is to forge ascended gear of some relatively cheap stat set, and then make the exotic insignias and inscriptions that you actually want and use the mystic forge to change the stat set to the one you want. Much cheaper than forging some of the HoT stat sets from scratch, particularly the ones that require linseed oil.

bearshaman.3421:

Trailblazer/Wanderer/Commander/Vigilant/Crusader

Trailblazer is meta for WvW condi classes I hear, Wanderer is easy to acquire baby mesmer tank for raids, commander is very meta for chronotank. Vigilant and Crusader I don’t know of those for builds.

Sorin Noroku.5342:

bearshaman.3421:

Trailblazer/Wanderer/Commander/Vigilant/Crusader

Trailblazer is meta for WvW condi classes I hear, Wanderer is easy to acquire baby mesmer tank for raids, commander is very meta for chronotank. Vigilant and Crusader I don’t know of those for builds.

I know Crusader has been used for some necro/reaper builds, since you can use traits to make up for the lack of precision. Vigilant is one I’m really curious to use. Expertise and Concentration? There has to be a build that would make very good use of that.