Guild Wars 2

Okay, I’ve narrowed down some of the classes I enjoy playing, but I’m having trouble getting a build together that I enjoy. I am looking for a build that is a versatile (or master of nothing) type build. Something that puts out reasonable damage but will still survive well. If possible, something that can use different weapons set-ups to adjust its role. Mostly looking at PVE and WvW viability, though if it can make in PvP so much the better. I like melee combat, but have nothing against range (and this adds to the variety).

My other top criteria is something that is fun and interesting to play. This is why I like a versatile class which will require me to adjust tactics to each situation for best effect. I don’t need to be the best burst/crit/cond or whatever. But a nice balance of a number of elements that is still effective.

Any thoughts on how to roll this up?

Classes I am considering:
Guardian – not much range, but seems like this could strike a good balance between damage, tanking and support.

Warrior – Shouts are nice, lots of different weapons (hate the GS). Just worried this one will get dull. I really can’t see any reason to not use Axe/Mace for a sustain build.

Ranger – Lots of options, neat melee skills. The sword auto-attack is annoying, which is probably my main hang-up.

Thief – Pistol/Dagger, sustain type build. Seems awesome, but I have a friend already playing this.

Ele or Mesmer? – don’t have any ideas for these, but would consider them as options.

Guardian is good with plenty of options such as meditations, as is a Warrior traited for healing shouts in PvE and thus could go for offensive weapons (In WvW you’d want at least one shout swapped for Bola or Bull’s). You’re right in that they get a bit boring though, but that’s just the nature of being melee. Ranger and Necro are also good picks for an all-around build, though Necro could really use some dev love.

For the classes that have to play Bach on their keyboard to be effective, I have two friends who run a tanky dagger/dagger Ele and a tanky Engineer (changes his utilities a lot), they both work extremely well in PvE and WvW. The Ele will actually solo Warriors who don’t have stability or that mis-time their stun breaker.

Can’t give you an opinion on Mesmers or Thieves in PvE though.

Mesmers are quite versatile, both in their choice of weapons and play style. For example, I enjoy having a long range staff in 1 and a scepter/torch in 2. I am quite mobile and can go in stealth if needed. You can also preserve your illusions or shatter them.

With that said, some people think the class needs a boost. I find it very playable (I’m lvl 55), except for the odd event that is difficult with any class anyway.

Of course, if you feel that magic and misdirection are not your thing, then this class is not fit for you

Interesting thoughts.

For Ranger/Guardian (or maybe Warrior) how would a versatile build look? Trait for Power, Vit and Toughness with most points in power is my initial thought (30, 20, 10 or 30, 10, 20). Take traits in those trees that give a good bonus without locking into one playstyle. Warrior is pretty much healing shouts and add power I would think.

D/D Ele. I want to love this class and see it as a versatile build. I love the challenge too. But I find the lack of a weapon swap makes Ele the least versatile class in the game. Each encounter I find myself locked in one form of fighting based on the weapon I have equipped, because the attunements differ in effect but not playstyle in each weapon. Any tips for how to get some flexibility within a fight with the Ele?

Mesmer. I find the concept interesting, but I’m not a fan of the shatter mechanic. Magic and misdirection sound good though. A build where shatter is a useful tool, but not the core of the build could be fun. What would a versatile build look like that could either employ shatter or keep phantasms up look like? (Sword/Torch and Staff or GS seems to makes sense)

Well, for my part, I do not use shatter much so I think I can answer your question. I am not a hardcore metagamer, so my build may not be the best, but here it is.

I focus on maximizing both my condition source/damage and my boons:

- Staff is the weapon of choice for doing both.
- Prayer to Lyssa gives an additional boon and condition.
- Signet of inspiration gives an additional boon every 10 secs.
- Signet of midnight increases boon duration.
- Staff clones stack boons and conditions, so they are as useful to keep alive as a phantasms.
- You can still shatter, to confuse a boss, or for that final killing blow.
- I’m on my way towards a 10/0/30/0/30 build — currently 10/0/20/0/15.

Hope this helps!

I favor hybrid builds and I like the ranger best among the professions. Your pet choice impacts your build quite a bit. You can create your own combos and the variety is only second to the staff necro, especially if you choose a pet based on which combo fields/finishers it can do. I like the flexibility of switching between melee and ranged, and I really like the variety among the secondary effects of the skills – evades, interrupts, boons, debuffs – the ranger has a little of everything so you have a lot of choices once you’ve got all your traits and a pile of skill points.

On the other hand, the variety is good for solo play, but there may be better team hybrid professions.

Thanks for the tips so far.

Any specifics on how to build up a ranger for a hybrid build?

I’m posting on my phone from work right now… I’ll get my thoughts together tonight when I’ve got a real keyboard and can see more than one sentence at a time

One thing worth checking out is the Ranger page on the official wiki. You can get to every skill/trait/pet from there and poking around might bring you some inspiration.

Alright, I appreciate any insight you might be willing to put down later on =).

Oh, I’ve been through the wiki many times. I think I may be at the point of information overload. I have lots of ideas floating around but not real practical advice to run with it. Trying to get the best of both and head off from there.

Helequin.2608:

D/D Ele. I want to love this class and see it as a versatile build. I love the challenge too. But I find the lack of a weapon swap makes Ele the least versatile class in the game. Each encounter I find myself locked in one form of fighting based on the weapon I have equipped, because the attunements differ in effect but not playstyle in each weapon. Any tips for how to get some flexibility within a fight with the Ele?

I use staff and swap back and forth between the elements for extended fights. You have 4 different ways to use your weapon and there is something I like in each element that I will use. If I am soloing I will flip through all 4, often several passes if its a real long fight. Air is the most tricky if you are trying to avoid hitting non aggro adds in the area. I love the ability to slow/stun mobs while circling them putting out the dps. In groups I tend to cycle through fire, earth, and air.

Underwater I flip back and forth between earth, air, and water and swim alot in circles if I get back to one of the elements before the cool down is up.

i haven’t gone single weapon with an offhand since I got the skills so I might be missing out something but once I got used to switching between elements in a fight it’s been a load of fun. My build is glass cannon too

This is my thought process when making my ranger build. It’s not going to result in the uberest damage or PvP pwnage, but I’ve soloed that group dynamic events and I do well in dungeons, so I’m happy with it.

So, when I’m doing a build, I think about three questions:

1. How am I going to survive?
2. How am I going to do damage?
3. How will I help my allies?

Survival
There are three aspects to survivability – avoiding damage (evasion and control), mitigating damage (debuffing enemies’ damage or speed/armoring yourself), and repairing damage (healing and condition removal). The ranger skills have lots of evasion, control, debuffing choices and a bit of healing.

Damage
Damage boils down to burst damage or sustained damage. I favor sustained damage, and the ranger has a lot of ways to do damage over time with various conditions. One thing that attracted me to a condition build is that I can put out three different types of conditions – bleeding, burning, and poison damage in one build fairly easily.

Team friendly
This is basically a catch-all for anything that helps your allies other than you keeping yourself alive and dealing damage.

So, looking through the skills, I pay attention to (in order of priority) anything that has a primary or secondary effect that increases my survivability, is compatible with sustained damage by conditions, and can benefit an ally. Then I do another pass and fill in gaps for certain situations.

For condition removal, you don’t get a lot of choices, so I settled this first. There’s the Signet of Renewal, Evasive Purity trait, and the brown bear special attack “Shake it off”. You can also send a projectile through a light combo field, but the ranger has no way of putting a light field down (not even with a pet, unless it’s a pet Guardian) I chose the bear because it it had more utility in my opinion than taking up a slot with the signet and the evasive purity was too high up a trait tree that didn’t interest me.

Putting down combo fields counts toward all three of my questions, so I looked at this next. I chose Healing Spring because it is an AOE heal, water combo field and condition removal for allies. I chose a torch for an off hand weapon for the fire combo field and the condition damage. I chose a jungle spider pet for the poison combo field, the immobilize, and the stun attack. I grabbed Frost Trap and Flame Trap to have some variety in the combo fields I can put down. I picked Viper’s Nest and Spike Trap to have some variety in condition damage. I swap the traps around often depending on what I’m fighting and who I’m fighting with.

I moved from combo fields to straight up survival skills. Lightning Reflexes was one of my first choices – damage, evade, stun breaker, and a Vigor boon, what’s not to like? I discounted all of the spirits pretty much immediately – too cumbersome to get much utility out of them.

I started looking for damage and situational skills next. I grabbed Sharpening Stone for even more conditional damage. I grabbed Search and Rescue for running dungeons.

Continued below…

I started looking for a main hand weapon to complement my torch. I used a sword in my main hand for a while. It had some nice mobility skills, a cripple, a poison, and a leap finisher. As much as I like having a leap finisher, I didn’t have the situational awareness to handle all the jumping around and ended up falling off ledges quite often. I really preferred being able to swap to either weapon set regardless of the terrain and maybe just lay off a particular skill. I ended up with an axe, which has a bleed, a chill + pet caused weakness, and an AOE that doesn’t need your enemies to be tightly grouped. The projectiles work well with all my combo fields.

My swap is a shortbow. It’s really hard not to choose the combination of range, mobility, condition damage, and a daze/stun. I put sigils of battle in both weapon swaps, so I get stacks of might which increases my power and condition damage. I have runes in my armor to increase the duration of might to leverage it a little bit more.

Wilderness survival was my first choice of traits – the toughness, condition damage, edurance regeneration, and protection on dodge looked helpful, but I was really interested in Hide in Plain Sight, Shared Anguish and Bark Skin. When I picked up the might and might duration on my gear, I decided to head down skirmishing for the fury and swiftness on weapon swapping, since I was likely to be doing it a lot to proc my sigils. Because I had trap skills for the combo fields, the ground targeting was attractive. I then picked up Marksmanship for the condition duration, Opening Strike, and Predator’s Instinct.

OK, this is getting long. Apparently I had more thoughts than I thought Let me know if I’ve completely baffled you with my stream of consciousness style. Those were my choices, and I hope by showing you how I got to them instead of just showing you what they were, it might help you make choices that suit your play style.

Pandemoniac: An extremely helpful and informative couple posts. Thanks so much for taking the time to write that out. With a touch of refinement you could re-post it as a guide in the ranger section I bet.

Thanks again!