Guild Wars 2

Genuinely interested if anybody has been running builds that don’t use utilities, traits or weapons that Heart of Thorns introduced with any success?

Ocaisionally when I get bored of pew pew I run burn guard. It still works these days pretty well actually. Though that is rare and burn guard is almost usless in comparison to a DH. I know cele ele is still fine, cele necro, and survival ranger still work fine, just you need a higher skill cap since it doesn’t offer as much as the elite specs. Oh shatter mes and well (maybe Condi engi but I think that spec is only good for farming low mmr players) feel free to add a list aswell. Medi guard works aswell but is sooo outshined by DH.

i used a GSHam warr maurader/durability, was fun though not the most solid build i’ve ever run, I died rarely w/ GS mobility.

I also did solider rifle engi which was pretty successful.

I’ve heard DD cele ele is also moderately viable, though haven’t tried it yet.

I also played my kitten off doing 5 wins as a maurader power ranger. Amazingly, it was a 5game winstreak iirc, but that’s probably a fluke. EDIT: And i got some serious dramasalt from my teammates to class switch before games.

And as for a viable build I think warrior is the only one that has a base class build that is “viable”. (since beserler is a meh spec)

I would suggest a stance warrior still. It still have very high dps, and frenzy is a very underrated utility.

With my marauder rifle engi, even though i do run scrapper it’s only for the bulwark gyro and the ranged stomp/revive since i like to solo que those help my team not die all the time when I’m around. Preference aside my normal marauder rifle build still works perfectly fine, you just get your sustain from a different source vs super speed and bulwark gyro.

i run good ol’ rabid/carrion terrormancer, curses,SR,DM, my 1v1’s are 50:50, its generally gucci until i get chain CC’d (what is stability). And i use corrupt boon, plague signet, and wurm

Domination/Inspiration/Chaos Mesmer is pretty good still. But chronomancer gives so much.

I still play normal cele nec and med guard.

Is Thief or old War any good? I hate all those new specs but want to play something good, kitten.

Burn Guardian, LB/GS Ranger, Cele-Sig Necromancer, D/D Elementalist, Shoutbow Warrior, Rifle + Elixir Engineer, P/U Mesmer, and D/P Thief are all still competitive (though with the exception of Burn Guardian, LB/GS Ranger, and Cele-Sig Necromancer you could do better with those builds if you used the Elite Traitline).

I am sure many more still are viable but just not competitive. The only class I play besides my Reaper is my Warrior and I still use my vanilla Axe / Axe + GS (Stances + Rampage) build to limited success depending on team composition but while viable it certainly isn’t competitive (at least not in my hands) and I only break it out when I want something more fast paced then my Reaper and I am playing alone.

I play power necro and win the majority of my games.

i still use the old d/p thief build. but them 1v1s send me decaping another spot lol

I use Mantra of Pain GS S/T mesmer with zerk amulet. Chaos Inspiration Dueling.

This thread contains a number of decent options for each class: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/List-of-Best-Free-To-Play-Builds-for-sPvP/

Power ranger has been pretty viable since launch.

from my experience
ranger: heavy condi trapper still melts things
engi: SD zerker still oneshots things
necro: d/w syphon wellomancer still melts faces
guard: burn guard still throws out 5k burns
mesmer: i still play stealth spamming condi staff clone mesmer, it’s still good.

warrior i think berserk is simply an upgrade for any build,
thief still has fun gimmicky builds like p/p but daredevil is pretty much an upgrade to any build,

Old soldiers engi is fine, the reason why it isn’t played is because engi has been shifted to a more 1v1 node holder for 1v2s essentially, an old soldiers engi can still make a difference in a teamfight with moa+burst+ target cleave, the problem is that it is only going to teamfight and be useless otherwise, whereas in the previous meta it can hold some 1v1s, but HoT throws this class out of 1v1s. Essentially: Soldiers engi is viable and dangerous if you are at a teamfight, otherwise you are useless, so it makes the build somewhat unviable due to the randomness of soloq, but you can definitely build a team around it.

Elementalist: Celestial Staff is solid.
D/D can work if you are good.

Warrior: Greataxe wrecks faces.
GS/Hammer is outclassed by any cc in the HoT meta. You throw out slow stuns, they throw out instant cast stuns with bigger AoE that double as team support.

Guard: Burn Guard probably is too squishy and there is a lot of condi remove in the meta.
Bunker Guard can be seen as a weaker Bunker Chrono of some sorts.