Guild Wars 2

This is going to come down to personal preference.

For me it’s bunker guardians. Every time I play one, I feel that I’m just delaying the inevitable. I can stay up for awhile, but I can’t do enough damage back to outlast my attackers. However, I believe this mostly comes down to my lack of experience (timing of skills) and understanding of the profession.

Which builds do you think require the most skill to play?

for me, any builds that requires “timing of skills” is hard for me.

The high risk/high reward glass cannon builds are the hardest to play, since they require good game sense and fast reaction speed to get the most out of the builds, and small mistakes can be punished very harshly. D/P Trickery Thief, glass cannon Engi, shatter Mesmer, fresh air Ele are all pretty fast paced builds that require decent APM and good use of skills and cooldowns in order to play them at top level.

zerker ranger is not an easy build to play. it might be harder to play than zerker thieves and mesmers . mesmers and thieves have more access to stealth that can save them a lot. a ranger only has 3 sec of stealth.

D/P trickery Thief.

decent APM in GW2… wonder what that means (values).

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

for me, any builds that requires “timing of skills” is hard for me.

That sucks. I’d think that would be the majority of them.

DaShi.1368:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

for me, any builds that requires “timing of skills” is hard for me.

That sucks. I’d think that would be the majority of them.

well yeah i can’t play many other builds. guardians are definitely no go for me. nowadays i play hammer longbow warrior and i think i do okay with that.

Shatter mesmer. (Disregard any +stealth, phantasm, and chaos storm bug build)
Ele.

Then there are most normal builds which have good play but limited quantity. Stuff like guardian f3 on an incoming CC, or syncing bust with pet skills.

Then you have the brainless builds, which have no capability for clutch play, so there is no difference between players.

MM necro
Phantasm mesmer
Spirits + shortbow (Hate that this is the best ranger build)
Apoth warrior.

I would put zerker ranger up there.
Oh and d/d ele but no one really sees them nowadays…
That is the only class I like getting rolled by.

I would say any build involving a Elementalist at the moment.

You after work 2-3 times harder on your keyboard to get anywhere than the other 7 classes.

Any terrible builds.

I can’t see zerker ranger because a bad build doesn’t make it high skill. I guess 14-14-14-14-14 is high skill because it is hard to kill anything, but I doubt that is what the OP is getting at.

I’d say it’s 14/14/14/14/14 ele with divinity runes and celestial amulet, 4 signets and tornado. Dagger/focus. If you manage to win a 1v1 against any decent player you deserve multiple Noble prizes.

Ryan.9387:

I can’t see zerker ranger because a bad build doesn’t make it high skill. I guess 14-14-14-14-14 is high skill because it is hard to kill anything, but I doubt that is what the OP is getting at.

its not a bad build. it has potential 1v1. a zerker ranger can beat bunker guardians and engi’s 1v1 if played well. fighting a thief on a glass cannon ranger involves timing the right skills to down the thief before it stealths.

i can’t say an exact build, but ele, thief and egi are the 3 classes with the highest skill ceiling and have many build that are difficult to play but incredibly powerful when played right

First we have to define what “build that requires the most skill” means.

Any underpowered build requires higher amounts of skills to compensate the lack of effectiveness.
Some professions have an higher entry barrier because of the different game mechanic (Engineer and Elementalist) or playstyle (Thief), but after you get into the profession and get familiar with the mechanic, the overall general player skills is what makes the difference.

With “general player skill” I mean the ability to dodge at the right time, the ability to burst at the right time and the ability to use CCs when needed.

Any ele build. Period.

Any meta thief build or shatter mesmer. (d/p trickery or s/d (and any variation thereof)).

Why? Because a bad thief or a bad mesmer on your team is such a handicap. On the other hand; while engi probably has a higher skill ceiling than thief, I’d much rather get a bad engi than a bad thief on my team.

The topic is a bit tricky, as people have varying interpretations of what ”skill” entails, and how much aspects such as map awareness or positioning are valued as opposed to simple mechanical skill / APM. Still, I would rank D/P glass cannon thief up there among the most difficult to master in a high-level tournament setting. It requires good timing, map awareness, decision-making as well as a hefty amount of twitch.

TNoD.8143:

Any meta thief build or shatter mesmer. (d/p trickery or s/d (and any variation thereof)).

Why? Because a bad thief or a bad mesmer on your team is such a handicap. On the other hand; while engi probably has a higher skill ceiling than thief, I’d much rather get a bad engi than a bad thief on my team.

I agree to some extent. A bad bomb-nade engi might still be marginally useful, while a bad glass thief is a free kill for anyone with even a modicum of skill on the opposing team. However I don’t agree on engi (or ele for that matter) being more challenging to master than glass D/P thief. Engi and ele require more button presses, sure, but that’s only a part of what makes a profession challenging to play. I mostly play bomb-nade engi myself nowadays, and I would say it’s fairly low on the skill pyramid, mostly due to how forgiving it is in terms of positioning, with perma-swiftness and high vigor uptime, etc.

D/P thief is a funny thing – a faceroll spec in hotjoin, but the higher in organised play you go, the harder it becomes to master and be effective with. Really good D/P thieves, say someone like Vanish here on EU, are so much better than the average hotjoin hero that it’s not even funny. The difference in team impact is huge.

DaShi.1368:

This is going to come down to personal preference.

For me it’s bunker guardians. Every time I play one, I feel that I’m just delaying the inevitable. I can stay up for awhile, but I can’t do enough damage back to outlast my attackers. However, I believe this mostly comes down to my lack of experience (timing of skills) and understanding of the profession.

Which builds do you think require the most skill to play?

Really, I think bunker guards are one of the easier builds to play. Sure, it’s not as easy as something like a spirit ranger, but it’s still a very straight forward build.

Engineers with 2-3 kits are probably one of the tougher classes/builds to play since you have so many tools to choose from.

From a twitch reaction standpoint, thieves can be difficult since they go from being impossible to hit to dead in a split second with a small mistake. However, they don’t involve as many complex decisions as something like an engi.

This guardian build requires the most skill out of any build in the game, hands down.

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-7Z-3x;0JFV60X3-HV90;9;4TT;0959339A;44;0H-F35;1LNW4LNW47p

In fact, I’ve had literally 0 success with it. The skill floor is so insanely high with this build. The skill cap? Well let’s just say, its likely that no one will ever even come close to approaching this builds skill cap.

Recursivision.2367:

This guardian build requires the most skill out of any build in the game, hands down.

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-7Z-3x;0JFV60X3-HV90;9;4TT;0959339A;44;0H-F35;1LNW4LNW47p

In fact, I’ve had literally 0 success with it. The skill floor is so insanely high with this build. The skill cap? Well let’s just say, its likely that no one will ever even come close to approaching this builds skill cap.

That build doesn’t require skill. It’s just crap.

Also running both summoning AND sanctuary sigils? lol…

25/30/0/0/15 D/D + SB 4 Signet burst Thief.

/thread

This is a difficult question to answer, primarily because we have to define what counts as an actual build. If we’re talking about usable builds (i.e. not using a single Sword with no offhand, using a D/F ele, etc), the answer is easier to find, but if we’re talking about all builds up to those that are just barely usable and right on the verge of being unusable, then the answer more than likely changes.

As a result, I’ll choose two builds, one for each category.

Viable (but not necessarily meta) builds:
1. S/D thief (in current state)
2. S/F + X Lockdown/Reflection mesmer
3. S/F burst ele

Barely usable (not unusable, however) builds:
1. Area Denial Staff ele
2. An Elixir Gun-oriented Engi build
3. Any non-Spirit Ranger

Of these six, I would probably rate them overall as following:

1. Area denial ele
2. Elixir gun engi
3. S/D thief
4. S/F+X Lockdown/Reflection mesmer
5. Any non-Spirit Ranger
6. S/F burst ele

I’m not going to lie- I’m probably biased towards a few of these builds on these lists, specifically 1, 3, and 4 on the final list. My reasoning for each of these is:

1. Area Denial Ele- this is an invention of my own that takes the most popular sPvP staff burst ele and turns it more into a high-damage one that orients mostly around controlling the opponent, maximizing your mobility and minimizing his/hers. This build is overall somewhat mediocre due to the current state of the ele, but in my experience this build basically outshoots every other build in the game by miles as far as skill ceiling goes. The amount of variety in this build with skill usage is absolutely insane. Burning Retreat, Frozen Ground, Gust, Static Field, and Unsteady Ground all match up fairly consistently with this build’s goals, and the plethora of AoE from other skills also needs to be used strategically to accomplish your goal as well. It’s really an incredible build/playstyle, but the overall weakness of the ele in general makes it nearly unusable for sPvP.

2. Elixir Gun is an extremely flexible weapon that really fulfills that “attrition” playstyle that necros were always supposed to have. I feel that this weapon is actually extremely underused for how good it is, but unfortunately the near-absolute dominance of Grenade/Bomb builds makes taking Elixir Gun inefficient compared to your other options.

3. S/D thief… What can I say? This build aims for two things: flexibility and mobility. It’s a build where you can pick from a wide variety of different play styles, ranging from Jumper’s dual S/D, to my S/D+SB boonsteal invention, to Lady Nag Nag’s 10/30/0/30/0 “blow your opponent’s brains out” build. During fights, it’s important to keep your options open, so that you can handle all kinds of situations. With IS/IR and FS, you practice a guerilla-like style that creates a unique blend of ranged and melee play.

4. Mesmers have an extremely flexible array of builds (although once a build is selected, the play style tends to be fairly rigid), but I chose S/F Lockdown/Reflect for two reasons (if you don’t include the fact that I recently built what I believe to be a highly competitive S/F build). First of all, Focus is an extremely flexible weapon, and makes S/F a much more flexible build than most other mesmer builds. With the reflection from Curtain and iWarden, the pseudo-bunker created by iWarden’s ability, swiftness, cripple, and pull available to just two weapon skills, this weapon is very, very flexible, and requires a lot more thought to play as opposed to the linear thinking coming from, say, OH sword. Secondly, Focus is less of a blind-shot interrupt, and it tends to be more beneficial to use this just as your opponent is using a skill; using Void early doesn’t reduce the CD at all. Those two things, IMO, combined with the very nature of Lockdown, gives the build a very high skill ceiling, as I see it.

5. All I’ve gotta say is that if you’re dedicated to running a non-Spirit ranger, you’re either really stupid, or you’ve got some serious guts.

6. S/F only because ele is so bad. I’m not a big fan of calling burst builds (not to be confused with high-damage builds, which focus on doing more overall damage on average given your lifetime but less damage than you’ll do during a burst) “high-skill”, because once you know the combos, it becomes a situation of just repeating them and then spamming/facerolling/etc. However, ele is in a bad state, and I do find the flexibility that S/F has makes it much more of a high-skill build to use well.

Elixer Gun is pretty bad. To get the same amount of HoT that a spirit ranger can get is way too much of an investment. Not to mention that the max HoT is within a very limited area. The 3 skill on EG is clunky and nowhere near as effective as a Guardian condi pull. Good luck on hitting anything with the 2 skill. The 4 skill is decent under certain situations, but its nothing compared to rocket boots.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Elixer Gun is pretty bad. To get the same amount of HoT that a spirit ranger can get is way too much of an investment. Not to mention that the max HoT is within a very limited area. The 3 skill on EG is clunky and nowhere near as effective as a Guardian condi pull. Good luck on hitting anything with the 2 skill. The 4 skill is decent under certain situations, but its nothing compared to rocket boots.

I don’t doubt that it’s worse than Spirit Ranger can get, but it’s not like the main healing of this build comes from Super Elixir or anything anyways. I’m pretty sure that, when combined with Healing Turret, it’s more powerful than Spirit Ranger’s healing is. The 3 and 2 skills are admittedly fairly clunky and could use a buff, but they’re not bad enough to render the weaponset pointless. Given that the 4 skill is just a weapon skill on a kit, I’d say that it’s pretty good for what it is.

Plus, given that kits have a 1s CD on unequipping/equipping, you can pretty easily swap between EG and your regular weapon set, which offsets how bad the 2 and 3 skills on EG can be because you’re essentially getting 8 useful weapon skills.

To play well, any pure glass build, warrior being easiest of that bunch (purely as it has more health and armor than say the very bottom, an ele, lowest health and armor).

Thief sword builds are a little tough, they lack a lot.

Any ele build at all, they are all poo poo.

Yeah, anything that has smaller margins for error. Any extreme damage build has the balance of being REALLY paper thin, made worse by low health levels and the like.

This is entirely tourniment play, hotjoin etc will be a different story. A norn in 8v8 because EVERYONE will be on you in seconds, good luck trying to mitigate 50’000 damage and every condition and his dog, all in about 3 seconds, and your feared, off the ledge on skyhammer, but die before you hit the floor because of so many conditions.

dps staff ele is hardest. heal/tank staff ele is easier, but still hard. most ele(let alone staff) skills alone are UP and require good timing to use correctly with each other. in pvp it only becomes good when youve learned how each of the ~25 skills can be used to max potential.

LeetMagiKarp.3751:

dps staff ele is hardest. heal/tank staff ele is easier, but still hard. most ele(let alone staff) skills alone are UP and require good timing to use correctly with each other. in pvp it only becomes good when youve learned how each of the ~25 skills can be used to max potential.

I think the only reason I’ve been able to pull off DPS staff with success is purely from spending hundreds of hours on it in PvE and doing high level fractals. I know the skills by second nature. I only have to think differently when in PvP since it’s not against AI. The biggest weakness is being singled out, but using the terrain to my advantage and knowing the right skills help. But nothing is quite like dropping a Meteor Shower into a team fight on mid and helping down 4 guys.

(but then sometimes I kitten people off and need to run around the map as one or two guys chase me thirsting for my blood)

Any Ele build, obviously.

You’re forced to manage 4 attunement cooldowns and 15+ ability cooldowns regardless of your build.

Its not like anyone actively thinks about cooldowns tho. Pretty much everything comes as a second nature with a lot of practice.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Its not like anyone actively thinks about cooldowns tho. Pretty much everything comes as a second nature with a lot of practice.

Exactly! I think that’s the reason PvE staff eles have an easier time because they’re so used to it and have more room for error. If you start out with a staff in PvP, you’ll be killed off before you can effectively practice with it. But that’s just my theory anyway.

ryuken youre spot on with the mechanics. without tons of pve/wvw experience with staff ele, dont even bother trying pvp. it is truly rewarding, though, to land meteor/ice storm/multi combo on pt when not-aggro’d. hands down highest skill cap to play effectively atm.