Guild Wars 2

I took roughly a year off from GW2. I came back because of the HoT sale. Honestly my expectations were low since I left rather disgruntled with ANet and where they’ve taken the GW franchise.

Regardless I have to say HoT is a lot of fun. On top of that my favorite class, Elementalist, is rather amazing as Tempest. I love the overloads and even more so, the auras.

I’m running this solo build and it’s simply a blast:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiNYCGOAcYiFBAjoLsEqCBBgCwDwt1GbztA-TxxHABD8AAWS5Xiq/MnSQAuAAas/gb6AAA-e

It’s a modified version of my previous solo staff build, changed for Tempest (purely coincidence if it matches anyone else’s build).

For group play, I change it up to this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiNYCGOAcYiFRAzttGXzrDBgBw9jICkAOAA-TxxHABLp8DgLAwAPAgEV/ZOlgas/gb6AAA-e

Which gives epic aura sharing with boons.

I’ve been very critical of ANet in the past regarding GW2, mostly due to lofty expectations following the original GW. I have to give them credit for HoT — very well done.

I have run quite similar build in WvWvW, except I use rune of durability. It is even tankier.

That appears to be a popular rune. I paid so much for my Strength runes — I wish there was a way to swap out runes or rune configurations on Ascended armor.

With Celestial gear I generally find the DPS is the area I lack most, which is why I went with Rune of Strength along with Sigil of Battle.

Personally if my build doesn’t hit a 20k Ice Spike on Champion Lord (I understand it doesn’t mean much, since most people are running bunker and perma-protection) I feel bad at the end of the day, so I still run full power with marauder staff and 2 assassin trinkets, power food and seaweed, maxed damage modifiers build with a rotation that has the potential to trigger them all.

I know how much everyone is just focused on support now, I just hate the pewpew range meta, I still have some hope left that raw spike damage, at the right moment and place, is what wins a fight. I like to control the battlefield movements, and I need to feel when I cast a meteorshower that it actually forces the enemy to get out of the way.

I run Tempest/Water/Air.

And…. Rest in pieces. Your build you had could be irrelevant with the patch.

The patch impacted me only a little, but I haven’t decided how bad it is yet. Areas that effected by directly:

1. I was using the Fire 33% cooldown trait for the solo build.
2. Staff Lava Font cooldown increased by 33% (6s to 8s)
3. Healing Shout base healing reduced 33%
4. Lightning Overcharge damage reduced 10%

For my solo build, the lava font change burns my biscuits. That skill is easy to avoid which is only compensated by the ability to cast it frequently. Lava Font is not a skill that can be played “skillfully”. You put it on the group where you expect opponents to stand, that’s it. Making it less spammable simply reduces its utilization. At best the skill is a “make people move” skill. Now it makes people move less often.

For my group build, only the healing reduction is impactful. I cannot tell you how much the reduction is compensated for with the Healing Power scaling increase of 150%. I run Celestial gear so I do have some Healing Power in my build.

In general I think it’s a good idea to reduce base healing and increase Healing Power scaling since it makes those stats more meaningful. It’s also a good way to force decisions into builds (i.e. go healing or go DPS). That being said, Healing Power needs to have a substantial effect. If I go healing at the cost of DPS, I should get a significant healing increase (i.e. for the decision to be meaningful the result must be meaningful).