Guild Wars 2

Hey guys
My PvE has been pretty much dungeons all the time. I think I’m more of a PvP guy now, but there some things I want to have and those require some farming (like a Legendary for example, I play this since launch, nevet got much interest on having one but I would like to have the archivement of having the supposed higher rank of weapons of the game). So the gear I have is for the meta 4/5/0/0/5 used in dungeons.

I’m here to ask if with this gear, I could go traditional AH on traits so i can gain some sustain and be fine in open world/silverwastes or if I should maintain the traits and go with some other gear. I also go with scepter over sword for most time in open world because of the safety it brings.

What would you recomend? Or there isn’t a “meta” for open world/silverwastes?

Normally for open world, especially zerging, you want to take staff for maximum kill credit.

Beyond that it is a free for all.

2h mastery and superior aria will give you “perma swiftness” to a fair degree to keep mobile.

Justice is blind, renewed justice, and blind exposure work well in zergs for survival and enhanced damage. If you take these it synergizes well with inspired virtues for fast might stacking to self and allies.

If you are giving out a lot of boons then yes AH works great for survival.

Wearing zerker gear helps keep damage up to ensure kill credit while specing AH, but AH not mandatory by any means. 2h mastery could also be swapped for empowering might for even more self healing if you want (I’m sure you are aware of all of this).

I guess what I’m saying is that tradition AH, as you mentioned, is perfect for zergs. This is because of mobility with staff, self sustain from boons, and “group utility” from repetitive use of VoJ blinds/might.

After trash is dead and you just fighting 1 or 2 mobs, it becomes vastly less useful though, but it is an open world environment so who cares?

If you just want to solo trash mobs, then I would stay with meta or something with high self might/vulnerability stacking that allows you to down vets quickly. Champions you just have to adjust to the combat style, but again high damage if you can maintain.

I was playing with vulnerability on immobilize while utilizing focus/scepter + gs. blinds and immobilizes including signet of wrath gets you 25 vulnerability on a fairly short cooldown for rotations solo, providing for 10k+ damage with whirling wrath rotations. Mix in shield of wrath and smite condition and you have some high solo burst for open world pve.

For open world I run 4/5/4/0/1

in valor i take strength in numbers for bonus toughness for myself and everyone around me and then I take the one that gives bonus crit based on toughness since I couldnt really find anything else worth 2 points.

Once you have the basic 4/5/x/x/1 you can basically put the last 4 wherever you want to.

As for gear I run soldiers on all of my armor and weapons with runes of flame legion for 7% extra damage vs burning things which is every boss 100% of the time or trash after i hit it a third time. Then I use berserkers for jewelry since its so multipurpose for so many classes and I didnt want to waste laurels for niche things. I think this set up is pretty optimal but honestly guards have so much built in defenses that you can wear whatever gear floats your boat.

Run retreat for mobility then the other 2 are personal preference I run signet of judgement for passive damage reduction and generally I run hold the line for regen and protection but some fights its nice to have reflect.

I recommend staff for tagging and greatsword for added mobility but you could probably run staff and 1hs + focus or greatsword / 1hs+focus and do just as well.

Personally when I do open world content, I want to maximize AoE as much as possible, so I can get more tags. So staff is generally a must with either gs or hammer. 3/3/0/4/4. Using both Writ of Exaltation and Persistence, for as much AoE as possible. I usually use retreat for more mobility, PF for clears and fire fields, and Bane just for more power.

First and foremost, I’d suggest you get use to swapping weapons. It’s a great thing you can do in PVE to make things go smoother. For example if I’m just trying to hop across a map quickly I can go with Retreat/Save Yourself. Toss on a staff and throw down symbol ahead of me, swap GS and leap out of it as I get there, weapon swap to my Sword/focus and target something far away and hit 2 to teleport forward. When I get to where I’m going to fight I’ll swap in whatever I want for that, so for you you’d quickly swap your scepter in for your sword, maybe staff for GS.

Personally in PVE on guard I never like to go without my 3 in radiance so I wouldn’t want to make a full swap to AH. But, I’m sure you could work AH in there for some kind of trait setup. AH’s strength really shines in large groups so when you join the zerg you’d be rocking even in zerker gear. Maybe something like 23630? 10% extra in first tree, your blind spam in second, AH, and then you get dodge heals + Vigor trait + Shout reuse in the 4th. You’d be losing Master of consecrations which could be a big loss depending on how you play it… i love the trait but yeah…if you want maybe take the 2 in your power tree and drop the 10%er to get master of consecrations?

Of course, personally I basically just run dungeon meta, maybe with a few tweaks, almost everywhere, the fast kill times are worth it to me and in a zerg if you play well enough and utilize all your blocks you can still be fine, just gotta really be on your toes as those scaled up mobs hurt.