Guild Wars 2

Hey !
I’m playing the meta Staff/GS shatter build in* WvW* for solo roaming. I fell the build is really balanced in term of offensive and defensive abilities but more often than not i find myself losing to Sw+T/GS shatter players. the determining factors seems to be :
1- One more stealth skill ( for burst or target drop)
2- More offensive abilities through sword + blurred frenzy.
How do you guys deal with them ? All tips and advise are welcome !!!

Thanks.

Mostly by farming solo roamers. Have a party with lots of cripple, immobilize and perma-swiftness, perfectly for running down roamers. Lots of easy kills, also good to demoralize enemy zergs by picking off all their reinforcements in groups of 1-3, since most people don’t group up before running back. :P

Redg – A mesmer using sword mainhand will want to use it to lock you down for a big burst. Be a kite master. Be very wary while you are in their 600 range. Yes, the torch will give them that much more stealth to close that gap, but make sure to keep an escape (dodge, invuln, phase retreat) for when they attempt that lock down (sword #3). Keep them at max range since your greatsword does more damage w/ the auto attack the further away you are. Try playing one to see how they attempt to close the distance and burst. You will have a bit more luck predicting their movements while they are in stealth, simliar to playing a thief and having a better feeling of when to dodge that backstab. I’ve been practicing GS / Sword+torch for a day (lol, it’s for a GvG and I was suggested to pick up torch), but if you’d like, I can meet you in HoTM to practice.

From the opposite perspective, to be honest I would have said it was the other way round – gs + sw/t users have more difficulty to kill a gs + staff shatter because staff is so evasive.

I have found that when up against a good gs+staff user, the best way to win is to out-manoeuvre them – I can’t simply charge in because staff is too slippery to be caught – so stealth and positioning are crucial.

Essentially I have to treat them like a thief – mirror blade dodge mind wrack being a significant damage source, with sword skills used more defensively to lure them in to attack.

Sw/T lacks mobility and range compared to staff – use that to your advantage when having two ranged weapons, both with iElasticity.

in my experience it is more of a skill-based match up and it really comes down to who can use their GS better for shatters and damage output.

The extra stealth is definitely an advantage, however, so is having an 8 second teleport, and chaos armor and the aoe daze that also gives you boons like aegis.

When you see them switching to sword, switch to staff so you can easily mitigate the shatters.

Thanks everyone !
I will work on matching Sw+T with staff. I guess I overextend trying to rush the outcome. I’ll do some training and try record some fights. If I still have troubles I will upload some videos for more advice.

Once again thanks for the tips !