Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing a few weeks now, and I’ve been enjoying it. Hit 80 whenever it was. I’ve done most of the dungeons, no Fractals, etc. I spent most of my time playing Sword/Dagger and Axe/Warhorn, tried out Shortbow over Axe/Warhorn lately. Not sure I’ve liked it. Right now I’m 0/0/10/30/30, with SHared Anguish, the Spirit Traits, and odd combinations of BM Traits that usually cap in Health Regen. Pets are mostly Drake + Devourer/Spider. My gear is pretty much 100% Carrion, the armor and weapons are Exotic. Utilities are Sun/Frost Spirit (Varies solo/team), Earth Spirit, and Signet of the Wild, with Spirit of Nature in the last slot.

I’m trying to experiment, and figured I’d ask around: What do y’all tend to do in dungeons? So far I’ve found most of them reasonable. My pets are alive and fighting probably 80%, with some notable fights where it’s more like 20% (three-golem fight, and when I experimented in Honor of the Waves with Bird/Moa, come to mind). I wouldn’t mind more options to experiment with.

Anything other than full zerker in dungeons isnt reaching full potential. But it doesn’t really matter unless your doing mega speed clears. For PVE, anything works. Seriously, anything. But only zerkers is best.

Sword/Dagger, Longbow, and occasionally the GS are the weapons du jour for rangers in late-game PVE. Full or near-full berserker/assassin gear is also best to maximize your damage output, as is running all the good group utility you can such as spirits, Spotter, and Healing Spring.

We also can do good conditions, but conditions are much more limited in the PvE meta and neither as reliable nor as effective against what we face.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Sword/Dagger, Longbow, and occasionally the GS are the weapons du jour for rangers in late-game PVE.

Logged in from work just so I could +1 this post. Nice vocabulary!

To add to the thread, I really don’t change my build from wvw to pve to dungeons. I honestly don’t care to, and it really doesn’t seem to hinder anything too much. Might swap a utility here or there but it stays relatively the same. I like the assassin stat combo (I use Soros’ LB) but zerker is really the way to go for pve and most dungeons.

We also can do good conditions, but conditions are much more limited in the PvE meta and neither as reliable nor as effective against what we face.

I… don’t think I follow? Was I missing bosses cleansing me?

I also don’t follow the full-on berserkers thing. wouldn’t that get like, really dangerous?

Rutee.1058:

We also can do good conditions, but conditions are much more limited in the PvE meta and neither as reliable nor as effective against what we face.

I… don’t think I follow? Was I missing bosses cleansing me?

I also don’t follow the full-on berserkers thing. wouldn’t that get like, really dangerous?

There is a hard cap on how many conditions that can be on an enemy, causing lower powered stacks to be ‘overwritten’ and thus losing the damage from them. Also some enemies are immune to certain conditions. All objects are immune to all conditions. Direct damage has none of these drawbacks and is thus the preferred combat style in PvE.

As for running berserker being dangerous? Yes. It is. Our survivability is then entirely based on our ability to position, heal, regen, dodge, and evade. But we cannot reach near as much direct damage running more defensive-statted armors due to our poor power scaling.

SynfulChaot.3169:

As for running berserker being dangerous? Yes. It is. Our survivability is then entirely based on our ability to position, heal, regen, dodge, and evade. But we cannot reach near as much direct damage running more defensive-statted armors due to our poor power scaling.

To elaborate a little more on this: there are many places were having more defensive-stats don’t really do you much good (e.g. bosses that will one- or two-shot you). Better that your party can kill the boss more quickly so he doesn’t have as much of an opportunity to hit you. Having defensive stats often just prolongs battles without offering you much improvement in survivability.

Once you get good enough at surviving based on position, dodges, and evade, your defensive stats become mostly redundant.

There is a hard cap on how many conditions that can be on an enemy, causing lower powered stacks to be ‘overwritten’ and thus losing the damage from them.

Sure, but that only happens to me on world bosses when there’s like 50 people. I’ve consistently been the one doing the overwriting, in PvE. Or at least, I have been since hitting 80 and getting exotics. Well, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t happen – if I’m seeing ticking DoT numbers it means my damage is what’s applying, yes? I’m aware it doesn’t hurt objects, which does make me sad when it comes up.

As for running berserker being dangerous? Yes. It is. Our survivability is then entirely based on our ability to position, heal, regen, dodge, and evade. But we cannot reach near as much direct damage running more defensive-statted armors due to our poor power scaling.

To elaborate a little more on this: there are many places were having more defensive-stats don’t really do you much good (e.g. bosses that will one- or two-shot you). Better that your party can kill the boss more quickly so he doesn’t have as much of an opportunity to hit you. Having defensive stats often just prolongs battles without offering you much improvement in survivability.

Once you get good enough at surviving based on position, dodges, and evade, your defensive stats become mostly redundant.

Hm, I see. I have clearly not become that good yet though…. grumble >.<