Guild Wars 2

I know the typical glass cannon build, but I’m looking for a different way to play and also hoping to not have to respec between dungeons and wvw and don’t have the cash really to buy 2-3 sets of gear for situational uses. I’m good enough to effectively copy good tactics and builds but I’ve never really come up with them myself. Watched vids to find pistolwhip+steal+haste, and C&D+steal, stab.

I have a dungeon build (20/0/30/20/0) meant for venomshare/self healing for dungeons with my primary stat being vitality (i want a big hp pool for survivability). I’m definitely tougher, and when i’m in a big group I can run around without dying, but I rarely can finish people off without help and 1v1 i either lose or just can’t finish them off before their next heal is up.

Obviously I’ve asked for these problems, I’m just seeing if any creative people have made it work with a build that gives good dungeon self/group healing/survival stats, and good enough burst damage.

Backstab is just craptastic with no crit. Pistolwhip+haste is ok, but not enough for anyone in full exotics who isn’t a glass cannon picking their nose for a second. That leaves trying to whittle people down and stay healed which against any hard hitters I can’t seem to do. I suppose I should use stealth a bit more, but see the backstab problem, and hitting someone with a sword out of stealth is only soso useful it seems.

And getting 9k backstabbed with only my chest armor broken was depressing. Toughness is starting to feel like a crap stat in wvw. Might try valk next.

You know, if you run a build focused on healing, it would be more natural to put a secondary focus on toughness than on vitality.

i guess i am power/vit on everything except accessories which you can’t find that for. I put vit on those, but I’m thinking you’re right – should probably go tough (and get some precision in the bargain, instead of crit dmg which is completely useless without crit).

Vitality is good against conditions, otherwise it is limited to once-twice in a battle (depends how many times you can heal yourself to full health). I am not saying it is bad (it is definitely good) but for this kind of build you are not really benefiting from any vitality higher than your toughness.

Anyway, if you are going for a classic venom share build, you should try the leeching venom variant for 1v1 efficiency.

Leeching venom is actually good armor ignoring damage. And when you got a lot of pets around you, it multiplies that damage by a lot. So you focus on two things :
- getting as many pets as possible (ambush trap, rune of the ogre and thief guild elite are the main 3 sources)
- getting venoms with as many charges as possible (poison venom, additional charge trait).

And remember one thing : if you use two poisons at once, the leech effect will only proc once per attack so try to make sure you and your pets finished using a poison before you use the next one.

You could try using the Cleric item sets for Healing Power primary and Power and Toughness secondaries. More healing power = more life leeched per venom charge. And I think it actually becomes a nice healing supplement in dungeon runs! There you can drop ambush and thief’s guild to take an utility adapted to the fight or another poison and the elite poison.

+healing is soso. It’s useful in dungeons where your healing over time can add up to a lot, but in wvw getting 15 more hp per hit from malice, and an extra 50-60 hp from venom steal isn’t going to keep you alive when you lose 10k health in 2 seconds.

I think stealth is my only option for withstanding a long fight. It’s the only way I can hope to survive long enough for my healing to kick in and be useful… guess I’m doing most of my damage with auto attack =/.

+Healing increases the amount you and your friends will leach per venom hit. It both increases your damage output and your survivability.

Also, stealth skills often carry a healing component if you trait or use the right utility too. There is a reason why the stealth trait route boosts your healing power.

But anyway, the healing part isn’t that important. You can try the WvWvW stuff with power, toughness, vitality to get great survivability too.

Ya biggest problem is I just seem to do about 1/6th the dmg I did and I’m only 2x as good at taking hits. If that makes sense. I’m still playing with traits – I just found out shadow refuge stacks me up to 6-8 might by itself, then I get 2 for each C&D, 2 for venoms. I am running 12-14 might most fights – but my dmg output is still soso.

actually biggest problem was no burst whatsoever. I gave up making this fun in wvw. I went 10/30/0/15/15 and i like it. I still have over 19k hp, and the burst potential is back up where I can kill people again with hidden killer, and fury, plus 15-20 stacks of might from signets. crit line traits are just so awesome, I don’t think I’ll ever have a build with less than 30 in crit again.

I think this gives me enough survivability – I just lose group healing… having to spend 30 pts in a trait line that is, otherwise pretty useless for meager grp healing is pretty lame.

Why don’t you just run with a zerg? You’d be a huge help with venom share.

Unlikely I’d be a huge help in zerg pvp. I found small skirmishes where we could focus fire I was pretty helpful, giving venoms to people and being generally too tough for just one guy to focus down.

In a zerg venomshare’s radius is too small, and the majority of your healing comes from just exiting battle or the self heals. Being able to burst someone down and kill them is way more useful than a few little heals or medeocre damage boost. You remove that person’s damage, pre-healing anything they would have done.

Spin to win with some crit behind it gives it enough damage to actually down people.