Guild Wars 2

I’m struggling with what utilities to take for good synergy with guns and daggers.

Currently using the one that gives +1 Initiative every 10 and the dodge that boosts initiative. Any ideas?

Also, is one heal better overall, or are they generally situational?

Thanks!

I don’t think I’d be too far off to say that the heals are well balanced against each other. To tell which one you want, check their secondary gimmick against your play style.

If you like kiting and you’re nervous about opponents getting in your face, and also especially concerned with movement, take Withdraw. It’s a very long roll backwards, so you can generally get yourself out of range really quickly. It also removes chill / cripple / immobilize, so you can keep running. But you need to have somewhere to withdraw to for it to be effective: rolling off a cliff or into another mob tends to just make things worse.

Hide In Shadows is a very strong heal that will cleanse damaging conditions, as well as give you 3 seconds to either flee or get behind your opponent. It can get you out of (or at least let you survive) almost any situation. But it has the longest cooldown, so you won’t get as many uses out of it in a fight. I prefer it if you can really capitalize on the stealth, or kill things quickly enough to only need one good heal to get you through a fight.

Signet of Malice is very nice if tend to attack rapidly, and if your health doesn’t drop too suddenly. If you find yourself needing to use the heal after every hit or risk getting downed, it might not be the one. But if you can take a hit or two and keep going, it could work out nicely since you’ll gradually heal back that damage without burning your actual heal.

If you’re running pistol/dagger offhand, it can be a blast to go for a stealth condition damage build. Your stealth autoattack (1), I don’t remember the name off of the top of my head – is very potent. By running shadow trap/Shadow refuge/shadowstep you can really get some incredible DPS from your auto attack, while still having that stun breaker from shadowstep, as well as an escape.

If you’re looking to just have a good time, get the drop caldrops on dodge trait, grab rune of the soldier (full endurance on heal), and use the 40% endurance regen food and might on dodge food. Also, go into the line that gives might on dodge and endurance regen. Also, grab the vigor on steal trait from the steal line.

For skills, grab withdraw/roll for initiative/precision signit (for the endurance regen) and shadowstep. There is nothing more trolly than stealling in, then dodging around endlessly, while dropping caltrops on each dodge and bleeding with your auto attacks. If they get too close just C&D out, or roll for initiative, withdraw (and then get full endurance), roll, roll, roll. It’s a blast. Can’t say it’s THE most effective build on the planet, but it works in WvWvW and I’m sure there is nothing more frustrating than seeing evade 15 times in a row.

I’m dagger/dagger and pistol/pistol.

I have bloodlust on main weapons, with geomancy on the dagger offhand and hydromancy offhand on the gun for if I switch at close range.

Mostly I play avoidance. Currently using withdraw, roll for initiative, and the initiative regen signet (+1 every 10 seconds).

I definitely want caltrops on dodge, and tend to just mow away with gun #3, use gun #5 and dagger 4 when fighting groups and champs, and switch to daggers 1 and 3 when they get close, adding bleed on the switch.

Against melee, I tend to kite with dagger #4 and just run circles around them. I really like boosting initiative and using active skills rather than auto attack. I also have the +3 initiative on steal.

I almost never bother to stealth, though I should probably learn to use it more efficiently. I just find you don’t get a lot of stealth time, and it doesn’t help much in PvE from what I’ve seen.

Ahhh… not sure about PvE. I avoid it like the plague. All I know is that I AOE mobs in EBG to get stacks for my sigils. Nothing is more fun than putting down caltrops and then spamming death blossom and watching the mobs have 25 stacks of bleed on them.

If you’re talking about dungeon runs, I haven’t a clue.

How does one spam Death Blossom? It’s pretty expensive, as far as initiative is concerned.

I suppose what I mean is this — with my spec I’m able to get 3 DB’s off in a row before I run out of initiative. Once initiative is burned, using steal generally allows me to get one more off. So that’s 12 stacks of bleed for ~10 more seconds once 4 DB’s are used. Caltrops add ~10-15 bleeds depending on your condition duration. So 4 DB’s gets the mobs to 25 stacks of bleed while dodging around on caltrops.

All of that being said, that build is purely for entertainment. A stealth build with mainhand pistol tends to work better due to survivability. Although that build listed does work great with a pistol as well. It just takes quite a while to kill someone without the stealth pistol attack. If you abuse C&D, however, it is quite good.
I guess spamming is the wrong word, but what I meant was that I use DB as an initiative dump. 4 DB’s in a row certainly feels like spamming with all of that jumping around. Plus, all of the mobs tend to be dead by the time I even get the 4th DB off, and it is time to move on to the next group.

Also, with the troll spec I posted you can get 6 DB’s off or more. A lot of the time with that spec I use withdraw so much I’ll actually go 30 into the steal line to get the 4 initiative on heal. What that means is you can DB->DB->DB->Steal->DB->Roll for initiative->DB->Withdraw->DB and then simply dodge around 10 times in a row while your opponent (assuming they don’t remove conditions, which is actually less common than you’d think due to so many glass cannons) bleeds to death. It’s entertaining. Although Guardians with that darn signet are the bane of my existance. Have to make sure to get poison+weakness+cripple up on them to lower the chances it will remove your bleeds.

However, I find that a stealth build with a mainhand pistol works much better. The damage on the stealth pistol attack from bleeds is quite high. That tends to work much better with the +40% condition duration food, though, as the bleeds don’t last long. It does work with the spec listed, but that damage output is much lower. You can still abuse C&D into the stealth pistol autoattack to frustrate your opponent to death.