Guild Wars 2

Hi guys!

This is an old build but I was just wondering if it could work after the balance patch. If not, do you have any suggestions?

Yes, this is a PvE build and not a WvW nor PvP build and this is an UPDATED version of my previous PvE video from 6th of july 2013.

I made a high damage/good support build before and got great respons so I decided to make an updated version on it just to show you what I have changed/improved and so on!

Link to the 1.0 version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH7EMNMhVI

Link to the 2.0 version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZBLVXxwd14

NO CHANGES from 15th october 2013 (Class balance patch)!

I have managed to nearly double my damage just by switching some runes out for orbs and to get some better ascended gear! I can’t wait to make a 3.0 version when I get the ascended weapons!

Build calcuator: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYQQNAsaVlUmKNXcS4E95Ex2jeuTe69gsgdsaFoJA-jwxAYLQ8VgSeFRjtNUENW9CmGFR5Oo6YAyD-e
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The purpose with this build is to sustain high damage while you still contribute with boons to your party! You also got a lot of different slots to swap out, just to fit your playstyle better, and I will go through a couple of them!

Berserker gear
Valkyrie sword and short bow
Berserker pistols
Soldiers/Berserker trinkets
Sword: sigil of force
Short bow: sigil of bloodlust
Pistol: sigil of accuracy

2320 power
3334 attack
2063 precision
64% crit chance
98% critical damage
Utility skills/Elite skill

Hide in shadows
Skale venom
Assassin’s signet
Signet of agility
Thieves guild

Traits: 10/30/0/0/30

Deadly arts:
III (mug, do dmg when stealing)

Critical strikes:
I (furious retaliation, gain fury when the target is on 50% health),
III, (side strike, gives you 7% more chance to crit if you are behind the target)
XII, (execusioner, deal 20% more dmg when target is under 50%)

Trickery:
V (thrill of the crime, gain fury, might and swiftness when stealing),
IV(flanking strike, do 5% dmg when hitting from the side or behind),
VII (bountiful theft, give vigor to allies when stealing)
The main ability for this build is “Steal” because you got 3 trait slots with steal-required attributes! In deadly art you get “mug” which damage the target that you use steal on. In Trickery you got “Thrill of the crime” and “Bountyful theft”. “Thrill of the crime” gives you and all nearby allies fury, might and swiftness for 10 seconds and “Bountyful theft” gives you 10 seconds of vigor. The CD on stealth is 27 seconds, so after the boons disappear you only got 17 seconds left until you can use it again and regain all the boons!

Alternativ trait slots:
Instead of “Mug”[I] and 10 points in deadly art for 10 points in shadow arts and pick “Slowed pulse”[II] which will give you regeneration if you get 2 or more stacks of bleed.
Instead of “Side strike”[III] you can take “Practiced tolerance”[VI], 5% of the precision is converted to vitality.
Instead of “Execusioner”[XI] you can take “Hidden killer”[XII], which will give you a 100% chance to crit while in stealth (a tip is to use dagger then, so you can get “ambush”)

Instead of “flanking strikes”[IV] you can take “Merciful ambush” [I], which stealth you and an ally when ressing another ally. Or “Initial strike” [IX] which gives you a 7% chance to regain 1 initiativ per attack you do (you can only use skills 1-3).
Alternatively (if you think that you die too fast) you could also swap 10 points in Deadly art and 10 points in trickery (remove “flanking strikes”) and put 20 points in Shadow arts and take “Slowed pulse”[II] and “Shadow embrace”[IV], which remove 1 condition every 3 seconds while in stealth. You could also switch to “Leeching venoms”[IX], but only if you play with daggers or use the short bow, because you need to deal poison to get healed!!

Playstyle:

Always start with Steal, this will give you much more advantage!
As soon as you used it you press “Pistol whip” 3(sword) and if there’s a normal mob, you don’t need to do much more… Because it’s dead..
If you encounter bosses or veteran mobs you start with the same tactic, but you could also put up your thieves guild before you use stealth.
After you’ve used Pistol whip you dodge back and use “Infiltrator’s strike”2 (sword) just to have a plan B if you get low on health and.
After that you encounter the mob again and start off with “Blackpowder” 5(pistol off-hand) then you go with Pistol whip again (blinds them)!
Dodge and then Pistol whip again.
Then just repeat! Stealth should be ready by this time! If not, use Pistol whip once again!

Since you target this build for PvE primarily (as stated on your other thread), I’ll give you an advice: equip yourself with zerk only gear (including ruby orbs).

I’m running this exact build since months, with one notable exception: Withdraw instead of HiS. Withdraw is way superior in healing to HiS, and you don’t really need the cnd removal of HiS since you can use IS to remove the worst damaging conditions.

Playing with Withdraw though requires more attention to condition managing than HiS, but after a while you get used to it and you’ll never go back.

P.S.: Regarding sigils, you should equip your s/p set with force/fire sigils, and sb with fire. Since you’ll be usually hitting multiple targets with sword and sb, fire it’s a wiser choice instead of air.

Alot to improve.

You’re wasting to much initiative. You also should explain that you shouldn’t do it and why.

Using the auto attacks instead of pistol whip will increase your damage because you have more +x% damage bonus for initiative.
You can use pistol whip once when initiative is full or use black powder only to make the trash mobs miss and support the group.

And your high damage wouldnt be possible without all the might that the others give you + the vulnerability they put on the enemy.

You can give yourself 1 might stack with steal (with swiftness and fury) and do 3 vulnerability stacks. in your videos we see way more might stacks and vulnerability

crouze.3078:

Using the auto attacks instead of pistol whip will increase your damage because you have more +x% damage bonus for initiative.
You can use pistol whip once when initiative is full or use black powder only to make the trash mobs miss and support the group.

I haven’t seen the video, but this outright it’s not entirely true.

Playing this build requires for sure a good ini management, usually the sequence is this:

- Infi Strike, to go to the pack of mobs/single mob while having an instant and safe retreat;
- PW + Steal → Steal will give back the 3 ini of IS, thus again at 15, and PW will drop ini to 10, and at the end of PW we’ll be at 12.
- PW again, back to 7, end of PW up to 8/9 (not considering the proc of the minor trait that gives back 1 ini 20% on crit)
- After this, autoattack until ini goes back to at least 11.

Full autoattack chain and PW deal roughly the same DPS, but with a high crit chance it’s better to use PW, since we inflicts 1+8 hits instead of just 3 of the auto chain, increasing the chance to crit and thus lowering the variance of our damage.

Either give people the link to the build calculator here or in your video description. Why bother watching 22 minutes of videos when you can see the whole deal at a glance?

Too long; didn’t watch.

Anyone else come here and just lol’d because it’s mostly PvE?

Buzzcrave.6197:

Anyone else come here and just lol’d because it’s mostly PvE?

touche! got me in and i thought it was a crit on wvw on a bunker guardian kitten nnnn.

Buzzcrave.6197:

Anyone else come here and just lol’d because it’s mostly PvE?

I was very disappoint.

no worry, PW will be nerfed in the next patch from what i heard,
enjoy it while you still can

Thank you so much fo the feedback!

Galandil: Thanks for the tips! I will take them into consideration and try them out! I have tried the sigils you suggested but I felt that it was better to use these sigils because you don’t always attack multiple targets and therefore the sigils will be unecessary. I thought it would be better to take the permanent sigils just because they will always come in handy!

Stupendous Man: Done!

Buzzcrave: I could only use 45 letters in the Topic "/

DanH: That may be true, I did however make this build a long time ago, way before the new patches! This was directly after the new patch came along with the new traits!

DanH.5879:

no worry, PW will be nerfed in the next patch from what i heard,
enjoy it while you still can

PW already took a 15% nerf about a year ago.
why are they going to nerf it again if anything it needs a dmg increase.

Brando.1374:

DanH.5879:

no worry, PW will be nerfed in the next patch from what i heard,
enjoy it while you still can

PW already took a 15% nerf about a year ago.
why are they going to nerf it again if anything it needs a dmg increase.

The Quickness nerf across the board also nerfed it. I don’t like it, personally. The animation takes too long and roots you.

Let’s hope that they don’t nerf it anymore! xD

As a Ranger, it’s always good to stop by to witness our Tryrant thief Outragous Powers.

Unfortunately,

my time is up;

to return to death valley to be merecissley killed by you.

Burnfall.9573:

As a Ranger, it’s always good to stop by to witness our Tryrant thief Outragous Powers.

Unfortunately,

my time is up;

to return to death valley to be merecissley killed by you.

Haha you just made my day! Laughed too hard xD

Amadeus.7980:

Burnfall.9573:

As a Ranger, it’s always good to stop by to witness our Tryrant thief Outragous Powers.

Unfortunately,

my time is up;

to return to death valley to be merecissley killed by you.

Haha you just made my day! Laughed too hard xD

Mine too. Even our most underused builds are now outrageous. Someone will always complain about the thief no matter what, even on a relatively stealthless build.

Go attack a regular mob with no might stacks and vuln – your damage isn’t even near that which is showed in the video. I hit the same damage, on any build with 20+ might stacks and vuln.

Not talkin bad about your build, just sayin’.

Yeah, but as I stated in the first video. I’m always going with my girlfriend that is playing a guardian. It isn’t that fun to show the clips of me running around killing mobs by myself, even though I put some of those clips in the first video and a few in the other. But this is to show the highest damage you can get

please dont advertise a build as “insane damage” if you cant provide it, 17k is on the low side of what we can hit

the time it takes you to cast one 8k pistol whip you could have CnD’ed for 5 k and backstabed for 10

Clumsy; That’s why I put the “+” sign
Ahunba; Yeah, but it will consume more initiative with CnD. And PW does 9 stikes + stuns!

Amadeus.7980:

Clumsy; That’s why I put the “+” sign
Ahunba; Yeah, but it will consume more initiative with CnD. And PW does 9 stikes + stuns!

And you can hit 3 mobs at the same time too.

So, after the balance patch, does my build still works? Or do you have any suggestions to change? I know that some traits are swapped out, just wondering if you had any good tips on how to upgrade this build.

This build never worked. Leaning on the generous side both it and 25/30/0/0/15 have the same +% damage and same survivability while 25/30/0/0/15 offers 150 more power. Realistically, 25/30/0/0/15 has about +5% more damage and 150 more power. Your trading that damage and power to maintain 58% up-time of fury and 1 stack of might. The trade-off just isn’t worth it when other classes can maintain permanent fury.
edit: In hindsight saying that 25/30/0/0/15 has about +5% more damage was wrong. Its probably closer to around 8%.

Clumsy.6257:

This build never worked. Leaning on the generous side both it and 25/30/0/0/15 have the same +% damage and same survivability while 25/30/0/0/15 offers 150 more power. Realistically, 25/30/0/0/15 has about +5% more damage and 150 more power. Your trading that damage and power to maintain 58% up-time of fury and 1 stack of might. The trade-off just isn’t worth it when other classes can maintain permanent fury.
edit: In hindsight saying that 25/30/0/0/15 has about +5% more damage was wrong. Its probably closer to around 8%.

You keep saying that, but it did work, so don’t worry about that!
Thanks for the response. However, I just generally ask if this is a reliable and well-working build despite the fact that there are builds that are better. There is always better builds, this is just a build I made up and put up here for improvement.

Thanks for the feedback anyways!

I will do a 3.0 version when the patch comes!

I just cant stomach what does that valkyrie sword/shortbow and that soldier backpiece is doing there? Not that 80 vitality and 20 toughness gonna add you some survivability. And … where did that carrion come from?

Karolis.4261:

I just cant stomach what does that valkyrie sword/shortbow and that soldier backpiece is doing there? Not that 80 vitality and 20 toughness gonna add you some survivability. And … where did that carrion come from?

Valid points, but as I stated in the first video. I did not have them at the time I made the video but I said what I would replace them with

After consideration I took away the soldiers backpiece and changed some other pieces out. I will do a 3.0 when the patch comes where you can see all the changes

Some people have a very … interesting … definition on a working build. I agree with Clumsy.

Amadeus.7980:

Karolis.4261:

I just cant stomach what does that valkyrie sword/shortbow and that soldier backpiece is doing there? Not that 80 vitality and 20 toughness gonna add you some survivability. And … where did that carrion come from?

Valid points, but as I stated in the first video. I did not have them at the time I made the video but I said what I would replace them with

After consideration I took away the soldiers backpiece and changed some other pieces out. I will do a 3.0 when the patch comes where you can see all the changes

Well its simple – all parts berserker. And 25/30/0/0/15 will still do more dmg unless you can stay at the back of enemy at all times and keep your initiative high. 25/30/0/0/15 dmg wont start dropping as long as you have 6 initiative.

True that, however, as I have stated before aswell.

I’m not here to get a comparison to the 25/30/0/0/15 build. I know it exists and I know it’s perks. I made this build because I don’t like that you can make an ultimate build that everyone should go with. I made it from skratch and just wanted some feedback and maybe some suggestions to improve it. Not to just skratch it and go with 25/30/0/0/15..

Amadeus.7980:

True that, however, as I have stated before aswell.

I’m not here to get a comparison to the 25/30/0/0/15 build. I know it exists and I know it’s perks. I made this build because I don’t like that you can make an ultimate build that everyone should go with. I made it from skratch and just wanted some feedback and maybe some suggestions to improve it. Not to just skratch it and go with 25/30/0/0/15..

I’d love to have build diversity but your build and 25/30/0/0/15 have the exact same survivability while 25/30/0/0/15 is has considerably higher damage. It just isn’t an option at this point. The only build that competes with 25/30/0/0/15 is its fraternal twin, 30/30/0/0/10.

Well, even if you think that is true you don’t get the perks that Trickery gives.
For instance, the + initiative and the boons.

Anyway, I am currently working on an update to this build (after the balance patch came). I hope you tune in when it’s up!

So, do you guys still think this build is valid? It’s pretty outdated but what do you think should be changed/improved? I am not interested in hearing that there are other builds that are better. This is a build I made and it would be fun to complete it!