Guild Wars 2

What thought does it take now that it didn’t take before? It’s still the most straightforward class in the game, in my opinion…which isn’t a bad thing.

Magnito.6187:

d/d + gs, demolisher amulet, leadership runes

defense, disc and spellbreaker

healing signet, the superspeed + resis SB skill, endure pain, bers stance and elite signet.

Enjoy.

-Been enjoying it myself very much. Kicked ass on it. Don’t know what you’re all on about saying it’s bad. Perhaps try watching a stream. Rom’s perhaps..-

Had extreme success with this and a few variations of this tonight. Only a few Holosmiths and S/D Daredevils gave me trouble 1v1. I really underestimated the healing signet against the new heal…which the cast time of the new heal got me killed 9/10 times.

I used hammer instead of greatsword with the stun/boon removal trait for AoE team fights or defensive moments and pulled off a handful of clutch plays in sPvP. Copying conditions to the enemy from a Full Counter is a great feeling.

Full Counter>Dagger burst>dagger #3 (immobilize on daze trait)>dagger #4>wait for heal attempt>hammer knockdown (any)>remove boons with utility (sword icon)

D/D Spellbreaker counters holosmith pretty well.

That’s always been my question.

Even if Rev got a damage nerf to compensate for being able to use more skills I’d be happy. Nothing worse than wanting to play your character and having to wait for both CD and find that you have no energy anyway….then to top it off you have to arbitrarily switch to another legend that has no relevance to the situation.

Rage posts on the forum seems to work alright.

Faee.1439:

The spec is worthless trash and anybody saying otherwise is a PvE-er (where it’s still bottom tier trash) or some guy who tried it in unranked against bots

Word.

So how are we supposed to be playing Renegade (or Revenant) in general? Use one utility skill then auto attack for 4 seconds before you can start using your other utility skills or weapon skills?

The rev-energy cost vs our rev-energy stores and how they regenerate in battle just don’t allow for…anything outside of an opener, really. After that, we’re basically just auto-attack bots. Is this right? Using F2/F3/F4 is not even in my realm of thought due to the energy costs for their damage/utility.

Surely, I’m doing something wrong because I have all these skills available but can’t use them. In the time it takes to ramp up to enough rev-energy I’m dead 4x over.

Loboling.5293:

narcx.3570:

Loboling.5293:

I was running Kalla/Shiro for Menders build. It was very enjoyable to play. But condition builds feel lackluster a bit with Renegade.

Why menders with Shiro/Kalla? That Healing Power seems so wasted there… Or does it actually have real scaling with Kalla’s elite (unlike the horrible healing power scaling on every other life draining skill in the game?)

Since Menders is power/heal you maximize both damage and healing through the lifesteal effects. And yes, the elite has great scalling with healing power. When the elite is up, I steal 600hp per strike. So sword 2 heals for 1800hp, sword 3 heals for 3000hp; and this stacks with devestation lifesteal trait. Combine this with my shiro heal dealing more damage with the recent update, and the nice healing scalling. Shiro heal gives me 8khp, and I get I think about 10k from kalla heal, 5k of which is aoe and heals allies too.

Menders means that I can heal my allies when I need to, and that I can out-sustain the conditions being thrown on me, with the final grandmaster trait, hoelbrak runes, and the kalla heal, I’m very tanky. Best of all, all this damage immunity (spirit beasts and warriors) gets bypassed by lifesteal, so you can keep pressure up during that. A lot more than people realize.

The damage is lower than something like maurauders, but by focusing on sustain, you don’t have the same need to retreat from battle. You can stay in there a lot longer. Which lets you benefit more from kalla’s summons. And share them more with allies. Holosmiths heal up super fast if they have our elite up. I was able to save quite a few who were going ham without watching their hp. For now, there is no icd for the elite. That allows for all this to work.

This is all fun and games until you get conditions on you. The most effective part about this build is seeing how high condi damage can get in the kill breakdown screen after you’re dead.

Working on an sPvP build for S/D and shortbow (because I hate rifle).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYFMGLK/AEAHQ/j2tRE-Tpg9AA7+DQZAA

Dead Eye Traits:
One in the Chamber – Currently testing, but anything in that first column of DE can work
Unforgiving – First attack stuns…great for an opening Flanking Strike/Larcenous Strike
Be Quick or Be Dead – Allows quickness on opener and a flurry of 3k-4k auto attacks from sword for over 5 seconds and a quick heal/Infiltrator’s Return as needed.

Utilities:
Whatever heal you prefer (I use Hide in Shadows for the condi cleanse)
Signet of Agility – For the condi cleanse
Mercy – This allows almost constant quickness (if needed) during a fight due to the on-demand quickness from Be Quick or Be Dead.
Shadow Meld – Still working on whether or not this belongs in an S/D build.

Use your standard power S/D style of combat (jump in and out with Infiltrator’s following a Steal/DE Mark). I hated using Steal as power S/D because it ported me into the fight, but I had no out as I would with Infiltrator’s Return. This rectifies that discrepancy. Most damage will come from quickness and auto attacks after you strip boons as a defensive measure. If you get a good combat rhythm you can kill most classes without taking a hit…unless you’re not paying attention to a Rifle Dead Eye freecasting at you in the background.

I don’t expect this build to be meta, but it’s an alternative platform to start with for the people that absolutely despise rifle/ranged gameplay. Let’s see what other people come up with.

Does anyone find it odd that the only thread saying that scourges aren’t OP is on the necro sub-forum?

Here let me help put this in perspective…

You: “Fix this.”

A-Net: “Fix what? What’s the problem? What feedback would you like us to implement?”

You: “Fix this.”

It seems you expect some amazing thing that only you can define and you’re not sharing the definition.

Qiraa.4130:

ok so i havent seen all the animations of the other classes but it looks like most of them are reused animations from existing skills so i dont know why your guys are crying so much

at the end of the day, why care so much about an animation when you will not care about it after one hour of playing the class

but i digress, reading the class forums is like being inside a preschool classroom, bunch of whiners crying about reused animations and wanting to assault devs makes me not want to live on this planet lol

Don’t forget the “Welp, I’ve been playing this new spec for 2 hours now, so I have completely figured out all of its possible mechanics and mastered its full potential” sort of mentality.

Sigh…I’m going to die on this planet. Pfft…humans.

Were you traited for Pulmonary Impact and interrupted someone beforehand? The delayed PI damage will bring you out if stealth as if you hit them directly a couple seconds later.

Kusumura.8642:

Nobody is using turrets. They’re are one step away from being absolutely worthless trash; if somebody takes a turret in their build, it is either for the AoE reflection or the toolbelt.

Or it’s heal turret. All hail heal turret.

Then I’m seeing a buttload of engi bots tonight.

I’ve been seeing a lot of turret engineers lately in spvp and it dawned on me that with the current state of botting in spvp that this would be the most logical build to use if scripts are running a character.

I’ve never played engi before and have no idea what’s popular other than the builds that are on metabattle.com, so I ask…is turret engi back or is this a red flag for bots?

Ryan.6951:

Wow the hostility here for asking a simple question. Fecal and Ori if you don’t know about something, at least don’t attack someone for asking about it. Using a strawman like “you must know better than anet hurr durr” is as useless as it is easily countered by “guess anet must know better than bethesda, capcom, microsoft, sony, 2k and everyone else publishing remasters hurr durr”

Let me be more plain. I’m not interested or speaking about ‘graphics’. They look fine. The art style compensates for minor flaws and overall the game is gorgeous.

But performance is bad on modern systems. Really bad. Anet wants to bring in new blood. Part of that is not putting off people who invest in their gaming for a great experience.

I know you’re not talking about graphics. There’s always one guy suggesting that a dev team move to DX10/11/12/N because they think they know what’s better for their process/game/budget/work flow/performance simply because they see a DX number higher than the one the game is using so they automatically assume it’s the solution to everything. You are that guy.

Just because you saw a really cool DirectX 11/12 demo a couple months ago doesn’t mean it can just be automagically applied to any game architecture with a flick of a switch.

BTW, I’m getting well over 60fps on a 2nd gen i5 and a GTX 970 on high graphics settings in WvW and PvP lobby areas.

Ryan.6951:

I don’t think you’re qualified to make assumptions about me Ori, or assertions about directx performance.

If you really think modern APIs play no part in how well an engine can perform, a quick google can immediately find mountains of data to explain why that’s not correct.

Yet the devs haven’t announced any DirectX changes. Clearly you know something about their game that they don’t?

You should apply for a position at ArenaNet and tell them how to do it.

I’ve tried all variations of power rev in sPvP and I just can’t make it work. I’m reading metabattle and shiro power rev build states that most of your damage will come from Impossible Odds…wtf??? You’re really expected to just quickness+auto attack your way to victory? Every time I try this I explode immediately…if I use any of my skills to deal with the situation I run out of energy and can’t use Impossible Odds/quickness+auto attack.

How is this build in the meta tier and how are other people using it with success? I am so at a loss.

Murdock.6547:

its understandable to get heated

No, it isn’t. Don’t enable the type of behavior that OP is describing. This sentence is an enabling that behavior.

All the more reason there needs to be 2v2 or 3v3 mode. Playing the queue lottery hoping you don’t get brain dead teammates is the name of the game in sPvP. I can’t see how people grow kittens and think they’re carrying anyone in any match in this game.

It’s not about them not responding to chat or playing poorly, it’s their actions that look downright AI in nature…movement, gameplay choices, routing…Hell, I even found two bots running into the crates at mid on Capricorn. They didn’t move until I hit them, ignored the uncapped point, and just walked directly towards me with no effort other than the “W” key.

In any case, I hit gold last night and haven’t seen any since. Seems they’re all stuck in mid tier silver…but they do exist. To think otherwise is ignorant.

As online gamers you should all be aware that bots exist in all MMOs. I see pvp games filled with bots on both teams. It’s plainly obvious who is a bot right from spawning into the match…they insta-ready up before even loaded in, stand in the same spot every time before the gate opens, walk along the same path (usually inside eachother), mindlessly attack opponents with no consideration of capping the point right next to them (until aforementioned opponent is dead or stealth), they stand in the exact spot on the zone to cap (usually dead center), and the millisecond the zone caps they continue their linear path to the next waypoint in their route.

They act just like AI. It’s not at all hard to notice.

Got clarification of what a pip is. WvW is still the same old WvW…boring as all hell.

I must be missing something because I can’t see why people play this mode. I really want to like it and I’m purely a pvp player in all MMOs I play, but this is not PvP…it’s PvE with the (seemingly) annoyance of PvP that slows down your PvE.

Zergs and groups avoid PvP fights, people capturing towers/camps/zones for little to no apparent reason, punishment for getting killed is extremely steep with regards to getting back into any potential action…

Someone please re-align my expectations so I can enjoy WvW just as much as it seems other people are.

Returning from a long hiatus and I’m seeing pips for participating in WvW and a bunch of people really mad about them and discussing them everywhere…what are these pips for and why should I care about them?

Also, why isn’t the WvW forum full of gameplay and strategy discussion? All I see is complaining about strawman reasons why people are losing or not having fun…example: glicko isn’t the reason why your group lost a fight. What’s up with you guys?

Azukas.1426:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVn8lClOhFNBGOB8PhFYCTLBEAKAzhwSYK07LsoGRA-TJxBQBGc/BA8EA8SZgPeKAAA

Have fun and enjoy the hilarity.

At first I thought this was a joke, then I tried it in low-tier sPvP and it’s amazing. Thank you good sir.

How are people denying that bots are a thing?! That’s mind boggling.

It’s painfully obvious who is a bot and who isn’t. Do some googling and you’ll see it exists and it’s readily available to any kitten out there.

Kaburro.4712:

I don’t really doubt that there are bots cos I noticed this behavior on last season, but this time is to obvious.
The “or” part was about who put the bots there. Think about it for a sec.
Anyway this thread will be deleted soon I think.

Ooooh…plot thickens!

Kaburro.4712:

All Matters Fecal.9560:

Came back from a 2 month break to see that pvp is literally all just bots this season (at least in starting tiers). It looks like there is literally zero effort to curb the infestation as there’s only 1 or 2 other legitimate real players in every match.

May be the fault of my tin foil hat but I can’t believe this behavior could be normal. So many player unresponsive to chat, following patterns and using skills like machines.
I see this happening every time playerbase get low, take your own conclusions, is this players botting or…?

There’s no “or” about it…it’s clearly botting. You can see characters moving in the same exact paths almost on top of/inside each other, stopping at the same exact spot every time at the cap zone, perfect reaction times to dodges and stun breaks. You can tell who’s a bot just before the gate opens and the match starts by where they’re standing before they run out.

I was on eternal coliseum, capped far, then a warrior came after me to take the point back. I walked away and he followed…for the rest of the match. I literally walked him around the map 4 or 5 times and his pathing made no effort to try to look lifelike. He was like my little warrior bot pet.

Came back from a 2 month break to see that pvp is literally all just bots this season (at least in starting tiers). It looks like there is literally zero effort to curb the infestation as there’s only 1 or 2 other legitimate real players in every match.

Iriadne.7098:

That shortcut is not working for me. It says that the name specified in target area is not valid. make sure that the path filename are correct.

“C:\Program Files\Guild Wars 2\Gw2-64.exe Gw2.exe -assetsrv 64.25.41.2”

What I did wrong.

And to add a note even though I know they are working on it, Every single update there are problems, bugs and issues. It is getting a bit annoying.

Put the argument after the quotes with a space:

“C:\Program Files\Guild Wars 2\Gw2-64.exe” -assetsrv 64.25.41.2

Try this if you get login issues after getting past the red text:
If you’re in NA:
“C:\Program Files\Guild Wars 2\Gw2-64.exe” -authsrv 64.25.38.172 -assetsrv 64.25.41.2

If you’re in EU:

“C:\Program Files\Guild Wars 2\Gw2-64.exe” -authsrv 206.127.146.74 -assetsrv 64.25.41.2

EDIT: Corrected typos…sorry. Should be able to copy/paste now.

Healix.5819:

Decrypter.1785:

Was warned about the workaround , be careful of info unless its from anet dev , ty

It really isn’t nice to use that IP, because it’s ArenaNet’s primary server. Use it as a workaround, but don’t use it permanently because it defeats the purpose of the CDN and only further stresses ArenaNet.

If you were just afraid of its legitimacy, here’s the domain:

origincdn.101.arenanetworks.com

FrosT.1624:

Guess we will have to wait for actual fix from anet or use this one timer and dont turn off the game? xD

The current problem is that the CDN they’re using is basically down. Since GW2 can’t retrieve the build information, it’s reporting a connection error. 64.25.41.2 is ArenaNet’s own server and what the CDNs connect to. You’re not actually supposed to use this server as it defeats the purpose of the CDN.

You shouldn’t have any problems logging in if you can read these forums, for NA at least. EU goes through different login servers.

For NA, these should work:

Gw2.exe -authsrv 64.25.38.172 -assetsrv 64.25.41.2
Gw2.exe -authsrv 54.89.152.137 -assetsrv 64.25.41.2

EU requires different IPs for -authsrv:

206.127.146.73
206.127.146.74
206.127.159.109
206.127.159.107
206.127.146.67

Grunwald.3841:

Haha, any similar fix for the mac client? ;p

Not sure if still applies to the new client, but see the wiki on how to use arguments on Mac:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments

Alternatively, you can try modifying the hosts file to point assetcdn.101.arenanetworks.com to 64.25.41.2

This got me past the login server issues. I’m in NA. Thank you good sir and/or madam!

Same here. Was playing about 6 hours ago with no issues. Both 32 and 64 bit executables showing same error.

ich.7086:

All Matters Fecal.9560:

My god that’s a lot of micro-management of the auto-chain…do people actually do this? Is it even worth it to keep it queued up for the half-second of reflect or whatever it is?

I have made some LB rangers push themselves into their death with that. A more concret example (only the first fight).

So yeah having that in mind may be useful.

Wow. That was pro. I gotta up my game. Thanks.

If you’re looking for 17k hp then you may as well go marauder anyway.

My god that’s a lot of micro-management of the auto-chain…do people actually do this? Is it even worth it to keep it queued up for the half-second of reflect or whatever it is?

NeXeD.3042:

itz the intawebz bro tHere iS nOne grading my posts.

Are you blind? He just graded your post…and so will I.

F.

Have you guys even played S/D lately? Buffing sword auto would skyrocket the set into hilarity…after a steal and any sort of might being stolen while using marauder I’m hitting 3k to 4.5k auto attacks on most opponents. Any buff to that would cause a riot.

People say D/P is biggest utility build/set, but I just don’t see it when S/D is 10x more fluid with half the effort. The combinations of different openers>mid-fight combos you can do with S/D alone is enough to fight and kill anything without them knowing what happened.

I think the concept of S/D is what goes right over people’s heads so everyone thinks it’s awful, while D/P is much more straightforward and easy so it’s more popular.

Thanks for the help and discussion, everyone!

I played a few games with my stick instead of a shortbow when mesmers were present and it worked out pretty well. Just seeing it from a staff build’s perspective put it all in line for me and I know how the usual common flow of a mesmer duel goes and I find myself putting up a somewhat fair fight instead of getting blown up instantly. The improvisation tip helped immensely.

I started this season late (like a week ago…just hit silver) and I’m finding success and entertainment with an S/D & SB marauder build with Fist Flurry to make up for lack of burst. It seems that S/D is so uncommon that people don’t know how to handle all the teleports, cripples, and immobs. Juking and teleport-dodging makes fights insanely satisfying.

I’m switching between S/D and D/P in spvp and having trouble when I find a mesmer. Before I know it I’m loaded with like 15 stacks of confusion with 3 or 4 cover condis that I can’t get rid of in time to save myself.

I’ve been told dodging is the key to winning against a mesmer, but I’m not exactly sure on what I’m specifically supposed to be dodging…as soon as their clones spawn they shatter and condi bomb me. I’m surprisingly finding mesmers harder to beat than DHs, which I’m strangely finding easier and easier to deal with while using S/D. Also, even if I do successfully dodge their shatters, it seems like there’s 3 more clones ready for me 5 seconds later.

Please help.

Jim Hunter.6821:

You’re clearly a hacker for not face tanking the condi’s and coming to the forums to complain about how op they are and how they need to be nerfed.

You’re just plain ignorant if you think there are no hackers in online games. Burying your head in the sand doesn’t change the fact that players of ill repute are gaining advantages by methods that are not in the spirit of the game.

Ever wonder why orbs were removed from WvW?

Jack Skywalker.5674:

Unrelentig Assault – changed into a 2 step skill. The first step is called Mark of the Reaper which applies an undispelable debuff. Unrelenting Assault can only hit a target which has Mark of the Reaper on it. Also the focus of the camera will shift from the caster towards the enemy hit by UA for the duration of the skill – reseting to normal at the end.

AKA: “please make my favorite skill applicable to every situation and every fight so I don’t have to think about when to use it skillfully”

casterfaster.9146:

T2
Fort Aspenwood
Kills: 16,869
Deaths: 27,769

Maguuma
Kills: 33,458
Deaths: 27,469

Tarnished Coast
Kills: 31,042
Deaths: 28,637
==============
T3

Stormbluff Isle
Kills: 41,079
Deaths: 38,373

Crystal Desert
Kills: 21,877
Deaths: 31,987

Sea of Sorrows
Kills: 38,161
Deaths: 33,898

Thanks! Where are you copying this information from?

Forgot to mention I’m in NA. Blackgate seems to be full on blob warfare which isn’t conducive to teaching or experiencing the game in a meaningful way, imo. I’ll be looking for a T2 server to move myself and my guys to. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll have the patience to wait until the server shuffle next Friday, so we’ll be gambling a bit on finding a new home this evening.

Great answers, all. Thank you!

I finally convinced a couple of my friends who had old GW2 accounts to re-download the game and start playing again after only giving it a ~2-week try at launch. They were completely unaware of WvW at the time and were not impressed.

Anyway, I showed them what’s up and they seem into it now, but they’re all on different servers, so we’ll all have to switch. Preferably, I’d like to not spend any money (as they would too) for a transfer, or at least not a transfer to a full server…I’m currently on Blackgate which is tier 1 atm full of zergs and tryhards from what I can tell.

I’d like to move myself and my friends to a new server for WvW with my friends, but is tier 2 or 3 identical to tier 1/Blackgate? My ideal WvW experience is 5-10 person havoc group vs 5-10 person havoc group…does that exist in any tier/on any server?

I understand this diminishes capabilities of S/D a bit, but you guys (and others) are talking like you’re winning games by only running around spamming #2/jump and now you can’t so the weapon set is completely useless.

Can’t comment on D/P vs rev personally, but using the strat I use with S/D, spamming the dodge skill flanking strike during UA, works well.

Just dropping a blind field with black powder if using D/P while they teleport to you should work. Or just git gud and learn to interrupt it during the initial cast (I still have no idea what that looks like).

Who is this thread for? Us to discuss? Surely you don’t think Anet is searching for market advice from someone doling out their priceless and all knowing expertise on their game forums…right?…right??

I wholly agree with Asrat. I don’t have much issue with most classes other than the unfortunate step I take into a DH trap (learning to handle these kittens and recognize their patterns lately, which helps immensely) or the aforementioned scrapper. People love to wig out and blame other things when they get beat simply because they don’t want to adapt or actually figure out why they failed. The thief forum is saturated with these types of complaints…it’s gross.

OP, I hate you on your music choice alone.

Is it like a requirement that all people creating montage/gameplay videos listen to garbage trance/EDM/dubstep generic house music?!