Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone!
A couple people told me they enjoyed the last video, so I made another!
If you enjoy this sort of thing and would like more, please let me know.
Hope this makes you chuckle at least once!

Just another video 2

If you’d like to help get this noticed, here is the subreddit link!
Link

Thank you for watching! Glad you enjoyed it.

Hi folks!
I do a lot of roaming in WvW. A lot of folks take it very seriously, and it can be intimidating for new players to join. But it’s all in good fun, and can be made better with friends! I threw this together for entertainment, and I wanted to share it. Apologies if it is not available in your country, I use various music clips that youtube does not like.

If this is something people enjoy I’d love to make more and get more chances to practice editing.

Direct link to video:
Video Link

Reddit post if you wanna help get it noticed!:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3r8ewd/my_first_attempt_at_gw2_content_a_mixture_of/

It has been less than 24 hour since launch, and you’re complaining about not being able to get all the Hero points? Wow.
So much for enjoying the journey and exploring four huge, brand new zones packed with new sights, enemies, music, events and more.
If this is enough to make you give up then I don’t think MMO’s are for you.

I like these! Thanks Karl!
I’m sure more tweaks will come but this is a good step. =D

Land spear for Guardian. Some sort of Vanguard or similar would be fantastic!

You don’t have to take Dragon Hunter haha.
Burning builds are still pretty strong.

Dragon Hunter does not inflict that many damaging conditions. Longbow 4 shoots a symbol that sets people on fire (2 stacks for 5 seconds), but it isn’t on a cooldown that would help much in a burn build, plus it’s activation time is slow. It is mostly cripple with a little daze if the traps are traited.

Traps inflict some cripple and vulnerability.

Greetings, friends!

Long time Guardian here.
I’ll make this concise and constructive, and must point out that this is all personal preference and taste. This isn’t to refute any complaints others have mentioned.

With that out of the way, I really enjoyed playing with Dragon Hunter today. I did a mixture of Meditations and Traps, using Valor/Virtues/DH in traits. I did 10 PvP matches and won 8 of them. I beat everyone I went up against in a 1v1 save for a single Grenade Engineer.

It felt good having the flexibility to jump in with Sword/Shield and put some pressure on. The Virtue activation and velocity changes made them 100% usable in melee combat, and found people taking quite a bit of damage from the F2 landing, F1, Sword 3 flurry combo. All the while locking them up with Test of Faith.

My only functionality gripe is the lack of condition clearing. It seems that the 2k heal+Fury+Condition clearing of a full meditation build is still a ‘little’ more viable, but mixing and matching is definitely possible. I used it to great success.

Thoughts on Everything:
TRAPS and BOW
- Bow skills felt good, and the damage was fair. I don’t feel like much needs to be improved here. Minor aesthetic on the auto attack would be nice, like a light blue trail of light along the arrows path being more pronounced.
- Test of Faith is great area denial and really punishes people who can be baited running over the ring repeatedly.
- Procession of Blades needs to be buffed, or have some extra effect. Right now it isn’t very good.
- Fragments of Faith doesn’t feel like it’s worth a utility slot. There are other ways to grant Aegis to allies via traits and weapon skills. I’d up the damage a bit OR toss in a condition removal in the area when it goes off.
- Light’s Judgement does its job. The damage is garbage but in solo-defending a point and having a Mesmer jump on you, this just ruins their day.
- Dragon’s Maw is pretty good. I’d up it’s damage a little, or have it strip boons, but otherwise it does it’s job. It’s a group lockdown skill.

VIRTUES:
- Spear of Justice was Fine. It was fast enough, the damage was good, and with the 10% trait you could get some nice spikes out.
However, PLEASE make the spear bigger. Right now it looks like I’m throwing an arrow. Think Lightning Spear from Dark Souls.
- Wings of Resolve was Good. The damage from the trait felt just right, and I used it fairly often to chase down targets or to get out of hairy situations.
- Shield of Courage I didn’t use much. However when facing an Ele or Ranger I found myself really thankful for it existing. Took a bit of practice to get facing right but eventually it helped quite a bit.

Overall, I think it’s fine! Needs some aesthetic/sound tweaks but otherwise I loved it! Thanks A-net.

I plan on building a mostly offensive Druid! So I’m gonna so no, healing gear isn’t needed. The base heals are pretty beefy alone. It’ll function similar to a Meditation guardian. DPS with some side support.

A mix of zerker and soldier.

Pretty great!

I already have an offensive druid support planned, and I’m really excited to fine tune and test it this coming weekend. Feel the wrath of nature, betches.

Levetty.1279:

Looking at the tool tip Staff auto has a cast time of 1 and a quarter seconds. I don’t know where you are getting good damage from.

1.25 second channel. Hits 3 times in that period.

Nike.2631:

Ancient Seeds and shortbow #5 is pretty much auto-tangles. You can build a whole interlocking nest of awful around SB and off-hand dagger.

You should have predator’s onslaught up continuously.

This is amazing.

Nike.2631:

Twisting the new trait-line and utilities into a selfish monster was pretty much the first thing to go through my mind.

I’m confident people will unleash even worse evils in a day or two…

I approve of this. Let us show them the wrath of nature, friend.

I think the possibility for an offensive druid is very plausible.

Aomine.5012:

Caiden.9074:

Aomine.5012:

Eric.7813:

I personally think that the Druid that was revealed today was very exciting.
here are the things I enjoyed

: The celestial/space theme
isn’t this just an extreme for nature magic? It awesome.
: Versatility of the glyphs
Ranger lacked synergy and versatility with exception of traits involving the pet.
The Druid traits provide new options the ranger never had. It is really the first new niche that ranger has access too, we all know that the spirits didn’t quite work out.

I understand that some people don’t like the druid. But their discussion is rarely constructive.

Any feedback?! what do you like and what do you have concern about?

p.s. I don’t honestly believe that the druid will become the new monk… honestly, it looked like you’d have to exhaust all your energy and skills to get an ally to full health…. that’s quite the sacrifice.

Wait, hold on there.

What do you mean by “Versatility of the glyphs with synergies”, when all of them are PBAOE short range, while all staff skills are 1200 range?

Where’s the synergy?

I believe greatsword will synergize wonderfully with Glyphs. With the dazes, stuns, cripples, and general control, it’ll be absolutely a blast to mess with people. I saw a few combos just from watching the video. I’m sure people will find more as builders are updated.

Umm… So Druid is a melee class then?

Great….. More stacking in one spot meleeing the kitten out of all contents while being a healbot so people can just stand there waiting for heal..

Not exclusively, no. I think it can’t be. It depends how you build and what skills you use. I agree with you that most of the Glyphs don’t really synergize well with the ranger unless you’re in celestial form. We’ll have to see how it plays out.

I’m glad it can go both ways, however.

Aomine.5012:

Eric.7813:

I personally think that the Druid that was revealed today was very exciting.
here are the things I enjoyed

: The celestial/space theme
isn’t this just an extreme for nature magic? It awesome.
: Versatility of the glyphs
Ranger lacked synergy and versatility with exception of traits involving the pet.
The Druid traits provide new options the ranger never had. It is really the first new niche that ranger has access too, we all know that the spirits didn’t quite work out.

I understand that some people don’t like the druid. But their discussion is rarely constructive.

Any feedback?! what do you like and what do you have concern about?

p.s. I don’t honestly believe that the druid will become the new monk… honestly, it looked like you’d have to exhaust all your energy and skills to get an ally to full health…. that’s quite the sacrifice.

Wait, hold on there.

What do you mean by “Versatility of the glyphs with synergies”, when all of them are PBAOE short range, while all staff skills are 1200 range?

Where’s the synergy?

I believe greatsword will synergize wonderfully with Glyphs. With the dazes, stuns, cripples, and general control, it’ll be absolutely a blast to mess with people. I saw a few combos just from watching the video. I’m sure people will find more as builders are updated.

Hey folks! Caiden here. You may have seen some of my Necro/Guardian guides out there.
There’s a lot of doom and gloom. Some people are really sad about the healing, some people are loving it. Awesome.

Some people may be like me, hoping to play Druid in the sense of a Meditation guardian. Offensive with some side support. Before you puff up and say that Celestial Form without healing power will be useless (We don’t know the healing coefficients yet), bear with me.

Did anyone else notice the auto attack, which attacks in bursts of 3 and ignores reflects, getting upwards of 2,500 damage? Did anyone else see the untraited/unstatted wisp hitting for 800 a second for 5 seconds?

Coefficients:
Bow Auto Average: 336
Staff: 282 with 3 pulses (Higher damage potential)

Rapid Fire: 1400 (If all arrows hit)
Astral Wisp: 743 for kittens (Also higher potential)

Rain of Arrows: Cripple + 1788 for all waves
Vine Surge: 464 + Immobilize + 3 targets + condi cleanse. (Less damage, but I like the instant pay off of the immobilize rather than a dodgeable Rain of arrows)

The other skills offer their own utilities. Comes down to situation and preference. Glyphs I would probably skip and stick with Survival skills. Go for the Movement speed buff trait, reduce staff recharge and daze, and Ancient seeds.

I think this has a lot of potential. Using cooldowns, swapping into Celestial, getting a little more control and topping off, then back into Staff/Greatsword or Staff/Bow.

Staff/GS has some great synergy with Glyphs, chaining off of dazes, stuns, and more.

There is some great Medium/High DPS potential here. You won’t be zerker level, but it’s a step in the direction of 70/30 damage healing split rather than vice versa.

What do you think?

It’s a cool idea, but it will never happen.
They would never add a class mechanic so controversial and discussed by the entire community. The outcry would be immense.

People have been talking and clammering over mounts since release. Giving it to a single class would ruin more than it would reward.

Just my thoughts.

Reisinger.4203:

Astralporing.1957:

Caiden.9074:

Definitely not a requirement. Even min-maxing, a 5% margin of gain just isn’t worth the fuss.

People that went crazy about the might nerf apparently do not agree. And it’s bigger than 5%.

VaaCrow.3076:

If you work 20 hours a week and a Co-worker works 60, Do you feel you are entitled to the same rewards? No.

It’s supposed to be fun and entertainment. If i wanted hard work, i’d stay in RL where i have enough of it already, so using examples based on how RL is supposed to work (no pun intended) is getting you nowhere.
Also, in RL there are actually lot of people that work less and yet earn more than others, so even in that regard the example is flawed.

Trying to reason with people who think that way is a waste of time. Fortunately, that conservative mentality is dying off as baby boomers age.

I agree with what you said, I don’t play this game to work some more. I don’t know why sadistic players keep trying to justify grinds.

That’s a bit harsh. Look, the only reason my stance on Ascended gear is, “It doesn’t matter” is because it hasn’t affected me or what I do. I’m in a tPvP ranked team, I do WvW, dungeons, and everything else. I have ascended accessories, but no weapon or armor. I can still complete dungeons in good time, win most of our matches, and contribute to our efforts in WvW. (For the Coast!)

My point is, I would be equally upset if say I went up against someone holding a point, or roaming, and I just got slam jammed despite doing everything I knew was right to win. If gear became a major factor in my fun and performance, then I would be worried.

But it hasn’t. Full ascended gear is a nice bonus, but that’s all. I guess I’m also lucky that I find all the skins are kitten , so I’ve got that going for me.

Smith.1826:

Caiden.9074:

Definitely not a requirement. Even min-maxing, a 5% margin of gain just isn’t worth the fuss. Nice to have, not imperative for doing well, or even being a top player.

It could be a 20% difference and it still wouldn’t be too noticeable with the emphasis on open-world gameplay. Groups can become so big that the % of your contribution comes up to a lowly single digit.

That coupled with the enormous timesink doesn’t make ascended armor and weapons all too appealing. I only have the accessories back when the game wasn’t going on three years.

Should they put more of an emphasis on challenging and/or instanced content, that’s when I’d become a bit more concerned about GW2’s max stats.

Agreed!

I currently use a build I refer to as ‘Ghost Walker’. It was on reddit a little while ago.
2/0/6/0/6 – Spec’d for basically living in Death Shroud. Soldier’s gear. D/D + Staff.
Utilities – Spectral Walk, Spectral Armor, Spectral Wall/Corrupt Boon for tPvP
Most 1v1’s are pretty easy, and you can hold a point against 2 or 3 for a good amount of time. At least enough for allies to either come help or for them to capture other points.
It’s not weak in offensive enough to be considered a bunker build but it’s very tanky. 3-5k life blasts are your main source of damage, with mainhand dagger 1 spam.

Definitely not a requirement. Even min-maxing, a 5% margin of gain just isn’t worth the fuss. Nice to have, not imperative for doing well, or even being a top player.

Shield isn’t awful, it’s just not viable for what a lot of people want. Will shield synergize with your Zerker setup? Nope. It’s not for that. The weapon’s role is to apply protection, which combos with some traits (boons), and the shield 5 skill is excellent for reviving allies, clearing points, splitting groups and similar.

I use shield in my Soldier’s build. It’s very good for its purpose but outside of that, I agree completely that it isn’t worth while. The biggest issue with shield is it has no diversity. If you’re not built to use it, it’s not a viable pick.

Just my insight and what I’ve found from tPvP and WvW.

While this is my build, the term Juggermancer is just used in name, really. Tanky necro’s and such!

I’ll take a look at your build soon, ArmageddonAsh!

Wrapping up

This build is one I made after my offensive power build. The power build has less health, and toughness, but a high crit chance, and high power. You drop things much faster, but isn’t as tanky as I wanted. So this is the product of some tweaking, and a lot of testing in PvP and PvE. You can’t go full tank for PvE because no one will want you, and you can’t go full offense in PvP because you’ll get…well…you’ll get pooped on.

So this is my answer. I’ve won, I can safely say, over 80% of my duels, and fights with this. You’ve got no crit chance, but with incredibly high power, it’s a stable damage output that averages about the same. You’re utility is amazing in PvE and PvP, and greatly swings fights in your favor if used properly. People will dodge out of your wells a lot at first, and you’ll be frustrated with the melee range of daggers.

But if you watch what you’re doing, pay attention to when you’re doing well, and when you lose, and improve, this is easily one of my favorite, and impactful builds.

Advanced Tactics - I’ll add more if people want! Otherwise I hoped this helped and please post questions to me in game or on here!

________________________________________________________________
I will add the Condition build after this, if it is desired.

Utilities
I need dis…

Phew. That’s, uh, a lot of text. You’ve read more than most kids do for MIddle School Homework. But this is important, kitten! So keep going! Below are skills that are useful, and good to have with this build.

Healing Slot
Consume Conditions
or
Signet of Vampirism

All around, Consume Conditions is a solid heal. With this builds armor and resistance, it gives a great amount of healing efficiency and cures whatever stacks of conditions you have on you. Primary choice for frontline in WvW or similar situations.

However with the addition Signet of Vampirism, there’s been some discussion on which is better. They’re a bit different to compare. Consume Conditions is still amazing for stripping yourself of CC and Conditions, obviously, but with enough armor, Signet of Vampirism becomes an immensely efficient heal. I spent a couple hours testing this skill in various situations, and came out with this:

If you have 2500 or higher armor, Signet of Vampirism is ‘extremely’ good for you. If you have less than that, Consume Conditions heals for more consistently.
Use the Signet on an enemy, and use Dagger 2 for an immense amount of healing, while proc’ing an extra 350-500 damage per tick on your target.

Well of Suffering - Arguably one of the highest damaging skills in the game. But wells are fickle creatures, and require your target to stay in them to reach their full affect. I keep this skill on my first utility slot at all times. High damage, and applies vulnerability to increase further incoming sources. Good all around.

Well of Corruption - Everyone hates this skill. Well, our enemies do. Nice 25 stacks of might there, brochacho. BOOSH! 25 stacks of crap. The longer they’re in it, the more it converts. This skill does medium damage, and has AoE boon corrupting. Invaluable in almost all PvP situations, but not so much in PvE. I keep this on my bar at all times.

Well of Power - Now, I don’t like to sound biased, but I personally believe that in Zerg vs Zerg situations, or massive PvE fights, this is the most powerful skill in the game. No, it doesn’t do damage. What it does do, is flip Conditions on you into Boons. Poison becomes Regeneration, Cripple becomes Swiftness, Vulnerability becomes Protection. How many times have you looked down at your buff bar to see a line of 4+ high timer, high stack conditions on you while PvPing?

When diving in, or holding the line, I drop this at my feet with the front line and hold my position. For the next 5 seconds, it will start removing your conditions, and applying their opposing boons on you for the same duration and stack amount as the condition was applied.

If this were just for us as the caster? Great, but not amazing. But this works for everyone running through it, and standing in it. Invaluable in situations where you’re expecting condition damage. I keep this on my bar almost all the time.

Well of Darkness - Fantastic for duels, and taking on 2 or 3 melee classes at once. It’s high cooldown is pretty lame, and without Chilling Darkness this skill isn’t as powerful as it could be on a build with points in the Curses line. A blind every second for 5 seconds is great, but I find it more niche than other skills.

Elite Lich Form - Use what you like best. Plague form is great for surviving, and applying blind pressure on your enemies, but without condition damage you’re not going to be killing anything. However, Lich Form is more offensive, and what I use. It has a built in crit chance, AoE condition removal, and a health boost. Pop this on when cleaning up enemies, or when applying pressure to a clump. With your 1 skill hitting for 3,000 – 5,000 damage on 3 to 5 targets, it makes a lot of people panic, and is great for telling that annoying thief to bugger off!

Other Skills: - You can flip flop in Spectral Grasp for grabbing people, Spectral Walk for juking, or maybe a well for some more condition management. Obviously throw in Locust Signet for running around quickly! Otherwise, the top four are the most valuable.

Weapons and Armor

So in the Cons list above, I put ‘Items can be a kitten to get’. If you have WvW Badges, Karma, or Dungeon Tokens, then pretend you didn’t read that. It’s super easy to get Soldier’s gear. That’s Power – Toughness – Vitality gear. But! If you ’don’t’ have an abundance of these things, then you’ve got some farming to do. This stat-set isn’t on the Trading post. So, uh, have fun. HNNGGHH~

Anyway. As far Sigil’s go, it’s really up to you. Our crit chance is incredibly low so try to avoid anything that procs off of critical hits. Anything that increases our power, or crowd control is good. You don’t even have to use Sigils if you don’t want. A Crest or pure stat bonuses work too.

For Runes, I go with Superior Runes of Vampirism. The healing procs on these are 1000 HP. Since they fixed the bug with them, it helps a lot with sustain and, keep in mind, ‘stealing’ health also causes damage to your foe.

The Mist form has saved my life more times than I can count in PvP, and sometimes PvP. It’s one of the main reasons I love these runes, and you probably will too. If you don’t want these however, Superior Runes of the Pack are a great alternate choice.

When you’re all geared up, you should have High Armor for a cloth wearer, 30,000+ Health, and 2,400+ or more Power.

Weapons

Dagger and Dagger, with Staff. The main choice for this build, but Axe and Scepter is also a viable choice. Your sustain will be lower, but you’ll be ranged and have a little more room to work and aim.

Main Hand Dagger
Skill 1 - I slash my knife back and forth! I slash my knife back and forth!

Skill 2 - Slurpy McBloodmunch. This is a great skill in my view, only really shining in duels or small scale combat. Make SURE you are facing your targeting, and have about 10 feet in front of you before you start channeling. If they are at your sides, or dodge behind you, it will do nothing and go on cooldown. Dodge backwards, then use.

Skill 3 - Stop right there, criminal scum! Another great skill. A 3 second immobilize? Yes please. Land it, drop your wells, tumble back and use skill 2. Profit.

Off Hand Dagger
Skill 4 - This skill is the our primary means of condition removal, outside of Staff 4 and [color=#b1dcf3]Consume Conditions[/color]. Sometimes I’ll even stand in AoE, or condition applications just to toss this over to my enemy. On top of that, it applies a blind. So, uh, victory.

Skill 5 - Weakness and more Bleeds. I also use this whenever it’s up basically. You’ll never really be able to time when or what someone will dodge, so keeping Weakness on them is good.

Staff
Skill 1 - Pedohand. Grab dat butt. Also good for fondling wild Jadons.

Skill 2 - A large, unblockable AoE Bleed and Regeneration Applicator. With lower cooldowns and the increased size, this is a great siege tool. It’s not a lot of bleeds, but it can be constant, and in a zerg, giving Regen to 5 allies is always good. Look at you being a crappy Guardian for a split second. Go us!

Skill 3 - Chill! This is my, “Oh, you think you’re getting away? That’s cute. Here, have some cold,” skill. Great for locking people down for Well spam or catching a runner.

Skill 4 - Sometimes our Deathly Swarm or Consume Conditions will all be down at the same time! ?_?
It’s okay! You’ll be under some serious pressure on occasion. This is your last hope. This skill will strip the conditions from you once it’s activated. Make sure you’re in range!

Skill 5 - BOO! Yeah it fears. Lots of applications. You’ll figure it out! Caiden believes in you.

Traits

Spite:
Alriiiiiight! Power build! We’re going to hit things hard and consistently. So for Spite, we’re going to stick 10 points in. Wait, what? Yeah, at first 10 Points in Spite doesn’t seem like something a power build would do, but this more tanky than offensive. Juggermancer, juggernaut? Get it? Right. So 10 points.

Pick up V: Spiteful Spirit for some damage return when you flip into Death Shroud. Not a crucial trait, so feel free to swap it out for something you prefer.

If you’re using Signet of Vampirism, pick up Signet Mastery instead.

Curses:
Zero! That’s right. None. You will have less critical hit chance than a redneck has teeth. Don’t need it for this build. Don’t get it. Moving on!

“But…but Caiden, Curses is where you get ground targetting Wells. That’s like, the most important thing in a well build! Uguu!~

You’re half right. Yes, in any Power well build, Focused Rituals is a huge must have. However with this build, you need to consider yourself a ‘melee’ class. You’ve got more HP than most people, more armor, high sustain and more. Our wells are PBAoE’s in this style of play. It’s highly important to focus on your positioning. If you do it right, it can but just as effective.

Death Magic
Huzzah, toughness! Definitely a must have for this build. This will give you the armor you need to deal with spike damage, and to give you a lot of breathing room for positioning yourself, and waiting for good Well timing. Finding a crucial moment immobilize your enemy, or lock them down so you can slam Well’s on top of them is extremely important for being successful with this build. So the more time we have, the better.

Trait Line
IV: Ritual of Protection -> V: Staff Mastery -> VII: Greater Marks

Ritual of Protection is important. Definitely keep that. However Staff Mastery and Greater Marks are what I prefer. Yes, having your marks be unblockable and huge is very helpful, and lowering the cooldowns allows you for more CC, Regen applications and Condition stripping, this builds main weapon will be coming from Daggers in 1 v 1’s and PvE. So, if you find yourself wanting something else, take it, otherwise I suggest these.

Blood Magic
Oh yes, there will be blood.
Unlike most builds, we’re going to be sticking 30 points into the believed-to-be-useless Blood line. Huzzah! The most obvious benefit of this is more Health. When fully buffed in WvW (food, Bloodlust, etc) you will be sitting with around 30,000 – 32,000 health. Is…is that 12k Meteor shower? Oh man, that’s impressive. Now cast two more to kill me. What’s that? 8k backstabs? Thanks for scratchin’ ma itch, bro!

Trait Line:
II: Bloodthirst -> VIII: Ritual Mastery -> XII: Vampiric Rituals

I’m going to say this upfront, these are the traits I choose. However there are other very good traits in this line that this build can make use of. The supportive VI: Transfusion can heal allies for anywhere from 3,000 health to 6,000 health depending on how much Healing you have. As a support skill, dealing damage while healing allies in a Zerg or while Roaming is very helpful, and efficient.

There is also I: Dagger Mastery which will allow you to cast your dagger skills anywhere from 3 to 5 seconds sooner. Definitely helpful, but I find Bloodthirst more synergistic with my play style. So Dagger Mastery is great, 20% cooldowns brings our second sustain kill, Life Siphon, to about 9 seconds. Very handy. You can decide if it’s what you want

Vampiric Rituals will steal 60-70 HP per target per pulse, up to five, within all of your Well. Now at surface level this doesn’t really sound like a lot of healing. But let’s do some quick math. We’ll say you average 65 HP stolen per target per pulse. You dive into a group, and best case scenario hit 5 targets per pulse. 5 × 65 = 325 on the first pulse. Each well hits 5 times, so we multiply 325 by 5 to get 1625 per Well. We dropped two this fight, so you’re getting a net of about 3250 Health. That’s definitely enough to help you in a fight, PvP or PvE. One on one, not so much, but that’s what Life Siphon is for.

That’s it for traits! Let’s move on to gear. Stay with me, we’re halfway there.

Greetings ladies and gents!

Long time necro here, all the way from the start of the game. I’ve been reading these forums, following the top necromancer players, and all that this entire time.
Well I think it’s time I shared some of my own insights in this relatively downed state of the Necromancer attitude.

Now these builds are what ‘I’ use. They are tailored to my playstyle, rotation preference and similar. I provide these as a base idea for you all to take and run with. So read over them, and hopefully you’ll get some ideas. Comments? Go ahead! Share! I will check this daily to help with clarifying and providing what answers I can, if any.

I made these builds for one of the top WvW guilds on Tarnished Coast on their forums, so forgive me if the format doesn’t transfer well. I will post two of the most requested builds I get from people. Conditions and Power.

Let’s begin!

Time for a horrendously tanky Juggermancer build.
________________________________________________________________

Here is the build link, as requested.
The Juggermancer

Time for some Question and Answer, I think. Okay? Okay.

Q: What is this build?
A: This build is a juggermancer. What is that? It’s a high-power, high-defense build.

Q: Right, well, how do we know it works?
A: Every build I suggest outside of theory crafting will be from a minimum of a month or more of play in both PvE, PvP, and WvW.
May as well share my greatness, and all. Also, this is the build I currently run in WvW.

Q: Yeah but, why should we trust you?
A: I’ve been playing a Necromancer since Beta, through all the changes and patches. I have won a handful of public tournaments, as well as beaten some of the top major league players in duels. Take that as you will. I like to think I know what I’m talking about. But these builds are just for pointing people in a direction, not dictating function.

Q: Ah huh, sure. What are the pros and cons to this build then, smart guy?
A: Excellent question!
To start, my favorite thing about this build is the wiggle room. In most situations, you’ve got a lot of space to recover and soak damage for your mistakes, if any. However if you do lessen your mistakes during fights, it has great potential to scale upwards.

Q: Are you…going to answer the question?
A: ……Fine.

Pros:
- Tanky (Burst resistant and Condition Resistant)
- High Health (28,000 – 32,000)
- Effective AoE
- Great area denial and zone control
- Steady and reliable life gain
- Exceptional Zerg contribution, and staying power
- Good damage spike if landed properly
- Can fight with front line squads. (Warriors, guardians, etc)
- Good Condition management
- Protection gained from Wells, plus flipping conditions into boons makes you incredibly tanky
- You can actually kill and damage objects, like doors and such! For shame, Conditionmancer, for shame…
- Many more you’ll discover!

Cons:
- Low mobility (You’ve got the unreliable Dark Path, and…yeah, good luck!)
- Higher cooldown utilities
- Melee (Can suck in boss fights and zergs)
- Staff skills are mainly used for CC, Regen, and Condition management
- Extremely cooldown dependent in evenly skilled matches (It’s easy to miss you wells in 1v1, which leaves you open for a while)
- Wells offer great utility, but only if they land. Hit or miss.
- Slow (As all necros are if you don’t flip between Locust Signet and another utility when out of combat)
- No real stun breakers, but this is minor due to your tankyness.
- Items can be a kitten to get
- Flakey life force gain

Good Against
Thieves
Warriors
Rangers
Elementalists

Fine Against
Guardians
Necromancers
Engineers

Handicapped Against
Mesmers

That’s about it, from obvious standings! There will be more, obviously, as you play with the build, but from an outside perspective this should give you a nice first look.

Caiden Merlinus, Arbiter of Silverhold. Nicknamed; Wraith

Enjoy!

Keep in mind, as stated by the Devs a few times, Necromancers have the highest skill ceiling in the game. That said, when I PvP on my necro, I poop on thieves rather constantly. If you’re using a staff, trying not just spamming some of your marks on your target. I always place my fear one off to the side sometimes for key moments to bait them into. Chain that with a chill, a DS fear tap and my two well drops…nothing with less than 15k HP can survive for long.

You just have to practice! I do agree that thief burst is crazy high…but keep in mind, that’s what they are building for. They have little to no defense. Stealth is laughable with marks and Deathshroud life siphon.

-Caiden

“say for example, i want armor / weapon pieces with the soldier’s prefix.

main: power
minor: toughness, vitality

i can’t because there is no such prefix in PvE at the moment.
this is unacceptable."

Uhm, I hate to point out your illogical anger here, but if you want Power/Toughness/Vit on armor/weapons…the prefix is called Valkyrie. Takes literally 5 minutes of looking around to get the stats you want.

Head over to Frostgorge Sound! Fun zone, and even has a dragon encounter. That should change the pace a bit for you to head back to Orr later.

Vulish.9683:

Ezeriel.9574:

what total nonsense… guardians and warriors are playing in godmode… try playing a necro against a guardian and tell me that this game is in any way shape or form, balanced.

If you are a Necro and having problems shutting down a Guardian. You my friend, are completely complimenting this post.

I’m afraid I am going to have to agree here, and with this whole thread in general. I have beaten all classes, and been beaten by all classes; The Former more so than the later, on necromancer.

Caiden Merlinus of Tarnished Coast
Arbiter of The Silverhold Covenant
Creator of the Test of Purpose

Enjoy!

Hello ladies and gents!

Caiden Merlinus here from Tarnished coast. For a while I’ve always loved creating signatures and banners for my characters in all games. I also love doing it for my friends. Since this section is here, I figured, “Hey! Let’s see what people think!”
So here we go, my current GW2 character and his latest draft of Signature.
Note: All credit goes to the original artists for their work and pieces. I only use images I truly love and feel appropriate, and manipulate/paint with them as a base.

Enjoy, and please comment.

Greetings folks!

Caiden Merlinus of Tarnished Coast here! I’d like to add my view.

I’m sorry to say, OP and some others, but if you have people wiping on every single boss, just having to waypoint back before he resets so you can down them, then I am afraid you need more practice and planning. I’ve run every dungeon but one on explorable, and this has only happened maybe two or three times. And even in that situation, we never zerg the bosses. We wipe, reset, and try again as a group. It’s more effective and keeps the repair bill low.

As for WvW, sure I’ll give you that it can be a zerg fest at times. But there are plans and ways to stop reinforcements with commando groups for example, cut off supplies and apply pressure for distraction. Going in with one mind set will not work. However WvW is a topic for another time!

Back to Dungeons, don’t go in expecting you already know how to fight. You may, but not in this dungeon. Are you using Blinds and Controls to prevent the bosses moves from doing things? Where are your combo fields and what do they do? All sorts of things should be known before tackling these dungeons, designed to be difficult.

Practice, observe and learn. Just my view and opinion. Take from it what you will!