Guild Wars 2

Good evening,

I’m returning to the game from a break I took just after the release of HoT. I main a Mesmer, and I’m having some trouble getting back into things.

I’m trying to unlock the Chronomancer specialization, but I don’t have enough hero points to even unlock the trait line, not to mention each individual trait. Is there a faster way to get the points than to slog through the HoT maps? I can’t say I’m a huge fan of verdant brink so far. I much prefer doing dungeons and fractals, but I would like to unlock the elite specialization.

Is there a way to get more transmutation shards besides the gem store? I ran out and I’m stuck with an appearance that I’m not too fond of, but the gold to gem conversation ratio is a bit too high for me to afford.

These are my primary complaints, I’m just feeling a bit lost at the moment. I’d be extremely grateful if anyone could offer some pointers!

Greetings!
I have just recently got back into GW2 with the release of the second season living story and I’m looking for some friendly people to chat/adventure with. I am fairly active, but due to real life commitments, I’m not able to commit to being online during certain times. If any guilds that meet the above criteria are looking to recruit, please send a message to Esta.9645 in game.
Cheers!

Hey guys, I’m leveling up my Mesmer and I have a question regarding AoE capabilities. My Mesmer is currently only level 23, but I’m experiencing some difficulty when it comes to quickly completing hearts or earning gold on events. My Elementalist, level 25, has no trouble taking down groups of foes. However, since illusions disappear when your target dies, I seem to only be able to fight one enemy at a time when playing my Mesmer. I’m using a greatsword and sword/focus as my weapon set. My strategy has been to use the berserker, then spawn two clones and shatter them. From there I will finish my target off with the sword. This works great for single targets, but if I’m fighting a group of foes, then the others often have half of their health remaining.

Is this an issue due to my lack of experience and skill with the Mesmer, or is it a weakness of the profession? What could I do to improve my AoE capabilities? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Greetings! I have a broad question regarding the sword on the thief— how is the damage? It always seems to take me significantly longer to kill mobs in the open world when I’m using my thief’s sword as opposed to when I’m playing my ranger and using a S/W build. Is this the case for other thieves as well? The impression I got from reading the ranger forums is that thief damage should be superior at the cost of survivability, yet my ranger does greater damage and has a much easier time surviving

Very well, I will take this all into consideration. Blaine Tog, thank you so much for that thorough overview! I’m going to sit back a bit and reevaluate what I’m looking for in a profession, and if I decide to stay with the ele, I’ll definitely be taking a shot at some of those builds. Once again, thank you all!

Thank you all for your replies, but I just find warrior a bit too mindless. Seems like all you have to do is smash your face on your keyboard until things die

Greetings! I’ve recently gotten back into GW2 and, due to time constraints, only have the ability to really focus on one character. In guild wars 1 my main character was an elementalist, I loved the dps I could put out. In GW2, however, the profession feels like it plays much differently with attunement swapping and whatnot. I enjoy playing with either S/D or staff (perhaps I’ve simply been doing it wrong) but I can’t seem to get very strong damage in solo open world PvE. I’m only level kitten it’s possible that I simply don’t have the necessary traits yet.

So I come to ask all you knowledgeable elementalists— how is ele dps at level 80 in PvE (dungeons and open world)? I’m debating between my elementalist and my thief as my main character, any info to help make my decision would be greatly appreciated. BONUS: Could anyone recommend some good S/D or staff dps builds? Elementalist just seems to feel like more of a support profession with less of a focus on damage, whereas my thief feels like I can do some serious killing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you all so much for the replies. I’ve decided to change up my playstyle and weapon sets (I think I’ll try S/P instead of D/D) and just become a better player. I really love the feel of the thief, I just find the guardian too dull and easy to play. I believe the problems lies more with myself, and less with the profession. Though, as many of you have said, a guard is definitely easier to just pick up and play than a thief is.

Once again, thank you all for your suggestions! I’ll incorporate them into my play style and keep stabbing away as a thief.

Greetings! I’m a fairly new player leveling up my thief, who is level 47 now. Due to time constraints, I only have time to really focus on one character. The reason I chose a thief from the beginning was simply because the theme— I played an Assassin in guild wars 1 and I love the theme of it. I’ve visited this sub forum a time or two and always been greeted with doom and gloom about how terrible the thief profession is, but I always brushed it off as I seemed to do fine in PvE. Or so I thought until recently.

I was doing some hearts in Dredgehaunt Cliffs in a level 45 area, therefore I was down leveled. I was going around stabbing imps (I’m D/D currently) and taking them down at a reasonable rate, when suddenly a level 43 guardian runs up next to me and begins to pull 7 or 8 imps. He uses greatsword 2 (the whirling thing) and they all die. I was astounded— all this time I had thought guardians weren’t capable of any serious damage, after all, I thought thieves were the kings of dps! Alas, there was no way for me to keep up with the guardian. I always see a huge volume of guardians running around in the world, I see far more guardians than thieves. Perhaps there’s a reason for that?

So I come to ask you all this: Am I wasting my time leveling my thief, should I reroll guardian? Was it just a freak incident, or do guardians regularly outperform thieves at level 80? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Added a few more details

Stooperdale.3560:

If you really like the sword but don’t like stealth you could try a sword/pistol thief with access to smoke, shadowsteps, pistol whip.

If you haven’t played a sword ranger at all yet you should check out the animations. It could put you off the sword for life.

The ranger sword animations really don’t bother me that much. The auto attack is a little annoying, but I can deal with it.

Lots of good info here. So the consensus I’m getting here (correct me if I’m wrong) is that sword is best for damage, but dagger isn’t the greatest offhand. Do any of you run S/something in dungeons? If so, could you please recommend a build for me to try? Also, do you find that you’re able to survive well (I know it can be difficult at times to dodge using the sword auto attack) and dish out some damage? Right now I’m debating between a Ranger and a Thief because I like the “assassin” feel to it. I’m not a huge fan of the long bow. I can’t stand the short bow on the thief, and it’s only okay on the ranger. I enjoyed playing around with P/D for a while on my thief, but I found that I was easily out dpsed by most classes.

I sincerely apologize for all my unorganized and sometimes redundant questions, but I feel like I’m really close to choosing between Ranger and Thief!

Basically what I’m asking is how do Rangers compare to thieves in dungeons, especially when the pet inevitably goes down. An important thing I should mention is that I’m referring to a S/something Ranger and any type of Thief except D/D or D/P.

I really do appreciate all your replies, I’d love to get a few more!

Awesome guide! Really helped me out. He actually met me in game for a couple hours and took me through a variety of weapon sets and trait/skill set combos to find the one that worked just right for me, I’m MUCH better now! Really can’t say enough good things about this guy and his guide. I highly recommend it!

Thank you both for the replies, I’ll play around with stuff and find what works for me. Much appreciated!

Haha that makes sense, thank you very much for the info! At this point I really have my heart set on the gameplay of S/D and I’m just deciding on ranger or thief. Ranger seems to be able to put out more dps when the pet is up (and also seems more survivable, thieves feel super squishy), but from what you’ve said I would assume that thief S/D dps would probably be higher in a dungeon situation due to not having to rely on a pet. But that would mean that soloing in open world PvE a ranger would likely be able to put out more dps because the pet would be able to help, correct?

Ah, that makes sense. How would a S/D ranger fare in terms of dps vs, say, a Guardian or an Engineer? Are they still able to hit harder than them even with the pet being out of commission most of the time?

Greetings! I’ve been trying to recapture the feel of the GW1 Assassin and I feel that the ranger is the best class to do that with. The thief relies too much on stealth. I really enjoy the playstyle of S/D leveling up in solo PvE, but I worry that it won’t be viable in dungeons due to the ranger being relatively squishy. Have any of you more experienced Rangers had success with this? Any builds you could recommend?

Thank you all for the replies! I will change some traits around and play with a few new builds and see what happens. You all have given me the hope I needed. I guess I’ll just keep on going with the engineer and see what happens!

Greetings! I’m in the process of narrowing down what profession I want to use as my main character, due to time constraints I only realistically have time to make progress on one character. I keep hearing that engineers are in a great place PvP wise, which is great, but I’m more interested in PvE. How’s the damage compared to a ranger/guardian/thief at level 80? What can an engineer contribute to a dungeon group? Do you find that, when soloing level 80 content, mobs die at a relatively fast pace?

My engineer is currently level 27 and his damage is lackluster at best. I’m running a grenade build, and to be fair, I don’t have all the necessary traits unlocked yet. That being said, my guard can just blast things away with his greatsword. Similarly, my S/D ranger can do some serious damage as well.

I really do enjoy the engineer class, but I also want to be able to feel like I’m contributing at level 80. Any information all you expert engineers can provide would be much appreciated!

Thank you all for the replies! My biggest fear with the enginner is not being able to put out sufficient dps in dungeons and open world PvE at level 80. Many people I’ve talked to have said that they’re great in PvP, but PvE just isn’t really their cup of tea.

rogerwilko (Get Fuzzy reference?) mentioned a warrior or guardian , what separates an “okay” warr/guard from a “great” warr/guard? From my very limited experience, they seem to be the easiest to play (and thus I see very many of them running around) because they wear the heaviest armor and can just spam 2 on their greatsword and everything dies. I don’t mean to come across as argumentative, I’m genuinely curious to hear other perspectives!

I played a mesmer for a while, but I seem to struggle to handle multiple foes at the same time and do enough damage. I can detonate my clones doing a substantial amount, but then I have to wait a while and dance around the enemy before I can do it again. Mesmer dps seems to be more “burst and run,” so to speak. Once again, please correct me if I’m wrong!

I’ve been toying around with a S/D ranger and enjoying it so far. It kind of gives the same feel as the assassin from the original GW, but I don’t particularly enjoy the pet. I haven’t tried it yet in dungeons, but I fear it won’t be as viable due to how hard enemies hit in dungeons. In addition, I don’t feel as though there are very many skills to utilize. I use flame trap for a decent AoE, then the rest of my utility skills are just filled with signets.

Please keep the information coming! I really do appreciate all your replies, you all are really helping me out.

Greetings! I have played this game on and off since release and loved every minute of it, it’s been an absolute blast! That being said, I’ve never reached level 80. My highest level character is 50. This is due to my inability to stick with one class for long periods of time, and it’s starting to really hinder my ability to enjoy the game

What I’m looking for:
— High end dps with high uptime. I’m not a fan of huge backstab crits then waiting a minute before I can do any damage.
— Not completely mindless (Relative amount of skill required). My warrior can do insane dps with 100b in PvE situations, but it gets boring just running up to stuff and pressing 2 and watching them die.
— Competitive in both PvE and PvP. I plan on doing both at 80, and I keep hearing that warriors are gods of PvE but are absolutely terrible at PvP. I don’t want to be shut out from parts of the game due to my class choice.

That’s basically it. Currently I’ve been messing around with an engineer (level 27) and necro (level 36) and have been enjoying them both. My necro seems to be capable of some serious damage right now, but my engi is much more versatile. However, the engi also takes about twice as long to kill things with a P/P build.

I loved the Assassin and Elementalist in Guild Wars 1, but unfortunately I can’t seem to find a similar replacement in GW2. The ele seems to have lost much of its dps and gained a great deal of support, and I don’t particularly enjoy attunement swapping with those huge cooldowns. I enjoyed the more upfront “swashbuckler” playstyle of the sin from GW1, I’m not a fan of the stealth nonsense of the current squishy thief.

I could go on and on about the various things I like and dislike about each class, but alas, I feel that I’ve rambled on enough! I can’t help but feel that there are niches not quite covered by the professions in GW2, and those niches are where I belong. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated, I just want to be able to stick with one character and experience everything GW2 has to offer!

Many thanks for reading this far
—

After playing around with it a bit more, I think I do prefer D/D to S/D. The comments I’ve seen here really have helped give me confidence though that things will improve at 80, I keep hearing eles talk about how important it is to have 30 points in the Arcana line, but I currently am not high enough level to do that. I think I’ll stick it out a bit longer and hopefully things will start to look up soon. Thank you all very much for your helpful responses!

Blaine Tog.8304:

I really prefer Scepter/Dagger. D/D has a lot of mobility and defense but S/D has a better overall toolkit, at least for PvE. It’s easier to kite with the extra range, plus you get better damage (Dragon’s Tooth + triple-hitting Pheonix + Fire Grab = win) and better damage mitigation (Earth 2 and 3, Air 3, Water 3). I still use the basic 0/10/0/30/20 + 10 somewhere, but I slot Glyph of Lesser Elementals in addition to the Glyph of Elementals elite skill and then stagger them to give myself a frontline to hide behind and limit the kiting I have to do.

It does get better, but open-world PvE isn’t really the Ele’s forte. We’re much better in other game modes, not so much for our DPS (which is only ok, by and large) but for the wide variety of options available to us at all times. Every profession can DPS, support, and control, but the Ele excels at doing all three all the time regardless of which weapon set or which utilities we’re using.

That said, Rangers are also really fun. If you have the time, I would suggest making one of those as well. They involve a lot of pet micromanagement but with the right trait setup, you can end up having your pet tank (and murder) pretty much everything for you while you ping away at range. My ranger runs cats and a 0/30/10/0/30 setup with pretty much all pet-related traits (Carnivorous Appetite being the notable star of the build since it essentially makes cats harder to kill than bears). It is absolutely hilarious how hard my Stalker hits.

Awesome, thank you very much for the advice. I’ll try my hand at scepter and see what happens, I’ll also keep toying around with the ranger. Once again, thank you!

Hello everyone! I recently picked GW2 back up after a few months off and decided to try to pick up where I left off with my level 40 ele. I’ve been trying to follow daphoenix’s D/D guide, but getting frustrated due to my seemingly slow kill speed. Guardians, thiefs, and warriors seem to just slice through hordes of enemies while I have to carefully dance around and jump in and out of attunements to kill anything. Discouraged by this, I jumped on my S/D ranger (also level 40) and was having moderate success; nothing like the aforementioned professions were doing, but I was having a much easier time dispatching large groups of enemies with relative ease.

I played an elementalist in guild wars 1 and I really enjoy the theme of the class. I did, however, prefer choosing one element and locking into it, but I think I could get used to switching around. My question to all you knowledgeable elementalists— does this get better at 80? I know rangers have a bad reputation in dungeons, something about a lack of sufficient damage. This makes me wonder if it’s something I’m doing wrong with my ele, currently my ranger is capable of doing far greater damage than my elementalist. I feel much more confident wading into a group of 5-6 enemies with my ranger, ready to throw down a flame trap and healing spring and start swinging my sword than I do with my elementalist, always trying to stay just out of range so I don’t get overrun.

I guess what I’m looking for is reassurance that it does get better and I will be able to out dps my ranger at level 80 when I become more skilled, right now it seems futile.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for that, really helped me out. Much appreciated!

I’ve narrowed down my class of choice to these two, but I can’t seem to make a final decision. What I would like to know is…

-Which class has better burst damage?
-What are the biggest drawbacks to each class?

That’s it! I think I can make a decision off of those two things. Thanks in advance

Sounds good, thanks for the advice.

Hey guys, trying to finally settle on a class to take to 80. I really like the “adventurer” feel of the engineer class, but I’m not a huge fan of the grenade kit. How is the damage with a rifle, can it compete with other classes? Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for the answers guys, I appreciate it.

I’ve played both and now I’m trying to decide which to take all the way to 80. I really like the damage of the thief, but I don’t like how easily I’m killed, especially in dungeons. Sometimes it seems like one AoE is enough to finish off my thief in a dungeon.

The mesmer looks interesting, and far more survivable than the thief due to illusions and being at a range. My question is how the damage compares— does the survivability come at a hit to damage, or can mesmers do comparable damage to thieves? Please help me decide between these two professions!