Guild Wars 2

TL;DR – NA server, Utility DPS Chrono + Tank/Healer Tempest looking for a guild with regular raids that will let me be a casual raider, as my work schedule changes week-to-week and so I wouldn’t be able to attend every raid. Raid time doesn’t really matter, inexperienced with GW2 raiding but fairly experienced with MMO raiding in general.

So, here’s my situation: I’ve wanted to raid in this game since it was announced. I started playing GW2 again before the expansion released so I could finish an Ascended set and find a raiding guild. When raids came out, I spent one night wiping on Vale Guardian as a tank (or healer, for a couple wipes) Tempest… and proceeded to never join another raid again. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I could never make it to my guild’s scheduled raids. Eventually I gave up on trying to raid, spent a couple more months enjoying other HoT content, and then took a break from GW2.

Now I’m back, guildless, and I want to raid again.

I’d like to join another raiding guild, but my work schedule is inconsistent week-to-week (and I’ll basically never be available on a Friday or Saturday night). So, while I’m looking for a guild with regularly scheduled raids that I can plan ahead for, I’d have to be in a B-group or a “fill” member, because there’s no way I’ll be able to regularly attend raids. On top of that, the only fight I’ve participated in is Vale Guardian (and I haven’t even beaten him yet), so guilds that are only raiding the current content or are looking for experienced raiders probably wouldn’t want me.

Any guilds out there with a spot for me?

So, I definitely want my Tempest to be a tank for raiding, but I want to be able to heal as well. However, I’d like to be able to swap roles mostly through swapping traits and weapons, not all my gear. Obviously I’ll have to make SOME changes to drop/raise my toughness as needed, but I’d like to keep most of my ascended gear on instead of having to carry around a set of exotics (no way in hell am I gonna have a second set of ascended gear any time soon).

Right now I’ve got Settler’s trinkets, Minstrel’s weapons, and a blend of Minstrel’s/Nomad’s/Cleric’s armor (I wanted full Trailblazer’s for tanking, but the stat change is still bugged). My gear’s not where I want it to be, but before I commit to buying/farming for insignias to stat change it all, I need to decide which stats.

So, what would you guys suggest? Could I still be an effective tank/healer with all the same armor and just swap weapons/trinkets? If so, what would work?

Looks like it hasn’t been fixed. My Trailblazer’s inscription still can’t be placed in the forge.

I’ve settled on Ele as my PvE main, and I’ve been trying to decide how exactly I want to build her for raids. I was thinking healer (Auramancer tempest), but this… this actually sounds amazing. Largely because it matches up perfectly with the only two ascended weapons I have (a scepter I crafted and The Northern Wind). I haven’t yet committed to making any gear other than that scepter, though (my ele is still in zerker exotics from forever ago and I have yet to even try to get into a raid) – but from what I’m seeing, Trailblazer’s is the way to go?

I’m in the same situation as what someone else mentioned – I don’t think I can afford the new stat items. Hell, for that matter, I don’t think I can afford a full set of ascended armor – even if I just stick to daily crafting and don’t buy ascended mats, it’s still going to take a very long time and probably drain my wallet to get a full set (I’m usually sitting around 150-175g).

The only reason I’m even thinking about raiding is that I keep hearing that for non-DPS roles, full ascended isn’t required (and I’m definitely able to get ascended weapons + trinkets). So would this build be okay with Rabid exotic armor/ascended trinkets and Trailblazer’s weapons? I’m sure I can afford to swap stats on my weapons, at the very least.

Yeah that was one of the main things I noticed – the longbow skills themselves don’t seem to be anything other than DPS and PvP control. Same with traps – traps aren’t really a PvE thing.

Before the expansion, I’d been planning for my Guardian to be a defensive/support/tank type of character for dungeons and fractals – basically, anything other than zerker DPS, because to be honest I already have two characters like that (Ele and Thief) and really don’t want a third.

At the same time though, Dragonhunter seems cool, I don’t play any classes that use longbows, and I like the idea of having a long-range weapon as my secondary.

Now I’m no Guardian expert – I basically got this one to 80 about 4 months ago, spent a week running dungeons/fractals, and then quit playing till the expansion – so I figure I’d ask here: would Dragonhunter have a place in a non-DPS PvE build? Something like:

Valor/Honor/Dragonhunter, Mace/Shield + Longbow. Fragments of Faith looks like a good trap, and then just whatever other utility is relevant (condi removal, barriers, projectile blocking, Feel My Wrath). Traits to focus on giving allies Aegis, getting good stuff when you block, and giving allies boons/clearing their conditions.

Or would it be best to stick with the old Staff + Mace/X type build if I’m not gonna go Greatsword DPS?

I actually didn’t even think about Ascended weapons… are those available any way besides crafting them yourself? I don’t mind leveling weaponsmithing, but I don’t really want to grind it up or spend money on it right now.

First things first, I’m dirt poor, so I think I’ll hit up Silverwastes and see what I can loot.

Brief backstory: Played the hell out of this game at launch, got a Mesmer to 80, played some alts, lost interest around the time Fractals and Ascended gear came out. I’ve returned many times, but I always either leveled alts, did PvP, or ran dungeons. I have no ascended gear, and in fact just ran my first ever fractal yesterday because it was part of the daily. I’ve got four 80s, and I think I’m going to stick with PvP on my Mesmer.

So, I think I want my Guardian to be my “PvE main,” and thus I want to deck her out in Ascended. She’s got full exotics now so I can definitely do most content, but the issue is I don’t know what content to do.

First things first, she’s a 447 Armorsmith, I’ve run out crafting mats, and have 35g and 2 laurels to my name. Where and how should I go about either farming the mats or the money needed to get her the rest of the way there?

Once I get to 500, then what? Should I just buy Ascended recipes as I can afford them? I notice as of the update that you can change Ascended gear stats by crafting the appropriate insignia – should I mess with that, or just straight-up craft what I want?

As for gear itself – Berserker’s seems to be the best for pretty much every class, but I don’t want to be a straight-up DPS Guardian – I was thinking I could go something tankier/supporty with a focus on burning. Liking Mace/Torch + Hammer with a Radiance/Virtues/Honor build, but I’m still tweaking traits. I’ve got Zerker exotics now but should I stick with that for Ascended?

tl;dr I’m a poor 447 armorsmith Guardian who’s run out of t6 mats, where/how do I farm mats/money to hit 500? And once I do, what’s the best way to go about making a full set of Ascended?

Okay, the title is basically just a pun and it’s still in testing, but I decided to try a Well/Shroud build on a whim and it was really, really fun.

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQCpAVoBHQ~

Weapons: Axe/Focus and Staff are what I’m using. I can see Dagger being useful over Axe for more siphoning and Dark Pact, but you lose the Life Force-gaining and boon-ripping of Axe. If you want to focus less on Shroud and more on healing, Dagger/Focus might be better.

Sigils: At least one Blood; the rest can be whatever (Air, Fire, Energy, Generosity, Hydromancy, whichever you like the most).

Rune: Vampirism seems best here.

Amulet: Can’t go wrong with Zerker, unless you want to be slightly harder to kill in exchange for doing less damage.

Heal: Well of Blood, full stop.

Utilities:
Well of Corruption
Spectral Grasp
Well of Power/Well of Darkness/Spectral Armor

WoC and Grasp are too good to pass up, but the third can be whatever you prefer – WoP or WoD for your team’s Well-being, or Spectral Armor for selfish defense + more life force. Note that if you take Well of Darkness, consider swapping Plague Sending for Chilling Darkness.

Elite: I like Lich Form for the teamfighting; Flesh Golem if you think you’ll be 1v1ing more.

So, basically, Wells are really fun with Vampiric Rituals. You become really, really hard to kill in teamfights, and I’ve secured so many capture points because I kept my allies allive. In 1v1 situations, you’re still a pretty big threat if someone encounters you while your Life Force bar is full.

I was originally trying to redo my pre-patch Shroud Crit build using Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping, but I decided to swap Spite with Blood Magic and I’ve grown fond of the spec. Give it a shot and let me know how it can be improved (especially with details like rune/sigil/amulet choice).

Edit: Typo, meant to say I dropped SPITE for Blood Magic, not Soul Reaping – build is Curses/SR/BM.

I was attempting a similar build – basically the only difference was that I took Harmonious Mantras and used mantra heal + mantra of distraction – but I just gave yours a spin and I like it a lot more. I don’t know why I didn’t think of Greatsword alongside S&P; I guess it didn’t occur to me that interrupting with a knockback is still an interrupt and gets all those benefits.

I’m still liking Mantra of Distraction though – an instant, targeted interrupt is pretty frickin’ awesome, and I rarely lose 1v1s largely thanks to it (especially now that mantras recharge in the background, so as long as you charged it more than 30s ago, you can charge it again immediately after using up the charges).

Master of Manipulation is good against heavy ranged too, but that’s the sort of thing you just switch out depending on the enemy team. That said, I think I’m going to toy around with having MoM as standard and seeing if the new Mimic is any good (alongside something like Arcane Thievery which normally isn’t that great – but on a 1s cooldown…).

Well, that’s kind of disappointing. I was hoping I could go Greatsword/Hammer while leveling and Hammer/Staff for groups, but if crits are the only viable build then I might have to try another class. I already have a Mesmer, Thief, Necro, and Elementalist who all use crit builds (though the Ele is staff and can swap between crit DPS and support – she’s the “.5” bit), and I rolled a Guardian thinking I could try something different.

Currently have a lv 52 Guardian, and as she was one of the only characters made after the trait rework, I gotta unlock ’em all.

But which ones should I shoot for first? While leveling I’m definitely putting everything in Zeal and Virtues, but for endgame I’m probably going to do PvE and I’ll likely go for a tanky power or support build. That said, I’d rather not roll with yet another crit-based build (already have 3.5 characters doing that) so I’m not sure if I want to invest time in unlocking Radiance and Valor traits.

Or, in other words: For PvE, what are the go-to traits in Zeal, Honor, and Virtues that I should try to unlock ASAP?

Thinking about jumping back on my Necro and leveling him up (currently level 37), maybe do some PvP with him, but I don’t know how I want to play him.

Initially I wanted to do a condition build, but that’s tied so closely to crits on a Necro, and frankly I don’t want another crit-build character – I already have a Shattercrit Mesmer (who I rarely play), D/F elementalist, and D/D thief all at 80 and all specced for Precision/Ferocity. I also have a Guardian I’m leveling (currently 49), and while I’m not sure what build I’ll use for her, I do know I really like Greatsword/Staff and will try to avoid the precision/ferocity trait lines.

Anyway, back to my necro – aside from the crit-condition dilemma, my other thought was a Death Shroud build, but that seems to have two problems: One, it’s apparently a PvP-centric build and I’m currently focused on leveling him first; two, the Soul Reaping trait line that buffs Death Shroud is also tied heavily to crits.

The only other option I can think of is Minion Master, and while I initially didn’t want to bother with that, I might just go for it anyway.

tl;dr I want to play a Necro but don’t want to use a crit-based build. What are my options for PvE (leveling now, maybe fractals later) and sPvP?

I just switched my Elementalist from Carrion to Berserker gear. But I don’t want to get rid of the Carrion gear in case I decide to switch back. But it’s also taking up 6 slots to keep that gear in my bank or inventory.

My suggestion: If you have 6 pieces of gear from the same set, you should be able to combine it into a box – just like the current “Box of <Set> Armor” that crafting professions can make, but instead of making a box out of the combined amount of raw materials needed for the set, you make the box out of the 6 completed pieces of armor.

It could either be implemented as crafting recipes for the respective armor crafting professions, or put in a consumable item that will let anyone turn 6 pieces of set armor into a box. And of course, if any one piece of armor used to make the box is soul/account bound, the box will be too.

Haven’t really given much attention to my Mesmer lately – he was my first character, but when I got him to 80 I decided I didn’t really care for PvE and that I’d make him my PvP character… but I haven’t even done that very much; I’m only rank 9.

I do remember that I liked having a confusion build in PvE, but then switched to a shatter crit build for PvP. But I got bored with that, and I want to know if confusion builds are viable in sPvP, and if so, what’s a good starting point for one?

The artificer bench is actually a woodworking bench. It looks like an artificer bench and it’s right behind the artificing trainer (and there’s a minimap icon for an artificing workstation), but it’s all woodworker stuff.

Lots o’ text here, but I tried to format it into a list to make things easier, so here we go.

I’ve got an 80 Mesmer (first character, pretty much just use him for PvP now) and an 80 Thief (just hit 80 yesterday and I consider her my PvE main). I like my Shatterburst build for PvP (though I don’t PvP often), and I love playing my Thief with a D/D crit build – dodging a lot, crit backstabs, lots of mobility. Fun fun.

I have 8 character slots, and thanks to those nifty leveling scrolls, I have one character of every class at least at level 20 (though I haven’t necessarily played all of them to level 20).

Engineer (Played to ~10ish, then scrolled to 20)

- I like the idea of kits, being able to swap to many different “weapons” without having to get actual weapons or keep them in my inventory

- Grenade kit is pretty fun

- Flamethrower kit is pretty fun

- Pretty much nothing else about the class interests me at all besides those two kits

- As cool as grenades and flamethrowers look, combat with them is still rather slow and clunky (especially comparing to my Thief)

Necromancer (Played to 27)

- Like the idea of an AoE condition damage build

- Like the idea of being hard to kill despite being a cloth class

- At level 27, not feeling the above two points at all (my damage is decent, but I’m definitely squishy as hell and die easily when fighting more than 1-2 enemies)

- Not really interested in any builds besides AoE condition damage

Elementalist (Played to 30)

- Always a fan of fire-and-lightning mages

- Staff spells are pretty great

- Scepter/Dagger spells seem more powerful, but not quite as fun

- Don’t like the single weapon thing

- Don’t like how the trait trees all say “Stay in this attunement!” but actual combat says “Swap attunements all the time!”

- Entirely possible that I’m just not good enough at stance-dancing and knowing abilities to be good, but I’ve also heard quite a few people say that Elementalists are just weak overall

- Basically a case of “I don’t know why I’m not enjoying this class, because I should, and I want to – but I’m not”

Ranger (Played to 20 in beta weekends, have not played in live at all)

- Pretty enjoyable when I played one in beta, went with longbow

- Like the idea of being able to find cool pets

- Playing a pure ranged non-mage would be a nice change of pace from Thief/Mesmer

- Fear that it’d get boring quick just shooting arrows all the time

- Don’t see the appeal in using anything but a bow

Warrior (Played a bit in beta, have not played in live)

- Like the idea of being able to swap between a greatsword/hammer smashyface guy and a sword/shield tank on the fly

- All my other characters are light/medium armor, have yet to play a heavy armor class

- Not as flashy as classes like Elementalist, Thief, Mesmer

- Despite all the weapon choices, not really interested in any of them besides greatsword, hammer, rifle, and 1-hander/shield

Guardian (Have not played at all)

- Never really been interested in this class in the slightest, don’t know much about them other than they can be casters or warrior-ish, have lots of CC, and lots of boon abilities. Not interested in the flavor or aesthetic, not interested in the gameplay.

When I logged back in, I was booted to overflow.

Will I still get any kind of rewards, or did I just waste my time?

I’m getting these crashes as well. Came back to the game after a month or two, and suddenly it’s making my computer crash, seemingly at random.

AMD Phenom II X4 965
GeForce GTX 560
8 GB RAM

No other game makes my entire system crash like this, and GW2 never did this before I started playing again last week.

Just finished the story and got my bags. Gonna stash them in my bank till this is fixed.

Seriously, you’d think this would be something that someone would check. 5 Exotic-level loot bags giving level 20 blue gear, how the hell did that get missed?