Guild Wars 2

Found a cool bug when testing vampirism rune on warrior. When the 6 bonus procs and you become mist, the warrior burst skill is replaced by arcing slice (gs burst skill) regardless of the weapon you have equipped. You can then use this arcing slice while still invulnerable and it will deal damage. Was hammer/longbow at the time, and the same thing happened from either weapon being equipped when the rune proc occurred.

Zone: Heart of the Mists and any pvp map
To reproduce:
1. Equip vampirism rune on warrior
2. Fall below 20% and proc vampirism

Screen attached

Hi

I’m looking for a team that plans to be competitive in the upcoming ToG and events to follow. I play D/D primarily and prefer that, but can also play fresh air or staff if it better suits the team comp or matchup.

Win/Loss stats were not wiped when the leaderboard was reset some time ago. Following the reset, if you previously had played the necessary 11 games to show up on the leaderboard, you would reappear after a single game. Coupled with how the decay system works, this guy is probably 1-0 (or even 0-1) since reset and jumped to the top thanks to his months of decay.

can i use rabbit finisher

Zephyr’s Focus (Air Magic trait II)
Cone of Cold (Dagger Water skill #2)

Zephyr’s Focus grants an extra 100% endurance regeneration while channeling a skill. When channeling begins, a buff is granted with a 10 second duration. For other channeled skills (Drake’s Breath, Ether Renewal, Arc Lightning, Churning Earth, Meteor Shower) the buff is removed at the end of the channel regardless of any remaining duration. But with Cone of Cold the buff is not removed, resulting in an extra 7+ seconds of double endurance.

Massive skill delay/teleporting/general lag just now on temple, server ip is 64.25.38.104:0

Acandis.3250:

Please reply with the following information:

• Would you be willing to participate (y/n)?

Yes

• If yes, how much would you be willing to pay to enter (5/10)?

10 cuz #esports

• Do you have a team (y/n)?

no

• If no, would such an event create incentive for you to find a team to compete with (y/n)?

yes

• What region do you play on (NA/EU)?

NA

I don’t think chill should affect attunement cooldowns

I definitely had a few rough games tonight, but those are largely my own fault rather than that of the class. I overextend a lot and get punished for it, and I tank a lot of things that I shouldn’t. I also played a lot of games in which I wasn’t constantly lying on the floor and instead winning teamfights. So is it really that eles are weak, or are the players (including myself) not good enough yet? I lean toward the latter as I see so many flaws in my own gameplay, but still find myself winning matches because the things that I am doing are not at all weak.

As for roles we can certainly be a burstier dps with scepter, or more of a bruiser with dagger. To survive better work more on positioning, picking your spots to go in, dodging well, optimizing your defensive cooldowns, etc.

This post is weird because I am 12-1 with 3 eles on my team.

Arcane Wave buff is insane. Ranged instant-cast immobs with elemental surge again, only this time you get the damage too!

brb doing fractals until I get the skins I want.

On a more serious note I don’t have a huge problem with this. If PvErs can bring their fractal skins to the mists, maybe more of them will try out PvP.

The MMR reset was still very recent, so more games need to be played for the system to get players to their true MMR. Right now the matchmaking is creating balanced teams based on MMR, but the skill levels may not align correctly resulting in unbalanced matches.

Diamond skin is incredibly broken and if it manages to get through (please no) it’s a huge buff to eles. Even without that, the current iterations of Fresh Air burst and tankier D/D are mostly being held back by S/D thief and hammer/longbow warrior. Both of those are receiving nerfs, which is the best buff eles could really get. Ele has never needed buffs, only the overpowered classes to be brought down. Of course Fresh Air is pretty broken from a balance perspective, and may finally be picked up by Anet’s nerf radar. Overall a great patch for eles, and again please no diamond skin.

The trait is completely broken. Nothing good can come from adding it to the game, for the many reasons brought up in this thread.

posthumecaver.6473:

I see there is good synergy there but how to go 20 high in the Earth, I have to give up from Water and Arcane, which is so difficult

20 in earth is definitely worth it. You get stone splinters for +10% damage along with rock solid which has so many great applications beyond the clear synergy with ether renewal. I have been running this build for the last few months to great success: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2BJ-U0v4-N-Z0;9;5JJ-T;159-57;245A5w0;3CoF2CoF26BW .

If you don’t feel comfortable without points in water you can move the points from air to water and make up the loss of precision with signet of fire and/or pack runes. You will lose a lot of damage from the loss of air traits and crit damage, so I can’t guarantee it would work out too well. Once you get used to playing without the points in water you won’t even notice a loss in survivability.

Aura’s and for ex RTL also is instant do you think clicking them will interrupt the cast?

I’ve never tried hitting RtL during ether renewal, but auras will not interrupt the channel.

Rock solid with ether renewal is really strong in these matchups. Still hard fights, but you can definitely win if you play well.

Some key things to dodge in each of them:

Ranger: Storm spirit active, wolf kd, wolf fear. River drake breath if they have it, or drakehound kd. Cleansing burning and poison is good. You can cleave down the spirits with fire skills and lightning whip. Make sure to dodge the death procs especially on storm spirit.

Necro: Reaper’s mark is the big one that you have control over. Flesh golem charge if they have it. Sometimes you can bait Doom with a CC, then stability/random dodge it, but that isn’t something that can be counted on. Cleanse large bleed stacks, with poison and chill if possible. Kiting away and LoSing during spectral armor can help depending on how the fight is going. If you know you can kill them before their shroud recharges do it.

Engi: Freeze grenade, poison grenade, big ol’ bomb, concussion bomb, supply crate. Cleansing incendiary powder procs immediately will help a lot. If you tank concussion bomb by mistake either cleanse confusion immediately or LoS for the duration. Don’t stand in fire bomb.

Obviously a real-time fight is going to be a bit more complex, but hopefully a few of these tips can help. Also yes, ether renewal will be interrupted by a dodge roll. You can still use instant-cast skills during the channel, such as lightning flashing away to not get interrupted.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Iksargo.2640:

Here is the correct link for my d/d build NO OFFENSE TO YOUR GLORIOUS ELE PLAY OSTRICH.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2BJ-U0v4-N-Z0;9;5JJ-T;159-57;245A5w0;3CoF2CoF26BW

I’d like to try out your build, especially as it’ll get slightly buffed with upcomming bug fixes/ balance changes. Could I ask for some tips? How should I play with it, as in, should I burst and run, or try to overlast my opponent, and should I favor team playing or dueling, etc.

I sent you a pm

I am 8-0 in games with three eles on my team

Amazing idea Ken

Lux.7169:

snip

I suppose I should clarify my statements as well. I am not against rewarding players in general, but I am against rewards based off of rank on the current leaderboard. Let’s give a reward to everyone that played their qualifying matches in the current system. Great idea; I love it. But rewarding some players more than others for being “higher ranked” in a broken system makes no sense to me.

I will list what seem to be the common arguments in favor of rewards and then attempt to debunk them.

1) “The leaderboard and matchmaking actually work great, so we should be rewarded for being at the top of this legitimate system.”

If you think that the above statement is true then you have not played enough games, especially at the top. This is not intended to insult anyone, it is simply how it is. The more games that you play in the top 100ish, the more you will see how poorly the system works. Other things damaging the integrity of the system are obviously sync queuers and afk climbers.

2) “Rewards were given for QPs, and the QP system was at least as broken as the current leaderboards, so we should be rewarded.”

The problem with this argument is that it is effectively saying “Anet made a mistake giving rewards for QPs, so they should make another mistake and give us rewards too.” It sounds pretty silly when you look at it like that; wouldn’t you prefer that Anet learned from their mistakes rather than repeat them?

3) “There are plenty of legitimate players at the top that deserve rewards.”

The problem with this argument is something I touched on in my previous post. Even the legitimate players have reaped the benefits of the flawed system. They may not be trying to, but that doesn’t change the stacked teams/unbalanced games that we all benefited from. I remember a lovely set of 10 games in a row that I had the exact same team of five top25 ranked players against five players not on leaderboards at all. The point is that even the legitimate players have had their matches tainted by the flawed system, so no one truly has a “legitimate” rating and as a result rewards cannot be given.

If I missed any pro-rewards arguments please let me know so I can respond to them.

What is the point of the accelerated decay system if it still disappears with the next game played (See NA solo queue rank 1)?

Obviously a great start, but the other half has always been the real problem.

This thread seems to be more active than the other one so I will just repost my thoughts on why rewards should not be given.

The system is too flawed for the leaderboards to mean anything, so how could any rewards be given based on placement? Here are a few big reasons why leaderboards are meaningless/flawed/irrelevant:

1) Flawed matchmaking. I remember a period of a couple hundred games where I could count the number of real games that were played on my hands (less than 10, or 5%). Why should I be rewarded for winning games that I could win with no weapons? You can lose every single real, balanced game and it won’t even be noticeable with the sheer quantity of farming stacked games. You can further take advantage by friending people in the top50/100 and only queuing when there are a handful of them queuing. Obviously this is quite similar to “syncing” and reserved for terrible people, but it also happens incidentally depending on the hours that you play. This is pretty common even in primetime if some people are already in matches while others are queuing.

2) Decay(?). It has been proven multiple times that a great way to climb the leaderboards is to afk for a couple of months, then come back and play one game. Winning or losing the game is largely irrelevant; you will go up in rank either way. The system rewards not playing, so how can the leaderboards mean anything?

3) We can’t forget about glorious sync queuers.

tl;dr Many people hate sync queuers and afk climbers, but the truth is everyone’s leaderboard rank is just as tainted by the terrible matchmaking system that is currently in place. If no one has a legitimate leaderboard rank, no rewards can be given

I have been against this for the longest time. The system is too flawed for the leaderboards to mean anything, so how could any rewards be given based on placement? Here are a few big reasons why leaderboards are meaningless/flawed/irrelevant:

1) Flawed matchmaking. I remember a period of a couple hundred games where I could count the number of real games that were played on my hands (less than 10, or 5%). Why should I be rewarded for winning games that I could win with no weapons? You can lose every single real, balanced game and it won’t even be noticeable with the sheer quantity of farming stacked games. You can further take advantage by friending people in the top50/100 and only queuing when there are a handful of them queuing. Obviously this is quite similar to “syncing” and reserved for terrible people, but it also happens incidentally depending on the hours that you play. This is pretty common even in primetime if some people are already in matches while others are queuing.

2) Decay(?). It has been proven multiple times that a great way to climb the leaderboards is to afk for a couple of months, then come back and play one game. Winning or losing the game is largely irrelevant; you will go up in rank either way. The system rewards not playing, so how can the leaderboards mean anything?

3) We can’t forget about glorious sync queuers.

tl;dr Many people hate sync queuers and afk climbers, but the truth is everyone’s leaderboard rank is just as tainted by the terrible matchmaking system that is currently in place. If no one has a legitimate leaderboard rank, no rewards can be given.

Justin ODell.9517:

For more context, I’m interested in improving matches beyond just finding players near your MMR. This includes doing things like preferring a better spread of professions and builds, matching people with dishonor with other people with dishonor, grouping people by rank or play style, etc…

These things can sound like a good idea, but can also cause you to wait in the queue longer. I want to know much longer than typical MMR pairing you’d be willing to wait. We can compensate for that wait by doing things like shutting off extra filters if you’ve been waiting, or adjusting the scoring weight by wait time.

Solo queue will always be disorganized due to lack of voip or a better communication system (something like Smite’s voice hotkeys). In its current state I don’t think it’s worth sacrificing queue times to provide superior team comps that will still run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Of course if this can be implemented without adding more than a few minutes to current queue times that would be amazing and please do it. One issue is that some people will change classes/builds depending on the enemy team comp and it could end up just as random as it is already.

I think the most important thing to me is solidifying good matchmaking based on MMR because that doesn’t seem to be ideal yet. Of course this is hurt by flaws with low population/leaderboards/MMR.

Here is the correct link for my d/d build NO OFFENSE TO YOUR GLORIOUS ELE PLAY OSTRICH.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;2BJ-U0v4-N-Z0;9;5JJ-T;159-57;245A5w0;3CoF2CoF26BW

JonPeters.5630:

Summation of high risk concerns for elementalist.
Diamond Skin

I can’t see this trait being good for the game at any health threshold. A complete immunity as a passive effect is crazy. We have seen the terror that is Berserker Stance, but at least that has a large cooldown attached. Something like this is always there (given the parameters are met of course), and there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about it looking from the perspective of condi classes. Sure your teammate can run over there and sneeze on the ele allowing you to apply your conditions, but how is he going to get to that ele in the first place? He can’t be chilled/crippled/immobed, so he can casually kite around, use some defensive cooldowns, maybe get some additional peels from his teammates, and if all else fails he can heal back above the threshold. Maybe a ranged attack would get the job done instead, but a lot of projectiles can be unreliable and focus offhand has some nice tools on top of that. Something like mesmer greatsword looks like a great option against this, but that doesn’t change the fact that this trait is a hard counter against condis.

Taking the existing Fresh Air build and adding this trait looks like a true nightmare. Swirling Winds and Magnetic Wave are great tools to keep those pesky projectiles from lowering your health. Gale and Freezing Gust will help kite melee foes. This is in addition to the two blinds from scepter, and of course the glorious Obsidian Flesh. All of this comes with that lovely condi immunity and massive burst potential. 25 Earth gives even more damage on top of the previous 0/30/10/0/30, which could already 100-0 squishy targets.

*tl;dr Yes you can deal damage to the ele. Yes he can heal. There is certainly a lot of play surrounding the health threshold, but none of that play involves the condi classes. They just get to sit and wait hoping for a chance to play the game. Most of my discussion was also in regards to teamfights, but what happens if the ele engages the condi class in a 1v1? Hard counters are generally unhealthy in games, and this trait is no different.

Aquamancer’s Alacrity
Cleansing Wave

I agree that cleansing wave is borderline master-tier. I can also see the power of aquamancer’s alacrity, mostly for staff builds. So in a vacuum I could agree with moving both of them to master tier. The problem is the remaining traits available in the adept tier. Vital Striking has always been the clear choice for burst builds, but if I am trying to make a tankier/support build with points in water, there is no longer a trait that I want at adept. The only one with any potential is Soothing Disruption, but that requires me to bring a lot of sub-par cantrips. For this reason I would hope that one of these two traits remains at adept, or some of the other water adept traits get revamped in this patch to provide at least one viable option for non-burst builds.

Soothing Disruption vs Cantrip Mastery

I think that with the current state of cantrips (massive cooldowns among other things), Cantrip Mastery is the trait I want more out of the two. Does that mean it should remain at master because it is more powerful? Or move down to adept to allow more options to cantrip builds? I could see it going either way, but I think that cantrips are pretty terrible right now and won’t be looking at a cantrip build regardless. I am planning to go more into detail about cantrips in another post that is in the works.

Arcana

Even as a D/D player, I 100% agree with the movement of both of these traits. Elemental Attunement is probably a grandmaster trait based on power level, and I could see Renewing Stamina potentially at grandmaster minor. I think a lot of people underestimate how absurd near perma-vigor is, and how easy it is for eles to trigger this even with little invesment into precision due to Arcane Fury. With that being said I don’t think Renewing Stamina can compete with Elemental Attunement for the master tier slot, and would prefer to see a weaker version remain at adept rather than lose the trait entirely. I think that the current version of the skill is too strong at adept, and doubling the ICD is probably fair. It would still be a lot better than other options existing at adept (arcane resurrection, final shielding).

*Before everyone leaps at my throat and brings up guardian/mesmer vigor traits, I would argue that those should be moved/increase ICD rather than leave the ele trait as is.

Finally I would like to thank Jon for taking the time to provide the reasoning behind these specific changes. The general overview of the class changes in the other thread was nice, but hearing the reasoning for each individual change is fantastic. Definitely something I would like to see more of in the future, although I understand it would be quite time consuming.

When you are getting lag/dcs in foefire make sure to do /ip and post the address in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/sPvP-MAJOR-Lag-D-Cs-on-Foefire . Will definitely help the team looking into the problem.

Just played another game on foefire full of disconnects, /ip shows 64.25.38.162:0

had 3 people including myself DC in a solo queue game just now. NA Servers and have only had this happen on foefire. I had games on all other maps tonight without any issues.

After activating the signet, the Aura of Restoration buff given by written in stone uses the heal values from PvE (202 + .1*healing) rather than PvP (168 + .08*healing). The tooltip shows the PvP values (168+.08 healing) which are correct for the behavior of the signet prior to activation.

Tested in mists with no other traits, no armor, empty weapon.
At 0 healing power: signet passive heals for 168 per spell. After using the signet, the buff provided by Written in Stone heals for 202 per spell.

At 798 healing power: signet passive heals for 232 per spell. After using the signet, the buff provided by Written in Stone heals for 282 per spell.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MajorLeagueGaming/videos

I played this build in solo queue during the trial weekend and went 6-1, although it was a slight variant with 15/15/15/15/10.

Written in Stone: Maintain the passive effects of signets when you activate them.
Signet of Restoration Passive: Grants health every time you cast a spell.

After activating the signet, the Aura of Restoration buff heals less per spell and does not scale with healing power.

Tested in pvp with no other traits, no armor, empty weapon.
At 0 healing power: signet passive heals for 168 per spell. After using the signet, the buff provided by Written in Stone heals for 150 per spell.

At 798 healing power: signet passive heals for 232 per spell. After using the signet, the buff provided by Written in Stone heals for 150 per spell.

QtVain.5803:

@ Cmc

I agree with a lot of what you said here. I hope I didn’t come across as saying “THIS IS THE PERFECT ELE BUILD NEW META!!!” I was hoping to provide something that I have had success with recently in solo and team queues to show that ele is not completely useless. I do agree that ele is outclassed in whatever roles we can fill, but someone who is a strong ele player and has less experience on other classes would probably have more success playing ele in the short run.

As for the flaws you pointed out:
Spirit Ranger is definitely a menace, and I don’t really have a good plan against them (obviously not ideal in this meta). It’s so difficult to fight them in melee range without something like berserker stance, so I will almost never engage a spirit ranger one on one.

S/D thief is always going to be a tough fight for D/D ele, but it’s certainly not unwinnable. It seems like a fairly skill-intensive matchup that is heavily favored for the other side.

Finally as you say Ether Renewal gives necros a nice window without any pressure on them, but I found Cleansing Fire+water cleanses not being enough condi removal. If I get melted by their condis I apply even less pressure as I lay on the ground.

On amulet choice: I have tried berserker amulet with D/D many times, but it’s extremely difficult to mitigate anything on top of the natural cleave damage taken in melee range. It does seem very good for S/D. Looking at valkyrie amulet next, the combination of toughness and healing power is great, but it doesn’t help our tiny health pool and is highly vulnerable to all of the condis. In the current meta I have found soldier amulet necessary to feel comfortable while keeping high power. There is a slight damage loss compared to valkyrie (~3-4%), but the extra 5.7k health is a huge boon.

I appreciate the input. There are certainly some flaws, but I think that the build is “viable” in the sense that you can win with it even though it may be outclassed on all fronts.

Peter Buch.8071:

You may have forgotten that elementalists can swap into water attunement while stunned and especially feared. That’s why healing ripple and the condition removal is so extremly strong, even stunchained you still have a chance to survive and if fearchained you have a chance to get rid of the fear. You partially solve this problem by getting rock solid, but you lose a lot of heal therefor. Water Traitline gives some nice vitality additionally and vitality is more useful than tenacity in the current condition meta.

Yep that whopping 1.5k heal is going to save you from a stunlock, and fear will always be the only condition on you so you can easily cleanse it. These scenarios do exist, but are much less common than would make for a good argument. By running soldier amulet I have more vitality than the more commonly seen s/d with valkyrie amulet and 20 in water, so there seems to be some confusion.

Peter Buch.8071:

Beside that, taking a look at your numbers I don’t quite buy it that this should be a dps build. Especially as you have very low crit chance and crit dmg and no Fresh Air (fresh air is a huge dps buff, I’d even say for ~15%).

Since you love Fresh Air so much, with 30 air and a valkyrie amulet/zerker jewel, you have the same 22% chance to crit that I do here. Unless you prefer berserker amulet, in which case you will have a 0% chance to crit as you lay dead on the ground. There is also a good amount of fury uptime between arcana 5 and pack runes. If you find that to be low, Zephyr’s Boon is an option over BttH for even more fury uptime. Finally, 2004 power is the maximum you will see in a build with zero points in the power tree, selecting primary stat of power on amulet, jewel, and runes. I suppose it does have less power than the 30/30/0/20/30 fresh air build.

Peter Buch.8071:

Yet you are in melee range, so decent players can kite you or just dodge your skills.

Lightning Whip has 300 range, which is twice as much as you see on other melee attacks (hundred blades et al). Certainly this is still not a ranged attack, but combining the gap closers (RtL, burning speed) and snares (water 3, earth swap, earth 2/3) with that 300 range makes it difficult to kite.

Peter Buch.8071:

In my opinion, it’s just not worth it to go for 20 points in air. 30 points in air is good due to Fresh Air, 10 points are good just to have som crit and bolt in the heart. Having 20 in air you just don’t gain anything superior.

First you complain about my crit chance being too low, then conclude that 10 in air (less crit chance) is good. Air 15 and air training are both solid damage traits as you may have seen in your fresh air builds.

BlackBeard.2873:

words

I’m not a huge fan of the air traits either, but with soldier amulet the extra precision and crit damage is actually a moderate damage boost (about 9% for 20 air vs 0 air, given zerker jewel+pack runes). Additionally the extra crit chance opens up a reasonable chance of bursting someone down with burning speed+firegrab. Air training is not bad considering that I am harassing with Lightning Whip a lot, and bolt to the heart is very good for finishing off low targets. Air 15 is better than you might expect; it has certainly surprised me. In teamfights I usually find myself training a priority target, and getting some extra pressure on air swap is a nice little bonus. Again not the best traits, but not terrible considering that the stats given by the traitline are so valuable to this build.

The previous version of this build I was running 0/0/25/15/30 but found myself needing a berserker amulet to pressure anyone. This obviously left me rather squishy even with extra toughness from traits and runes, making it more difficult to secure stomps and easier to be focused down. Had I taken a soldier amulet with that trait setup I doubt I could consistently pressure anyone and would be rather useless as a DPS. At that point I would be better off running a bunker build with Rock Solid, but that is much worse than a guardian and not really viable for competitive play. I have had success with a bunker setup at lower tiers, but it’s not something I would ever recommend.

I think a lot of people overrate the impact the water traits (cleanse and heal) have on team support because we have found ourselves running them for so long. One extra condi removal is rarely going to have a large impact, similar to the one 1.5k heal that is being lost. It’s just that the sheer number of heals we can give (dagger or scepter mainhand, cleansing wave, EA roll, water 15) stack up to give a nice little burst heal. I have found that sacrificing one of those heals is not a huge deal; it only becomes more apparent if you begin cutting others (focus offhand or less than 30 arcana) as well.

BlackBeard.2873:

other words

I don’t think ele needs any massive changes like those being suggested. The only reason that ele is not played in the current meta is because the big three (necro, spirit ranger, s/d thief) are flat out better. Once (if) those are brought back down to reality, s/d ele becomes the boogeyman once again. On the topic of making the Arcana tree less of a requirement, I will continue to take 30 arcana as long as three of the strongest traits exist there (elemental attunement, renewing stamina, evasive arcana). Increased boon duration on top of those is even more value to be had. To bring eles out of arcana those traits need to be brought down, but I think that would cause an even greater outrage in the community.

Greetings,

I was hoping to finish my guide before posting here, but this thread seems to have spiraled out of control today.

To start: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k33;0J0BJ-U0v4-N-Z0;9;5JJ-T;159-57;245A5w0;3F-03F-036BS

I will touch on a few things that have been incorrectly assumed.

1) This is a DPS build. 2k power, 22% crit with 25 crit damage, high fury uptime between arcana 5 and pack runes. Damage bonuses from earth VI, air VI and X.

2) Taking soldier amulet over valkyrie makes the loss of water heals largely unnoticeable to my own survivability. Obviously there is a small loss in party heals, but Rock Solid is on a completely different level power-wise. Note that you can still heal teammates with EA and dagger skills; the loss of water traits is less noticeable than you would think given how everyone thinks they are an absolute requirement to play ele (I also thought this for a long time).

3) The sustained damage that is done by Lightning Whip is absurd. I know the world has been caught up with scepter burst the last few months and has gotten used to terrible autoattacks, but if you move back to D/D perhaps it will brick back glorious memories. In addition to Lightning Whip, you have access to a reasonable burst combo between Burning Speed, Arcane Wave, Lightning Flash, and Firegrab.

4) Rock Solid is insane. Everyone sees the obvious synergy with Ether Renewal, but that is merely a bonus in this condi meta. If I have the opportunity to run signet heal in the future, there is no doubt in my mind that I will continue to run Rock Solid. This is an AOE 2.6s stability on a 10 second cooldown. A few of the many things opened up by this trait:

• Stomp everything. Soldier amulet with protection makes this build hard to bring down while stomping. Even if you are under pressure, you can give a teammate stability while they get the stomp.
• Rezzing in teamfights. When someone drops and 2-3 people go in for the rez, everyone has stability. No spectral wall/reaper’s mark/etc is going to stop this.
• Waltzing through area denial and allowing teammates to do so as well.

I will expand a lot more in my guide which should be up in the next day or two, and probably put up a forum post for it. Certainly any questions/comments are welcome here in the meantime.

EDIT: In regards to viability. Myself, Edge, and two other guys played together yesterday and today picking up whoever was available for a 5th. Comp that we have been trying is ele ele ranger engi X. We have been very successful against mid-tier opponents, and have found some difficulty with higher level teams. There have been some blowouts, but we have also had some close games. At this point it’s hard to say if it is due to the comp or our inexperience playing with each other, probably a bit of both. That being said I believe that this build is quite good, but it may not have a place in the meta given the level that other professions are at right now.

All games to be played on skyhammer?

Name: Cmc Cmc
Account Name: Iksargo.2640
Rank: 22

Pretty excited for this!

I don’t really think it’s possible with anything other than Thief. I cut off so much time with all of the shadowsteps and still finished with 0:00 on the clock.

How I spent my weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3GeI1ZHIlo

Formulating plans for the bomb room and magg room were the most fun. It was my first solo run, and it was a lot more interesting than rolling through with a full group, aside from the fact that mobs take an ungodly amount of time to whittle down by myself. By the end of the dungeon I had played with every weapon set and had attempted to use every utility skill for something useful, though some flopped horribly (lol tripwire). I probably swapped skills and traits more than I had since release; looking for the right combination of utility for each encounter instead of just being able to maximize offense and mitigate all damage with dodges. I would love to see more dungeons requiring more in-depth planning or having access to more niche skills instead of always LoS pull->Wall of Reflection->roll face on keyboard->loot.

I would highly recommend dungeon solos to anyone that is looking for a change of pace from “LF3M FULL ZERK WARRIORS MUST PING GEAR ONLY ASCENDED TRINKETS AND 10% POTS 2HR RUN”, although that is certainly more profitable than hemorrhaging money at the repair anvil.

http://youtu.be/o3GeI1ZHIlo

CoF path 2 with thief

Pull him as far as you can to one side and repeat until he attacks the villager on the opposite side. It may take a few cycles, but you should have plenty of time to get the shield off. Most fractal groups leave him in the middle to give them enough time regardless of the chosen villager, but with a single person you really need to play the extremes.

Also that reaper of grenth is awesome.