Guild Wars 2

So, obal, opinions on the optimal raid dps guardian build? I’ve been running pretty much the standard meta PvE DH, but I’m finding Aegis nearly impossible to keep up with any sort of consistency due to all the stray hits that the Seekers cause. I really would like to see a different 20% modifier than wasn’t so reliant on Aegis. That is a different, more speculative conversation, though.

Obviously, Revenant and Engineer stacking are probably optimal in terms of comp. On Vale Guardian, I’ve had middling success with DH LB/GS, but I keep getting relegated to circles which hinders dps pretty significantly. I actually have ran a few pugs with the ascended viper/sinister burning build and found it to be pretty effective (it’s no Condi Engi, though.)

I am still trying to find a solid static group, though, as pugging has not been fruitful thus far… and, of course, I haven’t seen past the first boss, limiting my perspective. Fortunately, at the end of the day, if DPS is a problem, I can always switch to my revenant.

Currently, my main and secondary roles are Viper/Sinister Burn Guardian (Obviously I can also play Zerker DH LB/GS) and X/Herald Zerker Revenant respectively. I have a minimum of a full ascended berserker set for all 9 classes, but I am most proficient with the two classes above. If I had to pick a tertiary character, though, it would probably be Chronomancer or Ranger.

I am a long time (mostly retired) WoW/FFXIV raider and a veteran GW2 player (BWE1, Dungeon Master before it was cool, etc.) looking for a fairly mature late evening/late night (EST) guild that wants to learn and progress the raids as a team. My work schedule is Sunday-Wednesday and I usually arrive home by 11pm EST. Thurs-Saturday, though, my schedule is fairly open (favoring evening/late night, still.) I can raid for a few hours (1-2) on my work days, but I don’t really have the willpower to raid for 4-5 hours on my already very long work days. However, my off days I can raid for quite awhile. Obviously, I know once things are on farm the time spent raiding will likely drop significantly.

Anyway, I am looking for like-minded group of people with the will, skill, and patient to work on this new content! Ideal raid times for me would be 2-4 hours on one of the days I’m off (Thurs/Fri/Sat)

Also, I am on Yak’s Bend, but I’m not too concerned with being a server native as I don’t WvW often! Responding here is preferable, but I am usually online if you want to get my attention!

Good QoL changes on the traps. I am still cautious about them being worthwhile in sPvP, but it is a good compromise.

To clarify, the wording of Fragments of Faith: “This ability is now instant and breaks stuns, as well as granting 3 stacks of stability for 5 seconds when triggered.” This does mean it will be a stun break, correct? Not “it breaks stun when triggered?” I just want to be sure.

I like the flavor of Hunter’s Verdict, I’m looking forward to getting to use it. The damage buff to Pure of Sight might give us enough reliable damage modifiers to compete with the other core specializations. I don’t think this will shift the meta away from GS/Mace+Torch, but it might provide an alternative that isn’t too far off.

However, I see no commentary on the really, really high opportunity cost of DH Virtues. I see their potential and understand the relative value of the skills compared to baseline guardian virtues. HOWEVER, the DH virtues almost completely invalidate the investment in the Virtues line. Many of those traits function so well only because they were usable inside of a stun/cc, etc.

That said, the Virtues line has almost reached the level that “Arcane” was with regards to guardian builds. Almost every single guardian build worth its salt is running Virtues. It’s really not a choice. As far as core Guardian changes go, I feel like this is one of the biggest opportunities.

I understand the lack of time to iterate, but I hope you guys keep these things in mind moving forward in to and after HoT goes live.

Thematically, I’m okay with the deviation. If the goal was to be a subclass, it doesn’t explicitly have to be an exaggeration of the Guardian features. However, most of the other classes have elite spec options that supplement the core abilities of the class in interesting ways. Unfortunately, DH really misses that mark. The traps are (as are all other traps really) flawed, the activation time makes them almost irrelevant, and the opportunity cost of running traps rather than meditations/shouts/consecrations (or some combination of the above) is just too high. The virtues are interesting, but after years of instant-cast, usable while CC’d, Virtue usage … being hamstrung in that way makes it very unlikely to see DH anywhere in the PvP meta. In open world PvE, DH has been fun and fairly effective. But, the damage contribution isn’t really sustainable like our other guardian (non-DH) builds will be. The control may prove valuable in some unforeseen content, but I can’t imagine some other class being able to do it better and with a lesser opportunity cost on potential throughput. I’ve posted my commentary in the feedback thread and, while I’m sure the devs read these posts, make sure you try to post there as constructively as you can.

Longbow, as a weapon, is a lot of fun. That said, some minor nuisances as well as some, in my opinion, lackluster design choices still remain.

LB#1: Feels about right, more responsive than scepter, like the flavor.

LB#2: I tend to agree about the rooting issue. The damage (particularly in PvP!) just does not justify being unable to move. In PvE, though, it is mostly workable. Let us use it more frequently, let us use it while moving, or give it more damage. Honestly, if you have the ability to do it, I think it would be an interesting design choice to be unrooted, but deal bonus damage (+30-50%) if you do not move for the entire cast. Not sure if you guys have the tech to do that at the moment, though.

LB#3: Interesting potential, tough to use well, I like the changes made with this BWE for this skill in particular. Unlike many of the others, I like the skill-shot element of the ability.

LB#4: Strong, unique Symbol, good range. This skill feels okay. Things that could improve it? Maybe, and this is crazy, make it something other than a light field.

LB#5: Flavorful, but awkward. The warding goes up at the end of the skill, which might allow too much counter play. I don’t know if you’ve played around with frontloading the damage, but that might be an interesting change.

Longbow Overall: If I could equip a longbow as a Guardian (read: without DH), I would love this weapon so much more. Having it tied to the elite spec leaves us an awkward place. It feels like a guardian weapon, but the DH doesn’t synergize with the rest of Guardian at all.

Dragonhunter is so far, for me, a disappointment. Objectively, I like the flavor – and I’ve reconciled the name – but, the implementation of the DH provides almost zero synergy with the baseline Guardian.

Firstly, the Virtues… each of them has a cast time. This means that, if we’re in capacitated for any reason… we can’t use our class ability. Guardian relies on that functionality to be… well, functional. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to use those abilities and not being able to because of the cast time. It seems unlikely, but if you could make it so the ability activates with baseline functionality if you’re stunned/CC’d, etc. Really, I’m not sure of a good way to do this, though, especially with such a tight deadline.

Spear of Justice: We are a few iterations in now and this ability feels better. I feel like the Justice buff needs to last longer, though. Given the cast time, being able to out range the tether, given how relatively easy it is to cast the ability and have it be eaten by the ground/a corner, I think a 10s duration on the Justice buff would be a good compromise.

Wings of Resolve: The range feels better, the effect feels strong, but again: the cast time kills it in the thick of a skirmish. Otherwise, fix the bug with the Absolute Resolution not working at the least.

Shield of Courage: I actually quite like this skill as it is. Broken record here, but the cast time prevents us from using the stun break on the skill when spec’d in to Virtues. This is baaaaad.

Traits

So, many posters have already said this, but: Where is the synergy? So many traits are devoted to DH related mechanics that making a build that compliments the Guardian is clunky at best, and not functional at worst. The opportunity cost for going in to DH is very, very high and, despite how fun LB is, the traits don’t provide enough yet.

Skills (Traps)

These skills, unfortunately, will rarely be used in pvp. Certainly not more than one at a time, anyway. Again: opportunity cost. We give up meditations? Less self-healing/fury/etc. We give up shouts? Less cleanse/boon coverage. The compromise would be to give the traps secondary effects and allow us to activate the trap early for the immediate benefit.

I will find a place to play DH, but it will likely not be in PvP. We MIGHT find a use for it in the raids if mechanics call for something our traps explicitly provide (elite trap is the only one that comes to mind.)

Overall, though, I’m underwhelmed. The other elite specs feel like more natural extensions of the class, whereas DH doesn’t quite fit the mold.

@Karl

These would be a great start and, really, those address my biggest complaints for Longbow. Now, I do tend to agree: Deflecting Shot could use some mechanical love like these other folks are recommending…

I would propose the effect have roughly the same speed as Staff #2 (same animation/travel path as Deflecting shot has currently) with 120 radius which deflects projectiles and punishes the attacker (a very brief 1s burn for each effective deflect.) There are some situations that you could punish say, a ranger who decides to Rapid Fire and gets a very large burst of burning damage, but otherwise it is fairly mild.

In my opinion, the current iteration, while certainly skillful, is severely lacking in equivalent reward. I’d like to see the delta between the two shift heavily into rewarding while still requiring good timing to truly shine. So, given the ability to construct moving combo fields on entities now (Berserker Warhorn, Revenant Hammer, etc) it seems feasible that you could do this without any major programming hoops too.

I dunno, you guys are on top of it! I’m not gonna armchair design too much! I look forward to spending a bit more time with the DH when BWE2 hits!

So, had a chance to use the GS+Mace/Torch and it is definitely strong. Which is unfortunate because I literally just made Bolt a few weeks ago! Torch is great, but it is going to take awhile to really train myself that it is such a good weapon (it was meta before, but the margin wasn’t very large.) I’m glad mace got some love (even if inadvertent), I used it in my builds after launch before the meta really got established. It’s a great weapon. Established rotation aside, I’m assuming it is best to use mace 3 in situations where all of the following are true: a) an attack will be blocked near instantly, and b) the autoattack chain had just ended c) you don’t have Aegis up (since you’re going to lose UC.)?

I am really looking forward to what DH does to our options. It seems likely that we’ll be going Longbow + Scepter/Torch, though that’s just ballparking a min-max on modifiers.

Virtue Recharge: Before = 25% Now = 15%
>15% Was made baseline, we actually get the full 30% for being in virtues now

Condition Damage: Before = 150 After = 0
>Yeah, but really, this is a non-issue; the stats on gear have been increased to compensate.

Condition Duration: Before = 20% After = 0
>This is a tangible loss, difficult to make up on gear (condition damage is an impractical stat.)

Healing Power: Before = 100 After = 0
>Negligible amount of lost healing power, really not a big loss.

Boon Duration: Before = 25% After = 0
>This is a big one, that boon duration hit is pretty significant. Many classes lost their boon duration too, though.

My biggest concerns are actually how much of our previous raw damage modifier has been reduced. Unscathed is amazing, but impossible to rely on; Symbolic Avenger is only 10% and the uptime is very small for most weapons. Retribution granting 10% whil retal is active is a mild compromise that we received for the +10% crit chance we received via Radiant Power.

1:1 comparison in percentages (using the “same” build) I gained 14.33% crit damage and lost 4.05% crit chance. Overall, I seem to be doing less damage, though.

I think if we had Symbolic Avenger bumped back up to 20%, it would be a lot more fun. Unfortunately, it would only succeed in buffing Hammer even more.

I’ll try to do more through testing after a brief… siesta.

HatSimulator.9362:

Kelnis.1829:

Hey, John Smith, bought the $99.99 version. The value isn’t what I’d call “ideal,” but I am one of the players that was looking to buy a physical collector’s edition ($150-200.) Overall, disappointed with the versions offered, but I was going to buy gems tonight anyway – ended up working out I guess. Also, HOW DARE YOU EXPECT PEOPLE TO PAY FOR YOUR EXPANSION.

Sorry your official forums are full of vitriol instead of more constructive feedback.

Im sorry, in this situation you are the 1% and every single other person is the 99%. your voice doesnt mean more than every one elses just because you had 100 dollars to blow on gems

1% is having a job and money enough to spend on thing I enjoy? Weird. I am definitely not in the 1%.

You’re taking my comment out of context: I usually spend $10-30 on gems a month. However, with the Deluxe being $75 and my purchase of gems about take place anyway (I wanted the pet rock – it is completely useless and adorable), $100 was the better value for me.

I can’t disagree that they missed the mark, though; they should have stuck with the $39.99 for the expansion and made the base game officially cost $10 to prevent threads like this. The amount of (perceived) slight you people think ArenaNet is engaging in is, honestly, hilarious. Though, I guess then we’d have threads saying it should be free instead.

The cooldown reduction might get this ability some use, but keeping in mind that it competes with two much stronger trait options (that you can base entire builds around,) I doubt we’ll see use of it in any form of meta.

One thing that will continue to be a limiting factor is the lackluster design of the #4 ability. I think it would be interesting if we could see, maybe, a projectile destruction effect on the cone effect (or a very short 1-2 second aegis, which would provide synergy with the various aegis traits.) Really, though, pretty much anything in addition to is base use currently.

Hey, John Smith, bought the $99.99 version. The value isn’t what I’d call “ideal,” but I am one of the players that was looking to buy a physical collector’s edition ($150-200.) Overall, disappointed with the versions offered, but I was going to buy gems tonight anyway – ended up working out I guess. Also, HOW DARE YOU EXPECT PEOPLE TO PAY FOR YOUR EXPANSION.

Sorry your official forums are full of vitriol instead of more constructive feedback.

@Gaile
I assume the other changes are coming along as well? Hero points, change to the stat system (rebalance due to traits) are coming with it as well?

A few notes from my 4-6 matches that I got to play (kitten ed Tuesday beta tests!)

a) Archers need to be more relevant. Once the Lord is vulnerable, using supply for any reason is wasted time. The guards are too vulnerable to regular damage from Players. If we had a way to improve the guards, either with further damage reduction (which Archers could pierce), or strengthening their damage (substantially, but not too much) Archers might see more use. However, currently, burn down the NPCs once and they’re done. Maybe an NPC respawn (Path Guards, room guards)pulse every 3 minutes (12, 9, 6, 3) to keep the Guards relevant. Have them path from the spawn like players would, invulnerable until they’re in position. Only the dead NPCs would come back, so we wouldn’t want to see duplicate NPCs come in, for instances. This would leave a bit of room for strategy too, timing attacks on the lord room for when respawns won’t impede progress.

b) more NPC types for us to summon, a “Berserker” NPC that patrols toward/in to your lord room when it is vulnerable, costs two supply and can only be activated if that second door has been broken; basically an NPC in a psuedo-Rampager stance. I realize expanding these options would risk making it convoluted. This is a quick example, though. I imagine the dev cycle is effectively over and you guys are just tweaking numbers.

c) Power creep/Elite spec concerns; or, as they say, the meta is changing at an alarming rate. Many of the issues we’re seeing with NPCs dying too quickly now will, based on the numbers we’ve been shown so far, likely get worse as the new stuff is brought to the table.

This game mode has some potential, but I think it is suffering a bit of an identity crisis. It wants to be sPvP, but it has a bit too much PvE going on. It might be better, to make the NPCs completely invulnerable to player damage (but not player CC) and encourage players to use the archers for their intended purpose. My concern, and I mentioned it above as well. I think the design aspect is where you want it, but you need tweak numbers. I’d say…. NPCs (all types) take 5% player damage (seems like it is in the 33-50% range atm.) Archers beat Doorbreakers, Guards beat Doorbreakers, Doorbreakers beat gates. Archers and Guards would, ideally, stalemate. I’ve more or less been performing a stream of consciousness here in this lass paragraph, sorry!

I’d love to see this game mode do well, though. Definitely (please, please do this) consider adding an entirely separate queue for “alternative” maps (Skyhammer/Courtyard/Stronghold.) While I enjoy all of those maps, the general populace will resent being forced to play Stronghold; we already have rage quiters when we see Skyhammer/Courtyard in Unranked.

It might, it might not. They clearly want it to be accessible. 10 levels is still a pretty big time investment.

I’m going to respond with the phrase everyone loves to hear: “When it is ready.”

Now, I really want to see this get released before Q3. Like, it should really be released as soon as possible. The whole “bi-weekly release schedule” doesn’t really work when you go through huge content droughts with no updates (other than BLTC cash grabs) for many months.

While I am loyal to Arenanet and I will continue to support them, they need to act quickly to reinvigorate the game across the board. Assuming they follow the reveal schedule and keep up the weekly “something new gets posted” cadence, they will keep the hype levels alive, though, largely comatose.

Unless you’re working on a DX12 client, then…one of you devs can ping me, and I’ll… buy you guys beer and cake and throw more money at the gem store too. Your secret would be safe with me.

Dragon Maw has Slow? Otherwise, I didn’t see any of the new mechanics. I’d like to see us get some sort of taunt? Unless they change functionality of our existing utilities (which is within the realm of possibility) anyway.

I like the idea of having more useful Guardian elites. Renewed Focus is just far too strong (really, our other elites are just far too weak, at least in that the opportunity cost is too high) and we need something to pull us towards other options.

“Signet of Courage”
What sort of heal numbers will this pbaoe be providing? On a 10s tick, I imagine it would be somewhere in the 800-1200 (baseline) range? If it scaled with healing power well (say, 50-100%) I could see builds running it for some situations. If its lower, consider an additional passive effect: Outgoing healing is increased by 10%.

“Feel My Wrath”
This has a bit of overlap with other sources of quickness currently. As a DPS-orient Guardian I like the idea of it, but again, Renewed Focus is hard to replace. Bump the CD to 60s, give it more pronounced effects. I’d like to see a shout effect that increases based on proximity to the guardian (a supportive antithesis of Fear Me, essentially.) Perhaps make it grant 1s of Quickness, 10s of fury if you’re outside of 300 range and 2s Quickness, 20s of Fury if your allies are within 300 range. However, this is paired with an offensive portion: If an enemy is within the base 600 range they are crippled/weakened for 3s. If they are within 120-180, they are knocked down for 3s as well.

So, if any ally were within 300 of you, they’d receive the full 3s of quickness and 30s of fury (it would be additive because both range checks would be True.) If any enemies were within 150 range, they’d be crippled/weakened/knocked down.

Might be a bit too elaborate for the intention of this post.

Regardless, I’d probably use “Feel My Wrath” in PvE, it would be fun having a source of quickness I could rely on.

Thanks for reaching out to the community, Joe. Coincidentally, I stumbled upon your initial GW2 review a few weeks ago (I’d watched back when you made it as well, but that was awhile ago!) I may not always agree with your opinions, but I like your show.

Anyhow, I would like to see the following subjects brought up:

Can players look forward to seeing additional dungeon and/or small instanced group (5-10) content that we’ll be able to do outside of ‘open world’ events?

What sort of release window are you aiming for? Other than festivals, it seems we are going to be hurting for new content until HoT gets released.

What is the name of the Guardian Specialization? (No, really, if you take any ideas, don’t take that one… but I very much want to know!)

@Gaile Gray
As expected, thanks Gaile.

On another note, is it likely we’ll see another 75% off sale before HoT launch?

@Nebulous Prime
“false advertisement”

This wasn’t advertised, you’re trolling or clueless. Please stop.

@Nebulous Prime
This wasn’t advertised, this wasn’t misleading, this was clearly an odd set of circumstances that weren’t intentional. They aren’t going to increase your charge to make the difference up and THEN give you your key. They’re going to a) be awesome, apologize and then honor it or b) be awesome, apologize and refund us the $4. I can only assume since you’re quoting generic advertising ethics that you’re either a troll or someone who finds themselves uncomfortably entitled.

I didn’t see you use the quickness at all, though. If you’re gonna use book.. you may as well use quickness.

Sorry if I missed the dialogue about this, but what is the collective’s feelings regarding the Runes of Strength? Obviously, for PvE, Scholars is still king by a long shot. However, I’ve found myself without the time or the group for min/max’d dungeon/fractal runs and a need for some more casual PvE/WvW play (I’m gonna be playing Wildstar once that launches, so I won’t be spending as much time with GW2.) It will be a tangible loss in top-end potency, but it seems like it’d see higher uptime than scholars, at least in WvW. Of course, this is a PvE thread, but I figured you all might have some first hand anecdotes for me!

I’m pretty certain that named condition duration (Burning, Bleeding) bonuses are not added to the Character sheet number at all. Your testing implies you actually tested it by hitting things with the burning, but if you haven’t, be sure that you account for that.

Honestly, from the numbers I’ve seen, investing in that trait is the worst thing you can spend your points on since Kindled Zeal. I wouldn’t recommend it at all.

Coincidentally, I made/bought a dire set (with Balthazar runes/various condition oriented rings/accessories) using a 6/2/2/0/4 build – this was literally created as a joke but it actually functions pretty well in WvW. It does not work in PvE or sPvP(too much condition reduction, not enough duration in sPvP), but it is fun for a change of pace from the typical guardian build. I would not recommend it to anyone who is just now starting out, your gold is better spent on buying zerk/knights/soldiers or whatever you would typically want on a guardian.

Let’s compromise, I don’t think it is “fine,” but it is “acceptable.” I’m gonna miss my huge Whirling Wraths. Having the option of a Force + Night/Race sigil on the greatsword will largely compensate for that, but we’ll have to come up with some new best practices in regards to Bloodlust stacking. The effectiveness of bloodlust (at 25 stacks) largely outclass most sigils, I’m hopeful we’ll have some new options open up. Especially considering the relative ‘boringness’ of the stack mechanics. First post in awhile, but I just wanna say… who really thought anyone would use the new grandmaster traits? Looks like 20/25/0/0/25 is still king for PvE.

Is it just me or is it a little odd that people still misunderstand how DPS builds are actually going to be affected by them adopting Ferocity? They are not nerfing crit damage into the ground, that is an extremist misconception.

If you consider it average (and not worth running), you also have the option of running Unscathed and MoC in tandem, though.

Probably not the only one, but that build lacks a lot of the “support” that Virtues can provide (Absolute Resolution mainly.) They damage throughput will likely be similar, but the ability to effortlessly pull conditions off with Resolve is hard to pass up.

Having heard the news about vigorous precision being nerfed, I’ve started trying to push myself out of lazy-mode 10/30/0/5/25 and closer to the 20/25/0/0/25. I really have been spoiled with 100% vigor uptime. I’d already been running it for random dungeons, but it will certainly require a bit of effort at the higher level fractals.

Are you commenting on the OP? Because I only click when trying to multitask between all my keys/item swapping/fraps keybind.

I know the DnT folks advocate maximizing crit chance, but I personally find that crit chance tends to diminish in value relative to power after 90%~. I’ve opted to utilize full berserker for this reason The difference was reportedly very small 0.5-1% when using the 3x Assassin’s Pieces (for a warrior, math might be different on a guardian too), however that is within margin of weapon range alone so it would be difficult to accurately quantify the power difference between the two.

Regardless, choose whichever you prefer.

This discussion is actually one of my primary concerns for Guild Wars 2. I come from the player pool that enjoys vertical progression and continued number progression. However, that said, I also spent some time in Guild Wars (1). So, here are my concerns:

1a) Ascended armor, weapons, and jewelry are tedious to acquire; I feel like I have to complete a list of “chores” before I can do other things in game.

My main issue is the time gating that is involved. Currently, there is too much. A possible solution (and this may not be practical): Each “daily” cooldown craft can be used repeatedly, but the mat cost increases by 50-100% with each use. Example Below:

Spool of Silk Weaving Thread (Ascended)
Cost of first use: 100 Bolt of Silk, 1 Glob, 25 Spool of Gossamer Thread
Cost of second use: 150 Bolt of Silk, 2 Glob, 50 Spool of Gossamer Thread
Cost of third use : 200 Bolt of Silk, 3 Glob 75 Spool of Gossamer Thread

Objectively, this would make it impractical to craft a large amount of daily cooldown items, but it would give the option of reducing the timegate.

1b) Ascended crafting materials are tedious; Champion bags currently over saturate everyone with bloodstone dust. They should have a lower, but non-zero chance to drop Dragonite or Empyreal too. Dragonite comes in at a steady rate, but Empyreal relies too much on dungeon running to gather. Another possible solution is to reduce the lesser vision crystals to 1 of each ingot/star/brick, and the vision crystals to 3 of each.

1c) No more tiers of gear. Maybe, instead, create new infusions…something with proc-like effects (ex: offensive neck infusion, increase damage by 3% for 10s when you apply burning, 30s cd), but avoid making them overly tedious or expensive to craft.

2a) Horizontal progression has staled. Aside from ascended armor, there have been no new armor additions in the game since launch that couldn’t be bought from the gem store. I have purchased many of the gem store armors, but I would prefer there be more options in game to earn. A potential solution is outlined in my concern below.

2b) The difficulty of dungeons (that is, the ease of them) leaves them stale after doing them as many times as we all have; Introduce “hard mode” difficulty – increasing the difficulty (preferably by adding more mechanics and not by increasing their health, damage an obscene amount) would serve two functions: More content for dungeon enthusiasts (outside of FoTM) and potential for more armor appearance progression. The new “hard mode” would reward tokens that allow the purchase or upgrading (via MF) of, or to, “visually upgraded” versions of the normal armor. Example: CoF armor with fire particle effects, Orrian armor with a “undeady” particle effects, etc.

3a) Skill progression is nonexistent; One of the best things about GW1 was the sheer amount of skills available. Sure, many of them go unused, but at the moment we’ve got a small pool of skills and many of them still go unused. The healing skills seem like a good first step, but many of the new skills are almost too niche. This type of horizontal progression is one that most people would enjoy.

3b) A think a “usefulness” pass needs to happen with all class skills and traits. I’m sure you’ve got numbers internally regarding what skills/traits players use, but time should be spent figuring out “why” they go unused and what can be done.

Tarsius.3170:

Kelnis.1829:

It isn’t much, but I redid a few pulls without hounds – best I could get was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Qw-FwQ3V4 (7.5s~)

Very impressive. Nice vuln/might stacking in such a small space of time – it’s hard to see how you could improve on it ( I’m guessing triggering sword command towards the end would interrupt your AA flow too much to be worth it )

Honestly, the Sword seems to do very little in terms of damage – at least in the time span of the kills. The activation seems to be off the “global” so I could cast it, but I’ve had issues with the range on the giant – it seems to whiff a lot.

@Nike

Hah, I only recently got back in to playing GW2 – my dungeoning skills are out of practice. Perhaps I’ll give myself that goal, though, something to do.

It isn’t much, but I redid a few pulls without hounds – best I could get was: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Qw-FwQ3V4 (7.5s~)

I finished my ascended sword on patch day, I may try again sometime in the future, but I’ll probably wait until I get all my ascended armor up and running. I saw in some of the sister threads people QQing about my racial elite use, however, I did several tests without hounds too. I can still hit 9s~ without them, I’ll record without hounds in the future iterations, though, so no one can QQ.

I tend to think of it as a sidegrade, leaning toward a buff. I’m finding the loss of the initial “burst” is making many of you think it was great, but it really wasn’t. This iteration is making it much easier for me to maintain large amounts of swiftness with staff. Unfortunately, I don’t like staff all that much, especially when oriented towards damage. However, that is a different thread’s discussion. I would gladly take this iteration over the original.

Ahh, fiery greatsword #4? It still counts… even if it is cheating ;D!

@Dub

If true, awesome – if you can post a video I’m certain we’d love to see it, if troll…. very creative.

Yeah, actually, wow. I underestimated the amount of damage potential that has when grubs are up.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t always spawn grubs in an ideal situation. I’ll play with it some, see if I can push that kill time down another second or two.

Edit: I ended up posting a 7s kill, it could have been faster, but the grubs that land near the giant don’t always survive the initial burst of damage from focus/leap.

Ohhh man, obal. Staff killing that poor, Giant – and so quickly too. Very nice!

Probably close to the best I can do solo: 0:09s kill

Undead slaying potion, +100 power / +10% crit damage food and I changed my build to a 20/25/0/0/25 build and abused precasting Hounds and SoJ. I was able to shave off about four seconds from my previous attempt. This kill wasn’t exactly stacked, but you really would not see SoJ or Hound usage outside of test situations like this. Those skills are just too bad to be reliable damage CDs in a dungeon or pvp. I did make one change that likely had a more drastic affected: I swapped my force sigil for an undead one for testing. I think, once I get an ascended sword, I’ll try again, see if I can do any better.

Edit: Did a few “less gimmicky” attempts with no hounds/soj, I seem to be averaging right at 11s for a kill, so they don’t really add a whole lot considering the extra effort. The sigil, 5% GS damage from trait, and the extra power from the investment in zeal is making the biggest difference.

Also, @OP
Well done, that drastically improved your dps and kill time. Keep it up!

That is true regarding binding blade, Tarsius, but there is an opportunity cost to consider. I’ll admit I haven’t spent a lot of time with binding blade in this type of scenario. I’ll give it a try or two using it after work tonight (boo 10 hour shifts!)

TheGuy.3568:

… Just seems pointless to me.

You’re not wrong, it is pointless, but it is fun to compete. The best thing about the vet risen giant is that he is a very “average” monster for a veteran (2600~ armor, medium-low health.) He’s a glorified punching bag, but a very “fair” one when comparing between people.

My attempt at a quick kill.

Without too much setup I got a 13s kill time. Obal, of course, showing me up with an impressive 11s. I’m pretty certain I could get my time lower if I were to precast Tome of Wrath or Hounds, but the difference should be minimal (2-3s). Do note, though, that I am using force on GS and only have exotic sword/focus. I was using a 10/25/0/10/25 build.

Edit: Ugh, uploaded this with my google account instead of my youtube account, stupid google+ integration.

So, watching them on the live stream it looks like it is a 1s cast, 6s duration. This gives it an effective uptime of 5s. The healing potential in sPvP is likely stifled by the harsh counterplay and the inherent value of Shelter/Resolve’s additional effects. In PvE, however, raw healing throughput will be absurd. However, losing the block from Shelter is considerably more detrimental in most pve situations. Given our issues staying on target without using movement runes, I see this being too easily countered to be viable in sPvP.

In PvE, however, I cannot justify spending points in valor for a damage dealing build. With the exception of the cooldown reduction in valor, the meditation traits (fury on use, heal on use) will be redundant. Assuming, of course, that it is a balanced group composition and someone is providing fury.

I’ll reserve the right to change my opinion once it goes live, but we’ll see Tuesday.

We don’t know how it will function in relation to traits. Perhaps the behavior of “inactive” skills is that they do not consider traits when displaying their tooltips. We’ll be able to see how it actually behaves when it goes live. That said, we have to assume – if it is a meditation – that it will be affected by the traits.

I found this via reddit, but in game it appears to heal for 20% of damage done and lasts for 5s.

[&B6BUAAA=]

In PvE I can see this being very, very powerful, barring any “ICD” on the function of the heal. That’d be without any traits for meditations too. I can see using this in some situations, however, Shelter’s block is hard to lose. With meditation traits, I can see this heal being awesome. Too bad all the meditation traits are in the Valor trait line and no dps build will use them (assuming no massive changes come with this patch.)

Carlos, try not to take people that tell you how you should play seriously. I know there are several in this thread that need to try being helpful instead of being narcissistic. Regardless, play how you want, or have, to play. I just enjoy the theorycrafting aspect of determining the “best.”

That said, I am in a situation similar to your own; my typical group is no longer playing or very inactive and if I want to do a dungeon, I have to pug. Truthfully, I just don’t do dungeons that often. When I do, I typically run a more typical/balanced build (0/30/0/30/10, switching to Knights+Soldiers armor if the group needs the extra condition removal, or dropping UC for Master of Consecrations when called for).

However, I am more willing than most to change my traits/armor given a situation. I have roughly four sets of armor I use regularly(Soldier Stats+Melandru, Knights Stats+Soldier, Berserker Stats+Scholar, Celestial Stats+Boon Duration), each set is meant to compliment a particular trait setup for whatever aspect of the PvE/WvW I need to focus on. Many of these trait setups are not static, sometimes I try random builds for fun and they’re either a bust or they end up surprisingly effective.

My point is, like I said above, play how you want – be conscious of the meta – but don’t treat it like gospel. The community, and most other gaming communities, have a tendency toward toxic behavior when it comes to something different from the accepted norm. It is, unfortunately, something that will likely get worse as time goes on. Tune out the swill, press your buttons, and play whichever way you deem appropriate.

Also, regarding Unscathed, there are several situations in many dungeons where maintaining UC is nearly impossible. Sure, on the bosses it is not unusual to easily maintain 50% or higher, but trash is a different story. If you can show me a video of someone LITERALLY maintaining Aegis for 66-100% of a dungeon run I will give you my piano.

I agree with the objective, as far as build diversity; I’ve been a strong advocate of player choice in builds since launch – I think of myself as one of the early adopters in regards to damage oriented Guardian builds. I stopped using AH-oriented builds in PvE very early on moving toward the radiance/honor builds that brazil made popular.

Regardless, I definitely support breaking out of the “accepted norms” as much as possible, when possible. At this stage in the game, though, nothing has drastically changed our DPS meta since launch. The community has had a lot of time to determine what works well and what doesn’t. You have to be willing to ignore the peer pressure that is associated with being “less good” and be more concerned with enjoying whichever playstyle you decide to embrace.

I really hope whatever Jon was teasing regarding damage-dealing Guardian leads to some new discussion regarding our build options. I’d really love a reason to use our spirit weapons or a reason to go more than 20 points into Zeal.

+1’d the OP, Glad someone took the time to write up something regarding DPS guardians.

Also, very, very nice whirlwinds. I don’t have a team to do dungeons with reliably, so I don’t have a chance to use optimal buff setups like this. The most I usually see, in much less optimal situations, is 36k~38k. I’ve always wanted to test the potential in a proper, optimized setup.

Also, was this done with an ascended weapon? I can’t find any evidence either way, but I am assuming it is given the upload date. If it isn’t… go break 50k and record it too ;D!