Guild Wars 2

One of the things I am most excited about with this patch is the addition of a Viper’s backpiece and jewelry. They require a decent amount of Blood Ruby’s from Bloodstone Fen to acquire.

What are the best ways to obtain Blood Ruby’s? So far,

- You can get 10 from the story.
- When I originally arrived at Bloodstone Fen, there were Bloodstone Crystal nodes scattered about that could drop them as well. However, these Bloodstone Crystal nodes don’t seem to respawn once they’ve been mined, so not a good consistent source.
- Random drop from completing events

So it seems the best way to get them is to just run alts through the story to get the 10 and the Bloodstone Crystal nodes, after that just running a bunch of events.

Am I missing anything else?

The build I have the most success with in WvW solo roaming is 0/0/30/20/20. I prefer the extra 10 points in virtues for Absolute Resolution (Activating Virtue of Resolve removes 3 conditions). I use AH in sPVP and group roaming but I find it lacks in 1v1 or 2v2, and opt for Meditations. Especially with the newly added Fury. Judge’s Intervention has really good synergy with Hammer skills (port > ring or port > punt) and you’ll always have Fury for the following Mighty Blow (as well as a timed Shield of Wrath if you go with Focus). I generally prefer Hammer/GS with 2 Handed Mastery in Honor, but Sword/Focus is really good as well.

And now, for the grand finale!

XI Wrathful Spirits in Zeal
This is a Grandmaster trait. I am investing 30 of my trait points to get this ability, and in my dream Grandmaster traits are EPIC. Therefore…

Renamed to “Spiritual Attunement”
While a spirit weapon is active, the spirit attunes itself with your currently equipped weapons, granting your weapon skills additional effects. [Each active spirit weapon will add an effect to 1 skill per weapon, of which none will overlap. This would allow you to have 3 spirit weapons active, affecting 3 different weapon skills for a given weapon. For dual wielding, Sword of Justice and Hammer of Wisdom will affect main hand weapon skills, while Shield of the Avenger and Bow of Truth will effect off hand weapon skills.]

There are a lot of combinations here, but like I said I got nothing but time. YOLO.

NOTE: Keep in mind that these effects only occur when that spirit weapon is active.

Sword of Justice

Greatsword – Whirling Wrath grants 5 seconds of Might per hit. (Yes, every single hit, including AOE).
Hammer – Increases the damage of Banish by 100%.
Staff – Symbol of Swiftness cripples foes.
Sword – Gain “super speed” for 3 sec when using Flashing Blade.
Scepter – Smite removes 1 boon per hit on enemies.
Mace – Protector’s Strike instantly does its damage and grants protection, but does not block attacks.

Hammer of Wisdom

Greatsword – Targets hit with the first chain of Binding Blade are stunned for 1 sec.
Hammer – Enemies who are knocked back by Ring of Warding have 2 boons removed.
Staff – Enemies who are knocked back by Line of Warding have 2 boons removed.
Sword – Zealot’s Defense reflects projectiles.
Scepter – Orb of Wrath chills the target for 1 sec per hit.
Mace – Every attack in the Mace’s auto attack chain heals on impact.

Bow of Truth

Greatsword – Each tick of Symbol of Wrath heals allies for 1k.
Hammer – Zealot’s Embrace now immobilizes all enemy players within a 300 radius for 3 sec.
Staff – Orb of Light heals for 300% more.
Focus – Ray of Judgment heals you for 500 per bounce.
Shield – Shield of Absorption reflects projectiles.
Torch – Zealot’s Flame removes conditions from nearby allies while it’s active.

Shield of the Avenger

Greatsword – Leap of Faith stuns targets for 1 sec.
Hammer – Mighty Blow chills targets for 2 sec.
Staff – Each tick of Empower grants allies 1 sec. of stability.
Focus – Shield of Wrath grants you aegis and detonates instantly (only 1 block, but guarantees that you have Unscathed Contender).
Torch – Cleansing Flame burns targets for 1 sec per hit (finally!).

Some of these may seem OP, but remember that in order to get this, you need to have Spirit Weapons. That means giving up useful shouts or meditations. It also means traiting 30 points into Zeal, which means giving up survivability elsewhere in your build. After all that, these effects are only active while that specific spirit weapon is active.

Aquatic Weapons
Good joke.

Conclusion

I know that this is crazy long and I have no idea whether it will be received well or received at all by the community but I plan on playing GW2 for a long while. With the recent outcry for constructive criticism I thought I would share my ideas. I am not so naïve to think that any of this will actually get implemented. I know it would take an insane amount of work and time to get something like this done. I am more so writing this to depict the potential that I believe GW2 has and what I expect it’s developers to output. Not because I believe we, “the almighty paying customer” deserve it or anything like that, but because we’ve seen them do it before.

Anyways, I look forward to the responses from anyone bored enough to read this whole post XD. Feel free to comment on anything you would change, take out, or maybe some cool combos and scenarios you could see coming out of this.

-KO

Traits

Traits are what turns a build into a BUILD and that’s what I aim to do here. Not just by passively adding damage or duration, but by actually affecting how a utility works or when it might be useful. I think I’ve achieved that as described below.

I first state the current trait and then explain what I would change in brackets.

Zeal

VI Spirit Weapon Mastery – Reduces recharge on spirit-weapon skills (20%). [I’m cool with this, pretty standard for an adept tier trait.]

X Eternal Spirit – Spirit Weapons are not destroyed when commanded. [I’m cool with this too. Being able to instantly immobilize a target after summoning Sword of Justice and getting swiftness (more on this later) makes for a very good gap closer, or stunning your target to guarantee a chill, or shield’s stun break and protection to counter burst all seem like very cool ways to make spirit weapons effective.]

XI Wrathful Spirits – Increases spirit-weapon damage by 50%. [Like I said, I don’t want spirit weapons to be primarily used for damage, but to gain cool effects. This trait is gone, and I am replacing it with a much more involved Grandmaster Trait explained at the end of this section.]

Radiance

VIII A Fire Inside – Spirit Weapons cause burning (1s)
[Renamed to “A Blessing Inside”. Spirit weapons now grant the Guardian a boon when they land an attack/cleanse. This is to make up for the loss of boons gained from Meditations or Shouts.]

Sword of Justice = Swiftness (3s).
Hammer of Wisdom = Fury (3s).
Bow of Truth = Regeneration (2s per condition removed).
Shield of the Avenger = Aegis (Infinite duration, but obviously expires when hit. The idea here is to use this utility to mitigate burst. Getting 3 instances of Aegis over 6 seconds helps with that, but also synergizes very well with the Honor trait Pure of Heart (heals on Aegis removal) and Unscathed Contender (+20% damage with Aegis). You can use Shield of the Avenger with Pure of Heart to gain about a 2k heal (No healing power) as a defensive, or offensively as a source of aegis when you’re not being focused to do some extra damage. I told you it got better!

I am offering this idea up as a solution to making Spirit Weapons a viable but also enjoyable play style for the Guardian. I’ve tried to design my ideas around the more popular guardian build utilities, but in a way that’s different. I also tried to solve some of the key problems with guardians (mainly their ability to be easily kited). The feasibility of implementing something like this may be a technical overreach, but I constantly see people talking to the “potential” that Guild Wars 2 has and this is what that potential is to me.

WARNING: I work for the gov’t. With the recent shutdown, I have had nothing but time on my hands to think about this, hence the ungodly length of this post XD. Continue reading at your own risk.

Main Objective

Currently, spirit weapons aren’t only lackluster in effectiveness, but also enjoyment. Rather than pressing a button and then waiting for a generally long period while it passively runs around doing things, I envision Spirit Weapons existing for shorter durations but with more powerful effects. The idea is not to run into battle with Spirit Weapons out ready to do your work for you but to use them when they are necessary to give you a legitimate advantage. I also want to keep Spirit Weapons away from being primary sources of damage (this game doesn’t need any more phantasms XD) and steer them towards other uses. Hence, Sword of Justice and Hammer of Truth will hit for about 1000 per hit in a generic power based build.

A more detailed description of how I would change each weapon follows.

Note: Due to the shorter durations, Sword of Justice and Hammer of Wisdom will now spawn at the targeted enemy to maximize the chance of getting all 3 hits within its duration. Bow of Truth and Shield of the Avenger spawn at the Guardian.

Sword of Justice

Duration – 6 sec
CD – 30 sec
Range – 900
Attack frequency – 3 sec (3 total hits)

Summons a spiritual greatsword that attacks the target enemy (again, about 1000 for a generic power based build). Each successful attack burns the target for 3 sec. [This grants the guardian a reliable source of burning to better synergize with the trait Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power. If all 3 attacks hit, totals to 9 sec of burning. Kind of a soft opening to the thread, but it gets better!]

Command – CD 45 sec
The sword lunges at its target and destroys on contact, leaving the target immobilized for 3 sec.

Hammer of Wisdom

Duration – 6 sec
CD – 30 sec
Range – 900
Chill range – 120
Attack frequency – 3 sec (3 total hits)

Summons a spiritual hammer that smashes its enemy, chilling nearby targets for 2 sec with each hit. [Used as a means to close the gap by using the only snare that makes sense for a Guardian, chill. 8 Sec of chill total if all hits land, but avoidable by dodging/blocking hammer swings.]

Command – CD 60 sec
The hammer breaks itself on the target, stunning it for 2 sec.

Bow of Truth

Duration – 5 sec
CD – 45 sec
Cleanse Frequency – 1 sec (5 total cleanses)
Range – 600

Summons a spiritual bow that cleanses 1 condition off the guardian every second for 5 sec. [The idea here is to make the bow competitive with our other forms of condition cleanse so that it’s actually used. Also, to help with the problem of conditions immediately re-stacking once you cleanse.]

Command – CD 90 sec
The bow shoots all remaining arrows and destroys upon depletion, removing 1 condition per second for 5 seconds on all allies within a radius of 600. [Possibly OP but hopefully justified by its long cool down.]

Shield of the Avenger

Duration – 6 sec
CD – 40 sec
Radius – 600
Attack Frequency – 3 sec (3 total hits)

Summons a spiritual shield at the Guardian that protects allies by weakening nearby foes for 3 sec.

Command – CD 60 sec
The shield explodes, breaking stuns on all nearby allies and granting them protection for 5 sec. [Shield may seem a little lackluster at the moment, but just wait!]

I’ve played both zerk and condi nades and the dps is overall pretty similar. I like going condi because of the toughness on Rabid gear, which might prevent possible 1 shots that happen with full zerk (i.e Lupicus whips).

However, PvE has a good amount of structures that need to be destroyed such as gates or crystals which aren’t affected by condis. You might also run into condi caps running with other condi players. Thus, I almost always run zerk in PvE.

Generally, my PvE build is full zerk nades with SD mixed in, running nades, tool kit, and rifle turret. Tool kit because the block is crazy useful in PvE when you’re so squishy, and meleeing mobs that reflect projectiles is a bonus.

Indeed, that Ele is Skovex of team SYNC but he hasn’t updated his gear in months. We’re working on that. Some of the other SYNC guys transferred over so if you see us out there they may be nearby.

We are pretty much always in the borderlands and just hop around to wherever we can find action. I’m usually out there nightly, just message me whenever and we can set something up.

Poliswag.8240:

Ahh, should have included the couple of 1v1s you and i had where i introduced you to the repair merchant Haha. I’m the oPP Engi with Arah, Quip and Mad Moon. If you see an oPP Asura Engi with Predator then that’s me as well. See you out there!

Careful. I just might have a clip of an engi meeting that description

I started frapsing some of my solo roaming adventures in T1 and put together this little vid of some 1v2’s from over the past couple days. Cheers to all the duelers and roamers I’ve met! If you’re in the vid, sorry! If you’re not, message me and lets set something up

I’ve recently taken up solo roaming in T1 WvW and it’s been an absolute blast. I decided to fraps a couple nights this past week and these are some of the better 1v2’s I was able to catch. I did my best to only include fights against level 80s, most of which had food. Watching the movie myself I see so many things I could have done better (using FT knockback/blind more, stomping any 1 of those 5 times in the last clip, using TK F2 ever) but I’ve learned a lot from it and hope you can take something out of it as well.

I change my build up pretty much daily but most of this vid is as 10/30/0/20/10, testing out Sigil of Geomancy. Yes, I am using Perplexity. Yes, I agree they need to be removed, but I’m going to ride them out as long as possible because they’re just too much fun

I made this vid purely for entertainment, mostly for my own because it’s fun to fraps but I hope you enjoy and look forward to your comments.

Also, shout out to the T1 duelers and roamers I’ve met over the last couple weeks! Looking forward to making more videos of you

The Rocket Boots slot skill is only used as a utility to escape fights (primarily in PvP, almost a necessity for escaping WvW zergs) as well as for a blast finisher. However, the toolbelt skill, Rocket Kick, is one of our harder hitting abilities for both condition and power builds on a relatively short cooldown.

I tested healing power’s affect on the healing turret a while back and what I remembered was that (with about 800 healing power)

-The heal on the initial drop of the turret did not change at all (about 2500 for both)
-The heal from cleansing burst increased (from about 2500 to 3000)
-Regeneration increased (from about 180-270)
-Blast finishing increased (from about 1400-1900)

I’m at work and these numbers are just off the top of my head, but the reason I say it doesn’t scale as well is that the initial drop of the turret doesn’t change. Of course you will gain much more out of the healing power by blasting though.

I played a build a while ago with around 1200 healing power and I remember that the dropped bandages were healing for around 1700 each, before Packaged Stimulants. While the Healing Turret probably still surpasses in overall healing and sustain, having on demand quick heals like that can be huge in situational pvp.

I’m a huge fan of the Healing Turret and I would edit my last post to say that the Med Kit isn’t better than the Healing Turret at high levels of healing power but makes a much better case to be used (outside of Fury).

Carpboy.7145:

Thank you all for the feedback!

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

elithrar.7143:

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

I do like the build.

My only thought is your condi removal looks fairly poor. I honestly would take the healing turret for that reason alone, it combos amazingly for extra heals with the BoB/EG 4. It would give you better heals/condi removal/team support. You would have to change your gameplay a bit though – turret is worse than the medipack for kiting.

Med Kit is better than the Healing Turret for condition removal thanks to #4 (Adrenal), which is on a 15s cooldown. Not to mention the better self-heals.

I run Med Kit when solo/small group and HT when in a larger group and/or fighting on nodes in sPvP.

Unless they’ve changed it, thats 1 condition every 15s that you have to run into. Turret is 2 conditions every 20s and you don’t have to be on top of it to get it so its useful if you’re immobilized. I do realize that for simply kiting the med kit is better, but for the rest of the game, I think the turret synergies better. May just be me though.

The condition removal on the med kit is FAR superior to HT, as it cleanses ALL conditions. Definitely helps when fighting other engis or necros. Plus a bigger heal, and more swiftness, plus good fury uptime. I often start fights in medkit to hit fury+swift. The only times i would take HT over medkit is when you have shield and are VERY good at finishing fields, as you can heal from 0 to full in 5 sec. But that requires LOTS of practice and overall i feel medkit is better.

Unless they’ve stealth buffed it, and I’m pretty sure they haven’t, drop antidote only removes 1 condition despite its tooltip saying “conditions”. Also, Cleansing Burst is on a 15 sec cooldown, so as long as you pick up the turret rather than detonate it you can cleanse 2 conditions every 15 seconds. That coupled with the healing from regeneration as well as blast finishing makes healing turret better in almost every situation.

Med Kit is usually better for SD builds that gain a lot from having fury. Also, in high healing power builds as the Healing Turret doesn’t scale well with healing powered, whereas the dropped bandages scale very well, which makes a case for using Med Kit in this build.

IS THERE NO ONE ELSE

VYNDETTA BOOTYPOP

Mesmer carried.

Engineer condition damage is more reliant on burning and confusion. If you’re playing a build with low crit, i.e. Carrion Amulet, you will probably want to go pistol offhand to provide reliable burn uptime. I generally only use shield if I have high enough crit to provide a reasonable amount of Incendiary Powder procs. And glue shot is very good for kiting, escaping, or getting that root to ensure you get a full blowtorch.