Guild Wars 2

Thanks for the input.

I understand this build is not quiet as useful for 2 handers. However personally I don’t see the appeal of 2 handed weapons for guardians in PvE.

GS – Overlapping and uninspiring skills. GS1’s third hit might last too short as most of the time you’re hitting 1 or 2 mobs. GS2 is awesome, no doubt. GS4 and symbols in general is redundant in PvE. GS3 and GS5 function the same (gap closers), so I ended up using GS3 and GS5 is neglected.

Staff – Great support skills, but useless most of the time in PvE.

Hammer – More defensive oriented than GS, however skill 3 and 5 are useless in PvE.

I’m only looking at what these weapons can do in PvE. For all I know, 2 handers are much better for dungeon runs where the wards can really come in handy. But for normal PvE, they’re lackluster.

I did try to get as much Radiance as I can, as it not only improve crit chance, but also condition damage. Since the build try to keep burn on the enemy, why not try to increase the burn damage (and not duration). Just another way to put in damage other than pure power build. Also in PvE this can help a lot as some times all you need is a bit of DoT (typically from torch 4) to rally. 1 handed weapons gives you a great choice of defensive skills as well, like regen, attack block, blind, immobility and vulnerability.

Zeal trait line is really a hit and miss for me. The extra power is great. The cond duration fairly useless. The traits are situational. Most of the traits make you stick to 1 weapon, the spirit weapon improvements are lackluster (and I heard there’s a bug with Zeal X, weapons pause for a while before attacking again after command). Minor traits are too specific as well, and like I mentioned, and I prefer not to use symbols in PvE. So it all comes down to the power increase… which can be obtained from gears.

So I started playing Guardian a while back. I believe it’s one of the top tier profession in the game, due to vast amount of synergies between the skills and traits. This build emphasis on this, and still allow the build to go versatile and change out traits and skills to the player’s liking. It’s a lot of fun and doesn’t require a lot of skill due to the fair amount of defensive tools.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQRAsf7dlYgSBHFyvDf4ESmCWCBteAQ9j/gpAjgPA

Summary: The build relies on burning damage and crits to dps. The traits are specced to make sure you are constant killing mobs and refreshing your justice with renewed justice. This allows you to spam active justice as much as you can, so burning damage is going to be a major source of dps.

The other source of damage is from your crits. Burning on mobs ensure your Radiant Power is on most of the time. 30 in radiance ensure your crit chance is high, and also your burning damage is high.

20 in Honor allows you to pick up Empowering Might, and coupled with your 30 radiance, you’ll constantly have might stacks. Also you have the vigorous precision, allowing you dodge more with more crits.

20 in Virtue gives more boon duration, making Empowering Might and boons from shouts last a bit longer. Virtue of Retribution gives you retaliation when you use justice, which will be a constant help. Traits in virtue depends on what you prefer, condition removal via IX or more damage via VIII.

I did not go fiery wrath in the power tree because radiant power does everything, if not better. Against burn immune enemies, radiant power still let you hit for more damage if your allies debuff the mobs.

Weapons:

Sword + torch and scepter + focus

Both sword and scepter hits fast, so more chance to trigger crits, which leads to might and vigor. Both benefit from Radiance XI and sword from X. Sword have some inbuilt defence, such as sword 2 for blind, and sword 3 for projectile deflection. Focus 4 and 5 also provide some defence. Torch 4 does more burn, even while you’re cc’ed.

What? You don’t like one handed weapons?

Greatsword – Switch out radiance X and XI for something you like. Optionally, you can also get Honor IX for CD reduction. Generally I find GS a bit slow in term of attack speed, and is probably better with a power build.

Staff – Honor IX will be very useful. Feel free to change out the utility and elite skill as you see fit. Access to Honor and Virtues can provide some really useful support abilities.

This is a really rough description of the build, and I’m not suggesting what I’m using is the optimal way to play this type of guardian. The best thing is anyone can switch traits and skills to how they like to play and likely to improve on the build.

As I don’t check the forum all that often, if it seems like I’m copying someone else’s build, please inform me and I’ll get rid of this.

Feel free to comment and provide feedback. Thanks.

Raincrow.1840:

Sithaco.4673:

Have any other alternative solutions?

Well I’d much rather see a gathering skill in the game, like most other MMO’s use. So for example there is only one type of logging axe in the game, but I can’t harvest from higher level nodes unless I’ve raised my gathering skill.

Some easier fixes would also help…. for example instead of listing every type of node you can harvest on every tool, you just give each node a level. So when you check a node on the map you not only see the name but the level, which you can easily compare to your tool. Master tools can say “Master Mining Pick level 50” etc.

Also, they don’t need the garbage loot like ruined wood if you accidentally use the wrong tool. Just a message that says “You need a level 50 tool or higher for this” so if you happen to use the wrong item you don’t waste the node on more junk.

I would still prefer the existing gathering system over the ones you have proposed.

I believe that a gathering skill will be much more annoying and time consuming. If I don’t want to gather all those coppers and silvers but now I want to start gather gold ores, your system will make me go around to all the low level areas and gather everything before I can do what I want. On the other hand, the current system let me gather gold ores just by buying a steel pick. A gathering skill is theoretically imposing a big barrier to entry to gathering (if you’re ‘late’ to gathering, you either start from the beginning or we won’t let you do it at all).

Regarding levels on gather nodes, I actually prefer reading their names instead of seeing “tree level 1 or rock level 5” etc. Why? Mainly due to personal preference. It makes the game less about efficiency and numbers and more about aesthetics . What would you prefer:

- I want to use sickle level x to harvest from bush level x to get ingredient level x, then use it to make y food,
or:
- I’m using iron sickle to harvest apple bush to get apples to make apple jelly pie.

Given the option, I’m going for the latter one. It’s might be a extra work reading the tooltips, but I’m not looking for absolute efficiency when I play a game.

As per your third suggestion, it’s again personal taste. When I first started playing, I was chopping higher level trees with copper axe, and I had no idea why I was getting all these junk items. I see it as a lesson teaching me I need to chop better trees with better tools. And again for me, its much more about the experience, figuring something out for myself instead of a red toolbox telling me everything.

Overall, I can see where you’re coming from. You want to be efficient, you don’t want to lose any silvers to buying higher tier tools if you can help it, you want to free up inventory space etc. But for players like me, who isn’t looking for efficiency, I prefer the existing system.

Hey guys.

I’m trying to come up with a staff build around level 50 for PvE in a small party. Through the majority of my ele playthrough, I’ve been using d/d (20/5/10/5/0) with thunder hammer as main weapon. As fun as it gets, it is starting to be a bit boring and I feel like I’m missing out on the majority of attunement skills.

This is some of the things I’ve found:
- 25 charges on conjured weapons is a bit unnecessary in PvE. Most of the time I drop them with 10 or more charges still available.
- Survivability gets hard in the later areas where mobs use cond dmg, since blind and signet of restoration becomes a bit obsolete when mobs hit faster
- Do not feel like I’m doing much in boss fights

So I’ve picked up a staff and went something like 0/0/20/10/20. Now I feel like I have a lot more options on my hand instead of focusing on survivability. I still keep TH for dmg, but not sure about the other 2 utility skills. And what are some good traits to pick up? Is this build lacking in damage when not using TH?

Thanks everyone for their input.

I guess the point is to level up more, learn on the way, and find groups.

My fear of a group is that it is easy for someone to spoil what’s coming up. And getting to a higher level is fine, but I thought I can do some dungeons as something different from normal PvE. If I had to reach near the end of the game just to see more of the story, it’s kind of baffling. I guess you can say the reward for the difficulty is the story itself…

Hi guys.

My friend and I are thinking about doing the first dungeon, AC. We’re both new to the game. I have a level 31-ish elementalist and my friend’s ranger is on the same level. Currently we have the better, if not best equipment for our level (from crafting and trading). Both our classes are mainly specced for PvE, and we can usually take on champion singletons with not much problem.

Will we be able to duo the dungeon in story mode? From what I’ve gathered on the forums and the map chat, most people are looking for high level characters. Just wondering what are everyone’s take on the difficulty of the first dungeon in story mode.

Hi, I’m a new player and I’ve been playing Mesmer for a few days now. I’m curious regarding some of its abilities:

1. Phase Retreat – Does the clone use real wind of chaos on mobs, as in, does it induce conditions and boons, or does it only cast a fake one that looks like the skill but no cond or boons?

2. Phantasmal Berserker – Apart from the first spin, does it attack again after a few seconds? Often I see it standing around until it or the enemy dies.

3. Chaos Armour – Does it trigger on ranged attackers?

4. Shatter – For PVE, is Cry of Confusion (confusing foes) useful at all? Or should just stick to mind wrack and distortion?

5. Sword attack / Blurred Frenzy – This is probably a general question for melee builds, when I run up to an enemy and swing my sword, it sometimes does not continue to attack even with autoattack on. I see the enemy move around me a bit so is it possible that’s what is cancelling the attack? And frustrating times when I use Blurred Frenzy and the mob just casually walks behind me and I manage to miss all my hits.

Some of these questions will probably seem noobish, though I am new, so want to see how vet players do their stuff. Thanks.

Bump. It doesn’t matter if the guild is just starting up or an already large guild.

Hi.

My friend and I are looking for a guild focused on light to medium roleplaying. We’re in Oceania timezone and currently on Gate of Madness server.

Thank you.