Guild Wars 2

Thanks Cyninja, that helps a bit and gives me a somehwat “idea” on what I have to look at. This is the optimal “situation” as you’ve stated, depending on what utility skills you pick for certain encounters, the rotation might differ,

And I guess in situations where you tank, it’s more important to stay alive and tank properly than doing your rota and be downed all the time.

As the title says.

I planned to grab out my mesmer again after some months, working on the leadership runes currently .

I’m planning to use him in fracs and raids (later), and I’ve looked after some builds. http://qtfy.eu/build/mesmer

I have been watching the dom recall build video rotation. And oh dear, that’s really tough to learn, even tho they say it’s “easy” :o

I’ve been writing down the single steps of skills used in the video, and im at more than 30 steps meanwhile… thats pretty hard to learn.

Anyways; what my question is: Is there no “general” way of how to use / prioritize the skills? That would make things a lot easier. I’d be thankful for any tips / tutorials or whatever.

Thank you.

Hey folks,

After a break I decided to get in tune with my mesmer again. Unfortunately its been some time since I was last active and I guess many things have changed.

As far as I found out, the mesmer (according to metabattle) is played with command/ zerker stats and runes of leadership for raids (and fractals?).

I’ve also watched the lfg what people in raids are looks for. “DPS chrono” and “Tank chrono”. Now that I can’t really afford two ascended armors; here’s my question:

- What build is more popular?
- (and: do I even need two diff armors to switch between these roles?)

Another thing where I need help is the rotation. I’ve read through the metabattle raid mesmer a build, and this is what it says:

<em>Usage
Keeping up quickness boils down to using these skills at least once every 30 seconds before alacrity. That’s every 22,6 seconds after alacrity and these skills give you 24 seconds of quickness total and therefore permanent quickness. Make sure to weaponswap before starting the rotation to proc your Superior Sigil of Concentration Superior Sigil of Concentration .

1 Tides of Time Tides of Time
2 Signet of Inspiration Signet of Inspiration
3 Well of Action Well of Action
4 A phantasm to proc an additional Signet of Inspiration Signet of Inspiration</em>

Since English is not my mother tongue, im not sure if I understood it correctly. Does it mean I just have to proc my signet by weapon swapping and go through this rotation every 30 seconds? :|

Also, is it “hard” to be the tank in raids? I have done some VG runs as DPS thief, which is fairly easy.

Do I keep up my phantasms or do I shatter them asap?
I really have the feeling the mes got really complicated and hence I need some help. I’d appreciate it a lot.

@ HotBoy: Thats a good idea since I didnt really start with raids anyway… Currently my ascended armor has assasin stats and Im using Chronomancer’s runes. Is that fine?

So going with a full zerk set and runes of leadership would be perfectly fine, even for high level fractals and open world?

Hey folks,

my mesmer on 80 recently got his ascended armor finished, yet Im pretty confused on what attribute to choice and what runes sigills I should pick.

Metabattle fractal build:

- Assasins armor
- Berserker weapons and jewelry
- Rune of Scholar / Chronomander
- Sigill of Air / 5% damage

Metabattle Raid build:

- berserker armor and gear, except leggins (comanders)
- runes of leadership
- sigill of concentration

I really don’t want to build a complete second ascended armor/ weaponset to be effective in both areas, since that would be hundreds of gold. :|

Is there a good “middle” way of gear to use for both fractals AND raids?
Also, I’m playing lots of Open World, so the build should be suitable for that content too. Thanks in advance

As the title says. I just leveled my warrior to 80 and am about to craft my ascended gear. I personally love using Sw/T and LB over the other weaponsets, hence condi is WAY more fun to me.

How is the current state of condi Ps warriors in fractals / raids? Will I find a place? Or am I inferior to my zerker fellow?

Thanks in advance!

Lets stop using this false equivocation that raids are inaccessible, when the cold reality is people whom claim this don’t want to put in the same effort those before them did in building raid groups & learning.

Never mentioned they were inaccessible, I said accesing them is hard. If you point on one of the arguments, get them right please.

Also, if you’re in one of these “so called” learning groups? What do you get?
You see how the boss mechanic works. That’s good. But you’ll likely never be able to have a succesful finish of the boss. You’ll get no LI which is require for almost every serious raid group as evidence you’re experienced.

How do you propose that is done?

As someone wrote, the idea of introducing tiers is a good one. Higher tiers → higher rewards. A tier kind of solution would it atleast make possible to do the achievements and gather experience from tier to tier, like in fractals.

Another idea would be to make a kind of a tutorial as introduction.

Top tier content? Where?! Legendary stuff is pure fluff, not top tier content.

Legendary equipment is similar to ascended equipment stat wise. Earlier or later most people actively playing that game want to access legendary weapons (and armors in the future). A-Net also keeps promoting legendary equipment, making it even more attractive.

Anyways, if you define it as ‘fluff’ that’s fine, it doesn’t resemble how most players feel, tho.

As the topic title says, I think the accessibility to raids really is an issue.

You probably know it yourself if you’ve ever checked the lfg-tool for raids:
LFP experienced [insert class here] with X LI and TS³

Nearly any request looks similar to this, implying inexperienced raid players likely have no chance to join.

Also, these without wanting to use TS (I’m personally not too keen talking with foreign people about a certain game content) are somewhat excluded.

I myself did VG when the raids where somewhat new, it took me really long (several days) to find a group picking me up without “exp and li”, and even afterwards several of the groups I found didn’t succeed, because people were too inexperienced – a doom loop.

Sure, that’s not bad for gaining experience; but still – you gotta lie when you’re entering a group that requires more experience (and even they usually require a gear check of your LI).

Anyways, after what seemed like ages with different (inexperienced) groups and tries we managed to get the VG down.

That was pretty much my only goal yet, until the legendary armor was previewed.
It simply shouldn’t be that top tier content is limited to a small percentage of players.

And that really is the case – I’m in a large guild and roughly 5-10% are successfully, experienced raiders.

Other people (and I think that’s reflecting in the rest of the gw2 community) simply don’t get into raids – cause of the reasons mentioned above.

You’d have to join a somewhat professional raid guild to be really succesful.

Sure – some of the really ambitioned players will likely pop up now and prove me wrong, telling me their story of becoming a good raid player on their own, but that’s a minority.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m neither blaming the community (cause raids are challening) nor do I criticize the severity – All I would like is to make the start, the access easier for players new to raids – even without guild.
To allow a larger group access to a crucial (and now with the legendary armor even more) part of the game.

Levetty.1279:

Mainhand condi dagger with the spec being based around mobility and stealth named Nomad to go with the desert theme.

^ this. I have an image coming up of a desert based ranger with sand/ dusttraps and a pretty swift playing style with MH dagger. Would really enjoy that!

^ alright, how many trinkets and which?

what does “min/max damage” mean by the way?

Heya,

Cause Im more or less a fan of dulfys guides, I’ve recently noticed that dulfy is using some kind of overlay for gw2 (other curser which looks like it offers more accuracy)

I don’t really know how these “features” are called (are there others?), and how to use them. Could anyone maybe put up a list of mods / overlays ?

Would be awesome, thanks in advance!

SaltAndLight.4652:

The world is getting bigger, so the players are more spread out.

very plausible statement here.

Didn’t realize when I created this topic that some time has passed since HoT was released and at some times the maps are empty (more or less) cause new maps were added and many people already mastered most of the achievements / challenges HoT offers .

Guess I got a somewhat wrong impression cause im grinding hot maps atm to get my machined weapons done – ember bay seems always filled up tho (for example)

I really really hope the game will survive for a really long time. Its been over a decade since I put my passion into GW, and it’d be sad if this great game would be dying .

I pretty much lost the overview about all the changes that were done to fractals in the previous patches, that’s why I have no idea about the agony resistance anymore.

How much is needed for level 100? What’s the best way to achieve that? -> in which gears do I mix in what? What gear is “upgradeable” to put more infusions into it?

Hey folks, I recently returned to my (old) main again and really enjoy the druid once I roughly figured out it’s mechanics.

I’ve checked some metabattle PvE (raids & fractal) builds; yet I’m puzzled which one to use (one is called Power Glyph Buffer, the other one’s called LB S/A druid); and they hardly differ.

Anyways, in both builds its suggested to mix in some assasins gear. Is this really useful? Since Im more or less full zerker atm. Don’t really want to transform my ascended armor, so could I just replace some trinkets with the assasin variant? If so, which ones?

Thanks in advance!

Durzlla.6295:

IfAnd I’m going to be amazed if Druid isn’t needed again, but please anet, make the astral wisp more interesting, maybe have it remove a specific condi or something on its travel path, or make it spin faster, or apply like a stack of poison idk.

I always get a watery eye when looking on my traits tab realizing I’m not using beastmastery, which is actually an amazing traitline.

well its just my impression – at least for the hot maps for example. Cant talk a lot about WvW cause im no WvW player.

I didnt say the game is dying, just thinking the amount of active players declined.

Is it just me? Even at “prime” – the evening it seems there are less and less players. Wanted to do various meta events at the hot maps, but this and the past evenings the maps were pretty much empty. One commander here and there to organize single events, but not really a “meta” going on. That’s pretty sad…

Is it just me ?

Damage wise, shortbow is a pretty nice Aoe weapon.
Incase you combine Choking Gas and Clustering bomb you deal some remarkable aoe damage. Same when you autoattack and are facing more than one enemy.

Other than that, P/P deals more ranged single target damage.
Yet I didn’t encounter too many situations tho where you need P/P (talking about PvE).
Thief ’s main source is melee damage (D/D or staff), and if you find yourself downed much in fractals or raids, you should work at dodging / positioning yourself.

nope, took me long enough to find a class that really fits my playstile.

Any hints regarding my questions?

Sorry for the double post –
but two more questions came up and im not entirely sure about the best solution:

1) What sigills do I use for Shortbow in OpenPve ? 5% + Air? Or should I consider fire or even bloodlust? What about fracs / raids?

2) When fighting with D/D and facing MORE than 1 enemy, do I still use CnD in my rota? Or do I go for aaing mainly? Cause CnD only hits 1 enemy…

As posters said above, gather your own experience. It’s very subjective.

I personally love the swiftness a thief / dd offers, compared to other classes.
If you like moving around quickly and kill things fast, you’ll love the profession.
But you’ll have to be attentive about dodging and positioning, since the thief isn’t forgiving any crucial mistakes (dd more than vanilla).

Hey folks,

I have some issues with playing thief in PvP. I’ve started my thief a couple of weeks ago and love the class, but I have the impression the thief is somewhat inferior against any other class in PvP.

Sure I can win some 1v1s, but against some classes it just seems impossible. I sometimes have the impression some players can drink their coffee whilst fighting me and still win, which is frustrating.

I’m playing D/P SB; Marauder stats with DD, Trick and DA.
I just have the impression I can’t “carry” my team. All I do is jumping around and decapping, trying to force the enemy to +1 situations.

Yet I can hardly win 2 or three games in a row.
I don’t think im a bad player (Ruby last season with Necromancer and warr), but I can’t get past emerald with my thief lol.

Has anyone maybe some hints for me? Or any link to a written guide or a video?
I really like the class yet I have the impression I may do something wrong.
It seems the class itself is so much inferior so it’s not forgiving mistakes…

Thank you in advance!

thief needs to be rebalanced to be somewhat competitive again in PvP. I started a thief recently, and now played around 50 matches in PvP. He seems somewhat inferior to any other class, which is really sad, cause thief is such a fun class to play.

@ Vykoz: Thank you so much for that idea (Pistol 6 and bounding dodger)
Think I just found my found my ideal weaponset for OW.

at Blaqatak: Nope, it’s more like asking for the best healing skill and getting the advise: “avoid getting damaged”; so was her comment; dispensable and the way she phrased it – big headed. All I did was asking for constructive advice, which other players gave me to rethink the way to play, which helped me.

But yeah, I’m no longer getting soaked into this immature discussion. Thanks for these who helped me with reasoned answers; topic can be closed.

Never said hot maps were hard, but there are more kind of mobs that use cc.

Be proud that you don’t use any stun breakers, but since I asked for good stun breakers your statement “learn to dodge =)” is neither a reasonable nor a constructive advise.

You make yourself look kitteny , so I please reduce your comments to constructive advise or get out of the topic, please.

Jana.6831:

Question is: Who is stunning you that often (in PvE).
Maybe time your dodges a bit better? =)

Counterquestion: Have you played the HoT expansion? =)

On a serious note tho, you can’t always evade any cc by dodges (depending on the kind of mob).

If you claim to prevent any ingoing cc by perfect doding ever I personally find that highly doubtful.. but then again.. maybe you’re just too l33t.

thanks for all the answers, but yet I still don’t know what stunbreaker to use :’D

But I managed to figure out another awesome thing:
I always thought Bounding Dodger is the ultimate non plus ultra in PvE.
I switched that trait against unhindered combatant which is so much better because:
- the dodge animation itself is shorter
- reliable condi remover
- gives you swiftness, so you can drop the 25% movement signet and replace it (which is really great)
- damage reduction, which is especially useful in HoT (open world)

AS for utility skills I’m still trying out some things. I think Fist Flurry is pretty much a nice to have damage skill, especially combined with D/D, cause it triggers Impacting Disruption (that’s obviously the trait u’re skilling when you’re Daredevil and using D/D).

Infiltrators Signet is, with bandit’s defense arguably the best stun breaker when it comes down to cooldown time. I’ve tried Roll for Initiatve and Withdraw, but when you’re using Unhindered Combatant, you’re not so often in need of these and might pull off another stun breaker.

Im not really a fan of S/P, so I’d rather stick with D/D instead.
what about Death Blossom and Dancing Dagger? Ist it a smart choice to use these skills against 3 or more foes? Or should I stick to Autoattacking?

Hey folks,

no matter how “bad” the thief is compared to other classes, I really love the smooth way of playing and the versatility the class offers. I’ve tested any other class and only thief gives me that feeling.

Right now I’m playing my thief in PvP and PvE (Open world solely atm); and I have a couple of questions about thief in PvE / Open World.

1.) When using dagger, is it more reasonable to go for D/D or D/P? I have a feeling D/D offers a bit more damage. When using D/D, do you recommend using skill #4 and #3 for > 3mobs? Or

2.) How is heartseeker #2 damage wise? Is it recommendable to use it when the enemies below 50%? Or would you just keep autoattacking?

3.)Utility skills is another issue. I usually run around with 3 signets (heal signet, power, precision and 25% movement for OW). Against some enemies I miss a stun breaker; yet I don’t know what stun breaker’s the best; bandit’s defense got a pretty good cd, but when I use it to break a stun I won’t be able to attack immediately, which is a nuisance. Any hints/ tips?
When playing in open world, I love trating Invigorating Precision. It’s a safe® way to keep being in melee fights for a longer time and keeps you usually above 90% life for the 10% damage bonus.

4.) Staff or Dagger in Open world? What do you recommend? I can’t really say the one weapon feels “weaker”, yet I got the impression staff is a bit more centered on dealing aoe damage, which is a plus in open world… any clear pros/ cons? Is staff as good as dagger?

If you have any other tips for me, I gladly listen to them!

That’s it so far, thank you in advance !

I was just curious cause http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Thief_-_Raid_DPS suggests trickery over DrD for Raids.

Hey there,

since D/D is meta again (I’m not really a thief expert), why shouldnt trickery be swapped for daredevil? why is trickery suggested? Better group support in raids?

As for open world, it seems to me the daredevil spec makes more sense.

thanks, but I was just curious about underwater fighting

Now that D/D is somewhat compareable (hopefully a-net keeps d/d equal to staff) thief became more interesting for me again.

Bump! (didnt want to open a new topic)
Just curious, when playing underwater, what rota do I use whilst playing underwater?

I’m not worrying if it’s “an issue”; I’m just curious whether equipping a mainhand dagger / or grandsword is still effective with viper stats to bring down OW foes quickly.

Simple question; solely talking about damage.
I’m quite new to the class and just recently accessed the daredevil.
And right now I feel a bit more comfy with D/D, since it “allows” me to use more skills and hence makes the weaponset more interesting (1,2 and 5 in rotation; 4 for several enemies), whereas staff only requires the player to aa; maybe using 2 inbetween the rotation.

I see a couple of DDs running around with 2 daggers; so – still viable or not?

I’m curious and I need a bit of help:

I have a necromancer – he’s equiped with zerker gear; after the most recent big patch it seems that “condi” is meta in fractals and raids now, and I’m pretty much rejected by serious groups, which is a problem.

I’ve tried out the condi stuff in PvP and it’s not bad; but the reason why I love the power build so much is the possibility to kill foes in open world VERY quickly.
Yet I’m in a kinda “dilemma” – should I switch all my (ascended) gear to viper stuff and hence focus on conditions BUT risk having “less” fun especially in Open world (which I play a lot).

So here’s my question: If I run around with hybrid stat equip, is it, let’s say, still possible to equip a dagger /WH OR GS in one weapon set and STILL bring down foes pretty quickly? Or is that idea nonsense?

Thanks for the replies! I have only trief out staff in the PvP test area so far; it seems like the staff is better for cleaving and it feels like it deals a bit more damage as well. Is the skill 5 worth to be used for a damage increase? Or only situational?

ABout the shortbow: I guessed that (yet I see many theif running around with a leg shortbow, so I guess it’s somewhat viable :-o); but incase I’m “forced” to go ranged (which isn’t happening too often); what skills should I preferably use to damage as much as possible? Spamming 4 and/or 2; or just go with the auto? When using 2, should I implode it or not?

Thanks again!

Hey folks,

as the title says I’ve decided to play the thief as my next active profession besides my mesmer. Really like the class so far (level 35 atm), but I got a couple of questions. Hopefully you can help me out.

1) Shortbow in the second weaponset: Actually I see every thief running around with a sb; so I guess it’s pretty viable. Yet I don’t “feel” it’s to strong tho; I’m actually only using it to move around faster (skill 5). When I go for the ranged fight, skill 2 and 4 don’t seem like a dps “boost”; or am I wrong? Can you tell me how “to effectively use shortbow”? What makes this weapon so strong?

2) What do you prefer in PvE ? (both fractals/raids and pve open world wise) – Dagger / Dagger or Staff and why? What weapon actually deals more damage? Or is more “useful”?

3) What about utility skills in open world? Should I just stick to the signets with maybe having one stunbreaker; or should I use some DD skills? What about the healing skill? Which one would you recommend?

Hey guys,

I got a sorta problem atm.
While it’s recommended to play a power druid in ranger, I’m not quite sure what people are looking for in raids; since metabattle doesn’t seem too clear to me. Can anyone help out?

Also, what do I do when different stats are required? I don’t really want to buy a second ascended medium armor for my druid for raids (since I hardly do any / just started doing them). Wouldnt it be possible to go for an exotic armor? Or is this build perfectly playable?

Also, is it “hard” to play a healer druid if you aren’t used to it?

I’ve tried out a revenant.. I don’t really get along with the rev’s mechanics of keeping the aspects up and switching legendaries. And I’m not too much into heavy armor classes. That’s why I probs left out warrior too.

Could anyone maybe tell me a “solution” for playing a ranger? I mean, do I really have to get a second ascended armor at the cost of hundreds of gold to play raids effectively or whatever? Or isnt it possible to play a zerk druid in raids too? OR use an exotic version of the armor for the healing stats?
It’s pretty annoying raids are somewhat “hard to access”

Also, what about thiefs? Are they really that squishy ? As far as MB goes, the raid and fractal build are pretty much the same for DD. What about playing a thief in OW tho? I always fear if I*’d decide for the thief I’d play a really squishy profession that requires me to really master the class if I want to survive in (HoT) OW.

About Eles.. I always fear (if I’m NOT playing with staff) the skill rotations are super complicated and I’ll always stick to staff instead and get bored to hell at a point. I also like to switch “between” a strong ranged and strong melee weapon. Does dagger really feel “melee”-ish with the ele?

Hmmm .. currently got a full zerk asc medium armor. If Im right, I’d either have to change the stats of it or craft a new armor that fits the requirements for raids. Both doesnt seem like an attractive option to me.

Hey all,

I’m maining a mesmer for some time . Yet I’m lacking a bit of fun I used to have with that class .

Maybe you can help me out a bit by getting things right or dispelling my doubts.

I want to play a profession that

- is easy to play (dagger ele or engi with complicate rotations are not my thing .)
- deals a lot of damage and can wipe multiple foes easily (I’m a passionate open world player)
- doesn’t require me to change my (ascended) gear , cause the meta fractal build requires me to choose diff stats from the meta raid build or vice versa.
- isn’t too squishy and got decent sustain
- has a perma swiftness buff ; anything else is a bit annoying in OW

Now given that , every class got a bit of a negative aspect . Maybe you can help me out here ?

- thief : pretty fun to play, but the fact thief only got a weak 900 range weapon for OW discourages me a bit from playing . Also I loved daggers pretty much , now staff seems to be meta

- ranger : got the problem that’s it’s necessary to switch gear when playing fractals AND dungeons . Pretty annoying . And way to expensive .

- necro: also loved to play power necro , now that condi seems to be meta anywhere , that profession lost much of its fun to me

- guard : swiftness problem; and overall a bit boring to play.

- ele and engi : complicate skill rotations don’t make these classes really Keen to me.

Rev : don’t like the profession overall . Weird ranged weapon also

Maybe someone had a similar kind of crisis and can help me out ?

cheers man ! :*

As metabattle states Necros are pretty viable in raids as condi damage dealers, whereas it’s recommended to play with zerker stats in Fractals and dungeons. I pretty much like fractals, and just recently discovered raids.

I currently have an asc armor on my mesmer, and I’d readily built a second one for my necro. (switching around that armor all the time is no choice.)The class isnt in the absolute “top tier”, but I love the mechanic of the class and would like to enjoy any sort of content with it.

The imagination tho of needing to built two asc armors (viper and zerker) hits me hard. Wouldnt it be possible to run raids with an exo viper armor (still ascended jewelry tho)? Or would that be a massive disadvantage for myself / the raid group?

Ouch, I guess this statement hurt anet’s reputation pretty much. No matter how the choice of words of the statement is, much trust is lost.

Besides my very own opinion, this basically sums it up:

>Promise 16 new legendaries
>Get lots of $$$ from expansion sales
>Suspend development of said legendaries

And besides.. why does the developer team keep releasing tons of weapon sets for the gemstore? Then decline the further development of weapons we all waited for? o_o

Sigh.

Nope., that doesn’t help

Title says pretty much all. I’ve read through man threads and found out gw2 is pretty much CPU consuming.
My system stats

Intel I7 6700 Skylake @2,6GHZ
GTX980
16GB Ram
Win10 home

Game runs pretty mediocre (45-50 fps), have expected way more considering of the hardware. Spent much money, but its pretty disappointing my favourite game is running worse than it did on my old laptop.

Already updated the graphic’s card driver, checked if the card is plugged proplery (yes, its@ 16) etc. pp.

I’m pretty sad and disappointed. It would be wonderful if somebody could help me.

How exactly do I play my mesmer in Pugs (ranked / unranked)?
I havent really got a (good) premate or team.

When playing with my necro I perform pretty well.
But when playing my mesmer (according to the metabattle build), Im in a more supportive role. And I feel without organization Im like pretty much useless and feel overall “weak”.

Is there any good solo build for mesmer? Would be really thankful if you helped me.