Guild Wars 2

It’s one of those ‘specialty’ or exclusive areas similar to the Captain’s Airship or the area in Crown Pavilion. You get the passes to go there by competing in the monthly tournament and placing 4th or higher.

Trash talk before the game starts as much as possible to draw the global aggro. When they realize you’re not at mid at least 1-2 will split off to find you.

Emdrix.6124:

- rating system punishes u for playing because u lose more rating than u win therefore forcing people to play on their alts and troll or do whatever else to not risk their rating

Smurfs will always exist. Partially due to still wanting to play without risking their top ratings due to a bad team or losing streaks or any other variable, partially due to que times. Point being, they will always exist in every competitive game mode ever where ranking is involved. As far as rating is concerned, I’m in gold and I win a lot more rating than I lose, or the amounts are roughly equal. But really, what do you expect? To win one-lose one and still climb? You only need to maintain roughly kitten w/l rating to climb. Albeit slowly. If you’re not climbing quick enough then you have only yourself to blame.

Emdrix.6124:

- matchmaking is still broken, 5 random pugs solo Qing going vs double pro league Duo and still losing -20 , or getting 1600 MMR players in my game when I was1850+ makes no sense, fast Q times make matchmaking a lot worse

I’ve noticed matchmaking this season has been far better than previous seasons. If you’re experiencing such a huge discrepancy in ratings then you may be playing in off-times where there’s an even smaller pool of players to match you with/against. Personally I’m willing to bet there’s a healthy amount of exaggerating here. But furthermore, this game uses a variant of Glicko2. Ratings work by giving you more points when beating a team with a higher combined rating, and losing less points if you lose against them. If you’re losing a lot of points for a loss, then odds are your team was higher rated than them.

Emdrix.6124:

- faceroll classes with a lot of passives like guardian/ranger makes PvP unfun especially when stacked, low skill high reward builds in general ruin PvP because it feels like I’m getting outplayed by passives and not by the player

Class stacking is an issue that most of us have complained about, so I’ll agree with you to that end. However it’s not hard to outplay those passives when you take the time to learn them. If you’re struggling against a class, it helps to play that class for a few games (at least 10) and learn their strengths/weaknesses. It’s also worth noting that some classes/builds are just going to beat others. If you go charging into a point defended by a DH as a thief, you’re probably going to have a bad time.

Emdrix.6124:

- no incentive to play anyway, u can have a couple of good games at the peak of prime time for like 2-3 hours then its who ever has the worst pugs loses

Plenty of incentive between the rewards and the rank, whichever you are aiming for. I don’t really know the point of this claim. It’s pretty obvious that whichever team has the less-skilled players will lose. This isn’t news.

Emdrix.6124:

- duo Qing still makes the system very exploitable and not really skillbased compared to a pure solo Q

Still better than it was with full 5 mans. I’ve found that the duo-que system can still occasionally leave teams at a disadvantage when the duo-quers are attached at the hip and rotating poorly. I’d be more than willing to bet that your average duo que are just a couple of people found in map chat who decided to que together thinking it gives them better odds of success, when really it doesn’t make that much of a difference at all.

Emdrix.6124:

Idk theres probably more stuff that I cant think off right now but I stopped caring. I ve been playing compeltly random useless builds and stopped caring about the ladder even tho ive been top 30 before solo Q only. Its just not worth playing anymore for me at least I’m bored of my f….. mind. Probably gonna quit the game till season 6 and see if they fixed some of the issues.

So, basically you hit legend in previous seasons but now you can’t because backwards progression is a thing? And now you’re playing useless/troll builds because you can’t farm for a title? Sorry but the scene is probably better off without you ruining games for people. Good riddance.

When I say I “kinda stopped reading” what I mean is that I tossed the grain of salt given to everything I usually read online and replaced it with a dead-sea sized portion. I went and re-read the post and all I saw was anecdotes about how “I’m doing bad so the system is broken.”

This last point you made was nowhere in the OP so I’m assuming it developed somewhere else in the post, but I will address it all the same. The player pool is limited in this game mode. And that pool shrinks a lot more the higher you climb. You will inevitably encounter the same people more often, especially when you’re playing at roughly the same times as them and are winning/losing roughly as much as they are. If you’re encountering the same players and it’s giving you a hard time, try que dodging for a few minutes. Or take a break for a while. Or more drastically, change up your play time. The tried and true method for most anyone playing competitively is that if you’re on a losing streak, your best bet is to just take a step back for a little while. Maybe an hour, maybe a day. However long it takes you to un-tilt.

My personal feelings on the matter is that if I encounter people who can do well on their own but tend to screw over the team as a whole due to conflicting playstyles, try to use them to your advantage. Watch them on the minimap and rotate with them/around them. Be their +1 to make sure that they’re actually securing objectives or kills instead of suiciding into a 1v2 on far. This is a team game, and ideally everyone works together with perfect cohesion to pull out wins, but we do not live in an ideal world. We’re playing in an online game where egos are inflated 10 fold thanks to the veil of anonymity (seriously, you never see this level of salt in any other sport, especially by the least-skilled of the bunch). Sometimes in order to win you have to ditch your own ego to play around others. I’d be willing to bet people have done the same for you and me in the past. Is it perfect? No. Does it work? Absolutely.

Another thing worth noting is that when you have settled around your true-ranking (where you belong) you will not be able to hard carry without mechanically outplaying people consistently. But by being at your true-ranking this shouldn’t be possible. So honestly? Don’t try. You’ll only hold yourself to a higher standard than you can possibly achieve 100% of the time. It may still happen occasionally, but it’s not something to count on.

I kinda stopped reading the OP when there was a complaint that higher skilled players will generally win more. While there is a slight imbalance in professions and some are just shut out currently (rev comes to mind), the discrepancy between classes is fairly minimal. Each excel in their own way and most can duel one another when outplayed. Looking for those animations, tracking dodges, etc is key to winning. If you can’t be bothered to put effort into winning, then yes, you will likely lose. A lot. Perfect balance doesn’t mean that you can just lean back and mash your skills and come out ahead, that’s not how it works. Learn your rotations, learn your classes, learn the classes you are weak/strong against, and beat them. That’s all it takes.

The mode doesn’t need to be “revolutionized”. It just needs more people realizing that you can’t farm your way into legendary anymore. If you’re playing pvp for the rewards then you can do that at literally any rank without any backwards progress as with the previous seasons. If you’re playing PvP for the ranks and the titles, then you can’t just farm your way into that anymore. You actually do have to try, sorry to say.

Helseth’s climb proved that by playing a good class with a good build and being generally better than the people in your ranking, you will climb. That’s all that it was meant to prove and it did. You can’t toss in the argument that “Well he didn’t play x subpar class so his climb is meaningless” because it just doesn’t apply to real life. You don’t play something not designed to do what you’re aiming for and then wonder why the hell your goal isn’t being reached. It’s like setting a goal of spending less on gas for a month while driving a Hummer.

IMO they should remove the whole rally mechanic and all that and replacing the skill with with a short-term rampage revive. Thinking something along the lines of Sion’s passive from League of Legends, where upon death he rezzes with full HP but can only auto attack, but those attacks are massively buffed. Meanwhile health degens at a rapid rate and can be prodded further with attacks/abilities. In this case, the warrior will revive with full or increased HP and the rampage toolbar, no utilities, no heal, no elite. Just massively buffed attacks with the utilities of the rampage elite, but health draining at an exceptional rate (1-3k per second or 5-7% of max HP) giving the warrior a hard time limit and increased pressure aside from the opponents chipping away at them already.

However, when compared to, basically every other downed skill 3 (aside from maybe ranger skill 3) this would be massively overpowered. So secondary though, maybe the warrior can drop a random banner or a specific banner for nearby allies.

Personally something I would love to see with the game is racial skills in downed state, perhaps replacing the downed 3 skill since those are always such weird skills that you rarely ever can get off. Could give some reason to pick certain races for certain classes or certain situations. These could perhaps include a secondary CC ability to help you survive, or increased healing, or something that will essentially keep you alive.

Just tossing out ideas for these.

Human: Summons an avatar of Dwayna to help you heal. (similar to ranger downed 3)
Norn: Assumes Bear Form (Anyone else remember that Norn lore wise and through racial abilities can transform? Because I rarely remember that) which increases toughness significantly, perhaps transforms the downed 2 skill into a maul-type skill which stuns.
Asura: drops a large defensive golem which stuns on landing and forms a reflective barrier (similar to guardian’s revive skill)
Charr: Calls reinforcements from the legion you chose to side with during character creation. These could all effectively do the same thing or maybe even have some differences based on the legion itself. But maybe it summons 2 “minions” to help fight whoever is around. If OOC maybe they can even help you res?
Sylvari: A large healing aoe, perhaps cripples or immobilizes enemies in the area as well. Not sure what to do there that fits balance and flavor wise as I don’t like vegetables, but you get what I’m driving at.

Just some random loritab-filled thoughts on downed skills.

So you’re playing rev and complaining that you’re not doing well?

Found the problem.

I think more so than anything, the importance of communication needs to be stressed more. In some of my games the difference has been night and day when comparing games where people do communicate and those that don’t.

My personal rule is to be talkative right at the beginning, see who’s going to talk and who isn’t. At the very least let them know that I’m going to communicate. Usually stating I’m taking home, or asking the mesmer if they’re going to, or asking the thief if they’re going to escort home or harass far. At the very least it sets up the basis of the first minute or two of the match.

Another thing worth mentioning is having a shot caller. This can be especially volatile in this sort of environment where everyone thinks they’re the best and egos are just oozing into the text box. But that needs to be set aside by someone to follow some sense of direction. I’ve had games where I took up the role of calling shots, I’ve had other games where I started doing it but someone else was doing it as well and I just let them do it as I didn’t want orders to get mixed up. That little bit of cooperation and communication with an easy flow can mean the difference between a win and a loss. Of course, it’s not to say that anyone who’s a shot caller is a good shot caller. Everything should be taken with a grain of salt and everyone should know when to ignore a call because it’s just plain stupid.

In any case, I agree with some of the above sentiments, that it’s hard to make a solid rotation guide because matches are by nature fluid. It’s not the same as writing a boss guide for raids. There aren’t triggers or things that happen at set times. However I believe a priority list can be made for those who are curious enough to research to keep in the back of their minds when deciding what to do second by second in a match. Sadly I don’t see such a thing ever really being implemented into the game.

I’d think locked out of ranked is sufficient enough. Reward track bonuses are fairly trivial and more just a passive gain. Certainly doesn’t make sense to impose when you consider people getting randomly DC’d or what have you getting dishonor. Could lead to a lot of false-positive punishments.

Sure, they could. Enjoy those 45 min que times.

The reason things ended up going towards the solo que individual rather than the team que groups is that it’s far easier and more accessible for people to que solo rather than getting a team together, whether consistently or just pugging it up. While yes, it is a team game, if a healthy majority of the playerbase are barred entry until they meet x arbitrary standard, then you won’t have a game mode anymore. Plain and simple.

Me personally, I’m fine with keeping duo ques in the game, as it doesn’t skew the game nearly as heavily kitten man que vs all pugs once did. There is still a skew, but it is slight. Furthermore I also agree that the PvE rewards (see: ascended) should be locked behind wins. As it stands, a person can throw every game and still collect their free ascended set with little to no ramifications if they don’t care about rank. With loot locked behind wins, it’s either going to A: force the person just there for the gear to git gud to collect it. Or B: drive that person away from the mode altogether. Either I am fine with. There’s also a slight third option that the person can have someone duo que with them and carry, which I have mixed feelings about. As long as it leads to wins, fine I guess?

In any case, if and when you climb above a certain rank, you’ll run into less of these people. I’m bottom tier gold and I don’t think I’ve truly escaped them yet. But they are less common than bottom tier silvers.

WvW forum is —-→ way.

Also in mid and high ranking matches, they are infested with DHs and CC as well. Simply because it’s what works. If you’re in the lower rankings at this part of the season, it’s likely because you belong there.

If you have zero interest in mobility and want to go for teamfighting then I could almost see the justification for dropping SB, however you’re gimping yourself harshly for that. Thieves are built to capitalize on unfavorable situations for the enemy. +1 a 1v1 to easily secure a kill, exploit a bad rotation to get a decap, secure a secondary objective, etc. These are kind of the point of even playing a thief. Because of that, SB is a cornerstone due to the mobility, poison for denying healing, blast finisher, a meh evade frame, and ranged poke.

Was curious what may work best until I hit 80 and can HP train my DD spec. Currently using D/D+SB with Deadly Arts 2-3-3, Critical Strikes 1-2-1, Trickery 3-1-2. Signet of Malice, Haste, Assassin’s Sig, Signet of Shadows, Thieves Guild

And yes, I know that basically literally everything works, just curious if I’m missing out on something more efficient for clearing lower level zones. I usually swap out one of the signets for Shadow Refuge or Shadowstep depending if I need to channel on a point protected by a vet or a rich node or something, or if I just want to move quickly.

Thanks for any help.

Haha, maybe one day. I’ve been taking it slow lately. Joined a new guild and I’m actually getting to do raids for once. And now I’m terrified of breaking that win streak. The ladder anxiety is real.

The climb out of silver is mind numbing right now. I’m getting like +9 to +12 a win. Still 63 points off of gold.

On the plus side though…

At the very least they could limit stacking to 2 without breaking que times entirely I think. But I could see there being engineering problems to still allow people to switch classes without stacking classes. But really, stacking is a problem that ruins a lot of games. Tired of seeing 3 DHs in a map, especially if they’re on my team. 2 thieves is an issue too.

I went 5/5 with a couple of different classes (engi/ele) and got placed mid silver. So I really don’t think it matters much. For context I was in diamond S1 and 2, ruby in S3 as I stopped caring about PvP for a while, and emerald in S4 as I played like a total of 5 matches all season.

Hence part of my comment earlier about people in ruby (I guess this is gold now?) thinking they belong in ESL. Major tournaments and regular ranked play are two very different beasts with different playstyles and metas. Coordination has a lot to do with being able to extend off point to fight and create choke points that your enemies can’t push through. When you do this with pugs however, you’re going to have leaks.

I’ve been saying this for quite a while now, especially when it comes to things like rotations. You don’t need 3 people going home to kill a solo engie who’s camping it. You’re not such a hard carry that you’re going to run into a 1v3 mid after the team got wiped and finish them all off. Sitting at far 2v1 against that bunker is what is letting the enemy win right now. Etc etc. It gets old after a while. But what I’ve learned over the last year is that you can try to teach people what rotations are, stomp etiquette, when to cleave, when to stomp, etc, but it won’t make a spit of difference unless they actually want to learn. And that’s often much more rare than you might expect. At this point I’d almost rather duo with the guy who has less than 100 games under his belt but takes direction over the guy who got ruby every season and thinks he belongs in ESL.

Rangers got nerfs? I thought they weren’t touched with the patch.

Lol, there wasn’t some subtle “git gud” or similar message to that. It was exactly as it appeared. I’m glad you’re doing well so far. To be honest, based on what I’ve seen in my ~30 ish matches this season so far, warriors are in a fairly ok place. I’d honestly go as far as to call us one of the more balanced classes in the game. We have power/condi/hybrid options. Full yolo, full tanky (still no bunker or support builds) are both viable. We can be beaten when counterplayed, but we can beat any class with tweaks to a build before a match starts (See >50% DH/mesmer/warrior? Signet of Might baby). Are we a perfect class? No, not even close. But I don’t think we need any major overhauls mid-season unless the meta shifts in some massively unfavorable way.

GL out there.

Not talking about PvP, but at least for PvE I’d at least like to see changes that steer us away from being tied to bomb and/or grenade kit. Maybe making tool kit or elixir gun, or just elixirs better for condi. The only way I really see that happening though is if they end up nerfing grenade and/or bomb kit and likely killing the viability of the spec.

+1 for a fellow asuran warrior. Not nearly enough of us.

My comment was meant to be in general because it’s a generalized statement. Yes, once upon a time, we had a plethora of viable builds (though in sPvP you only ever really saw Hambow and Shoutbow builds. Note the similarity between the two?). And since then a lot of our traits and more controlly abilities have been nerfed or changed out of viability, or something better came up. Another thing worth noting that was pre-HoT, defense and discipline trees were a staple with 90% of meta or even remotely viable warrior PvP builds. We had hoped HoT would of been nicer to us and get us away from those two as a staple, but it wasn’t the case, and here we are. You can still very easily use a Hambow build. Will it be great? Probably not. But nothing is stopping you from using it.

In recent weeks I’ve seen (and tested) various dual axe+random secondary set builds, both condi and power. And that’s without any changes having gone into place yet. The couple of weeks I ran dual axe I actually ended up having a blast and getting a lot more kills than expected, mostly due to the fact that nobody really expected that kind of build.

In any case, I don’t think a change to one or two abilities are going to be what puts warrior back in the glory days of our limelight. What change could they possibly give to Throw Bolas to make any sort of difference to us, let alone make it a pick over berserker stance, endure pain, outrage, or shattering blow? Make it land no matter the state of the target? With the amount of evades, blocks, invulns, condi clear (which is now a staple due to the condi meta), etc it’s simply not a viable pick.

You want to know what would make Warrior worth picking? Consistent condi clear, less animated burst skills that are insanely easy to avoid, the ability to stick to targets better, more consistent healing outside of AH and Healing Signet, and the possibility to provide decent party support via boons or the like, meaning buffs to shouts and/or warhorn. Do you see any of this happening? Because I sure don’t. Back to my original point. You cannot and will not have all classes being in the same tier of one another. It just doesn’t happen. Balance is a tricky as hell thing, and even games that are solely PvP based never get it quite right (Just talk to folks in League of Legends or Overwatch). In the next xpac something else will come along as the dominant class and the meta will shift in some way. Your choices are to follow the meta and succeed, or play the class you want and lower your chances (supposing it’s outside the meta). It’s up to you really.

And, for the record, warriors at the moment are in a fairly solid place I’ve found. I’ve found 2 currently viable builds that I’ve been more than successful with. (currently sitting on a 51.12% W/L) So practice up, the season is coming, changes are coming, and none of them care if you’re not ready or not participating in it.

As a warrior, welcome to the club. Grab your condi amulet and get on board.

There’s always going to be a new meta when any new changes are introduced. There’s no avoiding that. When something gets buffed or something else gets nerfed it creates a shift that can move classes/builds up or down the tier list. It’ll change the viability of certain builds, making some new ones usable or making others complete garbage. This is typical with any PvP game in the history of ever.

I think he meant Signet of Fury and Signet of Might respectively.

In pvp every class is reactive with the occasional combo off of x situation mechanic, you can’t pull off a rotation because your opponents aren’t scripted to perform in certain ways. if you’re trying to do a rotation in pvp, you’re doing it wrong.

In any case with the example given, that is literally the definition of a rotation based off of priorities. Using certain skills when off CD because they’re always the highest damage damage (GS burst for example, 100b, etc). Not sure what you mean by wasting bursts. In a pve setting that is the exact rotation you would use as a GS warrior. The only wasted burst is one not used.

One of the many reasons I don’t believe a pure support engi could work currently. In order to reach the healing potential of druids or ele’s, you HAVE to abuse fields constantly while hoping they aren’t overwritten in the middle of a fight. Furthermore, your teammates have to use them as well, which relying on that is just not going to happen, especially in pugs. Also you should note that a lot of your healing likely didn’t show up on your post-game screen, as any blasts/whirl/leap finishers through your water fields would apply to your allies healing total. So your numbers were likely a bit higher, but probably not by much.

Condis by definition have ramp up time. Unless your first hit starts at your maximum stack potential, then that’s a ramp up time. Some classes manage the ramp up time better than others. I’d still consider condi warrior to be a solid fractal/raid build but wouldn’t run it in open world. Of course, played right, any build or literally no build can do fine in open world, so as I was saying before, it comes down to how well you manage mechanics.

emkelly.2371:

Warriors don’t have rotations.

emkelly.2371:

PVE there are some rotations.

Wat? lol

In any case there very much are rotations. Simplest one being the power PS warrior. Headbutt>Berserk>F1>100b>F1>Blood Reckoning>F1>Whirlwind>Rush>AAx3>F1 while weaving dodges in between to maintain stick and move. Outside of Berserk you use your skills as they come off CD and continue to weave your dodges, but it’s a fairly set rotation.

Well, the first thing to note is that condi in open world just doesn’t perform as well as your typical zerker build. Condis have a ramp up time, which means you’ll often end up spending more time killing mobs than usual, though you may fare better on higher health targets like champions or on large packs of mobs. To be honest I save the condi builds for more organized play. Fractals, raids, etc.

As for the healing skill, I typically stick with healing signet. While the zerker heal has potential to do a lot of healing, you’re usually just trading off the damage your taking with the healing you’re doing. You have to be hitting multiple mobs to see a significant heal from it, and in open world usually that means you’re also tanking them. It’s also a nice little dps increase, but still, not really worth it in PvE. Signet is undoubtedly one of the best healing skills in the game. The active heal is meh, but it can save your kitten . Resistance on activation is amazing for just ignoring conditions while you smash things to death. And the passive heal is just amazing. I’d stick with that.

As for traits, you can run anything and get away with it, but as I mentioned further up the post, I personally prefer Strength, Arms, Zerker. It’s the typical fractal/raid build just with tactics swapped for arms. I also run all signets sans elite which is always headbutt. Dolyak signet is especially good for open world imo. Stun break as well as a bunch of stability on use, and when not using it you get a passive damage reduction. Signets of might and fury are usually best when left alone, but it doesn’t hurt to pop them when you’re dealing with a lot of minions for the signet mastery trait. Tons of free damage and some decent situational utility.

Pistol Burst Skill: Rapid Fire. Unloads a barrage of bullets over a few seconds. Number of shots increases with the amount of adrenaline spent. Perhaps even making this an untargeted cone max pistol range aoe ability.

Pistol 1: typical auto fire. Maybe giving it increasing damage based on how close you are to the target.
Pistol 2: double-up. Fires two consecutive shots. The first bleeds, the second cripples. Could make this a bouncing shot as well, ricocheting to nearby enemies. (short CD, 5 seconds give or take)
Pistol 3: leap over your target, firing down on them. 1/2s evade frame, applies vulnerability. Medium cooldown (7-10s)
Pistol 4: shoots gunpowder, burning and blinding the area in a small cone. Something like 350-450 range.
Pistol 5: smacks the target with the butt of the pistol, either stunning or dazing them.

I think this gives the kit some fairly solid damage, defense, cc, and all around annoying qualities. I was taking a little bit of inspiration from Miss Fortune in League of Legends for the gun skills, though it’ll be a bit more Gangplank with the Tricks.

Healing: Fairly large burst heal with boons. Giving might/vigor/fury/quickness/stability

Rum Cask: as mentioned earlier. Stun break. take a large drink from your rum cask, granting protection and vigor. semi short CD 10-15 seconds

Fishing Net: Tosses a wide ranged net over a targeted area applying immobilize.

Explosive Cask: place a powder barrel in a targeted area. It explodes after a set time or when shot by your own gun. You’ll be able to set several barrels and overlapping barrels will chain explode.

Boarding Party!: Leap at a target area, evading during the animation. Leaving hanging ropes at your launching point that allies can interact with and use as well, using your same animation and evade frames. A little immersion breaking to have random hanging ropes, but come on, tell me that wouldn’t be amazing.

Elite: Pulls out a 24lb cannon and fires in the targeted line, knocking aside any enemies in the path and dealing decent damage. At the end of the line the cannonball explodes, leaving a fire field.

Obviously some is undertuned or overtuned, but I’m not a balance designer kitten! I think this would fit the theme of a pirate or seafaring warrior, meant to crash the lines and take over a ship. I would have continued with the pet parrot idea, but honestly I don’t think it would fit the idea very well (at least not this one).

Since I finished crafting HOPE for my engi I was kinda hoping we could see pistols be a more common weapon. Warrior being one of the few that could realistically pull it off. I love the idea of a sort of pirate-y theme behind it, especially if we get to go to Elona with the next xpac (thanks leaks).

So going off of this idea, I think this is how I’d like to see it done.

New mechanics! Tricks would be a great set of skills so no need to change it there. But what about a new F2 ability? I’m thinking boarding line. Fits the corsair image, and it plays a little like thief, and could even help alleviate some of those inherent problems with warriors against kiters. Something along the lines of tossing out a grappling hook to grab your opponents and pull you to them. Maybe even adding terrain functionality? hooking onto a wall or a tree and dragging yourself to it. The latter is a pipe dream, but I think it would be amazing.

Corsair should be a brawler, up close and personal fighter. Even with pistols the range should be fairly short. No longbow ranges with a pistol shenanigans. Thinking <900 range. Traitlines should have a focus on staying in fights, being slightly to moderately tanky (For the sake of expanding warrior’s usefulness in PvE and PvP without being hogtied to taking certain traitlines, especially in PvP).

Minor Adept: Boarding Line/Grappling hook. Unlocks this functionality for the class (every elite spec so far has had the first minor unlock their new mechanic, no need to change it)

Major Adept options:
1: Increased toughness/vitality/etc when you’re within x range of an enemy. Or possibly smaller amounts and scaling based on number of nearby enemies.
2: Spending Adrenaline heals for a small amount/removes conditions.
3: Shorter CD on Grappling Hook (numbers may vary)

Minor Master: Gain quickness and/or vigor upon successful Grapple hook.

Major Master:
1: Upon being stunned/launched/other hard CC, activate your rum cask (noted later)
2: Gain ferocity/might/fury for each bar of adrenaline spent
3: Grappling Hook taunts nearby enemies when you pull yourself to them.

Minor Grandmaster: Grappling Hook applies weakness/immobilize upon landing. Gain stability (1 stack)

Major Grandmaster:
1: Every hit taken gives a stacking toughness buff that lasts x amount of seconds. At maximum stacks, gain pulsing stability (1 stability every few seconds)
2: Holding a pistol increases power by x amount and reduces recharge of pistol skills by x%. Landing a critical with a pistol skill grants bonus adrenaline and might (small amount)
3: Upon landing Grappling Hook, steal x amount of boons from the target, dealing damage for each boon successfully stolen.

There’s no real fluid rotation to it, as it’s a weapon not really meant to be camped. Traiting for it could reduce cooldowns enough to make the 3rd gunflame possible, but that’s really gimping a build for no substantial gain. Your best option would be swapping to your melee set after that rotation to finish out the Berserk.

It’s not that the zerker build just doesn’t magically not work for some people as it does others. It does require a more proactive playstyle in mitigating your own damage. Knowing when to dodge, when to CC, etc etc are factors. If you want to be the type of player to charge through a pack of mobs and 100b them down without thinking, then yeah you may want to pick up a defense line or tankier gear. But I know for me personally, I prefer to mow down mobs faster than they can kill me, which would require the aforementioned dodging and CCing when and where necessary. To be honest I’ve always leveled every character (when i level legitimately, not with tomes) i always stuck with the pure offense builds because I wanted to learn how to survive with them without needing passive mitigation via traits/gear. And so far I’ve not really come across something in open world PvE that has changed that mindset for me.

Anyways I suppose the point being, when the OP asks “wth am i doing wrong” I wouldn’t first assume it’s traits that need changing, but playstyle.

Personally in PvE I run strength (2-2-1) arms (2-2-2) Berserker (1-1-1) with all signets sans elite (running headbutt) and I breeze through everything, even with all zerker gear. Best defense is an unstoppable offense I suppose.

GhandiBot.6257:

shion.2084:

With vitality at 560, no toughness and no increase from your runes, will they not focus you before your heal is effective? I would consider smoke bomb potentially for anti-gank surviveability over the 120 second reset on the heal skill. I might consider mortar so you can drop another water field and a blind field.

Have you played Scrapper at all? Blocks and evades on a short CD, protection up, Bulwark Gyro and Adaptive Armor make up for the lack of toughness, not to mention traited Elixir S, you have so many utilities to easily survive. You have a stun break and a source of stability as well. Maybe you’re just bad at Scrapper.

I think your head is in the right place, but in practice this wouldn’t do well in higher ranks due to the potential of just being bursted or CC’d away from your team, or to death. Only 1 reliable source of stability will be what eats you alive. Block only being from hammer, same with the evades, isn’t going to cut it in any form of actual pressure. Furthermore wholesale condi clear would require you use elixir C and lose out on your B (most likely choice) or Bulwark (situational if there aren’t many DHs or Druids).

The reason the standard meta scrapper has generally done so well, and always had a place in competitive teams this last season, is because it already has some support built in as well as maintaining bruiser status. While you would still need an actual support in the form of a druid/tempest/etc, scrapper was a compliment to it. Stealth rezzing, elixir S rezzing, gyro+manual rez, etc etc etc were all features that were sought after from the class, as well as still being a menace to the enemy team with CC, condi cleansing, team healing, stealth, etc. I’d like to see a competitive support scrapper build emerge, but it’s just not likely going to happen without a major shift in the meta and some trait or skill reworks.

Asura Warrior has been my main since I’ve started and I don’t regret it even a little. The animations are top notch, the voice lines are awesome, it’s just a quality character. My secondary choice would be Charr if only to circumvent the problem of tiny model=tiny weapons. But seriously, I love Asuran warriors.

To be honest, I’ve been smashing the kitten out of DHs with an A/A-Longbow base warrior build. Gotten fairly efficient at it too. I think part of it is attributed to people not expecting the build, but not entirely. What I’ve learned in the last 20 some odd games is that you can’t win the attrition war with DHs. If you’re playing a chip ‘em down build, you’ll never kill them 1v1. The sustain and blocks will prevent you from doing any lasting damage. So, either start teaming up on them or pick yourself up a build that can burst between blocks or provide such constant pressure that they blow CDs early and die from staying too long or have to run. I agree (mostly) with the thread regardless, DHs have way too much staying power and self sustain. kitten forbid if the class is stacked.

Primarily it’s for the large firefield and blasting. Point of the build is mostly boon stacking, hence the sigils of strength/battle. Unless your opponents are running boon strips/corrupts your might levels can get pretty high for a pvp setting (usually seeing around 10-15 solo, been capped off at 25 before but not often). LB 4 and 5 have pretty good and rarely situational uses, and helps curb off the kiting problem. In any case you are rarely camping it long, as with traits your weapon swap timer is 5 seconds and every time you swap you gain might, so you’re encouraged to swap often. Essentially putting all your axe skills on CD, swap, fire off whatever CDs are necessary at the time (don’t just hit pin down because it’s up, save it for when it’s actually needed), swap again, continue smashing.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a Courtyard style que as well with a couple of maps to rotate through, and a king of the hill style que. 1 big capture point in the middle, longer death timers, encourages fighting as a team rather than people trying to be solo flankers. It could have secondary objectives as well which might neutralize the point from the other team, provide buffs, etc. Point of the game being to hold the point as long as possible, either running the game on a 10 minute timer with the winner being whoever has the longest capture time, or having a set winning score. I also like the idea of deathmatch style games. First team to 3 points wins. Teams gain a point by eliminating all opposing players. Once you’re dead, you’re dead until the next round. Could even work as a 3v3 style que and reuse the deathmatch maps so you wouldn’t need to make all new maps for it.

Seriously. It’s likely not a build that could do well with actual competitive play, but in unranked while trying to farm out Eternal Coliseum it has been amazingly fun. I yanked it from metabattle and have been tweaking a little, but I’m wondering what, if anything, could be done to make it a better or more competitive build.

A/A Sigil of Strength+Blood (thinking Strength would be the first to go. Blood has been fantastic for keeping me alive with the hordes of minions/clones/etc)

Longbow Sigil of Battle+Leeching (same in this case, battle going first. But really the strength from both weapons has been incredibly helpful so long as it doesn’t get stripped or corrupted)

Rune of Leadership+Seeker’s Amulet. Long as hell boon duration is fantastic for prolonged fights (which are common with all the DH and Mesmers around)

I did replace Frenzy with Bull Rush for a couple of games with kinda mixed results. On one hand, Frenzy is a stun break with other 12 seconds of quickness and might as well as 10 seconds of vigor. On the other hand, Bull Rush helps with the kiting problem inherent to most warrior builds, not to mention a 3s knockdown. Makes for a disgusting Rush+Eviscerate+Axe 5 combo, or Rush+Axe 2+4+5+evisc. If they can’t get away they’re definitely hurting or blowing cooldowns.

Traits are:
Strength 2-3-3
Defense 2-1-1
Discipline 3-2-2

Edit: forgot to add utilities.
Healing Signet+Frenzy/Bull Rush+Endure Pain+Berserker Stance+Signet of Rage.

Added image, just shy of 1 million damage T.T

It was in the second comment and in the third comment OP replied with saying “not raids specifically”. Context clues help.

I played about a half dozen games with this yesterday. Never quite hit the 1 million mark, but that aside it was fun as hell. Bunking on point was especially fun and easy with the numerous knockbacks. Dragonhunters are of course still a royal pain in the kitten with all their blocks and invulns. And thieves were the bane of my existence. Evading every mine, every tag, every everything. I’m debating switching up stealth gyro to Elixir X since that really does fit the theme of knockbacks and CC (both tornado form and Rampage have tons of these).

Cerby.1069:

why not just run strength and force runes on everything?

I’m assuming you meant strength runes and force sigils. Just calculate ur normal damage output over 10 seconds or so with an air sigil. Then calculate what an extra 5% of your normal damage yields, and compare that with air’s 3 procs damage.
5% of a 10k hit is 500 damage……hitting with lightning though is gonna net you 1-2k damage if it procs. It should be easy to see how in pvp and spvp, where bursts and every hit possible really count, that air is a better choice. air also gives an extra adrenaline proc…..so 3 extra adrenaline every 10 seconds.

Then you have other options like fire. Why is fire viable? cause it can proc 4-5 adrenaline on a multi target hit. It only does like 500-1k damage, kinda like force does. but thats still a potential 5×5 = 2500 damage and 5 adrenaline procs vs just 500 damage when you do a 10k hit on some1.

Really, by that logic fire and air are always superior to force in specific situations except when you aren’t criting or when you potentially are in a specific situation where you have perma quickness and are doing rapid hits on a target that isn’t avoiding them.

So look at what specific situations you run into the most, and which ones you need the most damage for…..
Air is always the safest option of the 3 though.

To my knowledge this was a PvE thread, not sure why PVP was brought up (rune choices in PVP are vastly different, but yes often include air if you’re running a power build).

Anyways no I didn’t mean Strength runes and Force Sigils, I meant Strength Sigils vs Air Sigils. You’re right that on a 10k hit you’re going to net 500 extra damage with a force sigil whereas an air sigil will net you a 1.1 damage coefficient based on unarmed weapon strength of 690.5, which is somewhere between 1 and 2k. However that proc is only every 3 seconds on crit. But with your average zerker meta build, every hit should crit, so assume every 3 seconds you’re getting a little over 1k hit. Now also assume that with your average meta build you’re pushing a little over 20k dps with realistic buffs and rotation (not hard to maintain). Meaning force should be a bonus of roughly 1k dps to Superior Sigil of Air’s 1k ish (lets say 1.5k for the sake of math) spread over 3 seconds, being 500 dps. Using this logic, I’d wager it’s a safe bet to run force/strength sigils on both sets UNLESS you don’t need help with might (rev in party for example), in which case then you’d want to run force and air.

I suppose I’m not really getting the reasoning for using air over force. Force being a flat 5% damage boost and air is a 50% chance on crit (which is basically always if you geared out right) to do a lightning strike every 3 seconds. Why not just run strength and force runes on everything?

No it’s not really current, especially since an xpac hit after that.

If you need a decent roaming around build, you can use the fractal guide from Metabattle. Works as good as anything you’ll use in the open world.

GS+mace/shield and Longbow.

I suggest the last two because different situations may require different weapons. If you can only go with one or the other for the time being, roll with the longbow and get the mace/shield after. Mace/shield is great for breakbars and running around solo, especially in the new zones where things can murder you fairly easily. The block can be incredibly useful. Sword/warhorn is also a good pickup for traveling the map quickly.

If you plan on just being solo all the time, then go with these traits.

Strength (2-2-1)
Arms (2-2-2)
Berserker (1-1-1)

Along with healing signet, Dolyak signet, signet of might/stamina (stamina if you’re having problems with condis, shouldn’t be necessary however), signet of fury, headbutt/signet of rage (i always prefer headbutt but rage can have its uses).

This will give you heaps of solo killing power and a decent amount of utility with signets, including 2 stun breaks (dolyak signet and headbutt).

If you don’t have Berserker yet, swap the berserker line with discipline (2-2-3). I’ve been tossing around the idea of heightened focus over burst mastery but really, 15 second cd on 4 seconds of quickness can’t really be better than a 7% boost to burst skills (which you’ll use often) and a refund on adrenaline. But in any case, that bit is up to you.

As for gear, all zerker all the time. When you get into doing top tier fractals or raids (if you do) then you’ll have to swap around a couple of berserker pieces with assassin’s so you hit the crit cap without going over, but that’s a different argument for a different time. Scholar runes should work. Superior sigils of Air and Force are 100% of the time useful.

I doubt there’s some malicious intent by anet to punish engineers for being engineers. If that’s really you’re feeling on the matter then I can’t really imagine why you would still be playing the game.

In any case, I feel like there has to be some sort of coding issue with introducing legendary effects to all kits. Maybe not wanting to have all the skills blend into using the same particles? Could make it difficult to discern what’s going on around you if everything has legendary effects tied to it. That said, I agree that we definitely need more love if we’re going to be dumping thousands of gold on legendaries and get minimal reward for the effort.