Guild Wars 2

Derdhal.6908:

Sifu.9745:

No more hardcopies?

Welcome to the 21st Century

Would you believe than i can still buy WoW base game, expac and time cards for physical money in 21 century? And the most stupid thing is that i can still buy GW2 base game in stores lol, but HoT is no longer available. Who would want to buy GW2 base game?
And do you know that most kids/teens and poor people don’t have credit cards and visas and paypal (or what is it called) at least not in my country, i’m not living in the usa. Anet probably doesn’t know that physical money still exists. I guess that’s one of the reasons why gw2 has so small playerbase.

No more hardcopies? So i won’t be able to buy PoF that way?
Ok i am done with this game then, going back to WoW. I hope this game will die with such an ignorant treatment to their customers.

I mean in my country i have been checking stores/game shops but can’t find it anywhere. There is only GW2 Heroic edition base game available. I would like to buy HoT for my friend’s birthday, but i can only pay with “physical” money, i don’t have credit cards, Visas etc.
What now? Why has Anet removed HoT from stores? Do they really expect that all players have access to credit cards?

Thief’s SB is probably the only weapon in the game (besides necro and guardian staff?) which has not being used as main weapon. SB is only usable as your offset. You don’t see “SB Thieves” around, right? You weapon swap to SB when you need utility, mobility, escape, maybe for some aoe dmg …
I really hope we will see some nice dmg buffs to SB in near future, mostly for Power Thieves, since SB still do more dmg as condi weapon, especially with Venoms.

He he, do you see the point now? If you really need to do the testing to see the difference between 1200 Toughness and 0 Toughness that must be something wrong with this stat, right?

I mean when you PvP, do you feel any difference, cause i don’t. Ok, i’ve never enter arena with more then 900 Toughness, but i’ve never felt that i’m that tough guy who can take more hits.
Yes, with more Toughness you receive less dmg, but the difference is so small that is barely noticeable

With 1200 Power you don’t need any kind of testing: you can clearly see (you can feel it) how big the difference it between 1200 and 0 Power.

My point is: with zero Toughens GS Power Reaper would just three or four shot me (i am afk) . With 500 Toughness there won’t be any difference, he would still three or four shot me. With 1200 Toughness (who would take 1200 toughness anyway?) i could take maybe ONE more non aa hit, just one.
Now let’s do the “math” for attacker. Power Reaper with 1200 Power (+ 900 crit and 900 ferocity) would three or four shot you (you are afk), aa excluded. Reaper with 0 Power (+ 900 crit and 900 ferocity) will probably need more than 10 hits.

There is no difference! You can check it by yourself: go afk and ask your buddy Power Thief (or any other Power class) to burst you down.
With zero Toughness it takes about 4 – 7 seconds. More or less, it depends on class and how much health do you have.
With 1200 Toughness it takes, what a surprise, 4 – 7 seconds lol.
I guess i can just completely ignore this stat in PvP.

Now lets check the difference between 0 and 1200 Power. I think that we don’t need any explanations here, right?

There is no such a thing as “the best build”. In my hands ele is the most useless PvP class. I can only play support/healing Staff ele with Mender Amulet. Any solo or dps builds are outdated. I personally don’t like Tempest ( 4 sec casting time? are you serious Anet??) and Firebrand looks even worse (probably the worst and most complicated Elite spec in the game), so i would just say bb to my pvp ele.

Necro or Reaper? Necros are strong but not that powerful as Reapers. Reaper has by far the best and easiest defensive tools in the game, just enter reaper shroud and laugh at your opponents, especially if they play condi builds, which deal zero dmg to you. You can easily 1 vs 1 anything (with exception of Warriors maybe), you can survive 1 vs 2 for quite long, your dmg is insanely op.
Would you be so kind, Anet, and nerf reaper shroud for additional 30%? Ty!

Sorin Noroku.5342:

TLDR: power is burst, condi is long drawn out fights.

Depends on class and builds: as condi Guardian (condi/power/vitality) i can do the same burst or even more than berserker Guard, while having 9k more health Condi guard burst dmg (and sustain) is just insane.

Jesus, guys! Can’t you see he’s just mistaken Retaliation with Reflection?

I am sure that Power weapons/builds work just fine on FB, also healing/support weapons/builds should work even better. I guess healing/support Mace/Staff builds will became insanely op.
Finally i will be able to play a tank or/and healing role.

Probably Spellbreaker (Warrior), it’s not complicated at all, very strong and relaxing playstyle. Maybe Deadeye Thief, if you are not very comfortable in melee range, petless Ranger also looks quite simple.
Just avoid Elementalist, Engineer and Guardian ( i mean Firebrand guardian, the core one and DH are both easy).

messiah.1908:

13k dmg under 3 sec

retal hit in pvp about 240 per hit
which means 54 hits
which means 18 hits per sec

what the hell you use to do 18 hits per sec?

unload is 8 in 1.75 sec which means 4.5 per sec.

so i think you mistaken and probably you also took direct dmg

in fact retal dmg should be higher in pvp like pve. the classes which have access to retal are guard, rev (retribution), bit warrior, bit mesmer,

I am pretty sure, he has been a victim of Reflect (projectile reflection), there is no other explanation. Reflect is the main killer to unload thieves.

Depends on class: as condi Thief i need only two dps stats: condi and power, crit is irrelevant for me. So i take condi, power vitality. If i would take precision instead of vitality i would deal maybe 5% more dmg, which is next to nothing. The question is: do i really need that extra 5% dmg or i would rather take 9k more health instead?
As condi Guardian i also don’t need crit much: i get 15% crit on one handed weapons (trait), 10% on burning + 4 base crit = 29% crit + some more from Fury every now and then. So as Guardian i use same stats as i use them on my thief: condi, power, vitality. Necro can also do it well with condi/power/vitality.

Anyway on most condi professions condi/power/vitaliti( or toughness) > condi/precision vitality(or toughness). Precision without power offers you some procs but you lower your base dmg that way. On my condi thief and condi guardian Power still helps me with stronger physical hits.

I like that mobs are finally normal: they are not hitting nearly as hard as HoT mobs, which offers me more relaxing and lazy playstyle

The only condi i really hate is Necro’s Signet of Spike: if you don’t clean all these 7 conditions (+ those from weapon attacks) or avoid it somehow you are downed under 3 seconds. Plague Signet is on second place.

Condition only, double pistols are really good for a core spec, probably one of the best non elite specs in the game.

Captain Obvious.6951:

So I’m like OK great, fine, whatever. But I’ve killed myself from 13k health to 0 in under 3 seconds just from someone having retaliation. Isn’t that a bit much? Isn’t that a bit over the top?

No way Retaliation can deal that much dmg under 3 seconds. I am sure there was a REFLECTIVE PROJECTILES thing in the air which killed you
Retaliation dmg is super low on my Guardian: If you hit me for lets say 2k dmg, Retaliation hits you for maybe 250 or 300 in return or even less?

Btw is Symbol of Faith completely bugged or am i missing something? At least Regeneration part is much lower then it used to be.
The tooltip shows me: 5Regeneration(2 sec): 2699 Heal, with Mender Amulet + Rune of Dwayna + Writ of Persistance trait. That means i (and closest party members)should get healed for 2699 over 2 seconds for the next 6 seconds while standing inside the symbol. That’s about 4 x (or maybe even 6 x?) 2699 = 10794 healing over 6 seconds, right? But in my case it only heals me for 280, 178, 190 per 0.5 secs or 0.25 secs, not sure about exact numbers. But numbers are much much lower as they should be. Can you please fix this misleading tooltip? I mean 2699 reg over 2 seconds has to be 2699 reg over 2 seconds.

Brockolosso.8316:

Lets ignore that there is a core hammer guard build becoming very popular right now and that like every second guard in platinum adapted to it
Also Staff Guard with a bunker build is way more useful than several other weapons that arent meta

Well, i said “in my hands” it is useless. Some other players might get much better results with Hammer and Staff.
Btw can you link this very popular guard hammer build? Maybe the issue is in my build, which can be improved, or maybe it just doesn’t suit my playstyle …

Finally i’ve found mine This is with no doubt Guardian’s Hammer. While it is very strong in all kind of pve, in PvP i fell completely useless with it, like i am fighting unarmed. You must be a genius if you can get just one non aa hit with it, and even if you do, dmg is so low that you are no threat to your opponents, while survivability is next to non existent, at least in my hand. It’s so easy to avoid Hammer’s attacks. I really can’t find worst weapon to pvp with, but that’s just me.

Here’s my list of the most useless pvp weapons:
1. Hammer – Guardian
2. Staff – Guardian
3. Rifle – Engineer
4. Hammer – Warrior
5. Focus – Mesmer
What’s yours?

Coconut.7082:

Also, 1050 Power does not show how much more damage you will do, It also works with some formula dependent on many variables.

But at least i can see numbers of dmg increase on my weapons: for example Warrior Axe aa without Power = 249 dmg, with 900 Power = 472 dmg, with 1200 Power = 547 dmg. I know that i won’t hit foe with exact smae numbers shown on tooltip, depends on foe’s Armor and other dmg mitigation skills, but at least i can get get some picture about how much dmg increase i can get with more Power, which is not the case with Armor. Anet should add some rough numbers at least, just that we get some picture about it as we get it with Power numbers.

So with 1200 Power i can see that my dmg will rise up for more than two times! That’s all i need to know, while with 1200 Toughness/3088 Armor i don’t see any kind of numbers.

But thx anyway for your math
Sorry for English …

This is the only stat in the game that doesn’t show its value. Lets say i have 1560 Toughness = 2727 Armor. I have no idea for how much less physical dmg i take, because the tooltip doesn’t show me that. Is the dmg reduction 5%, 10%, 15%, 30%?
Why the tooltips for ALL other stats are simple and clear, why is the Toughness/Armor only exception here?
1050 Power shows exactly for how much more dmg i do with my weapons, 500 Vitality is 5000 more health, 2050 Precision = 54% crit chance, 900 Ferocity = 210 crit dmg and so on. And 3000 armor is? How do i check it? Is it something around 5% dmg reduction only (useless stat) or lets say 30% dmg reduction (not bad at all)?

I know there must be a math for it, but why should i use it (i hate math btw), if Anet could simply add these numbers in the game?

I can do it too with my Staff, IF i play healing/support build Mender amulet, Earth, Water, Arcane or Tempest and i am unkillable 1 on 1 vs most builds. But neither i can kill them or it takes for about 3 + minutes to take someone down with this build, if they don’t just run away from me.
In my hand Staff only works as healing/support weapon.

Edit: I hope that with Weaver inc Staff will get back its offensive uses.

I just don’t get it! Why complaining about conditions 24/7 while the only real problem is insane burst of some Power builds? One mistake, just ONE mistake and some builds are able to lay you down within 3 seconds which is unacceptable.
So, please, stop complaining about condi, instead tone down Power burst for about 300% ty. Oh, and add on that additional 300% dmg penalty for some range weapons, like Thief P/P, Ranger bow … It is way too easy killing people from safe distance.
Just leave conditions alone!

Rhaegar.5120:

Is there such thing as a DH build not using LB? thanks

You really don’t need to use LB as DH, most of DHs don’t use it anyway. If you want to play with range weapon, Scepter is still very strong, the dmg part is just awesome for a range weapon, no matter if you play it with condi or power builds.

Captain Obvious.6951:

When I fight people i always save all my initiative so i can swap to short bow and spam 5 because it’s THAT OP!

If you don’t save all your initiative to spam shortbow 5, you’re just a bad thief.

Well, i play d/d condi thief and if i don’t spend initiative i am pretty much dead. But if i do spend initiative (#3 is my favorite one) my opponents die, what a surprise
Autoatacking on thief only works on d/p Theif, which is the most boring spec in the game. But even d/p needs tu use #5 and then #2 for stealth attacks which is a lot of initiative spend. Who wants to rely on aa only? Staff AA? Sword AA? Pistols AA? REALLY????
If you don’t mind i rather kill my enemies with spending initiative than autoatacking and dealing zero pressure to them and then run away with SB #5. Is it ok if i really want to kill something?
Good luck with autoatacking and escaping with SB #5, you left Point and noone cares if you just run away alive. You have so many great defensive skills which costs initiative, i have no clue why should i ignore them all with exception of SB #5?

Edit: Oh, and btw, SB #3 has saved my life more times then SB#5. Great skill for kiting and evading attacks.

When Thief fights he spent initiative, right? He is low on health and he wants to run away but has only 3 initiative left. Weapon swap to SB + 3 initiative (IF you take Quick Pockets in Trickery) or Stealth and wait for initiative, but you won’t get it enough to use SB #5 more than once.
So can you elaborate how can Thief just spam SB #5 when trying to get away from combat? The only way he can do that, if he doesn’t use any initiative while fighting and he just waits until his health drops below 20% and voila! Catch me now, you kittens, ha ha ha.

Well, you can still play with Scepter if you prefer range weapon but don’t like Staff: higher dmg, lower survivability, 900 range instead of 1200.

But you are right: this game is indeed a melee oriented game: melee weapons in most cases do more dmg than range weapons.
But some range weapons can really hurt: Rev hammer, Ranger’s LB, Mesmer’s GS, Thief P/P … But i really have no idea why Staves are the worst ranged dps weapons in the game for PVP and WvW. Anet hates Staff as a dps range weapon, no matter what profession you play. Thief and Revenant can do some nice dmg with their MELEE staves, but there is no ranged Staff in GW2 which can be used as a main dmg weapon in PvP and WvW.

1. Elementalist Staff: only good for pve with super boring rotation. In PvP it is used as healing/support only weapon.
2. Necromancer Staff: Utility only weapon with super low dmg.
3. Mesmer Staff, low dmg, not that bad with condi stats, but still low.
4. Guardian staff: is this useless thing still in game?
5. Druid Staff: healing weapon.

So if Long Bows, Guns and Hammers can do some nice burst and sustain from 1200 range, i have no idea why Staff is an exception here?

What about stats: do you think it would be ok if i drop some dps stats for Healing Power?
Also, the dmg of Mace is not that bad, at least in my hands Mace dmg > Scepter dmg.
I play Mace/Focus + Sc/Sh, but i think i am gonna replace scepter with sword.

This class is so much fun! I just can’t die in open world, thx to clones and stealth. I have never played a class with such a superior survivabiltiy.
And i have been told that Mesmer’s survivability is very poor in pve and open world! I really don’t get it. Maybe that’s the case for Sw Power Mesmers only, if you need to stay in melee range, i don’t know but the condi one is immortal. You can just spam clones and phantasms 24/7 (they take your agrro) and never get hit by a single foe: Dodge = clone, Scepter AA chain = clone and so on. Your clone has died to a single hit by elite monster? No problem, just a second, there is another one on the way
I really wanna know why people believe that Necros, Rangers and Warriors are more noob friendly professions for soloing open world?

Hi. Any idea where and when can i use a Mace and what stats suit mace’s playstyle the best?
I’ve tested some unranked pvp with Mace + Mender Amulet and have been really enjoying it! Great survivability + even greater team support …
I was wondering if Mace can also be used in pve (or WvW?) as well? I mean at least for soloing HoT maps, group events etc? I really like this weapon, but have no idea what stats should i go for: celestial, mender, marauder? For PvP there is not much of a choice but not sure for pve … Also i have no idea should i use mace in pve as more offensive or more defensive/support weapon?
Any tips, please?

1. Use Staff!
2. Get Celestial gear if possible, if not try to mix the stats of your equipment to get something similar to Celestial.
3. Take Fire, Water and Tempest, or Fire Earth and Tempest. Could be Fire, Water and Arcane, just avoid Air. But you can go trough even with Air.

Just take Reaper with GS, no matter if power or condi. You will just destroy everything 1 vs 1 and 1 vs 2. Since last stealth buff two or three days ago, Reapers are unkillable and their dmg is just insane. Like they have 100% more survivability then a few days ago. Have no idea what that secret buff was and why noone has been complaining about it …
I really hate this immortal class with no weaknesses.

I think that this “Turn them into Stone” thing only works for your first attack. The tooltip is really confusing, all other venoms have clear tooltips: last for your next 4 or 5 attacks, but basilisk, nope, i still don’t know if it works for full 30 seconds (which i really doubt) or only once per 30 seconds.
If it works only for one attack, your first one, than this elite is complete garbage.

TheCatacid.8932:

Sifu.9745:

atreyu.9624:

Sifu.9745:

Just avoid Scepter: the most complicated weapon in the game.

or actually start learning it lol, because it’s sooooo fun.

Ok, it is fun and powerful condi only weapon, but survivability sucks. As Power weapon it doesn’t work in my hands, dmg is just way to low compared to condi scepter.

I never considered scepter to be a condi weapon

Hmm, maybe it’s just me, but how do you make Scepter any good as Power weapon? I do next to ZERO dmg with Scepter in Air attunement. It takes me about 20 + seconds just to kill an afk player! I can do more dmg as tank/support Mace guard lol, and i am not kidding.
Fire Scepter can do crazy amount of burning dmg.
So can someone enlighten me how do you make an Air or non Fire scepter a dmg dealing weapon? Even Earth condi Scepter works better in my hands, at least i get some survivability.
Autoatack in Air is super slow and the dmg part is laughably low (easily interrupted too), #2 Lightning Strike, nothing special, just another instant spell. No combo fields/finishers … nothing. And people still talking about 10k instant dmg, while my higher number was maybe 1800 crit with Lightning Strike. I am really confused

So what? I don’t see a point here … You mean all f2p players are bad, while all HoT players are gods?

Because melee can do 100% more dmg than range?

Avipt.9632:

Thanks for the help i will try these diffrent ideas btw how is SB as a dmg dealer? or is it only a utility weapon?

Condi SB dmg is stronger than Power SB, especially if you play with Spider, Scale (or Devourer) + Basilisk Venoms. It could hit pretty hard, IF you can land your Cluster Bomb on your targets or keep them inside Choking Gas + cluster bomb. But it’s mostly being used as utility weapon, it also has great defensive skills like Disabling Shot (gives you evade) and Infiltrator’s Arrow. But it is a bit harder to play SB as dmg weapon. d/d is much easier to learn, hits stronger and it offers better survivability due “perma” evades + stealth (Blinding Powder is a must have).
SB is also ok when you need to aoe multiple opponents.

Ignore ALL posts above, really. I just can’t believe that people want to put you on p/d even though you said you are looking for a noob friendly build. If you are a noob, as i am, and you want to make your Thief any good in PvP there are only two ways:

1. Play Condition Thief, Carrion Amulet, Venoms, with double daggers + SB, it could be P/D too. You won’t die easily, you will see. It works perfectly in unranked arena, i just destroy everything with exception of good guards/DHs, you need to fight them from range and kite them with SB, which takes some time.
Condi Thief playstyle is easy, relaxing, very powerful 1 vs 1 and super fun!

2. Your option nmb. two is Power Marauder double Pistol Thief. You just spam #3 most of the time, even easier than condi Thief, burst dmg is great for a range weapon, your only downside is projectile reflection and lower survivability. Your secondary weapon is Staf as your only noob friendly melee Power Weapon, which you can use when you need to fight in melee range, especially vs multiple opponents. Or you can take SB instead of Staff, if you find Staff doesn’t work for you. P/P + SB is very noob friendly weapon set: you use p/p for bursting down your opponents and SB for avoiding attacks, mobility, and aoe fights.

Avoid d/p, Sw/x, really, all these weapons are very noob unfriendly Just don’t touch these weapons!

GW2 is a melee oriented game: with melee weapons we do at least 100% more dmg than on 1200 range ranged weapons and about 50% more than on 900 range weapons.
Can you find any other range weapon with 1200 range which can compare with melee weapons? I don’t think so, with exception of Ele’s Staff in Fire attunement, but you need to stay in melee anyway and it sucks for PvP as dmg weapon.
Anyway LB is probably the best as hybrid weapon, some mixture of power, crit and condi. As full condi is not that strong imo.

You might get some answers here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Greatsword-PvP-build

It works for me, the dmg part is just insane, IF you can land your symbol + whirl combo.

dchsknight.3042:

Why would you want celestial gear? Not mocking really wondering…

I just want to test it how it suits my playstyle For certain occasions only: like WvW or solo open world. And i only have in mind Elementalist, cause i can’t think of any other profession who can use it without downside. Maybe engie or guardian with some specific builds?
It’s not that i must get the celestial gear, but if there would be an opportunity to get it for very little effort, like buying it for gold or laurels, i would take it. But since i need to craft it …

@Illconceived Was Na, thx again.

Thank you very much, guys. At least i can buy all 5 ascended trinkets for Laurels. I am not very much of a crafting guy, i need to think about is it worth my time and gold …

Btw, any idea why celestial gear is account bound? Is there any specific reasons behind? Also i can’t find Mender stats on TP, if i wanna go more healing oriented build on my Elementalist …

I have been checking TP but can’t find a single piece of Exotic celestial gear. There are all other stats available with exception of celestial. Is just my bad luck or celestial gear is no longer available? I know it has been removed from PvP Amulets, but not sure about pve and WvW.

Not bad idea
Here’s mine:
Increase staff aa range to 1200, reduce dmg for X% and add healing to it. Or remove the Virtue of Justice proc from Staff aa and any other kind of Burning, that way burning guards won’t use it as op ranged weapon. Or transform Burning from VoJ into healing on Staff aa only.
Or you can keep that 300 range, BUT make it aoe dmg and healing at 300 (could be even less) range all around you, not just in one direction.
There are so many possibilities but Anet has chosen the worst one, which makes Staff unfun to play with.

Sontaran.5904:

Sifu.9745:

Here is mine list on non-meta “broken” builds:
1. condi Thief d/d or p/d.

I haven’t seen anyone call p/d broken recently. Would you mind elaborating on why p/d is broken in your opinion? I find it to be a fair, balanced, and difficult to master set.

Not as broken as d/d. But it depends how do you play it: if you get that Trait which cause Poison on Immobilize, you have much easier job, as your main source of dmg AND cc at the same time is #2 (Body Shot) + Venoms. If you rely on #3 (shadow Strike) and Traps you have much harder time.
But then why would you only focus on one weapon set if you can equip both: d/d and p/d? SB is not that mandatory anyway. It’s highly recommended but i drop it sometimes for p/d offset as my main weapon set is always d/d.
Also there is an act of surprise included: no one would expect you to play with p/d

ugrakarma.9416:

Sifu.9745:

Here is mine list on non-meta “broken” builds:
1. condi Thief d/d or p/d.
2. condi Mesmer, probably the best 1 vs 1 spec in the game.
3. core Guardian, both Power and the burning one.
4. some non Berserker Warriors can also be a real pain in the kitten
5. not sure about bunker rev, i barely see one, maybe once per 20 matches.

i use minion necro+condi hybrid and counter all these easily.
a smart teamplay can counter these stuff.
burn guard is a free kill to anyone with 600 range weapon lol.

Are you talking about smart teamplay or do you have in mind 1 vs 1? As condi Thief i eat minion necros for breakfast mano a mano, but it takes a while. But i agree that you can counter condi mesmers and burning guards.
How can a burn Guard be a free kill to anyone with 600 range weapon (i don’t see any logic here, i guess you mean kiting them?), if Guardian’s scepter is 900 range in case that range weapon is needed? You know that scepter can be very powerful condi weapon?

I think that ranged weapons with condi stats are stronger in terms of dmg than Power ones: condi SB (especially if combined with Venoms) deals way more dmg than Power SB, condi p/d is safer to use in PvP than power double pistols and the dmg part is great too.

Here is mine list on non-meta “broken” builds:
1. condi Thief d/d or p/d.
2. condi Mesmer, probably the best 1 vs 1 spec in the game.
3. core Guardian, both Power and the burning one.
4. some non Berserker Warriors can also be a real pain in the kitten
5. not sure about bunker rev, i barely see one, maybe once per 20 matches.