Guild Wars 2

Didn’t see anything on the front page about this, but has anyone else noticed that zergs are running around with 1+ minute of every boon on them thanks to the latest patch with mezmers?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3nz798/resistance_and_quickness_stacking_in_gw2/

Not cool. Not fun. Hopefully Anet does something about this soon.

Has anyone tested the 2nd treb mastery ability (poison removes enemy supply from players affected by it)? Curious to know if it’s working since I purchased it. I can definitely say that treb mastery I add 25% to basic treb shot damage.

Thanks for the feedback floppy. Before this build I tried running valk armor and beserk trinkets/staff and found that while the damage was decent, my survivability was low if I was caught off guard or if a thief broke through our front lines and hit me while I was at 1200 range of the zerg.

I’m curious, would you mind sharing what setup you are running now for WvW? Especially if it’s staff, since that’s why I made this guy (played a roaming thief for a long time but since I’m on SOS server, it’s mainly zergs now vs. small man roaming.

I’d like some feedback on any optimization I can do of my current staff build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEQQFAWhImIbwR5wjDIEFmQGOUECjQ5xMsD2AA-jkCBYLIoLAkIBJ7pIasltRr0JsVXBR9ATdiIq2boIa1iAYGD-w

0/0/20/20/30 (earth’s embrace, rock solid, cleansing wave, arcane abatement, elemental attunement, blasting staff, and evasive arcana)

Glyph heal, arcane blast (I can’t believe I ever ran without this since it’s a life saver on blasting water fields), armor of earth, mist form, and FGS elite

Exotic PVT armor

Exotic Knights accessories with exquisite ruby jewels (except for rare soldiers back)

Exotic soldiers Staff (Berserker’s staff used to obtain 25 stacks of bloodlust, soldier’s used with superior sigil of battle after 25 stacks obtained)

Superior sharpening stone & chocolate omnomberry cream (bringing buff duration to 75%… no I won’t get 80% because I refuse to do token PVE dungeons for a 5% increase since all I do is WvW).

Noticed a large increase in survivability since I’m now rocking 2,700+ armor (and close to 3,000 when in earth attunement) and 16.5k health. What I’m not sure on is whether the 2 seconds of stability to group (and myself) is worth the loss of the grandmaster water trait (cleansing on regen). I have personal stability on AoE trait and utility (both with 75% boon duration) and stun break on AoE and mist form utilites (not sure if AoE trait also stun breaks).

Curious to hear the thoughts of other staff elementalists out there in regards to condition removal. I’m toying around with using cleansing fire as my main condition source removal (along with supplemental removal from water trait V – cleansing wave when attuning to water, arcane trait XI for water dodge rolls proccing cleansing wave, as well as when taking falling damage from water trait VIII – healing wave).

Can anyone confirm that water trait VIII (called healing wave on wiki and builders) is the same as cleansing wave and cures a condition on yourself? Not that it’s a huge deal.. I’d take the trait just for the 50% fall reduction as that has saved my bacon more times than I can count since glass cannons can’t afford to jump off a cliff and follow me down since they don’t have fall reduction damage and die).

This would allow me to take a X/X/X/20/30 setup and allow for the other 20 points to be spent freely (thinking 10 earth for III – earth’s embrace as a start).

Thoughts?

Hey all,

So I’ve been trying out a few different builds in WvW lately as part of the zerg and wanted some feedback regarding traits and gear. Currently, I run exotic full valk armor (6 pieces) and everything else exotic beserker’s. Noticed I’m a little squishy if I get out of position or if I burst mug-C&D-BS thief finds me (16k health with no added toughness), so am trying to figure out the tradeoff by moving towards a more soldiers or knights set (how bad will my AoE damage drop?). Thinking maybe I replace the armor with soldiers (minimal vital change but gains toughness at expense of crit damage). Not sure if should leave trinkets and staff as is or change as well.

Traits are 0/10/0/30/30 (no surprise here). I need the 20 in arcane at min for blasting staff, and the 20 water min for fall damage reduction (this is huge when running in WvW). The last 10 in water grant the regen and condition removal, so don’t really want to lose that and the last 10 in arcane give EA. The 10 in air is for bolt to heart, but guess I could shift to 10 earth for armor of earth at 50% health (means I take another hit to crit % though).

I should note that I tried a glyph centric build, which was great when it worked, but I found inscription was significantly bugged (often wouldn’t work at all when 2 attunements active due to lingering elements minor train in Arcana line or just flat out didn’t work other times until I switched traits around and gear to get things to “reset”). For now, have been running healing glyph, mist form, lightning flash, and signet of air along with FGS for elite. Only change here might be to switch lightning flash out for armor of earth.

Suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated.

Glyph of storms has a 900 unit range, which since I want to stay as close as possible to 1200 units as possible is problematic. Also, 900 unit range doesn’t work for keep defense/siege, so would be practically useless there I’d think.

Combine that with my other 2 utilities being mist form and lightning flash. Mist form is 100% must keep due to stun break (only one other than GoEP, which I plan to use on cooldown and not save for stunbreak), I’d have to give up lightning flash to get storms. LF will save me from an unlucky immobilize or allow me to get within mist form range to get into keep or back into zerg pack if I am separated (due to player error). I just don’t think the defensive tradeoff is worth a 900 unit storm. Now, if the storm was 1200 unit range, I might change my toon.

As always, open to feedback. Still hoping to hear trait distribution from other (partial) glyph users.

Thanks for the additional feedback. In regards to GoEP, do you find that the chill or cripple would be more effective than weakness? I’ve been debating this point as cripple is ideal for selfishly keeping people in ground targeted AOEs longer (e.g. lava font), but weakness would really help keep your team’s front line in better shape to hopefully prevent enemy pushes (thereby allowing you to continue your staff blasting from 1200 units away without having to fall back). Also, using GoEP on cooldown in air would provide swiftness, which isn’t a bad thing since I’m not using signet of air.

For the elite, what would you recommend then? I ask because as I described above, I can’t see any use for FGS since I want to be using my staff skills on rotation since they do more damage than FGS at longer range (range is key for me). Tornado – no use other than trying to run into a keep, which is what lightning flash and mist form already do for me. Asura racials are blah, so only thing I see is the elemental glyph.

Can anyone confirm that elite’s elementals don’t allow enemies to rally? I know you said elementals are useless, but the air one is 1200 range so he’d be sticking back with me nuking (not great damage but it’s something). Granting swiftness to allies with me as an occasional short stun on enemies seems ok (at least compared to other elites). Am I missing something?

Lastly, any comments on the trait point distribution? Sounds like 20 air is good for glyph-centric build, and we know at least 20 arcane needed for blasting staff, so that leaves the question about how much water.

Thanks for the reply Strang. I’m planning on playing a strictly ranged zerging staff ele (if I want to play anything else, I’ll use my thief), so thought having condition removal from any regen and on water attunement would be enough. Do you agree?

With the change to weakness being a 50% fumble rate, I’d think glyph of elemental power cast in air attunement would be a huge boost to your team, right?

In regards to the elite glyph (which I was referencing), I agree they aren’t the best option, but as I’m planning to stay at 1200 range, fiery greatsword isn’t very beneficial (I’m not rocking toughness so no way I’m getting within range of <900 range attacks) and I don’t see the need for tornado (same issue as fiery greatsword). I rolled asura, so no take root for me

If I didn’t do inscription (2nd glyph trait in air), not sure there’s anything else in air that makes sense. Guess could consider taking that 10 points back into arcane for EA or into earth for armor of earth @ 50% health. Thoughts?

Thanks for the answers. Hoping someone that frequents WvW can comment, as I’d like to know if the proposed traits and utilities are feasible.

I’m curious to hear feedback from anyone that uses exclusively staff in WvW (mainly large group warfare) and glyphs. Specifically, I’m interested in hearing feedback on using air traits III (quick glyphs, 20% cooldown reduction) and VIII (inscription – grants boon based upon attunement when activating glyph).

1. Glyph of Elemental Harmony: 2 traits above grant extra boon and reduce primary heal’s cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds. Does regen stack from inscription and glyph while in water attunement?

2. Glyph of Elemental Power: does the reduced cooldown of 36 seconds start on usage or on expiration of the buff given by the glyph? I don’t care that this is now becoming a stun-breaker, so please don’t derail the topic with comments on that aspect.

3. Glyph of Elementals: wiki says inscription doesn’t work with this and the cooldown doesn’t reset until the elemental dies or expires. Is this true?

For reference, I’m contemplating a 0/20/0/30/20 staff build with the 2 air traits mentioned above, with the standard 30 water (V, VIII, XI) and 20 (V, VIII) arcane traits.

Thanks.

I’d like to hear some comments on using full Valk armor/weaps/trinks + beryl orbs/jewels. Using all exotic except neck which is the ascended berserk/valk combo (hate PVE so not considering the other ascended items) and rare cav back (lazy). Should state this is for WvW exclusively.

D/P main (Force + Fire sigil), SB (perception sigil) 2nd weap (mainly for blast finishers and when zerging)

Heal
Hide in Shadows

Utilities
SOS (lazy), SR, SoA (to compensate for low precision and since shadowstep is so borked at the moment)

Trait Points
0/30/30/10/0 (no surprise here for D/P)

Traits
CS-I (fury @ 50%), PT-VI (5% Prec -> Vit), HK-XII (100% crit chance in stealth)
SA-V (2 init on stealth), SE-IV (remove cond in stealth), SE-XI (regen health in stealth)
AC-VI (50% movement speed in stealth to position for backstabs)

Food
Bowl sweet/spicy Butternut Squash (100 power, 10% crit damage)
Master Maintenance Oil (precision bonus of 6% tough & 4% vit)

Stats:
3171 attack
49% crit chance with 25 stacks (37% with 0 stacks)
2300 armor
19585 health
115% crit damage

I know I give up the 250 power/attack by using perception instead of bloodlust sigil, but in this setup I really like the extra health as a buffer for any mistake or being caught offguard. Curious to hear other’s thoughts.

I think some people misunderstood what I was trying to say. I don’t care at all about rankings and ratings. I don’t care that SOS is “performing better than we are expected to have performed”. I care about having fairly evenly balanced fights (at least numerically) during North American prime time. The “better than expected performance” on ratings is really due to our Oceanic presence.

I know that before this update, in NA primetime, SOS would have the outmanned buffed at times on all 4 maps (so we weren’t dominating based upon numbers); hence, we weren’t just facerolling CD and SBI as some have suggested. For anyone that was on SOS/SBI/CD, they knew there was often roaming groups of 5-15 in all 3 BLs. Zergs did happen from time to time, but they were often confined to EB. Now, our T2 opponents field superior numbers to SOS in all BLs and we get steamrolled.

For those on SBI and CD that hated the fact that SOS would win every week due to oceanic presence, I understand that and don’t begrudge them wanting something to change. But, at least they didn’t get constantly steamrolled during the time they actual play.

I play for fun fights – not for score. That’s why I won’t be supporting Anet any longer. It just isn’t fun anymore.

Title says it all. I know I enjoyed my old server matchup in T4. Yes, we won every week in points because of a strong oceanic presence, but in North American prime time, we’d have even numbers and sometimes be outmanned. Was fun. Going up 2 tiers on a “random” multiplier is the worst idea in the history of gaming.

No fun = no more GEM $ for Anet from me.

This has to be the most unbalanced matchup I’ve ever seen. The FA and TC folks that think it’s great to beat up on a T4 server… well, I don’t know what to say to you. I do know that ANET won’t be getting anymore GEM $ from me if things are like this. I want balanced North American fights, which SOS had until this last week.