Guild Wars 2

They should just add this kind of functionality to Blighter’s Boon. “10% of incoming healing while in shroud is converted to Lifeforce (or Health).”

Axe/Warhorn is what I run. Not very exciting, but a passable amount of damage. The daze is pretty nice.

I tend to use Signet of the Locust for mobility, the heal is surprisingly useful. Though for Dragon’s Stand you are in combat so much I use another shout.

Popped into my head, so I thought I’d throw it out there. Seems like it could be more interesting then self conditions. Consume Conditions removing 2% life force per condition removed maybe?

Kind of sad, necros got some of the most interesting trait changes. Though unlike mesmers, necros are limited by weapon and utility skills not traits.

To stay out of combat.

Have you tried Curses instead of Death? Weakening Shroud might help against power and Plague Sending covers the condi removal.

Generally just run exactly the same meta build as in the past. Just use Blood as the third spec.

After the yesterdays stream I think near everyone is going to be running a variation of this, be it condi or power.

skowcia.8257:

Fhenrir.5297:

skowcia.8257:

Taiyetos.3260:

skowcia.8257:

EremiteAngel.9765:

None of the other classes’ condi builds are going to survive us.

Mallyx revenant says hi.

Boon corruption says bye to your resistance.

Go ahead, i will get my resistance back up in 2 seconds. Embrance the darkness can be casted endlessly in/out as you wish, granting you basically perma resistance, so what if you corrupt my 2sec of resistance when i get it back up in 1sec?

Do you have enough boon strip to keep up?

It’s not exactly like you can spam it as many times as you want. Energy will play a big role here.

Embrance the darkness has no energy cost. Its an upkeep skill (which drains energy olny if you stay in this form), in which case if you keep casting it in/out you will stay at 100% energy. I have played in “closed beta” and tested it.

People missunderstand the concept behing Mallyx either way. Resistance is not there to tank conditions like a boss, its just there to nullify a bit of incoming damage and reduce the harm done to yourself. Any mallyx rev stacking resistance is asking to get rekt by 1 boonstrip. There will be a huge gap between noob and pro.

Like you say it is not about removing the resistance, for a reaper it is about applying more chill.

skowcia.8257:

EremiteAngel.9765:

None of the other classes’ condi builds are going to survive us.

Mallyx revenant says hi.

Boon corruption says bye to your resistance.

Sarrs.4831:

I will possibly try Signet necro with Spite/Curses/BloodMagic.

I don’t expect it to be good but I expect it to be fun to have an effective 7 signets to use.

Same, a signet power necro sounds interesting. Spite/Soul/X. Curses against condi, Death against burst, and Blood if it’s any good.

Monday’s stream should cover some amount of the changes. Though it is not clear if it will be as comprehensive as the original specializations stream.

For solo q there are few hard and fast rules. The lack of coordination adds a lot of variables.

- Generally Power Necro is a 1v1 spec and depending on the level you are playing team fights in solo q are really several 1v1s in close proximity.
- I would really suggest Pack runes, especially if you are using Warhorn. The damage increase is pretty important and the swiftness from the runes is enough to fill in the recharge of Warhorn.
- I would generally think of a build like this roaming around the map. Like most burst specs you want to be unbalancing team fights or decapping 1v1.
- Not sure about Spectral Armor. Well bombing is something you will have to learn. Bombing on a down is a pretty obvious option, as is bombing an immob’ed target.
- You don’t really use staff for the AA so the reflect is not much of an issue. In fact the staff chill and poison are quite strong against D/D, if timed properly (like right after leaving water). If you don’t need the utility to counter a specific fight, I generally think of the staff as a option to give yourself space, whether pushing back a thief or bombing a team fight. Dagger for everything else.

I would advise going the other way with your sigils. The staff and DS do not hit enough times to get the air/fire procs off regularly. Staff is better when you need to make space, where the energy sigil is better.

It seems that these changes are specifically focused on evening out the control of all of the maps. Instead of the scores being balanced by each server having their entire borderlands, it is balanced by all servers having an even distribution of each borderland.

Jim Hunter.6821:

I think they said they are putting them in the southern towers which is absolutely idiotic since the enemy will be able to keep them contested 24/7 by doing something cheesy like a treb in range of the legendary defenders, sending out siegerazor umpteen times in a row, or just running up and tapping since it is 2 ft from their spawn and you can flat out ignore tower guards.

The waypoints are only for the server with the closest spawn. So Redbriar will only have a waypoint for red, etc.

Focus has swiftness.

Depends how they are changing confusion. From POI it looked more like torment for skill activation. Actually curious if it is just like torment, so slow will actually improve confusion damage. Something like “Confusion deals X per second and double damage to enemies activating a skill.”

I don’t believe there ever was any official mention of losing anything when using an elite spec. Certainly none of the official posts mentioned anything.

Really, I would think the most viable build for mesmer in a zerg is a CI/BI harass build. Picking off eles and necros would seem to be more valuable than trying to zerg dive on a light armor class. If you are crafty enough you could combine the two, trading utility for glamours.

This really rough build seems fun enough to try a few times:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7dlsnpRttqxUNcrNSphY6cz2dynRJZgDA-TFyCABAcQAO+BAAouBkvCALv/gnq/koSwsU+FAABwRP6RP6RPazcmHdmHdmFCYxaA-w

Gaaroth.2567:

Taiyetos.3260:

Curious if the Frost Aura gets the boons from Zephyr’s Boon and similar traits

Passive auras do not currently trigger this, only skill-activation ones (normal o signet related)

Powerful Aura is the only trait that does not proc on combo fields. Zephyr’s Boon will proc on any aura, including from combos.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Powerful_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Shielding
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire%27s_Embrace

If you look at the official post Soothing Ice is the same as Soothing Wave. They just added Frost Aura to its existing functionality.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/

For Cele D/D this is a straight buff. You get all of the cantrip traits and Soothing Ice. Curious if the Frost Aura gets the boons from Zephyr’s Boon and similar traits. Aquatic Benevolence also makes team support stronger at a slight damage loss.

Yeah, but power levels are going to go through the roof. 3 grandmaster traits is going to be pretty insane.

The short answer is try different things out. The all of the “meta” builds require Grandmaster traits to function properly. Focus on armor with Power and a splash of Toughness, Vitality, and Precision. Try Signet of Air for mobility and Glyph of Lesser Elementals (in Earth) for a pocket tank.

This D/F build is broadly what you would run fully geared at 80:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_D/F

Haha, I don’t really think understanding dungeon mechanics is really the way to pick a starting class.

Personally I preferred my Guardian for starting off in the game. There is a lot more room to learn about how the game works. Though I will say that I find my Elementalist to be much more engaging now that I have been playing for a while.

02066 with Zephyr’s Boon is an alternative to running Glyph if you just need swiftness.

2.8k armor is pretty tough to get without going into earth. You will have to sacrifice a lot of other stats. I feel pretty comfortable with 2500, 2600 when I get full ascended. Active defenses make up the difference. You just want enough toughness to stop a thief from one shoting you.

Stats looks pretty decent, though you should think about adding some more toughness. I run half Cav half Knights trinkets to get around 2500 armor. Thieves will burst you pretty fast with only 2200.

Just finish out your trinkets. The stat difference is minuscule.

Often people go with half Celestial to get a broad baseline of stats. Then pick more specific stats for the rest that fits their goals. For example I run Celestial armor, Knights trinkets, and Berserker weapons for my D/D.

Well I will go with the easy and imperfect answer and suggest looking a MetaBattle.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

I agree for the non-weapon skills. Stealth is really the only situation where this will happen and waiting to recast a single spell until they reveal themselves is likely a death sentence. Better to switch to another attunement and preempt their attack.

Asura certainly have the most flavor to their animation. Though I find I cannot stand they way they look when they are standing still.

cursE, that might as well be an old wive’s tale by now. And it is certainly not something that should be taken into consideration at character creation.

Umm, assuming you mean a build to help you solo the tower’s lord and guards then really most of the meta builds will work. Just need time. Killing a keep lord on the other hand…

Oh, then please define your terms when you are not using standard definitions. PvE generally equates to players fighting NPCs instead of other players. Your definition appears to be any component of WvW that deviates from sPVP.

Sevens, since everyone here is just ignoring your question, let me chime in.

I am assuming that by “hybrid” you are referring to hybrids in something like WoW or SWTOR. Guild Wars 2 works quite differently. There is no single build for ranged DPS and another for melee DPS. The arguments above me are due to this. Simply your weapon defines your role in combat, armor defines your stats, and traits adds flavor. Adjust as you please.

Based on your questions I would just enjoy the game. By the time you get to 80 you will understand.

Well if you read up on Stronghold it sounds like Thief is going to be pretty strong/OP.

Jesiah, I have also been using the short bow since Beta weekend 1. Let me be clear, Detonate Cluster has never changed. Beyond tooltip changes there have never been any functionality changes. Take a look at the patch notes or the wiki change history. Cluster Bomb has had two changes that don’t relate to your problem. First in November 2012 a reduction of 15% in PvP. Second in June 2013 the range of Cluster Bomb was reduced to 900 from 1200.

Umm, just to make sure. You realize that each of the three ‘bomblets’ from cluster bomb have a 3 target limit? Which makes cluster bomb able to hit a max of 9 targets. This is how the skill has functioned since launch.

Giver’s weapons trade off too much damage. It is highly likely that your conditions will not run their full duration. Food is far more effective for duration.

Eles usually fall into two categories. A group oriented damage build that melts quickly or a roaming build that is usually a pain to kill for one reason or another. For the roaming variety victory tends to depend on them eating several confusion hits.

So I hope someone has suggested this before, but giving WvW access to the PvP reward tracks seems like pretty straightforward way to improve rewards for people who live in WvW. One WvW rank could be equivalent to 2,500 PvP rank points. For comparison 2,500 PvP rank points is about 8 hot join sPvP matches at 50% win ratio. One WvW rank (5,000 WXP) is about one servers entire portion of the Eternal Battlegrounds (4 sentries, 2 camps, 4 towers, 1 keep) and 8 player kills. Even better if sPvP and WvW could provide progress to the same track.

Just make sure to replace the Balthazar reward track with something WvW specific.

So I am coming back to my Mesmer after several months working on other classes. Can I get some pointers on current WvW builds. Specifically power builds that could work for roaming in small groups. I assume shatter is still viable, but any other types out there? I have heard talk of lockdown builds, are these workable in WvW.

Thanks

I think something like this is the standard thief build. At least for a coordinated group. Ascended equipment is not required.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAoY86ksMpwpNONRLRtdHECfgXnh2XQAEiA-TxBBABYt/o8DgHAQe6HY4gAEwZAoS1fOTJIA-e

Just a quick note that mug will not break you out of the stealth from stealing grants stealth. The damage from mug will apply first then the stealth.

Well, since no one actually read the OP here is the build I run that does not use dire armor. It is probably not the most optimal build but it is a bit more fun than full dire.

1750 Power (with food)
30% Crit Chance
1750 Condition Damage (with food and stacks)
2400 Armor
14500 Health

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAqYVlsMp0pdPx8J8PNBNRxdNsCzg3jxXshaFAA-T1yCABAcgAoR9njfCA7t/AK6DMw8DynCAjUi1kyAhUaMmSwAAIAEkZZA8XDA-w

Sir Vincent III, that is a good call on the condition duration. I will certainly try that.

messiah, I have tried the full venom setup before. It is a bit too narrow for my needs. The problem I am trying to solve by adding more direct damage is broadening the variety of targets I can kill. Dealing with Diamond Skin Elementalists is one example.

So I have been running the standard full Dire P/D setup for a few weeks now. A nice change of pace from months of D/P and S/D. I am pretty familiar with what it can handle and what it cannot. The problem I am having is that the build is too safe after using glassy builds for so long. Fights end with me at full health or in a draw. Could someone point me to a build that drops some of that defense for more direct damage?

This is my current theory craft build to fit this idea:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZMQNAqYVl0Mp0pdPx8JsPNBNRxdNsCzg3jxXshaFAA-TFzCABAcIAoR9njfCA7t/wL6DMwMDynAAjUi1kyAhUaUgphxUCGAABggMLFwiKrA-w

Very much agree, take them from Acro. The confusion stacks are pretty amazing at suprising people. Though if you do that I might suggest dropping ricochet for bountiful theft, and maybe even long reach. Some tradeoffs to be better at handling single targets.

Spider venom is only really good if you are going to run Leeching Venoms for the heals. Skale does better damage in real fights with condition cleanses.

For a Thief Valkyrie armor is usually considered superior due to low base health. The loss of precision matters less on a backstab build due to Hidden Killer.

Power = 2039, Attack = 3029
Precision = 1778, Crit Chance = 45%,
Crit Dmg. = 90%
Toughness = 1408, Armor = 2472
Vitality = 1319, Health 14844

With food/stack
Attack = 3279
Crit Chance = 55

All exotic.