Guild Wars 2

Flumek.9043:

D/d power was about the best non meta build in 2013-15.

Hot and trait patch brought huuuuge power creep, before that all classes had much less defense available, any class had a semi viable zerker build, provided a good pilot.

Now, you simply cannot land such stuff anymore.
Evade frames have gone from 10 to 30%,
self made perma wenes and protection,
Instant knockbacks interupting your combo and disspositioning your melee cleave,
Way more snares and random free blinds,
Even zerkers having such high heals per second that they can fully reset.
Also easier rezzes, like from 1 to 5 per teamfight, making high risk burst even less effective.

The only way to deal damage since hot has been ranged DoTs, which dont have such setup requirements, making it only a cooldown war.

Tldr
Dagger did 2k dps, now does 1k half time, 0k other half.
You can do 1-2 k reliably with condis.
D/x was good but only thief and brokenant were able to follow power creep with a power build.
GS is a roleplay weapon, its banned in pvp.

I definitly see your point. I played a power Druid recently before trying Necro. Power is definitly on the opposite end of the spectrum come HoT. I’ve tried to get behind a condi build on multiple classes (ranger, ele, guard, engi,rev, and warrior), but I just can’t enjoy stacking condis and not building a rhythm while in pvp. I don’t mind having to gather a higher degree of skill to beat my opponents, so I guess I’m playing devils advocate to your post. I definitly see why D/D is a bit more uncommon now and I do appreciate you shedding much needed light on that, however the challenge to make D/D/ GS reaper work is too good to pass up. I don’t see gs as a role play weapon, I see the potential to scare your opponent into a position they are most uncomfortable in. I’ve had a few days to play reaper since I first posed the question to the community and I must say, I’ve never seem such amazing build diversity and potential in one class. Coming from the ranger community it’s great to see the necro isn’t cornered into one build to be great

Morde.3158:

Death Charge aka reaper shroud 2 is buggy If DS2 was better I would never play reaper. When you have somone targeted for Death charge there is like an invisible wall stoping you from landing the skill if they are moving.

I started to notice that if they have no impeding movement conditions it becomes a sort of Jesus take the wheel targeting problem. To be honest though I dropped the boon corruption trait and use this more primarily as projectile destruction, escape skill is flesh wurm is on cooldown and as a quick movement skill to pop in a out of shroud which I traited for unholy feast on shroud cast, I get a 6 second cooldown boon corrupt anyways. I really have to say the versatility of the trait lines for necro are very well thought out. I can’t find one bad trait line regardless of a condi or power build. In fact I see such a great push towards hybrid builds with these trait lines

Lol this brings up the third build I was working on still using the same gear set. It’s basically what I was running before HoT. D/x and staff, spite/bloodmagic/soulreaping…

Death Shroud Build]

Most of this build revolves around being in shroud, I could see wells being more useful to you than signets. You can pop the Wells for the damage over time while in shroud to let them tick while you provide most of your ranged damage from there

All encounters should be tailored to that fight. I can manage melee on teq, vale guard, most fractals, however on specific bosses like wyvern I could play the movement game to constantly stay behind him and out of the aoe, but I spend more time doing that than attacking. I’ll swap out to staff/axe focus and regular shroud for life blast. Reaper is a great trait line but if it’s easier to range than go ranged. I spend a lot of time practicing on surviving playing only melee and eventually down the road I might be able to play melee on all fights but I don’t feel it’s detrimental when playing in a large group scale, you aren’t helping the team practicing, so bring what’s best

Krysard.1364:

Tradewinds.5792:

So essentially it looks like I’m missing out on a stronger strategy for boon corruption and a more effective daze and access to swiftness, *something my build lacks outside of shroud which I have traited for movement speed. While cycling through traits I did see a boon corrupt trait on shroud 2 that looked promising

Thing is Shroud 2 isnt as reliable as it was old DS#2

Shroud 2 looks like it would be easier to hit in its original form but it has double the cooldown as reaper shroud 2 not to mention the projectile blocking and blind on the last hit. I just see so much more utility on a lower cooldown outside of the boon stripping potential when traited

So essentially it looks like I’m missing out on a stronger strategy for boon corruption and a more effective daze and access to swiftness, *something my build lacks outside of shroud which I have traited for movement speed. While cycling through traits I did see a boon corrupt trait on shroud 2 that looked promising

New to the necro community but so far enjoying a more intuitive learning curve, (love the life force and boon corruption management, knowing which skills are on cooldown in and out of shroud and the traits associated with that) I started my build with great sword and staff but I found having two clunky weapons really messing up my momentum and rythem. I’m sure my inexperience with the class has a good part in my forthcoming with the weapon combo. I picked up dagger/dagger over staff and saw immediate success with several matches in sapphire to ruby. Through many of the matches I got several pms and team chat asking what build I was running with d/d and “nice to see d/d necro in the mix” Is d/d an uncommon weapon set or inferior set to use? Fast auto attack with great life force generation. Life transfer is great to put some range pressure while closing in. An aoe immobile for a great gravedigger setup. An on demand 3 condi transfer and 6 second aoe weakness. I really don’t see a downside to the weapon combo but I feel I’m missing something everyone else has common knowledge about. I scattered through the forums but really didn’t get much info. Just looking to gather more info on a class that finally has a great sword that fits my playstyle

Evening all. Been playing staff/gs with plenty of lock down via daze knock back knockdown stun etc. Was originally running spike trap traited for a 36 second knowkdown/cripple which I won’t lie has prevented so many stomps/heals/rezzes. I recently saw that storm spirit provides a 6 second daze and 2k dmg on a 20 second cool down when trait ed moment of clarity. I didn’t have too much of a chance to test it out due to travel, but I was looking for some input. I know positioning is key with both skills but what does the community think. Guaranteed unblockable knockdown and cripple on 36 second cooldown, or 2 to 4k dmg with a 6 second daze on a 20 second cooldown but risk of spirit dying before I cast the active ability?

Devs, I’m not asking you to change the trait or do anything drastic. I just need to know is natural healing going to go back to healing the ranger as well? As of right now it doesn’t even heal my pet and it was a crucial part of my build. I don’t expect things to change over night, I just want to know if I need to change my build to find some other form of natural regen.

Along with everyone else I have been playing around with build ideas for the upcoming expansion. Seeing as I lost signet mastery with moment of clarity as they are now in the same skill branch, I have modified a new beast master build with a little more survivability.

Running marks/nature magic/beast mastery

Going beast master bond, beast master might and remorseless Ness

Nature’s wrath evasive purity and protective ward

Resounding timbre natural healing and zephyr speed

Plan to be running Valk and cavalier mix with great sword sword/axe. Hao, sotw, sos, sic em, with rao.
The change to Hao being a shout will enable permanent regeneration swiftness and a good size heal every 16 seconds as the lingering magicntraitnwill extend regeneration even further. mixed with natural healing and maybe even mango pies, and weakness and protection every 12 seconds I can see this build making it to the back lines with a lot less of a hard time than before. I know pets are commonly seen as a pest in wvw due to aoe but I can’t stray away from bm builds. It requires a lot more pet management but 5-7k jaguar crits feel too rewarding to pass up

With the changes to remorselessness the ranger can finally have precision be a dump Stat and we can focus more on maxing our raw dmg and survivability.

Personally I will be running jaguar and perhaps a drake or raven as a second pet option . Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. Still trying to figure out some better condi removal than just evasive purity.

has anyone maybe thought hey, beastly warden would work great with this trait, even if it only gives protection to your pet, and they are forced to attack your pet? I’m pretty that’s called SYNERGY

I didn’t even know there was a windows movie maker lmao. I appreciate the input. As for music I really don’t like the screamo music, I was thinking something casual like some early 90s hip hop or 1960s funk. I’ll have to mess around before a final product is produced.

Good morning all.
I ditched my 80 human ranger for a brand new sylvari melee ranger recently, and I am enjoying the new look and feel of my character. I want to share my soloq, teamq, and wvw experiences with the ranger community. I have absolutely no knowledge of video editing and production and some of the vids I’ve seen here are awesome. Any input on programs or tricks I can do to produce a great video for the viewers would be greatly appreciated. I would also like to add some music to the vid, alas I also have no idea how to do that either. If the video program costs money, I am willing to spend some on this venture, so please don’t hesitate to post whatever the best video editing software is. Thank you for your time and information.

Best regards,
Norräh
Level 80 Sylvari Ranger

Ign: Thundergod Raikoh
Server: sanctum of rall
Gametype: tpvp

I actually stumbled upon a really fun lockdown build, after messing with some skills. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUnUIStWWgFmcBrXG5ugGdTuSSAdBCwDEVBB-TJRGwAAuAAJeAAg2fAaZAA

Knockback from rifle, immobilize with rifle, knockback with flamethrower, blind with flamethrower, pull with magnet, cripple on aa with toolkit, cripple with throw wrench. stun with aed toolbelt, stun with supply crate. With a constant 18 – 20 stacks of might and the soft cc’s. i dont think i dodged once to completely lockdown a p/d thief a p/u mesmer and a d/d ele. I am very pleased so far with the results. the regen on endurance is really freakin nice too

I particularly enjoy the hgh with juggernaut, its the waste of global cooldown to pop the elixir that i find troublesome, thats dmg not done just to increase dmg. I do appreciate those build inputs i am gonna try each tonight. The turret idea sounds awesome for holding nodes. Do you think ground targeting for turrets is worth it to space out the range and effectiveness? Its all so many possibilities lol i could spend all day thinking about it but i guess ill never know unless i try. Static discharge sounds awesome as a gadgeteer. Could probably spike a good 15-20k dmg in the right scenario, which would be nice with the ft/ net combo

Hello all, first time caller in the engi world. I have since hung up the cape on my ele and put all my effort into what seems to be the coolest class in the game. Through lots of youtube and forum browsing, i have stumbled onto some of the most interesting builds and theorycrafting for any class in the game.
I am breaking my forum silence as I have come to a halt in the progression of my character. I play tpvp arenas with the basic ft/hgh build running 0/6/0/6/2 stacking might with juggernaut and elixir spam. I find this build to be primitive yet effective for my playstyle. I use the rifle in conjunction with the ft to maintain high might stacks as well as dish out the high numbers. I have spent many matches and duels to refine my dodging ability as ways to mitigate the bigger attacks. I have recently decided to branch out from this cookie cutter build and look for ways to really delve into this class. I ask for constructive criticism and some incite on how to move forward from here. I know there are a ton of players out there far better than me, and id love the chance to make my way to that status. So far i have been looking at the wrench kit as the abilities on it are amazing. I thank this community kindly for any input.

- Nora