Guild Wars 2

Anyone on the fractals at least?

Not trying to be flame inducing, but I’m really confused about the damage totem pole that seems to be out there.

I like being able to run around while hacking with the axe, but I’m genuinely confused how some people have decided its straight up damage is the highest. Auto attack damage, sure, but that’s not exactly the whole picture.

GS on the other hand, I think has a lot more nuance, (this also confuses me, there’s a lot of prejudice out there against GS gameplay) and how you use your abilities and position yourself has a lot more impact.

That said though, I’m still scared that if I for example get an expensive GS skin, I’ll end up not using it, because busting out 100 blades on cool down is just not practical in high-end content.

Some input from more experienced players would be appreciated!

I’m having a lot of trouble working out what I want to commit to. I don’t do builds without a ranged weapon, I realize highest theoretical damage is GS/Axe+whatever, but the game is far too punishing when you can’t swap to ranged in crappy situations.

I’ve been messing around a lot, and in exotic gear at least, I find that GS does significantly more damage than Axe/offhand, assuming that you’re using all your abilities in an offensive capacity. However I’m terrified of the movement limitations associated with 100 blades.

I’m a little confused, because there seems to be a general attitude that overall axe does the highest damage. At least in berserker exotic gear, it doesn’t seem to for me. This is in a standard 30/25/0/0/15 build.

So, what I’d like to know is… A: Is there something I’m missing with axes? The overall damage is definitely lower, I’ve been experimenting a lot and I am certain of it at this point. This isn’t a kitten y 100 blades rulez! evaluation, I’ve been messing around a lot and utilizing all of the GS skills, it does more damage, which brings me to B…

I’m a newish player, does GS become very difficult to use in fractals in whatnot? I know GS is borderline useless in PvP, but PvP tends to want different gearing anyway. So…

Am I missing anything? Is there something I’m not seeing about maximizing axe damage? And should I try not to get too used to running GS? Does it lose a lot of its viability in fractals and whatnot? When they change critical damage, I know that axe is going to suffer more than GS as well, so that’s out there too.

Personally, I like charr animations for most weapons and they have amazing cultural armor. If you want something barbarian-esque, go norn, again it’s mostly about the armor.

Humans are pretty generic in general, armor and everything else.

Other choices are pretty obvious, Asura if you want a weird little gremlin smashing things. Sylvari if you’d prefer a plant warrior.

Gameplay impacts are minimal, don’t worry about them, just work out what type of character you want.

Rabid, the precision is needed for crit based traits in a bunker build.

Despite the above answer, bunker warriors can be quite effective, rabid gear is also super cheap, so it’s easy to give it a go.

Choose based on aesthetics, both classes are great at using big weapons. If you like the magic effects of the guardian, choose that class. If you prefer the aesthetics and feel of warriors, go that way.

Guardians and warriors are both very solid classes, with quite a bit of flexibility depending on how you want to play them.

The one thing you need to avoid is choosing a class with a specific intention in mind, which doesn’t mesh well. Based on your expectations though, it’s really about aesthetics, so if you like burning your enemies with blue fire, guardian, if you aren’t into a lot of magic, warrior.

Thanks for the response. This is sort of what I mean. As MMO’s go, I was a Heroic Raider in WoW for the last few years, finally quit and then decided to give GW2 a try. I’m used to some rough mechanics that blow you up if you mess up, but GW2 seems different in that respect.

To put it one way, suppose you’re playing a warrior and you’re in a group with other pure dps types, being one yourself. Since you’re a warrior, you will get aggro via proximity and if you know what you’re doing, damage. That being the case, I’m a little confused how you’re supposed to do damage if you’re full DPS gear. If another class is applying weakness and blinds and whathaveyou, you may not die immediately, but once something hits you, you’ll go down.

What I want to know, is does someone actually need to be a tank for a group to be successful? The general attitude I’ve found is extremely condescending and extremely dps oriented as far as guides go. Does someone need to be able to take a few hits for the group to be successful or does it really boil down to endless rolling and aggro trading?

I have a hard time seeing how warriors and thieves survive (And I’ve watched them die, a lot), if there’s no one who can keep the mobs from hitting them (which is to say someone with some toughness to get the aggro bonus from the stat).

Hi there. I haven’t been playing very long, I almost have two 80s now, a Guardian and a 79 Warrior. I’ve looked at guides for damage and whathaveyou quite a lot, but they don’t really mesh with my gameplay experience very well and I was hoping I could get some clarification from other players.

The big, big one is gearing. I see a lot of people advocate using full berserker everything for virtually all classes, unless you’re doing a condition build. I understand the maximizing damage concept, but in my dungeon experiencing, virtually everyone who uses a build of that type just seems to die constantly. Especially Warriors and Thieves who are trying to melee with 0 defenses. (Guardians can take 5-6 seconds of being smacked at before they’re hit, so it’s a little different).

The guides say this is a skill issue. I don’t think it is frankly, too many enemies have some form of unavoidable damage and it seems to often one-shot glass cannon types. So what I’d like to understand, is where is this attitude coming from? Even if we assume high skill levels, if you need to back off constantly on a melee class your damage is going to drop a ton. That’s been reflected by my in game experience. Full DPS players either die or are running around so much their damage is compromised.

Am I missing something here? Do enemies in fractals hit so hard that defenses are pointless? Or is this really just people being internet tough guys? There’s a lot of kittening on people who advocate some survival traits/gear for PvE and I don’t really understand it.

I’d really like some responses on this, since I want to gear my warrior for 80 and I’m just really unsure how to feel about stats and whatnot.

Is the total disdain for survival/tankish builds in PvE sensible? And I should add I’m asking about melee classes, I can see it working for ranged as long as they know the content well.