Guild Wars 2

Really? I play my ranger melee, otherwise you’ll lose too much dps by missing out on splitblade hits, bonfire area, SB poison volley. And there’s no problem staying alive like this, I guess it comes down to how you handle your ranger

What would be a simple solution to axe is to make it a condi melee weapon (since it’s basically played melee already).

What would the skills do you say?
Well, they would pretty much do the same thing as they do in the current state but without the range. The dmg would be the same but with a couple of tweaks because it’s now melee (risk/reward).

#1: 2 target cleave (instead of bounce) and is now a chain attack:
1: Bleed your targets
2: Cripple your targets
3: gain 3 stacks of might

#2: Sweep your axe (front cone) and apply 6 stacks of bleeding to a maximum of 3 targets, apply 2 stacks of poison if you hit a crippled target

#3: Slam your axe into the ground and give 4 stacks of bleeding and chill your targets (5 targets). Your pets next attack inflicts weakness, Blast Finisher

The skills are slightly buffed since we would lose access to projectile finisher

definitately a +1 to this! Either toggle option, dye option or just a 2 second glow when switching legend.

alot of posts sounds like you think you have to pick 5 venoms… actually venoms is at it’s peak when it comes to GvG or to some degree WvW assist parties that focuses single targets outside the main group and since you in that case use TS communication and is in a party with the others in your assist team you get together, share venom (immob and stun) and then just wreck one guy at a time giving your meleeball less things freecasting them from the side. With those 2 venoms you still got room for SR and shadowstep for much needed escape

You are correct about the light fields, it all comes down to teamwork and using them in proper rotations so they don’t interfere with each other. SoS and lightning fields have different cooldowns and the lightning fields are used more for the stun effect on attacking or fleeing targets, while putting them down mid fight under the zerg for blasting would interfere as much with the fire and water fields as a missplaced SoS.

with 8 guardians placing SoS in a spread out pattern during combat it’s not hard keeping swiftness up without hampering movement, also used during regroups.
In the example of going from point A to point B in 20 secs I think that retrat is a really good alternative…
Is every aspect of the game suposed to be considered balanced? I think it doesn’t hurt the game to have different skills for all classes, for example no other class can give as much aegis as guardians can, should they all be able to do it as good?

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

I mean, if you need to travel from point A to point B, and it would usually take you 20 seconds, and you use swiftness to grant 33% movement speed increase for the entire duration, it should then only take you around 15 seconds to get there. However, if you use symbol of swiftness, it means standing still for 5 seconds to get the full duration, in which case it would actually still take you 20 seconds to get there…

So, as you can see, having to stand still to move faster is obscenely counter productive, and completely negates the movement speed bonus outright in many cases. You don’t even benefit a tiny little bit from it, unless you use it on the move, in which case you may only get 4 seconds of swiftness at a time with a 15 second cooldown (not counting boon duration increases or traits).

Maybe you’re using the symbol wrong, what if the symbol isn’t thought of as traveling from point A to point B the fastest, what if it’s main idea is to get your group to keep up maximum speed during combat. Cause if you put SoS down under you during fighting you are most definite going to have swiftness on you all throug the fight. Maybe you sohuld use retreat for traveling 20 sec distances between A and B, and if you need more one tick of SoS on each cooldown will increase it pretty substantially.

thank you AlCojester!

Nice work! I’ve always been fascinated by S/D but never really got the hang of it myself, would you mind sharing the traits you’re using, I mean the exact traits not just the numbers you state at the end Maybe with a proper build I can start learning it properly

as soon as someone calls me “noob” in any game I immediatly reply with: “and you got killed by a noob, what does that make you?”

You’re right ArchonWing, though personally I feel more supporty going the way I explained than investing in healing power, did that a while back but this feels better in every way. Only thing I miss is high heal on dodgerolls
And yes f2 is not much but it often makes the difference, especially when you add up your guardians.

Are you going Zerging or roaming? if zerging, which I assume since you want to be supportive I would suggest the following:

Full soldiers armor.
Trinkets can be a mix of soldiers and zerker. The zerker amount depends on your own comfortzone when it comes to survivability.
Zerker/Soldier weapons (again depends on how w2ell you can survive).
Melandru runes together with the lemongrass food to minimize duration of conditions. Energy sigils are really nice on your weapons and secondary sigils to consider would be accuracy, fire, bloodlust.
Don’t mind infusions from start but otherwise vital i armor and precision in trinkets.

You don’t really wanna go all out tank, that won’t help the cause much, you need some dmg as well, therefore you should aim towards 20-30% crit chance and around 2000 power (without sharpening stones).

Build I suggest is 0/0/6/4/4, altruistic healing is WONDERFUL for your survivability. With melandru runes and proper food you should be fine with only Purging flames as condi removal. Purity of body and Battle Presence is not a good trait to aim for and therefore don’t go 6 in Virtues or honor. You should be using your virtues in WvW, not leave them on passive.
So to sum up the traits I would say Valor is most important trait line here, for Strenth in numbers, retributive armor (cause you’ll have a ton of toughness and you NEED that critchance) and Altruistic healer cause it really makes the guardian as tanky as it’s supposed to be.

Could someone at ANET do something about knees showing through the T3 legs on female light armor. You would think that an armor especially designed for your race wouldn’t have any clipping issues….WRONG! Even without boots my knees are through the legs when drawing my weapon, and this is especially bad when it’s on cultural armor…

Rayya.2591:

An guardian who use : save yourselves / judge’s intervention /purging flames , MI ,COP , smite condition, renewed focus in dungeon party, persoanly i consider them pugs

hahahahaha this almost made me fall of my chair laughing! You do you know that EVERYONE that you’re not in a premade party with is a pug, right? if you join a group alone you’re a pug to EVERYONE else, does this make you bad?

Dagger main and offhand on mesmer! single target high power dmg to complement our sword which is pretty good cleave dmg.

1.1 slice your foe dealing x dmg
1.2 slice your foe dealing x dmg and inflict x second of weakness if hitting from behind or the side
1.3 stab your foe dealing x dmg + y dmg if target is weakened

2 Leap to your target and transfer 1 condition and steal 1 boon, deals x dmg + y dmg/condition on target + z dmg/boon on you (careful scaling on the condition vs boon dmg) 15 sec cd

3. Clone – summon a clone that will use your AA chain (12 sec cd)

4. Dash towards your target with supersonic speed causing a shockwave, deals x damage to all targets in a line, evade through the animation. Blast Finisher (300 range, 20 sec cd)

5. Phantasm – summon an illusion that deals very high single target damage and inflicts 5 stacks of vulnerability for x seconds (25 sec cd)

Dagger traits:
Master trait in domination – 20% recharge on dagger skills and Move 15% faster for MH dagger equipped and 10% for OH (like the necro trait)

That trait might be a bit over the top but it would nonetheless be an awesome one and mesmer deserves some movement speed love and what weapon to combine it with except small fast weapons that doesn’t make your character clunky?

I think OP means necro’s needs a buff so they’ll be better in PvE.
Good thinking OP, come on ANET, buff necros!!!

Necromancer – 1h sword, powerbased with cleave

Mesmer – MH pistol, because I just always felt I wanted that on mesmer

Guardian – Axe, condition weapon due to brutal nature with ease to bleed

Ranger – MH dagger, a 1h power melee weapon that doesn’t have the annoying AA animation chain that sword has…

Thanks for the reply. Good to know it won’t be horrible if I choose to use vampiric

Would it be a big loss to drop 2 out of SR and 1 out of Curses to get 3 Blood magic and vampiric precision + vampiric? I really like the small but steady sustain it gives and it’s also a free 36-80 armor ignoring dmg which with the fast dagger AA speed and WoS ticks is quite often.
I’m crap at math myself and can’t calculate these kinds of things properly, I just know that now that I’m playing your build I really miss those small dmg and heal numbers floating around :P

PSILO.4068:

Pelopidas.2140:

or play the game a little more

I was just going on my experiences from 3k+ matches as a power necro. (6-x-x-x-6 type build)

I thought my description of the axe was pretty easy to understand and quite objective. As for melee > range. Is a range of 600 really a ranged weapon? I feel that it’s more like a melee with reach. And personally I think standing in 130 range with any other class that uses a lot of 130 range attacks is bad idea. (Think hammer, mace, greatswords, etc.) Think about how much thieves bounce around. That 600 is more valuable than the 130. And that +5 seconds of cripple from axe 3 that hits ‘em in stealth too, it’s pretty handy. As for axe 2, do you need to put forth some effort to position yourself and/or your oppent? Of course. Axe 2 vs Dag 2. Axe 2 has a shorter cd (cool down) a shorter cast time (like 30% shorter) and it hits harder especially with all the vulnerability you just put on your opponent that means it does more dps (that’s damage per second) than dagger 2. Also dagger 2 is just as easily interrupted/blocked as axe 2.

And I totally agree about a lb doing a ton of deeps (aka DPS aka damage per second) but death shroud doesn’t last for ever)

Maybe I will read the forums more. Because if I read it on the interwebs it must be true.

Exactly everything you wrote is irrelevant, OP asked about best DPS, not if 600 range is better than 130, not if axe 2 hits for more than a healing skill (dagger2). While you’re reading the forums for more knowledge you might as well visit some other pages to get a better understanding of how to read sentences properly so you’ll answer to the actual question rather then preach about how awesome you think axe is.

Methane, what armor are you using in that build? only showed the runes in the editor.

Sword – Power weapon with cleave.
Auto attack with small life steal on attack nr 1 and 2 and could have cripple on last swing since we’re so slow.
Nr 2, sacrifice X% of your life to blast the area for moderate dmg and give protection to self and allies around you.
Also to remedy the speed problem I’m thinking nr 3 as a power dot, binding you and your target dealing power scaling dmg each second for X seconds. Gives you swiftness and deals more dmg the close you are to your target.

8/10 that backpiece really fits the necro!

what is attrition? I see it all over the forums but I don’t get it. can someone explain the term to me?

My necro in WvW Knights gear and PvE zerker gear

thank you all for giving some perspective!
Think I’ll go with zerker gear with Pack runes for my pve/dungeon build then

is power guardian with amp wrath any good? I mean is it enough of a dps increase from that?

But as a conclusion if you’re not running meditations, Pack runes are great, if you are running meds you could go with something else?

I really like the virtue suggestion, would really solve the sluggish movement of the guardian and doesn’t feel too op. The glacial heart change sounds fun too, good thing in wvw together with permeathing wrath for aoe chill

atm I’m running with 2/5/0/6/1 but I’ve been thinking of going meds.
as long as there’ someone or an entire group with me the burning is constant with activated VoJ so under those conditions the burning upkeep isn’t an issue. When solo in outdoor pve the 4,5 secs burning from the active is enough before stuff dies.

so far I’m prefering flame legion as well, but was thinking that maybe the precision and party buffs (don’t have any access to fury) would outweigh it.

Hiya!
Was thinking that you number crunchers could answer me this:
Would the Superior Rune of the Flame Legion or Superior Rune of the Pack be best by a PvE p.o.v.
I know scholar is best dps option but then I really need to stay at full health most of the time (stressfactor making me do more mistakes

I have full zerker gear and using 10 in zeal (synergy with flame legion).

Also does anyone have the dps numbers on zerker staff? It seems to do alot more dmg then it gets credit for.

Thanks in advance!

-Being able to use more weapons like axe, warhorn, maybe bow.

-Some form of passive movement speed increase, signet/trait/virtue?

-As someone else said, symbols on each weaponset. There’s so many traits focusing on symbols and it would be nice to take part of it on the 1h sets as well (yes mace can do it but the rest).

-More conditions to make condi build more viable, having the stronger burns + being able to get up some cover/assisting conditions would be fun. I imagine the brutal axe to be a perfect weapon to be afflicting bleeds on the target on the auto attack and in the perfect of worlds a torment applying symbol as well

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Amplified Wrath
This is a Grandmaster Trait for 33% increase in Burning.
Ele’s Serrated Stones is Adept and 20% Bleeding.
Necro’s Hemophilia is Adept and 20% Bleeding.
Necro’s Master of Terror is Master and 50% Fear.
Mesmer’s Master of Misdirection is Adept and 33% Confusion.
Thief’s Potent Poison is Adept and 33% Poison.
Warrior’s Deep Cuts is Adept and 50% Bleeding.
(Now you see how much they love Warriors)
This Grandmaster trait should increase Burning by 66% because it is Grandmaster.

Psst, it’s 33% increased burning damage, the others are all duration… there’s a huge difference

It’s exactly the same, but before patch you obviously used to look at Attack, not power. This patch they’ve removed the attack from your hero panel so you can only see power.

Prince.7198:

Sounds like a nice way for warriors with insane hp to 1 shot eviscerate you! lol balance lol

it converts vitality not base hp… all classes have same base vitality, nice calculations

so, what sigils are you using then

daragoz.4137:

Carpboy.7145:

After march 18 both will proc. same with 2 on swap

what he said^

Though there was nothing about it in the patchnotes so….no.

hasn’t this always been the case? as far as I know all melee cleaving weapons have 3 targets maximum (auto attack)

Okey I will try 20/25/0/25/0 now. If an encounter requires me to go ranged (either by how the encounter works or due to my skill), which ranged option should I then pick? LB, SB or Axe?

thanks for the tip. too bad this is still an issue :S

I tried swapping in Deep Strike and had 4 signets on my bar when doing some world exploring and noticed my crit chance did not increase at all. Is this just a visual bug that secretly adds precision or is it just not working at all?

Thank you for the help!
What traits would you recommend? The ones I think seem most usefull is:
I, VII, XII
I, V, XII

No room for going range ey?

And about the rerolling, I have the other classes too, this is just for a change of pace really (slower pace :P )

Hey!
Haven’t played ranger for a long time and wondering, what’s the current pve meta build (dungeons/fractals)?

Morgash.3165:

Pache.9406:

Conncept.7638:

DHBM.7652:

Amok Threeohthree.8501:

Backpieces aren’t class bound, you can make a backpiece as a leatherworker and use it with a light/heavy…

exactly….
i just made the ascended version with leather squares…. its now on my charr warrior. gets your facts straight next time guys.

Get your own facts straight first, not everyone has every type of crafter, some even have none. I don’t play any of the medium or heavy armor classes enough to warrant a heavy or medium armor craftsman. Am I supposed to level one all the way up just for this one item?

Well, if “this one item” is valuable enough that you had to come whine about the price difference in the forums, then “this one item”, is valuable enough to level up leatherworker to 500. Besides, to get 500 leatherworking you need around 100g, which isn’t really that much. And you get achievement points.

It’s not about the ONE item.. its about light armor crafting getting screwed over to in a imbalance in costs of mats needed across the board… this was just used as a example.

Look at the topic, it IS about ONE item. Go make your own thread about the other problem.

ODB.6891:

So this is 50% damage reduction for a full zerk group?!? 10% per player.

Haha, can you please explain your math here?!

MORE! gief more!! more of these! and then we can haz thief buffs?

I would like to be able to save a couple of different gfx settings. This is due to when I go into WvW I want one setting and when I’m anywhere else I want other settings. Sure it’s not the end of the world to change each individual setting manually but it would be time saving and easier since I have a hard time remembering all the right settings

I’m playing S/D as a zerker myself atm but this looks rather interesting (WvW). I do feel rather squishy when in the zerg, even though I’ve learned to stay alive pretty well it’s ALOT of work for it, I am however pretty good in duels and taking camps. Trying a mix of apotechary and dire sounds nice, or is rabid something to go for? do you think I would feel slow solo capping camps compared to my zerker Sword build?

I got an apotechary weapon chest in the bank, would it be wise to take a pistol from it?

I would like for all, or almost all at least, items from the gemstore to come back. Maybe not the seasonal things like halloween or christmas cause they’re very themed but the rest. Old gemstore armors, and single items. Like Brahams and Rox’s weapons, the toxic gloves and shoulders, you get the picture.

I don’t want to have missed my chance on all cool items from the past!

Thank you so much Impact.2780! That was great help with good explainations.
How about the gear and runes? Is the valkyrie gear worth it or should I just go berserkers? And the runes of the pack, any good?