Guild Wars 2

“Heavies to the gate” was an example. In that situation, we were being told to surprise them when they came in. They were unaware that we were in the tower and we were going to slaughter them as they came in. The commander was saying to have survivable players in the front and ranged against the back wall.

Some of you seem to agree with me that it is not the class so much as it is the ability of the build and player. That gives me hope at least to find other people who think past what is obvious.

Yes I understand that guardians can do what I do easier and people who want to take the easy route are encouraged to use a guardian. However, I guarantee that while I may not boon as much as they do I heal the group for a whole lot more then them. So ideally, a front line with both of us would be much stronger.

Again, some of you keep saying guards are better at this or that. My point was not that one is better or worse. My point is that a front-line engi (or other class) can be just as viable and just as helpful in different ways. The best groups I’ve run in were diverse and didn’t rely on just one tactic.

GW2 is built so you don’t have to use cookie cutter builds. You have a lot of freedom to create toons that play to your strengths. That is one of the appeals that it holds for me. Having a brain is a plus. In battle, I do not want to roll with a bunch of lemmings. So if a person can perform in a given role then we should be open-minded enough to accept that. If they can actually do it of course.

I do very well in WvW on my engi and can outlast guardians and warriors alike. I play this build as a front-liner in the zerg, as a roamer, and as a cap defender in PvP. It is very common for me to get 3v1 fights and win. So I know that my survivability and damage is high enough.

I am going to xfer (probably to TC). I guess I will just do some guesting and try to find a WvW guild that is not closed-minded. Thanx for all the replies.

cat.8975:

bigrob.3510:

@Reverence.

I’m sorry, but with 3800 AP I do good damage. Maybe you have not seen one built like mine

Let me guess, you’re running a mix of Cleric’s, Soldier’s, and Sentinel’s (Maybe Apothe instead of Cleric’s). You have healing bombs, elixir gun, Healing turret, Backpack regenerator.

Your traits probably look something like 10-0-30-20-10 or 10-0-30-30-0

You aren’t going to do a lot of reliable damage, you don’t have enough aoe disruption (you have some, but not enough), and you don’t have any stability.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Cleric engineers, but they just aren’t as useful as guardian/warriors on the front line. Though the bombs can be some excellent utility.

I run soldier’s armor and weapons with clerics trinkets. I run e-gun, flamethrower and bomb kit. Flamethrower is my main damage and the auto attack tooltip says 5x 1620 for damage. It also gives me an aoe knockback and blind. A fire field and a little napalm aoe explosion.

e-gun 5 heals for a lot and i blast it for area retaliation. e-gun 3 cleanses those around me of condis. bombs provide good effects and explosions heal. Big Ol Bomb is a good knockback. Healing turret and backpack regen are in my build.

My build is 0/0/30/30/10. Between stabilized armor and protection injection, when control effects are used i take 53% less damage. However, due to Transmute, my food and runes of Melandru, condition duration is very low. Thus you may hit me with a 2 sec stun for example, but I will only be stunned for about 1/2 sec. Then I have 5 secs of protection thanks to your stun. I do have a stun break if I need it. Also, with automated response if I do get low on hp then condis can’t be applied. I can honestly say that I have not seen the lack of stability to be a big problem. When roaming I have taken groups of 2 and 3 on my own.

I have eaten enough front-line guardians and warriors both in zerg battles and when roaming to know that my damage is not lacking. In fact, there are times that they turn and run after I hit them a few times.

Full stats are….

Attack Power: 3609
Condi Dmg: 350
Armor: 3228
Health: 21162
Healing Power: 1020

Again, my point here is not to say that guardians/warriors are not as good as me. They can do what I do with less effort in some cases. However, my warrior cannot heal for anything near what my engi or guard do. My point here is to say that an engi (or another class) can be as effective if built and played in the right manner.

When I made this assertion on my server I was told that heavies always had to wear heavy armor. When I mentioned that guards and warriors could have bezerker builds the answer I received was “then they are idiots”. My server would not even consider a support guardian as a useful team member. This kind of mentality is very frustrating to me. I was hoping by posting here that I would find that it was just my server and not the GW2 community as a whole that is so closed-minded.

@Reverence.

I’m sorry, but with 3800 AP I do good damage. Maybe you have not seen one built like mine

@Ragnar

I do understand your point. I also play a guardian. However, I have found a way around stab (for the most part). I can tell you that I live longer on my engi than I do my guardian. Also, I feel that the engi is more predisposed to healing and condi cleansing than the guardian is. So I think that comes down to every profession has their strong suits and weaknesses.

As for the damage, I don’t agree there. I can do quite a lot of AoE damage with the flamethrower and retain my healing and defensiveness.

My point was not that guardians were not more predisposed to being heavies. In fact, I feel they are. I have spent a lot of time on my engi getting him to the point he is at. My point was, it seems to me that built right other classes besides heavy armor wearers can be just as viable.

@Samhayn

I don’t see that heavy armor has 300 more toughness. When I look at a piece of Soldier’s gear it has the same numbers no matter what armor prof it is. As I stated in my post, it does have more Defense. However it is only 150 not 300.

This may sound dumb to some of you, but it is something that is really bothering me. I have looked up the damage formula for GW2 and it is…..

Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

According to this formula, the Armor Value as it shows in your hero panel is al that is used when calculating damage mitigation.

Commanders on my realm (Maguuma) like to refer to front-line fighters as “Heavies” They may say something like “Heavies to the gate” etc. The majority of players that I have talked to on my realm say this only includes someone who wears heavy armor. Now, I have analyzed this from a numbers perspective. Looking at the difference between heavy and medium armors for example. On average, heavy armor has 25 more defense then medium. Since armor value is simply the sum of defense (from 6 armor pieces and shield) and toughness, that means that a medium armor wearer with a shield has 150 less potential armor. So all things being equal, I can see where a toon wearing heavy armor has a higher armor potential.

However, I look through a lot of builds and talk to people. And I see build choices being made that negate that potential. For example…..

Most of the guardians I see run 2H weapons. This means they do not have a shield. That drops 61 defense. Further more, many classes have the ability to trait for extra toughness while carrying a shield (usually 90 toughness). 90 + 61 is 151. That means that unless the guardian takes Strength in Numbers (which some don’t) then they are on and even playing field with the medium armor class now. mathematically.

I play an engineer. I have 3200+ armor, 24K HP and can heal for 30K+ every 16 secs. You cannot keep a condition on me. But yet other players claim that when the commander calls for “Heavies” to proceed, that I am not included. This is really irritating to me.

At this point I have gotten so frustrated by this seemingly close minded way of thinking that I am considering changing servers. Before I do something that drastic I wanted to post here and see if I am just missing some really important fact.

I can outlive and outheal guardians and warriors alike. I can clear condis fast and keep them off. I can heal and boon allies extremely well. I can pressure enemies with enough damage to make them pay attention to me and then I can stay alive while keeping that attention. So what else is required to be considered a front-line fighter.

Could you point me to where I might find those threads about assassin gear? I have not seen them but would be interested to read them.

Hi All,

I am not an experienced thief by any means. However, I did just get my thief to 80 and am looking for a bit of advice. When I have asked elsewhere I get answer like “Delete your thief and make a warrior”. That is just not helpful. So I thought I would try here

I have been running a 20/30/20/0/0 build. I chose this build because I like to play with diversity. If I feel like running D/D this build will work. If I want to run S/P or P/P or whatever, I can adjust traits without having to respec. I use mostly assassin weapons/armor with knights/zerker trinkets. I use Maint Oil and Prec/Crit Dmg food. Mainly its a crit build with options for different weapons.

I usually run with Signet of malice for P/P, S/P, S/D and Hide in Shadows for D/D or D/P. My elite is usually Dagger Storm however, in some WvW/PvP situations I have been using Basilisk Venom. For Utility I usually run Signet of Agility, Blinding Powder and Shadow Refuge. I don’t usually change this often but am not against changing them if given a good reason that will positively effect my play.

Mainly, what I am looking for here is some informed knowledge from some of you experienced thieves. Given my build and practices, I know I won’t be the best at anything. As long as I don’t suck that is ok with me. I don’t have to be top DPS.

My build can be viewed Here

So, is there anything glaringly wrong with my build or approach? Can I do anything to improve it and still be flexible with the weapons?

I love the system for dying the color of my armor. It makes me feel like I can create a unique look even given the limited armor sets available.

However, I have two main problems with this system that could be easily fixed. So my suggestion is for anet to implement them. The two items are as follows.

#1, Allow me to dye my weapons.
There are many weapon categories that do not have a lot of good looking choices. But even the choices that I can live with clash with my armor. I would like to be able to dye them to match or make color changes to enhance my look.

#2, Allow me to dye the hair accessories and other stuff like that.
At character creation there is no way for me to know what changes will occur in my mind by the time this toon hits 80. So I may not want to stick with the same look. I can totally change my armor and therefore create a new look. If I really want to change sex, hairstyle, etc I can understand buying a makeover kit for that. It seems fair. What seems unfair is to make me purchase a makeover kit and completely change hairstyle to avoid have a color on my toon that clashes with my other armor choices. Just let me dye that area plz.

Anyway, those are my suggestions for the dye system. Don’t get me wrong, this game is wonderful. From time to time I find things that I would like done differently but as a whole it is one of the best options out there IMO. Adding these changes would of course make it better for me but I know you guys are busy. Just food for thought.

OMG!!!

I changed this setting a while back because I thought it only effected WvW. I know that they have just said that culling was not a PvE thing until clockwork but I have been trying to figure out a fix for this for over a month now. Maybe they starting putting the code in a bit before announcing it. Never even thought about culling options.

Regardless of when they did it you totally fixed my issue. Awesome job mate. Glad to see helpful people such as yourself on here. Almost didn’t post because of my experience in other MMOs. Just another reason that I’m now in GW for life

Way to go!!!!!!
Cheers

I have been playing GW2 for about 4 or 5 months now. At first everything displayed correctly. But about 2 months or so ago, I noticed that all other players seemed to be wearing the exact same gear. My wife and I both play and we can go to the same area (Rata Sum for example) and the players on her screen are all wearing different armor. But on my screen it shows them all in basic armor. For example, all Light armor wearers seem to be in Cabalist armor.

This error happens no matter which character I log into. I have 2 80s and the rest are still being leveled. Some of these toons have used transmutation stones many time, and some have never used them. I have not yet found a pattern that I can point to and say “this may cause the issue”.

I have submitted a bug report in-game about a month ago with no response or fix. This is my first major bug so if I’m going about this the wrong way I apologize

If there is a setting that can cause this or a fix that might clear it up please let me know. I am a programmer by trade so I do understand the software/hardware on my PC very well. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Big Rob