Guild Wars 2

I’m one of the people who wanted to love the rev before HoT launched but ditched it soon after. Would love to hear if this balance patch makes the rev any more playable / less monotonous since I haven’t kept up with the state of the rev enough to judge it very well.

I don’t really get any of this hate some warrior players seem to have for daggers. I understand that they could be perceived as only being agile thiefy weapons but the whole flavour of the Warrior is that they’re weapon masters. I think warrior getting dual daggers is awesome, since they’re being used in a more warrior-in-your-face kinda way, and especially since there seems to be some lore ties to them representing the spearheads of the “broken sunspears” or something. As far as I see it, the only weapons that don’t make sense for warriors are the ones with magical ties (sceptre, focus, etc).

Firebrand is the spec i’m the most hyped for, but I totally agree with this! The tomes not actually being tomes (like the old ones were) is like the one criticism I have.

I need help! I want to make a new char, a thief obviously. I kinda want him to be an asura because I’ve never played a tiny person before, but I’m very aesthetically driven and idk if I could deal with everything looking tiny on him. BUT Norn is the only other option that appeals to me apart from boring humans.

So my questions are: is the size of asura gear annoying / unrewarding (for a thief and/or for others) and is a norn male thief a bad idea in the opposite way due to their sheer size? Any opinions would be great! I would rather not make yet another human.

Hi!
I’ve been away from the game for a good while, since just after the start of living world S3, and I’m considering picking it up again. Just wondering how Ele is doing now, I once played an Ele in both PvP and PvE and would just like to know what currently players think about where the class is at atm.
TLDR: ive been away for a while, does ele still have a good place in raids / fractals / pvp / build variety? My second option is necro. Thanks!

Full berserker is definitely the norm. For niche situations like raid tanking and such, people often throw in some commander’s or knight’s gear, but I read that zerker armor and some knights trinkets does the job for that well enough if the raid has a revenant for the extra boon duration. As for the weapons, zerker is also the go-to there, and zerker gear would be easily swapped to an ele or necro if you play those too.

Is condi mesmer viable in open world and/or instanced PvE? If so, what kind of builds are used, and how does it measure up to power mesmer?

Totally agree with everything said here! On the topic of mobility, I would much rather wurm and the wurm teleport be changed to instant cast than a whole new movement skill added. It’d still be a little slower to cast than other blinks due to having two parts, but it’d be a whole lot more functional on the move than it is right now.

Thief is literally the only profession in the game without a reliable ranged weapon and from what I gather, pretty much every thief player would be cool with this coming back. PvE is a lot more challenging than it used to be, and there are a lot of situations where staying in melee is discouraged or near impossible, and that hurts the thief a lot. The simple re-addition of ricochet would be incredible for ranged thieves, but a change small enough to not be game-breaking or step on the toes of a possible ranged elite spec we could see in the future. Everyone thinks P/P is fun but so few use it anymore.

What do we want? (Ricochet) When do we want it? (Whenever is convenient but preferably soon).

I understand your line of thinking, but I disagree. I think mesmer will definitely get a competitive dps spec, but due to the nature of elite specs you won’t have access to chronomancer or alacrity. Therefore mesmers will have to choose between playing support through chronomancer or dps. The exclusivity is what makes it “balanced”, and you can’t really compare two elite specs like that saying one is better than the other, since they fill completely different roles.

That’s my 2 cents anyway, as someone who dropped mesmer for thief until we can do something more than spit out quickness and alacrity in group content.

Rev would probably be my main if not for the overwhelming feeling that this profession isn’t anywhere near as polished as literally all the others. Still kinda feels like rev is in beta. As soon as the next elite spec is out, and if base rev doesn’t improve, the profession is gonna fall apart due to it’s current reliance on herald to make it viable let alone relevant in every game mode. That’s my opinion anyways.

Amazing job man. And the world needs more Yishis style commentaries tbh.

Brenil.8957:

I don’t get the poo poo party on the staff 2.

It has AoE, it provides weakness, and if you hit someone using a skill, it hits like a truck and dazes. All of this for 5 energy on a five second cooldown.

Why the hate? It’s a great skill, especially in PvP.

Staff 2 is totally a great skill on paper, but in practice the fact that it’s a two-part skill makes it clunky and awkward and too slow to use as a reactionary skill or a quick interrupt. That’s my understanding of the staff 2 hate anyway, but all of that seems more relevant to Pvp. All in all I agree that Staff is a pretty great weapon for the rev all round, skill 2 is the only one that could be better.

Hey there, so I was one of the many players that switched from another class to the Revenant when HoT launched, but it only took a few days for the rose-colored glasses to wear off before I realized how many bugs and issues the profession came with. So my question is: how is the revenant these days? Does it feel better to play? Is it worth switching back to rev again?

Honest and balanced-ish responses like these are why I decided to post this in the Engi forum tbh. I decided to go with the Engineer, as I do really love the playstyle and roaming around the open world as a Guardian just isn’t quite the same. I’ll still be picking up other classes now and then but I think Engi is the one I’m gonna stick to. Thanks guys.

DGraves.3720:

Too many buttons just to get off an attack. One-key combat will trash two key really quickly. This and you can’t see the cooldowns since the toolbelt uses one slot for the graphic. Basically you’re fighting both blind and complicated.

If you want to add depth start by trying to remove it. If nades are spammable ask why then deconstruct from their. Maybe the answer isn’t to make them more complex but to diversify value by simply changing kit interactions.

I.E. “Explosives Expert: While both grenades and bombs are equipped in your utilities Shrapnel is improved to 20% chance to cause bleeding for 14s.”

“Chemistry Mastery: While Elixer Gun and Flamethrower are in your utilities Juggernaut now works with Elixer Gun and Flamethrower gains a chance to cause vulnerability.”

Easy peasy. Reward combinations and synergies rather than reinvent the wheel.

I like what this guy is saying.

Kits definitely need some kind of overhaul in order to make us less reliant on them. Engi has so many utility slot options but every meta build uses the same three kits and I see that as a huge and obvious problem for build diversity. I saw a Nike! video on this topic recently, and while his suggestions would change the engi playstyle a little, I think he pitched some unique ideas: eg. making kits more about utility and increasing the dps of the engi weapons / tool belt skills as a trade-off.

Jerus.4350:

caerulean.4837:

I don’t like the idea of reducing the number of leaps at all, sorry. The whole point of Rocket Charge, at least to me, is that you get three finishers in quick succession. Engi lets you play with combo fields and finishers more than any other class and reducing that skill to one finisher on a shorter cooldown has some merit but ultimately takes some fun synergy away. Maybe 2 leaps on a slightly shorter CD with a lower damage buff? But in my opinion 1 leap is less cool.

Totally agree that it should be affected by quickness though. But for the sake of full evade frames I also like the idea of increased distance instead, especially if there are fewer leaps.

You already only get 2 leap finishers, the middle leap’s finisher was removed.

I never noticed! My bad.

I don’t like the idea of reducing the number of leaps at all, sorry. The whole point of Rocket Charge, at least to me, is that you get three finishers in quick succession. Engi lets you play with combo fields and finishers more than any other class and reducing that skill to one finisher on a shorter cooldown has some merit but ultimately takes some fun synergy away. Maybe 2 leaps on a slightly shorter CD with a lower damage buff? But in my opinion 1 leap is less cool.

Totally agree that it should be affected by quickness though. But for the sake of full evade frames I also like the idea of increased distance instead, especially if there are fewer leaps.

Blaqatak.1395:

What mode are you trying to play?

In PvP you’ll find that frustrating. In most other modes, it’ll be more forgiving.

Thieves live & die by quick reactions – either evading/stun-breaking. If you’re a half-second slow, you’re likely dead. It’s what makes it fun!

I’m interested in all game modes except wvw. In the past I’ve done pretty well (by my standards) as a mesmer in pvp, do you think that’s a good sign for thieving or is it that much more frustrating than mesmer reaction-time wise?

Thieves and mesmers appeal to me due to their mobility and what I find to be fast reactionary gameplay, but at the end of the day I just wanna know if I’m too handicapped to have a chance at being decent on a thief or if I should stick to a more forgiving class.

So i’m Australian and usually get between 200-250 ping while playing this game on one of the US servers. I’m currently enjoying my guardian but find the lack of mobility can be frustrating, so I’m thinking of picking up a thief too. From what I gather, a lot of the playstyle revolves around evading and interrupting skills. Do you think thief is playable with the latency I have?

Hey! So I’ve always been an altoholic and I’ve never really settled on a single profession in the 3 years i’ve been playing this game but I think it’s time! My favorite classes are Engineer and Guardian, but I can’t for the life of me pick between the two. My endgame goal at the moment is to be part of a raid group, and since Engi and Guard are two different armor classes and only share a couple weapons I want to focus on playing / gearing one of them up first.

I enjoy Engi for it’s silly amounts of versatility and the feeling of jumping around leaving explosions behind me, with so much AOE, durability and mobility. The playstyle is extremely appealing to me and I’ve also liked damage over time classes in a lot of games so condi Engi works for me. I think I like being the minority when I play Engi too but that’s less important. I’m just not sure if the aesthetics of the Engi are for me, since I love to play Fashion Wars 2 and engi weapons are out of sight most of the time. Going for an Engineer legendary weapon just feels less cool than it should but idk if that’s a good reason to not play this profession. The only actual gameplay element I dislike is how repetitive throwing grenades all day can be.

I enjoy the Guardian for the playstyle too, but for different reasons. I like being in the front lines and Guard is a class that can take damage as well as dish it out. I like the flavor of the class a little more than Engi and the aesthetics are a whole lot more appealing. They also have a lot of tools that benefit groups of players, but it’s not like Engi doesn’t. However, Guardians definitely lack the versatility that I enjoy on the Engi, which can make them feel a little more stale or repetitive, and I think Engi is a little more desired in raid groups? The lack of mobility on a Guardian does kill me sometimes.

I mostly play solo or in a small group and the only game mode I don’t really have any interest in is WvW. Any idea which I should pick? I know there are a ton of threads like this but i’m really struggling here! Thanks for any help

I like this idea, but more for the actual functional teleport than the on demand blast finisher.

What are the most wanted professions for raids atm? Is there a list of most – least wanted or useful classes somewhere? I’m coming back to the game after a bit of a break and although Guardian is my favourite, I wanna gather some more info before I commit to focusing my efforts on gearing/relearning one character over another. I’ve been browsing the profession forums but everyone seems to be complaining a pretty equal amount.

Hi!
So I attempted the first raid wing like three or four times when it first came out (mostly as an ele) but then I went on a bit of a break from the game. How are mesmers in the raids now? Do we have a possible place among the damage dealers or is our role still limited to giving the team quickness / alacrity? If that’s the case, what kind of rotation does it best?
Thanks for any help I can get!

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Found where they are getting the number from.

Its from sabetha p1 where she doesn’t really move at all.

If a boss is moving around then your DPS will likely suffer a decent amount due to it relying so much on stationary symbols.

This is true for a lot of other professions too, though.

gannondorf.7628:

Who is this guy who have take the name of a famous witcher? A “pro player” i assume. And, coz he has said mesmer are op everyone have to follow him for sure. Non talking about the fact that mesmer have been huge nerfed too.
Anyway i’m tired of this ball game with everyone saying “you’re op” “we’re not”! It’s so childlish.
Talking about “fine” state of the revenant now. I think more people here are not really complaining coz of sword or shield nerf, it’s not the the real problem. The problem is, like 90% of people here are saying, that,that for a classe who can choose 5 legends, being stuck in only two is really odd. People here are complaining about the lot of bugs revenant still have 6 months after his realease and the useless state of the tanking and the healer legends, who are never used coz they are so bad compared to others. Revenant still feel like a class which is not finished, and it’s actually the reality.(just take a look to corruption traitline which is still designed for old condition eater Mallyx) That’s why more people are complaining here.

You just summed everything up perfectly.

Hi. So I’ve been playing a thief for a couple weeks now and it’s really fun! Exploring with a thief is such a different experience. However, i’m an Australian player and consistently have ~ 230-300 ping, often with a small but still noticeable delay between skills. Would you guys say that a thief unplayable with this amount of latency? I really like the profession, but i’d rather just go back to my engi if i’m not going to be able to perform adequately or even survive adequately on a thief.

Fjaeldmark.9043:

Maybe they could make it function similar to Reaper of Grenth. You keep your normal abilities but periodically apply conditions around you.

I really really like this idea!

I’d definitely rather wait for a steath-based elite spec, maybe we’ll get a main hand weapon that’s all about stealthy fun time.

Personally I believe that weapon swap should’ve been present on engineers a long time ago, for the same reason that the rev was given weapon swap even though it wasn’t in the initial design of the class. Not being able to swap weapons just severely limits available options and roles in combat. The only class that this isn’t true for is the elementalist, but that’s because they have attunements instead. The engi doesn’t have anything like that – kits are utility skills NOT a class mechanic and I think forcing engi into one weapon set just makes kits the only viable choice in most situations. Weapon swapping would free up space for different options for what’s supposed to be the most versatile profession in the game. All of that’s just my opinion though.

style.6173:

Thief should have preparedness as baseline, but nothing else should be made baseline. Also, I’d still like to see the evade on staff 5 removed.

Removing evades from a daredevil skill is like saying a reaper skill shouldn’t chill or a druid skill shouldn’t heal.

Some of you guys are acting like mesmer hasn’t always been one of the easier targets for a thief. The only things that changed that were some elements introduced in the chronomancer which are being toned down now, and rightly so. Oh and the generally awful state of the thief in the current meta.

I play a mesmer and we can’t deny that the chronomancer was vastly overpowered in some respects – especially compared to some of the more lackluster elite specs like daredevil and druid (imo). Even still, I do think the alacrity changes are absurd but that’s a different issue.

Pretty much the title. I’m an alt-oholic looking to roll a necro but I can’t decide between Charr and Norn. I’d choose Norn for aesthetic reasons: the tattoos and humanoid figure are nice and I’ve already started leveling him. But something about the idea of a Charr necro is appealing to me, like it “feels” better but is objectively less attractive in FashionWars2. Is Charr worth it for all the clipping issues and stuff or am I better off sticking with Norn? Which would you guys choose?

I have this fear too. The Revenant that I made as soon as HoT was released has been shelved since the second week of the expansion, which is when I realized how much work and development the class needs. The next balance patch would ideally be when we see some improvement on GW2’s newest class, but i’ve admittedly lost a little faith. Here’s hoping.

All of the new virtues should be instant, just like the base virtues. I think it’s silly that they weren’t instant cast from day 1 – I find myself wanting to have the old virtues on the DH for pretty much just this reason. The only thing that should have a cast time is the spear pull tbh.

Honey Badger.9475:

I don’t have any regrets with my Asura Scrapper.

TBH It doesn’t really matter which one you choose, the lore with the Charr works perfectly and the aesthetic with the Human work really well. If you want both in the same package do an Asura Scrapper. The lore works really well (being an engineer requires a huge amount of knowledge and intelligence in which the Asura are known for) and the aesthetic can be amazing depending on your taste.

Here’s mine in two slightly different configs:

I do enjoy the asura aesthetic, and I don’t have an asura yet either, but my main concern is the small character model. I’m the kind of person that likes showing off armor and weapons, especially since engineers have access to so few. Do you as an asura player feel like your size impacts you a lot?

Also, seeing all of these amazingly attractive bad-kitten charr is inspiring you guys!

Xyonon.3987:

I’d be great if gyros in general would have some sort of max range leash, so they would never be too far behind and be pulled over cliffs and rocks etc. Would be a huge qol change. Too bad then medic and purgy wouldn’t be able ot cleanse allies … wich they kinda don’t do anyway >_> … oh and btw purgy aoe pls <3

Honestly I would like to see the gyros have a pretty tight leash, almost but not quite to the point of turning us into mobile AOE effects like that new warrior torch fire field thing. Imagine an engi running at you surrounded by gyros like in that early HoT trailer. Bad kitten as well as useful.

So I’ve had an engineer for a while but I really regret making him a sylvari. Seeing as ~50% map completion is pretty much the only thing going for him, i’ve decided to roll another engi to change races, but i’m super stuck between male human and charr and need a little help.

I don’t have a charr yet and i’d really like one, especially a charr engineer since it just fits into the lore so kitten well. Humans are the aesthetic choice, and that’s pretty important to me too. It’s pretty obvious that all the armor in the game was made with the human model in mind. They’re just so pretty (but so boring)

Which do you guys think is the best choice? Any opinions would be appreciated. I’m leaning toward the charr, but I’d like to know that I won’t regret that choice before I commit to it. Thanks!

I definitely agree with the sentiment that elementalists have the worst elite skills in the game. My reasoning behind choosing an elite for this class is always “well all the others are awful in this situation so I guess i’ll take the glyph”. Rebound is useful mostly just for an extra aura, and this proposed change would make it a worthwhile skill, but I wouldn’t be against another rework either. As much as I would love a rework, I would rather new (and hopefully better) elites be added for the arcane and signet skill groups like Shinjiko said.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

@Kjeldoran

That’s the thing. Sometimes it feels like when they make changes to classes or add new stuff, they only look at the class itself and not where it sits next to the other existing classes.

If they did consider how Revenant compares to the Guardian, they would have picked up on a lot of issues, not the least of which is overlapping roles where the Revenant vastly outperforms the Guardian. It’s downright depressing.

At least before guardians had some key uses compared to other classes that made them important in group content. Because of that you could forgive their lower damage. But now not only do they under-perform from a damage point of view, but even from a defense and utility point of view.

It just doesn’t make sense.

This.
I know Anet has probably had a lot to deal with since the release of the expansion but I think it’d be wise to consider the revenant, not just in relation to the guardian, but in relation to all the other classes. As damage dealers revenant steps on the toes of thieves, guardians and to some degree warriors, while the herald also means that they can fill a supportive roll at the same time. I really think they should’ve had that balance patch before the pvp season like everyone thought they were planning to.

I remember having a lot of fun playing an interrupt mesmer way back when. Is some kind of interrupt / lockdown chronomancer a thing? I’d really love to try something like that out but have no idea how I should go about it. Any suggestions on a build or setup would be appreciated!

I wish I didn’t but I have to agree with the OP, rev was awesome on paper but after the first week of the expansion the novelty wore off and I realized how boring this profession actually is.

Hey guys, I want to roll a male thief but I am suuuuper stuck on the race for aesthetic reasons. Human is so boring and it feels like every thief running around is human but they’re objectively the prettiest. I love the Norn but they’re too bulky for a thief. I’ve never been able to bring myself to play an Asura since cool armor and weapon skins are so tiny on them. I would like to roll a Charr for once but the hunch kind of bugs me, and I already have so many Sylvari, which have a similar model to humans anyway. So I have reasons to not pick every race!

So which would you guys suggest I pick for my thief – which race do you think looks the best? Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated!

Race: Sylvari
Sex: Male
Class: Mesmer

I don’t know if this has been mentioned already or how long this has been a thing, but my sylvari’s hands clip through every single one-handed weapon that sits on his hips, as if his hands are too close to his torso. I never noticed until now, but ever since i’ve seen it I haven’t been able to unsee it.

I find myself in a similar situation switching from elementalist to thief. It’s a lot more fun!

Thanks for the replies. I really like how playing a thief feels, and that’s probably more important than anything else, so I might level one anyway and hope thief gets some love soon.

Hey guys. So i’ve recently come back to the game, and i’m considering rolling a thief since my elementalist is starting to feel a little stale. I’m really drawn to the mobility, stealth and damage that the thief has. I played around with one once upon a time but never ended up levelling him to 80. I play mostly pve (a lot of solo play) with a decent amount of pvp too, and I really want to focus on raids once I gear my characters up.

So my question is: would a thief be worth playing in pve, or should I just forget about it stick with my beloved elementalist? DD looks really appealing but is it any better than the base thief in regard to pve? Thanks!

This is really sad to hear!! I suppose all I can do is ditch my guard for an elementalist until we get some buffs or something.

It’s all in the title. I love my guardian but i’m not sure how accepted they are in raids at this point. And I’d rather not be shoehorned into being the tank if I can help it.

I’ve heard that mesmer DPS in raids is subpar compared to other professions and that we’re mostly taken for the high alacrity and quickness uptime. I just wanted to know if it’d be worth playing a mesmer in the raids, especially if there’s already a mesmer on the team, or if I’d be better off trying it out on an elementalist?