Guild Wars 2

IGN: Chanel I
Play: PvE, PvP
Server: HoD
Role: Scholar
Time: EST

Thanks!

I was wondering if the Sylvari’s Take Root racial elite is worth using over FGS or summon elemental for roaming solo/small group in WvW? (for the extra invulnerability, not necessarily for the turrets)

Hi Osi,

What are your thoughts on the upcoming changes to crit damage, and how it might affect this build?

ah, my apologies. here is my build, and much appreciated for the link!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJAoYhEmmbyR4gjDAkHuADLiCPUekzM2A-jUEBoLgYMAkIAUBgJPBJ7Zaslhht6KalXBRxATdCWfKpKXAaYQWzAG0QuDLrGA-w

Hello,

I hit level 80 on my elementalist a couple weeks ago and I’ve been playing with classic D/D 0/10/0/30/30. One of the ways I’ve been trying to improve is evaluating every fight and figuring out what I did right and what I should have done better, regardless of outcome. However, I don’t think I have enough “core” knowledge of D/D elementalist gameplay beyond leveling as a D/D and getting used to switching attunements through leveling. So I was wondering if I could get some specific/practical tips on what I should be paying attention to in evaluating my play, and what kind of questions I should be asking myself after every fight. Right now I’ve been focusing on defensive play and looking at what caused me to die, or what allowed me to live. So especially after I die, I would ask all the questions about why I died. I realize that much of the success of elementalist is good situational play, but I’d like to know some of the “important” principals of D/D play that can either tip the battle in your favor or really put you behind. For example, how important is it to not miss with burning speed or landing/not landing churning earth, and is it ideal to be in water attunement when casting my heal? And is using armor of earth before casting my heal to prevent interrupt a wasted use armor of earth? Is there an “ideal” opener and an “ideal” defensive rotation to try to utilize and adjust around? So if anyone could weigh in with some specific areas that would be helpful to focus on to help improve my play to a “competent” level (I want to take things one step at a time!), it would be greatly appreciated!

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could comment on how effective it would be to take an alternative to the 2 traveler / 2 water / 2 monk rune setup while I start collecting ascalonian tears? This would be for WvW roaming with a variation of 0/10/0/30/30 D/D build.

I was thinking about going 4 altruism and 2 water with chocolate omnomberry cream, but I’m not sure if this is really the most efficient setup. Would it be better to go in a different direction other than boon duration (i.e., 6/6 melandru or other) if I can’t go with the traveler/water/monk combo?

Thanks!

Hello, I wanted to get some of the engineer community’s thoughts and feedback on comparing rune of undead/scavenging with an alternative runeset such as 4/6 altruism with 2/6 water for might stacking potential. Or even the altruism/fire/hoelbrak setup.

Currently I run a Rabid/Dire mix grenade/bomb condition build and run Undead runes. Here are the numbers I came up with:

Undead Runes:
183 condition damage
50 toughness
~86 condition damage converted from toughness with my gear setup (1710 toughness)

That gives me 269 straight up condition damage with 50 toughness.

If I also consider rune of scavenging, 7% of my vit would give me ~102 condition damage with my setup for a total of 285 condition damage.

If I were to take might stacking into consideration, from what I understand, 1 stack of might = 35 condition damage. Which means that I would need to maintain 8 stacks of might to have condition damage equivalent to an undead/scavenger rune set. Without going into the HGH route, with a minimalist setup of superior sigil of battle and 2/6 runes of altruism, I can at least start out any engagement with 6 stacks of might (210 condition damage), and with 4/6 altruism and 2/6 water for the boon duration, it seems the “potential” is higher with this setup since you can build on those 6 stacks. But on the other hand, the condition damage from undead/scavenging runes are not dispellable, they can’t be stolen, and they can’t be turned into conditions against you.

With all that said, is undead still a better choice because it’s not worth going for the might route without more investment into might stacking skills/traits?

NevirSayDie.6235:

Sharpshooter (5 firearms) is only a 33% chance on critical hits to proc a 3 second bleed. In other words, with a 100% crit chance, you’d only get a bleed every 3 hits. With a 33% crit chance, you’ll get a bleed maybe around once per 9 hits. It’s not bad, but don’t plan your build around it. Just think of it as an extra 40-50 damage per second in most builds.

Sigil of earth is a 5 second bleed with a 2-second cooldown. It’s 60% chance on crit, so with grenades and a high crit chance you can stay close to the internal cooldown. However, even if you proc a bleed at exactly every 2 seconds, the most it could add is 2.5 stacks (5 stacks with 100% condi duration). Realistically, it won’t proc at exactly two seconds every time, so you’re likely looking at an extra 1-4 bleed stacks depending on your crit chance and duration.

So they’re definitely not bad, but don’t plan your build around them. If you’re considering lowering your crit and trying different sigil options, on-swap sigils are great for engineers: battle, doom, geomancy, and energy are all decent options, depending on what you’re looking for.

That was actually one of my concerns – with my full exotic rabid set I’m sitting at around ~46% crit chance, and still being relatively new to the Engineer class, I’m not sure if I could tell if those crit procs from Sharpshooter/Sigil of Earth/Incendiary Powder are making a significant difference, or if they are just making an inefficient overkill in refreshing burns or inefficient bleeding damage for the traits spent. I’m wondering if going full Dire (or maybe even Apothecary) and finding other ways to compensate for the lack of crit and on-crit procs (with something like might stacking, for instance) would produce just as effective of condition pressure and damage while improving survivability ?

whoops forgot to clarify that my question is mainly for wvw

Hello, I currently run a full rabid 30/10/0/20/10 grenades/bombs build with traits to apply burn /bleed on crit along with sigil of earth (not sure if earth is the best option though!).

I’ve been noticing that people have been mixing dire and rabid to beef up more survivability, and I was wondering what crit% i should aim for? Rather, what crit% should i not go below? Also, with a dire/rabid gear setup, would I have to avoid the on-crit traits because of the lowered precision?

Thanks!

much appreciated for the quick responses!

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could clarifiy some mechanics for me with the Feedback utility skill. I understand that it creates a dome that reflects projectiles, but does the reflection only apply to people “inside” the bubble? Or does it also apply to people “outside” the bubble as well?

So for instance, if I were to cast feedback on someone in melee range and put myself inside the bubble while a ranged class outside the bubble was shooting at me, would those ranged attacks get reflected back to the attacker? Or does the reflection only apply if the ranged attacker was inside the bubble trying to shoot someone outside it?

Thanks!

Awesome, thanks for the helpful feedback! It definitely looks like it will take some time for me to get the hang of the nuances the class brings, but at the same time it feels like it will be highly rewarding!

Hello all,

I recently starting playing an engineer to level 30 and I am currently in a state where I am both highly intrigued and intimidated with the class. I’d like to get some advice on some practical steps to improving as an engineer. A little context into who I am and what I’m hoping to accomplish:

-My only level 80 at the moment is Mesmer.
-I consider myself casual.
-My primary playing time with be in small group or duo WvW
-I’d like to be able to fill a support role when needed

When I first started leveling my engineer it was rather simple and fun like any other ranged class. However, as I began gaining more levels and unlocking more utilities and kits, the sheer amount of “things” that my engineer can do was almost overwhelming. And looking at the stickied guide on this forum looked even more intimidating. I ask myself, how am I going to learn all these situational skills and not turn into a button mashing mess during wvw fights? For instance, my perception of engineer is that one of the strengths is in the combos. So if I want to support my group with heals and boons, it could potentially be a 4-step process of: 1. Activate field skill 2. Target Ground 3. Switch Kits 4. Activate finisher skill. All while trying to keep myself alive and applying my own damage pressure on the opponent. Compare that to some other class that can accomplish the same with… 1-button process? Maybe 2?

With that said, I feel the engineer, like mesmer, is a class that is versatile to be viable in any situation and has so much build diversity that even a casual player like myself can play in different ways with the limited playing time I have. So my question is, what are some ways I can learn the class during the process of leveling and when I turn level 80? What would you say are some “essential” concepts to understand and master in order to go from average engineer to above average engineer?

And lastly, I’m wondering if it will be helpful to think of memorizing button combinations to accomplish different outcomes and put it into my muscle memory, as opposed to thinking of “this skill, then this skill, then this skill”?

Thanks!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Hey Lucky, that’s a nice concept and I see a few potential alternative options for this build. Those last 10 points in Dueling can go into a LOT of alternative options.

The core concept of the build is good, and it’s definitely got plenty of control-aspects to it with Scepter (Blind/Torment/Confusion) Pistol (Magic Bullet) Staff (Chaos Storm/Armor) /Clone-deaths (Cripple/Weakness/Vuln) and DazeMantra, but I see a potential flaw that may hinder you: Quickness is not a boon, and thus cannot be transferred to allies. Furious Interruption in general takes a lot of time and practice to really make effective, but 30 points in Dueling also opens you up for Mantra cooldowns or traited pistol, both which may be superior options here. But also…

• Consider 10/20/30/10/0 which would give you back Prismatic Understanding (Or Crippling Dissipation) and thus give you more boons to share with allies. Timing Mass Invis with Chaos Storm and a well-timed interrupt can reward you with massive amounts of boons while giving your opponent a headache at the same time. That may also help make it more viable for solo roaming.

• Or maybe 20/20/20/10 which looks hella wierd, but would open up Dazzling (5x Vuln on daze. Great for F3) and Shattered Concentration. Shattered Concentration is quite possibly one of the best forms of boon stripping in the entire game. Even if shattering isn’t a primary focus for you, being able to strip off Stability/Protection/Might whenever you feel like it is very empowering and extremely useful.

• Perhaps 10/20/20/20/0 to trait your Scepter. On the surface it seems frivolous but in my experience a traited Scepter can offer a noticeable damage boost. Here you can also boost your support with abilities like Vigorous Revelation (AoE Vigor on Shatter) and Medic’s Feedback (Feedback Bubble on rezz).

Let us know how it works out for you, hope ya enjoy.

Thanks, Chaos! Took your advice and started playing around a lot with the boon sharing concept and had some really interesting results, especially when I took Arcane Thievery and Signet of Inspiration as my utilities in addition to Decoy. Had a lot of satisfaction in terms of watching my party bar fill up with boons at times when I could time it with PU boons, interrupt boons, and stealing more boons with arcane thievery before sharing (I think I was able to add the stolen boons before sharing with signet, but the fights are so fast paced in this game for me still, I don’t know half the things that are going on while I’m trying to get a good rotation of skills together!)

Basically I’m experimenting with leaving out mantra of distraction for arcane thievery, and using weapon skill interrupts as my main interrupt skill, between different setups involving focus, pistol, OH sword, or GS. I’m not skilled enough yet to be able to get a solid guaranteed interrupt on a single target with mantra or OH sword, so at this stage I find using an aoe oriented interrupt (focus, GS, pistol) works better for me in terms of getting a higher chance to actually get an interrupt if I could hit 2 or more people. But since my gear is all Rabid, I may consider getting a berserker or other power-based set and get to a point where I could run a phantasm build inspired by Pyro’s phantasm build. But instead of “running in circles” with active defenses while phantasms do damage, I could focus on lockdown while the phantasms do the damage. I just need to figure out what combination of weapons will be optimal for good phantasms and on-demand interrupts without using mantra.

At the same time, I’m wondering if this sort of “optimized boon sharing lockdown build” really is an effective way to use my Mesmer, especially if there are other classes that can more easily provide boons – so is the reality that my role as a Mesmer would be better served in other areas and not so much in providing boons to friends?

Hello, I was wondering about your thoughts with this condition/lockdown setup. I’m still fairly new to the game and have only run Blackwater since turning level 80 3 weeks ago, so I’m a little hesitant to invest in a new set of gear at this time… but the setup I’m thinking of running to duo with my thief friend or guild group of ~5 people in WvW is this:

Staff, Scepter/Pistol
10/30/20/10
Cripplig Dissipation
Phantasmal Fury, Deceptive Evasion, Furious Interruption
Debilitating Dissipation, Bountiful Interruption
Mender’s Purity

Utilities: Decoy, Mantra of Distraction, Signet of Inspiration

Basically I would play as if I were playing as Blackwater spec in going for condition application/damage, but the lockdown component would come into play when I could get a successful interrupt with distraction or pistol stun – then I could get my might and quickness buffs and give them to my friends with signet, then use Scepter 3 to quickly apply confusion on top of the perplexity confusion that was applied on the interrupt before switching to staff for more conditions/defensive play. I’m not sure how effective this build will be since it’s giving up the stealth and condition removal utilities, so I can’t see myself running this for solo roaming, but would this be a viable duo/small group setup? Any feedback would be appreciated… thanks!

Hello, I currently have a full rabid set and I was wondering what your thoughts were on going with berserker armor and rabid accessories instead? For me it would be cheaper to obtain berserker armor (like Zhed’s set) since the accessories appear to be more expensive. I believe with my current gear the math adds up to more rabid stats if I stick with accessories (I have one ascended ring and everything else exotic plus exquisite chrysocolas), which means I would have less berserker stats than your setup. Do you think the stat differences from going berserker armor and rabid accessories will affect the build’s effectiveness to any degree? Thanks!

Pyroatheist -

Just wanted to say I really enjoy and appreciate all the build guides that you posted on this forum. I am a new player to guild wars 2 and I am close to reaching level 80 on my mesmer and have found the resources you provided very helpful. I am looking to find a good “starter” build when I hit level 80 and start doing more endgame play, and I plan on doing more WvW than anything else. That said, the majority of my WvW will be duo’ed with my Thief friend or in a small guild group consisting of 4~5 people. I don’t know other class mechanics too much, so I was wondering given the following factors:

1. “forgiveness” factor of the build for player still learning the game and wants to get better
2. synergy with Thief for duo
3. can contribute to small groups

Would you recommend your Phantasm build (or variation) for me? Or would something like a Blackwater build or other from the build list be better suited for the above factors? Also, what kind of role in a small group would I play given your recommendation for build?

Thanks again!