Guild Wars 2

I made guard originally because sword/focus made tearing through mobs in open world PvE child’s play. It was so easy to explore and farm with.

The leveling build fell completely short at endgame, and I didn’t like the GS builds at all… so I ended up rerolling Thief, then War.

Came back to Guardian to find a DH build that brought back a 3-button (low/no cooldown) combo that tears through open world PvE like butter… LOVE it.
It turns my Guardian into exactly what I thought a Ranger class should have been like from the start.

Just wish they’d make it a bit more competitive with Rev for PvE group play.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

…there is a reason why people are complaining.

People don’t need a reason to complain. Especially on the forums.

You’re missing the point.
Rev is a great class. One that’s easier to bring in multiples to raids than Guardian.
But to say Guardian is “useless” or “hits like a wet noodle” is 100% hyperbole.

World 1st’s have happened with Guardians in the comp! How can you ignore that?
You’re the second person who has responded by completely avoiding that fact…
Are you sure you’re not one of the ones just wanting to find any reason to complain?
: /

Yes, I’ve played Guardian.
In every dungeon, fractals up to 82 so far, and on each of the three bosses in the raid… It’s my main.

I have an 80 rev alt as well, both with ascended weapons and trinkets.

You didn’t answer my question…
How can Guardian be “useless” if it’s been used in world 1st raid clears?
To be fair, I did phrase it rhetorically…
But the point remains.

Hits like a wet noodle? Completely useless?
That’s why DNT and Sickest Guild both ran a Dragonhunter in their world first comps right?

The hyperbole is palpable.
Come on buddy…

BearBow making a comeback…

It’s just a matter of perception.

When people think about DPS in raids, they too easily ignore the fact that 1 healer can’t keep 10 people above 90% for scholar runes very easily.
I feel like they concentrate on personal dps or might stacking too much and group sustain too little… And it actually results in LOWER total group dps.

DNT doing vale guard with a DH:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q513JRBETPU

World first Sabetha kill used a DH:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfLRhR5XTZc

Guardian can fulfill several roles just fine in the raid (tank, dps, condi).

I run scholar when I solo.

If you use a build like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQFATn0ABlChddCGCBkdilAiSe77+13KAy2EILBbwJE-ThRBwAX3fU+dT9H86AecBAA8AAMrEEA-e

Fire a normal shot, throw your spear of justice, hit trueshot.
That three button combo will flat out kill most normal mobs in the game because you stack a LOT of +dmg traits. (3 stacks of might, 10%, 20%, 10%, 13%, 10%, from traits, another 10% from scholar runes and 5% from force sigil, and another couple % from vuln.) No long cooldowns.

Nothing ever gets close enough to attack you, and if it does you just drop your traps and watch them melt.

Staff3 and [Retreat] are enough to help you get around in open world PvE.

I didn’t say there was only one way to play.
You can certainly build your tank to try to max your personal DPS while keeping barely enough toughness to hold aggro. It CAN work that way… I just don’t personally think it’s very effective.

But you specifically said “DH is an offensive trait line, which won’t help you tank.”
That doesn’t have anything to do with being one of many solutions to group composition… it’s just misinformation. So I called you out on it. : /

Thaddeus.4891:

DH is an offensive trait line, which won’t help you tank. But as we get better, more and more people are looking for a more and more offensive tank with just enough to keep agro and survive. In that sense DH is very good.

I disagree with this completely.
Hunter’s Fortification, Bulwark, and the change from Virtue of Courage to Shield of Courage are three BIG defensive reasons to take DH as a defensive trait line.

I’m of the complete opposite opinion that you need to try to keep your personal dps high when tanking Vault Guardian.

We have been running several practice groups helping new people get used to the fight and found that if we brought two healers, the group’s dps actually increased. At first, that didn’t make sense. Why would dropping a dps to bring a second healer actually increase the group’s total dps? It’s because with two healers, the other 7 dps had more scholar rune uptime and didn’t have to waste any time with self-sustain at all. It’s hard if not impossible for a single healer to keep 10 people above 90% in that fight. We actually easily beat it with a two-healer practice group.

A guardian tank can put on some Nomad’s gear and serve the same purpose as that second healer by providing strong regen, protection, and aegis to the entire melee group.

Your personal dps will be terrible, but the group sustain you bring will increase the total group dps by more than you are losing personally. And the fight will go much more smoothly too. Easier to recover from mistakes, etc…

For Gorseval and Sabetha it’s a COMPLETELY different story.
But for Vault Guardian, I build my tank something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApdSn8cCVdi1CBOCBkdil6h6KAW0XArGCipQe+3//H-TRxaABgp+jE6DAd/h3U+BgSQA-e

With the right gear and traits, DH is one of the best tanks for Vault Guardian because you can keep the entire melee group healed and block a lot of the melee attacks. That makes it easier to keep everyone’s scholar runes up and lets full dps classes spend less time on self sustain.

Again, with the right gear and traits, DH is fine in a power or condi DPS role as well.
(base Guardian for condi, not DH)

A lot of pug groups are just elitist.
They see a video of a kill and try to emulate the same group composition and strategy to a T. They get it in their heads that the composition is more important than the players. : /

Here’s a video of worlds first Sabetha kill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfLRhR5XTZc DH is just fine in raids.

You need several sets of gear to fill the different roles properly, but it can definitely fill several roles.

Solo PvE? Dungeons? Raid? PvP?

If you’re talking about Solo PvE, then I personally think the best setup is something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQFATn0ABlChddCGCBkdilAiSe77+13KAy2EILBbwJE-TBSBwAFV+94CAERJ419Hup+DKdAIM/B4BAAA-e

Your offhand set can be whatever you like. I usually take sword/focus so I can pop focus 5, sword 2 teleport to a group of mobs and drop my traps. But GS, Scepter, or even Staff can be fine in offhand since the majority of the time you’ll be camping longbow because the burst is just so good.

When you encounter a mob, fire a normal shot, then throw your spear of justice, then hit trueshot. That 3 button combo will kill most normal mobs.

Here’s how it works:
The first shot will proc your Virtue of Justice, which will cripple. That activates your 10% damage modifier from zealot’s aggression. The spear of justice will active the 10% damage modifier from big game hunter and also give you ~4 seconds of retaliation, which activates the 10% damage modifier from retribution. Add the 13% from pure of sight and your trueshot will hit like a TRUCK.
And with Renewed Justice in the Radiance line, you reset your spear of justice every time you kill a mob so you don’t have to wait for any cooldowns. You literally mow through single mobs without ever being in danger.

Against vets or groups of mobs like pocket raptors, you throw down your traps, pull them to you and watch them melt.

Part of your thought process is solid:
A single healer can’t keep 10 people above 90% for that whole fight, so by gearing for a bit more toughness and healing power and giving out regen/protection/aegis to the melee you keep their scholar runes up and allow them to concentrate on dps instead of worrying about self-sustain. That kind of setup will almost certainly result in an increase to overall raid dps over a setup like Darknicrofia is suggesting where the tank tries to keep his own personal dps high.

There are a couple of things in your build that I would question:
1) Building around [Communal Defenses] and [Pure of Heart]
Communal Defenses has a 15 second internal cooldown. Combine that with Pure of Heart and it’s healing for less than 60 hp per second per target. Even if you assume the Aegis blocked 1500 damage, it’s still less healing than you’d give out by taking [Absolute Resolution] and [Battle Presence] in Virtues. That’s REALLY lackluster.

I think Stalwart Defender is a much better choice in that slot. Using Shield5 to knock away seekers can be pretty important.

2) Altruistic Healing is an important part of a tank build for Guardian. You’ll be pulsing tons of boons out to the melee group, and it will result in a ton of self healing. That makes it easier for the healer to keep the ranged group up (which means more scholar runes, less self-sustain, etc…)

3) If you take Altruistic Healing, then Empowering Might will actually heal you for WAY more than Pure of Heart, and you’ll be helping to stack might for the melee group! It’s a win/win/win.

4) Hunter’s Determination does nothing for you. The raid bosses don’t CC you (at least Vale Guardian and Gorseval.. don’t know about Sabetha yet..) Bulwark is a much better choice. It will give you 7 seconds to heal back up any time you get low (such as if a lightning circle detonates).

TLDR:
Guardians are actually pretty good in any of the tank/dps/condi roles (not sure about healer) because sustain is more important for total raid dps than most people would admit. HOWEVER; the LFG crowd is stuck on a “might + top tier dps” kick right now. So if you want to get Raid groups outside of your guild, you’re probably MUCH better off right now leveling Revenant and moving your ascended zerk gear over.

Ok, on to my 2cents:
We went into Vale Guardian last night and were messing around with different strategies/comps that we wanted to use later to help new “learning groups” in our Guild.

One attempt we took 1 tank, 2 heals, 7dps instead of the typical 1 tank 1 heal 8dps and our total dps actually INCREASED. We started hitting 6:30 first split with ease even with a couple people still making mistakes (like getting ported). At first it didn’t make any sense… why would dropping a dps for another healer spec result in better dps? But after a few more tries, it started to become clear: Two healers meant the other 7 dps all had more scholar rune up-time and weren’t having to worry about self sustain at all. They could concentrate completely on dps.

So the takeaway for me was:
Trying to eek out max dps from every character (maybe your tank wears mostly zerk gear and just a couple pieces of toughness to try to keep his DPS up, or your healer wears mostly zerk to try to keep their dps up) probably isn’t the best way to approach Vale Guardian. In that fight, group sustain indirectly contributes to raid DPS in almost the same way that Might or Vuln does.

It should be obvious to most that Guardian is good in the tank role for that fight since you can give out a strong regen, protection, and aegis to all of the melee, but if you’re filling a dps or condi role, you still have access to sustain as well.

Unfortunately, that sort of mentality isn’t going to catch on with the LFG raid population any time soon. They’re focused completely on “can you stack might?” or “can you break a break bar solo every 10 seconds?” or “need 3 engi’s for condi team”.
So if you’ve already got ascended Zerk gear and want to get into LFG raids, you’re almost certainly going to have an easier time leveling a Revenant and moving your gear over.

logan.5846:

Skip to 11:25 in this video to see a comparison of target dummy kill times between various classes. DH is by far the worst…

You do realize that is using PvP stats with no group buffs, some of them are using food and others aren’t, and that different classes scale differently when you add in those extra PVE stats… right?

Using that video to come to the conclusion that “DH dps is bottom tier” is naiveté.

I don’t think a strict DPS meter is necessary.
We’ve already got a pretty good substitute for a DPS meter in the Heart of the Mists, but it uses PvP stats and using food is tedious (you have to leave, eat, come back).

Why not add an “Invincible Golem” area to Guild halls?

The area that they put it in could be set to pulse Might and Fury so we can simulate a group environment.

If we know the HP and Armor values of the Golem, then we could simply time how long it takes to “kill” the Golem several times in a row and estimate our single target dps.

I think that would give us a viable way to quantify our own PvE play and find ways to improve without having to deal with all the negative issues dps meters bring.

Because of the arena wide ticking damage, aegis really isn’t very effective at blocking any significant amount of damage on Vale Guardian.

Pure of Heart will turn that Aegis into ~1200 heal if you are in some healing gear, which would be great if Communal Defenses didn’t have such a short range. As is, everyone would have to be in melee range in order to get Aegis with any regular frequency. Outside of Communal Defenses you only have Shield4, so that’s a 1200 heal every 20s.

In my opinion, building around Communal Defenses and Pure of Heart isn’t necessary. The regen from symbol of faith is really strong. It’s plenty to keep the melee topped off on its own. But you still have an issue with healing the ranged group. You can dodge roll and Wings of Resolve, but then you’re dragging the boss all over, which is bad for dps.

Symbol of Faith also over-writes fire fields, so you’ll lose out on quite a lot of potential might stacking depending on your party composition.

You could probably make it work, but I would think it’s far from ideal.
Ele is actually the best heal class we’ve used. Far better than Druid IMHO.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

I’m currently a condi necro and it’s not capable of putting out the Condi burst as well as i know some other classes can, so I’m going to be changing class to help better the team.

Honestly?
Are you 100% certain it’s not a gear/build/l2p issue?
Are you playing condi Necro? or Reaper?
Using Viper/Sinister gear?
Is someone else in your group throwing out chills (which over-writes your Deathly Chill)?

Condi Reaper
It’s not REALLY a fair comparison (Several of the others didn’t use food, pvp gear has less stats, group buffs like might scale classes differently, etc…); but as a very generalized comparison, it should show you that condi Reaper isn’t “trash”.
You should be able to compete on condi team just fine.

Now, if you are trying to min/max, then sure.
Roll Engi and hope it doesn’t get nerfed before you’ve got it geared.

DH in open world is really great.
I would compare it favorably to old school sword/torch guardian while leveling.
You could teleport to a mob, hit 1 skill and your auto attack chain would finish it off, then teleport to the next. Mowing through mobs 1 by 1 in quick succession without having to wait for any long cooldowns.

DH longbow can be set up to play in a similar manner, but at range.
Radiance/Virtues/DH
You can auto attack, throw [Spear of Justice], hit [True Shot] and auto attack once or twice more. Doing this combo, your True Shot will get +63% bonus damage from retribution, unscathed contender, zealot’s aggression, pure of sight, and big game hunter and also +10% crit chance from radiant power. It will hit like an absolute truck.
That little combo will kill most normal mobs, resetting your F1 so you can immediately do the same thing to the next mob. Mowing them down in seconds one by one.
So for solo open world PvE, I’d say it’s actually better than vanilla Guardian.

DH is great for events as well. Lots of AoE and break bar opportunity.

Raids? DH is very versatile here. You can spec and gear to tank, heal, condi, or dd team. But you won’t be the first choice for any of those roles and you’ll need different gear for each of them.

What I want to know is:
Why didn’t they keep the Rev, tell him to put zerk gear back on, and kick one of the other classes that could have switched to condi and didn’t.

:X

Pregnantman.8259:

I haven’t done the raid yet, but for those who did and used a guardian as tank – did you feel that you need the toughness for survival or just for aggro? If it is mostly for aggro can one get away with using full zerk but with toughness infusions and/or toughness consumables?

If you have a dedicated “healer”, then all you need is about 100 more toughness than the next highest person. I think the ticking AOE damage ignores toughness anyway.

With full on Nomads, you might be able to self-sustain and get rid of the need for a healer altogether as long as everyone else brings enough sustain for themselves and avoids unnecessary damage… But I’m not sure the total raid dps would actually go up in that scenario since your tank dps would be utter garbage and everyone else would waste little bits of time here and there on their own healing. Requires more testing.

I face tanked the first boss with 14k in mostly zerker gear (just a few pieces of soldiers).

You never really take big spike damage (unless your group screws up on the lightning circles, but then it’s probably a wipe anyway).
So I don’t think HP is all that important.

You can use blocks from Mace3, Shield4, Focus5, Shield of Courage to negate a ton of damage if you time them right before a melee hit.
Sigil of Justice and Hunter’s Fortification help too.

I don’t know if that changes on Gorseval though…

If you think the Vale Guardian pigeonholes you into DPS gear, you’re in for a rude awakening with Gorseval.

Vale Guardian might as well be majoring in diversity at NYU compared to Gorseval…

For each attempt (even if you lose) each person gets a certain amount of raid currency.
If you win, a loot chest drops (looks just like the chest at Teq or end of DS meta) that each person can loot once per week.

For the first boss, the answer is unequivocally:
Ascended gear is not required.

A group of 10 players in full exotics could definitely complete this encounter as long as everyone played well and the party composition was good.

The second boss; however, is a HARD dps check.
I would venture to say that it is 100% impossible with a full exotic group at this time.
Does that mean it requires every single player to be full ascended? Probably not.
Full Weapons and trinkets? Quite Possibly.

I face tanked for our group as Guardian and we had an Elementalist healing.
I wore a few pieces of soldier’s armor, and the rest was zerk.

Because my tanking role was completely last minute, I just had to go with the few pieces of alternate gear I had on me, which was FAR from ideal.

I messed with my build after just about every attempt trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t. Here’s a few things I learned:
1) There are a lot of tiny little hits all over the place that will eat up your blocks and aegis, but with some practice you can time Mace3, Shield4, and Focus5 to block a lot of the boss’s melee attacks.
2) You can circle strafe him in a tight circle and stop him from attacking entirely, but it’s very tedious and if you mess up a single time, you’ll get all your melee dps cleaved so I wouldn’t recommend it (unless maybe you’re running with all ranged dps).
3) Protection + Signet of Judgement + Hunter’s Fortification was pretty effective.
4) Invigorated Bulwark + Writ of Persistence was basically mandatory if you want to full-on face tank.

90% of face tanking the first fight with Guardian revolves around keeping regen and protection on yourself, positioning the boss properly, and dodging the teleports.

Why not just make Fire fields over-write Light fields?

Such a simple change would make such a huge difference.

Huh?
Shield of Courage blocks all attacks in front of you for the duration of the channel…
So why would you need to apply the aegis at the start?

If it’s about protecting your team members, just position yourself between them and the enemy when you activate Shield of Courage.

eleshazar.6902:

It would definitely be a nice tweak to make our Virtues not feel like they are weakened by going the DH route.

IMHO, every single one of our Virtues feels stronger with DH. Hands down.

GS/Mace+Torch is almost the same dps as GS+Bow with the meta build.
So you definitely shouldn’t feel like you HAVE to use bow with DH.
Traps and Wings of Resolve are really strong and have nothing to do with Bow.

If you’re not in a strictly meta group, you can make a hammer build work with DH just fine too.

Hammer/Mace+Focus
Zeal/Honor/DH
213/132/131
Can be pretty good for pug groups. Lots of AoE for trash, and more support options.

You built your Dragonhunter,
you leveled him to max.

Retreat! is what you mutter,
when you want to run fast.

In the Maguuma Jungle,
what you’re looking for is fungal…
You don’t need Traveler Runes,
Just touch those delicious mushrooms!

fin.

Ser Dakota.4601:

So its not really viable, sure i can use it but im going to suck, is what it is sounding like lol mosly due to the damage and skills of the sword right?

It all depends on how you’re using the word “viable”.

Are you talking about doing dungeons and fractals in a meta group (built specifically to skip trash and kill bosses in ~15 seconds) in order to complete the content as quickly/efficiently as possible?

If you are, then any spec you can put together with sword/shield gets trounced by GS+LB or GS+mace/torch builds. Sword/shield builds aren’t viable in meta groups.

BUT, there’s more to the game than dungeons/fractals with meta groups.

If you’re talking about soloing or pugging dungeons/fractals with NON-meta groups then I would COMPLETELY disagree and say that sword/shield is not only viable, it might be one of the best options.

Longbow+sword/shield Radiance/Virtues/Dragonhunter is a BEASTLY setup for soloing.

ADVICE:
Making a decision and sticking with it based on what other people tell you about a class is a bad way to decide. You need to play them yourself to find out which mechanics/weapons/skills you enjoy.

But that doesn’t mean you have to level both of them to 80.

Just make one of each and run through the starting instance real quick (takes about 10 minutes).
Once you’re in the world, click the PVP icon at the top to port to the sPVP staging area.
While in staging, all your traits and skills will be unlocked and you can use any gear you want for free.

Test out each of the weapon sets for each class on some of the training dummies and then attack a few of the training NPC’s that will attack you back and see what feels good to you.

We don’t know enough about raids yet to know if one of these two classes is going to be clearly superior to the other in a party comp. They’re both great in dungeons/fractals groups, and who knows what balance changes are in the cards for the next few months.

As Dresden said, I think it’s hard to go wrong with either class right now. So you should choose the one that fits your play-style better.

Cripple is considered a “soft” CC.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Soft CC’s do not do direct damage to Break bars. Instead, they do something like condition damage. Slow damage over time that mainly just prevents the bar from regenerating.

If the duration of the cripple you are applying is low, then it’s just not going to move the Break bar all that much (if any). Now if you were to stack all the soft CC’s (Cripple, Immobilize, Chill, and Slow) you’d probably see the bar draining…

If you look at the list of control effects I linked you to on the wiki above, you’ll notice that you have lots of options for direct damage to Break bars as DH.

For Example:
If you take the trap trait in the DH line, then any of your traps will Daze. Procession of Blades and Dragon’s Maw are especially effective.

You can throw your Spear of Justice and then use the Pull skill.

If you use Staff, putting down the #5 skill under a large mob will absolutely melt the Break bar because the knockdown effect is applied repeatedly.

If you use Hammer, skill #4 takes a good chunk.

If you use Shield, skill #5 does some Break damage.

Even Spirit Hammer’s command skill works.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Why no zeal?

Isn’t that our damage line? Why radiance over zeal?

In Zeal, your damage bonuses are:
7% damage to burning foes
10% damage to foes standing in your symbols
Increased Symbol damage
Symbols apply vuln

So 3 out of the 4 rely on symbols.
That’s ideal for when you’re stacking on a boss, getting specific conditions and boons from your team and concentrating on burst damage. That’s why it’s in the meta. But that “stack and burst” strategy isn’t very effective while soloing in Maguma.

In Radiance, your damage bonuses are:
15% crit with 1h weapons (or 20% crit on burn stacking)
10% crit to burning foes
10% damage while you have Retal (or Wrath of Justice for the extra immobilize)
Near 100% uptime on Spear of Justice

Because you won’t have a teammates giving you Fury, [Radiant Power] ends up being nearly as good as [Fiery Wrath] on its own. The 10% damage boost from [Retribution] (you get 4 seconds of retal every time you throw your Spear of Justice) negates what you lost from [Symbolic Avenger] (and actually has better uptime as well). Then on top of that you get more uptime on the 10% damage from [Big Game Hunter]. So Radiance is already in the lead, and then there’s still [Right Hand Strength] or [Inner Fire].

tldr;
Radiance lets us build to keep mobs at range and gives us sustain, which is a more effective play-style in solo-world PvE than the stack and burst strategy that drives the meta. That’s the rationale.

Here’s what I’ve found to be most effective for solo-roaming in the Maguma zones:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAT8en0ABddiFCBWCBkdiF/hSO8H/43KA62HILCnwME-ThCBABGp8Tw9HkQJIAXEAcU/JFdPJY+7hDQADHAhAeCAAA-e

Longbow + Sword/Shield
Radiance – Virtues – Dragonhunter
Runes of the Traveler for 25% movement speed

When on longbow, you start off by throwing your spear of Justice. This triggers Wrath of Justice which will keep those chargers/bombers/etc… at range while you fire your trueshot and deflecting shot. If you get good crits, you can pick off most Maguma mobs with just Spear of Justice, Trueshot, Deflecting shot, and a few auto attacks. Alternating between Wrath of Justice and Signet of Wrath lets you plow through mobs one by one while remaining completely safe.

If there’s a group of mobs like pocket raptors, I’ll swap to sword/shield, Throw my Spear of Justice, Flashing Blade in, drop Dragon’s Maw and Procession of Blades, take a step back and hit them with Shield of Judgement while they melt. It’s extremely satisfying.

Shield of Absorption and every single one of your Utility skills can be used on Break bars, which gives you great utility in the events.

Any time you get in over your head, Wings of Resolve + Signet of Resolve = full heal.

It’s just a really solid solo build for the new zones.

Step 1: Stop trying to 1v1 as paper against scissors.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

Hammer problems:
Glacial Heart is too weak. (ICD is waaay too long)
Traits that would really help a Hammer build shine are too spread out (or overlap other important hammer traits.)
Unavoidable Light Field disrupts fire fields, which are WAY more powerful.
Hammer 3, 4, and 5 cast times are too long.

The problem with Aegis is that it gets removed no matter if the hit you took was for 100 or 10k damage. From what we have seen in the raid thus far, most of the damage sources are frequent small hits. Aegis doesn’t work very well for that kind of damage.

To make matters worse, the big hits that Aegis would be really good for seem to be from unblockable mechanics.

So if the rest of the fights are anything like the Guardians, then building specifically for Aegis isn’t going to be very effective.

Only time will tell.

Hubris.7436:

what sort of counter play do the devs think there is for this trap?

1) Using minions to trigger traps
2) Pressure from range
3) Stability/stunbreak/dodge if you get jumped on
4) Proper team play and rotation so you don’t get caught out 1v1 against classes that counter yours

Test of Faith should definitely be unblockable when you walk through the swords… I don’t think anyone is arguing that point.

But there’s also an “initial damage” component that hits right when you drop the trap. The fact that that initial damage is unblockable makes it very powerful when you combine it with sword2 or judges intervention. So maybe a compromise would be to remove the initial damage altogether and buff the damage taken when you cross the swords to compensate?

jassking.7934:

Since ya’ll seem so set on “Dragon Hunter is completely balanced”, give me some tips on how to 1v1 them on points

I don’t think balance means what you think it means in GW2…

Dreary Yew.5187:

If you are taking the DH tree in Berserker’s and aren’t taking the LB, you are doing it wrong. LB is the only real reason to take the DH tree in PvE as it currently sits,

I’m not so sure this is true.
Two of the main reasons why DH beats out Radiance in the meta build:
1) more dmg modifiers (27 vs 10%+10%crit)
2) procession of blades.

Neither of those has anything to do with bow.

Azure.8670:

warrior is forced into phalanx strength and cant even weapon swap. drops 2 banners and its a might bot

Indeed.
When one spec (which locks you into one weapon) so clearly dominates any other option that it becomes (basically) mandatory, that’s just not very good game design.

But it could be worse. Wars could have been Ranger or Necro before the expansion…

Might stacking is just too powerful in PvE. It (along with Deep Freeze) drove the Zerker meta. Can you imagine how many more group comps we would start seeing if Might gave you 150 power/condition damage and stacked duration instead of intensity?

On the topic at hand though, I think we’re just in a “wait and see” period.

If the rest of the Raid ends up having mechanics similar to the first boss where you’re hit with a constant stream of small damage, and the big hits are due to mechanics that can’t be blocked with Aegis, then Revenant is going to be the clear choice.

1) the meta builds aren’t very good for leveling.
2) a large portion of the time you spend leveling will be running all over the world exploring, participating in events, and completing renown hearts. staff isn’t generally considered to be a good weapon (low damage, mediocre support), but for leveling it’s far and away the best weapon. you can use it to easily tag mobs during events (more xp) and and the swiftness symbol helps you get around faster.
3) retreat (like staff secondary) is a skill that you’ll probably want on your bar at all times for more swiftness.
4) for your mainhand, just try out all the other weapons and figure out what you like. Any of them are fine while leveling. (personally I like sword/torch or hammer.)

I wouldn’t worry about “builds” until you get at least to 30.
And by then you’ll have a good idea of how you want to play.

KellionBane.4956:

Ie. Guardians can give everyone might on crit.

huh?
Most people don’t really consider Empowering Might to be a good group buff.

The might only lasts 5 seconds, the radius is only 240, and the trait has a 1 second internal cooldown. Even with everyone stacked on you, they’ll only get about 3 stacks of might on average.

The duration and radius are just way too small.

People that do use it normally do so because of the synergy with Altruistic Healing, not because of the Might it grants to the party.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

How did you guys get 400 hero points already?

Map completion and leveling past 80.
You also get ~10 hero points from each hero challenge in the new zones I think?

We’ve seen lots of discussion about healing and dps roles, but what about tanking?

Looking at Mace/Shield/Focus skills and Honor/Valor trait lines, it seems to me that there are some really fantastic “classic MMO” mitigation tank builds waiting in the lurch. Aren’t there?

Of course, up until now we’ve never really needed a “tank” in PvE, so the builds were completely and utterly pointless. But is that going to continue to be the case for the rest of the raid as well?

lilz shorty.1879:

Lets not forget the amazing elite they changed for us. Signet of Courage. (Facepalm)

The new elites are actually REALLY good compared to the old ones.
Signet of Courage is fantastic for non-meta pugs and fractals.

It may be “fine” balance wise, but is it FUN?

Personally, in a game built around action… I don’t think any skill that roots you or has a long cast time is fun.

It seemed like they learned that lesson with Shield #5 only to turn around and leave it on Sword #3 and now add it to a new skill…

I just don’t understand it. : /

Vayne.8563:

The story, from what little I played in the betas, is pretty good. I like the way it’s being handled. It feels darker than previous stories, which I like.

Darker than your companion’s sibling getting killed in front of your eyes?
Darker than watching as your race’s leadership tacitly condones the slaughter of another race because he believes yours to be superior?
Darker than having to participate in the slaughter of friendly Centaurs, even knowing that your “love” attacked first and her violent obsession will drive your entire race into ruin?

The sylvari are fine. They have their “bad eggs” just like any other race in Tyria, but at least their leadership acknowledges it.

It’s those **** Asura we should be concerned about.

Several members of the Arcane Council are siblings, so we know nepotism is rampant in their leadership…

Phlunt openly steals credit for discoveries made by our heroes’ team with no repurcussions…

I mean, High Counselor Flax knows about everything Kudu did with the Inquest (experimenting on and killing Sylvari, creating zombie dragon minions, etc…) but yet he openly grants them a seat on the Arcane Council. Even worse, he has no qualms utilizing their discoveries as long as they promote Asura as superior to the other races.

He’s basically Hitler.

Donari.5237:

Actually, phor, it’s a large source of leveling XP for PvE people. I’d hate to lose those little floaty stars chiming down to fill in my xp bar just because my first alt already went there.

Compared to the xp you get from hearts, story, and xp scrolls, I’m not sure “large source” is a good descriptor.

You could argue that it helps, but you could also argue that getting from one lvl 15-25 zone to another 15-25 zone by waypointing instead of running helps.