Guild Wars 2

In this meta the name of the game is staying alive under the crush of conditions. To that end I’ve been running this build with lots of success.

From Defense take Dogged March Defy Pain and Cleansing Ire.

From Discipline take Warrior’s Sprint Brawler’s Recovery and Heightened Focus

From Berserker take Savage Instinct Dead or Alive and Eternal Champion

For Runes you’ll need Rune of Hoelbrak and for sigils put one of each of Sigil of Generosity and Superior Sigil of Purity on the Great sword and Rifle Amulet is Berserker Amulet

Healing Signet Dolyak Signet Berserker Stance Signet of Stamina Signet of Rage

Be hyper aggressive, opening up from range on the run in with rifle switching to great sword for the sprint into the fray. Dodge your tail off, constantly, and don’t forget great sword three is a really nice short cool down evade as well. When you aren’t close enough to connect with the great sword swap it to the rifle to unload your cripple and skill 3 before you swap back. Keep the pressure on, like I said you have to be hyper aggressive. Go F2 as fast as possible as often as possible and try to use the great sword F1 while in berserker mode as many times as you can, the rifle F1 in berserker mode isn’t bad either if you are not quite in range for the great sword. Rifle 5 is a great low cool down heavy hitting knock back good for saving teammates from getting stomped out, even if it is a bit hard to aim.

You’ll be shedding conditions remarkably fast passively just from kicking butts, but none the less don’t be afraid to pop berserker stance before charging into a situation you know you’ll get condi bombed. Signet of stamina is a good last line of defense against conditions but it is more helpful for the passive stamina regeneration buff, you need it, to keep dodging, dodge is the best way in the game to avoid damage, after all. Dolyak Signet is best left untouched for the toughness buff, however do not hesitate to pop it to guarantee a crucial stomp. Stun Breaks and Stability on F2 and in a pinch Dolyak Signet. You should see decent stacking of might too, assuming it isn’t boon stripped constantly, then again in this meta having loads of boons can be a liability.

With the Berserker Amulet and decent Quickness uptime your damage output is staggering. Don’t forget to dodge constantly and most importantly this really only works if you play it hyper aggressive.

Have Fun!

Back when Scarlet was the thing, cosmetic appearance skins made a mechanical theme look possible. I tried very hard to capture the look of that chapter of the games history.

Now for Heart of Thorns I’ve created my interpretation of the look inspired by this new expansion.

Thanks for taking the time to check these out.

Do I win? something something 15 characters…

I think it looks nice… Am I missing anything? mechanical shoes or something? The aetherblade weapons looks too clunky imo.

Gas mask
twisted watchwork shoulders
static tempered spinal blades
atherblade light chest/glove/pant/shoe
I think the order of whispers weapons look good.

Night shade
midnight red
steel

edited to add… any speculation on the season two look? my warrior and necromancer desperately need some killer threads

Milkduds.7109:

They put out less than a handful of bosses that are challenging and can’t just be done in a night and out come the wallet warriors and people who, with a 60 hour a week schedule, a wife, and a small child, have no business playing a video game anyways.

so youre telling me that I cant play GW2 a couple nights a week for an hour or two after my daughter is asleep?

Lilius.9850:

@pinkbunnies,
If you’ve got a family, work, and infants to care about that take up your time, you should DEFINITELY not be playing video games – your family comes first, dont neglect your kid

That’s a really insulting accusation

timidobserver.7925:

I always love the opinions on WvW that non-WvWers have.
Many of the best WvWers I know do not have ascended armor. Gear level has a pretty low impact in WvW. Rather than judging from the outside, go in and find a good WvW guild and find out what WvW is really like instead of just guessing.

Fact of the matter is that this game advertised it self as not having to grind for the best gear and nothing you say will change that. Don’t get me wrong, pvp is my specialty and when I roam I enjoy demolishing in whatever small skirmishes I can find. zerg vs door is not fun, wasn’t in warhammer online and isn’t in gw2 either.

NoTrigger.8396:

content for people like you is called living story.
there is almost no challenging content in this game.
and 95% of the content in this game is made for people like you.
what is your problem?
at some point in your life you have to accept that you wont have the time for MMOs anymore.

Hear this arena net… its the sound of your community pushing money out of your game… Apparently your community believes that people with jobs and families have no business enjoying your product in their spare time. Good job GW2 community on being a bunch of… well you know what just forget it I don’t need this abuse.

I can not tell you how extremely frustrating the brokenness of this skill is. 2,2,3,F1 is bread and butter for this class and because of a bug it doesn’t work at least half the time.

please fix.

Im a civil engineer and I Work 60-70 hours a week in the field. I love this game and really enjoy the time I get to play it. Ive got 4 level 80s, two with map completion, all in at least exotics or better. I unload real money on the gem store regularly.

Im getting discouraged by content like tequila and the worm/marionette because I have not completed any of these, not even once. I realize that if I log at the exact right time after guesting to the correct server and sitting in the zone for an hour+ to get a spot then maybe I have a chance to complete these but that’s not realistic for me.

I have a wife and a 3 year old, they need my time too.

At least I have Spvp solo Q, hot join. If it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t have to gear grind to be on equal footing Id have never bought this game. On a side not that’s why I don’t do WVWVW, because of the ascended gear power creep they implemented.

Back before I got a real life I loved to spvp in WAR and later SWTOR and Rift for a time. So I consider myself a kitten fine player.

Please make content for people like me. We are the ones who actually bring money into your pocket with our real jobs and gem store purchases.

cut out the garbage with the power creep gear grind nonsense, make some more content that I as a great player can do on my own schedule without needing to depend on having no life and the stars aligning.

Im a civil engineer and I Work 60-70 hours a week in the field. I love this game and really enjoy the time I get to play it. Ive got 4 level 80s, two with map completion, all in at least exotics or better. I unload real money on the gem store regularly.

Im getting discouraged by content like tequila and the worm/marionette because I have not completed any of these, not even once. I realize that if I log at the exact right time after guesting to the correct server and sitting in the zone for an hour+ to get a spot then maybe I have a chance to complete these but that’s not realistic for me.

I have a wife and a 3 year old, they need my time too.

At least I have Spvp solo Q, hot join. If it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t have to gear grind to be on equal footing Id have never bought this game. On a side not that’s why I don’t do WVWVW, because of the ascended gear power creep they implemented.

Back before I got a real life I loved to spvp in WAR and later SWTOR and Rift for a time. So I consider myself a kitten fine player.

Please make content for people like me. We are the ones who actually bring money into your pocket with our real jobs and gem store purchases.

cut out the garbage with the power creep gear grind nonsense, make some more content that I as a great player can do on my own schedule without needing to depend on having no life and the stars aligning.

Stievie.6128:

So with the upcoming DE changes alot of turmoil has started on the forums, for good reasons. The mesmer in itself is a design catastrophe at this point for multiple reasons. Mainly because of our class ability Shatter not interacting with all builds the way it should…. …I could go on but I´d like to hear what the Mesmer community and Anet thinks about this. This issue has been here since release and never realy got adressed, if at all it got worse.

I completely agree with this.

Shattering needs to be what builds revolve around, both offensive and defensive.

Defensive tanky builds could generate buffs from shatters and Damage builds could get spike while condition builds could get applications on shatters. mix and match for hybrids with the really good stuff high in the trees.

I agree that create clone on dodge should be either free or easy to get without wasting a trait choice.

Thanks to everyone who posted in this thread. I had no idea it would take off like it did

So far no one has posted anything even similar to my favorite.

Mahaedros.7085:

Captain Picard can spot sarcasm and condones jabs at long overdue class balance.

Make it so!

First time seeing one of these in the wild… I think someone spooked it cause it disappeared mysteriously.

8/10
pretty happy with this, want the shoulders of flame too. also the warrior and Mesmer with distinctive looks.

I dont think it would be so bad if the burst from shatter specs were toned down. People say its our only “viable” spec but i think what they should say is that its our most powerful. A shift in the meta of mesmer build optimization couldnt hurt if it led to a diversity of more equally viable options.

mesmer goes down you begin finisher… at last moment he stealths/teleports a short distance… you see the big read arrow over the real mesmers head and begin finisher again… your finisher will kill the mesmer before the ability to summon the phantasm even becomes available.

I dont see the problem.

I played a lot of solo que tournaments today and many times I was placed on a pug vs premade match up. And we won.

If youre loseing then look in the mirror and ask how this match can help you improve. Youll only get better if youre forced to fight people better than you so dont get worked up over it.

Refine your tactics and skills. Experiment with different builds.

Sometimes nothing you can do will make it a win but some of the funnest games ive ever played ended in a loss.

its all about attitude.

I solo Qed once yesterday and got a full random pug team. We were up against a premade so it didnt look good at first but after a very close fight we squeeked out a tight win!

When people understand that you dont need to have three people capping points and some other basic stuff and playing for the win not playing for your own point total then things go well.

hharry.1967:

Either nerf phantasms damage or shatter damage, or remove some CC from them, the amount of knock downs daze and huge damage combined with stealth and a lot of ‘oh kitten’ skills they have is just too much. Not talking about 1v1 where you can predict and dodge it all but on a 2v2 3v3 or w/e while on a point where you cant see anything of whats going on you just get wrecked by this they dont even need to target you.

I love when people combine the best aspects of three or four builds/utilities loadouts into one fantasy uber scary unstopable fiction.

I personally run a 20(V,X)/30(I,IV,X)/10(V)/10(VI)/0 build with GS, S/S blink/decoy/archaine thievery and runes of warrior for some extra health/power and -1 sec weapon swap and berserkers amulet.

I aim to be untouchable and allow people to destroy themselves by killing my clones while i put constant pressure on them from range with GS and when forced into meele blured frenzy+block and blink, decoy to get out of danger. I hardly ever even use shatters. I can be taken down by any class that is played skillfully and I can take down any class if i can outplay them.

The best way to kill me is to attack while im busy with someone else after ive blown my two stun breaks, at that point im a sitting duck.

I understand that my build is very non standard and not the flavor of the month “shattercat” or “immortal” build but I find it to be a lot of fun and Maybe because I dont have a loadout like people expect I gain an edge from the surprise factor.

Long story short; different builds have different strengths and its really rediculous to make blanket statements about mesmers being overpowered when you set up a characature posessing all the possible strengths from every possible build.

Panda.1793:

pinkbunnies.4620:

four things that need to be added to the game to make it a viable “e-sport”

1) customizable matches

2) built in replay save feature

3) observer mode for live custom games and saved replays

4) universal indevidual and team ranking system

if they are at all serious about fostering a guild wars 2 e-sport community these must be done ASAP

In no disrespect they shouldnt have to foster for these type of people, we should be more ashamed they didnt take lots of points which people are mentioning from the previous game they made, they had ladders, observe mode but of games just played, more variety of game modes etc, but transfered none of these previous core components. Its not fair to call it guild wars without a strong gvg community, there is none here.

besides you might as well play starcraft if you wanna get paid for playing, at least all you pros out there have a ready built game and its just up to you.

well since sc2 is pretty much the best e-sport model out there i dont see why they shouldnt take the best ideas and apply them to gw2.

even at the non “paid to play” level the features i mentioned help strengthen the competative community.

four things that need to be added to the game to make it a viable “e-sport”

1) customizable matches

2) built in replay save feature

3) observer mode for live custom games and saved replays

4) universal indevidual and team ranking system

if they are at all serious about fostering a guild wars 2 e-sport community these must be done ASAP

dueling trait X gives you create clone on dodge and the five point minor trait gives you near permanent vigor. so dodge dodge dodge… just getting three illusions up and stay moving will help as much as possible.

the reality is that good players wont be fooled so dont expect it to.

Looking for US server open. Need some shards for clovers!

i use this as my third utility in spvp along with blink and decoy. I am not a pro or anything but i find it can easilly turn the tide in 1v1 situations by generously returning that stack of ten bleed or 6 confusion to sender.

if youre the sort of person who needs a carrot on a stick to have a reason to play then this game is not your game… well even thats not true because there are legendaries for that.

I like to think that this game provides really fun end game content of four major types and does all four extremely well.

1) solo pve dynamic events and regular dragon slaying

2) group pve dungons and lots of them that are very fun and challenging to master

3) high skill pvp, tournaments and hot join to a lesser extent

4) large scale wvwvw tactics with seige weapons and defensive points

these are four very fun game activities to pick from and you ought to be playing because its fun. not because there is a carrot just out of your grasp.

dang it now youve gone and blown up my spot… metrica province reactor is my go to place and word about it is starting to get out thanks to “helpfull” posts like this thread…

w a s d and right mouse and left mouse space bar all used together all the time in different situation appropriate combinations. strafe, tight circle strafe, kite, run and look in any direction simultaniously, change direction in mid air while jumping.

the default keybinds are completely standard and very much like warhammeronline, rift, swtor and im sure others.

this game is completely designed to be played as i described above and you can feel it with the dodge system as it exists in game. double tap w a s or d for a situationally appropriate dodge.

once you really get a hang of it youll never go back and im sure others can verify what im saying on the subject.

I explained it once by saying that not playing like i described is like playing mortal combat on sega genesis only using two of the three buttons. sure you can “play” with just two of the three buttons and maybe you can even beat the computer too but you arent playing the game to its full potential.

sure some people will say that they like how they play and do just fine and more power to you if you do but you will never be a god in pvp and youll never be as good in pve as you could be if you sucked it up and learned how to use the “third button”

IF they ever did this then the FIRST thing youd see is level 80 players in full exotics one shotting fresh level one characters.

This would be the absuolute best way to ruin the game for all new players.

so i say no.

Tricare.2946:

The only use it has is for quick equips for the speed and pulling people off walls. You’re silly if you think otherwise.

this guy knows^^

Zenith.7301:

And let us use abilities during The Prestige.

id use the torch for this. I already use blink and decoy obsessively so having another instant stealth would make pvp for me even more awesome sauce.

well on second though Id want the damage from the torch illusion to somehow be more in line with off hand sword one because last time i checked it was super weak.

Ursan.7846:

Then people will just hoard commodities to avoid this tax.

Why? Also the gold will have to be in someone’s pocket and will end up siphoned out of the economy through the tax anyways. Someone’s always going to end up holding the hot potato/without a chair.

Ive got a terrible idea….

A progressive taxation system.

For example (these numbers could be adjusted if needed) all gold on an account less than 100 is not taxed. Gold between 100-200 is taxed at 20% gold between 200-300 is taxed 50% and gold greater than 300 is taxed 70%. taxation happens daily at the same time daily quests reset.

All tax is removed from the game (not redistributed to other players).

Lore and in game fluff excuse can be that your chosen affiliation with one of the three orders requires you to contribute to the war effort.

Benefits include but not limited to, dissuading people from messing up the auction house in their pursuit of gold for the sake of gold instead of as a medium for transactions to get things they want. Yeah I know that’s deep but it’s a real problem.

After all its not a “real” economy right guys…

if youve got too much gold feel free to help me out send some to juniper berry and help a casual gamer get the unicorn bow

supply side jesus loves the wealthy and in his eyes they are legendary and deserving of weapons to mark them as legendary people.

just think of all the hard earned gold that the job creators have earned through purchasing all the poor gamers hard work hours of playtime? Is it not amazing the power of free markets to make the best and brightest always have legendaries?

besides real life rich people are way more legendary than poor real life people.

so says supply side jesus

so glad i leveled a mesmer as my first character… never thought is was “hard” or even difficult at all. Second character was a warrior and that felt like sleepwalking it was so easy by comparison.

rifle is what I use to kite around groups of veterans or champions. If youre any good with kiteing then the bleed stacking and short cooldown snare on the rifle will allow you to solo most any champion that doesnt have too much ranged attacks. 30 points in arms and 30 in discipline, get the stuff that helps rifle/GS. I also use only crit damage/percision/power gear so totally glass cannon all utilities are signets so if you plan to do that too you better be as good at kiting as you think you are cause youll get murdered if you screw up.

gear treadmill was supposed to be against the guiding ideology of this game… such a let down. being expected to grind out countless fractal runs to be on equal footing in the gear department for wpvp competativeness is super lame.

I do understand that some people have no life and need thier hand held with a carrot in front of them given candy every time they step in the right direction or else they will cry and cry and cry but seriously can we have a little backbone and not capitulate to these people for one time in mmo history? theyve already ruined every other mmo ive ever played.

edited to add: also this type of gear treadmill/power creep will trivialize and destroy all activity in 99.9% of the pve world maps. Its been shown to be true in the rest of the mmos and if this game goes there it will happen here too. such a sad sad disapointment.

also legendary weapons are actually “loser” weapons because you have to be a no life loser to have one already.

FourTwenty.4268:

lol what?

what else would ‘kings of mobility’ mean? seriously. . .think it through. i can link you the definition to mobility if you need

see, people just get mad that they feel ‘robbed’ of their kill. instead of seeing it as a good thing(that the thief has stopped attack and is no longer a threat), you throw a tantrum cause you didn’t get the kill(last word).

these threads are an epic win

Or, people don’t want to be “robbed” of their ability to run away like a little kitten and save their ego. It’s PvP..if you can’t handle dying – don’t play, lol.

Siva Mira.3546:

Someone never played Thief nor knew anything about Thief but still want to fix Thief anyway.

This would maybe be funny if it were true but its not..nice try though, lol.

FourTwenty.4268:

that is NOT a problem! did you read the class philosophy?

“Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage.”

they’re supposed to get away. just because you get mad when they run away is no reason to cripple the entire class.

i really really wish the devs read your post and understand this is why people complain about the class

(and kitten of course the culling bug needs to be fixed)

Yeah, and nowhere in that philosophy does it say that they are entitled to run away like little babies if a fight isn’t going their way.

Odarion.2947:

lol yea I know, but I’d like to play a class that has a chance to escape or do something than just get CC’d to death.

My main character that Ive done a good bit of spvp on is very slippery and hard to nail down even in larger encounters. Its a very fragile creature, my mesmer, it can only take one or two seconds of dps before it dies. However if handled correctly between stealth and blink and misdirection its possible to evade and escape. you can give it a try if you want, or there are some decent gaurdian bunker builds for survivability but those dont actually kill anyone like a mesmer does.

Odarion.2947:

Hey guys,

I’m just coming back to the game since August and my main used to be Necro, but it still seems to get rofl stomped by most melee. I understand if you’re a good player you probably can do alright, but I’m struggling to 1v1 people sometimes…

I was wondering what a fun prof is if I want to be able to 1v1 people without having to be a complete pro to beat mediocre players, and someone that doesn’t die when 4 or so people roll up on you trying to stun/knock down you from 100-0.

Also I would like the class to be highly wanted in TPvP paid and free.

I appreciate your feedback!

Thanks,
Oda

from my experience when four people are on you it doesnt matter what build/class you are youre gona die in a couple seconds.

Brutalistik.6473:

Are you pvping naked? I don’t see what gear you’re using and your skills are not there as well.

click the traits tab and the runes tab next to the skills tab

fixed the link. copy and paste it into the browser bar. clicking it says bad link but it does work.

copy and paste into browser bar (http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIUQNAU5OGQQPsisQANFMizjkAADQA;TgAg2Croay0koJbTumkNB)

So the idea is you stack bleeds ticking for 100ish per stack with rifel skill 1 till they die

trying to be as tanky as possible

actually had some luck with this build in random hot join.

help improve polish refine this concept.

I desperately need an alternative to instant stomp burst builds.

they could make it so that being stealthed drains initiative over time… that way unloading and vanishing is impossible.

this will make stealth as a way to engage still viable but (as many have asked for) will make the thief commit to the fight to the death once engaged.

this would resolve a lot of the issues some people are having with thieves in pvp.

thanks for the consideration

they could make it so that being stealthed drains initiative over time… that way unloading and vanishing is impossible.

this will make stealth as a way to engage still viable but (as many have asked for) will make the thief commit to the fight to the death once engaged.

this would resolve a lot of the issues some people are having with thieves in pvp.

thanks for the consideration

Maybe building on what the op said… they could make it so that being stealthed drains initiative over time… that way unloading and vanishing is impossible.

this will make stealth as a way to engage still viable but (as many have asked for) will make the thief commit to the fight to the death once engaged.

I dont get why the hate for automated lfg…

Automated lfg >> map chat clogged with lfg

automated lfg lets people find group while anywhere so LA not perpetually clogged to overflow

automated lfg does not prevent friends from grouping on their own or forming “leet” teams (rolls eyes).