Guild Wars 2

Boreal.9826:

No kidding. We still run mostly Guards (note: core Guardian, not DH) in WvW and we’re doing fine, heck, even thriving right now.

Core Guards are doing fine in a game mode which is dead. The new maps are a elephant’s cemetary. I did leave Guardians in WvW raids like 6 months ago for Warrior and then changed again to Rev with HoT just to find that the game mode was over…

Keksmuffin.1450:

It didn’t “double hit” you, you have to walk over the ring to get damage twice. :<

This. In PvP a very common combo is waiting the enemy to cross the perimeter (hit 1), then knockbak them with longbow #1, #2 or #3 (hit 2) and then grab him again into the line with F1 or greatsword #5 (hit 3). The numbers are ok playing against a zerk DH (which probably had like ~2200 armor and 12k-15k HP).

Using a block, invul, evades or stability at the right time fixes the problem for players prescripted with a l2p condition.

Kovu.7560:

Guardian traps nerf inc.

~ Kovu

I only use one trap. There’s a reason there is no single DH in the Pro League: traps are a one trick pony which only works against mediocres (I mean: you known that the -very bad- DH in the middle of the point had already place 2-4 traps in the floor, and has already another 2-4 in cooldown, so instead of using a invuln + evade to null all those damage and turn him in a easy prey, why you chose to just walk in to the traps and get melted?).

How many Guardians/DHs were playing yesterday in the Pro League in order to reach the outstanding conclusion that Guardians needs a nerf? ^^

Who cares about the status of G/DH in PvE? PvE isn’t a competitive mode, PvP is. They are changing traps for the wrong reasons (rookies eating three traps already placed in the points and eating the another three from the -mediocre builds- player. They are nerfing due one trick ponies are melting novices in sub diamond divisions; meanwhile G/DHs are nowhere in the Pro League.

Makes me sad all this discussion about the damage from Guardians in PvE when seems that most of the changes will turn around “the succes” of the traps in PvP. Which is even more sad taking in consideration that DH aren’t currently in a good shape in PvP and traps are a one trick pony which must be chosen very carefully (I’m only using one trap, so I’m mostly running the same old med build with a bow and a trap).

The thing is: currently I can kill the average bunker meta, if I play well my cards. If they will nerf the (mediocre) offensive capabilities of the class then Arenanet should provide tools to make the Guardian a gain a viable tank. I will never play a tank but at least should provide joy to players unable to change to other classes. If a Chronomancer can be a succesfull tank, then a Guardian sould be an excellent tank, I guess.

About PvE, I wouldn’t care less about the changes: I only enter to do mining, and WvW is destroyed, so no roaming neither. But I’m suspicious about their moves in the PvP department. Yesterday was the EU Pro League and only 4-5 classes from the 9 were used, an none of them was a Guardian/DH…

After failing miserably in more than ten attempts (in three of them “dying” for less than 2 seconds) I tried with the mango pie: every attempt was succesful.

Mango pie provides 88 HP reg x second, and the trial last 60 seconds so heals for a total amount of 5280 hp, which is larger than an extra use of the heal button. Is a very safe and eclectic method available to every class/character in the game. Fortunately no PED test at the end :P

As a DH usually don’t stand a chance to “win” against decent Druids, but due the longbow knock back each 10 seconds, the F1 and the greatsword #5, plus the dazes, I have good chances to break the point, which is what matters. You don’t need to kill the tank to win in this meta, just to keep them out from the ring in time to time. Of course, this is invalid in Foefire’s ^^

Crucible of Eternity made people to learn how to stack. After that trying to forget was like trying to forget the use of the fire, or the power of the atom.

And talking about the power of the atom, the power creep from HoT melt dungeons in the nuclear fire, albeit is fine due the monetary rewards were also nuked…

Any way of play that doesn’t involve hacking, botting or macroing is also fine. Exploiting bugs is against the rules, exploiting the game mechanics isn’t.

I like to use this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJATRnsABlDhVdCeDB8DhlEiCbDeuyUe5j+s/aZDgEA-T1CBABbcIAEc/BsU+RqKBXqCRlqrwxRAYPdNnpEEgLAQfPAgNDDAjgIAmZmZaEZkhUARM0C-w

Attack: 2608
HP: 18535
Armor: 2374
CC: 38% w/signets
CD: 218%

Notes:

1) Most of DH use DH + Valor + Virtues. I do replace Virtues by Honor, so I gain 3000 HP.

2) Virtues offers a nice (albeit inconsistent) damage enhancement due UC, an extra condition clean with Absolute Resolution and and extra breakstun + stability with Indomitable Courage, plus a nice faster recharge and some extra features due the minor traits. I don’t find the stability as useful, since Heavy Ligth already provides a lot of stability, and in PvP oftenly Protective Reviver is more decisive than any of the other Virtues traits, and the extra 3k HP are crucial in some teamfights. But I understand how in duels and roaming Virtues is more valued than Honor.

3) I play the same build in PvP, with Marauder amulet, which means ~20k HP, and Pcak runes instead of Traveller. In WvW roaming, I find that any less than ~17500 HP is a gently invite to being one shooted. I never fall one shooted, and the chances are that the more to the brink of pure full zerker is a foe the less are his chances of winning the fight.

4) Valkyrie stats in weapons are the best frinds for a Guardian/DH. Pure Valkyrie doesn’t exists as a trinkets, and the (ascendant ) armor is expensive and provides a small amount of points.

Thaladred.1406:

ESO was supposed to kill GW2, Archeage was supposed to kill GW2, Wildstar (NCSoft?) was supposed to kill it too. Only one game is hanging in there, and that’s only because of the shift from sub to play to b2p.

Now Blade and Soul and Black Desert Online are going to kill GW2.

Heart of Thorns killed GW2’s WvW

Dungeon tracks gives you like 240 tokens, 3 weapons and 1 armor piece from the dungeon. For weapons is even better than running some dungeons, to be fair.

Hunter.4783:

Just wait till people figure out Dwarf stance revs have as much if not more stability applications, then things will be more interesting.

Inspiring Reinforcement is a truly weak source of stability due the nature of the skill and Unwavering Avoidance + Enhanced Bulwark just cant compete against Stand Your Ground! in team fights. Revenants (and specifically Heralds) are very powerful in the offensive department, in sustain and support BUT I play all the plate classes and would be blind to not being aware of some serious holes in their defense.

Jalis legend means either (Glint + Jalis) losing Riposting Shadows (the only reliable source of breakstun for the class) or (Shiro + Jalis) losing Glint (which means that the sustain and team support of the Revenant just sinks).

PvE: Due the power creep, most of the old content just explodes at sight if you are using a DH, so you have no problems doing world completing, world bosses, dungeons, fractals or just gathering with a DH. The new maps are also easy to do with the class due the high amount of blocks, blinds, cc and burst you have at your disposal. Outside some very specific champions, is very easy to solo most of the HoT content as a DH.

The only weak spot for Guardians/DH is the Raids; but raids were conceived against the old GW2 rules: defined roles (tank, healer, dps), high gear requirements (ascendant/legendary, food required…) and to bne honest the rewards from Raids are pretty crap. ‘m surprised about the amounto of people varing about that game mode: I did’t even enter in a single time. Activities must be either fun or rewarding to me (even better: both), and currrently raids had nothing of those to me.

WvW: Guardians/DH are mandatory in large groups, due since the stability changes in June and the buff of ccs the chances of dying perma-rooted if you don’t have guardians to provide some amount of stability are 100%. But WvW is already in critical condition and the rewards are crap, so Guardains are again in good spot here.

PvP: Is a bit tricky: in one hand, DH aren’t competitive as bruisers at the top level of game (Pro Leagues), but in the other, ruby and even diamond divisions are full of people ramming into traps and getting deleted, so DH are viable and useful albeit not top dogs.

Conclusion: to me Guardian/DH is solid in most of the content; I did change to Herald at the start of HoT but albeit I enjoy the class I come back to DH as my main again. I have the 9 classes at 80 but still find myself playing Guardian/DH 80% of the time. Doesn’t have the weakness of the Revenant against ccs and conditions and keeps more flexibility in terms of builds. Doesn’t touch the damage numbers from Warriors and Revenants but for the 95% of the content in game our current numbers still are a faceroll.

Who cares raids? I’m earning ~17 gold coins x hour just gathering stuff, financing 3 legendary items ath the same time and having fun in PvP. Balance betwen classes in the least of the problems in this expansion….

Cedric Ambidexter.9174:

Sthenith.5196:

1. explore a map, do some hearts along the way
2. return to your main city (for your race) and do a map completion there
3. go through the portal in your main city to go to Lions Arch, do map completion there.
4. start crafting, the stations are always available AND you have ALL the portals available to go to the different main zones for each race.
5. play the main storyline, do fractals (at 80) and go WvW/PvP.

In no time you’ll be in the high levels, killing the different worldbosses (for rewards and mats) and doing different events. And yes, you have to kill mobs in those.

It’s just no fun anymore.

The game is basic.

Play PvP. Get your toon reckt by people that objetively has better skills in the game than you, with 0% gear advantage. Obtain the +1 level tomes earned by those deserved beats, rise your character to 80 and learn how to play it properly. Then return to PvE and single-hand trample the content.

Proof:

Sadrien.3470:

One tempest + one bunker mesmer with mercy runes + one druid mid

One ele + one druid home

Or mesmer goes far + double ele mid, mesmer drops port after capping and runs back mid to help allies porting back if enemies try and recap.

Is not a easy thing to do, but even asisted, bunkers as solid as tempest and cronomancers can be killed when focused by two players of the right classes (ex.: pairing a dh with a reaper or herald). Is true that their sustain is out from the charts, but the amount of interrupts that a reaper + dh can put togetherin 30 seconds is outstanding.

Current meta can be countered, is just that in the Pro League everyone is too afraid to lose to risk anything diffent from bunkers and bruisers. But in the regular gameplay? With the power creep that HoT did provide zerky compositions are viable.

Took me 13 matches to win 5 with a third class (Necro) for the second phase of the PvP track for the legendary backpiece. I guess could went worse, but still my thoughs on those loses were “I have no clue about what I’m doing and I’m severely handicaping my team”.

Clearly is a bad design of achievement and is largely afecting the quality of the gameplay, specially in ruby and diamond divisions (i did it in ruby, just at the beguining to prevent hurting my earnings). Also the notion of having to play multiple classes to being good is wrong: you must KNOWN how the classes work (to be able to fight them), but nothing must force you to play the current cancer meta.

Azhure.1857:

“I want this without doing the required work. Curse you, Anet.”

Actually, I’m doing the required work. What worries me is the aftermaths for my random team mates: I’ll move from using a class I’m aware of to another in which I could have a 10% w/l ratio, maybe? And I’ll get those wins, no matter what (I’m at the start of the division so I have nothing to lost), but it could take me 15, 20, 30 fights…

So all those matches my team will be running essentially a handicaped 4 vs 5. Some people is blaming the quality of the fights in ruby and diamond; well, maybe is related to some extent with the achievement design.

I just reach ruby division yesterday, and taking a look over the “Year of the Ascension Part II” achievements I found two things that worried me:

1. Seems that I have like twelve achievements completed, but instead the path says I’m 9 out of 11; is bugged or just a crapy display interface?

1. If is the later, seems that the only way to progress to “Part III” is to earn 5 wins with a third class (I already came here using only DH and Herald), is that true? I would HATE to mess up matches of another players being forced to play classes that I’m not capable to use and GET CARRIED just to fulfill a disgusting achievement… Seems to me like an order to “punish other fellow players and SCREW their matches” achievement.

Seriously, I can’t see how this could result in benefit to anynone. Albeit I already have 11 level 80 toons and at least one of each class I devote most of my time with a couple of them and have no interest/clue in using the other ones. I already express my apologies for the inminent damage I’ll make buttonsmashing a random character in pug matches.

I’m reaching Ruby now (a rank behind) and most of the Thieves and Warriors I’m finding (both in my team and in the enemy team) are suprisingly good. I guess that most of them are really good players or truly devoted to the class, so they are overcoming the handicaps of their class through skill and practice, whereas worse players just jump to the flavour of the month meta (oftenly doing it as poorly as ever).

By the way, I’m playing DH and Herald (like 95%/5%) and despite having fun with both I’m MUCH better playing with my non-meta DH than with the copy & paste Rev, like going from ~55% w/l to ~25% w/l. So, sugesting others to change their class a lot of times doesn’t provide better chances of success.

WinterFox.9756:

So what do u should do? Yea, u start ranged fight,and here u suffer. Why? Maybe cuz of up to 6-10k auto on longbow? Or because of combo like teleport and placing traps near u (not all teh classes\builds has same amount of stab with insta cast as well as break-stun things) Not fun at all when guard kills u in 3-5 shots,and not cuz he is skilled, he just spam 1-2 and traps. Guard isnt a war or thief,as a concept is a protector\bunker from where such a big dmg? It’s totaly okay if u kill me in few sec cuz u know how to play your class and stuffs.For sure I am not pro or even a very good player and still.

Using JI for placing traps exposes the Guardian and -also- depletes most of the skills; is a risky move and a one trick pony. Mesmers can nuke at ranged with a well placed Gravity Well, minus the risk. And talking about what Guardians are an what not, is laughlable that the current semi-viable build from DH -a plate armor class, not less- is doing focused burst/AoE damage, whereas cloth classes as Tempest and Chronomancer, or leather users as Scrappers and Druids are near unkillable in 1 vs 1.

So yeah, due Guardians went outplaced in his main roles (bunker/support) seems to me fair to be able to instakill bad players, because -and I say this as a plate class user- when you face good Revs/Tempest/Scrappers/Druids the only question is “how long I would be able to survive before getting beated?”.

Maybe is working well, but just there’s not players enough at that Division to fill all the slots in the match in less time.

Think abou it: sometimes it takes several minutes to gathering 10 players for a match in the amber division, which could be a indication about how low is the PvP population. Now take in consideration that higher divisions has less players, and the game ranking system is trying to pair players with similar ELO. But at the highest divisions the those players must be a few.

750k but means nothing due, as was said, playing against people with minions multiplies the output but doesn’t equals to being more effective.

Even more: if you play a balanced match of tanks vs tanks in the middle of Foefire you can reach huge damage numbers without scoring a single point. Late weeks in the Pro League showed some matches with 0 points and 0 deaths in the first 4-5 minutes…

DH is doing well in PvP, even not being meta. Sometimes in skirmishes and holding points two DH are performing even better than two Revs or two Mesmers, at lest in the “not top” of the league.

What would be nice is a revamp of the regular Guardian; signets, spiritual weapons and most of consecrations are pure crap in PvP, and also most of the traits.

Eponet.4829:

Honestly, a trap nerf might be a good thing for guardians at the moment.

They’re so powerful vs other glass cannons that the meta shifted to tanky builds, which as it so happened, also counter guardian in general.

False. The meta moved towards bruiser builds because they can tank while outpace in sustained dps most of the burst builds. Traps are almos useless in high level of play due they are predictable, easy to evade and fill slots for other utilities so once they are used the DH remains exposed and vulnerable.

Currently, meditrap is the most solid, well rounded, DH build, and is used broadly in random matches due they are easy to play. But even then, DH are outside the meta and serious matches because they are also SO EASY TO OUTPLAY.

Berserker specs are actually doomed due current iterations of non-DH/guardian classes. Also, the amount of people in random matches which keep entering in cqc against DH even after knowning which is going to happen is outstanding: makes me to belive that no matter the meta, those people will be always prone to lose the matches and to whine whatever the scene is.

Tigergate.3520:

Just gotta say, I’ve played quite a bit of pvp and I noticed that it’s almost impossible to dodge the Dragonhunters elite skill Dragon’s maw. It ruins pvp and the fun in the game. Personally I hate the trap guard and all the new condi bunker builds out there since they are just faceroll.

DH traps are so op that near no team is using the class in the pro leagues

Death Aggro.9602:

No its a full year. 4 per year. A FULL YEAR. Not sure where your getting that time of 5.

Aren’t leagues of 8 weeks followed by 2 weeks of rest? That would be five leagues of 8+2 weeks which would mean 5 leagues a year…

The problem is that burn guard falls way worse than DH against condition Heralds, which has similar spike damage with better sustain, group support and mobility.- At least DH offers a ton of AoE and cc, which puts pressure in the control points.

So: yes burn guardian can be better at duels, but that alone will not asure that you take the point. Seems to me that daze + knockback + pulls are more important, and even then, guardian/DH is outside the meta.

I’m enjoying the PvP and also the league. Is a bit hard, due playing mostly alone in pugs, but I’m slowly grinding my way, trying to re-learn my main (DH) and the Rev.

I think that the balance needs changes, and so the pip system, but I’m not deceiving myself: I did play PvP for a briefly time in other MMOs (ESO, Archeage…) and even with its faults GW2 is better. Much better, to be honest. Currently, my fav part of the game.

…I saw 8k-9k during the Rank 55 vs TCG.

Soryuju.8164:

So Guardians leave competitive play alongside Thieves and Warriors , solidifying the 6-profession meta. Also, I count one non-elite spec (Purple Noise’s Ele). Double Revs are present in each matchup and winning consistently over single Rev comps. Lots of exciting games ahead, I’m sure.

I’m not sure about talking about “meta” as soon. A week before the Pro League everyone was crying about how op were the DH and the UA power Herald, and how weak was Mallyx after the nerfs in the HoT release. Then, in the first week of the Pro League, in the EU division DH were only a few (fading in the second week) and love to Daredevils and Berserkers was absent. But meanwhile, in NA Reapers were popular and there was some Daradevil also.

Then, second week, power Herald is degraded from “meta” to “great”, replaced by condi Herald. Everyone was screaming in the forums how broken were the DH, the Scrappers, the Reapers, and suddenly seems that playing with two condi Heralds enhances the chances to win.

It’s funny. We are still in the beguinning of the Pro League/regular leagues. I’m sure that a lot of brainstorming and theorycrafting is still happending behind the scenes. The “meta” is still fluctuating, unstable, voluble. Prior to HoT condi team compositions weren’t successful enough to be competitive, and maybe there’s still room to counter this trending in the current patch. Time will say, but I think that is still too early to predict how this will evolve.

Only thing that is sure is: some builds were broadly overvalued and some others criminaly unnapreciated in the first four weeks of HoT. The forums (we) WERE WRONG.

Anything with strong cc or conditions will be lethal. We have very limited/situational access to stunbreks/balance/cleasing.

Take a look in Youtube at the ESL Go4GW2 #52 25th Oct; in the last two matches (55 Rank Dragons vs Orange Logo) the Revenant/s were unable to compete.

Norn. They have affinity to the spiritual world (which is part of the myst).

Charrs are more related to engineering/warcraft; Asuras are mostly linked to the magic, and Silvaris are a young race without too much link with the legends of the past. Humans and Norns seems the more “natural” but as I said Norns had heavy roots with the spirirual world (albeit most of their totems are based on forces opf the nature).

Revenant/Herald faces severe handicaps in tems of access to balance, breakstuns and conditions cleansing. You can trait them to overcome that weakness and still feel that are a lot more rigid and erratic that guardins ain that front.

Aside from that, Revs/Heralds are as fine as Guardians/DH if not better in terms of fun, and they are clearly better in access to mobility.

Is a hard question to answer as now, due balance changes are still on the table for both classes.

Harbinger.8637:

All I know it’s nice to have a viable DPS build on Guardian. Sorry, power medi was not viable at high end play, sure you could make it work, but there are better and more viable choices.

I don’t known what are you talking about; I’m still playing physical medi guard after the trait changes of 6/23 and based on my experience DH is as beatable by regular medi guards as the fire guard builds.

I known, I’m at best a mediocre player and “cant realze the true potential of DH in high level play” bs, BUT (and is a big but) I remember when Orange Logo came to the last big tournaments with two zerk guards only to get rolfstomped in the finals.

DH had a horrible name, a ludricous lore and are a lot more fragile than the medi zerk guard.

I did rise to 80 the Rev the friday with tomes, then I geared him with almost full ascended gear, and spent a few hours the Saturday and Sunday collecting almost the whole Central Tyria hero points (sits currently at ~40% spec).

So far: for completing maps the Rev feels better, Shiro is god tier for mobility, so you don’t need to waste space in traveler runes. Glint is even better due perma-swiftness.

In terms of damage mitigation and active protection the guardian feels better, due you can rearrange your utilities at will and have instant access to stability, blind and stunbreakers, whereas the legends are waaay more rigid; however the sustain is mostly the same, due the Revenant weapons provide access to insane amounts of blocks and evades/invulnerability. I mean, Revenant has even access to a shield that blocks!

The main difference is in the damage department; when you combine things like Impossible Odds, Rapid Lacerations and Swift Termination just the sword auto attacks are enough to melt things in no time. You also can gain access to inflict perma-vulnerability on foes, increasing damage and leeching life over foes with vulnerability. And on top of that, 100% critical chance every time you have fury. Need to say more?

Hammer and swords: Berserker.
Mace: Sinister or Rabid.
Axe: either power based or condition based; is up to pair your main hand choice.
Shield: same as axe.
Staff: Berserker or Cleric if you want strong support through Ventari.

DoctorDing.5890:

Gotta love a comedy rage quit.
Of course, he won’t really quit. He’ll play the expansion, accumulate the points and pretend he’s hating it.

I had plans to unlock every spec in my eleven characters. After hearing that cost 400 hp per character? No longer: I’ll stick to my new main.

This mostly will affect me in WvW, where probably I’ll not be able to swich between classes to fill demanded roles to my guild due lacking the specializations.

Remembers me a bit when WvW levels were character bound: no reason to leave your main. Here happens the same: the grind x spec is so strong (and impossible in PvP -due lack of “hero tomes”-) that if you aren’t a focused PvE player trying to unlock specs is just a waste of time in joyless, tedious tasks.

~200 in four of my characters, ~60+ in the other six. I’ll only spec the Revenant and maybe a couple of my “200s”. I have no time to gather 400 hp for each of my alters, so I’ll focus on the Rev as my new main. I have no intention to grind content instead of playing the game modes that provides me the fun.

Male Norn. As speissh muhreen as He could be.

I’ll make this my main. Due the huge amount of hp needed, I’ll not be able to spec all of my 10(11) toons, so I’ll focus my whole time with the Revenant. First day fully equiped and level 80 with all skills and traits, and a few days more to bruteforcing Glint in the old Tyria map hero points.

Over 4k hours in the game 10 characters up to 80 full unlocked here, I do play WvW and PvP mostly.

The new hero point system is THRASH.

400 hp for a single character? Easy. For each of my 10 (soon 11) characters? INSANE. They even destroyed my main source of character progression (PvP tomes, due they replaced the skill points for hero points without enabling any sort of getting them in PvP).

I’ll must be forced to abandon most of my toons and to play only my main.

I also think now that the Anet promises of “no level progression” are bs. Yeah, you don’t need to rise from 80 to 85 as in other games; literaly they said the truth. But in the spirit, they broke their promises: HoT really demands you to level your character up to 160, because you need ~ the same amount of points to fully unlock your spec as your whole vanilla traits and skills. And for each toon.

The same with forcing players to abandon dungeons and doing fractals/raids instead: fractals requiere ascended gear and insfusions; ascended gear is expensive, and is a mandatory gear checking. This will not longer be a “affordable game for newbies”.

Misguided.5139:

The game isn’t balanced around 1v1s.

That absurd litany of “the game isn’t balanced 1 vs 1” lost all sense after the last month ESL tournament, in which a team of four elementalist and a thief did rolfstomp over the whole competition. The game isn’t balanced. Not at 1 vs 1, not at 3 vs 3 and not at blob vs blob. Some builds clearly hardcounter some others, some skills and traits are borderline useless and there’s a lot fo disparity.

But this isn’t a rant: fortunately most of classes are more or less viable in every game mode, and fortunately big disparities in performance can be gradually fixed. But stop arguing “the game isn’t balanced at 1 vs 1” as an excuse or justification because that song lost all meaning long time ago.

Now, on topic:

The revenant seems very strong offensively, with a few drawbacks in defense. For WvW raid as frontliner the best bet seems to be Glint + Halis, using either hammer + staff or hammer + mace/shield as weapons. Hoelbrack should be the most usefull rune for a while. Herald, Retribution and Invocation as traitlines.

In duel/roaming a Shiro + Glint seems the most viable, probably with hammer + sword x2 or sword/shield. Another options based on conditions can work combining Shiro + Mallyx or Mallyx + Glint, replacing the hammer for mace/axe.

I did enjoy the Gwand channel along the betas, He has some nice builds and skill to take advantage from them, so you can form your own opinion about the revenat after taking a look at:

I’ll use a full ascended armor with celestial stats and Hoelbrack runes for WvW raid, plus berserker weapons and changing my trinkets based on which build I’ll choose.

Then, I’ll swap to exotic berserker or dire armor in roaming. I guess that celestial is a good choice for only the armor due the amount of points in the total is low (most of the points came from the jewelry), so celestial is a fair bet for the core (your armor).

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

I have 15 characters with 189/189 HP

Sacrx “The Machine”, leader of Red Guard guild was the first player to reach the 250k kills WvW achievement. His main has like 12% of the PvE map unlocked.

My point is: the fact that some players (as you) seems to enjoy doing PvE don’t must mean than some others which doesn’t care about that game mode should be forced to do PvE in order to progress, SPECIALLY SINCE THAT WASN’T THE CASE BEFORE (with the old skill point system).

I’m sure that the current PvP and WvW players are well aware about GW2 being a game oriented towards PvE, and well aware also about that playing PvP/WvW is less rewarding in terms of gold/materials, but we accept that handicap in exchange to being able to progress slowly in game modes we really enjoy. But there’s a difference beween “slowly progressing” and “play PvE or get handicaped”.

The skill point system was better: you were always able to progress in the game no matter if you were only a devoted player of PvE, WvW or PvP.

XP points did provide level progression and level progression was equal to skill points, tradeable by skills, traits and some valuable recipes. Even PvP granted level progression and skill points progression.

If the new hero system really requires 170-250 points to unlock every character specialization and level progression in WvW or PvP doesn’t grant hero points then can be said that the system is unfair, and that Arenanet is forcing bottlenecks making mandatory some kind of gameplay and game modes to being able to progress.

Focusing gameplay in fractals (which is niche and requieres very expensive gear to progress), raids (which were described as a game mode which not everyone will be able to do) and this new mega-grinding system of hero points effectively discourages me from playing my alts. Arenanet is walking on ice here...

Stats in PvP are normalized (everyone has the same, albeit is your choice to use one amulet or other and the kind of traits you select).

Doesn’t matter if you walk into PvP with a lvl 5 character wearing white armor/weapons or your character is a consumated lvl 80 toon full of ascendant gear and legendary weapons. Doesn’t affect the stats at all in PvP.

What happens is that you’re fighting against experienced players using very carefully created builds while you are making probably sub-optimal choices and lack knowledge and experience about a ton of aspects of the game. Plus, the game isn’t balanced 1 vs 1, which means that some classes/builds can hardcounter others with ease. But isn’t a big deal due you can lose every 1 vs 1 in the game and still being able to win the match if you play to win.

Darknicrofia.2604:

Vogel.9613:

Switching from Guard:
- Wall of Reflection
- Easy access to stability and condi cleanse

you can trait to gain 2 stacks of stab per dodge, pretty sure that’s even easier access than guards.

Is not even close; you will not save evades (which must be used mostly against burst and dangerous attacks) just for having stability on demand, which means that oftenly when you will need that stab will not be there.

As guardian having good access to stab/stunbreakers and condition clensing will be the things I’ll miss the more.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Bow has a RoF equal to engineer’s Hip Shot (Rifle 1)

Shield has aoe aegis on SoJ (shield 4).

I was specifically talking about the speed of the projectiles, not the rate of fire. A high rate of fire doesn’t help at all if your shots fly so slow that people can prevent the impacts just walking to the sides strafing them over the distance of 600 units. Both the scepter and the longbow in the guardian are really inconsistent over that range due how slow their shots fly.

And aegis isn’t a replacement for “blocks over x seconds”. Works well against PvE foes that rely on power hits or some character builds based on stuns, knockdowns, etc… but is utterly crap against any build based on spams (most of condi builds, most of the ones based on auto attacks or things like ranger’s LB #2).

I have over 4k hours in the game, more than 3k of them on my guardians, and never got any use of the shield in any section of the game. Same with every signet and every spiritual weapon.

I just did two Revs this weekend for the sake of playing with the right head/hair/tatoos and color tonnes. Forget about the armor and their dyes, is all about the right face, which will bring most of the personality to the character.

What I was trying to achieve was a trustworthy avatar of Angron, with the red facial marks and the mohawk + hair tress emulating the cranial implants. I’m still undecided about going with the beard, which isn’t canon but ads a lot of diferentiation:

[URL=http://s21.photobucket.com/user/Ondoval/media/GW2%20Heart%20of%20Thorns/HoT%20Angron%201.jpg.html][IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b272/Ondoval/GW2%20Heart%20of%20Thorns/HoT%20Angron%201.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s21.photobucket.com/user/Ondoval/media/GW2%20Heart%20of%20Thorns/HoT%20Angron%202.jpg.html][IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b272/Ondoval/GW2%20Heart%20of%20Thorns/HoT%20Angron%202.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Jongi.7612:

So what exactly do you guys want? I hear bow is crap, traps are crap, blah blah blah… so what do you guys want to see? I think it makes encounters pretty kitten easy to deal with and is actually pretty good so saying everyone is complaining about it is entirely wrong.

A signet or trait that provides 25% enhanced speed while selected.
A ranged weapon which projectiles are comparable in speed to bows, rifles or pistols in other classes. Some form of condition must exist in the auto attack.
Some cripple/chill effects linked to that weapon skils.
A shield which blocks/is viable in the game.

Is that hard?