Guild Wars 2

What is*

There really is no reason to not use Sw/P for leveling. You can use other weapons but itll be a LOT harder against groups since sword is the only weapon that cleaves. Youll die a lot more to since you can’t avoid as much dmg as Sw/P can.

For your first 15 trait points I’d suggest putting them in acrobatics. Thatll make it even easier to survive. Then just keep dumping them into crit strikes/deadly arts until you end up with 25/30/0/15/0. Your armor should be full power/precision gear, and full power/precision/crit dmg once you get to lvl 65+. Stick a sigil of bloodlust on your sword as well. You could even buy life steal food to make it do it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to die.

I have a very tanky/supporty build in my sig

Basically, HT, HGH with cleansing formula, or dont get hit by the condis in the first place (best option, since you have tons of dodges, interrupts, blinds, and blocks.)

Cygnus.6903:

Carpboy.7145:

Cygnus.6903:

I’m fine with the 8%. It is a justifiable nerf that doesn’t wreck the skill.

Taking out the regen from Dogged March is way more painful.

Those leaked notes are confirmed fake

I will believe that when I see it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/RE-Leaked-patch-notes

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Lore-wise any race works as a Mesmer. I picked Sylvari for mine because I had the idea of a villainous sylvari that used spores to cause hallucinations. As far as aesthetics the bigger races look more odd as scholar classes compared to sylvari, human, or asura. But I’d go sylvari, cuz … this:

Hey Chris.

I stand by my motto of charr=master race, but that is some cool armor. What is it? Im assuming cultural?

If you have at least 5 in acrobatics, dodge and use 2 (or 3, if you can get 3) heart seekers. If you don’t have swiftness, or are trying to teleport up a cliff for example use SB. Wooden potatoes has an excellent video on how shadow steps and blinks work, i strongly suggest you watch it. It helps out with teleporting up cliffs sooo much

You could try an axe

X/30/30/X/X is the standard d/p or d/d WvW build, with the last 10 points either in deadly arts for mug or fleet shadow/descent of shadow in acrobatics. Go into spvp and test it in a duel server to see how you like it and get the hang of combat again.

The meta dungeon thief build is 25/30/0/0/15 or 25/30/0/15/0 for more survivability. Sw/P for trash, D/D for bosses. If you bring anything other than that, especially into Arah, youll get kicked. Ranged is the absolute worst thing you can do on lupi, since that will make him shadow step to you. Not to mention ranged does less DPS anyway

Cygnus.6903:

I’m fine with the 8%. It is a justifiable nerf that doesn’t wreck the skill.

Taking out the regen from Dogged March is way more painful.

Those leaked notes are confirmed fake

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons

These guys will be able to help you a lot more

The meta thief dungeon build is 25/30/0/0/15 for max dmg, but you can run 25/30/0/15 if you have trouble surviving. While leveling, Sw/P is extremely easy. You just drop #5 on a group of mobs and cleave them down with autoattack. #3 is great for an interrupt and also evades for the duration. I put my first 10 points into acrobatics, to get swiftness on dodge and vigor on heal (use withdraw, aim your camera backwards and use it, while your rolling move your camera back to normal. I use that to get around really quickly. From there it doesn’t really matter, i stuck Em in deadly arts/crit strikes cus more dmg is always better for leveling. From there just start working your way towards 25/30/0/15. Sw/P for trash, D/D for bosses

D/p will help with all of that. Use #2 and #3 as spammable gap closers. They also do quite a bit of dmg, and #3 blinds. Much easier stealth access means you can sneak up on ranged, and allows you to wait for the perfect time to backstab

Be a hipster like me. Make a charr mesmer
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FVAUbZ62CC4M
This video was just to show off legendaries, but this guy uses pretty much the same armor and color scheme as i do.

If youre full zerker, why the hell are you not 30 in critical strikes on the first build? 0/30/25/15/0 with energy sigils is way good for full zerker. you do lose some sustain from shadows rejuvenation, but youre full zerker so youre not trying to out sustain the fight anyway. You’re looking to get it over with as quickly as possible. (The lost sustain can also be made up with life steal food). You’re much better off using the extra evades to avoid taking dmg in the first place, rather than trying to regenerate it up, especially for a full zerk build.

NEOCROM.8957:

Seen a guy writing that with full zerker you gen get 2-3k def o.0. I only got 900-1000 so any tips of how i can get so much def, which runes and accesories should i use and what else?

That guy is lying, you need toughness runes 30 in defense, and dolyak signet. You go down to 2700 once youre below 90% and use stability. Far from full zerker

Build in my sig

lazycalm.5186:

Solo roaming – Ele over Engineer? Really?

They’re about tied

Send a ticket to mods. permaban sounds about right. At the very least a100 day suspension

Its a racial. Albeit one of the stronger racials, not everyone can take it because theyre not a charr, and its automatically weaker just cus its a racial

magic fly.2041:

That would be 360 health per second after the patch.

The mesmer’s passive healing signet is 326.6 health per second, but only if they have three illusions active.

Elementalist’s passive healing signet is 168 health per attack, but I hear something along the line of the skill getting un-split so I assume after the update it would be 202 health per cast. Ele would get a good amount less than 202 health per second, and a negligible boost when using instant cast attacks.

Necromancer’s passive signet give them 325 health each time they are attacked, with a 1 second cooldown. People don’t attack exactly once every second, so I would assume it would be just as bad as ele’s passive healing skill on average. Even if the impossible happened and it gives 325 health per second, it won’t do as well as healing signet will constantly do all the time after the nerf.

For a passive healing skill that, unlike the others, isn’t situational, it should never outdo the situational ones at all when in an optimal environment that the situational ones work best in.
The elementalist and necromancer ones are the most situational, but are still the worst even when everything plays out perfectly for them.
The least situational, warrior’s healing signet, on the class with the most armor and health, is the most effective all the time without the player ever worrying about how to maximize the skill’s usage, even after the inconsequential 8% nerf.
This is a problem.

Im not going to disagree with you that HS needs toned down, (tho good players counter it quite easily, aka poison. Play a warrior and notice how much faster you drop with poison on you.)

But the reason warrior has such high armor, health, and regen, is simply because thats all they have. They don’t have any protection, any blinds (well 1, but its a long CD), any stealth, any teleports, or any clones/pets to soak hits for them. The thing is, those types of things require skill to actually use effectively. Its why new players can jump on a warrior and do really well, since all you have to worry about is doing damage. However stick them against a good player of another class with these kinds of active defenses and theyll get mutilated. If you simply compare a warriors stats vs an eles stats (for example), the warrior will always look better on paper. Thats because these kinds of active defense, aka blinds/protection/teleports/clones cannot be looked at as actual defense as paper. Many people underestimate how much defense these things actually provide, which used by a skilled player is a lot tankier than your standard warrior. But thats the thing, those kinds of defenses require SKILL to use properly. You can’t expect to make a thief with the same stats as a warrior, while also doing the high dmg a warrior can, because of all the blinds and stealth they can get. Its the same thing as giving a warrior stealth and tons of blinds. Im sure everyone can agree with me that would be completely broken.

Sorry for the rant, its just a lot of things ive started to notice as i get into higher and higher level pvp

Most of those patches were temporary, so you can’t go back and do them

8% is only 30 health per sec. Relax

You’ve got a lot of options. You could go bursty SD, or more sustained HGH rifle/nades. Even decap engi uses rifle.

You’re flat out lying about those stats, especially with lyssa runes. This is as close as i could get, also notice both sigils are trying to buff the crit chance.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoaVlUmaPHfS6E+5Ey2jeqCJKuHGlT1UdFiKA-jwBB4fCiUEgEBApmFRjtNoIasabYqYER1SBonyI-e

Ok so one more quick question. If i were to drop hair trigger in favor of protection in inventions, or cloaking device, which do you think would be better, 20% CD on pistols or 5 1/2 seconds of protection every 20 sec, or more stealth, and more target drops when solo roaming is always good. Especially since im using nades, the only thing I’d really miss is glue shot having a 6 sec longer CD, but glue shot isnt that great anyway, and static shot having a 3 sec longer CD. A couple seconds on CDs traded for good protection uptime or another target drop sounds good to me.

As an example. I dont think i can stay at 25 might anymore tho

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalspyXnuSiF17ISoCFmoHPGlNZfe8WsFEC-j0CBYhBEbBhWAgoAhEBMFtIaslhBp6KalXhVJjIqWpETKAImGB-w

Sw/P for trash, D/D for bosses. 25/30/0/15/0 is much more forgiving than 25/30/0/0/15, the true max DPS build. So basically dont waste dodges. Use PW as an evade if you do waste them

LLaG.9218:

Woah, didnt knew that. Thanks man

Not a lot of people do :/

When malrona poisons you, you do a kitten ton of extra damage. Warriors can get 100k 100b. People who cleanse it are scrubs. Tail up, get git because its poison, tail down, dodge cus its the oneshot.

Ty both for the videos. I think i will probably go condi nades at first, then try experimenting with other variations. No offense to you ukuni, you had awesome gameplay, i think i just like the way condis can melt people instead of setting up burst combos with a rifle.

Maska, i noticed you seem to do really well survivability wise, but i also noticed you were saving every dodge, every blind to stay alive. Im not at that point yet (i know, i know, filthy casual) which is why i feel i need the extra armor from my build.

Well, the main upgrade with ascended weapons is the weapon strength, the actual stat increase is almost non existent. That means itd go well with some kind of hybrid dmg build. In that case is say go for a carrion/dire P/D thief with perplexity or an HGH might stacking engi

30/25/0/0/15 full zerk, scholar runes, etc. use banner of strength and discipline, or if there is more than 1 warr coordinate who will use which banner. Use FGJ for easy stuff, but if you need stability or some dmg immunity being endure pain or balanced stance.

Weapons are GS+axe/Ma. You pretty much use axe #2 and mace #4 off CD, and spam axe autoattack. You only use GS for a quick 100b+whirlwind+rush combo, then its back to axe/Ma. This is the absolute highest DPS warrior build available

Loco.2830:

so does it heal you for the same amount they hit you for?

No, its a set amount, but it heals per tick of condition on you, and if you eat a 100b or pistol whip its decent. Mostly for front lining/commanding, it really, REALLY sucks for roaming

Defektive.7283:

Carpboy.7145:

Cons are bad things, pros are good things

This was an amazing post.

Ty. Best post NA? Sig worthy? Maybe even new All is Vain? O.o

Maskaganda.2043:

http://tinyurl.com/psgswsn

protective shield instead of cloaking device most of the time now.

I might be missing something, but that build looks worse than the build i posted. You trade 400 armor for 200 power. It has less condi dmg, less armor, and no real way to apply that extra power. TK doesn’t really seem like a good match. Sure prybar can hit hard, but its got a cool down, and only so hard since there is no crit dmg. I think you underestimate how much bleeds you can stack with nades, shrapnel, and sharpshooter. especiallt with nearly 3k condi dmg, theyll hurt really bad. That is a good point about straight boon duration runes tho. Im nervous about the rune change especially since they mentioned stacking boon duration. All in all, it seems like ill have to play around with it. Rifle/nades with IP sounds really good to me all of a sudden.

Yes.

cough underwater cough

Maskaganda.2043:

I wouldn’t use the build above, looks for something that only works if you are planning to stand on a wall throwing nades while someone does the tanking for you down by the gate.

noble runes give you 40% might duration, why use them over 2 x travelers, 2x monk, 2x water is beyond me, certainly 45% boon duration on every boon is better than 40% for might alone.
the might on heal is not too bad, but you likely get more dps from the increased duration on fury and retaliation and you certainly get alot more survivability from the increased duration on protection, regen, switfness, stability; this will normally also translate as more dps as more survivability allows you to keep the pressure up for longer rather than going on the defense as soon as your target sneezes at you.

besides, the build already has enhanced performance, thats enough to get you to 25 might. I still rather use incendiary powder, even if it means I rarely hit 25 might, mainly for that “first strike” condi pressure, 4-5 conditions on the first 1-2 hits with one of them being burn -for 6+ seconds every 10 seconds- is hard to beat, especially when you have blowtorch ready as soon as they cleanse the first burn.

personally I prefer using toolkit, the defense is much better on it and the damage pressure is generally just as good. remember grenades don’t add in damaging conditions to your pistol skills (except for shrapnel trait). grenades are good at covering the damage conditions but then again that build above doesnt have ip so there’s not really much to cover outside of blowtorch.

as for enemies health melting away, you can imagine what happens when instead of 2500 condi dmg, you have 2200 condi and 2200 power at 50% crit chance. :p

Can you link your build please?

Just do the same stuff in this thread, but ascended.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first

The best way to learn pvp is simply doing it. Wooden potatoes and matte do have a series that covers pretty much everything you need to know, so id first watch those and then jump right in

People are constantly posting builds on the various profession forums. If their arent any on your professions page or you don’t really like any of them, make your own on gw2skills and post it, have people give advice and critique it

Sorry, i should have clarified WvW or PVE. Its for solo WvW. Here is the primary condi dmg one

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqal0pyXnuSiF17ICoC5loHPGlNZfe8WPIEC-jUCBYhBEbBhWAgoAhEBMFtIasVhFRjVJjIqWpETKAImGB-w

Stick on 25 stacks of might since its incredibly easy to get that much. You wind up with 2500 condi dmg, (not 3500 my bad) and over 2k power. Put corruption stacks and youve got 2750 condi dmg. Swap corruption pistol to a bursting one and youve got nearly 3k condi dmg. People’s health bars just melt. The primary power version is the same, just with zerkers armor and a rifle. Blunderbuss can one shoot squishies, and jumps hot can oneshot even fairly tanky targets. Thats where im having the trouble of power vs condi.

Also im wondering how you survive in this sort of build. You’ve got massive condi and power pressure, decentish toughness, elixir S, and 2 blinds. You don’t have a whole lot of active defense like vigor/energy sigils or any blocks, and really poor sustain. It looks great for 1v1/duels, but im wondering how i can handle multiples with no mobility either :/

Julie Yann.5379:

Carpboy.7145:

10/0/30/30/0 full PTV, hammer+Sw/Wh. Use all shouts since you trait shouts heal with soldier runes

Too bad the best warrior build for front line is also the lamest build to play. If want to maximize your contribution to the group, this is the build to play but don’t expect to get a ton of excitement out of it.

Thats true. I never said it was fun or engaging to play :/

I just have a fairly short and simple question. Obviously with HGH and various other might stacking runes and traits, you get either really high power/condi dmg, and fairly decent power/condi dmg (depends on the gear you choose.) so HGH nades with full rabid for example, i wind up with 3500+ condi dmg and 2k power, but with HGH nades and zerker armor i get 3500+ power, and 1300+ condi dmg. My question is which do you think is more effective? Absurd condi dmg with decent power, or absurd power with decent condi dmg? Im also a bit undecided about weapons. Rifle obviously for the zerker gear one, but im torn between rifle or p/p for the rabid one. Any help here would be greatly appreciated

10/0/30/30/0 full PTV, hammer+Sw/Wh. Use all shouts since you trait shouts heal with soldier runes

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJASRjkOFvpQCPMxBE0DNsK4C1D7YDjjUBxA-j0BBYfBiiAgABKHtIasVRFRjVXDT5iIqWKA9EGB-w

This is my personal build. As you can see its very tanky yet still has extremely high dmg for how tanky it is. its a bit squishy, but it also works great in zergs. Charging through the frontline and earthshaking the backline with your hammer on steroids dmg is awesome fun. I’ve been experimenting with taking out cleansing ire for defy pain and leg specialist for the +20%dmg under 25% health. Crazy risk vs reward synergy there. But i often miss the adrenaline you get from cleansing ire.
This build is also getting a huge buff on the 2handed weapon sigil patch. Ill be using impact/air on hammer and perception/hydromancy on GS (you could use force or air instead of perception but i hate seeing my big moves not crit :/ ). Impact alone more than makes up for the crit dmg nerf, and air is just another 3-5k hit every 5 seconds

Condi builds are typically either 0/30/20/0/20 or 0/20/30/0/20 with full dire. There are a few ones with shouts and apothecary gear, 0/10/20/30/10. LB is a great weapon. It scales awesome with power and condi, and you don’t have to actually hit anything with the f1 to clear condis with cleansing ire. You can use hambow (spvp only), axe/Sw+LB (popular tpvp roaming/dueling build), or GS/bow (my favorite build for tpvp, 30/0/20/0/20, zerkers any and lyssa runes. I use bulls charge+frenzy+100b and it often oneshots people just like the good old days. Arcing arrow hits incredibly hard, especially on a point with multiple people, and you can pindown→100b as well. Awesome tpvp roamer/team fight burst).

30/25/0/0/15 full zerk, scholar runes, etc with GS+Axe/Ma is the meta PVE build

You need 3 things for roaming.
1.damage

2. Escapabilty/chaseability

3. Sustain

Healway just has sustain, and while it is a lot of sustain, its not enough

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRArd8elUgSDHHyNEf4Eh1DAeQ/VVIeXPgYEbIA-jUCBYfDim+IwEIRM1UQM3UZtYqIas6aYKXAqYLqWGA9xA-w
This build offers all of that. Change the food to omnom berry ghosts and youve got extremely high sustain, really great dmg, tons of blinds, blocks, and dodges for defense, and soft CC through hydromancy sigils for chasing/sticking on people, and teleports with sword and JI to either get away or chase.
(Dont use hydromancy/energy until the March 18th patch. 2 on swap sigils are bugged in that one will put the other on CD, without getting the benefit of the second. Just use energy/accuracy for now. Should give you plenty of time to get the gear anyway)

EnderzShadow.2506:

None of yours, hopefully.

Ooooooooh roooaaaassssstttteeeeddddd!!!!!!!!

You need 3 things for roaming.

1.damage

2. Escapabilty/chaseability

3. Sustain

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRArd8elUgSDHHyNEf4Eh1DAeQ/VVIeXPgYEbIA-jUCBYfDim+IwEIRM1UQM3UZtYqIas6aYKXAqYLqWGA9xA-w

This build offers all of that. Change the food to omnom berry ghosts and youve got extremely high sustain, really great dmg, tons of blinds, blocks, and dodges for defense, and soft CC through hydromancy sigils for chasing/sticking on people, and teleports with sword and JI to either get away or chase.

(Dont use hydromancy/energy until the March 18th patch. 2 on swap sigils are bugged in that one will put the other on CD, without getting the benefit of the second. Just use energy/accuracy for now. Should give you plenty of time to get the gear anyway)

WonderfulCT.6278:

Carpboy.7145:

Thats what happens when you use PVE builds in WvW. People make threads about how OP your dmg is

This thread isn’t for comments, someone asked me to show it, so I did.

…forums are for making comments…show that one person the screenshot then. You won’t have to deal with stupid kitten heads making comments then

For PVE S/P for trash, D/D for bosses. For WvW both are good, but D/D is a lot better 1vX because of stealth

Buying green stuff off the TP costs next to nothing, and when you’re done with it you can just salvage it and get most, if not all your money back. I try to get new armor, weapons, and trinkets every ~10 levels or so