Guild Wars 2

This is the best way I can describe trying to make your own build.

It’s like buying a house. You see it, you like it, and you want to bring your friends/family along for a second opinion. They can tell you whatever they want, but in the end its up to you to decide if you like it or not.

Everyone on this forum has their own opinions and you have to take it with a grain of salt.

DanH.5879:

they still have no clue that pve<>pvp<>wvw in terms of balance…

Balance the game around PvP first and then adjust the PvE accordingly.

I mean, the only real difference between PvP and PvE is mobs stand still in PvE.

You have to stand inside the Shadow Refuge for the full duration to get the stealth effect so aoe the crap out of it.

Tarsius.3170:

It just means the regen boon lasts 30% longer – so how many extra ticks can complete within the additional time.

So if you have 30% bonus and it’s a 6 second regen it’ll be 7.8 seconds instead and pulse every 1s?

Codo.2860:

Brutaly.6257:

This chart, along side extensive gameplay has led me a couple of conclusions:

1. Armor>Vitality as long as there some sort of heal
2. Armor improves heals
3. As long as you build for condition removal Armor>Vitality
4. The ideal armor for a guardian would be crit/toughness and either healing power or critical damage. Both would be beast when a guardian use them and i cant see Anet ever introducing them but one can hope.
5. Armor>Vitality vs bursts, as long as you stack passive SoJ and have protection in utilities/virtues.
6. Vitality are for children and elderly that want a slower gameplay and dont have time to react to incoming damage :-) Joke aside, vitality only benefit, an opinion ofc, is that its less cd depedent and fully passive and can from time to time be nice to have versus bursts.

Very interesting considerations!

I pretty much agree but…
4. I don’t know enough about healing power but from my math precision should be just enough to trigger on-critical effect reasonably often. Past this point power is better for DPS. This makes critical damage too not so over-the-top to me.
5. Even with SoJ and protection it seems to me that +100 vitality with 16k total health is a 6,25% resistance increase to burst, while +100 toughness with 3k armor is only a -3,33% to damage. To me vitality must be handled in the same way as precision: it’s useful until it make possible to survive a burst, but past this point toughness is the winner.

Given these considerations I go for a mix of knight and soldier.

If you’re using the Greatsword and are relying primarily on Critical Proc’s to heal yourself for AH than Precision will be your better bet because AH scales rather poorly with healing power.

If you’re trying to be a Tank and are using the Mace as your primary weapon than stacking Healing Power with Toughness gives you much better effective health than straight stacking Vitality and Toughness.

Vitality is still useful for Guardian’s to help give you a buffer against heavy burst, but it’s not the best stat to be straight stacking.

How does regen work with boon duration bonuses? If you have +30% boon duration, does it mean your regen’s heal for 30% more or do they pulse an extra time?

My Thief has 2600 armor. My Guardian has 3200 armor.

The passive survivability difference is much more noticeable. My Thief can’t sit there and take a beating in WvW, but I have more tools and mobility at my disposal to get away from players. On my Guardian I’m always on the frontlines and I don’t take nearly as much damage as my Thief.

In PvE I can tank on my Guardian, but can’t even try it on my Thief.

Raiding becomes a second job and for me I already put in my dues.

Being able to log on and do whatever you want or not log on and come on a week later is a bonus.

Did it in8 minutes with 2 Necros, 2 Elementalist, and me on my Guardian. lol

Added a couple new skills to my original post before the wiki crashed.

AH really is a huge bonus to our self-healing capabilities.

John.7025:

honestly dont see why people are only wanting 4 warriors

People want to feel special entitlement with what class they’re playing.

WoW is a game based around the carrot on the stick mentality. The ultimate goal is to keep you (the players) occupied for 6 months-1 year until the next content patch is released. Raiding is essentially a second job.

GW2 doesn’t have a subscription, but they bank off the gem store by using your addictions to buy items to improve your character. Transmutation stones are probably their #1 selling item.

The difference between GW2 and WoW is gear in GW2 is primarily for looks.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

I think your numbers might be off. Altruistic healing takes advantage of 1% of your total healing power. 69+ (0.01*Healing Power).

With 0 healing power + AH + Staff Empower + 5 people for 12 stacks (60 ticks) = 4140.
With 2000 healing power + AH + Staff Empower + 5 people for 12 stacks (60 ticks) = 5340.

Healing power is just weak for AH.

Might just double check your formula.

EDIT: Nevermind. Just saw that you added the 1500 heal from the staff itself. I find healing power and AH is rather a waste. I would only roll healing power if I was doing symbol healing or the Healway build.

AH scales poorly with healing power (1500 healing power is a whopping 15 extra healing), but with the Mace it can trigger up to 5 times per second because the Symbol regen boon triggers every second.

(0 +healing) With Symbol of Persistence it makes the Mace regen pulse 6 times so 6*5*69 = 2,070 extra healing to yourself. By yourself AH + Mace is an extra 414 healing which isn’t that impressive so the full benefit is near other players. That’s assuming they’re standing in it for the full duration.

With the Staff it’s just silly. It can proc 60 times (12 stacks of might for yourself + 4 people) in its full duration. 69*60 = 4,410 healing.

It is possible to do it in 7 minutes from when the gate opens.

Hoyvin.3241:

ComeAndSee.1356:

Arah isn’t a dungeon you want to sit there and farm. It’s a hit and run.

It is if you want the gear.

Yeah, once you get the gear you never want to walk in that dungeon ever again!

12-15 minutes on average. The only thing that slows you down is the flaming balls part if you don’t get it in the first hit.

Doing some number crunching on a spreadsheet on my end.

//

Symbol of Faith
(Writ of the Merciful, AH, and Writ of Persistence using the Mace.)

(yourself with AH and assuming 4 other people standing in it)
0 +healing = 3,492 health over 6 seconds
250 +healing = 3,867
500 +healing = 4,242
750 +healing = 4,617
1000 +healing = 4,992
1250 +healing = 5,367
1500 +healing = 5,742
2000 +healing = 6,492

(other players, no AH — remember, it can hit 5 people maximum // no battle presence, same traits above)
0 +healing = 1,422 healing over 6 seconds
250 +healing = 1,722
500 +healing = 2,022
750 + healing = 2,322
1000 + healing = 2,622
1250 + healing = 2,922
1500 + healing = 3,222
2000 +healing = 3,822

//

Staff Empower (AH on yourself)

0 +healing = 5,640 over full duration (AH procs 60 times)
250 +healing = 6,040
500 +healing = 6,440
750 +healing = 6,840
1000 +healing = 7,240
1250 +healing = 7,640
1500 +healing = 8,040
2000 +healing = 8,840

//

Staff Empower (other players, 5 max)

Heals for 1500 (base) plus your +healing. You can do the math yourself. :O

//

Symbol of Swiftness Healing (only works with Writ of Merciful & AH traits)

(yourself – 4 other players, AH trigger + Writ of Persistence – 5 pulses)
0 +healing = 2,260 healing (over 5s — basically 25 AH procs)
250 +healing = 2,416
500 +healing = 2,572
750 +healing = 2,728
1000 +healing = 2,885
1250 +healing = 3,041
1500 +healing = 3,197
2000 +healing = 3,510

//

Symbol of Swiftness on other players (Just Writ of Merciful procs, 5 players max)

0 +healing = 535 (over 5s)
250 +healing = 628
500 +healing = 722
750 +healing = 816
1000 +healing = 910
1250 +healing = 1,003
1500 +healing = 1,097
2000 +healing = 1,285

//

Selfless Daring (heals players around you + yourself when you dodge roll, in sPvP it heals for half as much)

0 +healing = 130
250 +healing = 379
500 +healing = 629
750 +healing = 879
1000 +healing = 1,129
1250 +healing = 1,379
1500 +healing = 1,629
2000 +healing = 2,129

//

Shield of Absorption (breaking dat bubble)

0 +healing = 1,300
250 +healing = 1,350
500 +healing = 1,400
750 +healing = 1,450
1000 +healing = 1,500
1250 +healing = 1,550
1500 +healing = 1,600
2000 +healing = 1,700

//

Pure of Heart (trait that heals when Aegis breaks — scales like crap)

0 +healing = 645
250 +healing = 670
500 +healing = 695
750 +healing = 720
1000 +healing = 745
1250 +healing = 770
1500 +healing = 795
2000 +healing = 820

//

Virtue of Resolve & Battle Presence

(passive)
0 +healing = 84 (every 3s) – Absolute Resolution -> 105
250 +healing = 99 – AR -> 124
500 +healing = 114 – AR -> 143
750 +healing = 129 – AR -> 162
1000 +healing = 144 – AR -> 180
1250 +healing = 159 – AR -> 199
1500 +healing = 174 – AR -> 218
2000 +healing = 204 – AR -> 255

Virtue of Resolve (activation)

0 +healing = 1,625
250 +healing = 1,812
500 +healing = 2,000
750 +healing = 2,187
1000 +healing = 2,375
1250 +healing = 2,562
1500 +healing = 2,750
2000 +healing = 3,125

//

Shelter

0 +healing = 4,555
250 +healing = 4,730
500 +healing = 4,905
750 +healing = 5,080
1000 +healing = 5,255
1250 +healing = 5,505
1500 +healing = 5,630
2000 +healing = 5,955

//

Signet of Resolve

0 +healing = 8,150
250 +healing = 8,462
500 +healing = 8,775
750 +healing = 9,088
1000 +healing = 9,401
1250 +healing = 9,714
1500 +healing = 10,027
2000 +healing = 10,650

//

Healing Breeze

0 +healing = 6,525 (self) — 1,725 (allies)
250 +healing = 6,775 (s) – 1,975 (a)
500 +healing = 7,025 (s) – 2,225 (a)
750 +healing = 7,275 (s) – 2,475 (a)
1000 +healing = 7,525 (s) – 2,725 (a)
1250 +healing = 7,775 (s) – 2,975 (a)
1500 +healing = 8,025 (s) – 3,225 (a)
2000 +healing = 8,525 (s) – 3,725 (a)

//

Sigil of Water

(30% chance on crit to heal you + nearby allies)
0 +healing = 370
250 +healing = 395
500 +healing = 420
750 +healing = 445
1000 +healing = 470
1250 +healing = 495
1500 +healing = 520
2000 +healing = 570

Bull Zooker.1672:

comeandsee – ok thats interesting, do you happen to know if it’s any better with guardian or necro (random I know but theyre my other toons)

I don’t have a Necro, but with Guardian’s it depends on what weapon you’re using.

If you’re using the Greatsword or Hammer your healing comes from boon proccing with AH which doesn’t scale well with +healing. It’s not that great.

If you’re using the Mace it scale’s very well because you have the Regen Duration, Healing from Writ, and AH — basically three sources your +healing can invest into.

Eliyahu.1467:

McDili.1549:

George Steel.1804:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Hey folks, sorry about not having posted in here for a while! But update time!

I took another look at Simin after the spark AI fix, and got more feedback concerning the difficulty. The sparks were a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t enough. I’m going to reduce her stealth healing this time around while I consider other possible changes. As it stands right now she has some nice mechanics with the tears and the spark running, which emphasizes the teamwork we like to see. However all that aside, her healing turns it from a fun mechanics fight to a more hard-nosed DPS check for even the most mechanically skilled groups.
Personally I would much rather see people having fun with mechanics than having meet a DPS check. Considering also there isn’t a visible meter to check your group DPS versus her healing, groups can spend hours doing this and reaching the same result, despite meeting the mechanical skill threshold.

I will eventually change her stealth mechanic so she doesn’t heal during it and instead does something else (like an enrage moment where she is invulnerable), but for now I’ll just take her healing down a peg to reduce the DPS needed to overcome the fight, so people can enjoy the mechanics of it.

Thanks!

Well, there it is. Enough crying from the community and I guess even the content made for us “hardcore” players goes down the chute. Time to go complain about the artificial difficulty of obtaining a legendary.

Now the only somewhat hard fight in the game will be reduced to a total kittening steamroll, and the dungeon master title acquired by people who couldn’t complete it but could cry on forums.

Matching a DPS check doesn’t make you hardcore.

Clearly it’s not all about DPS because there’s a hundred posts by people insisting they had tons of DPS and failed.

I have never had a problem with this fight, but I always go with coordinated groups with players that I know and work well with and trust to play their classes well.

If you’re failing on Simin, you need to stop blaming the mechanics and each member of that party need to take a good hard look at what they’re doing.

- Everyone should make increasing the group’s DPS as a whole a priority in their build.
- Nobody should ever go down during this fight.
- Nobody should be petrified for more than a fraction of a second.
- The tear thrower should be dpsing 95% of the time and throwing tears 5% of the time. Watch the buff bar to minimize the time hold a tear.
- Everyone should know exactly which spark they’re responsible for and go directly to it without aggroing any other sparks.

Do these things well and you’ve beaten Simin.

You don’t see anything wrong with that?

Dwayna is nothing short of a massive DPS and gear check like the final boss use to be in P1. Afaik this is the only boss in game that I’m aware of that requires absolute perfect coordination in order to beaten and is incredibly unforgiving in regards to mistakes. It emphasizes group composition more than actual skill. I mean, I had to relog off my tank built Guardian for my Thief just to beat it which obviously proves its class + build + gear > skill.

Lupi is an example of a boss that is difficult, but it’s really on the skill of the person kiting the boss and everyone being able to dodge red circles. It’s very forgiving because you can still res people.

Hoyvin.3241:

ComeAndSee.1356:

Hoyvin.3241:

swiftpaw.6397:

it’s not like the dungeon master title means kitten in this game anyway lol.

Not when you can buy it from this guy, no. It’s worthless. You don’t see it as a problem?

They’re going to nerf it eventually anyway.

I mean, look at the CoF P1 final boss. Use to be a DPS check as well, but now you can just ignore the fight mechanics and burn the boss down.

I don’t disagree that the effigy is a joke now, but dumbing it down for the masses and then selling runs for the rest isn’t the answer.

Arah isn’t a dungeon you want to sit there and farm. It’s a hit and run.

Hoyvin.3241:

swiftpaw.6397:

it’s not like the dungeon master title means kitten in this game anyway lol.

Not when you can buy it from this guy, no. It’s worthless. You don’t see it as a problem?

They’re going to nerf it eventually anyway.

I mean, look at the CoF P1 final boss. Use to be a DPS check as well, but now you can just ignore the fight mechanics and burn the boss down.

This is the build I use: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mVccMV9cmvbRomvbRo0axx0MVsqcak

I honestly recommend stacking more healing power. The Mace (with Traits in the Honor Tree + AH) scales exceptionally well with healing power. I’ve crunched the numbers and it’s roughly +100 healing a second for every +100 healing power with using the Mace.

Essentially you “out heal” the damage you take and can heal your team mates better than any other class in game. I would recommend having two sets of mace + shield, one with stacking +healing, and another that gives endurance when you kill mobs. Once you hit +25 stacks of +healing, swap out to the Endurance one because you can spam dodge roll heal a lot.

I want to do Fractal’s on my Thief, but my Thief is only lvl 2 which means I cannot do my lvl 20 & 30 dailies without having to grind. My mesmer is almost lvl 80 as well.

So right now I just do it on my Guardian.

Healing power doesn’t scale very well with Thieves. Our passive self-healing skills have low scaling multipliers.

I don’t see the point.

An “optimal” group can do it in 10 minutes. A regular pug group can do it in 12 minutes.

There’s nothing really to brag about because there’s easier and more convenient ways to get gold without having to grind the same dungeon for hours on end.

I mean, on my Guardian it took me a weekend to get enough gold to buy a full exotic set once I hit 80. On my Thief I had full exotics once I hit 80 and my Mesmer is already lined up with a planned gear set.

If you think you need 4 Warriors and 1 Mesmer to make gold in this game, you’re doing it wrong.

Also, to the Warriors who say Thiefs can’t outdps them and don’t have AOE damage — lol.

I don’t understand the constant zig zagging of boss difficulty.

You have bosses that are very easy to take down and others like Lupi which are fairly difficult if you don’t have a competent group.

P3 you have the two undead bosses which are more about having the “tank” avoid being smashed. It’s not too hard.

Second boss just stands there and doesn’t do anything special. You can kill him with two people easy.

Then Lupi which is probably one of the hardest bosses in the dungeon. (Dwayna isn’t hard, just a dumb DPS check.)

Then Wraithlord which is a free win after you do the P1 rings.

//

P1 is probably one of the hardest ones. Insanely annoying trash to skip and that Ooze boss makes me want to punch a baby because of that dumb Tar mechanic.

Healing breeze just isn’t nearly as good as our signet heal unfortunately.

Signet heal → Passive removes conditions, heals for more, heals faster, AND you can trait it (20% reduced CD on signets) to 32s.

haviz.1340:

Psybunny.8906:

Advantage of a knight guard (one is more than enough) is that he can pull the pack all in one spot and survive even the craziest pulls, while GCs can dps without interrupting for unneccesary dodges/evades. Melee kiting is still kiting.

Adventage of a guard is that he has other things to mitigate damage. Full toughness (~2000) gives you about 33% damage reduction. That’s not even near the craziest pulls.

If you’re min-maxing then most of the damage (for warrior atleast) relies more on uti/trait setup than gear anyways. In my case, same build, but different uti can make a 100b difference up to 6-8k. Zerker vs zerker can be very different and I choose not to drop my damage uti just to survive something one guard could accomplish easily for the whole group by himself.

Then we play very differently and I won’t convience you otherwise.

The “regular” Arah is skipping 90% of the trash anyways and fotm is so full of abuses that it’s not even funny anymore, those are horrible examples to use to back yourself up. Point is, GC can’t “tank” a risen group pull. Ofc anything can be kited, but in that case, your downtime makes due to that, makes your quest for max damage a moot point.

Those are arguably 2 hardest contents in the game. What else is there? Caudecus’ Manor? You don’t “tank” at all with GC.

There’s no need to try and high throne yourself. I also have DM myself and I play all the aspects of the game, from dungeons to paids in spvp. I think my knowledge goes a bit further than the narrowminded “speedrunning” specific dungeons/paths that you’re trying to rely your argument on. Difference between full zerker+full knight’s with zerker jewels is miniscule at best in damage, but at the same time the knight user can take tons of more punishment.

I’ve never throned myself, some dude did that.

I don’t speedrun any dungeon because you can’t speedrun Arah with random pugs I join. How playing paids in pvp has anything to do with aggro mechanics in pve? I play every kind of content except tournies but I had no idea you can learn from there how to manage you aggro.

If you run full knight’s (I assume armour and weapons) plus zerker’s jeweles you have 19% damage reduction while losing 8% damage when you don’t crit and 23% when you crit, that’s with 2000 power (warrior and guardian can both have 100% crit chance). I don’t see how “miniscule at best” and “tons of more” fits here.

It’s about min-maxing the build YOU want to meet. It’s too easy to just go full Berserker or Knight’s set, but sitting there and picking the items to get the certain stats you want is more interesting and skillful.

On my Thief I went for roughly 75% crit damage, 50% crit chance, and 2000 power and I put the rest into toughness and vitality. I’m wearing almost 5 out of 6 armor pieces toughness + vitality + power. Then on my traits I mixed up survivability with damage instead of going full max dmg so I can put out a reasonable amount of self-healing on myself constantly to keep myself alive.

My Guardian is “bunker” built, stacked high toughness, healing power, and power and mixed up with Celestial pieces and vitality. I can “tank” those trash packs in Arah, but they really do require going the extra mile and using the right skills (wall of reflection, stability, etc) and the full plateau of healing abilities (heal on dodge, hammer, staff, etc).

I’m not sure where I’m going to take my Mesmer yet once I hit 80, but like on my other classes its a trial and error process until I hit the benchmark I’m happy with.

They’ll add more items and more AR so you can get past the kitten blocks.

Alright, I’m going to give you guys the answer you don’t want to hear.

This is not an Anet issue, but an issue with the GW2LFG website. The traditional LFG system implemented in others MMOs only cares about three things “dps, healer, tank” and picks whatever is available.

When this game launched there was no GW2LFG website so you had to hunt around in map chat on your server or sit in front of dungeons to find players. You cared more about finding players than actual group composition and the ability to play with other players cross realm helped ease that problem.

Then gw2lfg became popular right around when Fractal’s came out and helped alleviate the problems above with finding players.

Now, the difference between gw2lfg and regular LFG tools is the players pick who they want, not the system. I mean, imagine trying to find 4 berserker warriors on a low pop server via map chat @ 3 pm EST on a Weekday — it’s not going to happen.

What GW2LFG should do is remove the “comments” option and create drop downs that only say which path you’re doing. It’s not a problem on Anet’s end, but a problem with the players, the tools available, and the ignorant few who are ruining it for everyone else.

A lot of things done differently in this game is to remove elitistism and this is one of those things that they won’t do.

The problem I see with Heartseeker more has to do with the difficulties in regards to actually being able to Backstab players in PvP.

When I cloak and dagger people (even with 50% run speed in stealth) I find it very hard to get behind people and land a backstab because they either dodge roll, they just out run me, or I get cc’d or some crap.

Heartseeker is just so efficient because it moves you to your target.

Our weapons are underpowered because we’re balanced around using our Mirror images instead of the weapon skills. I mean, the Staff is by far one of the slowest attacking weapons I’ve used so far in game. The Scepter is eh, but the Greatsword is very fun, but really limited defensive wise.

Really what’s killing me on this class is you only have one speed boost and it’s on such a long cooldown. My Guardian has a 12s Swiftness every 15s skill with the Staff and my Thief moves around like a cheetah with Speed Signet and Shortbow. In WvW you basically have to surrender either the Staff or Greatsword for a one-hander with focus offhand.

Ironically, my favorite Mesmer weapon is the trident.

They said they’re going to add Ascended gear slowly overtime. First we got Rings, now Amulets, so we should be expecting new items coming up shortly.

Weapons right now are just skins and there’s already a lot to choose from so that’s why I stopped doing Fractal’s because it’s not worth the time and effort.

I actually like TA and I find it right in the middle of the difficulty spectrum. There’s some packs that suck, but with Stabilities loaded up you can clear through them fine. Vevina is really the only annoying boss.

Nothing can compare to the aggravation level of the Graveling Scavenger’s in AC that will chain knock you down and full life you from 100%.

I’ve never actually done this dungeon.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Shadowfist.2708:

While I understand your meaning, I’d actually be more inclined to do it with a developer for the ensuing comedy. xD

Yeah, and upon retrospect, whenever I throw on my dev tag for a dungeon, people tend to show me exploits and point them out >.<
However I have been thoroughly amused at times. I tend to hide my dev tags when finding a PUG, and then halfway through the dungeon I will tag up, and watch everyone leave the instance within minutes.

Are we allowed to have fun with you? :O I would totally love to talk trash to a dev.

TheAngryLuddite.1834:

The class discrimination in higher level fractals is definitely frustrating, and I can only imagine it will get worse as the devs patch in more Ascended items so people can move past 40, unless they modify the fractals somehow.

At the same time, a good thief or engineer or any of the ‘less desired’ classes CAN be a boon to the group. And yet…

I do find that groups primarily composed of warriors and guardians tend to go much smoother than groups of varied light classes. It’s nice to have maybe one wildcard light class in the midst of the heavies.

I imagine it’s a very frustrating stigma and situation for classes that aren’t Guardians or Warriors (or Mesmers, which can also be a nice addition), as those classes have to work a lot harder to avoid criticism from the other players.

The answer to that dilemma? Outside of a sea change in player attitude, or sweeping changes to Fractals or Classes, I’m really not sure.

The problem really stems from a lack of understanding of what these other classes bring to the table that the others don’t.

Just throw the cheapo +5 AR into it for now.

I’ve seen people glitching out bosses, but the really questionable stuff was in Arah P2 where the party leader had the group glitch inside the map.

You couldn’t upgrade them at the forge?

High armor and wearing a shield tends to be the biggest aggro grab in game, but usually who gets the first in starts the chain.

I haven’t gotten a skin in two months (?). I got a Focus and Staff and that was it, but I have almost 30 rings now.

I have a Guardian and Thief.

• Guardian’s are too powerful in FOTM right now. Wall of Reflection, Shield of Avenger, shouts, and other stuff makes the encounters much easier especially if you got multiple ones chaining them.

• Thief really just has Shadow Refuge and no other utility besides straight damage (which they’re very good at). FOTM you don’t need to use Shadow Refuge, but in Arah’s it makes so much easier.

Food helps offset giving up specific stats in order to give others.

Let’s say you give up +100 Precision for +100 Vitality so you can eat precision food.

You’re just looking at only two things, but aren’t looking at the WHOLE package.

• There’s a trait 15 deep in Honor that heals players around you when you dodge roll for 1000-1500 (depends on +healing). If you have Vigor you can dodge roll a lot.
• The Mace with traits like Writ of Merciful can put out a very high amount of healing for players around you if you’re stacking +healing. It’s around 3,500-4,000~ (per player may I note with +1500 healing) if they stay in it for the full duration.
• Shield bubble can heal you and players around you for 1500~ if you break it.
• Staff empower heals for around 3000~ with +1500 healing.
• Tome of Courage (no questions asked) can put out a ridiculous amount of healing!
• Battle Presence is a powerful trait because #1. it’s constantly refreshing on players around you and #2. it’s a free, passive heal you don’t have to anything about.

We’re not a REAL healer, but we do have much better healing than any other class in game. I sure as hell make people happy though when I drop a symbol on them and start rolling around on the ground and top them off real quick.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

ComeAndSee.1356:

As soon as you walk into your first dungeons as an inexperienced lowbie you come to the realization that the majority of encounters DO currently favor ranged combat because many bosses have melee-ranged AOE abilities that make it extremely hazardous and then there are fights where you HAVE to used ranged weapons regardless.

Well, I think the thing I take issue with in your reply is what I have put in bold, and how it is something I felt I said in my post. Its about class mastery. It’s easy as ranged to let other people who are melee pull aggro while you stand off to the side and range them – nobody is ever going to argue that. But in the situation that it is a 1v1 and you are left with either melee or ranged, and you have to fend for yourself, I prefer melee weapons and am way better at handling 1v1 that way.

This thread claims that dungeons favor ranged players, which I disagree with. Group dynamics favor ranged players due to them having to be less active in their damage mitigation, allowing them to focus more on damage output. In the moment of a 1v1 though, I feel melee is superior to countering and fighting back. Of course each class/weapon has its strengths and weaknesses in that regard, but from my personal experience in a 1v1, I draw my swords and get to work… but again, it’s all very situation dependent.

I apologize on my last post I was rushing because it was 5 minutes before punch out and my boss was hovering around so I didn’t get to type out this last part.

I’m not actually complaining about the fact that you can’t melee-faceroll every fight and that you’re forced to widen your tools (i.e. weapons) in order to adjust for every encounter.

For example on my Guardian I have a Scepter, Staff, Mace, Greatsword, and a Shield and on my Thief I have two Pistols, two Daggers, and a Shortbow and depending on the fight, I adjust accordingly.

However, I’m going to stand by my statement that the current dungeon designs are balanced around a risk versus reward in regards to melee. If you know how to dodge every boss ability and avoid the aoes (or you’re just a beast tank) than you are going to do well. If, however you can do the same damage (and maybe alt tab a few times) without the extra effort than you can just whip out the ranged weapon. In the end it comes down to “did the boss die” and not “did you see me dodge all these circles”?

On my Guardian I am the “tank/healer” build (I don’t even know what to call it— people call it bunker) where I have high toughness and +healing. If the boss fight requires tanking I’m ALWAYS up front taking the beating and supporting my allies. I know how to dodge just about everything you can throw at me because I’ve learned from hard experience to recognize the boss queues.

Now on some fights there’s no tanking or using melee weapons isn’t worth the hassle so I switch out my Mace for a Scepter, move traits around, and change skills. Now I become more “support” where I use my dodge roll heal and other skills to help my team-mates out.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Aside from specific incidents, this perception is due mostly to the increased strength of monsters in dungeons, and that people who melee are grabbing more aggro and holding it. People using ranged weapons have an easier time mitigating damage through movement and positioning, making them safer by default than the person who runs in to punch monsters in the face.
That being said, of the light/medium armor sets I play (I won’t even bring guardian or warrior into the fight since we all know they don’t have too much trouble in melee) I actually have an easier time on my mesmer in Melee than my ranger… due purely to how well a melee mesmer can mitigate damage and control. I don’t do as much damage, but I can survive with warriors and guardians for the most part.

I wouldn’t call dungeons as favoring ranged combat, it just depends on how you play. Monsters are dangerous to anyone of any range. A good test is to have some friends clear out some mobs, and try to 1v1 with a particular creature with ranged and melee, and see how well you hold up and survive (hard to longbow DPS while managing a monster eating your face). I often find my melee mesmer (sword/torch) holds up better than my melee ranger (sword/dagger), but it’s certainly varying levels of utility play and mastery of personal technique.

Thanks for the post Robert, but I have to disagree with you.

As soon as you walk into your first dungeons as an inexperienced lowbie you come to the realization that the majority of encounters DO currently favor ranged combat because many bosses have melee-ranged AOE abilities that make it extremely hazardous and then there are fights where you HAVE to used ranged weapons regardless.

I’m just going to nit-pick some bosses from FOTM.

(Volcanic Fractals)

• Champion Grawl Shaman punts people in melee range constantly and has an AOE instant-gib ability. It’s not worth the hassle using melee weapons.
• Legendary Grawl Shaman has an instant gib melee AOE ability that he spams. You HAVE to use ranged weapons on this fight because you need to be near your party members.

(Cliffside)

• 1st hammer dude has a Ring of Warding attack that if you don’t dodge in melee range it will one shot you.
• Final hammer dude punts people in melee range and applies Agony when he hits you. You HAVE to use a ranged weapon on this.

(Swamp)

• Bloomhunger will murder you in melee range. You HAVE to use a ranged weapon here.
• Mossman has an instant-gib AOE cleave, but it’s avoidable.

(Snowblind)

• Frost thing forces you to use ranged weapons. #1. You will aggro extra adds at close range and #2. you will get too many stacks of frostbite. It’s just not efficient to use ranged weapons.
• Shaman boss is melee friendly.

(Ascalon event)

• Final boss has an AOE agony ability that will kill you if you’re close. You have to use ranged weapons.

(Dredge )

• Champ Dredge guy is melee friendly.
• Last part (Ice or Dredge) you HAVE to use ranged weapons. No questions asked.

(Jade Maw)

• Ranged weapons unless you want to be thrown around constantly by tentacles.

I’m not going to lie I’ve been playing this game since it came out and I don’t even understand the combo field mechanics.

Does anyone else feel the trait (Infusion of Shadows — 2 initiative returned when stealthing) is a tad bit necessary when running D/D? The reason I’m saying this is because it turns Cloak and Dagger into an actual cost effective ability to spam each time your anti-stealth debuff disappears.

I just can’t seem to come up with a D/D build that doesn’t require 10 in Shadow Arts for PvE or PvP.