Guild Wars 2

Zaxares.5419:

Arcane Brilliance is apparently a blast finisher. It has now become a must-have for my Arcane-traited Staff Ele. (I will miss the heavy condition cleansing of Ether Renewal though.)

Another blast for my SF might stacking combos, not bad. If they go on like that, eles won’t even need external fire fields to keep up 25 might alone …

Strontius.6478:

Agreed. Artifical gating of content through gear (AR) contradicts their mmo manifesto. Player skill should always be more important than gear in this game.

We all know how much they care for their manifesto. But yeah, gear checks in such a game are incredibly stupid.

Fortunately, the improvement over exotic items is insignificant in case of armor. Since there is no weapon strength on armor, I think it will take a long, long time till I arrive at 500.

Syn Sity.5826:

There are only a few bosses that are tough to stay alive at for a good player in berserker gear. The big one that I can think of is slave driver in cof path 1 and he dies fairly quickly regardless and defensive gear won’t help that much there, he usually just tends to go straight for those in berserker gear.

1-2 minutes in a bad team (yes, that’s more than just possible) can feel like an eternity. Luckily, there are the two trashmobs before him that allow me to judge whether it’s a better idea to take a scepter for backup instead of the usual sword.

If you care at least a tiny bit about efficiency, you should have a thorough look at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first

The condition damage is wasted. The rest, however, could be quite fine in a PvP setting – if it wasn’t for the low power.

AH Tanky DPS Build

You know that AH/tanky and DPS are 100% contradictory, OP?

obal.3218:

Nuklbone.1462:

I bet all you MAX DPS people would be the same people that posted “Looking For Hunter must Have 40k dps”.. The same people who will kill yet another great game..

Just my opinion .

Notice how there are no red posts made post update on the first 5 pages of the Fractured section yet there are so many issues old and new. It’s not the players that killed the game.

This game had so much potential when it was released, but ever since the introduction of the fractals, the devs have been really busy ruining all of it

‘sigh’ It would be really helpful if people thought for a tiny moment whether they are responding to PvE- or PvP-related stuff.

Yeah, Mai is, in principle, pretty easy. However, as far as I got it, it was (and is? have they fixed it?) technically impossible to kill her at level 37.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Our Greatsword is currently a fun, but often lackluster weapon as it is often outperformed by Hammer in […] most PvE situations and outdone by Sw/F in PvE.

Ehm, what? Greatsword is an integral part of almost all useful PvE builds.

You clearly didn’t understand haviz.

Kingteranas.1376:

Got another uninfused ring from FOTM 33 today, this is just sad.

Pretty annoying, yeah. Obviously the devs don’t even test the stuff they produce, if I have a look at all the stupid bugs the patch introduced.

Dredge are annoying, and the fractal is even more annoying than the mobs themselves. Too long and too boring.

Zach.3264:

Well, PvT is a great gear set for any situation on Guardian. I use mine all the time, and I swap out trinkets for the situation I need.

Maybe any situation except anything in PvE. And, if I think about it, PVT is boring even in a WvW zerg.

Gyler.8150:

If you want other dps classes, ele is top dog. Mesmer sometimes can be good dps.

Mesmer? Very, very rarely. In principle, only against targets where you can reflect a massive amount of stuff. 3 phantasms are awesome in theory, but when do you really get out 3 phantasms?

fadeaway.2807:

Is that YouTube video a troll attempt?

The whole post is a giant troll attempt.

haviz.1340:

Have you read datamined possible future instabilities? Those are not motivating.

Partly. After the first dozen or so, I didn’t want to risk getting brain cancer due to all the stupidity in there.

Grimwolf.7163:

Wouldn’t have mattered either way, the GW2 team just straight up cannot write, period.

!

Congrats, that was pretty fast.

And somehow, those descriptions don’t motivate me a lot to get into the new fractals …

Aza.2105:

To the guys good at math, in regards to damage modifiers how does the potential stacks of might you get with 30 in valor add up realistically in comparison to damage increase traits like fiery wrath etc?

It sucks, like the whole line. 1 might is equivalent to something between 1.5 (in a very bad group) and 1.0 % more damage, so you’ll need a lot to surpass FW. You’ll never block as much, especially since it should be your aim to block as rarely as possible to keep UC up. But even if you don’t care for UC, I hardly see how I could block 7-10 attacks in 20 seconds in PvE consistently.

Obtena.7952:

CptAurellian.9537:

A guardian needs a lot of group support for dealing optimum DPS, since our own offensive buffs are almost non-existent, but the results are quite nice if you have that support. Not as great as ele or thief, but there is no need to hide from any of the other classes.

A guardian doesn’t need to give any support for dealing optimum DPS since getting offensive buffs from our teammates isn’t dependent on them getting support from us.

And … how exactly is that related to what I wrote? Not at all. Besides, it is not really correct – our support allows people to have maximum DPS time instead of having to dodge some attacks.

Cat said it. A guardian needs a lot of group support for dealing optimum DPS, since our own offensive buffs are almost non-existent, but the results are quite nice if you have that support. Not as great as ele or thief, but there is no need to hide from any of the other classes.

Anicetus.1253:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

How about 25 points? I had been thinking of some builds along the lines of:
10.15.25.10.10
0.25.25.10.10

I haven’t personally tested these, just some fast ideas.

10/25/10/0/25 is the only viable build with points in honor and it doesn’t bring you vigor.

Valor, Dub, Valor

That shouldn’t be relevant since the order of the terms does not matter in a multiplication.

Cawnthorpe.2418:

My guardian just hit 80. I’m looking for suggestions for a build that’s good for solo PvE content. I don’t generally PvP but would like to pug a dungeon now and then. Mostly I’d like a solid, survivable combination I can use to see the rest of the world content.

I’ve leveled easily with GS / Sword+Focus but found 75-80 getting increasingly difficult, mostly due to squishiness and knockdowns. I’m running with 25/15/0/20/10 and a grab bag of Berserker’s and Knight’s gear.

I’m sure I can improve what I’ve got and would be grateful for tips on how to optimize. Thanks!

Since you’re already accustomed to those weapons, Brazil’s old build 0/30/0/30/10 with as much berserker stuff as possible will be a good starter build. It offers good damage, gameplay very similar to the meta builds and still retains a bigger HP cushion for errors than the meta. When you feel comfortable with that after some time, switch to the meta.

Oh, and don’t take the paladin build. That one is garbage and just promotes bad play.

Dirame.8521:

CptAurellian.9537:

Druid is way superior to this.

Suuuuuuuuuure.

Yeah, I’m sure about that. At least druids completely negate the damage of Lupi’s bubble, as haviz’ glorious video showed us.

Druid is way superior to this.

10% for 30 trait points, which offer nothing really useful, definitely suck.

€: Just to compare:
Zeal offers ~13% damage for 10 points.
Radiance offers ~25% for 25 points, plus the possibility of spamming your blinds at trash.
Virtues also offer ~25% damage for 25 points, plus the amazing support stuff.
Honor, in the end, is not so great damage-wise (though roughly on the level of Valor), but has much better support.

It still sucks. Those 30 points produce something like a 10% increase in total damage, plusminus a bit. Sacrificing any other damage sources (radiance) or all support improvements (honor, virtues) is a bad idea.

For Balthazar, I agree. But e.g. at Dwayna (statue) or Melandru, they pretty much oneshot me if I miss one of their moves, which is quite an easy thing in the effect storm.

In my experience, LH is a little bit more tough than staff, but still extremely squishy compared to guard, warr or mesmer. You’ll have a bit regeneration from camping in water, but that’s not very strong. Plus, you have the blind on the AA chain, but that’s worthless against any boss and comes to late to negate the first hit of trash mobs.

Kimyrielle.3826:

I can’t comment on sPvP for I don’t play that content, but in the open world, melee combat is in theory just as superior to range as in dungeons, because the same combat mechanics apply. The only difference is that people are less concerned with maximizing damage output and minimizing the time spent playing the game there. Also, people don’t run this type of content in organized groups -that- often, so boon stacking has less of an impact there.

Yeah, in theory, melee is always better. In practice, virtually all open world bosses are so clouded in particle effects that seeing their attack animations in melee range is close to impossible when more than five people are around -.-

Maybe you could rephrase this, obal. Afaik, the 24.5 % threshold applies only to the comparison between Scholar and Ruby Orbs, while the threshold for Ranger is much higher. I just fear that some people could misunderstand the current wording in a way that Scholar is also better than Ranger at 25 %.

obal.3218:

Runes

• Scholar – Best choice if you can keep the buff for 24.5% of the time
• Ranger – The 5% bonus is bugged and is up without a companion so they are a good choice if you can’t keep up the scholar buff much
• Ruby Orbs – Decent cheap alternative to scholar

You can’t tank a boss.

Their (non-)actions and the disbanding of the dungeon team show pretty clearly how much the devs care for dungeons: Not at all.

Mighty is the best, but VitalSuit already said the most important thing: For their tiny effect, those infusions are ridiculously overpriced.

Casmurro.9046:

Every profession that is not warrior or guardian receives hate from some pugs. It can be annoying to have a gs camping mesmer when the group is stacking to kill mobs, a shortbow thief and so on. But rangers are more bullied because of the “bearbow” jokes.

And what caused those bearbow jokes? The incredibly high number of longbow-camping, bear-using, knockbacking noobs that play this class. In my experience, the typical ranger-PUG is worse than everything else.

Adam.4103:

but if people know how to play them then they are valuable.

Unfortunately, finding such a ranger is almost like finding a needle in a haystack.

Technically, retal hits for virtually nothing, Chris. Don’t forget that most mobs attack with an incredible attack speed of 0.2-0.5 s^-1. But I think that Lamir’s post was a rather good attempt to troll since he stresses the downed stuff.

@Ninja: Neither retal nor such a “supporter” build are viable for PvE. Unless ANet changes all game mechanics, full damage builds will always be superior to anything else in PvE.

intently.4502:

My question is: what pieces give me the best bank for the buck, if I don’t want to buy a full set of knight’s?

I don’t remember the full list, but simply have a look at the crit damage and the precision on the Zerker pieces and then calculate how much precision you pay for 1% crit. iirc, chest, legs and weapons all have pretty bad conversions, so you are on a good way with them.

swiftpaw.6397:

Clearly a viable and serious build. Here is the evidence. Now mods need only watch it and restore the thread to its former glory. (And sticky it)

The last part is most important. Sticky it instead of that bad pyroclasm joke!

I’m not sure whether increasing their health by 100% would be enough even. But yeah, they surely need some big buffs since even the mods on these forums seem to have recognized how utterly useless spirit weapons are

Since the crit damage conversion on all the accessories is quite good, go for Berserker.

Focus is far better anyway. More damage when you make #5 explode, better survivability since it works with melee attacks, no stupid knockback, no useless light field and still some nice utility on #4. Projectile defense is usually done by WoR/SotA. The only place in PvE where I sometimes like the shield is in Lupi’s snot rain – but only if the rest of the group is rather incompetent.

Knockback … rangers are even worse, but that’s definitely something I’d kill a lot of mesmers for if there was something like friendly Fire in this game.

Sorry, but except very few exceptions, shield is just junk in PvE. Focus is better in almost every single case.

Maybe I should try it then. Have too many tokens anyway, just the bag space …

Araris.7839:

Tons of great ideas have been expressed, can we get an update from the devs on what they’re currently thinking now after the feedback?

Sure. As soon as we have built a colony on Mars

Svarty.8019:

Shield is abysmal on guardian.

Although the style would be great, it’s unfortunately this. The shield, as a weapon, is just useless.