Guild Wars 2

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Honor is probably the best line in terms of overall trait selection.

Honor is, imo, even too crowded with good traits, at least compared to the others.

I – Ok, not really good
II – Very nice unless you are somewhere where non-shout-utilities are desparately needed
III – Quite nice for hammer-users
IV/V – Rather not in PvE
VI – Junk
VII – Again, the hammer …
VIII – Does not need any further comment
IX – Would be nice if we had the space for it
X – Hammer again
XI – Like II
XII – Not bad

And then, the minors also shine quite bright in there. If all trait lines had that quality …

The two bosses in CM path 2 (whatever their names may be, can’t remember) who get killed by barrels.

I need to test that build right now!

€: Just came to my mind, I think you should aim for as much Wayfarer’s as possible, instead of Explorer’s or Traveler’s. That way, you have more defensive and are even less likely to draw aggro, since your damage will be zero. That way, you can tag even more mobs instead of worrying about downing.

There is no best build.

Try out a hammer AH build, though you should skip any healing gear and the useless guardian runes. You won’t be able to include everything you want into one remotely useful build anyway, so it’s easiest to ignore the healing part since it scales so poorly.

Berserker, berserker and berserker.

There is one problem with the temple exotics: The stats are junk, except probably the Cavalier trinkets. Magi, Soldier and whatever else there is at those merchants are just useless for PvE.

Wukunlin.8461:

my whining about pugs would also go down by at least 50% if they can see the same things you have.

Well, I’m sure we are just too ignorant to understand all those geniuses out there.

Almost. You won’t miss much without torch and mace, so that frees up two inventory slots.

mtpelion.4562:

GW2 is designed to allow you to tweak your class to fit your playstyle.

If being tanky helps you clear content because that is how you play then go ahead and spec yourself that way.

DPS is not king. Being alive and contributing is.

Wukunlin said it one way, I add the other: Even being full glass cannon does not mean you need to die. Another reason why “tanks” are sub-optimal. Even though a hammer-AH can be quite comfortable sometimes.

Why should I waste any silver for trying out a build build that won’t work properly? Simple mathematics is enough to realize that the trait setup fails the goals of a DPS build. If he hadn’t called the stuff a “PVE DPS build” with “excellent DPS”, I would not have cared. But using that description for something that is clearly sub-par was quite an invitation to rip it apart.

Quite fascinating that soloing this stuff is much more easy than doing it in a group. Did it for Kiel yesterday, Evon follows today.

With a quick estimate, boon duration runes (though I’d kick out the small waters and replace them by superior might duration) and ruby orbs should end up at roughly the same damage level in a group setting, unless the group already sustains its 25 might stacks. Rubies improve your own damage by ~10%, but on the other hand, ~1.5 stacks might from that boon duration will result in ~2% more damage from everyone affected by it.

I have a strong feeling that this must be a troll.

Not more squishy than with the explorer junk.

Korval.3751:

What I did write – and if it isn’t blatantly obvious did imply – is that the DPS was excellent for the build. Not the entire game.

Wow, what a logic. What’s the next step, you presenting a 0/0/10/30/30 in full Giver’s armor and stating that it’s excellent DPS (for that build)? Labels like “excellent DPS” cannot stand in a vacuum, they always require the comparison to other builds. And that’s the point where your build completely fails – it deals much less DPS than one of the builds I mentioned and even offers less support than those.

MF gear is junk. People using that in a dungeon deserve to be kicked on the spot.

Obviously, you ran into some kind of idiot. You are right in that regard that melee is usually more challenging and effective, and GS+staff is not bad combo. However, you should take the scepter with you instead of leaving it in the bank. If you need to go ranged (more than 600), the staff orb is terribly bad, while the scepter is even one of the strongest ranged weapons in the game.

Yes, that’s the animation on its target.

With decent boons and vuln, those numbers even sound pretty low for the sword. With the greatsword, I remember getting something like 5,2k-5,2k-8k at about 20 might and 25 vuln and without any buff food.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

actually with two guardians..
yeah because (at least on levels which I’m playing) It’s all about rapidness of attacks.

EDIT: lol movie when one guardian is placing smite on boss and rest of party just ingores it isn’t any proof really – the whole trick was two guardians two smites and whole party stands with shield of the avenger actually on the boss – in this was these just to smites is enought to take bauble down in a phew seconds…..

/headdesk

You didn’t get it at all. Smite does not remove any stacks, that is the message of the video.

Korval.3751:

It offer excellent melee DPS and very good ranged DPS.

Erm, no. Your first claim is just plain wrong. Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power are de facto inevitable traits for “excellent DPS”, both of which you don’t take. Since you don’t seem to be interested in Pure of Voice, take 20/25/0/25/0, or otherwise just the good old 10/30/0/30/0. Those builds offer excellent DPS.

€: Just had some fun estimating damage output for your build. Any of the usual AH builds should result in significantly more damage output by the group (maybe even by youself, didn’t go into the details) than your trait combo. In consequence, you spectacularly missed the purpose of a DPS build.

There is already a rather recent thread on this topic.

Nice, Symbol of Wrath looks larger. I’ve got a feeling as if I could ignore WoE when taking the hammer now.

Maybe he’s talking about the projectile stuff? Annoying imo, but hardly a bug.

Smite, grawl fractal? You think that it helps you down the legendary shaman’s shield quickly? Well, unfortunately, that assumption is just plain wrong. So the change of smite to a symbol (if they keep the singletarget damage on the same level) would be more than just great. Because right now, that skill does not do any more damage to multiple opponents than it does to a single one, which would be quite a different story for a symbol.

You know that it’s quite possible to compare two weapons’ DPS, using well-accepted damage formulas from the wiki and the skill coefficients you find there (or which can calculate for yourself)?

Silv.9207:

For PvE you can’t play as DPS. You’r healt is very low (like ele and thief) and in berserker build you’ve not all that ability to heal and evade damage like other classes. But you can output a very good dps. not the best of the game, but whit the GS you can hit like a warrior. But you’ve too low healt to survive like a warrior and you’re easy to be downed, expacially by some boss.
If you want to be useful in PvE you Must be the Tank-Support. High defence, healing symbols, shout everywhere. You can be the rock that a party need to kill a large number of boss, but you Must be a Tank. I’ve try to go in dungeon whit some DPS guardians, but they fall down easy.
If you want, you can try an Hybrid like Armor Soldier and weapons+trinket Knight, to increase your critical rate but obtain a good vitality.

[…]

At last: there’s a lot of good build, but you can’t be the DPS of the group, because you’ve too low hp. You can play as tank, or supporter tank, or hybrid.

Well, how to comment nicely on this strange accumulation of letters? I wonder …

But since I don’t see any way to accomplish that impossible feat, let me be frank: l2p. The stuff you are talking about DPS guardians is just plain rubbish.

Fenrir.3609:

I am unsure of quite why anyone would run dps gear with 0/0/10/30/30.

Oh, I know people who advocate that build with zerker gear as a “very good build” …

@Bloodgruve: I recently managed to get my warrior to 80 and to give it almost maximal zerker gear (except the back item, since I don’t have enough fractals tokens). Was a somehow sobering experience afterwards, although I haven’t had the opportunity to test it in a decent group. Right now I have the feeling that her damage is a bit better than my guard’s, but not as much as I thought. Yet I’d love to see any proof for GK’s frequent claim, too.

Hunter.4783:

/facepalm

Here we go again….Since when was knights gear bunker?

/double facepalm

It was pretty obvious that he did not talk about Knight, otherwise he wouldn’t have to worry about crit chance against single enemies.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@CptAurelian tell it to all that guardians that died in the middleway to orr because “bunker is useless in PvE”
and tell it all that ppl that survive because of me nearby
also I’m PvE/WvW player and I use same build all the way because swaping build back and forth is not thing I like to

Utterly bad players are hardly an argument for the value of ominous bunker gear. By the way, what is it exactly? Clerics, which is at least partially usable? Or even junk like Soldier/Sentinel?

Swap all the things. Bunker gear is useless in PvE anyway.

I disagree. 14 hits (if all connect, which you always need to ensure manually) is too small a sample size to yield any reliable results on single screens.

You don’t really want to prove your claim with two screenshots of WW, do you?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Here’s a fun fact. An Magi-specced hammer 0/0/30/30/10 Guardian (which seems to be the popular AH build) deals about 20% of a zerker 20/30/20/0/0 greatsword guardian. That means that if a zerker guardian can run in, do WW > Symbol > Binding Blade then leave for half a minute, and still outDPS an AH tank guardian who is just sitting there in melee constantly. Even a zerker AH/EM spac barely does half of a DPS spec like the one above; a DPS guardian could be dead half the fight and still outDPS an AH guard.

Ok, now I’d like to see a solid proof that your zerker build does 100% more damage than an AH build with the same gear and buffs. And by solid I mean solid, since both experience and quick estimations tell me that the difference between both will be rather around 30-40% in the best case, depending on weapon choice etc.

rafi.2304:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

I think it would be a mistake to give Arah paths a significantly higher reward. P1/2/3 are all sub-20 paths, and path 4 isn’t far off. Though, I definitely wouldn’t complain

Not for the average player :p

QFT. I’m wondering about the consequences of this discrepancy between normal players and hardcore speedrunners once the new reward system is active.

You know that Brazil is probably playing the troll as usual? :P

Hunter.4783:

I don’t need to explain to you how worthless 20/20/30 is outside of CoF.

Well, I admit: 20/20/30 is something I don’t consider to be anywhere near useful and group-compatible. That argument was just about the “best dps” nonsense. However, there are enough other DPS-builds which bring exactly the same utility as an AH build (or even more) except the anchor-stuff – if that ever works, since aggro is not quite reliable in this game.

So I suggest that you think twice about your anti-berserker rants. That kind of rubbish is as annoying as Guanglai’s permanent anti-AH rants.

If you want to imply that offensive guardian builds are not useful outside CoF1, you should probably have a closer look at the class instead of stubbornly repeating the same rubbish again and again.

Devils.3679:

11.8k isn’t small and the dmg wasn’t from scepter, lol its from cleansing flame and if you are hitting for almsot 12k with cleansing flame that gives you 60k+ chain. tell me how how over 60k in 4 secs is small. what what proof of you great dps do you have?

Since the part with the torch DPS has already been corrected by someone else, just the proof of better DPS with other builds: simple mathematics. Radiant Power is virtually always active, hence it can be treated as a flat 10% damage boost, which in turn is by far better than 5% crit damage you gain from Valor. That’s always the case. Any other options depend on the main weapon set and some other stuff, but it’s a rather safe bet that at least 30 Radiance for RHS would still improve total DPS, probably also going 10 into Virtues for Unscathed contender.

How amazing, a bunch of small numbers and a scepter. That attempt to verify your “best dps” claim is just funny.

Devils.3679:

20/20/30/0/0 simply best dps traits out.

Without Radiant Power? Not really.

Yeah, I know. But honestly, who looks for such outdoor challenges as a new player? Probably close to no one. Even the step from outdoor to story mode is ridiculously large (or was when I did the last story mode quite some time ago).

Broadicea.8294:

I didn’t play very long, but I’m just thinking to wayyyyyyyy back when, and I don’t remember Shadowfang Keep being harder than open world in WoW except that it really helped to use pull tactics. You were pretty much able to go in there as a scrub and do fine. I think that’s why perhaps people are getting smoked in AC, because of the leap in difficulty going from open world with regular mobs and a few vets to silver mobs and having to 5-man champs.

Can’t talk about Shadowfang since I mostly played alliance, but the I remember the Deadmines as quite difficult for a bunch of newbies. But you are right, the leap from open world into the dungeons is the big problem here since outside most things are ridiculously easy.

Serval.6458:

Regrettably, ANet doesn’t seem to like greatswords very much and puts most of their artistic effort into highly detailed daggers, torches and warhorns; as well as a variety of large and imposing 2h hammers.

Hammers? Well, I know that flavor differs between people, but I can’t find many hammers that look at least good. They don’t really differ from the greatswords: a few have fine skins, the rest is just junk.

The one thing I’d really love is the AC greatsword entirely without its night effect. Modest, realistic appearence with still some nice details.

Bad idea, imho. As long as the mainhand mace can create a symbol, no offhand weapon should have its own one. Rather make the symbols themselves more interesting and give some to the weapons lacking it, but don’t give two symbols to a single wepon set.

CryxTryx.9208:

I am thinking I am going to need multiple sets for the different things I do. Trait wise I am running 0/5/30/30/5. For utilities right now I have been using Judge’s intervention, Purging flames and Smite condition.

I want to play a high DPS guardian. I don’t want to be super super squishy or anything but I would like a high focus on damage.

Please give me your recommendations for; A dungeon armor set..and a WvWvW armor set. Those are the two things I care about doing well.

Be aware of the inherent conflicts between the things you want to achieve. AH builds are nice stuff for WvW and they can make dungeons quite easy, too, but they are not high DPS builds. High DPS looks more like 10/25/0/25/0+10, but is more squishy.

As for the gear, berserker is the way to go for dungeons. In WvW, I personally prefer a mix of knight’s armor (with soldier runes) and zerker trinkets, works fine. Soldier is not really necessary and probably even not the best idea for an AH build.

Nice job, DS.

If I assume that your group will take full advantage of Empower, I’d estimate that switching to staff to use it does not change the group DPS a lot. It will increase each party member’s DPS by about 15 % for 10 seconds, but on the other hand, it will cripple your DPS by probably more than 50 % for the same time. So I’d stick to using it only as an emergency heal. However, be aware that this is only a very rough estimate.

Since you don’t get them for Karma or WvW badges, the TP is probably the fastest way to get exotic ones. However, those are not really optimal since the crit damage on them is quite expensive. In that case, shoulders, gloves and boots are cheaper iirc. If you already have some laurels/guild commendations/pristine fractal relics, go directly for the ascended trinkets.

Direksone.3867:

My guess is that with an expansion based around the Water Dragon (Bubbles) we will be swimming a lot and that it will be reworked before/around/during that time. Still a while away.

Well, if I extrapolate my experiences with the development of this game, I’d rather say that we will probably swim around a lot, but it won’t be reworked.

Even if there is a complete rework, I’m not sure whether it will solve the problems. It’s not even the terrible damage down there. The three-dimensional fight and all the glitches and the lack of predictability involved therein are things that always annoy me when going underwater.