Guild Wars 2

I personally use Droknar’s Forgehammer. Looks like a 1-handed warhammer. Looks pretty cool IMO… I use it on my Guardian.

If you want something goofy, you can get Fixer Upper. It’s a wrench, lol.

If you want something REALLY goofy, you can get Moonshine. It’s a freaking bottle. Rofl.

For pure DPS, Axe/Axe > GS because 100b is immobile and the GS has a crappy burst skill (Eviscerate is arguably the best Warrior burst skill), whereas with Axe 5 you can move with your target.

I only use GS when I use my sPVP stun build (stun/knockdown, then immediately 100b). Otherwise 100b, which is your main GS damage dealer, misses more often than not and also makes you vulnerable to AOEs.

Easiest way is to run fractals for the ascended trinkets, but you can also just buy stuff off the TP. Depends on how much gold you have at your disposal.

I’m of course assuming that your armor is exotic. If it’s not, you should still be running dungeons.

Undertow.2389:

Copy/paste some Ranger or Guardian code or something. My guardian has no issues with spirit weapons. They quickly and reliably assist whatever I’m targeting. Same with Ranger pets. I don’t even have to order them to attack. They instantly assist me entering combat and if I switch targets they do too within 1-2 seconds.

Flesh golem? More like kitten golem.

I think the problem is the NUMBER of minions. I think it has more to do with having over 3 pets at a time than it does with pathing. When I attack, some minions respond right away and some sit next to me and do nothing.

All I want is for the Death Magic trait line to be tweaked so we’re not forced to take minion traits as minor traits, and for Minion AI to be debugged. Those two things would make me supremely happy.

You would think the Death Magic bit would be easy, but apparently I’m the ONLY person here that is annoyed about being pidgeonholed into a minion minor trait set.

Xae.7204:

Yeah, it would be great to see some Thief playstyles other than “LOL INSTAGIB” get buffed. P/P was really fun, but overpowered, in some of the BWE. They probably hit the damage to hard, but it was fun to by a mid range skirmisher.

That is a cute list of bugs though. You should see the ones in the Ranger, Engineer or Necro forums. Necros even devised a tracking and naming system. Engineers cracked 100 a while ago.

“LOL INSTAGIB” only happens when people build glass cannons in low-mobility classes like Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Necro. If people stack toughness (for instance, all Warriors should be using Knight’s Armor and/or emerald trinkets in WvW), then glass cannon thieves like myself can be in trouble.

Elementalists and Mesmers are only in trouble if they sit still and don’t know how to play against thieves. No matter what their build, Elementalists have plenty of defensive, offensive, CC, and gap-control abilities to work with. If an Ele loses against a thief, then he’s not using his skills and attunements well enough (that goes double for D/D eles, who should have an ADVANTAGE over a standard thief). If a Mesmer loses against a thief, it’s because he wasn’t using his illusions like blood hounds, and using his CC and gap-control abilities like they should.

For Engineer…. well, unless you’re a TANKCAT engie, you’re pretty much screwed. Engies need a serious buff. It’s why my engie hasn’t even gotten past lvl 11 thus far (I’ve not put any time into it).

Schwahrheit.4203:

Why should you ever compare power and precision in the first place in regards to DPS? They’re BOTH essential in maximizing DPS.

Whats the point of high precision if you don’t even have base damage? And whats the point of having high power when you don’t have critical rate?

Actually you can do high precision/low power. My mesmer is like that and I use proc-effect type sigils for other effects, since my mesmer is on the tankier side with Precision/Toughness/Condition items, and I burn opponents down through conditions and health attrition by spamming clones with my staff.

And you can do the converse as well. My necromancer is a Juggermancer, and it has good base damage (3452 attack) while having awesome survivability (29,654 hp and 2873 armor + Death Shroud). The crit % is a measly 4%, but I don’t use % proc sigils and my attack is good so it hardly matters. And I’m almost always the last person standing when s— hits the fan.

If you don’t want to sacrifice a ton of DPS for survivability, you have to work both your trait synergy and your utility skills when you’re considering item stat spread. For instance low crit% on a Warrior can be largely made up by Signet of Rage and For Great Justice. IMO Warriors should always have high power because most of their attacks are direct damage, but precision depends on whether you want to be more tanky or hit harder (with either damaging sigil procs or overall DPS).

What is it with people demanding Thief BUFFS?

Thief is at a really good place right now. Just like Mesmer (and arguably Warrior). If you tweaked them either way they would either be super OP or unplayable.

Once the culling issue gets taken care of, the supposed thief imbalances will be solved.

Daecollo.9578:

D/D can have blind as well, but also do lots of burst damage…
S/P can have blind as well, but also do lots of passive damage…
D/P can have blind (AND STEALTH) as well, but also do lots of passive damage…
P/D can blind (AND STEALTH) as well, and do lots of burst damage…
P/P has blind, but does little to NO damage after they use it…

Please think a little.

I am. It’s you who’s not thinking.

If you’re using pistols, you should trait for it. As long as it’s traited, they hit hard and refill your initiative on critical hits.

Blinding is a defensive skill. Not an offensive one.

When I blind combo field I can typically get 2 bursts out of Pistol 3 if I get lucky with my crits. Even better if I stealth with Blinding Power in the combo field, followed by the stealth burst of Pistol 1, followed by another Pistol 5.

I only have issues with that strategy if I get stunned/dazed at beyond 900 range, or stacked with confusion.

Typically though I can get away with just spamming Pistol 3. Unless I get confusion stacks or the person has retaliation, they go down fast.

P/P has it’s weaknesses, but no more than any other weapon set from any other class. Anything else is just people complaining. You just need to use them right, with the right traits and Sigils.

Daecollo.9578:

That only works when you hit the target, if you are talking about PvE where the target does not move then that is very nice, but in PvP CnD is usually missed a lot, due to players knowing that if you get into melee they are kittened, so players usually avoid cloak and dagger now.

Cloak and Dagger is very slow, the slowest melee attack in the game and has a easy to see animation.

It’s called practice. If you don’t want to practice, that’s fine, but it works great for me.

I use pistols at range and use CnD + Dagger 1 or Sword 1 when people close in. if someone is trying to melee me, they make themselves a target for my CnD. If they’re at range, I pull out my pistols again. I don’t try to chase them down with melee. (Why would I?)

Daecollo.9578:

CrazyAce.3842:

Daecollo.9578:

Sounds like your fighting PvE mobs who don’t move.

Try using P/P against a mesmer who uses confusion or a guardian/warrior who abuses retaliation, you will kill yourself faster then he can kill you.

Those are very few and far between.

I don’t do sPVP much with anything but my warrior.

In WvW, people melt under my pistol barrages. If a player has lots of retaliation, I don’t shoot them. Duh. You shouldn’t be attacking someone with retaliation up unless you can strip the boon first. Or unless you know you can afford to eat the damage that will be reflected back at you.

Same with confusion. You should be running or stealthing if you’ve got confusion until it wears off, unless you can cleanse it. (Thief DOES have weapon abilities and utilities for that.)

Does no one use their brain when fighting? Or do you all just spam your favorite attacks?

P/P does not have access to a lot of stealth, this thread isn’t about daggers, and I know you run D/D and P/P, so this really doesn’t apply to that tactic.

Please stay on topic.

This thread would not of been made if there was not a problem with Pistols.

I am on topic. You can’t discuss pistols’ supposed weaknesses by ignoring traits, other weapons, and utilities. No weapon set exists in a vacuum.

Unless you don’t run with a second weapon set. Only pistols? No Dagger/Dagger or Sword/Dagger to compensate for lack of stealth or condition removal (respectively)? Not very wise.

Pistol’s are about DPS and blinding field combos, not stealthing. That’s what utilities are for. If you’re not using stealth to its fullest, then you shouldn’t be running as a glass cannon with pistols. That’s just asking to die painfully.

Pistols hit hard and can blind but have the TRADEOFF of not stealthing you. It’s about choice, not about having a single weapon set that does absolutely everything.

stof.9341:

Well, Basilisk Venom ignores Defiant and it’s the shortest CD elite in the game which synergies rather well with a full Lyssa set of runes.

My friend uses Lyssa runes. I 1v1’d him in a Borderland (yes, we’re friends from different servers, go figure) and I absolutely melted his face off. I would down him in 2 bursts from dual pistols and he would barely be able to get me down more than 75% health. His Thieves Guild didn’t help him much.

Lyssa runes are better for Warriors (they have issues with conditions sometimes, therefore Signet of Rage ftw) and Guardians (they have tons of boon-related traits and abilities).

If you’re going to put runes in your armor (instead of, say, Exotic Ruby jewels), it’s best to use Runes of Divinity, Runes of the Thief, Runes of Infiltration, or Runes of the Wurm. Anything else is likely a waste of time and gold, unless you have a specific build around which your set of choice synergizes.

Daecollo.9578:

Sounds like your fighting PvE mobs who don’t move.

Try using P/P against a mesmer who uses confusion or a guardian/warrior who abuses retaliation, you will kill yourself faster then he can kill you.

Those are very few and far between.

I don’t do sPVP much with anything but my warrior.

In WvW, people melt under my pistol barrages. If a player has lots of retaliation, I don’t shoot them. Duh. You shouldn’t be attacking someone with retaliation up unless you can strip the boon first. Or unless you know you can afford to eat the damage that will be reflected back at you.

Same with confusion. You should be running or stealthing if you’ve got confusion until it wears off, unless you can cleanse it. (Thief DOES have weapon abilities and utilities for that.)

Does no one use their brain when fighting? Or do you all just spam your favorite attacks?

I use D/D and P/P.

I wouldn’t change pistols in any way. They work perfectly fine as is. They hit hard, and the ability to blind at will makes them the ultimate ranged weapon for burst thieves. They don’t have any kind of AoE damaging ability like the Shortbow, but that’s to be expected. If you could use Pistols with an AoE, it would be overpowered, plain and simple.

I love P/P and wouldn’t change a thing. They are strong and almost the perfect single-target ranged weapon (I compare them to the Warrior’s Rifle in that way, though they don’t pierce).

I am 0/30/30/0/10 and I can spam 4 P/P shots in a row when I get ample crits (and I typically do), 6 shots if I use a few stealthing abilities to regen my initiative. Most people in WvW run with glass cannons, and I can cut down most people with around 3-4 bursts of Pistol 3 (taking into account the fact that most people dodge and/or heal when I’m shooting them). Squishy thieves and light-armor classes can sometimes go down in 1 or 2 if I get lucky with all crits or something (my crit % is 55%, without buffs or food).

If pistols were buffed, by build would be incredibly OP. Not that I’d have a huge problem with that. I’m just warning you guys.

Basilisk Venom is incredibly underwhelming for an Elite skill. A 1.5 sec stun every 45 seconds? And your next attack has to hit the target for it to work. Puh-leeze.

I only use it for my underwater build because ANET WON’T ALLOW ANYTHING ELSE.

Only good thing about it is its short cooldown. That’s it.

Maugetarr.6823:

A question out of line with the current state of this thread, but infusion of shadows seems to far outshine patience. What is the point of this ability since it seems like stacking both abilities would be redundant.

No, I use both. It ensures that I have full initiative when I’m using my Dagger 1/Dagger 5 melee combo. Getting refunded 2 initiative with CnD (or gaining it when I use any stealthing utility) is incredibly useful, for my build at least, since I sacrifice my toughness and HP pool for the ability to heal in stealth while still being able to hit hard. (I have about 13k HP when I trait Practiced Tolerance, about 11.5k without it.)

I use a 0/30/30/0/10 stealthy build, and without both Infusion of Shadows and Patience, I would be in serious trouble. I’ve tried playing with different traits in that line, but my survivability plummets. For my playstyle that involves frequent stealthing when the stealth debuff ends, if I didn’t use both of those traits I would run out of initiative really fast.

And as any thief should know, when you run out of initiative you die.

Still looks like a Noh mask to me.

Jasher.6580:

I agree with the OP, one possible suggestion is to have the active ability give the phantasms quickness but increase their damage taken by 50%.

That might be a good suggestion for an entirely new signet.

Oh, thanks for this thread. My engie is only lvl 5, but I might work on him sometime.

-favorited-

The fact that a single condition – that is to say POISON – can shut us down really frustrates me in both PvE and PvP. The dungeons where I get multiple instances of Poison thrown at me (so the duration is like 45 sec+) completely renders my Healing Signet useless.

The main counter to thief stealth is your illusions, actually. As soon as your target leaves stealth, the illusions will follow and attack again. You can use them like bloodhounds in this manner.

Okuza.5210:

The signet is unfortunately bugged. It takes up to 10s for it’s effect to be applied to illusions, which makes it rather useless as a clone-survival mechanism.

I agree. My OP was made under the assumption that that signet’s passive effect is fixed sometime in the future.

Limit on portal range is supposedly 5000, but I’m not sure if that’s been changed or not.

Problem with making it a ranged cast is that it would render many jumping puzzles stupidly easy (or completely irrelevant) for mesmers, assuming they’re patient enough to wait for the cooldown.

What I would like to see is the end portal last for the full duration of the beginning portal (a full 60 seconds minus whatever time it took you to get to the second portal’s drop point). In addition, I’d like for the portal exit to have one of those “out of range/LOS” red bars underneath it if you’re out of range.

Signet of Illusions has, as most of you know, the following effects:

Passive: Grants more health to your illusions (50% increase).
Active: Recharge your shatter skills.
90-sec. cooldown.

Does anyone see what’s I’m getting at?

I don’t have any problem with either of these effects individually (and the cooldown time is fine), but I find them very strange to be together on the same utility.

For the passive effect: More health to illusions clearly supports a non-shatter build, in which case you would take traits such as Compounding Celerity, Compounding Power, and Illusionary Defense, and concentrate on using your illusions to stack conditions and bleeds with Sharper Images, while keeping up as many illusions as possible at all times.

On the other hand, the active effect would seemingly support shatter builds, as their health wouldn’t matter since most shatter mesmers (assuming they’re playing their build right), summon their phantasms and clones, allow them to attack, then immediately shatter for extra burst or other effects (typically confusion when you trait Illusionary Retribution). They’re not typically around long enough for their health to matter.

My main point is that the two effects, active and passive, simply do not synergize well and should be reworked, probably to two separate skills.

For example:

Signet of Illusions (revised)
Passive: Grants more health to your illusions (50% increase).
Active: Summon a clone on your target. (1200 range)
Cooldown 60-sec.

-AND-

Signet of Shredding (made up for the sake of argument)
Passive: Shatter abilities inflict 1% more damage for each illusion.
Active: Recharge your shatter skills.
Cooldown 90-sec.

I would be quite happy if it were something like that. As is, Signet of Illusions, though I like its passive effect for my particular build, is ultimately not worth it because the active effect goes against my build type… basically meaning that I lose an active use of my third utility slot. That is to say, the active effect is not worth losing the passive for the duration of the cooldown.

Does anyone else agree with me?

RainbowSyrup.4130:

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! oh.. nope, just my unoriginal but awesome thief

What’s your body armor type?

Schwahrheit.4203:

The stances right now are okay, just that their cool down times are bad.

I agree. A little lowering of the cooldown times might make them actually worth using.

As is, you might as well use shouts.

mouse.1689:

ALL chance on critical hit sigils share an internal cooldown with ALL weapon swap sigils. If you have two of either of these sigil types equipped:

• only one of them can proc at a time.
• while either one of them is on its internal cooldown, neither of them can proc again.

Easiest way to test this is with Sigil of Rage, which has an internal cooldown of 45 seconds. Try equipping it with any other sigil that has a chance on crit or weapon swap effect. Whack a dummy until Sigil of Rage procs. Neither sigil will proc for 45 seconds afterwards.

Choose your sigils accordingly!

Good to know. I did not previously know this. I’ll definitely take another look at my weapons combos, just in case.

Aveneo.2068:

Actually I know fully well how Signet Builds work. However, the 20% cooldown reduction is not relevant to this discussion because all classes have those. So I went from a base-perspective in order to keep it organized and orderly. You may also note that I’m specifically adressing the active portions of the signets and providing my view on why they are below-average (especially because they require Beastmaster to function) compared to similar utilities that other classes have at their disposal.

Also, it’s a shame to hear that necromancers have it worse in your opinion but we’re in the Ranger forum discussing the state of our Signets; not theirs. If they feel their Signets suck, they should make their own thread in the Necromancer forums.

Lastly I don’t see what perma-swiftness has to do with this thread as I can’t recall anything that would hint at providing us with anything of the sort. No disrespect intended, but you might want to re-read the OP. The only swiftness related item was my suggestion for changing the active effect of Signet of the Hunt.

It’s simply very strange that a ‘Ranger Signet Build’ is required to have Signet of the Beastmaster in order for their Signets to function properly where other ‘Signet Builds’ have no such mechanic.

Unless someone can show me that their Signets also work only for 50% of their class and they have to get a Grandmaster trait in order to make it function for the other 50%.

Especially when comparing the actual active effects of the Ranger Signets that are less powerful than similar signets/abilities of other classes or would even affect you negatively without any benefit at all (basically killing yourself if you were to activate it with Beastmaster active).

You brought up the other classes’ signets first, not me. Or did you not read your own opening post? And I’ll also go ahead and mention that the Engineer, Mesmer, Warrior, and Guardian don’t even have a +25% movement signet. Be thankful that Rangers got buffed this previous patch and not nerfed like Guardians and Engineers did.

So you have to trait in order to get your Signets to work properly? In my opinion it’s balanced. If it already applied those effects, it would become an overpowered tank build because someone would only have to put 10 points into Marksmanship then they could do a full spirit build on top of all that and have an utterly broken mobile bunker build that would have passive healing, continuous spirit buffs, and a 6-second invincibility. Add Rampage as One into the mix and the Ranger would totally kill game balance if he specced for Cleric-type gear (or any combo of Power/Toughness/Healing) with Brown Bear + Murellow.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

No, I mean it doesn’t work with either Blood Fiend or Well of Blood (both slot 6 healing skills).

Well that’s not good. It’s gotta be a bug. It should definitely proc on the initial heal, at least.

Cool. I use completely different builds for PVP and PVE. Interesting how you can just tweak some traits to get different synergies. I like it.

sPVP I do a full Glamour Confusion build: 20/0/0/20/30

I love confusion both for sPVP and WvW. Totally melts people if they don’t know to stop attacking when they have 4+ stacks of confusion on them. It’s especially funny when a thief starts spamming Heartseeker and kills himself, lol.

I totally agree, and my engie is only lvl 11.

+1 for this thread, and another bump. Just to make a point. Anet’s nerf for engies was beyond heavy-handed.

Leo Paul.1659:

Hmm do you really want the color palette of Sunrise on your attacks? Twilight’s is ok but Sunrise’s kinda looks bad.

That’s completely subjective. For instance I love Sunrise’s bright cheerful colors, but I think Twilight is for teenagers in their punk phase.

Illusionists Celerity is a must-have 5-point trait for ALL mesmers. I don’t care what your build is or what your traits are like or what weapons you use. Illusionists Celerity is invaluable and an incredibly good trait.

Everyone keeps saying this, but we have Blink. If we had a passive run speed buff on top of this great skill other classes would start moaning that Mesmers are too fast and OP. Hell, from what I’ve read on the other class forums people already think we’re OP as it is.

Well, if you ask me, Signet of Illusions’ passive and active effect are totally at odds. The passive effect supports a Legion build and the active effect supports a Shatter build. Kinda wonky.

But the fact of the matter is I don’t use it in the first place because my utilities are Decoy, Mirror Images, and Null Field. For my current build I’m one of the few Mesmers that doesn’t use Blink in PvE. I’ve never found that I need it. Maybe if it gave me Z-axis transversal I’d use it, but I find clone spamming to be more useful to me.

Advent.6193:

I’m running around in a Talkhora set, atm … staff + sword/pistol. Likin the combo of extra condi/healing/vit/toughness. Rabid spec on trinkets. As for build, I tend to stay heavy dueling/illusions, but have tried about everything but high inspiration builds.

Interesting. What’s your trait build like?

AlBundy.7851:

The only people that really did any crying on these forums if I remember correctly were the ones that got smashed by 100 blades. Did they all quit? Wonder what happened to them?

Which is hilarious cuz 100b is a self root that doesn’t work if the enemy…. you know…. MOVES. Only way you can get someone to sit there and eat one in PVP is to stun/immobilize them, and even then it doesn’t work if they stun-break/cleanse and dodge roll.

With Cloak and Dagger, using Dual Daggers and the 1 and 5 weapon skills exclusively, coupled with {V} Infusion of Shadow (Shadow Arts, refunds 2 initiative when you stealth, making Cloak and Dagger essentially only cost 4 initiative) means that a thief on paper will have an infinite number of stealths, assuming you can hit every time with Dagger 5 (harder than it sounds when you’re chasing someone down). I’ve used this technique exclusively in dungeons to keep bosses off me and to keep behind them for crit backstabs, since by the time the stealth reveal debuff wears off, you will be back to full initiative.

Again, it does assume you have perfect aim, but I’ve faced thieves with aim that good. Or close enough that it doesn’t matter.

Fisher.8290:

As a burst thief, my enemies are controls. Stuns, immobilize, knock-downs, pulls. Any of these at the wrong time and I have used my initiative and am pretty much done for. I have fought several opponents that use these well and kill me.

Again, sometimes I win vs an experienced player, sometimes I don’t. Just from my perspective, it seems about even.

That’s how I win against thieves in sPVP. I chain-stun mercilessly with my Warrior. It’s funny to make a thief panic and hide in stealth and run because I have more than twice his health and toughness. (Meaning he can’t burst me down before I chain stun him.) :P

Disastersaurus.3146:

Renewed Focus: I…really can’t justify this elite skill at all. Maybe some Guardians are making it work for them, but the invulnerability is really just neutral, since you’re stuck in place while casting, and the only effect is to refresh virtue cooldowns? Even if I pop all three virtues at once, then use Renewed Focus, it pales in comparison to the kind of power the tomes bring to the table.

If someone is genuinely impressed by Renewed Focus and what it does for them, I guess that’s great, but I’d be surprised.

I’m a pure Cleric-type tank guardian and I use Renewed Focus exclusively for dungeons. Being able to pop all my Virtues then immediately renew them is great. Helps me and my team.

And how are you stuck in one place? It’s not a self-root. I use it in dungeons and WvW and move while casting it. It’s a great way to avoid getting rooted and pulled while running towards your friendly keep’s door. I can tell you’ve never actually used it if you think it’s a self-root. It most certainly is not.

Sometimes I use the Tomes in WvW where it’s appropriate (always during defenses or sieges), but for dungeons I like Renewed Focus.

I think I’m the only Guardian in this entire game that likes Renewed Focus, for whatever reason. I’m fine with that. I make use of it as it’s intended: A great ability for a tank to buff allies and temporarily gain some invincibility while renewing the Virtues s/he just used. Not to mention it’s a relatively short cooldown. That means double Aegis every 90 seconds (once when I use Courage, second time 3 seconds later when Courage renews). Awesome. I love me some Aegis for boss fights.

AngryBuu.2479:

Hey there,since I saw a lot of whiners on this forums complaining about Dps,but I can tell u Engi is great support class!I saw this one guy that was with me in dungeon and he healed and supported the kitten out of us.So since engi has a lot of Support/control abilites,can someone recommend me a support build?(Dungeon,PvE based)Tnx!

Very true good sir. They are the closest class to a “healing” class in the game (eles got nothing on Engie’s bombs), but unfortunately I find it makes solo leveling difficult.

If I ever get around to actually seriously leveling my engineer I’ll be using this build:

http://guildwars2grandmaster.com/builds/engineer-bombs-heals-control/

Yeah I know it’s more-or-less a cookie-cutter build, but I’ve taken a very close look at the trait lines, and it probably works really well when you’ve got full Cleric’s/Sapphire.

Thenoob.1480:

The basics of the engineer are: you play at 100% to match others at 80%.

The upside of that is when you find a good Engineer you know they are actually good and it’s not their class.

But yeah, my Engie just hit lvl 11 and I’m having a hell of a time with DPS when I use Pistol/Shield. Makes me want to finish leveling my Ranger (lvl 68). I never thought I’d say that. <head-desk>

Sometimes I get the impression that toolkits/weaponkits are the only viable option. -_-

Aether McLoud.1975:

No because generosity shares cooldown with battle.

Wait…. what? Really? I don’t use those in tandem, but that doesn’t seem right to me.

Is that intended? Or is it a glitch?

Nautika.5376:

Madian.4059:

ehrm… and what’s wrong with warrior in sPVP?

Well if you read the Warriors forum everything.. You would say that the Warrior is the WORST spvp and WvW class in the game…..

IF you read the Warrior forums……

It’s the same for every class forum. They all cry and moan about how their class sucks and every other class is so overpowered and has better DPS, survivability, boons, and condition removal.

As I see it, the only classes that actually have any right to complain are Engineers and Necromancers. Engineers got a seriously unfair nerf when they were already struggling to stay competitive (I would never even dream of using an Engie in sPVP, even before the nerf). Necromancers have serious issues with their 5-point and 10-point minor traits in Death Magic being useless if they’re not a minion build.

John Widdin.9618:

I am running healing shouts. Should I go for knights gear straight up, or should I go for the rurik set with power, toughness, healing?

and thank you.

Probably the Knight’s set. The healing shouts are just to help keep you alive until you can shove your sword down the enemy’s throat. :P

I personally like Sunrise better between Sunrise and Twilight.

Sunrise is nice and visible both at night and at day.

Blacksarevok.8104:

Is the burst ability for Harpoon Gun supposed to be affected by Crack Shot?

It should. The burst ability of the Rifle pierces. (which is hilarious in WvW if you get the right targets lined up)

But honestly I don’t fight enough underwater to notice this much.

Brutalistik.6473:

I just want to correct you something…….

Warriors don’t have an excellent condition removal system and even with shouts runes it is nothing comparable to a guardian condition removal system. Guardians can use shout runes as well and have passive conditions remove off every 10seconds along with a 20second cool down skill called Smite Condition. It is an AoE attack that does more damage if their is any condition removed off the guardian.

The developer even gives you brief information about how they view warriors.

Warrior

We want the Warrior to be capable of good melee damage in a sturdy body. They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet). They have a hard time taking enemy boons down, and instead, have to just go through them with raw force. They may have a hard time with enemy conditions, and may need to ask for ally help in order to keep themselves free of hampering conditions.

I don’t care what Anet says. And you clearly don’t understand the class. Warriors have excellent condition removal. You just have to use Superior Runes of the Soldier. Condition removal problem solved. Not to mention they have Signet of Stamina which when activated removes ALL conditions, and also the healing skill Mending, which removes 2 conditions. So when you use shouts, you have AT LEAST 3 condition removing skills at hand, 4 if you use Mending.

Best part of that condition removal is you don’t necessarily need to spec for it to be effective. You just need Runes of the Soldier, which are always useful for a Warrior because of the +toughness and vitality stats. I run a 10/30/0/0/30 glass cannon warrior and I do fine even in WvW as long as I’m paying attention to what’s going on around me and don’t get stomped by a zerg or something equally foolish.

DPS Guardians melt when they face me. Their tiny bit of Aegis and passive healing doesn’t help them when I can stack bleeding on them and get 14k bursts from my Rifle 3 ability. Unless they stack lots of vitality and toughness and control skills, DPS Guardians go down fast against DPS Warriors.

Now tank Guardians give me trouble when I use my warrior, because they’ve got healing and tons of boons, and if I try to glass cannon them they’re wear me out through attrition.

I personally have Khilbron’s. But any Precision/Toughness/Condition armor set can work for my build, which is all about stacking conditions and staying alive. I use Undead Runes and Carrion-typed trinkets (attempting to stack condition and toughness, but with some vitality so I don’t run around with a tiny health pool). Makes for an overall balanced build that lacks in power, but I’m always the last man standing in dungeons, and I can solo champions by spamming clones and using my invisibility selectively.

My build is currently 0/20/20/10/20. I typically run Sword/Pistol + Staff. Not very original I know, but I love that weapon combo set for its versatility and survivability. Mine is a condition build that concentrates on surviving foremost (doesn’t matter how much power and crit chance you have if you’re DEAD) and wearing out enemies through attrition.

Mantra builds are not for the faint of heart nor those players new to the class. You have to be constantly moving and charging mantras while using currently charged mantras AT THE SAME TIME. Because instants can be cast during channels, one of the greatest strengths of mantra builds is having {VI} Protected Mantras from the Dueling trait line which gives you +250 armor while you’re channeling mantras. Adds a lot of survivability to a build that’s almost continuously channeling. The other which is almost mandatory for a mantra build is {XI} Harmonious Mantras from the Domination trait line which allows you to use each prepared Mantra THREE times (instead of two) before it goes on cooldown and needs to be channeled again to prepare it.

Don’t use {X} Restorative Mantras (Inspiration). It’s not worth the loss of either {XI} Empowered Mantras (Dueling, +4% damage for each readied mantra) or Harmonious Mantras. It simply isn’t.

I’ve tried a mantra build in sPVP a bit, but I am simply not skilled enough to use it. It’s got a high learning curve and you’ve gotta pay attention to lots of things at once: your weapon and skill cooldowns, your mantra preparation uses left, your illusions, your shatter skills & their cooldowns, your opponent’s behavior, your own health & conditions/boons, plus thinking of the overall map & strategic situation makes mantras too overwhelming to use effectively for most people. Including me. I understand the theory, but actually using it is beyond me. Way too much multi-tasking.

I’m much better at using my confusion build and simply using Glamour skills and shatters along with my Scepter/Torch to stack confusion when I play sPVP. Much simpler and more straightforward.