Guild Wars 2

DeathPanel.8362:

I didn’t dispute his numbers. I disputed the conclusion that he made based on his numbers.

It looked like you questioned the effectiveness of numbers show in calculators by saying they’re somehow different from the paper and live testing.
Live testing has variants (player skill) but when it comes down to numbers, it’s still 100% accurate.

It’s actually really easy, even if you don’t have the actual DpS for each profession, you do know Effective Power, which works as a summary of attack from a build.
Take your Effective Health, and working with % (because we don’t know the real numbers) we can get how many TIME (arbitrary unit) it will take for build A to kill build B.

With this you can check how your build would fare against other types (Knights, Soldiers, Mixed) and you’ll get your real build effectiveness (don’t forget to add Healing potential as Health as well).

So, let’s say a full Berserk Guardian will kill me, a full Soldier Guardian, in 10 TIMEs. But I will kill him in 6 TIMEs. The only way to overcome this is to make up for 4 TIMEs by outplaying me.
However, in a strict fight of dealing/taking damage, I’m sure to come victorious. I just have to work to not get outplayed =)

That’s the way of making awesome builds (and winning in PvP).

DeathPanel.8362:

Still trolling and taking people’s words out of context I see.

Honestly, I thought that was sooo fun…

Will we get new Ascended Types?

I use Soldier/Berserk gems for trinkets and I’m still saving my laurels/commendations in hopes this type will make into the game, but if they won’t I’ll have to come up with another build with the existing ones.

I hope they add more types, does anyone have any info on this?

Entropy.4732:

Are you pleased with Guard’s performance in WvW?

In a scale from 1 to 10, I’d say… 7.5.
For group fighting, the most awesome thing Guardians can bring are Wide Area Projectile Protection and Wardings.

I’ve been in a few groups (guild) where we wiped 50+ (could’ve been 100 or 200, it was just TOO much) with a group of less than 20 in a situation that involved a few ballistas, a corridor, and multiple Wardings.

No other profession allows for such strategical warfare, but this has it’s shortcomings…

Entropy.4732:

I’m a tad spoiled by having a ton of clones and nervous about being one player, one target. Can you survive and hold your own?

Yes, in the middle of a chaotic battle (such kitten Lord’s Room), you can sustain yourself for a really good time and wreak havoc with heavy melee AoE.
For 1v1s, professions such as Thieves and Mesmers will harass you to death, you can’t even touch them if they’re good, and they’re not bound to stay in one place or to engage in combat with you 100% of the time like in sPvP.

Entropy.4732:

Are you a benefit to the team?

Yes, Guardians provide one of the best support in game in my opinion. Various Wardings, Heals, boons and most are AoE makes for an excellent member.

Entropy.4732:

Can you roam?

As good as Thieves and Mesmers? No. We do okay in general though.

DeathPanel.8362:

You didn’t actually get better “overall” stats by spreading it around. You simply made tradeoffs in one area to gain in others. Mixing gear does not actually really give you net increase in stats.

He did if he traded expensive Critical Damage (Legs, Chest, Rings for example) or DR-reduced Toughness for something else.

DeathPanel.8362:

Using online calculators may show you the numbers but live testing is where you actually see the effectiveness of those numbers in various areas of the game.

Math doesn’t lie. People do.
I’m going to quote someone here for a better example:

DeathPanel.8362:

You can dispute my conclusions but you can’t dispute the numbers.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Thus the continual updates this year to make the creatures in Orr have more varied skills, the swap over to the new event scaling system that creates veterans/champions as content scales up, and the updates to Southsun to have more playable content.

ColinJohanson.2394:

The original version of Orr events were painfully easy, they didn’t scale well, mobs evaporated into thin-air and you had to race to even get a hit in before they died to get credit for kills.

I agree with these, many players even had specific wide range AoE weapons for these events.

However, do you call spawning a Champion Risen Spider and multiple Veteran Risen Acolytes in Temple of Grenth against 3 players a “good scaling” example?

A player had been spamming the mapchat for nearly 30min until I decided to help him, along with someone else who tagged along.
We downed Grenth which was easier than I remember it used to be, just to be crushed by this single spider (as if the huge amounts of mobs + the “unknow explodes” wasn’t enough for 3 players to handle).

Then I regret I wasted time and repair going out of my gathering walk to attempt that.

If they’re true, finally Zeal is seeing some love… I’m even going to try a Spirit Weapon build again (the Sword should hit for 1000ish, that’s pretty good).

I’m kinda annoyed that Zealous Blade still only works with Greatsword but well…

And the new grandmaster trait that will replace Zealous Blade will be even worse, I can’t even think why someone would take it to increase in 50~ every burning (in a 2k Power build).

Disclaimer: This is NOT confirmed. Sources of this info are this and this.

GENERAL

GUARDIAN

Just looking for discussions in case they’re true (and because there’s hardly anything new to discuss in this forum).

I repeat, this is NOT confirmed. Go step on a lego if you assume them to be.

This is indeed great but… who uses Radiance for PvP builds?

As much as I like damage builds (I’m in favor of Zeal/Radiance builds), a 0/0/30/30/0 + 10 build outperforms every other build in sPvP right now… some may even claim a 0/0/0/30/30 + 10 is also a good option, but AH/Monk’s Focus makes me practically invincible/really hard to beat in 1v1s, and even more in XvX (though it lacks the support of Virtue).

At least I hope Zeal/Radiance gets some love in the 25th patch, because I’d really like to play these lines in PvP without worrying about another undying Guardian I might face.

This will be fun for Mesmers…

Imagine getting 10 stacks of Torment & Confusion.

Did you move? You take damage.
Did you press a button? You take damage.
Are you standing still doing nothing? You’re taking damage.

Brutaly.6257:

You wont loose out on anything when mixing gear. Just as you wont loose out on anything by not mixing gear.

Oh, but you do lose when not mixing gear.
Defense being non-linear as it is, it means if you don’t invest a minimum on it, you’ll die much faster than someone who spent a few points in it.

Also, by game design, spending points in Attack is a lesser gain than spending in Defense, so not getting a minimum defense is a terrible idea.

Going full Berserk is always a bad idea unless you’re sure what you’re doing, that is, you know you won’t get hit or you’ll be in a controlled environment (PvE, Dungeons).

Also, in WvW/PvE, Critical Damage has a different weight depending on the slot it’s in, so mixing gear allows you to minimize the impact it’ll have on your remaining attributes.
Getting Critical Damage on the Legs for example is bad, each point there costs 16 attribute points. Getting it on the gems is the best option, each point there costs 5 attribute points.
So, the larger your Critical Damage is, the more expensive it becomes in your other attributes.

Not to mention that Critical Damage by itself isn’t a strong attribute unless you’ve got a high enough Critical Chance (probably around 50%?) so it becomes better than Power/Precision.

Brutaly.6257:

I would even go so far and say mixing gear is almost a must if you want to have max leverage ratio, when investing in your build.

Doesn’t need to go so far, it’s true after all…

Also, words of the wise (careful, one of the statements below is false):

DeathPanel.8362:

Guardians will never compare to any of the dps classes in dmg anyway so there’s no point in speccing for damage.

The extra damage squeezed out with a full zerker spec (and I’ve tested it with a full zerker set) doesn’t outweigh the lost utility in support and survivability.

TGSlasher.1458:

Earth storm used to be a blind a second, now its a blind per 3 seconds. Dunno why it has such a long CD

I knew I wasn’t crazy… I remember clearly being virtually invulnerable during the Sandstorm, and then after a patch (without any notes of changing the spell) I was suddenly going down in the middle of it.

It’s still strong though, but a blind per second before was much more awesome.
I think they reduced it because only Thieves can blind once per second, and we’re clearly not Thieves.

Anyone knows if it’s available to players? If so, where do I get it?

Edit: I meant to post in the Players Help Players forum…

Black Lion Trading Company (key: O)

If you need gold you can run CoF p1 all hours of your day to buy them.

And if you’re really patient, you could farm them in level 80 areas with their marginal drop from regular monsters (Orr usually).
Also, Heavy Moldy Bags have a slim chance of getting you a few (these drop from any level 70+ Risen). I think Heavy Loot Bags (from WvW level 80 guys) also have a chance for a few.

If you want to gamble, you can also learn to promote T5 materials into T6 (not sure if it’s still worth it), you take a few… 100~200? (don’t remember) T5 mats + a few gold and they become like 5~15 T6 mats…

mPascoal.4258:

Still isn’t it good? I like Danicco build but only 300 healing power doesn’t seem enough for what I’ve reading here

That’s a different type of build and play style.

Healing Power scales absurdly well with Selfless Daring (1 to 1 ratio), which means if you have 1000 Healing Power, you’ll be healed for 1000+ every time you dodge.
With Vigor always up from Vigorous Precision, that means a 1000+ Heal every 3 seconds or so (Altruistic Healing can’t match that, and is group-dependant).

You just the enough to sustain yourself through your battles.
Altruistic Healing, like mentioned before, scales poorly with Healing Power, meaning it doesn’t matter much if you have 100 or 1000.

In my opinion, this is a good thing because I don’t have to invest in Healing at all, just Power/Health, since the Healing it brings is enough for me to keep going.
I choose to use Soldier because of the awesome defense it brings (both Toughness and Vitality) while still having high Power (and I just spend a bit on Crit % to deal a good sustained damage).

With this setup, I don’t die in 1v1s at all unless I’m bursted/combo’ed so badly that it’s my fault as player for letting that happen, or I’m AFK, or I’m alt-tabbed, etc

Against Cleric players which I’ve fought quite a few times, I don’t kill them either, I do think my attacks take quite a chunk of health when I connect (or they just play with low health), but they fill that so quick so it just ends with both of us going somewhere else.

Against others that doesn’t have a high defense or healing to keep up, I can keep up the pressure well and it’s just a matter of how long they can fight me (they usually flee when they notice I’m steadily getting the advantage).

In the end, it depends on you, as any Guardian in here probably tested it themselves and reached their own balance and are comfortable with it.
So I suggest you trying it out, mix things up (traits and gear) until you find your “best” survivability/damage ratio and keep tweaking from there.

This doesn’t means you should invalidate someone else’s builds and opinions, but in the end they’re just ideas you need to test yourself to see if they’re really worth it.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t actually mind because in a way, he was right. If I would have crushed his ‘facts’ with the numbers in the first place, this silliness might have stopped a while ago. The funny part is that now he’s got the numbers and facts, he’s accusing me of ‘forgetting’ things in the calculation, even though the calculation is done automatically by the builder. /sigh

Well it’s not the first time I see you (pointless, in my opinion) discussing with him, but let me show you how I see it:

OP: Hey guys, how do I do X and Y?
Community Guardians: You can opt for A, B or C.
Troll: Use A.
You: Why A? B and C are viable options as well.
Troll: Only stupids use B and C. I’ve show undeniable facts that A is the way to go.
You: Presents sensible arguments on B & C
Troll: You’re just avoiding my question. You show nothing and therefore your argument is invalid. A is the way to go.

repeat ad infinitum in every topic the troll posts

So, I wonder why is it that you even bother setting up arguments, making builds, checking math just because some random guy said “it’s wrong because I said so”.

For that patience, you have my respect.
For feeding the troll and brightening my day, I salute you.

(I know I have some sadistic issues but I won’t delve into that)

You’ll need to be more specific, in GW2 all professions are balanced in such a way that practically everyone can do everything.

Even Elementalists (low health, low armor) can be “sturdy” with their bunker (tanky) builds that rely on alot of healing and protection boons (reduce damage by 33%).

And all of them are useful to some extent, and it’s debatable which is more useful.

So I’d suggest either picking a profession by how much you like their aesthetic appeal (animations, armors, weapons you can use).
WvW is also very vague because there’s a bunch of roles and situations you run into, so it’s hard to pick a “best” because there isn’t one, but I’ll try to limit your options from what you’ve said:

“I like to punch my enemies”: Warrior, Guardian, Thief, Elementalist
“being sturdy”: (taking hits) Guardian, Warrior, (avoiding hits) Thief, Mesmer, (healing through) Elementalist, other professions are sorta a mix of everything
“fast”: Thief, Elementalist, Mesmer
“being outnumbered”: You’ll always die unless you’re a Thief, Mesmer or Elementalist and manage to outrun pursuers
“i hate AI dependance”: Avoid Rangers and Necromancers
“be useful with my guild members in wvw”: Any profession applies

I think it’s because it’s clearly OP.

I know I deliberately get hit at least 5 times in a row just so I can benefit of the maximum of 5 Might stacks, and then I proceed to destroy whoever attacked me fully buffed with my 5 Might stacks. That is, if the attackers aren’t burnt to death by now.

Whoever designed this was out of his mind, I don’t know how could such an obvious overpowered skill was allowed to exist, so I think they counter-balanced it with the long cooldown.

(this is sarcasm)

Obtena.7952:

snip

I applaud your patience… I gave up on replying trolls long ago. It’s still funny to see delusional posts from them (in a weird, sorta sadistic way).

mPascoal.4258:

Do you think in a ZvZ this will fit? At PvE I’m almost sure that it will, but in PvE most of the builds do so, that’s not the problem. I give up a lot of support for more sustain.

Hum this is just my opinion but I think your Power is really really low… but I’m a Power-maniac Guardian, so I might be biased.

I think that in ZvZ battles, the most important is to cause the most impact you can get on it by:
- Locking multiple opponents for your team’s AoE (Various Wardings, Sanctuary and other AoE controls)
- Healing as much as you can, making your team last longer than the enemies’
- Causing the most damage you can, forcing enemies into defense and dropping their attack

So, a build that just… “tanks” people is useless in my opinion. It’s just another player in the middle of AoE showing numbers and granting bags and experience to the enemies.

In really large fights (20+), no matter how tanky your Guardian is, if you’re focused, you won’t last enough and won’t make any difference at all. At best what a tanky Guardian can do is distract a zerg for Shelter + Renewed Focus + Dodges duration, then go down. You’d be just buying your team 7~ seconds or so at the cost of 1 player.

mPascoal.4258:

In the trait’s I’m still not sure If I should have 30 in Valor, or just have 20 in Valor and 20 in Virtues and have Absolute Resolution (but if I put this one I’ll have to change either the Runes or the last trait of Honor otherwise I’ll have a lot of focus in condition removal, which in WvW in ZvZ doesn’t matter so much) or Indomitable Courage.

If you’re planning on ZvZ alot, stick with Altruistic Healing, it outheals Absolute Resolution by far on a group.
Also, you’d lose Might of the Protector which is awesome in ZvZ.

mPascoal.4258:

Sugestions?

I’d prefer more damaging builds while still keeping your tankiness high, such as this (you can change the weapon to Knights), so I suggest you give it a try and see if the damage gain is worth the defense lost.
For me it usually is in all situations I run into, and there’s even times I wish I had even more damage, to burst the middle of those zergs so badly that I’d make 5+ enemies worry and pull back (essentially preventing those 5 from going full damage on my team).

Also, I don’t really have an issue with conditions and I think Pure of Voice + Soldier Runes to be overkill.
There’s very few conditions that can be really annoying and stack up to absurd amount of time (usually from SBow thieves and Grenadier Engies), but it’s usually one or two that lasts that long, and a single Smite Condition would work great for AoE damage and cleanse, or if you want group cleansing, Purging Flames is great as well.

It’s an alternative if you want to free two slots in Honor since there’s a bunch of great Major traits there (Larger Symbols, Healing Symbols, Empowering Might, Resolute Healer, Battle Presence).

I’m not really complaining about the Champion Spider by itself, I know it takes a bunch of players to take one down when we’re doing the Melandru event for example and even still, it takes long to die and is really annoying.

What I’m really bugged is what does the genius who designed this pile of kittens thought when he balanced the Grenth event to always spawn that spider (and I won’t even comment on the Risen Wrath) when there’s THREE players in the area?

“Oh this event must be tough… let’s see, if there’s one or more players in the area, spawn a Champion Risen Spider. Good, that’s it! Gosh, I love spiders.”

I bet it’s the same guy who designed only nobles to appear during Warmaster Chan’s escort event, making it fail miserably more than 90% of the time with their Symbols insta-killing NPCs.

Really, that’s pure genius… making events frustrating enough so players don’t even bother with it anymore.

Small story time (you can skip): I hit 80 in my green/yellows.
I went to Orr for the first time when people still were figuring the place out.
When Risen ran faster than you, out of combat, with Swiftness, and they crippled.

It was hard. I would fight each Risen with caution and the Risen Eagle would almost down me every fight. Two of these, I was going to die for sure.

It was challenging, so I didn’t gave up, I learned how to fight, geared up, and started to farm the place. It was still challenging, but in a different way, I could fight 5+ at once and I was always pushing my Guardian.
Soloing Dwayna. Soloing Melandru. Soloing Grenth. Almost soloing Lyssa. Soloing Champion Kings. Soloing Champion Abominations.

Always a challenge. An in-between them, there’s always some event going on.

Then some day someone thought it would be a nice idea to “make the place better”. After a bunch of new patches and revamps, at this moment, there’s like less than 10 of us in the map running around. And when there’s more, they’re just there for their Orichalcum, if that!
So much for making the place better, right? It’s so much better than the player population there went almost to non-existant. (this is sarcasm)

TLDR: But it’s okay, I always liked to solo stuff. Or duo.
When the design is smart, there’s always a way to succeed.
When the design is dumb, you spawn a Champion Spider with 20 Veteran Hatchlings even when there’s 3 players in the area (the 4th in the screen just got there after to get killed).

You can only dodge so many times, and only get up to 3 Stun Breakers.

I think I learned the lesson. You don’t go to Orr. Except maybe when you’re gathering.

To whoever designed it, good job. You really got the “Land of the Dead” part right.

This doesn’t save to the public like Gw2Build, but it’s the best build creator website: http://www.gw2buildcraft.com/calculator

I tried to optimize your gear: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.1|6.1n.h4|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j.1c.71j.1g.71j|1g.61.1n.61.1n.61.1n.67.1n.67.1c.67|k67.a6.0.u39b.a5|0.0|1m.1u.1v.24.29|e

Get two weapons, one with Sigil of Bloodlust, and another one with Sigil of Force, Accuracy, Fire, Air, Battle, whatever you prefer.
After a while you’ll get used to keep using the Bloodlust weapon until you get 25 stacks, and then switching to the damaging weapon (and you’ll learn to take extra care not going down).

São Paulo, Brazil
ISP Ajato/Speedy

I’m not sure if I’m reading this Diag right but… it seems the packet loss is something big…

Just in case, is this something that ANet can fix?
It seems my connection is fine (for anything else besides GW2), my computer isn’t the issue either, and from what I could understand, the issue is in the path my connection takes to reach ANet’s server. If that’s the case, does this means I have nothing to do but wait until someone fix their servers, if they think it’s a problem?

This won’t solve anything. I don’t think it CAN be solved.

If they put up a new skin for 10u (units), let’s say 8 players out of 10 buy it. That’s a 80u income.
If they put up their RNG boxes for 10u, and 2 players buy 4 each, they’re even. And that’s a low estimative.

They got to earn something with the cash shop to keep the game alive, so if you don’t like RNG, don’t support it, but as long as there are 2 guys buying them, they won’t change it.

So my suggestion is: Start taking a liking for gambling. If you don’t want to spend money, farm and spend gold instead.

Today, 06/12, still the same lag, dunno when it started.

Today is the worst ever though, instead of 3~5 seconds lag, I’m getting skill lag every single second. My game is constantly going fast-forward and slow-motion mode.

mPascoal.4258:

Anyway, I’ve seen here some topics talking about AH builds with Zerg or Knight gear, but I wondered why? Is that only for PvE, or WvW too? How it goes for WvW if, with AH build with all Zerg or Knight gear you only have 300 healing power, which I think is low for a Guardian.

You can think of builds belonging to 3 roles:
Offense, Defense, Balanced.

As you play against other players you’ll earn experience and you’ll notice two things:

1. Offense is great against other Offense types. Whoever hits first, or combo better, wins.
2. Defense is great against multiple opponents, and can beat Offense with ease. Against other Defense types, it’s always a long, outlasting, or draw battles.

So, what’s a good way to face both Offense and Defense types? A Balanced one.
Now it’s about of how achieving this Balance. You need both offense and defense.

You can Gear offensively, and Trait defensively, or you can Gear defensively, and Trait offensively.
The most popular (in sPvP) is Gear offensively (Berserker/Knights) and Trait defensively (Valor/Honor) because they synergize well with the profession’s mechanics.

You leave all your defense to Vigorous Precision + Selfless Daring (more dodges, and heal every dodge), AH (heal constantly), high Toughness (and take less damage when you get hit), focusing anything else you can for offense.

jaka.9635:

That is 50€ for some candy…
Screw this!

Wow, lol… and this time is even worse than ever, with Black Lion chests you usually get things that you can’t get anywhere else but…

I hope you like candy.

I want to transmute it to my back piece, but I have an exotic back and on the screen of the transmute it shows it’ll eat my gem, probably because it’ll be replaced with the infusion slot from the Fervid Censer.

How can I get only the skin from it? The attributes are from my back piece, and I want the same gem too. (I don’t have an Ascended to make up for it and it’ll take quite a while before I get one)

So you’ve been enjoying Food Ball too?

I enjoyed it alot until they figured you could cheat.

Started today, 06/11, at 10:55 PDT.

If it’s FPS lag, it isn’t related to your connection, but hardware. You might want to check if your drivers are updated and if there’s nothing eating your processor while you’re playing.

And today, 06/10, the lag is still present as of 02:55 PDT. Since I wasn’t online earlier, it might’ve started way before this.

However, it seems a bit different today, the lag isn’t as bad as before seeing that the sound is at least synch’ed with the motions (before it wasn’t), and I’m not getting the skill lag every 3~5 seconds like before, just 7~10 seconds now.

It is still terrible though. Going to use the GPN again to see if it improves.

1. They’re below average. But it’s probably because if you roam, you’ll only find Mesmers and Thieves roaming and owning you senselessly.

You sometimes find a Warrior, Elementalist or Guardian around and you can enjoy a good 1v1. But most of the time, you’ll be killing clones and getting killed by clones, or be in permanent combat because there’s a perma-stealth thief around who you’re engaged in combat with.

For roaming in WvW, Thieves/Mesmers and maybe Elementalists are unmatched, and if you fight any of these professions on the hand of a skilled player, you’re not going to win.

2. Yes, Staff is awesome for this, and if you think you can survive, teleporting in the middle of the zerg, dropping a Mighty Blow / Whirling Wrath and running back with Shelter/Renewed Focus/Dodges also work well.

You can do anything, but these two I think are the most suitable for Guardians and the ones the profession really excel at.

- Melee DpS: If you’re in a group who’s always going for the clash, it’s one of the best roles you can get. Being really resistant and able to deal high AoE damage, Guardians are awesome in melee combat.
- Support: Pick Staff and any other weapon (Mace/Shield for extra healing) and you can pump up Might, Heals, Swiftness, Wards, while still DpSing.
Utilities can provide excellent projectile protection (Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger) as well, and those are great for zergs.

For those with this same issue, I found this on reddit and it solved for me (for 30 days):

Download WTFast, a VPN of some sort for games, activate the 30 day free trial and enjoy your lag free GW2! …for 30 days.

Let’s hope they’ll fix the servers until then, because I don’t want to pay for a another program to run my game =(

Click on “MY ACCOUNT” below your Forum Info in the upper right corner of the forums, log in (again), and you’ll find a “Download for Mac (Beta)”.

That’s the one you have to download.

Did you download the Mac Version of the game?

It seems you’re trying to install the Windows version.

Grunblatt.4608:

Thanks a lot for the fast answers. I still don’t understand why most of the other players on my server dont seem to have the same lag if this is caused by connectivity issues of the server.. but at least i know that it’s not a problem that i can fix from here.

I’m also annoyed by it because I played perfectly since launch and never experienced any kinda of server-side lag like this.

Other players might be fine because it’s probably something like “Server: oh I’m full/lazy, I’m going to ignore a few players… you, you, and you (and we’re a few that have been picked)”.

Exedore.6320:

Do the math again.

Why? It’s correct and you said so yourself.
It’s effectiveness or usefulness in either PvP or PvE is something else.

Exedore.6320:

High level fractals are the only difficult PvE right now. As you go up in levels, there are more and more mobs and agony resist is only effective at just barely preventing you from dying. In some places you don’t want to be in melee and are against bosses that do lots of area damage. AH scales with the number of allies, whereas Zealous Blade scales with enemies.

If you have to use a ranged weapon primarily, then you’ve lost all that sustain from Zealous Blade.

If I’m going ranged or I’m facing a one-shot-me boss, I’m not going for Zealous Blade or Altruistic Healing, what makes you assume I would?

Exedore.6320:

You aren’t going to bunker a point well with a Zeal build, but let’s say you tried.

I’m not going only Zeal for PvP. And although I was talking about Symbols and how they are useful, since you implied they’re not as good in PvP with “- Zeal’s minor traits only take effect if your targets stand still.”

Exedore.6320:

Symbols are much better in an offensive role to force other bunkers off their points or take lots of damage, including mid fights.

And that’s a great example of how Symbols can be useful in PvP.
Zeal improving them isn’t a bad thing at all then.

Exedore.6320:

But if you’re full zeal, your only sustain mechanic requires you to hit your opponent often in melee.

You do know that when you choose to spend 30 points in Zeal, it doesn’t lock you out of other trait lines right?
Saying it’s the only sustain is presumptuous. Assuming it’s the best build ever is too.

Exedore.6320:

They nerfed it only because of the retaliation up-time, not because of the healing. They’ve nerfed retalation afterwards in other ways, so it would be nice if they lowered the cooldown a bit.

I remember the posts about it, but Guardians’ AoE damage was quite OP like that. I liked it though…

Exedore.6320:

Also, isn’t it funny that the best two traits for a symbol build, larger symbols and symbols heal allies, are not in the Zeal line, which has a heavy focus on symbols?

Best is relative, Honor has Symbol enhancing traits in terms of usefulness, where Zeal has for damage.
Back when the cooldown was 8 seconds traited, you could almost always assume an extra 5% damage from the vulnerability.

I also think there was a ninja nerf with Symbolic Power, because I’m pretty sure with my Power build (full Power gear + Power runes + Power stacks + etc) my GS Symbols hit roughly for 800~1k on Risens.

I tested it at first when I realized the damage increase was around 25%, and confirmed it in the wiki, but after some patches I went there again and noticed the update for 10%.

But really, a 8 second cooldown, 5 sec duration, 900ish damage that heals (130 + 25), causes vulnerability and grants boons was really awesome…

For those of us who are experiencing this unenjoyable lag at seemingly random times, I suggest a feature that measures our lag and establishes a suggested/forced playing time.

So, in my case, the lag-o-meter would show that I’m not supposed to play during 10:00 PDT until XX:XX PDT.

Then I can go do something else since the game says I can’t play yet (because I wouldn’t enjoy it), and when the lag-enjoy-o-meter says it’s okay I know I can log and enjoy my playing time.

I think this should be top priority.

Ah indeed, I was thinking about either Zeal or Radiance.
10/25/X/X/X is better for damage than 20/15/X/X/X (with 5%) if you compare points.

Today, 06/09, it began at about 10:00 PDT.

But that’s only if you use 1 handers (and pick Right Handed Strength). For Greatsword and Hammer, Zeal wins flat out.

swiftpaw.6397:

Soooo.. fotm 48, you’re the only guardian in a team of high dps players who are quite squishy and you need to play anchor… what are you running if it’s not AH?

I’m no expert with Fractals (I hate the farming), but I’m curious, why are you asking me which build is better for tanking besides the tanking tree? It doesn’t make much sense to me.

Anyway, this is what I have in mind, although his/her build isn’t exactly DpS, but I don’t see why it couldn’t work with a full DpS build either.

CptAurellian.9537:

Fascinating, I just tested it myself. I’m pretty sure that it was different last year, but anyway. So the trait is not as useless as I remembered it, but anything beyond Fiery Wrath still does not bring enough utility and/or damage to let go of the points in Honor.

Why do you think your only option is dropping points in Honor?

Also, 30/0/30/10/0 builds seems kinda fun too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1TKrCvJ9Lo&feature=youtu.be (check his videos, there are some more with a build like this)

CptAurellian.9537:

You avoided the question. Of course it procs off every attack, but in my experience only once, no matter how many enemies you hit with that attack. Unless they have changed that, your calculation I quoted is bogus.

I didn’t, although if you’re still doubtful, you can check the SSes.

Exedore.6320:

But once people found that they could get just as much from other trees along with survivability, it wasn’t as big of a problem.

This is a misconception, you can’t get as much from the other trees with better survivability, you’re still trading damage for defense.
The game is designed in a way that even with low amounts of Power, you’re still going to deal enough damage to solo, different from a “pure healer” role in other MMOs, where they can’t damage or solo anything in the game.

Zeal offers damage, same as the Radiance line (and in my opinion, Zeal is better for the support, survivability, versatility and equal/greater than Radiance in damage too).

Exedore.6320:

5% greatsword damage is not good.

It’s still a damage increase, and if you’re looking to maximize damage, is the best option in most cases.

Exedore.6320:

Zealous Blade is not good. With the greatsword, Altruistic Healing can out-perform it. Greatsword #1 chain 3 applies one stack of might for every enemy you hit. That means AH is doing more healing than Zealous Blade on the auto-attack. Zealous Blade really only benefits from Whirling Wrath, but AH beats it hands-down for general use. Note: the target cap for all attacks in the #1 chain is 3. Other attacks cap at 5.

Not true, it takes 3 attacks from the Greatsword to proc 1 Might to grant 75~ healing.
The same 3 attacks, against a single opponent, trigger Zealous Blade 3 times which also equals to 75 healing.
Multiple enemies, multiple procs as well (up to 3).

For survivability, AH is obviously better, since it’s easier to defend yourself and apply boons around you than keep attacking, and like I said, it’d be pretty weird if Zealous Blade were better for survivability than AH.
It’s still a great bonus healing when you’re AoEing.

Exedore.6320:

Your PvP logic makes little sense. Even with the larger symbols trait, you still can’t cover an entire cap point. You’ll never get off the entire damage of the symbol unless your opponent is being CC’ed from an outside source.

Symbol’s increased area doesn’t need to cover the entire cap point. It covers an area huge enough to make the enemy either run from the cap point, giving you the advantage for capping, or forcing him to maneuver closer to it between the areas your Symbol is not but still inside the cap point, which is probably still within your melee range.

Guardians are monsters when it comes to damage/defense, and our supposed weaknesses, mobility and ranged, are compensated by forcing opponents stay in our melee range because of the cap point mechanic.

Exedore.6320:

Spirit weapons need improvements.

Indeed, but they still have their uses (and they’re great for that).

Exedore.6320:

Yes, you always want some form of survivability. Downed and dead people both detract from DPS.

If it’s PvE, you can get little to no survivability and Berserker Gear and still perform greatly (as DpS).

Exedore.6320:

I forgot to mention that Symbol of Wrath was on a much shorter cooldown when the Zeal traits were designed. That further hurts the trait line that was designed heavily around the greatsword and symbols.

I remember the 10 second base cooldown, 8 traited.
And really, it was totally overpowered. With Zealous Blade and Writ of the Merciful, I had 5 seconds of awesome healing every 8 seconds plus awesome AoE damage and Retaliation.
I felt kinda annoyed when they nerfed it, but it was indeed overpowered. Being able to chain pull 5~10 mobs at once and finishing each fight with more than 90% health everytime didn’t exactly felt normal.

Exedore.6320:

Beat your head against the Zeal trait line as much as you want. But it currently has no potential beyond niche builds. The reason AH builds are so prevalent is because they work with everything.

The reason AH builds are prevalent is because it’s still a great build for survivability, and this is key in PvP, but for PvE it isn’t as required and there are better choices when it comes to killing stuff.

It is also prevalent like you say because people are used to coming to the forums, asking for a build, and never thinking back why they are even using that build.
Then they go preach how that build is awesome because they leveled 1~80 with it, farmed Orr, killed someone in WvW, and completed a dungeon with it.

CptAurellian.9537:

Last time I used a build with 30 Zeal (granted, it’s been something like half a year ago), the healing triggered once per attack, no matter how many targets you hit. As a consequence, AH was already almost as strong as zealous blade when you were alone, and in groups the difference was just ridiculous.

It procs of any attack while you’re using a Greatsword, even Symbol hits, making it great for AoE farming in general.
It’s not better than AH for survivability, or it would be really weird having the DpS line stronger for survivability than the survivability line… but it’s nowhere crappy or useless as most people say.

Dexlmentia.7391:

As I sift through dps guardian builds I keep wondering why zeal is so under utilized, almost to the point of being ignored.

It seems here in the forums there was a time that Zeal was considered to be totally lackluster and crappy compared to the other builds.
I’m finding it sorta funny that there aren’t as many posts today bashing it compared to before, even though nothing has changed until now. Maybe people can learn after all!

Dexlmentia.7391:

I understand why this might be for the classic support guardian builds, but is power a poor stat for guardians or is the entire trait line itself flawed in some way?

Zeal is a good line. Zeal even improves Spirit Weapons which provide a good support (borderline OP in some cases), and Power is the best (at most times) damage increase stat you can get.
The problem with Zeal, in my opinion, is that Guardians for some reason can’t live without Altruistic Healing, and Honor is a great line with great options, leaving little to no points to Zeal.
When some Guardians think “I want to DpS!” they always go for Critical % and Damage, and doesn’t even think or try to calculate if that’s actually the best option. In their minds, more criticals = awesome damage. Even if it’s a 2.5 critical every 1/2 attack with… 1500 Power.

Also, Zeal’s grandmaster of choice is Zealous Blade, and when people notice the 25 healing from their attacks, they think “this sucks!” and “it should be buffed to 100 or more!” (and don’t even think that we’d be unstoppable godlike killing machines with it).
Well, compared to AH, which is 75~ healing per BOON, a 25~ per HIT seems rather weak indeed.

Just as a note, against 5 enemies (supposedly the player AoE cap), a Symbol of Wrath (5 hits) + Whirling Wrath (9 hits, not counting projectiles) equals to 25 * 14 = 350 * 5 = 1750.

With 5 allies inside your Symbol area, you get 75 * 5 (number of boons) * 5 (allies) = 1875.

Granted, it’s really easy to apply boons, but for an offensive line I don’t think that’s bad at all and suits it well. It could be made to work with all weapons though…

Exedore.6320:

- Zeal’s minor traits only take effect if your targets stand still.

Which is 90% of the case in PvE, and one of the causes of why Guardians are awesome point holders in PvP. You give little room for enemies to maneuver inside the cap point, and anyone who stays in your Symbol is going to go down really fast.

Exedore.6320:

- Zeal’s minor traits only work with 4 of the weapons.

Though it’s a bad point indeed, not all minors are equally functional.

Exedore.6320:

- Zeal’s master and grandmaster trait selections offer very little in the way of increased damage.

A 5% flat increase in damage is not enough? Other professions’ traits range from 5~10% increase in damage when it comes to weapons, and this means we’re balanced for it.
Grandmaster improves survivability though, it would be nice it they replaced the Spirit Weapon one for damage… (we’d be trucks though)

Exedore.6320:

- You always need some survivability, and Valor and Honor traits are great for that. You can make up the extra power with gear.

No, you don’t always need survivability, but it’s just something great to have.
And no, you can’t “make up” extra power with Gear.
If you don’t trait for damage, you won’t deal maximum damage, simple as that.

Gear for Power + Trait for Power = Damage build.
Gear for Power + Trait for Defense = Balanced build.

Personally, I enjoy seeing non-criticals of 800 (bunkers) ~1900 (glasses).

Warmaster Chan (and his squad) is either without his pants, chest, totally naked, or are underleveled right now and they can’t fight Risen Nobles at all.

Despite being a non group event, it’s impossible to complete it with less than X players, being X an amount able to draw attention from all Nobles so they don’t Symbol (and one-skill-death) the NPCs, and enough to kill them BEFORE they cast their second Symbol (which WILL be on the NPCs)… and it has like what, 6 sec cooldown?

So my suggestion is either to:

1. Nerf Risen Nobles. (Ahahaha I know right)
I know they’re Thieves alike and they gotta be all OP and such, but a group of Risen Nobles (5+) is more difficult to kill than any boss I know.
10+ Risen Nobles is instant event fail flag, or instant “everyone in the area pays repair” event (such as defend Wren when a Veteran Noble comes with a pack of Nobles).

I know this one is unlikely to happen, as they must remain OP or they won’t be Risen Nobles anymore, so here a few more…

2. Buff Warmaster Chan and his squad.
Give them enough health/armor to be able to take 3~4 Risen Symbols at once without dying and dropping the Squad morale to 20% right at the beginning.

3. Give Warmaster Chan and his squad the ability to dodge Symbols.
At least they won’t insta-die since all Nobles seem focused on Symbol’ing right in the middle of the NPCs, giving us… 6 seconds until the next Symbol to kill the event and try for the completion instead of failure?

If it’s not possible, it’s okay, I just miss the Gates of Arah event chain that happened quite often and was something fun to do when crossing that area.

I can’t say for sure, but there are others experiencing the same issue (I’m one of them).

The game played perfectly and lagless until sometime this week, where I began experiencing these lag/teleports/out of synchs all of a sudden.
I also tested multiple times a bunch of things, and it doesn’t seem to be a problem with my ISP.

These type of errors aren’t because of graphics or your computer, if it were, you wouldn’t notice the “fast forward” motion, but just a “time skip” or something like that. You can probably move around your character perfectly fine, though when it comes to using skills, you might notice they’re out of place because you’re not in synch with the server.

I also put up a topic on this, but there’s a bunch of others with a similar issue, though it’s unsure if they’re talking about “lag” as in “graphical lag” or “connection lag”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Lag-with-Info-game-keeps-stuttering/first#post2173779

So if your case is the same as mine, it seems there’s nothing you can do but wait for it to go away. They’re probably messing something with the server or it’s overloading, so you have to wait… (I can play lag-free during the morning, this lag seems to start in the afternoon/evening for me – PDT time)

And as of today, 06/07, it began earlier than I expected, at 12:00 PDT.

I didn’t even had to logout, I was playing and it was doing PvP perfectly fine, and then the stuttering began.

If this is going to be constant it’d be great if they could move this period of stuttering to when I’m sleeping… having to play only when the game lets me play is kinda…

I have an Elementalist that I use mainly for PvE and WvW, and I’m having a hard time in sPvP.

I’m using a build of 0/20/0/20/10 + 20 with Zephyr’s Boon, Aeromancer’s Alacrity, Hydromancer Alacrity, Cantrip Mastery, Elemental Attunement. Dagger/Dagger, Valkyrie/Soldier Amulet with Berserker Gem, Divinity Runes.
I don’t like Evasive Arcana builds at all, as I don’t enjoy the bunker playstyle.

Group Fights

I don’t know what happens, but it feels like I’m being targeted by the entire enemy team as soon as I engage in combat. With 14k~ health with the Valkyrie Amulet, I go die INSTANTLY if I don’t immediately LFlash away or Mist Form.

My damage doesn’t seem to be ground-breaking either, there’s little skills that deal good damage besides Burning Speed -> Fire Grab or Ring of Fire, and this doesn’t feel enough to pressure opponents to their defensive state. They just keep attacking me, and my health always go down faster than their, forcing me to Water really fast, where after the 2 heals and I switch to something else I go down still the same or even faster (when they burst), and I’m out of CDs/heals.

1v1s

Against melee professions, I always lose the damage/defense ratio, meaning my health always go down faster than theirs.
Warriors and Guardians are somewhat manageable, if I keep avoiding their dangerous skills and healing up, I’ll eventually outlast them, but it takes forever to do so.

Thieves are impossible for me, after their opener and a few hits, their Heartseeker spam is pressure enough that even using all defensive CDs, dodges, and heals, they’re still spamming Heartseeker and I’m out of options (and I don’t get damage done when I’m trying to avoid them).
I try to save Updraft/Earthquake for this, but even still this only buys me a second or so, and their first Heartseeker catches up to me if I don’t RTL away from them.
I’d like to win against them once.

Mesmers are another beast of a fight. Even though I know they lack heals, I can only withstand their pressure if I’m playing bunker. My PbAoE isn’t enough to kill Phantasms with one only, only clones, and they keep kiting me at around 600~900 range setting up clones faster than I can kill them.
It’s usually just a matter of time until I’m out of CDs (LFlash being at 36 sec) and they Immobilize + Frenzy / Shatterburst.

Rangers also feels impossible when they turn on their “I’m evading all your attacks” mode. Pets hitting me for 6~7k doesn’t help either (it was 2 skills).
Their positioning is also annoying and some of my attacks are eaten by the pet, which is REALLY frustrating.

Anyway, this is a short summary of the trouble I’m getting with my Ele in sPvP, do you have any tips on how can I improve, that doesn’t involve going 0/10/0/30/30 full bunker and trying to outlast others?