Guild Wars 2

SneakyTouchy.6043:

I don’t even understand why they reset ranks with placement matches again. That should be for people who didn’t previously have ranks.

I lost 6 or 700 points due to profession achievements for the Ascension last season. So I’m glad they reset. On the other hand I didn’t even realize a season was going on so I haven’t played any this year. Kinda scared what my placement matches are going to be like now that there are no good players near 1200 anymore.

That build is totally acceptable, but I still think you should drop NS for CS. Celestial Shadow is the strongest roaming trait we have since it can be used so powerfully on both offense and defense. It will without doubt cause you to win fights you would have otherwise lost. Just think about how easily inexperienced thieves can heal up and try again, or 100-0 someone without people even knowing they’re about to be attacked.

Up to you of course, not everyone wants to play the same way, and NS is a decent trait. If you do want to make the trait switch you’d have to rejigger the build slightly.

Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.2946:

I should add, that thief seemed to take extra pleasure in specifically hunting me down in that match. To my knowledge, it was the first time I ever played a match with him.

That’s because the build’s only purpose is to troll, and since you were susceptible to it he was getting what he wanted: to ruin someone else’s night. And in other matches he was griefing his teammates by running a troll build instead of a useful one.

This build has plagued WvW for months, and to my knowledge the devs have never once acknowledged that it is a problem, even buffing it last patch. Despite enormous community outrage.

It’s a pretty shocking disregard for their launch policy of trying to eliminate griefing.

Trapper ranger is not a good build. When have you ever seen anyone running that in a tournament? It should lose to nearly every meta build, and definitely loses to mender druid.

I think your entire post is fairly misinformed.

I’ll add even as a full ascended berseker druid with power infusions, I have pretty much zero percent chance to kill those kitten soldier’s and dire berserkers than run around, while I can see a core melee ranger with offhand dagger being able to pull it off. Those tank berserkers are just awful, I don’t know how anyone could find that fun.

Ya I can definitely understand that. The ranger that beat me was probably about equal to me in skill and I almost killed him while drunkenly ignoring him.

I’ve never felt so invulnerable in WvW on any profession as I do these days roaming as a full glass druid. I will happily charge into anything or anyone no matter how many there are. Now I know how thieves must feel.

I’m full zerker, which is still extremely tanky as a druid. You can very easily 1vX as a glass druid, and core ranger will have more trouble even in tankier armor.

All MM gives to a melee ranger is extra damage, which isn’t worth giving up all the ulitity IMO. Even if you get the druid low, all he has to do is CS and heal up.

The other day I ran into a HoT owner running a core melee ranger build. I didn’t take him seriously and facetanked all his mauls because he wasn’t a druid. Wound up losing a close fight. If I had taken him seriously he would have definitely lost. I just don’t think core ranger can stand up to druid and you’re losing out not having the utility it brings. The stealth, the condi removal, the CC, the heals…. it’s so much to lose for a bit of extra damage.

Astralporing.1957:

The above might be an explanation for the first character. It doesn’t explain however why do you need to grind ar for your second, third, fourth (etc) alt. It should be an accountwide system, not based on character gear.

I’d be happy if AR worked like MF. Just a slot on your hero tab that listed your account wide AR. I’d play that.

Edit: And this would also solve the problem that every time the meta changes or your party needs a different role you wouldn’t need a few thousand gold worth of new armor. For example I main ranger, and in T4 fractals there are at least 3 different ascended armor sets I could wear, berserker, viper, and magi/zealot. And maybe the next elite spec makes… I dunno, celestial or something become the meta.

Third Degree Ember.6430:

This is a complaint against the grind for AR. You are not completely happy about the state of the game—just everything except for AR in fractals. Why is there so much stigma against complaining?

Because I really don’t feel like I’m complaining. If others are happy with AR, then I don’t care if it is ever changed, but I think the devs should know they’re losing out on some “customers” by putting in arbitrary barriers that add nothing to the game. In the same way I don’t have time to raid, but I’m perfectly happy with them being in the game.

I used that build last season in ranked occasionally. IMO it’s good for any level of play. I use wolf in place of tiger though, I’m not sure tiger is adding much in a non-remorseless build.

You can stand in front of any non-champ in core Tyria, do nothing but autoattack in full glass armor, go afk, and still win the fight every time. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s also not fun.

You can bet your butt the next expac will have some minimal difficulty, probably on par with the living story stuff.

D/D thief is the only really cheesey build. It’s sole purpose is to troll. Does very little damage but is nearly unkillable for zero effort. Turret engi 2.0.

Muffin Nook.5923:

The OP sounds like someone who just wants the rewards from the high level fractals without putting in the effort to get the 150 ar so they can do their daily T4.

I’m not. I have more money than I need. I have all the legendaries and skins I want, I play for fun. AR is not fun, it’s annoying and unnecessary.

No idea how you got me wanting more rewards out of this…

Are you opposed to druid double melee? Druid is going to be superior to core ranger sort of by default.

Druid or core ranger will influence your sword offhand weapon.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Which is fine; we all have our limits. I just don’t see why the OP expects anyone else (including ANet) to care.

Anets entire goal was to remove unnecessary obstacles. AR is very unnecessary.
Do you find it fun? No of course you don’t. Then let’s get rid of it.

I don’t expect you to care that I don’t want to play fractals. All I’m doing is putting my reasons out there. I am really not whining, I love this game and play it nearly every day. Anet I think at least deserves to hear that some people don’t like this mechanic.

zealex.9410:

no reason for unfriendly behaviour the issue is even tho you might talking about a part of the community you are not giving a good feedback suggestion other way or the conz of the existing system (possible highcost etc)

What??? Is that english?

Also I am not being unfriendly, the people that are being unfriendly are the people that think change is bad.

Vinceman.4572:

And we are back to:

zealex.9410:

So what’s the purpose of this thread?

Sorry for sharing an opinion you don’t agree with, I’ll leave now.

Vinceman.4572:

There is no need to change just because one single
player is ranting in the forum.

Great. Thanks for your sharing your opinion. Don’t mind my ranting! Haha just ranting not making any sense.

I severely regret responding to my own thread…. jeez.

I’m sure they’re great. They could make the best fractal game in the entire world, I’m not going to delete my WvW infusions to stick in some arbitrary grind mechanic. And that’s fine. All I’m saying is my view point exists. How can you say I underestimate how many people do them when all I’m saying is the mechanic is terrible.

Vinceman.4572:

Maybe for you but not for the target audience which is playing fractals on a daily basis.

Neat. Great reading.

Edit: Just for clarity, I’ve done as high as like 80 something fractals. I will never do them again because of the gear requirements. It’s not a hatred of fractals as a dungeon, I enjoy dungeons.

I’m pretty sure the romance thing is actually explained in story, but since I’m not a lorehound I’ll just say, why wouldn’t a human influenced intelligent creature seek out a mate? My wife is my biffle, not just a breeding partner.

Ya a giant waste basically. Because someone needs to do this detrimental task they’re cutting out a huge audience. I believe even the devs admitted it’s bad design but they’re sort of in over their heads at this point and can’t really back out.

I don’t know if I’m a hardcore player, but every dev hour wasted on fractals could be spent on… etc.

I’m a lock for the next expac, but I don’t even care what the fractal devs come up with and that’s a shame.

zealex.9410:

So what the puprose of this thread?

Did you read anything at all?

“I will never, ever, ever play fractals if there is AR”. Maybe the devs that read this don’t care, maybe they have a different idea in mind.

I think AR as is is dumb, maybe others feel that way."

I tend to enjoy playing all aspects of the game. I don’t have time for raids, but I have max masteries otherwise, I have the Ascension, I have like 30k WvW badges, 3 legendary weapons, and so on blah blah blah.

I don’t play fractals anymore because I’m not dealing with agony resistance. I put in my WvW infusions, I don’t want remove them, I don’t want to grind for higher AR, I don’t even want to deal with it. I don’t want different AR for different armor sets or different jewelry or on different characters, I have 9 characters with various armor sets… I’m just not doing it.

This is not a whine, it’s a “I am totally happy playing the game as is, I have no complaints, but I will never, ever, ever play fractals if there is AR” post. Maybe the devs that read this don’t care, maybe they have a different idea in mind.

I think AR as is is dumb, maybe others feel that way.

Justine.6351:

Sigil of Breach: After swapping weapons your next 3 attacks are unblockable.

This is really cool. I’d limit it to 2 though maybe… seems like it would be stronger than intended?

Does this mean sigils are going to do different things in different game modes? In WvW sigil of blood will be as is, and in PvP it will leech life on weapon swap or something?

Use the PvP build as a base. Your build almost looks like a raid build rather than one to use against humans.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_Shoutbow

The regen from shouts and staff will do a lot of “top-off” healing and charge CA before the cooldown is up, and if people get in serious trouble stealth them with the smokeskale or celestial shadow.

You can still work warhorn in there, but LB has a lot of good utility on it as well, like the knockback and ancient seeds to help your teammates spike someone very quickly.

Edit: Also pigs are awful.

Oh jeez, I didn’t even realize you weren’t in wilderness survival. Ya you need more condi removal than CA. Lose MM for WS 2-3-2.

Might be that I main ranger but I absolutely stand by my claim it’s the most telegraphed in the game. It’s a GIANT BEAR head and shoulders above every other animation sloooooooowly attacking you. Even if you’ve never seen any of those attack animations mentioned before, you can see the bear. Many of the skills a couple folks listed you need to have seen before to know what they’re doing.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

it feels like something is missing…I’m not sure if I need more Toughness, or what…I seem to get downed pretty easily.

What’s missing is your “oh dang!” button. Drop sic ’em for SoS and natural stride for celestial shadow.

Somewhere you’ll want to slot in a shout for swiftness, and that can be WHaO, PM, or SotP. Or even guard some people like that one. Or it could be all of them.

Also if you’re using GS mainly as a defensive weapon, I’d definitely look at staff. It’s more defensive and gives you a blast finisher for the smokscale. It also recharges CA really fast.

But the main thing is being able to bail more easily with an ‘invuln’ and stealth.

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

Are there any traits like Quick Draw for other professions, that reward weapon swapping on cooldown?

Warriors and thieves can gain adrenaline and initiative on weapon swap. There are a few other weapon swapping traits and of course sigils.

QD is in my opinion the best trait in the game.

However as far as I know most people don’t use it in PvP in favor of NM. I personally prefer QD over NM there as well, but high protection up time from NM (or WS) is very nice.

GoE should definitely not be a blast finisher or it would get nerfed beyond recognition to compensate for already doing everything a skill can do on a crazy short cool down.

And speaking of short CDs, a blast finisher on maul with a 4 second CD?

The berserker armor in the quoted build is the same type of armor the Citadel of Flame dungeon I mentioned gives you for tokens. You can use a mix of gold, tokens, and karma to gear up the fastest.

I often run those exact utilities, although since you have 3 stun breaks and a lot of defense, you might consider swapping SotP for entangle. That will give you another 2 condi removal and that 1 last CC to finish someone off. I run entangle, but SotP is strong as well. Entangle can be weak early in the fight, but it gets stronger after the first contact. And stealth can mask the big tell if they haven’t already blown all their dodges.

Assuming this is for solo or small group roaming.

Edit: You probably meant 2 handed training over natural healing, no?

Jewelry is the 6 items below your stats in the equipment panel. There is a backpiece, 2 rings, an amulet, and 2 accessories.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Temple_armor

The cavalier’s, soldier’s and berserker’s stuff is all power damage-focused. Berserker’s is the one focused entirely on damage.

Another longer term option you have is doing dungeons. Each time you do a dungeon, you get some tokens, and you can trade them in for exotic weapons and armor.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dungeon_merchant

The Citadel of Flame path one is really fast (like 20 minutes on a terrible group) and pretty easy even for newbies. Nicely, it also rewards you with berserker stat items.
gw2dungeons.net explains how to do all the dungeons.

MrAtlantis.2740:

I am wearing exotic armor, but they’re just obtained from missions/leveling.

Make sure your jewelry is up to snuff as well.

A well geared level 80 character may have a power attribute (on the upper right side of the equipment tab where your stats are listed) well over 2000, even pushing 3000. I’m guessing yours is like… 1000? You need to up the power stat, and after that ferocity and precision.

Your damage is the accumulation of all your gear, and based on your tanky low-quality greatsword (it’s masterwork rather than rare or exotic), all of your gear is really bad.

There are a lot of ways to gear up for endgame exotics, but you can do a quick check at all the karma merchants for better gear (make sure it’s all at least level 80) and you can also buy level 80 stuff of the trading post.

Next, the cleric’s stat is a tanky one. If you want more damage, aim for power, precision, and ferocity (since you’re presumably not playing a condition damage based greatsword warrior.) This may make you less durable than your used to, but if you upgrade all your gear I suspect you’re actually going to be a lot more durable, plus fights will end sooner.

Finally, the traits you’ve chosen and the utilities you’ve assigned should work with your build. For example, you may want the trait Forceful Greatsword which will right off the bat increase your damage well over 10% if you don’t have it. You can use other people’s builds as a base at metabattle.com if you want, or just making your own should get you through the story.

I’ve found I use more ascended swords across 9 professions than any other weapon. GS is a close second. I have like… 5 or 6 ascended swords though, and I could use more.

LB doesn’t work too well with forced crits because it’s a multi-hit weapon (barrage and RF), so it looks like you intend to sort of camp GS? If that’s the case you might look at staff/GS. The mobility is insane for hunting down just about anyone, and staff will help you charge CA faster.

I assume you know you bobble-headed them? If not, that’s why you never noticed, because they don’t actually look like that.

Everything looks ridiculous when you bobble-head it.

Ha, I didn’t recognize the story mission name and it said Crystal Desert, my first thought was the Lake Doric bug where people got in early.

One of my friend’s list people was doing a personal story in Orr, and when I looked at his name is told me he was in the Crystal Desert. Has this always been like this… or is this some unreleased Living Story bug?

Edit: Actually that’s probably his server isn’kitten Like if you open a dungeon?

It should be pretty easy to figure out exactly what percentage of the damage comes from the pet on either a typical PvE relatively non-moving target or a PvP moving golem. I suspect it’s not anywhere close to 30% for PvE in viper or berserker gear. For PvP, I dunno, maybe, since mender’s staff does like 1 DPS.

I have my pet attack separate targets from me all the time in WvW or PvP, I don’t know why you said that was a rarely used feature?

Poelala.2830:

To suggest balance on the skill of a certain player is a null argument. Balance should be made for skill caps, not the lowest common denominator.

The balance skill cap is that you simply walk forward. I’m not sure what you’re even arguing. The lowest common demonstrator is someone who can’t find their W key…

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

“but everyone and these forums strongly advices against Warrior”

This thread is from 2 years ago.

You may find gw2dungeons.com handy for the fractals and dungeons, if you don’t mind spoilers about boss mechanics and that sort of thing.

qqmore.net is an excellent resource for getting better at PvP.

For WvW, ask in team chat what the teamspeak link is for your world, then meet up with a commander leading a zerg for big scale combat.

As you was mentioned you don’t need to be support if you’re druid, it just gives you support options. Are you doing open world stuff only? Or?

You can take things like natural stride which give you a near permanent 33% speed boost, rather than team support traits. Or the main benefit for solo play is that the “support” on druid actually supports yourself. So if you get hurt, pop the celestial avatar and use it as a second heal 6 skill.

Crinn.7864:

If I stunbreak it before they can proc AS, then AS is still off cooldown and Druid has far more dazes and knockdowns than I could possibly have in stunbreaks. And of course once e gets the inevitable AS proc, he can just LB2 me into oblivion.

Well there’s your problem. Once AS triggers you can simply walk out of it. Don’t stun break so fast no human can react, just make you are able to walk out of the seeds. Like I said if the druid is slow you may not even need to stun break at all, just simply move forward.

Also LB2 into oblvion on a mender’s tank amulet? Um…

Ya I really don’t see a mender’s druid or even a valk/cav druid having problems with a thief. GS does a really good job countering thieves because it has 2 CCs and a short CD burst skill, which is literally the recipe for beating thieves. The one hitch is you may not be able to kill the thief unlike a LB which can track them as they tele all over, but you’re not going to lose the point at least.

I would not particularly want to fight a mesmer with a GS, but then GS is the weapon I have the least experience with outside of SB.

Druid in general is not something that is hard countered 1v1, so there is some room for some fun.

FrownyClown.8402:

Tiger and hilt bash hit more reliably, but it still is an easily counterable build. Warrior thief and any Condi build will shut you down still.

GS/staff is basically the same build as the meta LB if you run both with menders, GS just gives you a harder hitting pet now.

We spend a lot of time camping staff anyway, the LB and GS are just there for opportunistic bursts, and both can be used to run away.

I will likely still run staff/lb, just because I enjoy LB skills so much, but GS should be a fun alternative.