Guild Wars 2

I too have a lot of characters. 17 for now, 18 once HoT releases. Most of my build ideas still exist, they just might need to new tweaking. For example i can still make a Kill Shot warrior, but I cannot pair it with a great sword anymore, it just doesn’t fit. I figure I’ll have to go sword/warhorn and healing shouts. One of the big hits to my builds is the mutually exclusive Invigorating Precision and Ricochet. Between that and Signet of Malice, I could have great sustain while specced specifically for 100% crit chance. I mean, if things stay how they are no big deal, I can do ricochet venom share, but that idea and concept is gone. Ricochet and IP were essential, as was the 100% crit chance.

I can’t really think of much else. Some builds are going to be built from scratch anyway, so though I might not keep all 17 builds through release, anything I’d want to salvage should be able to pass through the gates.

On what would the blast finished proc? VoJ passive? A blast finisher on every 3rd-5th attack?

AoE VoJ is a pretty build defining trait. It just needs to play nicely with our ranged options.

I’ll have to agree on this. The only benefit I see of it in its current state is to drop a ranged symbol or symbol like object on a far group of enemies and tags anything nearby with burning.

However, the same could be accomplished, and with less convoluted ways of getting those results, by having PW proc on target. If you’re putting the damage at range, you’ll want the extra burning at range also.
Not to mention, the other virtues have quite the range on them. Should it sill be targeted on the Guardian, than were going to need much more than 240u. However, something like 600u would be problematic with proofing through walls, or perhaps aggroing mobs that you might not want to pull. That seems like the lesser option.

This is actually something I planned on doing with the Tempest spec, which I expect is going to have sword. From what I’m hoping, sword will be completely melee as opposed to dagger’s 300-600 ranges.

Depending on how the Tempest spec looks, having all that damage reduction would be excellent for glassy or tanky builds. The skills will really determine which way I want to go

Consecrations also drop fields (not necessarily combo fields) which Healing Breeze does not. I think I’d prefer HB to be a shout, perhaps renamed to “Mending Refrain” or any of the other healy paragon skills.

Shelter also doesn’t seem very supporty, but it might need to provide something to allies of it were to become a shout or consecration.

I think Tomes could maybe fit best as Spirit Weapons, or perhaps Tome of Wrath is a SW and Tome of Courage worked into a consecration. (Visually it could stay a book and represent focus, as focus already has books as skins)

How exactly these would work out would be interesting. For fun, let’s assume we need to for them into Spirit Weapon and Consecration style skills. Tome of Wrath could have bouncing projectiles that cause burning and weakness on enemies, and quickness on allies. The activated skill would be the current ToW 5. ToC could provide an area that ticks for 10% each second for 10 second while providing a shocking aura type effect for allies inside.

MiniEquine.6014:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I’m speculating that “Tempest” will require the use of a hammer.

Engineer is getting the hammer. The Elementalist weapon that was datamined is the sword.

To be fair, as much as I want the sword to go to eles, the data mining could be left over from testing a yet to be announced 2nd or 3rd specialization.

Do I think this is the case? No, but until everything has officially been confirmed, I’m going to err on the side of not using absolutes

43 or so of my… 64? friends are Anet employees.

They definitely play the game. They also play on Dev servers to test new builds, or they might not be repping Anet’s Guild (which is the only way to have the Anet badge), but they’re definitely playing. Considering all the stuff they have to do for work and their free time outside of the game, its understandable you might not see many or any employees in game.

I can confirm Communal Defenses has no target limit. Just take it to tequatl during a burn phase. Block one of the poison ticks and I’ve counted over 160 counts of Shattered Aegis proccing for over 100k. There were enough procs that the combat log could not keep everything in history.

You have to find the right situations for it (like Tequatl), but when it works, it works beautifully.

These are who I’d consider to be decent and fit the criteria.

Something to mention, is Litany heals based off of any damage you do (but not for white mobs like rabbits or something). That includes Condition damage and retal. I really think Litany was not only intended for Medi builds, but Hybrid Medis (or Condi with Radiant Retal) specifically.

Hybrid Medis have the benefit of being able to still tick damage while you can’t be on target (generally about 1.2k dps from conditions). Litany of Wrath, like Medis in general, suffer from being easily kited. So Hybrid Medis with Litany should allow you to still heal a smidgen while you’re being kited. It really all depends on how it works out for you individually. Like with a lot of things, there’s some potential with everything, its all a matter of how that potential is used.

I still think LoW could afford a 1/4s cast time reduction, and a base 25s or even 20s base recharge though. Perhaps its the heal scaling too, but I feel its just barely not good enough to really contend.

Like I said, just because you think something should be a certain way, doesn’t mean it is, nor will it be. You’re attempting to discredit someone’s ideas based off of your personal speculation only.

I never even referenced Monks. I was specifically talking about DnD Clerics, which I stated were an inspiration to GW2 Guardians. DnD Clerics do wear heavy armor, and definitely can make great use of bows. I am merely listing what is possible, and giving precedent for those possibilities. You probably shouldn’t try and say what is possible or impossible, especially if you likely aren’t involved directly with the development process.

Bearhugger.4326:

Orpheal.8263:

but sorry, in which world do you live, in where Priests are heavy armor wielding bow using soldiers again???

Minor nitpick but I’m pretty sure Clerics can wear mail armor in Dungeons and Dragons as well as in old-school computer RPGs such as Might & Magic. So the Guardian specialization being called Priest or Cleric isn’t that out of place to me. Although it would be weird if that specialization did not have a stronger focus on support because I can’t picture a Priest being on the front line.

This is true. Clerics could wear Heavy Armor from the get go, and with some feats (Zen Archery in particular) could become formidable archers. It’s been said during development of the game years ago that Guardians played much like how the designers thought Clerics should be played.

But lets remember, just because you think something is a certain way, doesn’t mean it actually is that way, nor does it have to make any sense to you

Superior Aria, Retreat, and no boon duration make an effective +25% movement speed, and you get a free aegis.

warbignime.4610:

So far, Anet marketing trailers have been very consistent on showing profession-themed armor skins on their respective professions. So if we see a thief-looking character wielding a rifle, chances are, that is a thief wielding a rifle.(I copy and pasted this because it’s legit)
Rifle fit thief very well, more so than any other weapons. also the fact you compared CoD sniper gameplay to this is completely ignorant and nonsensical .

I’m not opposed to Thief getting rifle, I just don’t know what purpose it’ll have. Like, what will a Rifle toting thing be able to do over current sets? Ranged damage is covered through p/p, ranged AOE by shortbow, Sneak Attack covers the condi and rapid fire stealth skill, Stun is covered by Sword stealth skill, Ranged Immob by Shortbow’s, and a sniper like shot is covered by Warrior’s Rifle and their Kill Shot. I could see thieves lacking in a condition focused melee set (which can actually be covered with d/d and venoms), but Rifle doesn’t strike me as fulfilling that niche. Perhaps it’ll act more like Engineer rifle, with conal skills and ranged pulls/launches.

Similar questions could be asked about a lot of the specializations. Some make sense, like Druid staff looks to add some CC and maybe some support, and Necro GS and Engi Hammer look to add some melee aoe presence, but what will swords give eles, or shields to mesmer, or longbow to guards? Some of these things don’t innately lend to a good idea of their purpose. In any regard, I’m excited.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Ghotistyx.6942:

The art team put polearms into the trailer and its been confirmed that there are no new weapons (that weren’t there already)m let alone polearms

The art team put a revenant wielding a bladed staff. From data-mining, we already know revenants are intended to use staves at melee range, so what we have been shown is probably true. The art team just trolled us with the skin they choose. They could have easily put in the staff’s scythe skin, and players would all be screaming “scythe confirmed!” instead.

So far, their marketing trailers have been very consistent on showing profession-themed armor skins on their respective professions. So if we see a thief-looking character wielding a rifle, chances are, that is a thief wielding a rifle.

True, but that wasn’t the polearms I was talking about. All I’m really calling for is to collectively pull back and remember that only 2/9 profession specializations are actually confirmed, with the others in varying states of likelihood.

And also, Heavy Armor is not clunky at all, and not significantly more restricting than cloth or leather armor, potentially less so.

warbignime.4610:

It’s a trailer dude, why would Anet put thief style outfit on a engineer in a TRAILER.

The art team put polearms into the trailer and its been confirmed that there are no new weapons (that weren’t there already)m let alone polearms. Its perfectly reasonable that model was an engineer that was specifically meant to look like a thief, or it was an NPc in a cutscene we could see (or not) later on (and we already know NPCs don’t have to play by the rules).

Likewise with Guardian Longbow. Its not fully confirmed, but I’m right with everyone saying its greater than 50% Guardian will get such a weapon. I think some of these rankings should have a loose probability along side their speculation. Something like:

Druid: Stuff(official announcement, confirmed)
Necromancer: Greatsword(official announcement, confirmed)
Engineer: hammer( trailer, extremely likely)
Mesmer: Shield(trailer, extremely likely)
Thief: Rifle(trailer, possible)
Elementalist: Sword(data mining, very likely)
Guardian: Long bow(trailer, very likely)
Warrior: Pistol(speculation, plausible)

Some thoughts I’ve had:

• Permeating Wrath definitely needs to trigger on foe’s location
• Sword and Scepter (but especially scepter) need a Symbol of some sort. Longbow too if that’s the weapon we’re getting. There are just too many symbol related traits and mechanics that they can’t take advantage of.
• Spirit Weapons could afford something. Bow needs to damage (even if its low), and all weapons need a better relation of cooldown to uptime. Whether that means start the cooldown on summon, or don’t remove their summoned duration (alive until killed), or something else. They still feel like they have all the disadvantages of each minion skill without all the benefits.
• Kindled Zeal needs to be different. Either Guardian needs access to a lot of different conditions and has a good hybrid build to be worth taking over Amplified Wrath, or it needs a complete overhaul to a different effect.
• Shimmering Defense’s cooldown to effect and uptime ratio isn’t good at all. Even dropping something like a 14s burn isn’t going to help you if you’re at 25% health, especially if it only occurs once every minute.
• Searing Flames could afford to be per target, rather than 10s for any proc.
• Powerful Blades should put the spear damage with Zealous Blade, and then finally figure out what nifty effect swords need.
• Radiant Retal needs to work correctly of course
• Resolute Healer is in a similar situation as Shimmering Defense. 60s cooldown for a knockback and maybe some projectile absorbtion. Mesmer can pop a feedback once every 10s, which I would say is the better deal in every way. The disparity between those two traits is too wide imo.
• Hallowed Ground’s cooldown is a little too long, and now the Stability doesn’t stack quite so fast, especially when it’ll now compete with Revenant’s Inspired Reinforcement
• Sanctuary is too small for its effects and cooldown. 240 size would be fine, or drastically lowering cooldown, or even both.
• Retaliatory Subconscious doesn’t provide much benefit for the cooldown in its current state. A quick cooldown like 5s might be more appropriate.
• Purity of Body could afford to be 20% Enduro regen rather than 15%
• Virtues (like Resolve and Courage) have a pretty high cooldown. VoJ you can get around with 3 in Radiance, but without that trait, it still kind of hurts to have on cooldown.
• Allowing movement on Ring of Warding would be nice
• Orb of Light could be popped for 2x cooldown instead of 4×.
• Faithful Strike ((Mace) and similar skills around the game) should damage 3 enemies, but only have the heal once. Thief and Necro dagger autos already do this.
• Sword Wave has all the disadvantages of projectiles without the benefits. It should probably act like a wave a la Staff 1
• Flashing Blade could afford some more damage, like only 2x or so.
• Zealot’s Defense Should probably either actually block (maybe melee too) or allow movement while channeling (Like Engi shiled 4)
• Shield of Judgement could afford an additional effect (like stun or something).
• Shield of Absorption could allow for movement also like Engi Shield 4
• Cleansing Flame could remove only 3 conditions, but also remove from the Guardian. 9 conditions from allies and yourself every 15-12 seconds is a bit much, but 3 seems good.
• Litany of Wrath needs another 1/4 second shaved off the cast time.

• Not so much Guardian specific, but I think Retaliation should become a stacking boon. Drop the damage to 1/10th or 1/5th of normal, but have each skill give a few stacks of Retal. This way it acts as it was sort of designed to, as a defensive measure to rapid hits, rather than a fairly easily maintained plink damage thing.
• Skills you currently can’t use underwater need an underwater version.

That should hit most things.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Reborn.2934:

the only fix is to change the stand your ground to at least 12 seconds and halloween ground to 3 seconds per pulse and at least wall of reflection should reflect every enemy skill .

Reborn.2934:

halloween ground

Lol.

I want Halloween Ground so bad.

Obtena.7952:

Sagat.3285:

Obtena.7952:

If it’s a ranged condition weapon, it will probably suck. We don’t have the proper traits to support ranged OR condition damage weapons. Maybe they will address that as well but I don’t see it happening just to give us these things.

If there is bound to be some support I just remembered we had that front line kitten heal,consecrations can be thrown,current condition guard uses meditations, war uses LB mid range same with thief’s SB. You can make support of every weapon even if meditations are selfish compared to rest it doesn’t prevent zerk/condi guard to PvP or WvW.

I’m talking about support in traits; for example, we get 33% increased burning. That’s nice … for burning. If we get a LB with … poison let’s say, we don’t have traits that actually DO anything for that. Same goes with LB itself. Another example .. we get a sword +10% trait. It sweetens the deal when using a sword. We don’t have any traits for LB.

So, unless the LB skills themselves are super amazing and don’t need trait support to enhance them, or we get some new traits, then it’s probably going to be a bittersweet, lackluster weapon to use.

We’ve got -20% cd for 2handed, if it drops a symbol (which makes a ton of sense) we have symbol traits. Likewise, specializations will change a traitline, which gives is every reason to get some new traits related to LB and some synergy.

Well, Were they to still do attribute conversion, it would have to be 13% Precision, but I guess they could get away with 7% Vit and 6% Hpow, but that would still be weird.

Considering Kindled Zeal’s naming conventions, I feel like it should have something to do with effects on burning, either application or while an enemy is burning. If we continue with the recent theme of giving Grandmaster traits that imply heavy synergy with a different traitline, we could actually do something like 1 stack of Torment for 5s on Burn application. If we assume this trait will proc on burning reapplication too, this could be a pretty effective trait when combined with Permeating Wrath.

But I think a lot of us can agree that the current state of Kindled Zeal and Guardian don’t really allow Kindled Zeal to be effective in its purpose.

That’s the Vigil pistol

Cleric has too much power. Magi is what you’re looking for.

But I don’t necessarily have a problem with this kind of farming build being posted. Is it necessary? no, but its low hanging fruit that is cheap to host, so it really wouldn’t take much effort to make it. Might as well. I think it would be better to have an “optimal” farming build for each class, then this particular one would make more sense, but I do get quite a few questions now and again on “what should I do to farm”, and one good farming build per class would be a good reference.

Vash the Stampede, from one of the more quality anime, Trigun.

Norn seemed to have the best hair and the extra height though its a tad too stocky. Human didn’t have good enough hair and if I really wanted to be “true” to character, sylvari just didn’t have good enough skin tones or hair.

Depending on what the newer legendaries will look like, I might end up making Bolt, and especially if Elementalists get sword with their specialization, I’d make a Robin (My Unit) from Fire Emblem: Awakening (or from where I know Robin, Smash 4). Levin sword, Magic tomes with Sw/F, would be legit.

Nintendo’s policy on DLC wants to be completely in the hands of the devs. If they want to add something post-launch, they’re free to do it. They won’t require anything from their teams.

But lets not get carried away. People like to think RNG is some form of polio. I don’t have a lot of issues with the traits we currently have, passive or not. Traits and traitlines are designed to both give active effects, and passive effects. You can build both towards enhancing your strengths, or reducing your weaknesses. Any form of competition will have people trying to maximize their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses, so why do we complain about it in Guild Wars 2? People complain about the noobtube, but its by far not the most effective weapon. If you get into a fistfight, are you going to complain about someone that consistently blocks your left hook? Or what about someone who can just shrug off your blows passively? Are you going to complain its unfair or unfun that they have that “trait”? There are many varieties of traits that will be appealing for a variety of players, and we can’t expect to only have traits that cater to our specific playstyles, or the playstyles we approve of.

The main thing I saw with the revenant traits in relation to other classes, is the large amount of synergy I saw. The “vanilla” classes all have a few traits that just don’t really do much, especially compared to others. If we have a large “underused trait balance pass” sometime around HoT release, I’d be incredibly grateful. Just equaling out the internal synergy of traitlines and classes would go a long way towards really making the professions feel fresh, even past the specializations, which won’t be ideal for every character.

Because not giving examples is bad form, I’ll list some here:
Guardian’s Shimmering Defense: It gets pretty powerful in burn-centric builds, but the window of opportunity for the proper use of the trait is very obscure. Only three targets on elite skill level cooldowns. There are no other traits in Radiance, nor in the Guardians entire spread of lines that help you survive at that health point. Likewise, the trait doesn’t feel very defensive. An effect of “Cause aoe blind and burning for x seconds for every attack while under 25% health” seems much more like shimmering defense, and has synergy with other traits.
Thief’s Slowed Pulse is another example. There’s no real synergy with other traits. You can get some Regen, but that only stacks in duration with all other sources. Its also only triggered by bleeding, and doesn’t remove the stacks, all on a 20s cooldown. Better than providing regen, is removing the damage entirely. Pain Response basically overshadows this, as it removes poison and burning in addition, despite the +10s cooldown and -75% health requirement. Also, in the Shadow Arts traitline, you have shadows embrace, which is most always the better trait to take when dealing with conditions. A possible tweak is to provide resistance on bleed, poison, or torment(?), now that the boon exists.
Mesmer’s Retalitory Shield. It gives Retaliation on block, but the traitline doesn’t give any power. Likewise, there are 2 skills that will block, which means you’re getting low benefit for low opportunity of use. Retal doesn’t interact with anything else in that traitline, and blocking only somewhat thematically fits with “Dueling”. I don’t have an indepth thought on how this would be changed, but Fury, Slow, or even Distortion could be more synergetic alternatives.
Finally, Necromancer’s Spiteful Vigor. This is pretty much a token “boon on heal” trait, that doesn’t have any effect on making you more survivable, interacting with minions, staff skills, or whatever. Something that would be very flavorful and impactful would be to summon a jagged horror on heal activation.

There are a lot of other traits like these. Sometimes its just a matter of moving things around, or sometimes its a matter of just making the trait more impactful and “connected”.

- 24 years old
- I plan on going into Game Design (once I’ve actually got the money for it)
- I grew up in the Metro Detroit area, and am an avid NFL Lions fan
- I’m fluent in Mandarin ever since serving a Mission
- Favorite color is purple
- I’m a cat person
- My screen name is pronounced Fishsticks, and my real name has to do with Spears, so obviously I own Kamohoali’i Kotaki as my preferred legendary
- My favorite music includes 311, Gorillaz, Matisyahu, Beastie Boys, Slightly Stoopid, Eminem, and any combination of Rock, Rap, Reggae and Funk
- I also terribly enjoy Video Game OSTs, particularly from the likes of Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger), Keiki Kobayashi (Ace Combat) Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy), Jeremy Soule (Guild Wars/Elder Scrolls), and more
- I enjoy Swimming and Ultimate
- I Dungeon some Dragons, and while I’m unable to do much in the video game design side of things, I spend some time designing tabletop.
- I have held my breath, when out of shape, for 3m13s
- At the time of this writing, I have 6% body fat.
- I think what’s popular is overrated, and what’s obscure is irrelevant. For better or worse, I seem to like things that used to be popular, but aren’t quite retro.

Can’t think of much else to say. I’ve hit on some big likes/dislikes, and some tidbits of trivia.

That would be completely sufficient to command in. Just run the generic wvw AH frontline build, as that runs full soldiers. Sentinels is the same stats, just trading the emphasis on power for vitality. http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_AH_Frontliner

If you minmax your armor, you can be very competative in dps and survive well enough in wvw. To be honest though, I would just build towards wvw and forget about gearing for dungeons, unless you want to speedclear. Any dungeon can be done sufficiently in wvw gear. Just change your traits to something more pve oriented and you’ll be golden.

I’ll jump in to this conversation. IP definitely has its uses. I use it tons in wvw with a p/p ricochet build. What also works to my advantage, is I’m built around 100% crit chance, so IP does indeed apply to every attack I make. That guaranteed effect certainly helps its cause, and it definitely belongs in the Critical Strikes tree, as its completely self serving. More precision for more uptime, and more crit damage for more impactful heals. I’ll also echo some other sentiments, as it works beautifully with Signet of Malice. One full Unload will heal me 3.5-4.5k between IP and SoM, which allows me to survive a lot longer in engagements.

There are many cases where Executioner will be better than IP, and many cases where IP will be better. I’ve built around maximizing IP, and it performs wonderfully for me.

Considering we have a lot of skills that reference burning, fire, smiting, and what not, and we have VoJ inherent in the system, I’d say Guardians do feel like they have flames. Its certainly within our theme.

Taunt will easily have its place in PvE. And I don’t mean for Tanks.

Boss casts large/heavy damage pbaoe.
Taunts the party.
Now you’re all running into the aoe. Probably should’ve brought some stun breaks.

And just continue from there. Applications in PvP and WvW are obvious

If you want crazy burning, something like http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVEQJArflsApSoNCxQIEERR8Qlj1fwLsBVHATwjiDA-T1xCABAcCAsU9H82f44HAQe6BSUJYWK/CAgAMzyMAO6RP6RP6RbmzcmzcmzsUAQssC-w is what you want. With full might and corruption stacks, you’ll get burn ticks of 1.5k , which isn’t the worst thing in the world if you can toss some burning on a lot of enemies. Its certainly fun to see how deadly that burning is compared to the everage burn tick.

I recently made a build for a friend running around with carrion armor and p/p s/p. I kinda adhoc put this together, but the longer I looked at it, the more it looked pretty good.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQRAqa8al0MptplNxvJ8PNBMB5daKTb0OB5OAddFA-TlxDABfofYG1fQVJY37P8jyPAM/BA-w

You’re chalk full of CC. Immobilizes, Stuns, Dazes, knockdown, everything you could want. There are a few variants you could go too. The soldiers and carrion could each be replaced with dire if you’re feeling more condi, or soldiers/valks/knights/cavs if you want more power. Its a pretty interesting hybrid trap build heavy on the cc.

Guardians aren’t lacking in dealing damage. The bigger change, is that your average player has become skilled enough to not need the more defensive stats, relying on boons, utilities, and team combos to stay alive. So naturally, a tanky character is no longer needed. There is some use for non-zerker sets, as they’ll usually perform better if everyone else also isn’t running zerker. Being the lone zerker is an easy way to die when the rest of the party can tank some damage instead of avoiding it. However, your average speedrun style party will be full zerker because they have enough skill to make it through together.

(plus, I’m compelled to mention, Hybrid refers to power and condition damage, with tanky referencing good damage and defense, with bunker having mostly defense)

Probably the best you could do is 6/x/x/x/6 with Amplified Wrath, Permeating Wrath, and Supreme Justice with a greatsword and probably sword/focus swap. Carrion armor and Flame Legion Runes. You’ll work pretty much just like the Hybrid medi guards, but with consecrations and whatever else you feel like. You won’t be overtaking speedclear builds with it, but you will set everything on fire which will be nice if you need to aoe a ton of trash.

Its not the best performing build for many things, but it will make you Trogdor, and that’s always nice.

Don’t forget that Sneak Attack and Shadow Strike scale well with power.

I definitely use it. In fact, If you use just Retreat and Superior Aria (Shout cooldown reduction), you end up with an effective 25% (24.X%) speed increase.

For pack runes as a whole, 175 Power and 125 Prec are good stats, and the aoe Might, Fury, and Swiftness is excellent, especially if a lot of people in the zerg are running it.

During the announcement they said the Channels would affect the weapons skills too, so there’s that.

I was definitely thinking along the lines of it being similar to ele and elements, but more like every skill is a glyph. Each of the glyphs change based on what element you’re in, so I’d expect the Revenant’s skills will act similarly across the board.

This could also explain the spear like weapon we saw in the trailer. If it is indeed confirmed there are not spears on land (the hearsay by some redditor doesn’t do it for me), then it would make sense than channeling a certain hero would give a Staff a more melee look and melee abilities. Food for thought.

I believe they actually did announce raids, but not the “Raids” that people think of where they’ll shove 25 of us into a room to kill stuff.

They talked about the mastery system being required for some of the content, and the new skills and etc helping to survive, overcome, and defeat the content. They specifically denoted solo and group content.

Plus, openworld raids of 25+ seem more like raids than 25 man dungeons do in any regard.

I remember you as the guy who constantly argued against straight math when it came to Dual Wield Agility. I never claimed that Prysin was arguing specific points. It was you who claimed that you disproved something of his, which is not the case.

In any regard, I like the Rifle, I like the buffs. The range is fine, because the grand majority of “long” range weapons are built around 1200 being the norm. Rangers get the exception to the rule, plus a little help from mechanics. Warriors also get this same help from mechanics, just not with a rifle. It really, honestly, is not worth complaining about.

My p/p build is built around 100% crit. I can afford to not have as much power (due to all the assassin’s armor) because my crit damage is above 200%, so everything I do is twice the damage anyway. Every attack counts towards IP (which makes the buff even better for me), and with ricochet, I can tag tons of people easily. Its really satisfying to have every unload heal you for 2-4k.

I’m not going to say the build is mathematically better than anything else, but I will say, after trying every other kind of thief, p/p is what I find most fun.

At no point did you actually say anything that proved any of Prysin’s points wrong.

Probably kill em I guess

I was actually somewhat impressed with his stats. The power hasn’t taken too much of a hit, he still has a good amount of crit and ferocity, and toughness is in the right spot. With just a smidgen of valkyrie, even the vitality looks acceptable, particularly with guard stacks (the build editor is always slightly low on what it reports HP to be).

Now, once you start trying to build toward boon duration is where things start to fall off. You would need to sacrifice too much to make the extra duration worthwhile, and keep everything else golden. If you wanted a boon duration style build, you’d need very different stats and style.

I can understand not wanting to go with shelter, but like Archon said, Shelter prevents you from getting focused down, and can be a real lifesaver. Its better to over heal 5k and still be alive, than to not overheal and be dead. Plus, between Shelter, runeset #2 (regen + AH procs, and might even from Valor 5), the aegis, and aegis heal, should it all proc together, you’re pretty much guaranteed to heal back to full from almost any amount of health lost. One complaint people have about Shelter is that it doesn’t heal for as much as the others, but now you’ve made it heal probably much more than SoR, and you’ve prevented all this other potential damage. I honestly believe Defender runes, AH, and Shelter make one of the best heals you could ask for (plus all the other goodies you have, like pure of voice and Valor 5).

Anyway, food for thought.

To be honest Babazhook, I actually really like your stats. The only thing I see is your HP is a little low for my personal tastes. I edited your build a tad to raise Vitality a bit more while not losing any damage. I also changed a few utilities and traits to mix a bit better. A lot of the changes are what others have already mentioned.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApdRlsApVoNDxUI8DNRCRk1M2fZrXfFcA-T1CEABZfCAg4RAsoKFPp0ol9HuTfQiqr0kSMtUGAoSQAOCAkC4blRA-w

I myself like to run a juggernaut might stacking build (with battle sigils no less). Juggernaut will still give the same value as before: 200 toughness and some might. That doesn’t change. Now yes, my build might get less power and condition damage than before, so my build overall is less effective, but juggernaut the trait is untouched. It still gives me exactly what it advertises.

I told this to the Guardian forums and I’ll tell it to you too. Juggernaut has no nerf. You get the same exact power and condition damage from Juggernaut as you would from any other source of 5-9 might. Everyone’s Might is getting reduced the exact same, not just Juggernaut’s.

The staff isn’t being touched. Might is what is being nerfed, not Empower. Empower still provides the same bonus that you would get from any other 12 stacks of Might.

However, I won’t argue that I’d love to see the Detonate cd change somewhat. Even if they just lowered it to 2x recharge instead of 4x, that’d be fine for me.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

It actually gets really funny when you run a highly mobile melee primary set such as s+wh or GS, and use rifle as your secondary with a toy gun skin on it and roll Crack Shot. I’ve seen backliner wars do this, and since there’s a 5 target limit on piercing, you can fire off 15k+ killshots from 1500 range that blow half a choke. The toy gun skin makes the rifle less obvious and the sounds more muted. People don’t dodge what they don’t see coming.

Similarly, I even see people do this in roaming and small group skirmishes — run GS/rifle with toy gun, exhaust their dodges with GS, and then swap and roll straight into a KS. You’d be surprised how creative people can get.

Also, I was speaking strictly about single-target single-hit attacks (without even taking Crack Shot into consideration), not channeled attacks or anything else.

This. I do exactly this. Tiny asuran, armor looks like cloth, run around with a toy gun and pop zergs that don’t notice what’s going on with Killshots. Signet of Might just to ensure they can’t block it either.

This is what I use in WvW for fun. I’m sure I could change some utilities around, but its otherwise performed pretty well for me.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAqaVl8Mp0pFOxyJ0PNBQBtdAWd/9MJFpzXUWA-T1CBABmfEAqRPwWKPg4BAAwpAwLlYtoJgI1foQJYR7P8gJISBExyI-w

With Fury, you have a perfect 100% crit chance, which will more than double all of your damage. Unloads with Ricochet can start to get a little excessive at that point. There’s no real stealth to speak of, and not much for evading, but you do have feline grace, and Signet of Malice combined with Invigorating Precision, which means an Unload could be healing you an upwards of 2-4k each.

I chose sigil of cruelty because I’m cheap and make cheap builds. Bloodlust would end up being a bit more damage. Sigil of Air could also be replaced with anything else that works well on crit, since you know you’re critting essentially 100% of the time.

After reading the thread, and having a P/P thief myself, I think the two easiest changes would be:
Decrease Vital Shot base damage. Significantly increase the power scaling instead.
Give Unload a flat amount of endurance. Preferably per hit, but after a full channel could work too.
I also like the idea of “Reload” letting you cancel the channel early to evade for an amount of time.