Guild Wars 2

Support mightstacker S/F elementalist. You’ll still have the damage, you’ll boon better than anyone else, and you get a mid-strong ish heal to boot. If you wanna melee there’s Lightning Hammer for damage; otherwise you don’t really need to be close to use many of the skills.

Or: boon guardian with Altruistic Healing trait.

The mesmer opens a portal entre before jumping up and drops the exeunt at the maximum portal distance.

It’s much harder to come up with a viable build for engineers that can compete damage-wise in PvE with most other classes due to their lack of a melee weapon and lack of reliable condition procs (bleed particularly, it’s the primary condition damage). So far, in all 8 classes, it took me the longest to min-max. Initially they’re easier to play though. It’s easy to learn and hard to be good at – since the number of viable builds is pretty much only two (grenade and bomb/rifle).

Elementalists are without a doubt the hardest to survive in at first because their passive defense is very, very low – but their active defense is also very, very high – actually, the HIGHEST of all the classes, outstripping the Guardian by a thin margin. In PvE fights against AI this makes Elementalists the most powerful class by far when you combine their might stacking capabilities, their insane active defense and their utility skills. However, against other players who attack with far more frequent high-damage autoattacks and much shorter telegraphs on active skills, Elementalists remain one of the weakest classes in PvP content due to this low passive defense issue.

1. Elementalist
2. Ranger.
3. Warrior (Even without trait, Veng still has a chance to res on kill. Think it’s 25%).
4. Guardian.
5. Mesmer. (Only because you can port at the last second to avoid stomp. It’s bad because it teleports you randomly, which can often be into lava making you permanently unressable.)
6. Thief.
7. Necromancer.
8. Engineer.

Previously I have little problem soloing a few world bosses and/or 2/3-manning the others, regardless of whether I’m in power or condition specs.

This change in collapsing all the servers together will reduce the total number of actual instance fragments, concentrating players. While that’s normally a good thing, condition users will now approach uselessness in world bosses because their conditions will be overridden by the weak condition damage spam of a zerg.

In solo-3 man mode, this isn’t a problem. In zerg mode, it is a huge problem.

Is it not contradictory to nerf direct damage via the ferocity change while simultaneously dropping so many people together that the condition damage 25-limit becomes intolerable?

Or does this save enough server operation resources that with this change we can also expect to see the limit increase to 50 or 100 stacks?

Otherwise, the solution proposed by several other posters previously to halve all condition stack procs by players while doubling the condition damage conversion for all of them will become necessary to avoid condition damage from being even more useless than they already kind of are.

And given how the most viable damage specs in terms of overall damage per second are condition damage specs for both Necros (the no-cleave class) and Rangers (with such poor multipliers on their power stats), these already-underpopulated classes look poised to take another major hit on effectiveness.

Guild Wars 2 is a game that is predicated on cooperative gameplay in PvE what with non-diminishing loot, dynamic scaling, non-competitive resource nodes and more. The condition stack limit is a very big wall that stands in this as one of the most prominent ways in which cooperation leads to problems. Everything that is normally good will be better with population increases, but this thorn in the side will simply grow to become a blade one may no longer ignore.

I do agree with you on the whole OP, but point by point…

Soap.6124:

The loot isn’t fun. There’s very little variation when it comes to items, besides aesthetics. While leveling up this isn’t too much of an issue, it kind of dulls the experience at max level. Sure, I don’t have full Ascended gear, but I’m also not very compelled to put a ridiculous amount of time and effort into getting them due to one, these items don’t really have a meaningful impact on gameplay, and two, there’s no gameplay that really merits them.

Ascended isn’t that ridiculous. One month can get you full ascended everything for one character if you’re willing to optimise your activity rotation to get the dragonite necessary. Later characters get progressively easier once you already have the recipes unlocked/crafting levels at 500. However, seeing as how the game is already too easy in general, getting Ascended might make this even more so. Perhaps you want to stay in Exotic if that is the case.

Soap.6124:

Nobody really does dungeons; they skip them. If people are going out of their way to skip content, don’t you think there might be something wrong with the content? Most dungeons contain too much filler and lack real “loot” for your efforts; that doesn’t create a challenging, rewarding, nor immersing dungeon experience.

Some do, but they are the minority.

Soap.6124:

Build diversity and overall balance could be much better. Nowadays, it seems like nobody likes you unless you’re full Berserker, using your classes “best” weapon. Doesn’t that seem a little strange to anyone? If balancing between PvE and PvP is difficult, why not just balance them separately?

The vast majority of meta players don’t understand the mechanics behind ‘why’ berserker is often one of the best sets to wield, and in what circumstances this is not the case. In the exceptions, we get really bad players. The meta builders do, the meta followers don’t.

Soap.6124:

World events should be more… worldly. Off the top of my head, one of my favorite world events is when that huge Giant runs over that low-level Charr town in one of their zones. I like that event because there’s repercussions for not dealing with him; your town is pretty much useless. What good are world events that really don’t have any weight within the world around them? Would be pretty fun if towns getting attacked was more of a regular thing; it makes the world seem more dangerous.

Yes.

Soap.6124:

Added a new zone where players fight the native clans for control over rare, natural resources!

Southsun Cove. Passiflora and Passionfruit. The natives are Karka. And they’re pretty hard for open-world.

Soap.6124:

Rare and bountiful resources that appear randomly throughout the map are guarded by powerful monsters!

Temp rich mineral veins. There’s also perm rich mineral veins which are almost always guarded by veterans and occasionally champions as well.

Soap.6124:

Monsters periodically assault player hubs; the attacks never stop!

World vs World. There isn’t a monster AI that can yet match human tactics.

This is not in any way near optimal because it’s a very heavily crit-based build operating on an uncrittable target, so it should be possible to kill much faster than this, but yeah… videos of how bunnies rawr.

Pretty much one of the best classes for PvE actually, due to their ability to stack 25 might alone before conjuring FGS for lulz.

That said if intending to play ele for the first class, be warned that it’s probably the hardest class to start in the game…

Look at the level of the monster (next to its name) and your level (bottom left hand corner).

As a gross exaggeration, killing something 16 levels above you isn’t going to give you much more exp, but will take forever.

Perhaps you’re hunting in an area with mobs 2-3 levels above you.

Advice:

1. Don’t play Thief, Ranger or Elementalist as your first characters. Ranger because the pet tanking is too good and you should learn how to play by yourself first, before adding on a pet, to learn dodge/aggro mechanics, etc. Thief and Elementalist because their survivability are bad at the start. You’ll end up better even at those classes with starting something else first, since people don’t generally learn much from being on the floor.
2. Once you’ve learnt enough of the game mechanics, play all 8 classes. You have 5 characters slots – keep the one you used to learn at first, and rotate the other classes through the other 4, deleting characters as necessary until you figure out which class you like best.
3. Master that class. By this I don’t mean just level 80 through world exploration. Clear a few dungeons, a few fractals. Or if you’re into PvP stuff, you can PvP until you’re 80.
4. If you like the class enough, you can never really stop improving. If you feel itchy, you can train a second character, so on and so forth.

Most people end up being extremely good at one class or very good at multiple classes. Stuff you learn from one class may also apply to another class, so for the same playtime someone with multiple characters need not be inferior to another player with only one.

5. Once you reach that point, you can decide what you want to do for the rest of your GW2 life.

If you wish to accelerate the learning process guides are available in the various class subforums. If it’s a question you can’t get an answer to, you can post here again, if you’re concerned as to whether they’ll shoot you (class subforums tend to be somewhat less forgiving than the new player subforums).

Build a knowledge base from instinct and the wisdom of others, then you can build on that with your own ability that much more easily.

You can, but be advised it’s technically a tank type build. Damage won’t be high, you won’t be much in demand for dungeon parties. You probably can’t 1v1 most players either, so use that build in zergs for best effect.

Also since wells and minions are both utility type skills, you’ll have to sacrifice the full potential of both to get to use them together.

Flame temple tombs is soloable, you just need to carry the sword, kite all attacks, drop it to bubble fire heads, pick up, redrop to bubble 2 more, etc. the annoying part is more about getting it to open.

There’s also the champ spider cavern in the north side of… Kessex I think. Or maybe gendarran; the one under the perm rich plant node anyway.

Don’t forget to kneel at the statue of… Think it was dwayna, at the southwest of Harathi. It’s both a daily chest and the location of a perm rich iron ore.

There’s a heck load of events, some with emote triggers, hidden in the game. If you keep your eyes open and try everything you see, there’s a lot of hidden content. You can also try to solo everything you see. So far the only exceptions to this rule are some living story mobs, the 3 krait witches, and a couple of world bosses. Rewards will be bad relative to time, but it’ll be fun, and train you to master your class(es).

Lastly, don’t forget the treasure imps…

The only drawback is you lose a char slot.

So buy another char slot with gold and you’re set.

‘Yes, yes. It’s clearly the mesmer/guardian’s fault when a team wipes, and that of the other noob players for using nub stats other than berserker sets so our dps sucked.’

Thank you for perfectly illustrating my point as to why reactive rolling is needed, and what a frequent PuGrunner can expect to fix.

Permastealth. Useless ish in zergs but broken in 1v1s. You need zerk gear for this; the thief is brokenly underpowered out of stealth and brokenly overpowered in stealth because the class is too weak and stealth is too strong. Max utility comes from high damage for a second out of stealth and exiting as rarely as possible. All other stats are irrelevant; you should never be hit when in stealth anyway.

It ain’t the burstiest thing out there though. A 30-10-0-0-30 zerkwar can ohko the majority of builds in WvW…

In the absence of a fully upgraded guild, exos aren’t too far behind for accessories as the versions from the karma vendor are hideously overpriced. Survive with exos for now, asc trinket crafting will probably make its entrance someday soon.

Don’t forget AoE healing for ele, Null Field and Phantasmal Disenchanter for mesmer.

The only way to make sure you can clear every dungeon fast is to have one specialised character for every role, and choose the most appropriate one relative to the base party makeup and dung choice.

For instance cofp1 4 war, pick mesmer. TA forward must have one guardian in case your team fails. In many others a boon ele is the best choice.

That is, to ‘ensure’ success you must carry every team you drop with.

AP is often a reliable gauge of experience, but is not foolproof – one of the worst players I’ve ever seen had 14k AP. Guilds only work if your guild is a team of full elites. Large guilds are as good as PUGs, and one of the worst teams I’ve been in consisted of 4 high ranking members of my former guild, before I went ahead and brought my own team of elites over from another game to form a guild here. If using AP, a general guide is:

>5000 = competent
>7000 = experienced
<1500 = new but can do well if you teach
2000-3500 = the worst players. They will ignore advice because they think they know better, give you attitude problems when you teach the new guys and yet, they’re not good as they have been carried by other players all the time. They also insist on using exploits or tactics they saw other teams which carried them use, even if the exploit is irrelevant due to a different party composition. Particularly the entrance stack tactic to deal with the 3 golem champions in the absence of an elementalist in SEp1 – it’s a surefire sign of a bad player.

There are exceptions, this is just the norm.

Lastly, be on the lookout if you see 4 players with 2000-3500 AP in the same guild. That kind of party composition has never failed to give the worst performance you can imagine in the game, join those only if you want to master the art of carrying 4 dead people who will abuse you for not using full zerk, even if you DO use full zerk.

PuGs are a mixed bag. The best runs I’ve ever had were with PuGs, the worst runs I’ve ever had are with other guilds, but the most frequent bad runs are also with PuGs.

Yes you can, I’ve ascended armor and weapons on 5 characters…

Mesmer, get asc weapons for your melee set. The damage difference is less appreciable for ranged sets because those do less damage to begin with. Ele, get weapons first, you only have one set. Unless you’re an LH ele, in which case Asc weapons won’t do much, but extra armor would.

At this point there is little use getting Ascended weapons for most Engineer builds, and all condition damage based builds. Direct damage classes usually benefit more from Asc weapons.

And lastly do NOT get Asc unless you are also using food AND utilities, whereby skale venom is the minimum utility consumable. The benefit some of these copper-cost items provide is as much as triple the benefit of Ascended equipment, at less than 0.01% the price.

This is why NKRO keyboards are useful, especially for elementalists.

Elementalist defenses are all active. Dodges, [Arcane Shield], [Obsidian Skin], [Swirling Winds] etc. If you do not time them properly you will inevitably die over and over again, it’s part of how the class plays. In time you’ll get better at not dying.

As a mesmer assassin gear tends to do better as it not only boosts damage by a greater amount when under full Might, it also chains into lifesteal food and bleed on crit. Assassin does more damage on crittable objects at very high levels of power and critdmg%,. Warriors can already get 100% constant critrate through berserker alone however.

Necros are OP. Discuss. (25 marks)

Shadowfall’s analogies are pretty good really, just that you don’t have just the same dps. Your DPS in spike situations is beyond godly, the FGS skill 4-3-5-2-3 rotation can breach 50,000 dps for a short time for > 1 million damage from a single FGS summon. Outside of that you have like 7000 dps in LHmode. These attacks don’t ever get to land against players however.

You also have the highest active defense of any class by a wide margin, together with the worst passive defense of any class. Against mobs with easily readable AI you can survive indefinitely, soloing any dungeon boss with impunity. Against players with far more frequent weaker attacks, your active defenses will be exhausted, and then you will die first due to low passive defense.

Mesmer is much stronger for pvp and 1v1 content. Ele is much stronger for mutiple target and PvE content. Mesmer players need good planning and AI understanding to be effective. Elementalists need good reactions, ability to adapt on the fly and timing.

Actually it’s possible to build tank + heal chars, the strongest 2 are the guard and engi, but rangers do ok ish at it. It is also possible for such chars to facetank dungeon bosses, it’s just that it’s very inefficient to do this when outright negating the damage with dodges allows for greater damage, and hence faster dungeon completion time. Tank/heal chars are only really useful in WvW, and for carrying parties with 4 failures – in most other cases damage builds with dodges are way more effective.

Due to limited utility in PvE most players don’t fully understand healing/damage mitigation mechanics; the idea that passive defense is impossible thus circulates a lot. But the conclusion does not change – generally damage is by far the most important role.

In addition active and passive defense can and should be combined; if rolling your first char I’d recommend going the damage only route on non-summoning classes to force yourself to learn how to dodge, blind, etc first.

Warriors are the 2nd highest personal dps behind the LH 25 might ele, but because of the limited nature of buffing max damage in a party is not from 5 zerkwars, though that is high. If talking support the guard offers much more support from AoE blinds, aegis and Wall of Reflection, but only does about 70% max damage potential from a warr. Lastly, the max dmg build for a warr is not 30-25-0-0-15, but 30-10-0-0-30 on 4 signets and 1 banner – which also has condition clear or stunbreak unavailable on the 30-25-0-0-15.

Guard only overtakes warr’s dps with 5 targets, necros can only hit one target in their maxed direct build making it inferior for dungs, ranger never gets close and thief does less damage, but can boonstrip and interrupt very frequently in its max dps build. Do your own calcs, at present all meta builds are suboptimal, metabusers still insist they’re optimal, and I’ve grown tired of presenting maths to people who can’t understand it.

If using a keyboard, ESDF > WASD in terms of useable keys, though programmable gaming keypads give the best utility. If you have to learn keyboard control anyway use ESDF from the start – the main reason people are stuck with WASD is they’re already too used to it.

Envinyatar.9432:

So, it means that ranger is a lose-lose situation? either you go for straightforward dps with a longbow and get a so-so dps, or else you go for condition build with a shortbow and get screwed if there’s another condition applier in the party?

Half-correct as the direct dps build is sword/dagger shortbow. This is why the theorycrafting subgroup has been constantly asking for condition limit increases, and for the power multiplier on ranger sword and GS to be raised. At present an optimised melee ranger does only about 4500 direct dps relative to the condition 5100 dps potential on its other sets, relative to the 8100 direct dps potential on an axe warrior. The main use of the ranger at present is for PvP and WvW content as a condition build.

Most rangers use a really bad 3500 dps berserker build though, known as ‘bearbows’, which makes the class seem even worse than it actually is, doing even less damage than the sword build.

Most of what needs to be said has already been. You will probably like engi or ele the most.

Visuals is an opinion, not an objective thing, thus nobody can really give you any advice as to what you think will look good.

Try all the classes and stick with what you like.

I hate to say this but it’s one of the worst combinations around (Giver’s is ‘The Worst’). The only class that has sufficient multipliers on healing skills and yet enough conditions to use it with is the ranger, but healing power is not useful without Toughness to synergise with it or you won’t have sustain anyway. In that singular build where it might have some use, it is inferior to Apothecary and Settler, which do have toughness.

The main use for Shaman gear at the moment is to break them down, as IIRC it’s an ‘uncraftable’ stat, so it gives an inscription/insignia you can use to train your crafting professions with.

Conditions do not stack beyond a certain limit. For this reason getting more damage per condition is more important than triggering a condition more often. For this reason Rampager is a bit problematic because its main stat is Precision.

Most condition builds run Rabid if they have condition-on-crit traits, and Dire if they do not. Carrion/Rampager mixes are used for hybrid builds, not condition builds.

Unfortunately the way the numbers are set, hybrid builds don’t really do very well a lot of the time.

Condi builds: Condition damage main, vitality second, toughness third. Only one of these may be used per party in PvE due to condition capping.

Direct damage builds: Power and precision main, critical damage third. Precision is more important than power at very high levels of critdmg%, power is more important than precision before that; never exceed 73% critrate no matter what as a ranger Spotter adds 7%, a warrior banner adds 8%, and fury adds 20%. Going over 100% critrate is a waste. For this cause most builds that can maintain fury uptime and with critrate increasing traits do better with pure Berserker. Mesmers are a general exception to this as they do not have reliable fury and generally don’t have good critrate increasing traits, so Assassin works better. Some thief builds are also exceptions.

Tanking builds: Toughness first, power second, healing power or vitality third. Not of much use except at high level fractals, fail parties and World vs. World.

Healing builds: Healing power first, toughness second, power third. Not of much use except at high level fractals, fail parties and World vs World. Also, only the Ranger, Engineer and Guardian in specific builds can do this role – every other class doesn’t have good multipliers per unit time on AoE heals.

This is in general. Different builds have different build-specific stats. Some stat combinations are useless because those stats are never used together.

Most speedruns consist of multiple berserkers/assassins with one healer/tank. Failed runs usually consist of nothing but berserkers with bad players. Slow runs consist of multiple people with heal/survivability stats or more than one condition damager. Maxed runs consist of a dire ranger/rabid necro, 1-2 berserker warriors, 1 assassin mesmer, a celestial elementalist and a cleric guardian in the place of the second berserker warrior for especially difficult content – but this only works within elite groups, the kind that take WvW keeps and Orr Temples with a single party – chances are, you haven’t seen any. Attempting to find 4 players good enough to pull off a maxed run in a PuG is impossible; the most reliable bet to roll for speed in a PuG is a berserker warrior, and the most reliable bet to roll for non-wiping in a PuG is a celestial elementalist.

Or you can bring whichever combination would work best between the other 4 members of your PuG team and the dungeon characteristics, but you’d need to have multiple specialised 80s to pull that off. Stats are tied to weapon, utility skills, traits, runes and sigils; changing a trait build often changes the optimum gear combination.

If not min/maxing and just trying to get by, the simple answer for an above average build is ‘as many soldier pieces as you need to keep you alive and berserker in everything else’.

Rangers are mainly a condition class by the way. You’ll achieve meh performance with a full direct damage spec with the sword mainhand that you can use anywhere, or good performance with a full condition spec that you can only use if no other condition user is in the group.

… don’t use direct damage on the longbow or you’re going to have a bad time.

And lastly, the scepter’s autoattack on a mesmer is bad for direct damage. Its other skills are relatively good, but you’ll need a Sword mainhand in your alternate set; the scepter-inclusive set’s going to be used only for its other skills. The scepter’s main purpose is actually on condition clone explosion builds.

Mesmer. Engis have dps problems, thieves have SEVERE survivability problems. They have some interesting styles from duellers, clone spammers to glamour trolling. Bewarned the earlygame experience for mesmers is bad though. Thieves level faster with S/P than D/P, and are better against champs that way, but timing becomes critical. D/P can spam blinds for an overall easier experience but kill slower and cannot solo champs in melee.

In 3k increments, the equips are glove mantle helm glove mantle helm. Greaves and whatnot are above this.

Think of PvP as a completely separate game from everything else. Gear, skills, xp and traits all do not carry over. Skill characteristics and such are also sometimes different.

No. You won’t get the daily if the fractal is higher than your p.rew level. Reward is determined by the lower of the two numbers.

L1f at Rlvl6 = rlvl1 reward.
L9f at Rlvl6 = rlvl6 reward + you level up to rlvl7.

To get both dailies you need to do a Flvl 11+ when at Rlvl11+ and a flvl 10- fractal at any Rlvl.

Healing builds heal AoE from 3, 4 always heals if completed. 3 isn’t really good for speed as you need to remain in the field for Swift to be useful. 5 is one of the only two area-denial skills, the other being shield 5 – which is critical in WvW but almost useless in PvE except for stopping mobs at the end of dung run phases without resulting in a combat mode activation. 3 damages aoe like all symbols do. 2 has limited utility; other than drawing mobs, otherwise autoattacking is better. Autos are the guard’s only spammable AoE; all others max at cleave.

Against very large numbers of crap mobs my usual rotation is 3, F1, 4, Purging Flames, weaponswap-hammer2 then autoing on the hammer to alternate 2 cleaves with one AoE, spamming F1 off cd. Autoattack spamming is for CoEp1, TA, WvW stealthed opponents/zerg fights only, generally; otherwise it will be highly ineffective.

I hope you’re not replying my post, if it was please read it again. The last one was meant for Mr. Scrap-everything-zerkalltheway-kickallthestaves Notabot. I worry, because you mention the word ‘rude’, and nobody else brought the word up.

The current elitism is especially annoying because it is done by players who do not understand the game at all – shooting others is bad enough when their solution is better, shooting others when their recommendation is worse is simply ridiculous. I’ve run into them over and over again at the Guardian (people speccing full stats into burn and speccing full healing power into Altruistic Healing), Mesmer (thinking that the PU build has no counters when it gets murdered badly by phantasm builds; early on, nonsense about using the Greatsword as a berserker build), Ranger (thinking that the class with the lowest autoattack power multipliers of all can ever be good at direct damage), Warrior (thinking throwing 150 condi dmg points which they never use can ever be a max direct build, while giving up all stunbreaks and condition cleansers), Elementalist (sacrificing booning – the ele’s strongest point, and AoE – the second strongest, in favour of a cleave-melee option), Thief (speccing Toughness into a class with no damage mitigation mechanics other than stealth and evade and the worst heal) and Necro subforums (speccing direct damage into a class without Cleave). So far, they only haven’t appeared in the Engineer subforums, joy of all joys. It’s disappointing to see that even people who claim to specialise in one class are inferior in their understanding of that one than someone who plays every single class.

Guard staff is the #1 weapon setup for TA run phase. More so for Fwd path since Up is so easy you don’t have to care. It is one of the stronger builds for CoE 1-4 defense when traited for offense. Condition damage should never be specced under any circumstances for a guardian, period. With high base and low scaling Burn is improved by duration, not damage; and damage speccing, using permaburn as a conduit for buffing direct and boonstrip is its main purpose. If desiring offensive stats, one should go into power instead. Toughness mainbuilds are usually used for holding aggro for the rest of your party, and is used in conjunction with AH because healing power scales badly with it, power and retaliation – and AH is paired with shout traits, shouts and staff’s Empower for max effect. In dealing the lowest damage, booning others and taking the most attacks it is the least selfish build possible – its users have the lowest chance of dealing enough damage to ensure drops. It is also so slow at killing its main purpose in PvE is to anchor teams of 4 completely fail players in dungeons; its second, the highest level fractals.

Normally I wouldn’t be this direct, but as you have disqualified yourself from politeness by being rude yourself: do not give advice when you clearly have no idea how the game, or specific dungeon, drop, stat, trait or aggro mechanics, work.

Staff is a arc based PBAoE. If you use it in a ranged single target situation it will forever underperform the scepter by definition. If in a melee cleave situation it will always underperform the sword. Know your attacks. Using a cleaver to shave doesn’t make the cleaver a fail blade, it only makes the person using it in such a way a fail shaver.

The best single-class PvE players usually possess multiple sets, with Asc stats on only the one they’ll use most often – generally melee cleave – and stacking sigils on AoE type weapons to build stacks on large groups of weak mobs. I’m a multiclass player instead so I bring specific optimised builds for specific situations.

There is no weapon set that is best for everything though there are some that can do passably well for everything. The existence of one violates the definition of balance.

Earning gold and buying it is more efficient in terms of claws per hour than any farming method at the moment.

Event completion unnecessary. Use stealth, summons, invuln, aegis, immob, cripple and kiting liberally.

I’ve soloed every SP in Orr, often without temples being uncontested.

Karma all the way. Gold is useless as 99+% of drop value comes from items – monsters haven’t dropped gold since the dungeons were updated. Magic find might be useful but 20% is not much relative to the 350% mf you can already get without using AP bonuses, this is a second choice. XP is useless as all chars that can wear this are level 80 and you will without fail get SP faster than you can use them on dropped cores, bloodstone shards and the asc equip requirement combined. Karma gain had been nerfed into the ground in comparison, making this important for any chance at legendaries or ascendeds.

Lastly note you can already get 80 AR from full asc with +5s on infused ascendeds. You can’t use more than 70 AR even at lvl 50 fractals, the current max.

Condition applying skills also have direct damage, which can crit. So the nerf to critdamage will also nerf condition builds to a VERY SMALL degree. Likely, the degree to which you get random +critdmg from traits. If none, then you’re ‘completely unaffected’.

In no way does condition builds become better. Crit based builds become worse, not the other way around.

The random nature is a problem since it often drops you in a nearby enemy AoE after using it to avoid a stomp.

Just make it ground targeted, that’d be good enough.

Aurora Lambere

translated as ‘gently glowing dawn’.

I can’t think of a way to combine faith and light without sounding over-the-top cheesy, so throwing in a modifier for light instead, and modified ‘dawn’ into what would be another feminine form of the same thing.

What’s with all this ingame time comparing nonsense. Past a certain point how good you are depends far more on how willing you are to learn rather than how many times you’ve repeated the same mistake. And how good you are has nothing to do with whether your point is valid or not anyway. Only data and logic determine that.

In any case, warriors are better at condi damage, better at direct damage, better at mobility and better at personal survivability. Guardians are better at damage mitigation, better at party support, better at booning and better at battlefield control. You can spec a dps guard but it will mathematically underperform a max spec dps warrior. You can spec a shoutheal warrior but it will mathematically underperform a max spec heal/boon guardian. Pick a class that better suits what you want to do. You can pick the other for the hell of it, but know that you will underperform relative to someone else of equal skill in the other class – at least until some patch changes the relative balance. That’s fine as well if you like how the class plays… just don’t complain about it or go around insisting that your build is better when the numbers show otherwise or you simply cripple yourself, annoy others and make a joke of yourself. There’s a lot of that in the meta, all the sadder for how many people actually listen because they say what people want to hear.

And don’t go kicking dps specced guards just because they cannot outperform dps spec warriors, because a lousy player in a good spec will still underperform a good player in a suboptimal spec, and you’ll never know who’s lousy and who’s good until you see their face planted in the dirt.

The problem with warrior conditioning is that it revolves around a 130 range weapon. Your only ranged conditioner (torment) is easy to avoid, the other skills are unusable. If in longbow mode your condition is significantly weaker than a ranger’s at the same range.

The advantage with warrior conditioning is that it cleaves… but this is more relevant for PvE than PvP. Except if we were to be doing PvE, a 8000 dps direct damage build is just that much more useful than a 5000 dps condition build within the same class.

Condition rangers run 4540 dps (and 3079 armor, and 22k hp) on an effective range of 900 units – and can reach at least 4000 dps fairly consistently, with zero might on them. Necros reach 4780 at a similar maximum effective range, but require 8 might to do so, and also bleed themselves for the ability to do that.

Your statement that both warriors and rangers are bad with conditions in PvE makes no sense. It is true that in general conditions in PvE are bad in the first place because of the low condition limit cap – so if that was what you meant it’s just a phrasing issue, but rangers are the top condition class against limited numbers of targets, and 3rd against larger numbers. Warriors are the 3rd best against limited numbers, and second best against large number… and necros are the best against large numbers of targets, but 2nd against limited numbers. Within conditioners, it’s one of the best.

Norn cultural armor is OP.

http://i.imgur.com/35eSvSv.png