Guild Wars 2

This map is great. It’s a seriously strategic map, and teams need to work cohesively to win. In some maps, you can get away with a run-and-gun team where everybody does their own thing, but this map requires players to think a little harder than that.

Hopefully Anet doesn’t turn this game into WoW by catering to every whine on the forums. GW has always been about a rich and varied PvP culture.

I’ve never played much with DS except as an “oh noes!” survival attempt or a quick swap in/out for Life Siphon. Since it is the class-defining ability, i feel like i haven’t really been giving it enough attention, so i’m thinking about trying something like this.

As far as synergy and survivability go, i think a Dagger/Warhorn main with Staff sub would be best for a DS-centric build.

Dagger/Warhorn attacks:
1) Quick attacks at 6% life force generation per cycle, decent DPS
2) Health drain
3) Root
4) Stun
5) IMS and snare for 11 seconds, plus LF (Flat 1% or 1% per tic or 1% per tic per enemy hit? I know it requires hitting to gain LF, which is promising). No matter how the LF pans out, it’s great for pursuit.

Staff:
1) 3% LF
2) DoT/HoT on decent recharge
3) Snare/DoT
4) Condition sending
5) Fear (I just use it as a delay tactic if i can interrupt a long-charge ability)

Keep in mind some of the Staff bonuses (regen, condition dump) only trigger if you’re within range of the mark when it goes off, which means staying in melee range full time is beneficial. This whole setup works optimally at maintaining melee range through various movement-hindering abilities (counting DS – two chills, a root, a cripple, a stun, and another cripple/swiftness pair).

I’m really not sure what to trait for though, because i’ve literally never put points into Soul Reaping. Right now i’m running a wells set that’s 0/30/10/30/0 but will play with it tonight some. As far as which traits/stats to take, i’m a big fan of toughness and healing ability.

Reducing cooldown on DS and DS abilities while taking some bonuses could be nice. Perhaps the area heal on life siphon or heal on exit from DS. The might on DS activation looks really nice too. Maybe Cleric’s gear with runes of Fighter for a decent boost to damage and toughness.