Guild Wars 2

DonQuack.9025:

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Arah p2. That’s the best to duo. I think that you and your bf will learn the most about your classes and be better players when you can do it consistently.

problem with going straight to arah is (imagine) everything else becomes mediocre.
hence why im taking my time. I got atleast another year of new and exciting dungeons at my rate

I’d disagree, I actually thing Arah is hte most solo/duo friendly dungeon. The rest are much easier when you have full groups and can burn through things, while Arah is pretty much know the attacks and you have hte chance to dodge and avoid basically all damage.

Take malrona, you’re encouraged to take that poison damage but doing so means you kind of create a time limit to how long you’ll be able to survive.

It’s just a bit of a different system and idea behind the stuff.

AC may be easier, but Arah is really friendly to the duo/solo situation… once you learn the mechanics.

I found Energy sigil and trying to dodge the GS attacks really helped, but that was on mesmer when I was getting focused (really curious about the rules on agro in this game, they can be frustrating).

I feel like the biggest problem with GW2 story is the idea of a single antagonist in every situation. There is never a question of who’s behind it. In some of the smaller story lines they basically just flat out tell you, and in the bigger ones… it’s a dragon, always a dragon, ohh wait scarlet, ok something different… oohh nope, dragon…

I look back to something like EQ which has a very rich storyline that I enjoyed and that’s the big difference. EQ had many well developed antagonists. Sometimes it was the dragons. Often it was some godly dispute where someone went too far. Other times it was this mysterious figure Mayong who we still don’t really understand his full story but learn more and more about him through the 15 years of the game. Then of course random other things like newly discovered races and even extra-dimensional refugees who had been hiding on the planet for centuries (wasn’t a huge fan of that but they spun it out to be pretty cool in the end)

And the best part of that game compared to many titles today… no freakin cutscenes! god, why do I need to watch characters talk? Just put it in text and let me read, or put it in the background audio. They did a little better job on that this episode than the last dry top stuff.

Why do Ele’s get attunements? Why do Rangers get pets? Why do necros get DS? Why initiative instead of cooldowns for Thief? Why Virtues for Guard? …

We’re talking fundamental game play design here.

Promoting slower, less active game play to me is never a good idea.

DejaVu.9825:

The changes that I propose are targeted to make certain abilities more balanced.

5 seconds CD kits engineer is not a nerf but a change that would make his game more calculated and less -> change kit spam spam -> change kit spam spam. 5 seconds are few.

I would like to hear other ideas for the next Profession Balance. I know that the current game is the best we’ve ever had, However there are still skills and traits to fix.

Sorry, I mean you’re entitled to your own opinion on what balance is but saying that’s not a nerf is a complete joke. That’d be one of the biggest nerfs they could do.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

My biggest issue with hammer auto is the light field. When I play ele in fractals or dungeons and there’s a hammer guard, their constant light field auto spam often overwrites my fire field blasting rotation, which ends up depriving our party of a reasonable amount of dps.

I’d prefer if the field was moved to another skill and the auto was sped up to compensate.

or… just have the symbol not a combo field… done

IvanTheGrey.2941:

This is the first RPG I’ve ever played where I didn’t give a flying kitten about the story. Is that wrong? I just don’t think the writing/storytelling is good enough to get me to care.

Oh well. Got my first lupi solo on thief the other day. A lot more fun than on warrior. I finally realized that playing other classes makes you a better player. Huh.

Hope all my fellow yanks have a good day off tomorrow.

Now that is funny…day off… hahaha

Was talking to a buddy the other day though, he got his girlfriend to start playing, who in turn got basically her whole family to start playing. They apparently love doing the story mode stuff (personal story/living story) but even their first time through everything they’re skipping cutscenes. Kinda says it all right there if you ask me.

Trice.4598:

“Ancient Nite : Halp im still ok”

RIP Ancient nite, never5get

I realllllly miss Lilith, and winter and all the others

:( yeah, sucks that people disappear, but completely understandable too.

frifox.5283:

Arah p1, where to Ancient Ooze is. Why do people yell at me for killing the Orrian Turrets on the other side of the room? Does killing it trigger apocalypse?

Because making that run a little easier and preventing someone from getting in combat from one of those things is obviously wasting time and dumb!

I always want to as well but no one ever seems to want to take the extra 10seconds.

Obtena.7952:

Yeah I think there is a little of “if it’s not in the 99% of awesome, it’s crap” going on in the thread. Is everyone actually aware of how much damage a hammer does in 5/5/0/4/0 setup? It’s one of the highest if you aren’t swapping weapons. I’m assuming we aren’t debating the usefulness of hammer in WvW here.

AA chain is slow but … balanced for what you get from hammer. My big issue with hammer is how situational the other skills are. i.e. it’s a pretty boring weapon.

^^
and… light fields… ugh light fields.

… Guardian Hammer not useful? … someone’s taking crazy pills, maybe it’s me but seems like it’s part of the general Fractal build for the protection, part of the frontline WvW build, and is just in general a nice way to make dungeons easymode for everyone while doing good damage.

I don’t see it /shrug.

Rozbuska.5263:

Jerus.4350:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Rozbuska.5263:

Azure.8670:

sorrychief.2563:

based on dps and utility

guardian
engineer
ele
warrior
mesmer
thief
ranger

not sure where you got thief has highest personal dps.
also bomb kit highest dps autoattack in game.

bomb kit doesnt have the highest dps auto attack, the meta engi pve build doesnt even use bomb kit.

That build what you called meta is sux then.

Bomb kit can have highest dps auto attack and still not be useful. Engi meta full rotation is higher dps than bomb auto.

Assuming you can hit max vuln though isn’t bomb kit going to weigh in higher than grenades though? Or is it just the auto and not the full rotation that’s higher damage?

Ofc its about autoattack. bombs hit for 9k and you can never compare it to grenade AA. But ofc you dont use grenades for AA but for shrapnel and freeze but thats another story:-)

Of course, but the question I’m curious on is that if for some reason you’re not concerned with the extra Vuln (say a second engi covering it?) would you be better off with the higher bomb auto, or with the shrapnel/freeze on rotation? I imagine you’d hit condi caps very quickly hurting the grenades a bit? /shrug It’s a hypothetical not likely to happen but I am curious.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Rozbuska.5263:

Azure.8670:

sorrychief.2563:

based on dps and utility

guardian
engineer
ele
warrior
mesmer
thief
ranger

not sure where you got thief has highest personal dps.
also bomb kit highest dps autoattack in game.

bomb kit doesnt have the highest dps auto attack, the meta engi pve build doesnt even use bomb kit.

That build what you called meta is sux then.

Bomb kit can have highest dps auto attack and still not be useful. Engi meta full rotation is higher dps than bomb auto.

Assuming you can hit max vuln though isn’t bomb kit going to weigh in higher than grenades though? Or is it just the auto and not the full rotation that’s higher damage?

SteelGuard.9635:

Hi All!

New player to the game – I love the type of class that is close to a bard or Spellsword type.

Mixture between a Warrior and Mage somewhat…(Able to buff himself / herself to do more damage or bring utility to the team).

Guardian is more defensive I understand;
Warrior is more offensive;
Mesmer is more utility.

Is that correct?

What is the metagame like at 80 in BOTH pve and pvp?

I got Mesmer to 20 with GS and Sword / Sword and it felt…UP…(not sure endgame) its painful to level (and I get that the reward is greater at the end theory but I am scared of investing that much time only to find out I hate the class..)

Warrior was GOOD (only to level 15) and I felt it was good damage with Axe Axe…but I felt it was very straight forward really…just run in spam AA and 2,3 and maybe 5 if needed…

Guardian I JUST started…and its VERY different in a good way – it felt like a hybrid between Mesmer and Warrior (I heard about Spirit Weapons??)

What is Guardian about – was I wrong about the above understandings of the game?

If I am a guardian in Meta PVP/PVE – am I just supposed to tank or can I actually out DPS warriors and mesmers etc.?

I do like to hit hard…(Thief will be my main alt after guardian for PvP solo).

Thanks guys – please don’t flame me to hard – I am a 26 year old noob at this game and again – just returned.)

Love ya all!

By Bard what do you mean?

As someone who played EQ for far too long and played bard there, the closest thing to me at this point is Engi, you have that huge diversity of options with a very active gameplay.

That said I’ve always been the support type and my favorite professions having played them all quite a bit would be Guardian/mesmer/engi at this point, no real order I like different ones for different tasks.

Guardian can DPS, 46202 build for PVE is about the top DPS (top iwth unscathed, not quite top with master of consecrations but very often worth it). For PVP you can go Meditation build as well though which is very hard hitting but lacks the group support that a guard is primarily built around (still very good build and not trying to knock it in any way).

Personally I’m also not a fan of warrior because of the same reason you put it… too strait forward.

Zenith.7301:

How curious that this is a dungeon thread yet nobody treats fractals as dungeons, when they are the highest level of dungeon mechanics.

lv50 fractals are a whole different ball game, because survival due to the damage output of bosses and mobs, and the total health of bosses, is far greater than any of the usual speed run explorable paths.

So the one trick pony that is an ele in a fractal becomes a liability because suddenly a melee autoattack from a mob, and especially bosses such as Mossman and Archdiviner will one shot him.

In fractals the heavy armor classes have a distinct advantage, and so do the strong AoE classes. Fire Shaman will eliminate ranger, necromancer, and mesmer from the list — all these classes have absolutely horrendous aoe capacity that makes them a liability against the elementals who need to be burst down immediately.

In all the other lv50 fractals classes with high effective HP (which is not necessarily the same thing as a large health pool, but effective mitigation mechanisms such as strong burst and sustained healing, reflection, high access to protection, etc) have the best capability to sustain DPS.

Try Archdiviner melee on a ranger or lightning hammer ele. Try dredge on those as well. Not very fun when a mob takes out over half your health in one swing and is immune to conditions which would otherwise allow you to survive.

For lv50 fractal the list easily favors guardian and warrior with a single ele, preferably a staff ele, as the only light armor class in the group. Thief is essential for speeding up the dredge and harpy fractals, and their survival comes from being able to chain pistol whip if necessary against opponents with hardhitting autoattacks.

Take a good look at paths such as the Aetherblade in TA, it also favors high effective HP classes that withstand offensive pressure better.

Engineer and Ranger might do well in regular dungeon speed runs, but they are no better than a mesmer or anyone that isn’t a Warrior/Guardian/Thief with the token ele in a fractal or aetherpath run.

It’s also no coincidence that the reason necro isn’t well loved for dungeons either is because alongside ranger their power based AoE skills are absolute trash, and this game is all about bursting AoE.

Because Fractals aren’t dungeons, they’re fractals. It’s a completely different system and not the same at all.

Dungeon I choose a path to do and it leads me through a path killing multiple bosses along the way and when I finish I’m done.

Fractals I do 3 completely random and different mini paths of again random stuff.

Fun in it’s own right, but it’s not the same thing at all. One is showing up to a known course you’ve practiced and perfected, and one is showing up and knowing what obstacles may be there, but not sure which ones or where they will arrive. It really changes the approach.

And… Ele is pretty kitten kitten in them as well with their plethora of tools. And, in general I completely disagree with your opinions on fractals. If you have a good guard they can make up for a few mistakes that are made and other than that you just do your best to really learn things and not get touched. I’m a big fan of one mesmer in fractals for instance, lots of portal tricks to make use of as well as their other utility. Engi can cover a lot of areas so is an amazing utility addition in a group that may not be perfectly made composition wise.

Thaddeus.4891:

I can only talk about the people I play with in my guild, but like Tom Ysf said, a lot of people were doing Labyrinth for money or for candy to get the last Halloween reward they wanted (Kuzu the mini cat).

And now with the return of the Living story and a new map a lot of people focus on that while their achievement are easier to complete. By next week, people will get back to doing more dungeon.

… zuzu

Ryn.6459:

Jerus.4350:

Ryn.6459:

70% would put engis at warrior level, good enough for me in pugs.
I dont know. I do the rotation (on the mist) properly. I guess, then, I am too slow with each weapon change.

Yeah I think i’m doing it pretty well too but apparently not, it seems slightly better but not as massive as I’d expect looking at the math stuff.

This is the post I’m referring to:
http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/15386797-optimal-dps-rotation
You can watch the video and see the coefficients he has and adds up over a 30s duration.

Watching it and reading it again, their rotation is different than the more basic one I’ve been doing of just Barrage->Napalm->Flameblast->Acid bomb->Jump Shot->blunderbuss->grenade stuff till 2 shrapnel are done and repeat minus naplam and jump shot. So there’s at least some of the damage I’m not maximizing.

@ Foefaller, yeah I just wanted to throw that out there as it’s pretty silly easy, generally we stack 4 people up on top of the console and the engi just stands underneath it and spams 1 on bomb kit and everything dies without having to do really anything else.

Mmh he doesnt bother into might stacking (guess he assume that will come from the party), so the actual dps is going to be lower than what he claim.

Mhm, but that’s not that unlikely if you have a good Ele, lots of ways to get fire fields too and you’re throwing out 2 blasts pretty regularly.

That said, I think the rotation they showed is pretty insanely intense and unrealistic so yeah feeling better about my sub par performance as I’d be pretty impressed to see anyone pull that off regularly while fighting something. You’re wasting dodges for damage which right there is unrealistic, then just keeping track of all those cooldowns while having to put in dodges and other avoidance things while it’s happening, just seems a bit unrealistic.

Still worth working towards as again personally I’m seeing a few seconds faster kills on that robot and I know I’m not doing it perfectly. I mean Acid Bomb is 100blades damage but much much faster if you execute it properly. At the very least getting jump shot and blunderbuss in with grenades. And then Flame Blast is very easy to land and you get the extra burning damage from the toolbelt and static discharge damage, as well as the fire field for might stacking, just all around good rotation if you don’t need other utilities which granted sometimes you do.

Psh, dirty exploiter, I saw you using portal to quickly deal with the chanters in Cliffside yesterday too! Play it the right way and run geez.

And what was up with that scrub guardian getting a fractal scepter in that 19 you carried him through last night anyways?

Ryn.6459:

70% would put engis at warrior level, good enough for me in pugs.
I dont know. I do the rotation (on the mist) properly. I guess, then, I am too slow with each weapon change.

Yeah I think i’m doing it pretty well too but apparently not, it seems slightly better but not as massive as I’d expect looking at the math stuff.

This is the post I’m referring to:
http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/15386797-optimal-dps-rotation
You can watch the video and see the coefficients he has and adds up over a 30s duration.

Watching it and reading it again, their rotation is different than the more basic one I’ve been doing of just Barrage->Napalm->Flameblast->Acid bomb->Jump Shot->blunderbuss->grenade stuff till 2 shrapnel are done and repeat minus naplam and jump shot. So there’s at least some of the damage I’m not maximizing.

@ Foefaller, yeah I just wanted to throw that out there as it’s pretty silly easy, generally we stack 4 people up on top of the console and the engi just stands underneath it and spams 1 on bomb kit and everything dies without having to do really anything else.

Foefaller.1082:

For example, I bring my Engineer for CoE path 1, because with grenade kit and a turret or two, I can single-handily clear golems from the console after the golem boss, letting the other four players activate the console at once, bypassing the majority of that fight. My Engi is also my main, with ascended armor and the highest agony resist of all my characters, so she’s also the profession I play high level fractals as well.

Have you tried Bomb Kit on that part? Should be able to just spam 1 and win, but might toss on the larger blast radius trait to guaranteed success.

Ryn.6459:

Jerus.4350:

Ryn.6459:

hybrid.5027:

coglin.1867:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Ropechef.6192:

if you read the reddit thread you will also see the link to the spreadsheet.

http://dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13987449-dps-estimates-for-each-professions-in-30s-battles

This is outdated. In no way at the moment a warrior’s dps is better than a ranger’s or an engi’s

Wait a second. You just berated me in a previous post and said….

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Those tests were made with meta builds, meta gear, and yes they are legit. If you don’t wanna believe it and delude yourself, go ahead, I’m not going to search for further proof. If you wanna do further research do it yourself. I just posted the truth. I couldn’t care less if you believe it or not.

Yet now you claim it is out dated and not factually accurate. Hypocrite much?

That is the same spread sheet in that thread I was referring too. What was the term you used for this situation? “Delude yourself” I think it was?

Yes, the spreadsheet in that thread was from the old meta. Since that spreadsheet was done…

1. Warriors got two distinct nerfs to their dps.
2. Rangers got a massive buff
3. We improved our Engineer DPS rotation further

DeKeyz has not published full updated data but that ranking…

Thief, ele, engineer, ranger, warrior, guardian, mesmer, necro is accurate. I’m not upset if you won’t take my word for it, but you can adjust it yourself if need be. Take the warrior numbers from that spreadsheet and subtract 2.5% direct dps. Take the ranger numbers and add about 15% direct dps. That change should be more the sufficient to explain the flip flop of those two professions. As far as engineer goes, Grenade barrage, Acid Bomb, Jump Shot, Blunderbuss is the most powerful burst dps in the game, and they have very high sustained DPS now thanks to Detonate Flame Blast.

-Nike

Im working in my engi rotations. In the meanwhile, do you know how much dps is lost for (lets say worst escenario) just nade spamming?

I’ve been wondering this too.

I was able to look at one of their calculations for the max DPS and removing some of the attacks and replacing it with just grenade1’s we’re looking at like 60-70% of the damage of the full rotation. But, to note, you also lose all that burst, which is important in some situations. Just to be clear though that’s a estimation, not factual data and I believe I left in the rifle usage in there so just removed the elixer/flamethrower and bombs from dodges.

What puzzles me is that I need 60-65 secs to “kill” the indestructible golem on the mists 3 times either with nades spamming or with a proper nades/FT/EG/rifle rotation.

Doing it the other day I was seeing about 2-4s faster with the proper rotation performed poorly compared to full grenades.

There very much is a difference in performance as well. The rotation is harder to perform and if you fumble you’re adding extra time making the DPS lower than optimally performed.

And like personally I often cancel my Acid Bomb before it actually activates… that’s purely wasted time without the effect, screwing up the entire rotation. Really a lot of things that can go wrong with that acid bomb, get launched too far away and suddenly you may miss the initial hit of jump shot, or be wasting time running in. Get “stuck” in the kit and end up firing off your Elixer Gun 5 for no reason instead of jump shot.

I’ve also had a lot of bad luck with Flame Blast, it just disappeared but doesn’t seem to give any effect. I’m not really sure on the damage part (always a lot of number flowing around) but the blast effect isn’t always showing even if I’m on the field spamming the 2 key.

Point being, while going from that optimally performed equation spamming grenades is something like 60-70% damage if my estimation is at all correct. But, that’s optimally performed rotation, if you can’t do that then you may not be all that bad off just going for the easier rotation. It’s not like warrior or Guard rotation where you just kind of wait for an AA round to finish and hit a button. There’s a bit more difficulty to it, at least imo.

For me, I logged in one friday night for reset night of WvW. Get in there and JQ starts running towards us. I’m thinking “ohh no” then I hear one of them yell “Hey Jerus, I came here to bring you this Zap, please take it and be happy” Well, I did, and I was. So I sold it, then used those funds to buy my remaining t6 mats and The Bard so I could craft The Minstrel. And now I run around with shiny musical notes floating around me.

Say what you will, but those JQ guys are nice people.

And you get to say “yarr”

Honestly tempted to make a second set for those just for the laughs.

Ryn.6459:

hybrid.5027:

coglin.1867:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Ropechef.6192:

if you read the reddit thread you will also see the link to the spreadsheet.

http://dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13987449-dps-estimates-for-each-professions-in-30s-battles

This is outdated. In no way at the moment a warrior’s dps is better than a ranger’s or an engi’s

Wait a second. You just berated me in a previous post and said….

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Those tests were made with meta builds, meta gear, and yes they are legit. If you don’t wanna believe it and delude yourself, go ahead, I’m not going to search for further proof. If you wanna do further research do it yourself. I just posted the truth. I couldn’t care less if you believe it or not.

Yet now you claim it is out dated and not factually accurate. Hypocrite much?

That is the same spread sheet in that thread I was referring too. What was the term you used for this situation? “Delude yourself” I think it was?

Yes, the spreadsheet in that thread was from the old meta. Since that spreadsheet was done…

1. Warriors got two distinct nerfs to their dps.
2. Rangers got a massive buff
3. We improved our Engineer DPS rotation further

DeKeyz has not published full updated data but that ranking…

Thief, ele, engineer, ranger, warrior, guardian, mesmer, necro is accurate. I’m not upset if you won’t take my word for it, but you can adjust it yourself if need be. Take the warrior numbers from that spreadsheet and subtract 2.5% direct dps. Take the ranger numbers and add about 15% direct dps. That change should be more the sufficient to explain the flip flop of those two professions. As far as engineer goes, Grenade barrage, Acid Bomb, Jump Shot, Blunderbuss is the most powerful burst dps in the game, and they have very high sustained DPS now thanks to Detonate Flame Blast.

-Nike

Im working in my engi rotations. In the meanwhile, do you know how much dps is lost for (lets say worst escenario) just nade spamming?

I’ve been wondering this too.

I was able to look at one of their calculations for the max DPS and removing some of the attacks and replacing it with just grenade1’s we’re looking at like 60-70% of the damage of the full rotation. But, to note, you also lose all that burst, which is important in some situations. Just to be clear though that’s a estimation, not factual data and I believe I left in the rifle usage in there so just removed the elixer/flamethrower and bombs from dodges.

Pregnantman.8259:

Yeah I guess it started when some people asked calculations comparing sword and mace dps. After the calculations showed both weapons have almost the same dps without considering additional vulnurability from mace symbol and burst from the third skill, mace became more popular and obal’s pve guide changed sword/greatsword builds to 1-hand/greatsword builds. Funny thing is I think I remember it was also calculated that sword camping had equal dps to staff camping and how shocked I was along with many others.

Anyway, mace has almost the same dps with sword but because your symbol keeps ticking when you swap to other weapon it has more burst capabilities than sword. The symbol has a long cast time, however I think its not much of an issue considering the slowness of the auto attack itself (synergy). Instead a nice addition could be tweaking the third skill like the adding the ability to end the channel in demand to get the protection and/or blast finisher at the start of the channel or from the manual ending.

^^ This, sword is a small bit better on longer fights, mace seems to win out on the burst going Mace2 → GS rotation. Sword offers blinds/projectile defense while mace offers some healing and a block. I’ve been loving mace in dungeons where blind just doesn’t really help. The one big drawback though is those pesky light fields, so personally if I have an Ele that knows what they’re doing, I try to refrain from using mace/hammer and be a bit more restrictive on my use of gs4.

Einlanzer.1627:

coglin.1867:

If you believe it is “very doable” to “camp” in a weapon and be “optimal”, then I do not think “optimal” means what you think it means.

As to abstract, I do not think it is hard. I simply do not agree with your opinion on the matter. In this case, I wouldn’t call it abstract. I believe it is more a matter of the manner in which your wording of your thoughts on the matter do not convey to others, what you are actually trying to say. It actually seems as if your two previous post contradict one another.

It doesn’t help when your claiming what weapons are capable of, while showing no actual comparative evidence of it. To say a weapon does or does not out damage another in certain scenarios means nothing. You have to actually prove the damage capabilities in this case, to give it any weight.

There are several weapon sets in the game for which it is optimal to stay in them in most situations. I don’t really need to prove that mathematically as it’s intuitively true and common knowledge.

None of my posts contradict each other, you’re just continually failing to understand the problem, which is really quite simple – letting a weapon’s autoattack be really weak leads to that weapon having very poor sustained DPS, which cripples the weapon’s general usability in PvE. It’s very straightforward and obvious, and no matter how much you disagree it’s a fact that doesn’t change.

Common knowledge aye? Curious what you feel is best sitting in?

Even phalanx warrior can get a bit more oomph with an Axe/mace swap with a sigil of battle providing the might still while adding in some vuln.

Just because you don’t autoattack with a weapon doesn’t mean it’s crippled it’s use in PVE, that’s an opinion not a fact. Longbow for ranger, very mediocre auto attack in melee range, but you still use it to drop barrage and rapid fire, but then swap to Sword+X. That longbow still adds a spike in your damage which adds to your overall sustain.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Great thread. I’d like to know more about why people make the choices they do, and some provided that info. Overall, though, it’s really interesting to read the lists!

Each profession has a pretty well defined role in most dungeon parties with a few that can jump into multiple roles.

Guardian: You’re there for the defensive utility; projectile defense, blinds, aegis, and condi cleanse. Your damage potential while maximizing your defensive utility goes down but you’re always worthwhile, with that you can also shed much of that defense and boost your damage levels to be very respectable, a very solid addition.

Mesmer: Again utility/support role. You’re going to handle reflects, condition cleansing, maybe some portaling to make things go quicker? Damage isn’t terrible if your phantasms want to cooperate but that’s not really why you’re there, but as always you want to maximize that damage.

Elementalist: Might/Fury stacking is the base level. Then Icebow is another amazing addition as is Glyph of Storms/Sandstorm both being amazing utility, Swirling winds is another thing they bring that’s pretty great. Overall it’s the premier profession, while squishy if you play well you’ll survive just fine while providing full stacks of might, permanent fury, and top notch damage. The best profession to have multiple of in a group assuming everyone knows what they’re doing.

Warrior: You provide damage and damage support, either just through banners/FGJ or even going phalanx strength.

Engi: well, you can do a lot, but your main role is pumping that vulnerability out but your elixers can substitute for having a guard/mesmer in some cases, not as good, but they’ll work in a pinch.

Ranger: Damage/Damage support again, provides decent vuln, can supply some might, but the big things are Frost Spirit and Spotter.

Thief: Damage/Stealth for the most part, but in good groups you also rip defiant stacks (something mesmer is good at as well). In the speed runs currently it’s typical to have a few Ele’s and a thief(or mes) so the Ele’s can deep freeze things with Ice Bow 5 and then kill them while they can’t even attack back, if a fight lasts longer this is where defiant stripping comes in, you strip it and repeat till it is dead or you run out of Deep Freezes. When a team pulls this off smoothly it really is impressive.

Necro: well crap, there is no reason to bring them, there is no stand out niche, you can provide a mediocre amount of vuln, some blinds, but in the end Necros niche is boon stripping which simply doesn’t have a purpose in Dungeons because of the lack of boons on enemies and the mechanics involved when they do use them.

Hope that’s helpful, that’s generally the roles and why people bring certain team compositions. Outside of that is personal preference. I’m quite sure I could usually be doing much more for my group than I do on my Engi lately, many times I’d be better off playing my Ele or Thief, but I’m absolutely loving my Engi lately so… /shrug I’m gonna play it regardless.

Just made my second the other day, haven’t leveled it yet. It’ll be my WvW one though.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Black Box.9312:

No I’m referring to the fact that even in melee range, you still aren’t hitting the target for the full damage unless you are stacked on top of the enemy’kittenbox.

Ye I hate using greatsword for this very reason. Even in pve I would rather run with the hammer setup.

I love my hammer don’t get me wrong, but the light fields cause all kinds of issues with fire field stacking and any other combo field usage. That’s pretty much the only reason I don’t run hammer constantly.

You do lose quite a bit of damage not being inside a hit box but it’s still worthwhile to use.

I usually hate video guides, but this is one of those few that is just immensely helpful. They aren’t too long, just hits on the key points of each fractal.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-f7beQOnuHhR9Rkjyv0e6gl4TKU0RVzj

Gyler.8150:

Lol that comment vanished pretty quickly.

Back to the popcorn!

?? what did I miss?

And here I was thinking coglin nailed it right on the head, but apparently he also doesn’t understand…

You want every weapon to be camped effectively, never being forced to swap back and forth… that’s not how this game is designed though. Your optimal performance will almost always require swapping around.

The only weapons I could see camping is GS on phalanx warrior, or Hammer on a guard that feels the need to have staff in his offhand for prefight/postfight utility. Other than those two situations you’re almost always going to be swapping weapons (or attunements/kits) throughout the fight.

NoTrigger.8396:

you can escape the phase 3 lifeleech aoe with acid bomb without getting hit if you time it correctly. you can use acid bomb + dodge for phase 2 aoe, but vigor is enough. also for everything else your vigor trait is enough. chill grenade plays a big role.
for the other stuff im not sure yet about a certain utility skills. once i get it done i will upload a video. but its going to take a long time.

…I’m dumb, never even thought to use the jump to avoid things, just so used to cancelling it best I can. Good call.

NoTrigger.8396:

ofc its not the fastest condition damage can go. but assassins can be faster by a good amount of time if you can get a perfect rotation done. the perfect rotation is the difficulty.

and assassins allows you to use your hard hitting attacks + you dont need tool kit to survive / it doesnt make any sense. so instead you can use another hard hitter.

Curious what are you using on Lupi? Are you able to use grenade, elixer and flamethrower? Do you have to use shield or are you able to handle it with just the swiftness=vigor trait? I’m a noob and using it all and still dying but curious what the bare minimum is.

Bring back LS s1 and people would be able to farm the attack on Lions Arch to their hearts content. They said they’d bring that stuff back didn’t they?

I’d probably go focus second, as you’ll use it with sword, mace, and scepter.

SaintSnow.6593:

This is why I love necro. I can take the hate. Inb4 massive buff and necro new meta. Just you all wait…we shall have our day. Once they start throwing in those mobs and bosses that can only be harmed by condis we shall be called upon.

Again, the damage is not what makes necros unwanted. It’s their lack of having anything else of substantial use to the team.

Why bring a necro when I could bring a mesmer/engi/war/whatever that can do condi damage and more.

Einlanzer.1627:

Jerus.4350:

So, do you think every profession’s highest damage should be from range like an Ele?
Or do you think firestaff Ele is OP?

Personally I’d agree with neither

Neither of the two. Try again, please. This is exasperating.

Hmm maybe you should try clarifying your point because it seems I’m not the only one that doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say.

I was under the impression you wanted balance among the range weapons, which would leave one of those two statements correct for your opinion.

Don’t get mad at other people because you’re unable to articulate your thoughts.

Kraljevo.2801:

Mikau.6920:

The only reason to use a Nomad set is if you are a WvW commander. Even then, you should think twice.

Well, if you like fighting zergs like a wet noodle while watching a stream (with a beer and a cigarette), this armor set is for you. xD

Jokes aside, MAYBE this set will be useful later on, when they fix the stacking and zerker meta.

That word “fix” implies that it’s broken, which it’s not, it’s working exactly as designed and presented.

In this game you can go just about full DPS and still pull it off because they designed the game to rely on active defense more than passive defense, and that’s where the zerker idea comes in. The difference between zerker and soldier is simply passive defense and damage potential. The game was built to allow zerker. With that of course zerker having the highest damage potential (or assassins in some cases) it’s become the meta as people generally want to do things faster not just safer.

As for stacking, well that’s 2 reasons. Mob control and Boon sharing make it very worthwhile to move as a tightly packed group and use that to your advantage. LoSing spread out enemies will get them to pack tightly where you can cleave them all. And Might blasting won’t hit someone who’s ranging from 1000’ away.

I know, ranty, but it irks me when people complain about this design as it’s exactly what they set up and presented. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone and it’s not broken, it’s just perhaps contrary to what some would like.

To the OP, Nomads is a no no, healing power does not scale well enough to be worthwhile, imo anywhere but especially PVE. 2 main reasons. First the damage you take when you allow yourself to be hit by most attacks is simply more than you can reasonably heal up consistently, you may be able to counter an attack or two, but then your cooldowns will be going while that next attack takes them out. And second, people have personal heals, that’s usually more than enough to keep them up.

If you do want to play supporty, you picked the right profession, but you simply don’t need that healing power to do so. Mace is actually a very nice weapon and provides a bit of healing which can be very nice. Hammer is permanent protection reducing all damage by 33%. Combine that with our Aegis abilities, projectile defense and Blinds we can prevent a lot of damage which adds up a lot faster than your heals will even with maxed out healing power.

If you’re concerned about not being able to handle zerker gear, then just try something with a bit more defense while you learn the content. Valkyrie gear is nice for a bit more health, Knights gear is the generally accepted starter set, though personally I liked the extra health on some of my characters while I was learning.

GL though, and again, No Nomads, it’s honestly a running joke in the dungeon community that a Nomad Staff Guardian is about the best way to be completely useless in a dungeon

So, do you think every profession’s highest damage should be from range like an Ele?
Or do you think firestaff Ele is OP?

Personally I’d agree with neither

Yeah, I try to run it right, but still practicing and I find some extra utilities very useful especially with PUGs.

The shield is basically for Lupi and when I forget to swap back after doing stealth runs

I know I’m playing at a sub-optimal level just always curious what the tradeoffs end up being.

Nice, I was thinking it was just due to the “on crit” benefits not actual damage. Thanks.

Btw, been meaning to hop on the DnT forums to ask but figure this would work. What kind of DPS is Elixer Gun, Flamethrower, and Rifle adding? I know they’re the big bangs but I’m finding sometimes different utilities and the shield are invaluable options, so I’m curious what kind of damage I’m losing making those tradeoffs. I’m PUGing more often than not lately and I’d say I’m running double kit at best most of the time.

Having these issues in WvW as well, so it’s not just dungeons.

I think what we need is a bit more context though. I’d imagine necro realistically in your average group would be much higher ranked. Why? because well, necros don’t do kitten other than damage. Where your guardian will have to drop out of his top damage setup to bring more utility. Your mesmer may need to trait reflects losing a lot of damage, and there is always that fickle nature of phantasm dps. My engi I have to often take off different kits to grab different utilities for the sake of the group, which is a large hit to my damage potential.

So while it’s completely conjecture, I’d expect necros typically to outdps guardians and mesmers in many cases, but those guardians/mesmers are still far more valuable to the group.

If you look at his link I think Nike does a good job showing that too, you see different builds and their rankings, warrior and guard are in all 3 categories depending on the build. I’d imagine Engi could be like that too depending on the role he’s filling in for. I’d be curious on a 2 kit engi DPS if you’re stuck having to toss a reflect or stability in for example.

If you’re capping vuln and bleed though wouldn’t the benefit swap to zerk gear?

FeralOne.1093:

Jerus.4350:

http://gw2dungeons.net/

Really helpful.

I’d also look at the stickies in this sub forum, there is the [NOOB] guild that is made specifically to help teach people.

Hope that helps, and GL, and btw YAY i’m not the only one who hates video guides and prefers to just read!

Although the stickies were not helpful, “http://gw2dungeons.net/”, was EXACTLY what I was looking for.

Devoted Husband joined me and we stumbled through AC on Story mode and had fun and got lots of fine treats, yay!

TY all for the kind offers and great advice — may the loot gods bless you all=)

Yay, and not sure what timezone you are but feel free to hit me up if you’re NA (PST for me), I’m sitting there bored half the time so always have more fun helping people than doing easy runs with people who know what’s going on.

GL to you too though

frifox.5283:

From my tests, rabid actually gives you more dps than rampagers. I wouldn’t be surprised if rabid would outperform sinister as well but I can’t vouch for that just yet.

What is the thought on this? the extra toughness being converted into more condi damage?

I can see where the more condi damage could be better than the power on rampager vs rabid maybe, but curious where the logic of toughness > power would come in?

http://gw2dungeons.net/

Really helpful.

I’d also look at the stickies in this sub forum, there is the [NOOB] guild that is made specifically to help teach people.

Hope that helps, and GL, and btw YAY i’m not the only one who hates video guides and prefers to just read!

Zefrost.3425:

Updates like this when a dev actually mains a class. Grouch mains engi.

Now we just need him to get the whole hobosack thing addressed. At least letting us dye them would be so great.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

hybrid.5027:

Sinister gear should allow new records for warrior, engie and necro lupi solos if someone was inclined to pursue them.

Is this for solos only? Is engi zerk still meta?

I thought assassins was meta with the chance to proc more bleed/vuln?