Guild Wars 2

greatsword is a solid leveling and soloing weapon.

you have
1- attack up to three people and gain might on third hit
2- high DPS whirl AOE -> whirl finisher
3- mobility skill (gap closer) with blind -> leap finisher
4- retaliation symbol-> light field
5- AOE CC (pull back), with dot, interrupt and another whirl finisher.

i believe it is one of the only weapon that have field and three finishers on the same weapon.

4 then 2 or 5 gives cleansing bolts to remove conditions
4 then 3 gives another retaliation duration.

overall the most versatile weapon with high DPS.
(hammer is mostly CC and staff is mostly support)

for offhand take scepter/focus.

Ursan.7846:

Hello folks,

I was just wondering, in the thoughts of the Guardian community, which weapon is better and why?

Which one does more damage? If one does less damage, what utilities does it have?

Thank you~

IMHO this is a wrong question,

different weapons have different purposes, they are situational and affected by your play stile and the content.

personally, I use GS / scepter_focus for solo PVE and dailies,

I use staff/scepter_shield for dungeons and fractals (support build)

I also have mace and hammer in the backpack for those rare occasions that i might use them (I love using the hammer against mobs who use hammer, its sweet revenge… toss them around with banish …lol)

this leaves me two weapons that I tried but couldn’t find a niche for them they are sword and torch.

sword is a short range melee weapon with projectiles protection and torch is well torch…

for leveling or dps you go

0/15/30/20/5 altruistic healing build. (20 honor for empowering might)
you can go with shouts or meditation, just trait them properly.
make sure always to spam F1 vs trash.

armor: knight
weapons: GS→ berzerker. scepter/focus → knight /cleric.

you will mainly use the greatsword, and scepter/focus where you need range.
every time you crit, you do lots of damage, give might to your party and healing yourself.

for support, there are several build discussed in the forums (the healway guardian etc)
i find this build very sturdy and supportive (though lower DPS than the first, but still can stand by my own)
0/0/20/30/20 when i go for both battle presence and absolute resolution.
armor: soldier from karma, trinkets all cleric.
weapons: staff, mace, shield: cleric.
scepter , focus: berzerker/knight.

staff always on mainhand, while scepter/mace/shield /focus off hand depend on the encounter. the default is scepter/shield as the shield is a group support weapon while focus is personal support weapon.

Rayya.2591:

, where an average player make 1 gold /H farming

how can an average player make 1 gold/h ?

yes, every day if i have enough time, i do the daily.

Brutaly.6257:

Considering hammer chain has more hits per second then GS with respective chain, staff skill can hit a huge number of targets when positioned correctly and that mace got a symbol thats aoe symbol

I haven’t noticed that symbols can crit, if they can, this is good, but…

IMHO hammer chain is too slow, same with mace.
in real situation it will take more than three seconds of animation to dash all your chain on stationary target, which will move to attack the mesmer or the ele in the middle…

the scepter 1 is quite fast and scepter 2 hits up to five targets fifteen times in three seconds, that’s five crit opportunities per second! and its on six seconds CD.
greatsword 2 is 9 hits in approx two seconds gs5 is 5 hits in one second.
and gs4 is a symbol, which you say can also crit.

with all the respect on the short (range 300) aoe on the sword third auto attack chain, you really cant compare it to scepter or greatsword in chance to proc effect on low crit…

edit

on second thought, yes you are right; with half decent crit rate, you can probably keep high vigor uptime on any weapon, as you need to proc ~ once in five seconds….

we have five seconds of vigor on crit, with 50% crit we can get vigor almost —>100% of the time if we attack.

the real problem is that the best weapons to get vigor are scepter and greatsword… which are not defensive weapons, i would prefer to have a trait that would give me vigor on block…

but oh well, we cant have it all…

Danno.5269:

I want raids, but only for WvW. Also an improved/fixed party system.

this…

I know that commanders can see squads, but we don’t….

Superior runes of the earth bonus for two runes i.e. 20% protection duration doesn’t work.

save yourselves shout protection duration is 10 seconds, and with two superior runes of the earths it is still 10 seconds.

two runes of the monk or/and water do affect the protection duration as other boons. (increase to 13 sec as expected)

please fix it…

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I’m under the impression that superiors and majors of the same type don’t stack. Can anyone confirm or deny? Either way, it’s not like trying different runes will break the build or make it overpowered. I just really like the 3 water/3 monk setup, so I haven’t considered swapping out of it.

not sure but i think nobody mentioned the following setups:

2xsuperior water 2xsuperior monk and 2xmajor sanctuary for 15+15+10=40% boon duration

or my favored:
2xsuperior water 2xsuperior monk and 2xSuperior earth for 30% boon duration and 50% (!!!) protection duration.
18 seconds protection from SaY? yes please ^^

Anchorwind.9016:

The Dirty Dozen:
1) Would you prefer ascended gear to be the last tier implemented for the remainder of GW2?
YES
2) Would you prefer ascended gear to be equal to exotic gear in all statistics except agony resistance?
YES
3) Would you prefer the level cap to remain at 80 for the remainder of GW2?
YES
4) Would you prefer if WvW was set up on an equal playing field similar to PvP?
NO, www is fine, visibility issues will be fixed in time
5) Would you prefer if WvW / PvP / PvE had separate skill functionalities?
YES, specifically all the CC skills (cripple, immobilize, stun) should be at least twice long in PVE
6) Would you prefer if Magic Find was removed from the game completely?
YES
7) Would you prefer if Magic Find was divided equally amongst all party members?
YES, if it stays in the game
8) Is GW2 too ‘Grindy?’
NO
9) Does GW2 need less RNG?
NO
10) Has the Trading Post [and all its users/farmers] positively impacted the economy?
YES, i have no problems with farmers nor with the TP
11) Do you have as much faith [and/or enthusiasm] about the game [and/or company] as you did before launch?
YES
12) Do you reasonably expect [many of] your primary concerns to be addressed in early 2013?
YES, I just hope for a decent grouping tool and various fixes

I know i repeat myself
but grouping tool like in DDO will be perfect.

the group initiator open a group when he declare the purpose of the group (dungeon, fractals, WWW etc)
then select the minimal level of the players, and can add some text.

people who looking for group, open the group panel , and can join his group. when the group reached five people it deleted automatically from the list. etc

guardian very viable, all builds.

mesmer, viable if built for dungeons

elementalist- porcupine corpse run over by a stampede of gnu antelopes.

Brutaly.6257:

The point wasnt if a warrior could be a healer, they can, 6k burst with almost 0 in healing power, Stacking healing power on a warrior is probably even more useless then doing it on a guardian.

nobody can burst 6K with zero healing.
not even a warrior

warrior with ~500 Healing Power heal only 1400 each shout…

I am still not convinced that shield is better than focus.

IMHO, guardian shield (comparing to warrior shield) is very situational and i prefer focus skills
focus 4→ damage and blind foes, regenerate allies
focus 5→ 4 second block or blast finisher.

also shield 5: ‘shield of absorption’ have the same CD as wall of reflection, which is superior…
if we only could trait shield skills to reflect missiles and not only block…

and i really want to like shield… please convince me…

I agree that GS is somewhat overrated weapon and I use axe/mace for the interrupts on mace 5, but i find that it is not good enough in dungeons/fractals. I will try the warhorn.
I am also a big fan of the longbow.

but i don’t like the discipline line, I use the 20/20/0/30/0 build with serves me so far OK.

a lazy solution for the situation , is that a level 80 player can get his ‘events’ daily achievement only from level 80 events in orr.

the good solution is implement a good grouping tool and decrease the respawn timers.

- a decent grouping tool.

- ability to have a ‘party’ that have ten or more people (we can call it platoon, squad , incursion etc we don’t have to call it “raid” as the game has no raids…)

Quarktastic.1027:

Lalangamena.3694:

Alarox.4590:

0/0/30/20/20 is standard.

^
either go like this for absolute resolution

or you go
V

0/15/30/20/5 for more ‘crit’ based tank: altruistic healing through might stacks on crits.
omnombery pies + maintenance oil required, but doubles the DPS output with the same survivability.

IMHO, tank guardian is defined by his runes, which are 2x water+ 2x monk+ 2x earth
for extra 30% boons duration with 50% protection duration.

What exactly makes the pies/oils required? Is absolute resolution really that powerful? Or is it the loss of 15 points in virtues?

absolute resolution is decent passive regen for yourself, with 30 points in honor this is a passive regen for all your group.

maintenance oil gives you ~4% of your vitality and toughness as precision.
on guardian which have high defence, it gives high crit (approx 7% extra crit on lvl 300 oil, 10% crit on level 400 oil)

Guardians still want to crit, because
a) they get vigor on crit, which alows to roll more, and dodge rolling is our BESTscaling heal, no CD.
b) each crit is might for your party, which heals you more and increase DPS for all your party. if you crit once in five seconds, you keep constant might on your close party members.
c) guardians critical damage is in the toughness line (valor) so if you don’t have high precision, this stat is wasted.

pie is powerful, because it have no internal cooldown, you can heal up to extra 360HP per second.
its life steal damage is not mitigated by armor.

Alarox.4590:

0/0/30/20/20 is standard.

^
either go like this for absolute resolution

or you go
V

0/15/30/20/5 for more ‘crit’ based tank: altruistic healing through might stacks on crits.
omnombery pies + maintenance oil required, but doubles the DPS output with the same survivability.

IMHO, tank guardian is defined by his runes, which are 2x water+ 2x monk+ 2x earth
for extra 30% boons duration with 50% protection duration.

for dungeons there is:
DPS plus party buffs
DPS plus party healing
DPS plus CC
and high armor/HP classes to try soak some damage between dodge rolls.

if you DPS only you are probably a dead weight.

don’t use frenzy.

use signet of stamina for endurance and condition removal, or “shake it off” shout.
centaurs use bleeds etc.

ty for all the replies

the survey is still open, if anybody feels like answering a (not so short) survey, please do.

it will be very appreciated.

:)

add healing messages and critical indications to combat log.

before everything else, fix existing features…

properly built ranger is very strong in PVE.

the problem in WWW is PVE glass builds

some staves have nice skins,

http://www.gw2db.com/items/weapons/staffs

just have to find them

EDIT:
the best looking staff in game

http://www.gw2db.com/items/54402-gargoyle-scythe

hmm, heavy armor supposed to cover and protect the body…

half boob, belly, and thighs completely uncovered contradict the meaning of heavy armor.

lothefallen.7081:

Lalangamena.3694:

no, trinity is bad thing. whack a mole game is that way —-—————————->

you can fix all the current bad PVE mechanix you mentioned using what the game offers.

with three simple stages:

1) precision is OP and ruins the game, precision needs to be re-defined, it is the single most powerful stat that with small increase in it you double your damage output. and get different ‘on crit perks’ 100% (traits , sigils, foods etc) at the same time.
precision is what drives people to run in full ’zerkers trying to zerg everything…

2) healing power stat coefficient must be increased, it is so underwhelming it is not funny.

3) CC (immobilize, cripple, chill, stun) duration in PVE must be doubled for any meaningful encounter mechanic.

if you implement these three simple points, you don’t need trinity.

CC doubled? ok so there are no skills to remove a snare from an ally…theres no direct support. If you did this, people would die all the time or be forced into taking 3 CC removals. It’s clear that you have no idea how game systems work.

I beg you to learn to read.
CC doubled in PVE like in dungeons and fractals.
not PVP

there is already difference in boon duration between PVP and PVE, why not difference in CC duration in PVE?

erm, you can do fifteen never getting outside lions arch, and if you play with overflows in peak hours, you can complete the whole monthly in under and hour, still never stepping outside lions arch.

support DPS warrior
20/20/0/30/0 shout war with axe/mace

tanking/support shout warrior mace/shield +bow
10/0/30/30/0

tanking/support guardian mace/focus(or shield) +hammer
0/10/30/30/0

healing ele staff
0/10/0/30/30

no, trinity is bad thing. whack a mole game is that way —-—————————->

you can fix all the current bad PVE mechanix you mentioned using what the game offers.

with three simple stages:

1) precision is OP and ruins the game, precision needs to be re-defined, it is the single most powerful stat that with small increase in it you double your damage output. and get different ‘on crit perks’ 100% (traits , sigils, foods etc) at the same time.
precision is what drives people to run in full ’zerkers trying to zerg everything…

2) healing power stat coefficient must be increased, it is so underwhelming it is not funny.

3) CC (immobilize, cripple, chill, stun) duration in PVE must be doubled for any meaningful encounter mechanic.

if you implement these three simple points, you don’t need trinity.

calculated from the damage that you do, survivability and versatility.

for PVE:

from best to worst:
warrior
guardian
ranger
mesmer
thief
engeneer
elementalist

PVP:
mesmer
thief

warrior
guardian

engineer
ranger
elementalist

at level 80 you can walk most of the story modes with one hand tied behind your back.

at lower levels it is a challenge.

I believe i have finished AC story mode with group around level 40+,
it is a community issue, not a game flaw.

swapping atunements is the only way for us to provide the group with boons.

don’t agree with these:

Leeain.2431:

- Now: No friendly target. Healing skills works with a random target.
Suggestion: Create friendly target.
Why: skills like “mercifull intervention” and “orb of light” will works better if you can select your target (this is just an example).
If i want heal some one i must chose who he should be, not a random target! o.o

current heals are AOE or cone, centered on caster or AOE centered on area
this allows the healer to do other stuff, like active CC, or god forbid do damage without playing the “whack a mole” meta game to keep the glass alive.

if they change it to single target heal when you have to look at the bars and click the low bar, half of the players will quit the same day, because there are already many trinity games better than GW2.

Leeain.2431:

- Now: No healt bar on the head of the allies.
Suggestion: Create allies healt bar.
Why: We need to control what is happening to our allies in the fight.

you have the health bar usually at the upper left side of the screen.
it is enough, as you don’t have to target the player.
but the main reason is that the responsibility for the healing is not yours but the injured players .
if you put the water field, it is the injured player duty to step inside and activate it with blast or whirl , whatever he has.

this is the whole point of GW2.

Leeain.2431:

- Now:Many skills, items, and traits were applying healing to an infinite amount of targets and have now been limited to 5 targets.
Suggestion:Up it to 25.
Why: No poit to be a support in a 25 member raid if you can help just 5 RANDOM target.

applying heals for 25 people would be really overpowered.
put aside the fact that there are no raids in this game.

lets say you have 25 people. five of them are shout warriors and five more are regular elementalists not even healing specs . but can cast water fields every 30 seconds.

what you have is constant 2K heal for the whole raid every 4 seconds with healing blast every 7 seconds and endless regeneration.

for PVE, this will force Anet to generate ridiculous content with healing negation (like corrupted dwanya statues in orr) or huge boss damage that instakills everything except blocking players

for WWW, this will make undying zergs.

I agree with the rest.
since the heals affect only five members the gear coefficient must be higher!
the difference between 300 healing power (no healing gear just traits) and 1200 healing power (full gear) is quite small, but the drop in DPS is huge!!!

also, what i am trying to push, is that PVE CC on mobs will be longer, as it will create more fun content based on player skill and coordination, and not the zerg mentality we have now.

I have added more information and explanations in the OP and in the survey.

also tried to remove somewhat redundant questions, the new questionnaire have 25% statements less.

thank you

hope you will take the survey.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SHFYK3Y

p.s.
elaboration:
online friends are people you meet online ans see them as your friends, online or in real life but the important part is that you have met online.
if you have a long time real life friend that you play together GW2 , he is real life friend not “online” friend.

I find it a matter of a profession,

what I can’t solo on thief or elementalist I can always solo on the warrior.

there is almost no regular dynamic event that I couldn’t solo on the warrior
(the dragons, and the giant that instakills you if you in melee range)

sometimes I feel that the events and the personal story are made for warriors and guardians.

increase the re-spawn timer ….
you barely kill a mob, the previous mob re-spawns and join the fight… you can kill endlesly three mobs on the same spot…

the new feature:

Currently, if a party member disconnects from a fractal dungeon run, they are unable to rejoin, which can cause a lot of issues for that player and their party. Our new system will allow players who disconnect to reconnect to their party and jump back into the dungeon.

doesn’t work very well,

in two different occasions, when one of the party members crashed and wanted to return, when he try returning, the rest of the party is kicked from the fractal to Lions arch.

happened twice.

Buttercup.5871:

Your questions stink. You’re hiding (in part or in full) what the purpose of your questions is, ie. what the real topic of your research is. I’ve seen questionnaires like these so many times in different MMO forums over the years; when do people learn?

Start with taking your audience seriously. Then get back to us.

I thought I am not hiding anything, the survey is about online friendships among MMO players.
the “sensitive” variable was also disclosed in my OP.
if you need more info, please let me know.

Urthona.3198:

In number 2, are you referring to gender or to biological sex? In your field, you need to be clear on these things.

I meant biological sex.

Ayrilana.1396:

I agree that you should be upfront about your study.

I’ll also point out that you should never but the questions about personal information (gender, age, etc) at the front of a survey. They should be at the end.

this part called ‘demographics survey’, the information there for statistical cross-section of the data only.

Hi guys /gals
I am conducting a research about online friendships among MMO players. The research is a part of a graduation paper in Psychology.
I mainly interested in adults who were diagnosed with learning disabilities as children, but I will be happy if people who were not diagnosed with learning disabilities will answer also for my control group.

the survey has three parts,
first part you have to rate from 1 to 5 twenty (20) statements about real life behavior.
second part you have to rate from 1 to 5 thirty (30) statements about online friendship.
third part is a demographic survey with twelve standard questions.

the survey is anonymous
No one will be able to identify you or your answers, and no one will know whether or not you participated in the study.

new survey link

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SHFYK3Y

if you have any remarks about the survey, please reply to the post

thank you very much.

EDIT: changed the survey to shorter version (removed approx 25% of the statements) with more explanations for each part.

human for aesthetics of the armor and weapons.

Asura for FOV, which is much better.
charr is the worse, takes more screen space than a giant norn.

warrior is very decent,
low skill players just want the warrior to be thief burst and mobility clad in plate armor, backstabbing opponents with two greatswords and then vanish in a meteorite storm and firing lightning bolts out of their kitten like William Wallace.

all classes has strong points and weak points, most of the classes are undone, have some broken traits and utilities, this is not something unique to warrior.
people blame the class when their play doesn’t live up to their expectations.

same here,

got the toymaker apprentice achievement but not reward.

relogged, still nothing.

i think mesmer is the most fun class, it is slow to level but very classy and high survivability.

warrior at the moment is really the easiest straightforward class, I would even say sometimes OP, very easy to level up, very hard to die. all the PVE and personal stories are balanced around warrior IMHO.
it is the only class that i never died in any personal story.

thief is the class that die the most in PVE.

elementalist feels very weak, 1 to 79 and only shines on 80. but very helpful in groups

Engineer is very very fun to level up IMHO, it is few classes in one…
you can play shady demolition man with bombs, grenades and mines.
you can play the nutty professor with elixir gun, flamethrower and elixirs,
you can play the robot mastermind with army of turrets and repair kit…
you can play space cowboy with pistol/shield and just gadgets…
I think that from RP pov it is one of the best classes.

Ranger is the most boring class . period.

ok, solved. sorry for the confusion.
you have to kill the toy centaurs during the turrets phase.

I have this monthly part stuck on 5/15
done tixx for four times already but the counter is stuck on 5/15
what am i doing wrong?

Bradesco.9621:

Orr is dead, most group/temple events can not be done.

I just wonder why didn’t you realise it yet.

nothing that a good grouping tool cant fix..

I hope they implement one..

where you can type “looking for 15 people for Orr events” and people will see the group list in a group panel from every map… and just click to join…. and of"c they all be in the same overflow…

/wish

jkctmc.8754:

I love threads like this. I have a 80 Warrior, 80 Guardian, 80 Thief, and 80 Ranger.

Hands down the Warrior is better than all of them. I’m not even going to bother with this anymore, because at worse they buff the class since everyone complains about it.

Once I learned how to actually build a bunker Warrior, and found out how Precision makes for the ultimate bunker build (go learn the game if you disagree with me) I laughed at the Guardian.

If you play your timers right you can dodge (got to love vigor on crit), block, become invulnerable “Endure Pain”, and negate over 20 seconds worth of damage, while building 25 stacks of might (running into a zerg blocking), while reflecting ranged attacks back onto its attackers, among much, much more the Warrior provides you, on top of having near permanent swiftness, something classes like the Guardian lacks.

Don’t judge the Warrior because of the stupid (illusion of balance) rules in SPvP where they destroy many builds, and limit the useful builds, and prevents you from using other aspects of the game.

Can you post your build please?

there is a trait that gives 1 second immobilize on each cripple.
with condition duration, you can put easily two cripples in a row immobilizing the opponent. if he start with longbow 5, then switch to any other weapon here is your 4 sec cripple.

also, main hand sword F1 attack with full adrenaline immobilize you for 4 seconds, with condition duration it can reach 5 seconds.