Guild Wars 2

GW2 has a very different take on thief than other MMOs. Most other MMOs have perma stealth and destealthing. This game lacks permastealth, and you do not get destealthed. Because of this a thief must stealth in reaction to an enemy, and may employ stealth to achieve position and pick/choose fights.

If you use a channel ability on a thief while it is visible, the channel continues through stealth (eg Longbow 2 for Ranger). This is very useful.

Backstab is a positional attack. If you flip your facing around in an unpredictable manner, you lower the number of those a thief lands and up your survival.

If you root a thief, and they stealth, you know where they are and can swing at that spot and kill them.

AOE stuns, bleeds, roots…that stuff messes up thieves badly. Dump that and move and they will likely leave.

If you play a thief, you will learn how they re-stealth and spot the signs and learn how to counter them.

If you play a ranged glass cannon, very few things in this game serve as a check on you. You can use dodge to evade attacks, you can move off to regain health, and as long as you pick a suitable set of getaway skills, you can function very well indeed. The bane of this build is thief, and that is the price you get for all of that long range damage you dish out in your glass cannon spec. The choice you must make is whether you want to compromise damage and survive thieves, or whether you want to dish out max damage and take a few lumps from thieves.

I think he WvW for map completion is a breadcrumb method to expose more players to WvW, and hopefully encourage participation. Those of you who exclusively PvE reap the rewards of your realm’s WvW efforts, and having you contribute to that a little bit as you acquire your legendary is not much to ask. All of that farming you do for your legendary directly benefits from WvW bonuses.

The only real way to answer this is via a war story.

It was a Sunday and I had just finished my daily. Enormous zergs were in EB, and we were outnumbered, so the guildies decided to switch the front to the IoJ borderland. We activated Siegrazer, and took a tower with no problem. How much time did we have before the zerg came? We pressed up to the SE camp, and built two golems. I was on my mesmer that day, porting golems across the map. We work the golems up to the water entrance for the IoJ garrison, and start bashing doors. We are spotted. Will the zerg come? Down goes the outer gate. Skirmishing takes place up the ramp. We port them up to the inner gate. It goes down, there is some fighting, but the Garrison is ours. We push our luck. To the NE camp we go, we take that, then go to Hills. There is a brief hard fight, but we win and claim Hills. Then it is on to Bay. We cap that, and notice the zerg has arrived. It is not IoJ, it is DH. They pulled guys from EB and were swarming in, capping Garrison. They move to Hills, and we move to take paper doored Garrison. Our golems die, but we get in, and start building siege on the roof of the lords room. We strip the garrison of all resources, have about 6 arrow carts, when the DH zerg comes in.

There is mass fighting in the commander’s room, and we rain hell down on them from above. We are outnumbered but somehow position and siege carries the day and we wipe them. ‘Should we reinforce the doors?’ we ask command who nixes it. Build more siege up top. The doors are wide open and a knot of us dig in on the roof. In comes the legions of DH. They try to go up the ramp, and get mowed down by arrow carts. They die over and over and get rezzed. Our people are being yanked off the roof and somehow make it back up there through the confusion. A guardian from DH bulls past everyone and is on the roof creating havoc, and we down him, repelling another break. I get yanked off the roof again, this time get ground down by the boot of the zerg. In TS as I am running back I hear my guildies go down to the inevitable press of numbers from the DH zerg. WE lose, but we make them pay dearly, buying each of our lives with 2-3 of their own.

As hard as I try, I can not come up with a similar story about completing my daily. This is why I WvW.

Malin you make many good points, particularly 2, 4, 6, and 7.

To this I would add

1. Increase map size- right now the maps are small enough where one can go from any point to any other in 5min. This means a zerg can form and respond to anything. This is not very rich or interesting in terms of WvW complexity. What you really want is if you commit your main force to tower A, they will not be able to respond to tower B. You get this by making the map larger so that single zerg must subdivide into multiple forces employing zonal defense. When you subdivide a force, that requires organization and coordination, so a larger map would favor coordinated organized play over mindless zerging.

2. Refreshing siege- you take a keep, spend time and effort to siege it up, and unless you refresh siege, it disappears. This means you have people dedicated to this thankless task at no WvW gain. Anet needs to find a good way with getting rid of the siege refreshing task. I know several people who will happily fortify and place siege in clever spaces, only to be dismayed when they log off for the night and all of it vanishes. This drives placement of siege from positions of strategic value to positions where anyone will be likely to see it and refresh it later.

The allure of Stonemist is it provides map completion to those for whom WvW is another box to check off on their legendary checklist. Strategically its central position does allow one to respond rapidly to any position within EB, but the reality is defending it can be personnel heavy and force you into a withdrawn position on other maps.

I think it is human nature to remember the times when you get rolled by the zerg and forget the times where your zerg does the rolling. My impression is recently DH fields far more people on the map than DR does on any given day. I did see a rather large DR zerg in EB on Saturday, but it was disorganized and spread out, full of PUGS. When you see 20 people veer off to chase down a thief instead of following the commander as he/she leads towards a camp or tower, you know you have a disorganized PUG heavy group. It is rather frustrating when you see a commander typing commands in map chat and the mindless zerg just running off doing whatever.

When you see the enemy portal bomb, or feint, or build up siege and defend/sortie, then you see objective signs of cooperation and cohesion of a properly lead force. So for those of you claiming DR has no organization, ask yourself honestly if you are basing your observations on behavior of a likely PUG heavy time of the day, or are you basing it on observations of likely organization.

It works in EB. Doesn’t work so well in the BLs as there are 3 other exits. Remember though there are 4 WvW maps, so you can always push out on another map to break this press. Had some fun once with the DH zerg pressing our start in EB, and we built siege behind the legendary guards and farmed DH for quite some time.

Agree with the idea of larger WvW maps. Right now everyone on a map can coalesce into a giant zerg and respond to any single assault on the map. A larger map with greater travel time would make that zerg late, and encourage subdivision of forces to defend map zones. This change would make WvW more about coordination and less about who can get the most warm bodies into the the borderlands. Treb range would have to scale up for the larger maps though, so that the more widely spaced forts/keeps could still pressure each other by treb.

Was fun last night with DH and DR fighting over who would control IoJ’s Garrison and Hills. Thanks for the good fights DH.

What I like about WvW is the large scale strategy game of what to take next, when to feint, when to engage, and I enjoy the unit level tactics in large scale engagements. To do these things well, you really need Ventrilo or TS for your server with a majority of the people in it. Our server has such a server that is open to any participant for WvW, and it really enriches the game.

When the majority of the players mindlessly follow the zerg, well that becomes frustrating. Without the strategy and tactics, WvW becomes all about who has the most numbers. You can kill them, kill them some more, and make 5 or more die before you go down, but if they keep swarming with numbers eventually you will go down. There have been days when we have been coordinated and some of the game experiences then have been truly memorable. There have been other days in which a large zerg forms with no real leadership, and we get mowed down.

My advice to you is hold off any value judgements on WvW until you actually participate in a coordinated WvW action over TS/vent.

I don’t really like condition builds for Ranger. There are too many ways to dump conditions. Direct damage is only really thwarted by evade and toughness, which is why I tend to go power/crit. There is a natural synergy in condition damage and bunker traits though. It seems to me the usual tradeoff holds…if you can take a punch, you can not really give a punch. I would rather go heavier on the offensive stats (knights or zerk), and rely more upon evading and sneakyness and perching and hit and run tactics. I can not really advise on melee builds, but for ranged you definately want piercing with superior runes of fire.

Really disagree with WvW comments regarding Ranger. I have 9 level 80s- one of each class, and 2 rangers. One of my Rangers is geared out in berserker gear running a 30/30/10/0/0 build (for the 50% fall damage) with longbow primary, and is there to rain the pain. I tried an engineer grenades build with the 1500 range, and while this can equal the range and AOE of the LB, there is a time of flight issue that makes it annoying to play (moving players hard to hit, sort of like tossing meteors in Diablo). Barrage (LB 5) will clear a wall and destroy siege you can not get to short of building an arrow cart. I have had great success flanking the zerg, dumping LB 5 into the middle behind the front rank, then piercing with LB 4, 3, 2…the intense pressure this puts on the zerg causes many to flee into that barrage. Glass cannon LB ranger is like mobile siege.

Piercing is so huge. Target the supervisor in the camp and strafe to line up all his flunkies, and watch them melt. Yeah warrior gets it on rifle, but they don’t get AOE on rifle like barrage. They have to go for LB, and traiting that up with rifle is a bit difficult.

Yes your WvW pets die easy with a LB ranger in a glass cannon build. There is a nice thread on how to live with a 0 or 5 BM build. I have had luck with spiders as active pets…the immobilize can hit at a really bad time for a runner and save the day. They stand off and toss ranged stuff so it helps them live a bit longer, but they still stupidly stand in damage circles. Devourers last longer, but lack that immobilize.

My other ranger is running around in magic find gear and is in a 20/20/0/0/30 shortbow spec. I took faster bow attacks and piercing (can’t really live without them) and went 30 BM for regeneration on the pet. Pet lasts long enough to make it somewhat viable in instances, and is very useful for taking veterans down in open world. Any time I have to farm or run instances, this is the guy I wheel out. This guy is perfectly fine for taking out sentries, taking down supply camps, taking out Dolyaks, and serves well for being that annoying roamer that makes your team retake stuff. Sure mesmers or warriors would be better 1v1 for roaming, but I just use this guy as a PvE guy in WvW.

I think this game is more about finding a good fit for how you play rather than identifying the optimum power profession and trait build.

I played DAOC from release until about the time City of Heroes came out. RvR in DAOC was better than any form of PvP I had experienced until that point, and I have seen very few games that have come close to it since with the notable exception of GW2.

DAOC’s PvE was a huge enormous grind. You had to get to 50 through a very very long grind that was almost intolerable via solo play. The class system in that game was that each character was a piece of a party, and solo sucked. To get any kind of experience at a noticeable rate, you had to form a perfect party, which meant up to an hour of standing around spamming requests for the class you needed. Often one would spend more time trying to fill out a group than one did actually playing in that group. This xp grind to reach the end game was such a pain, my casual player friend never reached 50, so never played RvR.

The byproduct of this xp model was people had to be organized, and you got to know people on your server very well, and you coordinated well as a team. The PvE grind served as a filter that put skilled cooperative players in the end game, and that player base worked well together as teams. Coordinated strategic RvR was so good because in part all of the idiots were weeded out by the PvE grind.

GW2 has the potential to be that good, but remember, it is easy to solo to 80 in GW2, which means you have to learn coordinated WvW at the end game. This means guilds have to spend more time training players in cooperative PvP, and they have to make an effort to do things like establish server wide TS or vent (neither of which was around when I played DAOC). Commanders icons certainly make it easier for a PUG to find the action in this game.

Anyone remember the pad waiting in DAOC? When you died you had to make your way back to the RvR pad then wait for 15 min to return. It sucked. It did mean though when you wiped the other zerg, you had a window to make progress before it backfilled with revives.

GW2 is about supply- controlling camps and yaks will determine upgrades, and you can throttle those to starve a keep under siege. DAOC you had to distribute siege pieces by carry weight among team members, then train them in how to assemble it, and plan redundancies in case someone died with a key part. I like how all of the headache of distributing pieces in DAOC is eliminated by supply …you just bring supply and plans and anyone can help you complete the plan as long as they fill up on supply.

Zergs were a problem in DAOC. I played Midgard and Hibernia, and usually was angered when no amount of decent tactics could prevail against the Albion zerg. I wound up playing mainly a shadowblade to be able to gank the supply train of the Alb zerg. What I see in GW2 is yes, the zerg is a problem, but last night we used density in tight clusters to break up and wipe a larger zerg than us, so there are some tactics that can compensate. But if you face a realm that can field a team of 5 to take your supply camp, while you can only get 2 people to guard, you face an uphill battle. Outmanned helps, but it is not enough. in PUG v PUG zergs, the bigger zerg wins because there are no advanced tactics in a PUG. So your smaller realm can out play your opponent, but lose the war just due to numbers still.

To some extent large pop servers go up ranks and this solves itself. Also the GW2 team seems to be encouraging transfers to even out populations some.

And as far as numbers of players rendered before culling goes, my memory of DAOC was of horrible crude graphics and the servers crashing in epic battles. This game has much higher graphical demands because the characters look a lot better. I like how they let you set your culling and graphic quality…it shows me the devs of this game really are trying to solve some of the more annoying aspects.

I think one thing they could do to help would be to have players go through WvW school, a series of quests aimed at teaching the basics of WvW play, with a basic WvW armor set available as reward for completing the series. This would help those coming into WvW from solo play to make the transition to being useful faster. It would take a real partnership between WvW guilds and the devs to get this WvW school done right.

Well, FT1 can be used while moving, but does not damage strafing targets well. 100 blades is stationary, but works on anything in melee. The basic notion that restrictions placed upon powers such as (stationary, or poor v. strafe) should allow those powers to do more than powers that are unrestricted. Next comes the consideration of whether professions with a large degree of multi-function should DPS as hard as other professions with a more limited range of abilities. Engineer is more of a Jack of All Trades, but one can argue that choosing deep builds to maximize DPS does in fact narrow the class focus to that of a more limited non hybrid.

So it is complicated. I love FT, but it was really hard for me pulling off in a WvW situation. I did try a 30 explosives, 30 firearms, 10 tools build to use grenades at range, FT close up, but the basic problem I had there was similar to my bombs/grenade mix. One can maximize ranged and melee damage, but if one is going to be in melee, one also needs to be rugged…melee glass cannon is a no no. So I can not really see using FT outside of a dedicated FT build, and I am inclined to agree with you that it should be buffed to make it viable.

What you ask for is very reasonable as those who like it the present way may continue to play it that way by not toggling it. I wonder though if turning on that toggle would be harmful in your ability to play grenades in the long run though. Most of the art in grenade tossing is involved in anticipating where your target will be after your longish time in the air grenades arc to the target. If you autoattack a moving target, your grenades will always miss as he runs out of the last place. It would make zero sense to curve the grenade flight to track a moving target.

Furthermore it is the habitual and routine use of grenade 1 without autotargetting that helps you properly lay down grenades 2-5.

But it certainly would be nice for those times when you want to autotarget a stationary object and play around with your inventory, or build…

OK, I followed your expert advice and am glad I did. I tried this build out last night

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-VRR;2sPVg0q5cQFx0;9;4TE4-J47A4;658b

30/10/0/0/30 with shrapnel, short fuse, grenadier, precise sights, kit refinement, speedy kits, and scope. Skills med kit, elixir gun, grenade kit, elixir s, and supply crate. Gear is rampagers with crest of the shaman (V, H, P) in the armor and weapons, with trinkets and back remaining rampagers.

I did some reading. I took shrapnel over incendiary explosives because the 15% chance to bleed on explosions is to all targets in the AOE, but the burn from incendiary is only one target. I ramp up to alot of stacks of bleed with my grenade volley now. I picked short fuse over explosive powder because grenade 2 is a beast and I want that up more frequently. I took precise sights from firearms because that when stacked with steel packed powder (25 exlposives) generates a 25 stack of vulnerability quickly.

You guys are right, kit refinement is a beast, and elixir gun is the main reason. Being able to switch from grenade every 20s to EG and get a condition wipe + heal + heal over time from kit refinement is nice, and even nicer when I can do it a 2nd time with EG 5. This far out performs the elixir C I had been using. For perma swiftness I switch between med kit and EG. The only ability I am not sure about scope…I am stationary a lot and that 10% crit while stationary helps trigger a lot of the on crit stuff in the build (sharpshooter, precise sights), and the 30 in tools amplifies the crit damage. Shorter belt cooldown from tools 30 means my med kit heal and my EG regen are up more, as well as that grenade barrage.

While I did give up a lot of toughness and a few survival skills by moving the 30 in inventions to firearms+tools, I gained a lot more healing and condition removal. Between the med kit, EG, and supply crate I can generate a lot of healing when needed.

Rampager gearing with crests of the shaman seems to work OK- I get a lot of power/crit chance/cond damage which helps my damage output a lot. Things that take a full grenade 1-5 are in serious trouble now, and that helps a lot in WvW with more bags dropping. The 100ish heal power I have from the shaman crests is not that much, but it helps let me outheal the damage that comes through. Elixir S is my stun break and getaway…nothing beats being invuln for 3s with a stun break to get out of a bad situation.

So it is full on grenades at range for me, and I am happier. Rather than splitting it between bombs and grenades with moderate survival point blank, I up the lethality of my grenades and invest in healing options to deal with the damage I take, and have enough vitality to getaway.

Thanks for the input. It is like playing a whole new character.

Good idea with the power shoe. It is easy enough to kit swap for better swiftness. Perhaps protective shield or explosive descent would be a better choice? I have 6x crest of the Magi on the armor, which brings my healing power up to around 400, and the elixir infused bombs heal for about 180 per pop. If I dump bomb 1-5 + big ol bomb and dodge roll, that’s 7x bombs for ~1000hp healed. I hear fully traited it only goes up to 200-300 per bomb. The toughness and healing power from the maxed out trait line Inventions helps some, but I suppose you are right it is not a whole lot. I was thinking that the splash heals might help the team out, but I suppose I could use a bit more survival since if I just bomb in range of the detonations, I die fast. What would you pick to make me heartier and not compromise the grenading?

I am running a 30/0/30/0/10 build with forceful explosives, explosive power, grenadier, energized armor, power shoes, elixir-infused bombs, and speedy kits. I have medi kit, bomb kit, grenade kit, elixir C, and supply crate. Build here

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-XRR;2sP-9-m5NQFx0;9;4T-T-926A;147A;15l

I am using Rampager gear (condition/power/precision) with crests w/healing power.

I like this build for WvW. If I am in a standoff situation, I can toss grenades, but if something comes into melee, I can bomb. I kit swap for perma swiftness. IF the zerg chases, I can drop bombs as I kite, with glue shot and glue bomb as slowing. I have not mastered flipping the camera on the kite and grenading pursuit yet.

I am wondering how you would tweak the build and gearing for better WvW performance. I am not sure Rampager’s was a good choice. I picked elixir C to handle condition removal, but wonder if I would be better served by elixir S. What sigils would you guys run? Do you have any advice on grenading to get more loot bags?

I am a bit new to engineer…do bombs and grenades not trigger retaliation? Which attacks from FT do? Would 200 toughness from Juggernaut and 300 vit from alchemy help survive?

Hey Silver,

I thought the point was that FT damage can not pace with Grenade or Bomb Kit. My question was did they consider many stacks of might when they made that comparison. Killing yourself by retaliation is a factor in any build that puts out high damage.

Perhaps I do not understand retaliation…do you take retaliation damage in a bomb or grenade build, or does that mechanic not apply to those builds? I suppose in the build linked the 200 toughness from Juggernaut + 300 vitality from alchemy might help you with retaliation.

In the builds thread, a FT build similar to this was described,

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-XRR;2Z-Vv0o5VQkw0;9;49T-T-4;047A;119Ay

Where Juggernaut and HGH ramp up stacks of might, and runes of Hoelbrak, Strength, and Fire buff might duration along with your +30% boon duration from Alchemy. The author said he could maintain 25 stacks of might.

My question is this- have you guys factored in the 25 stacks of might when you compare FT to grenade or bomb kit? I suppose if you do not build for it or gear for it or use buff food for it, it might be hard to get that much might. Has anyone tried this build since the most recent patch?

I love the big numbers you get from LB in a power precision crit damage build. That kind of offense is a defense. I think you need to look at 20 marks, 20 skirmishing for piercing arrows and faster LB CDs, but beyond that point allocation is up to you. If you go full glass cannon, you can WvW in zergs and use devourer pets for annoyance or wolves for knockdown. How useful pets are to you is something you need to test for yourself. Barrage is a beautiful thing, and a truely fine range 1500 wall clearer. Every time I think of going for more survival and a condition damage/shortbow build, I come right back to missing that barrage. Barrage outside of a Pow/Prec/Crit build is not that scary. But hasted in one, it is something that turns the tide and forces zergs back.

Sword and Warhorn seem to compliment the LB in this build because both do not rely upon condition damage, and warhorn 5 helps you crit more on the LB side. Sword does a lot of damage close up on stragglers, where LB is weakest, and sword offers you nice getaway and evasion options if you do not build as defensively.

I have really been digging double drakes in a 20/20/0/0/30 build…they just tear stuff up.

I have tried a few builds out

1. 30/30/0/10/0 with healing spring, signets of renewal and the hunt, muddy terrain, and RaO and the 5% of vit to power,
http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-Fo-7-CFxEFu-f2NEV-0;9;4TT-9-079198;14N

This build had a fragile pet (use devourer) and I would focus upon keeping buffs up while applying Longbow. It worked out OK, with zerk gear could have big hits (but low survival in WvW). Rage as One was used for stability getaways in PvP.

2. 20/20/0/0/30 with healing spring, signets of wild, hunt, and renewal with rage as one,

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-Fo-F-CFxEFu-f2kDV-0;9;4JJ;0T07-19;505Bz

I am playing this up with sword/warhorn + LB right now and reef+salamander drakes, and am using berserker gear. Typical AoE pull is send in drake with warhorn 5, then warhorn 4, swap, dump barrage, line up piercing hunters shot by picking far target and strafing, then rapid fire and long range shot. For pets, use the F2 on the first one and let it get its opening salvo off, then swap and use the F2 on the 2nd. This destroys AOE stuff fast for general questing etc. I am 78.5 now and will refine it for WvW once I finish the questline for my back piece and hit 80. I wanted a tough build for pets that could tank, and I have soloed champions with this build and judicious pet swapping.

For grinding out stuff as you clear zones, most trash you can mop up with sword on autoattack. You do get locked up in that animation and it is best to turn off autoattack and mash the 1 key so that you can evade as desired. If it is nasty, stand back and use the bow. If stragglers make it through your opening salvo, swap to sword and finish them. There was a nice video on this board on how to use sword 2 to jump gaps and get away. Sword hits much much harder than axe and I think is a better choice for a power build.

For WvW I will likely gear towards toughness/vitality/healing gear to fill in the holes. Without all of the evasion stuff you get in WS, you have to stand off and not go toe to toe as much. I do miss the longest range for longbow, but it seems autoattack is bugged on that anyway (only turns on for range 1200 or less?). Piercing and faster CDs on longbow attacks were my goals from the first 2 lines.

Axe based build(s)

20 Marksmanship (I, VII)
30 Skirmishing (II, IX, pick what you like for the remaining)
20 Wilderness Survival (III, VII)

The reasoning here is 20 in WS to get the offhand cooldown reduction, 30 in skirmishing to max crit chance, and the remaining 20 in Marksmanship for power.
Healing Spring, Signet of Renewal, Signet of Hunt, Signet of Wild, Rampage as One

Two Variants
1. axe/axe + axe/torch “Combo Field Build” – run around with spider for poison combo field, lay down bonfire for fire combo field, drop healing spring for water combo field. Axe 1, 2, 4 are projectile finish, and 5 is a whirl finish. Gear power/precision/condition damage. Typical AoE pull is run in gathering with axe1, drop bonfire on cluster, swap to axe offhand, and use Whirling Defense- stuff melts fast. If your spider does the AOE poison move, add that too. Drake works well for this too. This build is more about AoE.

2. axe/axe + axe/warhorn “crit damage build”- gear power/precision/crit damage, use whatever pet you like (I prefer arctic wolf). Use Warhorn 5 to apply fury, swap and WD from axe offhand. This build is more about dropping stuff fast with big crits, and maintaining the 20% crit from fury.

Axe is nice because Axe 1 tracks strafing targets, and works well on smaller clusters. Many dislike Axe 4, but if you line it up so it pierces and returns through the cluster, damage is fine. The main target, off target, main target bounce pattern can rapidly kill 2 guys.

Utilities are picked for minimal downtime and max speed, stripping conditions and regenerating you between fights. Rampage as one helps with veterans.

Overall I have had the most fun with the combo field variant, as you always seem to have a 5 skill up.

In the trading post when you select weapon, then go for a sub weapon type, there is a problem. If you need to pick “warhorn”, you have to drag the scrollbar down. Releasing the scrollbar removes the pulldown, and you have to reopen to select warhorn. It sure would be nice if you just made the box size for the subweapon pulldown longer so we would not have to scroll in it, and could see all subweapon types on the pulldown.