Guild Wars 2

if you like axe/axe you should try the axezerker build i posted on the forums afew months back.
note: it is fully zerker with no utilities, its purely for some hilarious fun in hotjoins.
this makes it stupidly easy to play, if still not considered practical for tournaments
(though i’ve won my fair share since you can nuke down bunkers with ease)

the concept was to put out as much damage as possible and as a long time axe/axe fan i think this is the build that does that.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s77FwBFOKkO0o-ZL-60M4oL;1Y4kG;4T9;0T49A0;628BOJk6W;1H7W3H7W35BN
only switch weapons to escape if things go south, other than that just mindlessly hit things, don’t use your signets

eviscerate often hits for 12k
the last hit of triple chop hits anywhere from 4-6k
your dodge rolls hit for around 3-4k
your whirling axe hits for around 12k

and you can dodge twice while channeling whirling (it wont cancel) for around 16-20k damage and follow up with a 10k+eviscerate

the only song to use for the “defeat” slot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgn1eHG_lr8

thats actually quite low damage,
i crit an ele for 12k yesterday with my war.
but yes, ele seem to have drawn the short straw for survival.

thief D/D Deathblossom, deals low damage and applies bleeds,
D/D is a direct damage burst weapon set, deathblossom is so out of place.

engineer Mortar, takes up your elite slot and causes you to deal less damage than with your normal auto attacks.

warrior Rampage, disables all of your utility skills+healing skill and lowers your damage,
enough said.

ele earth shield, its not aweful, but its just not worth a slot.
lava axe, same as above.

most of the new heals
A.E.D,
you can only heal when you’re very close to dying, and then there is a high chance you’ll die while casting it, plus it has a long CD. BAD.

Signet of Vampirism,
VERY bad, internal cooldowns mean that you cannot heal with this, it is impossible.
without internal cooldowns it has potential, but the cooldowns make it (imho) the worst heal in the game.

Litany of Wrath,
nice idea, heal for the damage you deal over the next 6 seconds, but the values are just ridiculously low, to heal for a similar amount to another guardian heal, you’d need to deal 36,000 dmg in the next few seconds.

Arcane Brilliance,
alot longer CD than other ele options, the aoe is on the ele,
if it was ground targeted then it would have potential.

or a better strategy, don’t play skyhammer.

to access the pvp portion of pvp you must wade your way through 10,000,000,000 minions, clones, phantasms, pets, spirit weapons, elementals and turrets.
call it a tutorial of sorts to help pve players ease in to pvp with an atmosphere they’re familiar with.

until you unlock the pvp portion of pvp good look hitting an actual player with that downstate interrupt!

crystlviper.8523:

1: Mage

yes listen to this guy and make a mage…
its the secret class you unlock by entering the konami code while stacked with conditions.

but in all seriousness if you want the real nasty range gods then:
meta:
s/f fresh air ele, (insta kills things, takes some practice)
terrormancer/condi mancer (perma fear, OP)
or if you’re not strictly single target you could try staff ele, crazy damage

or i’ve been having hellish fun as a Power ranger recently, auto attacks critting for 3k from 1500, pop quickness and nuke things down!

tom.7468:

So basically full glass cannon

i’d hardly call it glass cannon when you have more health than other classes even when they spec for bunker, and also you have a large passive health regen and a condi clear every few secs.

not to mention most hambow clones run with stances giving them long duration stability, condi immunity and damage immunity whenever they need it.

so yeah, glass cannon hammer war is like speccing defensively with a different class but keeping glass cannon damage.

also that MM build that you linked someone, you shouldn’t use vamp runes,
it will kill all of your minions when you hit low health :P

tom.7468:

Liewec.2896:

they got a couple of small nudges in the right direction,
but to call them weak is hilarious, they’re still ridiculously low risk + high reward.
when i play my hammer war i constantly see 6k+ crits,
it makes me log off because its such a dirty cheap build.

hammer needs a huge damage nerf.

What build is that? i was playing s/m , hammer with soldier stats and i was only critting for 2k with hammer in pvp.

its zerker but still has 21k hp and the hilarious combined passive health regen of adrenal healing, healing signet and dogged march.

they got a couple of small nudges in the right direction,
but to call them weak is hilarious, they’re still ridiculously low risk + high reward.
when i play my hammer war i constantly see 6k+ crits,
it makes me log off because its such a dirty cheap build.

hammer needs a huge damage nerf.

also note that the treb has a huge hit box so aoe skills like meteor shower will be extremely effective, also using charge skills directly in to it can deal massive damage,
a necro with flesh golem for example can take off a massive amount of its health.

since it cannot be crit and takes less than normal damage you shouldn’t even think about sending a bunker or condi spec to deal with it, they’ll be there several minutes.

why did you take Backpack Regenerator if you have no kits? :P

i’ve noticed sometimes it will bug and you’ll have to reclick W to start running again

welcome to GW2, hammer warrior has been this way for for over half a year,
dealing glass hammer damage with a CC weapon specced deeply into a bunker tree.
because anet honestly don’t care.

every once in a while i’ll play hammer warrior just to demonstrate how ridiculously low risk/high reward it is.

the damage needs nerfing by atleast half, i crit a guardian for 6k tonight,
thats unacceptable for a cc weapon in a tank tree.

Jasher.6580:

I am glad 8v8’s are gone.

why? did you not like it? no?
so did you play it? no?
so how exactly does it make any difference to you.

nothing forced anyone to play 8v8, but many of us enjoyed it and its removal was a really bad move. the servers were always full so clearly many of us enjoyed it.

since the last patch it has been ridiculous difficult trying to find a game.
every match is full and clicking “play now” will repeatedly stick you in courtyard DMs and skyhammer rank farms.
i feel like i spend more time clicking “play now” than actually playing.
its extremely frustrating that a system that worked fine has been removed and replaced with this.

before the patch it was nice and easy to find a fun game, simply click the 8v8s,
it was nice and simple, removing them makes no sense.

i know not everyone was a fan of 8v8, but nothing is forcing those people to join in.
the 8v8 servers were always full and removing them was a serious mistake.

please give them back!

previously it was just noobish meta builds that were stirring up the toxic atmosphere,
but this patch anet removed all of the hotjoin servers and forced noobies and casuals into tournament matches, causing alot of friction for everyone.

sigils got buffed so condi specs can essentially have an extra sigil since they no longer need 2x agony sigils,

runes got buffed, such as balthazaar runes making burning last alot longer than previously and nightmare runes making fear last longer.

and yep, some slight condi buffs to classes, like warrior Impale applying its torment stacks much faster.

so yep, putrid condi meta?, lets buff it! – Anet logic.

the biggest thing i think sucks is that the loot is based on your characters level,
get a chest on your 80? you might get exotics, i’ve even had an ascended ring,
get a chest on an alt? you’ll get a bunch of low level garbage.

do we really need to level all of our alts up to 80 in order to get decent rewards if we play them?
or even if we can open the chests on our 80 it still means we need to jump through the hoops of zoning and relogging multiple times to pass it over, loading screens, loading screens, loading screens.

it was so much better when there were 8v8 servers, you wouldn’t need to rely on play now sticking you where it wants to stick you (mostly skyhammer farms and 10v10 courtyard)

we could simply click the server we wanted and then play.

since they randomly removed all of the 8v8 servers it has become extremely difficult to find a server to play on, spamming the play now button until you find a half decent server is the only current way to find a match.

the way they added “freshness” in gw1 was a really good method.

they radically rebalanced the skills fairly often so the meta never really had a chance to settle and every month felt like that first month of gw2 when we were all trying different builds and classes.

other than decap engis losing some survival i dont think the meta has changed too much.

for example, a hambow/condi warrior can still roll his ugly face across the keyboard to make things die.

there have been alot of different builds over the past week but i think people are just testing, the meta seems to be settling back to the way its been for months.
and yep that includes mindless condi necros and MMs.

why just healing signet on the warrior list?
hambow and condi war are still as faceroll as ever.

in my opinion they made some things so much better,
its just a shame that they also made some pretty awful changes.

pros
there seems to be a greater build variety.
(and less hambows dispite no major changes to them)
the wardrobe is nice.
reward tracks so we can get some extra gold.
new DM map is fun.

cons
removal of 8v8 servers which were my favourite game mode.
a cap to reward tracks in hotjoin.
rabbit rank pvers waving their pvp legendaries in our faces.
lack of much to do with any of the rewards for a pvper. (except the tomes and scrolls)

edit: rank 53 none meta hotjoin casual(ish)

Shaogin.2679:

You are getting troll replies simply because your post was put in the form of an uneducated rant and did not encourage legitimate feedback.

^this

though i did point out that diamond skin gives condition immunity too,
incase he was new.
and since he called them “indestructible” i’m thinking it might have been an ele,
they do have quite afew immunities, especially with focus.
so i’ll give him a serious response:

the ele (with focus):
Swirling Winds: destroys projectiles
Magnetic Wave: reflects projectiles
Earth Shield: Invulnerable (if anyone ever uses it)
Obsidean Flesh: Invulnerable
Mist Form: Invulnerable
Arcane Shield: block
plus traits and runes can add in afew more but i got bored. :P

i really want to play this class!
40 seconds you say?
thats even more than hambow!

but yeah, in seriousness it does sound like a condi necro spamming away at a diamond skin ele, not sure about the “40 seconds of blocking” though :P

for pvp i’ll be sticking with force+accuracy like i use for one handed combo

i don’t think any of the current weps would fit warrior,
but for new ones i’d like:

Lance
a lance which would be counted as 2h but look like a lance/shield combo, it’d deal damage in a line infront rather than a cleave also give you block/parry for skill slot 4+5 and the F1 would be a straight line charge like the flesh golems.

Scythe (think dervish)
this would be your melee aoe weapon, less damage than axes/greatsword but hits everything 360 around you, so many whirl combos!

powerfists/knuckledusters
i’m thinking they could work similar to axes (fast high damage) but with leaps instead of whirls. f1 could be a ground pound skill that works like the mace offhand knockdown but with the cone size+effect of the hammer cripple skill.

Proven.2854:

As a step to avoid people easily farming in Custom Arenas, reward tracks only let you complete two out of the eight tiers per day if you only play Custom Arenas. Solo and Team Arena has no cap.

yeah, a tiny percentage of people will farm it like they’ve done with rank points in skyhammer, but should that ruin it for everyone else?

i play fun casual builds like p/p thief,
i don’t want to be forced into tournaments and noone will want to have a p/p thief dragging their rating down.

the cap punishes everyone.

the cap needs removing from hotjoin track progression, thats the only reason casual players are forced into the elitist shark pit of tournament matches.

noone likes it,
they don’t like getting raged at or getting stomped by meta clones,
and you don’t like them pulling down your progression and rating.

death to the hotjoin track cap!

gw1 was all about hard counters, whatever build was annoying you,
you could make a build to ruin their day.

blind was a condition that could be kept up permanently and made you miss practically every hit (something like 75%). the death of any physical attacker
daze made skills take alot longer to cast and interrupted you any time you were hit while using that skill. the death of any caster

there were also skills that made you completely immune to damage, conditions or spells.

so when i see these necros (who can fear spam people to death in seconds) complaining about diamond skin eles i just have to facepalm.

we’ve survived 6 months of hambow,
knocking 2k off an eles health pool is hardly a challenge after that.

i wouldn’t care too much about ratings, it means nothing,
the ladders are so hilariously unsubstantial,

if you want to top the ladders then make a new account and play a couple of games and BAM you’re no.1 EU/NA. best playa eva!

but play for thousands of hours with a 70%+ win rate and you might not even be top 1000.
#AmazingLaddersAnet

The Kurt.2518:

I myself get really annoyed by the fact that there is no chance whatsoever for my Thief to beat a Ranger in downed state, even if I down them say 5 seconds before I go down myself.

love having a wolf as my alt pet, fear, knock down, interrupt.
it gives the ranger a large enough window to use their self rez
plus thief downstate sucks.

so we all get punished because you can’t come up with a better way to prevent farming?

currently newbie and none meta players are being forced in to tournaments if they want to progress, this sucks for everyone.
the newbie/none meta players will be getting rage from their team,
noone wants a none meta player on their team if you’re doing tournaments.
and the meta/elitists will likely lose due to the none meta player on their team dragging them down.

it sucks for everyone.

if i was you i’d remake the 8v8 official servers and make them auto-balance with no team selection and allow us to progress tracks on official hotjoin servers.

waiting for the inevitable "soon"™

i’m not a fan of downed state, especially in deathmatch.
deathmatch needs to be, if you go down, you go down.
you don’t magically resurrect because someone who got tagged by your aoe just died half the map away.

it does still kinda suck, since you need 20 skill points for the new traits (and any added in the future), its just one more advantage that long term players will have over newbies,

plus they should just add a 0 effectiveness shoulder and head armour to the vendors so you can complete your outfit.

its powerful but it also has a 180 second cooldown,

also you can stay safe by using skills like 5 and 2 along with dodges to get out of the fight and come back 10 seconds later.

what do pvpers get?
less gold, less loot, less content, less magic find.
but we do get an ugly backpack that due to anet not making account bound (by accident) the PvEers have already bought on the auction house.

but hey, atleast they know we exist now,
before this patch we were severed from the rest of the game,
like a diseased limb cut away before it infects the rest of the body

take flesh golem, his auto attacks will take the ele out of diamond skin in 2 hits, or use the charge skill to instantly get him down around 20% so you can spam your mindless fear chains.

or just go in deathshroud, even with condi specs it only takes afew hits for life blast to take that puny 2k hp away.

sorry but i dont feel much empathy when it comes to terrormancers and the one thing that they can’t fear to death.

i’m making the most out of mine before the next Halloween when everyone will be wearing the costume.

since the new mode is pretty much a zergfest eles can do really well,
i had one game with almost a whole team of staff eles,
lava fonts and meteor showers all over the place, everything just melted.

the funny thing is that the damage has’nt changed, i’ve been doing this on my ele for as long as i can remember, it only seems that now people are finally realising how much damage staff eles can do.

if you can get in the larger fights then the symbol boosting traits can be pretty amazing with hammer, combined with AH, but its mostly for zergs,
i’ve still yet to try it in the 10v10 deathmatch but it should be pretty great granting aoe protection which gives you pretty awesome health regen.

i think it’d be fun if they just turned off the nodes on all of the other maps and allowed us to deathmatch there too, i do love courtyard but it does feel rather cramped.
i’ve been rocking longbow ranger since the patch and its difficult to effectively use longbow in courtyard since your damage is based on being far away.

my favourite is the ele who will vapour blade you for 4k each way (8k per attack) and their instant cast arcane skill hits for 9k :P

i also like the thieves blade storm which does 4-5k each tick :P

i think its inevitable, anet put a cap on track progression that you can make in hotjoins, so after a couple of games the newcomers will be forced to go to tournaments.

imho if they allowed casuals and newcomers to remain in hotjoins then there would be less clashing between the elitists and the newcomers.

edit: also the removal of 8v8 means that each of the 5 players has greater responsibility,
in an 8v8 a couple of players who don’t know what they’re doing won’t cause the whole team to fail aslong as afew players on the team know what to do.

i got an ascended ring from an early chest in the balthazaar track.
only part of the reward i don’t like is the ascended mats that are already clogging up my bank.

well there is definately something up with the NPCs,
the ele for example casts vapor blade (which hits you twice) it hit for 2 4k hits and then the ele used their arcane skill which hit for 9k,
and the mesmers auto attack hits 4k

but i can confirm that its not pve armour values, it happens to my lv 80 wearing exotics too.

i had the same problem on some of my chars that i’ve only had for pvp, luckily they all had the birthday scrolls for instant lv 20