Guild Wars 2

Bugged just plain ol bugged. AFK stacking bleeds on it as we speak.

Thieves have cluster bomb on initiative cost and no CD.

Engineers and warriors both have a few.

Guardian hammer is probably the easiest way really though.

People that complain about the lack of removals tend to use them at the most ill-opportune moments. If you waste it on non threatening stacks, it’s no wonder you get rolled by condition damage. Yes, they can apply it faster than you will ever remove, but if it were the other way around, condition damage will never kill anyone.

7-10 stacks of bleed is a good time to remove stacks, any more they’ll have some momentum, anything less is wasting said cool down. Condition damage needs a ramp up time, break their momentum and you push them far back in the DPS race.

Balance issues isn’t even the meat of the problem. That will get ironed out over time and whiners will whine no matter how new or old the game is.

What really is kittened up is the lack of infrastructure in the PvP side of things for this game.

My sentiments exactly. I’ve been just dungeon crawling and fighting over keeps in WvW as my interest in tournaments are dwindling. From what I read about the sPvP features, it was going to be one of my main activities when I’d play the game.

The tournament system is just flawed and doesn’t really facilitate a good environment for players to get into the scene with reasons neatly outlined before me.

Well..it kind of IS the design and nature of the classes. If a Warrior could escape just as well as a thief, that’d be weird..

That being said, a lot of it stems from the fact that hotjoin is just a massive zergfest. 8v8 is just two players shy double of a full tournament game. That many bodies in a map designed for 5v5 competitive matches was bound to end up messy. If all games were 5v5 to begin with, this wouldn’t be such a big deal. You wouldn’t have as a big of a degree of overwhelming odds with these numbers.

This is what I usually roll with in dungeons.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzVm0cz9Mow0xMow0xM0xGG0McsmMoR

I use Tahlkora’s named set and Shaman’s etched weapons for Healing, Vitality, Condition Dmg. (Why is it not toughness like sPvP amulet) With rune of the flock/grove. Well of Blood becomes a fat heal (5.6k over 10s) with some +healing investment. Transfusion turns Life Transfer into a pretty big AoE heal too. Well of Darkness and Plague Form give you ample sources of damage mitigation while Epidemic lets you spread aids.

Last utility slot can be anything depending on encounter/your tastes. Flesh Wurm is excellent against Subject Alpha while you may prefer Spectral Walk for something else. Plague Signet is never a bad choice while any other well can be easily fitted too. After all, all your wells will grant protection those inside it initially when cast.

You’ll be watching conditions on both your foes and allies while taking both the role of healer + tank momentarily and situationally. You have more than enough tools to keep people up between their healing skill CDs, but since this is GW2, if they’re flat out kitten there will be nothing you can do for them :>

I get the point the OP is trying to make, no matter what type of load out you bring on your character, “supportive” things are not what you do 24/7. However, that is what they tried to get away from.

I also think if you can broaden your view on what “support” is, that might actually help you a lot. In most trinity games you would have your go to heal, your heal for spikes, your fat and expensive heal, and some form a way to reduce pressure on your team.

In GW2, it’s spread out all over the place. Instead of only using heals and shields to reduce incoming damage, you also need to utilize blinds, blocks, weakness, and what not. To be a good team player that focuses on lessening the pressure your group takes, you want to do it with both offensive and defensive maneuvers.

I also understand that it’s not to everyone’s tastes, but I’ve always liked proactive measures to heal/support your team over reactive. Think the old prot boon monk vs LoD monk or Disc Priest vs Holy in WoW. One focuses more on preventing the damage to be taken in the first place while the latter focuses on refilling bars. I find the former more rewarding to play and it seems way more effective in GW2.

Lastly, if you’re looking for a more traditional healer, Water Evasive Arcana elementalist is probably the closest thing. Precasting eruption (blast effect), casting water field over it, dodge rolling into it while in water attunement with some +Healing gear yields some seriously fat heals. That is why they’re one of the best bunker/support specs right now in tPvP. Two water blast combos + cleansing wave is a lot of healing.

I also disagree on the needing to be on the ball with reactions, I always time my Aegis (Virtue + Retreat), Mace block to help my team avoid the one-shots. Without cast bars in this game, this means you NEED to be aware of the animation at all times. A well placed Wall of Reflection, Shield of Absorption can also mean between two allies going downed from a ranged assault or faceroll and bulldozing said ranged mobs.

TLDR: The more you narrow what you define as support, the more you will feel limited in this game. There are a lot of ways to help your team and reaching the same results as having a “healer class” in this game. You just can’t pool all of it on healing bars.

Give eles a break, they can still only stop your stomp once. If you do it the moment you get them downed, they can’t always myst away. If anything, Thieves can still stall for way longer than anyone downed still.

Blackgate since 3D headstart from day 1 over here. A lot of my friends and I dislike the horde of new transfers. We didn’t have 24/7 coverage until the past few weeks, but we still had a good showing in WvW strength and a great community to boot. Now all these transfers pulled the lowest detonator with them seeking cheap and easy wins and this “beastgate” non sense. OP is case and point. We don’t like it at all.. I hope you guys find another server to bandwagon on soon, we won’t miss you.

Guildie got the arachnophobia exotic bow (permanent) off the chest after killing Mad King. Seems like rare drop. I got a 76+ exotic torch but that’s it.

My necro either uses Rabid or Shaman’s amulet in PvP, with high toughness, you usually fare better against thieves than most builds do.

Thieves also do not have much in the way of condition removal, as long as you can kite and overwhelm them, they either have to GTFO or die. I have Reaper’s Protection traited, I also have Well of Darkness, DS Fear away them when they want to sit on you or mark the ground on you. Just don’t let them get a clean swing on you.

If they’re the leaping death blossom variants, well those kind of kill themselves by stacking bleeds on you.

irinawds.9627:

See that was my thing. I like Valor, Honor, and Virtue but any build with just those traits would seem to lack for damage ability so something had to give. I’m not trying to be a dps machine but I would like to do decent amounts of damage while also keeping a fairly good survivability rate.

I did consider some combo of those three skills and then loading up the equipment with pure dps stats but that requires a massive time investment (dungeon tokens) for something that might not even work. Getting all of your power/precis/cond damage/ect from gear might be a stretch.

I know the purpose of the 5 points in Virtue but I never saw the bonuses as that great. I mean they’re nice but I don’t think they’re quite THAT nice. I will say that you probably get more out of them than the additional 5 Honor but that just circles back to the other problem of Honor being sorta ‘Ehhh’ when you have all that nice stuff in Virtues.

See, the maximum attribute bonus you’d get from investing in a trait line is 300, that’s if you go 30 pts in. That’s not a lot compared to what you’d get from itemization. Take a look at the sPvP amulets, that’s all the stats from all slots consolidated to one slot for ease of deck building.

If anything, think of the attribute bonus you’d get from traits as a bonus, your gearing choices affects how offensive/defensive your Guardian way more on a statistical level more than traits ever will. The popular altruistic healing and crit build uses Knight’s gear even though all its trait investment are on the defensive side of things, it still pumps out really hard numbers.

Backstab thieves although just as cheese load up their whole bar for that burst and usually have no other option but to retreat if they miss their opener ever 45s.

Shatter Mesmer combos can be used every 12s, 16s if you’re including iDuelist. They still pack all the best utilities for a Mesmer in a tournament setting even with this build.

You also can’t CC the mesmer during Blurred Frenzy, the distortion effect grants them complete invulnerability. If you don’t have a stun break/condition removal up (swap immobilize), then you can’t peel from the Mesmer.

Mesmers also can still maintain presence and pressure even behind the safety of LoS, I send illusions out and shatter while pillar humping when I needing healing CDs. They can’t really get close without risking more damage while I wait to reset for another burst combo.

Phantasm and condition mesmers will have their output somewhat stalled if you pop their illusions. Shatter builds get some of the phantasm’s damage in but are shattering them as their source of damage, it’s much harder to stop their output.

Like I said earlier, unless you’re all the way across the map, it does not take that long to get to such and such event to help things out. They don’t NEED you if it’s an event they can finish in a few minutes. Even if the event finishes by the time you meet up with your friend, you guys can carry on your merry way together and hit the next few events together.

In a lot of zones, the big group meta events are ones you’d really want numbers for. Those even with a massive zerg don’t finish in a blink of an eye, running across even just half a zone doesn’t even take that long so you won’t miss it if the event just started. The game needs gold sinks, the waypoint system isn’t even that harsh of one if you don’t excessively use it. People that warp from event to event happen to be the ones that complain the loudest.

If you want to save more money, warp to the capital closest to the zone you’re going before waypointing. Extra loading screen sucks yes, but if you’re making such a big fuss about waypoint costs, that’s a slight remedy you can utilize already in the game. Not some magical solution you want but isn’t implemented yet.

Not sure how people are still having problems with this… just don’t spam way points for everything?

And yes, even at level 80 if you do a DE or two, kill things here and there the cost is easily offset. How are you paying to go to a bank? Getting back to Lions Arch is free, it’s also free waypointing around a capital city..

Even when I do visit Orr, I only waypoint into the zone, you can just run around within the zone and within 15 minutes, you’d have made back the waypoint cost (maybe more!) depending on your drops.

If you’re meeting up with people for a dungeon, you have even less of a reason to complain. You get 26 silver upon dungeon completion not counting the loot drops. Champion mobs or boss mobs depending on instance drop quite a bit of silver too. I know for a fact champion gravelings in AC drop 5 silver when you kill them, 7s if you have omnoms.

TLDR: Just don’t excessively use waypoints, unless it’s directly across the map and you’re sure you’d be there for awhile, running does not take that long at all.. I’m pretty sure if you’re trying to meet up with a friend, you’re not just going to help with one event and then bounce..

Just by investing 5 pts into Virtues turns your three virtues essentially into free shouts. Justice > Might x3, Resolve > Regen, Courge > Protection. These boons apply both to you and your allies.

I’d argue that Valor, Honors and Virtues pack all the best traits Guardians have so I don’t know why you’re hesitant in investing points there. If anything, I wish I could pick more of the Honors line, all the attractive options (my opinion) are there.

I guess a lot has to do with what sort of utilities you’re trying to pack as well.

Good use of portals means you can be literally two places at once. In forests you can drop a portal at keep and go assault mine/henge and port back when needed to defend. In foefire it means when you have the far point you can wear down keep door while still being able to instantly port back to defend. Kyhlo treb repair has been discussed to death.

Been leveling a Mesmer through WvW and been playing the shatter build you’ve described to better know how to fight against it, after 20 tPvP matches with it, I still don’t know how you’d go about really countering this spec outside of just 2v1 and blasting it. It runs berserkers and is a glass cannon, but it sure as hell does not feel like one when I play it.

My friends whom I play tournaments with usually are pretty even when we duel. However, none of them can even come close to beating this build. I’m not any better than them, it’s just purely being carried by class/build here.

Unlike Backstab thieves who blow half their utilities to set up their burst and can unload every 45s, you can do this combo pretty much every 12s (or 16s if you wait for iDuelist). You can hide behind the safety LoS while crapping illusions out to send after your foes. Like all Mesmers you can also LoS behind your illusions.

Warriors and Thieves can be CC’d to stop their burst if you’re quick (or have one of those CC them back when CC’d traits). For example, Reaper’s Protection > most of those two class’ combos. It does nothing to the Mesmer as blurred frenzy is complete invul. If you don’t have a stun break, condition removal, you can’t peel the Mesmer when using blurred frenzy and must eat the damage.

Phantasm builds and condition stacking builds can be soft countered by destroying their illusions effectively putting a stand still on their damage output. Shatter builds pop them as they come out, they get some of the initial phantasm damage in and go for shatter burst, the same rules cannot be applied here.

Lastly, the combo hits like a truck! Mindwrack can crit for 1.9-2k x4 (persona) even on toughness stacked characters. I can usually push them to 35-40% in one full combo, glass specs get straight up obliterated. This is all while having Portal, Decoy, and Blink to escape if things should ever get hairy. Don’t know how to go about nerfing the spec but it’s clearly too good.

Mesmers are far from just being the “duelist class” it’s the best at that for sure. But along with it, it also packs some of the best utilities in the game in a team setting. It’s easier to kill a Mesmer team fight yes, but they can also easily turn things over, Time Warp is steroids for your group on point. In tournaments if you’re somewhat roaming, all you have to do is go in with your combo and finish any fight with dat burst.

@Aya you sound like you’re upset over PvE nerfs due to PvP, that sucks and is understandable. But that doesn’t change the fact that Mesmers are too strong as a whole in both WvW and PvP. I feel the only problem for Mesmers at this point is DE tagging, they’re also extremely great to have in dungeons despite what regular PuGs think.

Also, yes Hundred blades hits like a truck, but there’s so many restrictions on it AND it’s even more of a one trick pony than thieves. If anything, Warriors are free kills when I see one..

Nevertheless, this thread is obviously on PvP balance and not so much the PvE/PvP split.

Yes Whirling Wrath does more damage than Mighty Blow, however, only if all bolts hit. Also Mighty Blow can be used twice as often as Whirling Wrath if you have two-handed mastery and it’s all in one hit. The higher crit (and dmg) you have, the better.

You do have the slow swing on the third auto-attack, but the symbol’s damage more than makes up for it. The total damage IF they’re in the symbol in the whole time is x3 of your 1 or 2 chain (Nearly x3 of GS chain 3 too). Yes if they move out of the symbol the damage will decrease, but blasting the symbol means residual damage from retaliation will also take place.

Altruistic Healing + Hammer is but one of the ways to play the Guardian as a “tanky dps” that happens to have great support capabilities. It’s not the only viable way to play. Heavy consecrations with 30 in Virtues is something to consider especially in a WvW setting where they really do shine. More offensively oriented meditations or spirit weapon builds may not be the ideal choice in tPvP, but anything can work in sPvP.

For tournaments, it’s not uncommon to see 30 Valor, 20 Honor, 20 Virtues bunkers set with 2 Meditations + 1 Shout gunning for maximum condition removal. It’s what I use and it plays and stays alive differently through meditations instead and works fine too. My first character was a Necro, that’s a class that is way restricted in builds. You have many ways to deck build across all game modes, it’s a good day to be a Guardian.

Don’t understand this community’s disdain with Shield, it’s a great off-hand but personal preference I guess. I find the mentality of refusing to use a certain weapons is just restricting yourself but it’s your choice. I primarily run with Hammer/Staff in PvE/WvW situations with Greatsword, Scepter and Shield all in my bags.

I actually don’t have as much of a problem with backstab thieves, shatter mesmers if anything completely roll over my necro.

Reaper’s Protection, just having a inch of life force to fear away, or Reaper’s marking where you are/Well of Darkness usually will let you survive the burst. If you don’t see it coming while busy engaging someone else, that’s a different story. If you don’t have any cool downs up and zilch life force, you’re also boned. In the event that you do survive backstab, thieves usually do not appreciate conditions at all which is the necro’s strong suit.

However, shatter mesmers.. condition based necros tend to be on the weak side of BAM AoEs that can pop their illusions or clones. You CAN’T fear them away while they’re channeling blurred frenzy because they’re invul. Even if you have full life force, their burst combo will drain all of it in one go and they’ll get you the next time. I’m already using Shaman’s Amulet so I really can’t get any more toughless, this will happen to you even with 2.9k total armor.

Unlike thieves who can only pull their shenanigans ~45s. The duelist > dodge roll > leap/swap > mindwrack/frenzy combo can be used every ~16s. That’s the CD of duelist if you’re waiting for that, Mindwrack with a shatter build is usually on a 12s CD. The burst isn’t in one huge hit, but between 4 Mind wracks (Illusionary Persona), blurred frenzy and whatever duelist shoots you for, it’s a LOT of burst that they can easily build momentum on.

If you LoS the Mesmer afterwards to try an cover yourself, they have the advantage of LoS while their illusions chase you. There’s also little you can do to peel yourself in their combo versus the backstab combo.

OT:
Bomb/Rifle Bunker Engi
Bunker Guard
Staff Evasive Arcana Ele
Shatter Mes
Venomshare/Backstab/any Thief

is what I’d go with.

Thing is though, if a single thief can take out a bunker by themselves, what would be the point of bringing any other class or even bunkering down?

I get that the Devs said bunkering might be too good right now, but if they were less effective than burst specs, tournaments would become really zergy. If thieves are also the only competitive spec that can take out bunkers in a reasonable amount of time you’ll also see them be overplayed in tournaments, not just hotjoined.

“We’re hella glass and gamble everything on the backstab!” But why do you expect to kill EVERYTHING even if they completely invest on the defense side of spectrum? That doesn’t sound “balanced” at all..

No idea how effective this is, but at least it’s original. Why not berserker’s amulet? :>

edit// reread the part about terror scaling off condition dmg, disregard. One last question, why signet of spite?

MastaNeenja.1537:

I don’t think we can Hold the Line! we may have to Retreat! unless a Judge’s Intervention happens you may have to Save Yourselves!!!!

This one gets it.

While trust issues definitely play a part, I doubt it’s the sole reason why people aren’t lining up for this offer. The other related topic had two players each take a leap of faith and things turned out alright.

I think it more has to do with the fact that you’re trading a staff for greatsword. Owners of dusk or dawn are probably warriors or guardians mainly. Mesmer and Guardians being the only classes that can eventually wield bifrost or the greatswords. This means potential people to trade with are limited to mesmer, guardians or people completely switching their mains.

Dawn > Dusk was more simple as anyone who wanted a greatsword legendary but wasn’t 100% on which of the two to get would be willing to trade.

Nevertheless, GL.

A big reason why people are finding difficulty with dungeons when leveling is that they’re taking their solo PvE hero leveling specs into dungeons and expecting it to work out. Yes, there are no tank/heals/dps and you can build however you want, but if you go in with a SOLO spec, you’re not being very helpful to your group.

Another thing is, if your gear isn’t updated and to your level, if there is down scaling, your stats will be scaled LOWER than the level of the dungeon and you will struggle a bit there too.

Damage is the simplest of things one can bring to a group and EVERYONE will be doing damage, what you can bring ontop of that really makes a difference in how smooth the dungeon goes. Yes this also means take a hit in personal performance for the good of the group. It’s the reason why Warriors I always group with bring Battle Standard > Signet of Rage while the greatsword 5 signet heroes will never see an invite from me.

My Guardian runs damage reduction and control abilities in dungeons with Hammer/Staff. I constantly give Protection, Retaliation, Stability, Aegis and can finish other fields with mighty blow while warding off harmful foes or creating sanctuaries for safe resses.

My buddy that I run a lot of dungeons with has heals coming out from his rune set and banners that grant regen, because he’s a warrior he also still does a lot of damage with Greatsword/Longbow. The two of us will never compare to other people of the same class in full berserkers in terms of DPS, but what we bring to the table is immense.

What we make up for our personal hit in DPS is our ability to pretty much stay topped off the entire time. The only time any of our members go down is because they miscalculated a dodge or something, with Regen and protection up all the time, a lot of damage is mitigated. Because he also brings fire fields, between that blast combo and my Staff’s empower, a steady upkeep of 20+ stacks of might is always up so the damage output as a whole group is actually really really high.

If anything because we spec like so, dungeons go even quicker as no bad wipes occur as often as a group of 5 glass cannons. Gearing and slotting for support also does not mean you butcher your damage output. That’s only if you gear +Healing which is the weakest form of support out there. It’s perfectly possible to gear a balanced char that has really good life span, decent damage output and group utility. My Guardian runs with 16.8k HP, 3k Armor, 40% crit, 62% crit dmg, and 2.9k Power and does more than its fair share of damage while bringing a lot more support than your average glass cannon.

TLDR: Stop tunneling DPS and tackle dungeon as a GROUP. It’s GROUP content..

be smart and don’t feed the troll, they will die of natural causes if you leave them alone.

Yes…because only the whiners invested a lot of time into their class. Less QQ more pewpew, instead of crying over spilled milk, find ways to overcome this change and adjust accordingly. There are so many ways to build your Guardian. Bunker might still be your best choice for tPvP, but you sure as hell can spin2win and mow down thieves like butter in hotjoin. You are indeed missing something if this change brings out such a dramatic reaction. I kittening love my Guardian.

The Guardian community really is somewhat whiney, yes being the best means having a target painted on your back, just look at all the QQ regarding Mesmers and Thieves too.

However, despite all the tuning and nerfs the Guardian has to sit through, it still is among the top tier of classes as of now. If you cannot see that, nothing can help you.

That does not mean the Guardian has no issues that could take looking at, that also does not mean they should nerf it to oblivion. All it means is that in the current state of balance, Guardians excel at pretty much all the areas of the game and you should be thankful for that, frankly not all classes can say that.

Really sick and tired of these knee-jerk post nerf QQ posts. Hell, we still have people raging on about greatsword changes..

No one enjoys a nerf but Guardians have way more things to be happy about to be upset over some nerfs.

wolfie.7296:

This seems like another petty change to me. Almost immediately after Anet saying, “let’s allow the ‘meta’ to solve it and try not to nerf…” Reminds me of the ridiculous Line of Warding reduction in duration. Taking what was a fun ability and making it a nuisance and hardly worth using.

Perfect example of the end of days sky is falling attitude we really don’t need more of. 8 > 5s suddently it’s unusable? By golly..

Save Yourselves on the other hand wasn’t even used by most people for its intended purposes, to rip everything off your allies and use your own body as a vessel to tank/remove them. Rather it was let’s rampage and rage every 60 (48s).

As powerful as it was, it was also Necro/Mesmer bait, and if this one change completely makes Guardian unplayable for any of you, seriously reevaluate playing MMOs.

I use Sanctuary, Hold the Line, and Stand Your Ground, Greatsword + Scepter/Shield when defending Hodgins. You use greatsword to chop up adds that come, pull them off hodgins if needed. Push them off hodgins, kite whatever straggler scavenger.

Also, tome of courage 5 heal can pump hodgins straight back to full. I don’t usually kite around the table at all, as they turn invul. There is however, a pillar near by that allows you to keep an eye out on him.

TheBlueI.3486:

nldixon.8514:

I loooooooove Contemplation of Purity. Turning conditions into boons is magical.

Sounds great but how often do you use it? Like most skills I find this so extremely situational and than a 60s cooldown.

You probably won’t find as much of a use for it in PvE/Dungeons as Pure of Voice or Absolute Resolution is usually all the removals you need. However it is invaluable in sPvP and tPvP where good condition specs can really bring the pressure.

Dee Jay.2460:

Yeah because you can totally do all that crap when you are chain CC’d for 9 seconds without being able to do anything.

It’s terrible balancing if “no stun break” = guaranteed death.

I prefer things to be less deterministic and you know….actually not being stun-locked to death. I thought we let that kitten behind us in WoW.

In my book this is every ounce as bad as Thief Backstabs.

Yes because even if there were no 100b, hammer stun, pistol whip, spirit weapon spamming, a PvP build without a stun break is a good idea..

If you refuse to pack skills that are more suited for PvP and survival like stun breaks, well eat the stun. You knowingly made the choice, stability is something not all classes can easily access but a stun break is something everyone has, just on differing cool downs and forms.

And no, hammer warriors can’t kill anyone solo in one combo, unless of course you’re running glass cannon. If you’re running glass without a stun break, you deserve to get squished and don’t really have a well thought out PvP build.

Hammer warriors are great, but not as threatening as I originally thought they could be due to a lot of reasons people have outlined before me.

Aww jeez, not this kitten again..

If you’re dying to conditions, use your removals more smartly. Don’t give me “THEY APPLY FASTER THAN I CAN REMOVE QQ” of course, how else would you expect condition specs to kill anything?

However if you do time your removals right, (usually 7-9 stacks of bleed), you completely break their momentum in damage and they have to start ramping up again.

Guardians may not have the highest passive stat bonuses in the health department, but if you’re “dying like a fly” in Soldier’s gear, you’re not playing the Guardian to its full potential and perhaps should reevaluate skill/trait choices along with your playstyle. I mean, the class is among the top of Bunker specs with Eles and what not right now. Do you hear complaints about bunker warriors? Zilch, nada.

Copenhagen.7015:

Crafted is the way to go. On my Necro I have a magic find set of accessories and a power set. Why would you think its not ideal?

It works out for power builds, but I didn’t roll a Necro to spam Life blasts, my focus is more on conditions. Also, I feel wearing MF gear in dungeons is actually quite cheap, you’re setting yourself slightly subpar to get a bigger gain out of the dungeon while your peers carry you. Unless your friends are completely ok with it, that’s a different story.

My main slots are all Condition, Vitality, Healing (Shaman’s) and I know there’s the sapphire pendant, it’s a bit out of reach of my wallet right now so I’m curious as to what other people running condition specs are using. I know for a fact people gunning for Rabid Stats (Cond, Pre, Tough) do not have much of an option for accessories as well unless they settle for Rampager’s or something.

20 in Virtues is a must. Absolute Resolution is simply too good to pass up as far as removing conditions go for Guardians. Not only does it remove 3 off you and increases the passive regen/active heal, it also applies the removal to allies in your vicinity. Your main source of damage as a bunker is retaliation and thus easily fits into your build. The 5pt and 15pt minors greatly boost your ability to bunker in every way.

I would not recommend “Save Yourselves!” at all, if they have a Necro in their comp trying to be the anti-Guardian, you essentially give them more fuel. Using shouts as removal also means you’re extremely vulnerable to conditions, each removes 2 max IF you use Soldier Runes (Hold the Line is bugged with Pure of Voice and will only remove 1 with rune). Contemplation can get owned by a well timed Corrupt Boon all the same, but at least it’s a full wash, not just 2 conditions max.

If you went the shouts route, it also means forgoing Runes of the Earth/Grove, which is by far the most defensive set up you can get granting immense duration bonus to your protection and giving you additional sources of protection.

BigTree is correct in that selfless daring is amazing with +Healing, it’s our best scaling heal if we investment in healing gear. However, I find relying on dodge heals inferior to damage mitigation/blocks as any smart player that knows how to time poisons severely reduces your life span when relying on heals. With Cleric’s and Knight’s gem, your max HP will be 15,055, that’s a good chunk less than going with Soldier’s.

With the run of the mill meditations healing, it heals ~1.9k with no +Healing investment, with Smite Conditions, that’s once every 16s. It triggers all the same with CoP. On top of your passive and active damage reduction, it’s more than ample to get you through in between your healing CDs.

I feel this question applies a lot seeing as not a lot of crafted jewelry is not really ideal. How did you go about filling your amulet, ring and earrings?

This is the corrupted sledgehammer. Made from 30x Corrupted Lodestones and the Shaman’s Etched Sledgehammer or something.

It only has particle effects when drawn, I stowed it and took kitten quickly while the effects still persisted on ze hammer. If your shader is at least on med, the ice is semi transparent and looks even better in game than it does on this SS.

http://i.imgur.com/cpqco.jpg

A lot of people finding difficulty with dungeons when they’re lower level don’t really adjust their specs and go in with gear that is subpar to their level and their leveling specs. Not only does wearing gear behind your level scale down worse than correct level, a viable solo leveling spec also does not always work out well in dungeons.

Dungeons are a group content, just bringing DPS is the most basic level of contribution one can do. My buddy’s Warrior utilizes regen banners and Shake It Off while I went for damage reduction through Protection, stability and wards on my Guardian. Our damage is far from sky high but our health bars never dip unless someone severely screws up.

Our personal DPS may not be high, but between my staff empower and blasting his fire fields, we can easily keep up 20-25 stacks of might for our whole team and as a result blaze through pretty much everything.

I find that dungeons are actually quite easy after you understand the mechanics and know how to build your character for a group setting. If everyone is alive, the group damage output is as a result always going to be higher than if you all went berserkers and died multiple times every pull.

It’s the same reason why most warriors run Signet of Rage for their elites but ones I remember to thank and plan to run with in the future always carry battle standard, they understand the importance of taking a slight hit in personal performance for the well being of the group.

Knowledge and preparation goes a long way in succeeding in dungeons, and I have yet to fail a story mode dungeon even when I was leveling up my first character. And that was before anyone knew anything about how the dungeons mechanics played out. It helps immensely if your group members can help you help them.

If you can’t complete AC story even after being fully decked as an 80, perhaps reevaluate before jumping the gun and crying nerf. Being casual =/= lack of skill, it just means you have less playtime to commit. You shouldn’t use that as an excuse as that attitude only holds you back.

One useful thing about Necros in WvW is Epidemic. Yes, you will use Staff kitten and you better pack Greater Marks. It is much harder to score kills with condition damage especially if they can retreat beyond your range, remove/heal and come back. Burst direct damage has higher chance of knocking them straight down before they can do that.

I found the most success on my necro running a wells support role. It’s viable for keep defense and keeps your battlements healthy, Well of Blood and Life Transfer with Transfusion are some of the bigger AoE heals in the game.

Other than that, I don’t see everyone dying to play support, but the option is there and it’ll definitely help whoever you’re with. You will NOT be the second coming of dark robo jesus smiting those you see fit as the Necro in WvW that is for sure.

Free transfers at launch were a great idea so that friends could always stick together and if people weren’t completely happy with server choice, they wouldn’t come down with a heavy dosage of buyer’s remorse.

However, I would have thought the free transfers would have been closed by now, like a max a month period. If they wanted to extend this luxury to the new accounts, surely there’s a way to tag newly created accounts and give them a few weeks of a grace period to transfer among servers while locking out this option for older accounts?

Also, since there’s the free transfers in effect still, the touted guesting feature still has yet to see the light of day at this point. All it has done is create this mentality of bandwagoning onto winning servers! I was Blackgate since the 25th with my small close knit friends guild, half of them jumped ship because “blackgate was sucking” onto the behemoth then that is HoD. Now that HoD is empty, they’re complaining they can’t get back onto blackgate. Bandwagon mentality never wins but the server transfers are at the root of the issue.

My only response to them is that they should have never left and stop picking winning servers especially if don’t even want to put in the effort to win in the first place. Now this is first world problem as hell but with everyone on Blackgate, WvW simply is not fun. There’s no room for big pushes or overcoming dramatic odds when your server has 23813139% of the map. I don’t even mind getting nightcapped as that just means more objectives to take during the prime time, I rather have that then what the juggernaut Blackgate has become.

I’m not sure what your point is from trying to defend yourself when no one is accusing anyone about defending classes? Why do that when all the classes are yours to enjoy? I like the freedom and thus experiment with all of them, I feel it also gives me a broader view on balance. The topic at hand is corrupt boon being buggy, I feel not only are we talking about the buggy execution at times, but aegis blocking it seems like a bug to me too (my opinion).

Just spamming corrupt boon is not going to get you anywhere, against a good bunker you slam it and watch them wither when they finally pop contemplation of purity as a last ditch effort to cleanse your conditions. Aegis blocking it or not, you still want to properly time this to have the most devastating effect. Remove their boons when it’s most needed and victory is yours.

The logic is simple, skills says transform all boons into conditions, aegis is a boon. Well of Corruption, a similar skill that also corrupts boon happens to work on aegis even though it works differently. Aegis is a boon, so why can’t it be corrupted? It’s because it’s a targeted attack and because of this, I feel aegis blocking it is an unintended effect. That is again my opinion on the matter, an extension of what I think they should do when bug fixing it.

Aegis is a boon yes? So it should be corruptible. The argument that is for aegis blocking is pretty weak when considering Well of Corruption can corrupt aegis. It blocks attacks, which is why it works against corrupt boon, because it registers as an attack.

Hell even the wiki has the condition aegis should turn into in a nice table, burning.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corrupt_Boon

I play a bunker guard a lot now when I’m not on my necro. Even if necros are the ultimate anti-guardian, a good guardian will eventually die to a good necro, but not until it holds out for a good while too. When this skill malfunctions, it’s basically a huge slap in the necro’s face.

If you’re getting destroyed by warriors in 3s, seriously reevaluate your gearing choices and how you actively avoid damage. Even when I go for an offensive Guardian for hot-join, with 30 in Valor + Knight’s Amulet, I easily have 2.5k armor with 19.8k HP. That’s more than enough to deal with any sort of threat in the game at the hot-join level. This is all retaining 38% crit chance with +47% crit dmg. Also, Zeal is a terrible trait line, the only reason to invest pts in it is for spirit weapon builds (20pt max), you’ll get better mileage by investing it elsewhere.

If you’re having trouble surviving as a Guardian, you’re just not quite at home utilizing all its skill set yet and you can get better. The Warrior has higher passive stats but the Guardian has a plethora of active defenses. If you use it at ill-opportune times and have it on CD when you really need it, you only screwed yourself over.

Ghastly staff at night? Otherwise I suppose the mystic staff has a few lightning particle effects.

It’s obvious though that martial weapons, especially greatswords got the most attention. Just look at the legendaries, there are three greatswords and one of everything else.

Sorry you can’t be a special snowflake anymore. However, most people are enjoying the Guardian for the same reasons you want to be a Guardian. If that takes away from your experience, you probably will have better luck with some of the other classes.

It’s ground target by default, to be somewhat comparable to it, a Necro must drop total of 40 trait pts, 20 in Curses/Blood Magic. One for Ground targeted wells and another to reduce the CD. Even then, it’d still be 48s, still a wee bit longer than if Null Field went untraited.

You should really only compare this to Power/Corruption but yea, it’s a much better skill. And has been discussed to death. iirc Duration for Null Field is between 3-5s actually in game but since it does its business all at once, it really does not matter.

It’s 3s by default, you get 4.2s of it with +40% boon/prot duration if you use Rune of the Earth with 20% from traits. Not sure how you’re getting more of it by running over it again, that’s never worked for me.

I really want to know where this 15s of Protection for Wells is coming from. Last I tried Ritual of Protection, it was only 3s when you placed your well down. If I can get 15s from Wells, I’d be all over it. Using greater marks atm instead.

I think Necros are fine, they perform mechanically a bit inferior to some others due to both bugs and how they were designed. Not managing LF and popping CDs at ill opportune moments is also severely punishing.

That being said, the biggest disadvantage I have on my necro in tournies is neutralizing control points. The displacement from fear isn’t always enough to inch them off like a Overcharged > Net shot combo and Big o’ Bomb or simply Banish > Immobilize > Ring of Warding. Since the necro also lacks interrupt effects relative to most other classes, you can’t interrupt everything you’d want and thus have to pick very closely.

I also feel that Necros are harder to “slot-in” if you will than other classes for tourny set ups. They simply work better if at least one or two of the members tailor their specs a smidgen more to work with the Necro. Mesmers and Guards? Pretty self sufficient and easily adds on to any team.

My current tPvP spec(copy and paste url): http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=V-_-34;1IFC004wJkJ0;9;5TJJ;212A17-27;2T;078;1dZm9fJG49cJ

Crafted Draconic with Pit Fighter’s shoulders.

Dibrom.6408:

If you want chain dazes roll a mesmer- they can easily do 4+ in a row (It’s their thing, like necros and fea… like thieves and stealth). You’re not going to get much out of the one daze on warhorn.

Doesn’t matter how frequent one can daze if one can’t use it in opportune times. Yes, Mesmers can interrupt more frequently than Necros, but having the daze, Reaper’s Mark, and Fear in Death Shroud means you can interrupt decently as well.

It won’t do jack kitten if you waste your CD to daze their auto-attack, but stopping their heal at 30% is all you need to win. How effective the daze is entirely depends on your timing, I think it’s great. And that’s just one of the few key thing you’d WANT to interrupt. Obviously, your mileage may vary.