Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I’m using the 30/30/0/0/10 build for PvE, and my question is about traits.

My Current spec:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQJAoYlsMpwpVOxxJsPNhs9wnEKeyrAYp9gmawWC

I swap out Mug for Sudering Strikes when needed, or use Combined Training if I use S/P. Also swap out Flanking Strikes for Thrill of Crime is the group lacks fury uptime.

The focus of my issue is the Critical Strikes traitline. Namely, if it’s worth it to use the two signet trait ( Signet Use and Signets of Power), or keep only two/one signet as my utilities. The strongest contestants are Furious Retaliation and Side Strike (Critical Haste is a nono, as it takes my endurance away. Using Signet of Agility and then dodging is too slow imho.) And I would also like to ask that how does the picture change when it comes to S/P or P/P? Pistol Mastery and Combo Critical Chance sould be used instead of what?

potential P/P spec:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQJAqalsMpwpVOxxJsPNhs9AoyJeyrAYp9gmawXC

potential S/P spec:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vYAQJAqalsMpwpVOxxJsPNhs9wnyJeyrAYp9gmawXC

So all in all: I need the best DPS without Haste and Critical Haste trait. And then I’d like to know how to adopt that spec so that it will best suit my S/P and P/P weapon set.

Ty

p.s.: Forgot to mention that if might stacking is provided by other means (ele, engi, etc.) the Signets of Power trait is pointless ofc.

Sry for interrupting with my ignorance but isnt hydromancy an on-swap sigil? Eles cant swap weapons, they only have 1 slot…

But probably all you guys cant be this stupid, which is leading me to think that something like attunement changing should trigger on-swap sigils, right?

ty

Well, I think I’ll keep my exotic shortbow for temple events and such. And put ‘dungeon sigils’ on my ascended. The two purpose cant be served properly with one bow, or can they?

Hi,

so which one did you pick for 2nd? Up until now I’ve used sigil of fire for more tagging potential. (In some group events mobs go down in 2-3 seconds, so if you cant tag them in that time window —-> no XP, no loot.) For further increase of tagging potential I was thinking about sigil of air (that lightning strike stuff). As far as I know sigil of fire has a target cap of 10 (air has something like 3-4 but i’m not sure) and there are many occasions when 10+ mobs spawn in a group event (within fire blast/lighning strike radius ofc).

So would it make a difference, or should I go with sigil of fire + force?

Ty

How can you tell the difference between salvagable and un-salvagable basic rarity (white tooltip) items? Both are sold on TP. I’ve heard about the trick that some buy cheap vendor gear and put it on TP for unfair profit. But there are exceptions to this. Some whites can be salvaged, but the tooltip is no different at all.

This deterrs me from buying whites atm, but I dont want to let potential profit slip through my fingers. So how can I pick the right items?

ty

P.S.: If you want to keep this information confidetial, then send me private message. Business is business.

Hello,

I’ve looked up other topics/forums to clear up this matter but I wasnt able to come to a safe conclusion.

Older topics say ‘go +20% money’. Then the amount of money directly dropping from monsters took the nerf bat. (Chests, bags, etc. do not matter as they are not affected by the infusion.) So the new standpoint is ‘go +karma if you WvW and do living world events, and go +20% MF if you do fractals’.

So my question is: Has something been/about to be implemented in the game that would change the above statement? I’ve already ‘wasted’ a crapton of laurels by buying 3 amulets with offensive slots, and dont want to play the same game with infusions.

ty

zwierz.9012:

You can’t salvage karma items BUT you can toss 4 of them into Mystic Toilet and get a piece you CAN salvage, or sell.

It might not be worth the effort, but it is a way to at least get something back if you have useless karma gear stuffing up your inventory.

I didnt mean karma gear, but I should have lol. Dungeon gear can be salvaged, jst tried it.

I apologize for my ignorance. Pls admins delete this topic as it is misleading and useless. (Well never too late for enlightenment.)

AdaephonDelat.3890:

I’m pretty sure you can salvage dungeon equipment. Also if you want a rune back use a high level salvage kit (black lion is your best bet). I know you can salvage the weapons and I’m pretty sure I’ve salvaged armor before. You can’t salvage Karma armor though so be careful of that.

Essences of luck only come from fine or masterwork items so salvaging exotics won’t give you any.

Hi,

your second point is totally on spot, I forgot that.

But the first… Its not just a guess, but direct experience. I’m starting to gear my thief with ascended stuff, and as I’m changing exotic gear I can see that those items that I bought from the TP can be salvaged, while duongeon gear cant be. (Not the drops, but the ones you buy with tokens.)

Hello,

so here’s what I concluded:

It is not worth it to farm dungeon tokens for exotic gear. For first, it looks ok as you make money while you complete a dungeon and additionally you get tokens to buy gear. If you dont plan to have ascended gear this attitude is perfectly sound, however if you plan on upgrading for ascended, the picture changes.

Reasons:

- You cannot sell/salvage/pass it to an alt or anything. So you lose the rune/sigil that you’ve put in it.

- You get no T6/T7 mats either. (no essence of luck)

If you use cheap sigil/runes or orbs then it still may be worth it. But if you use scholar/divinity/traveler runes or other expensive sigils the loss will be much greater than the cost of buying exotic pieces off the TP. Not to mention that it takes next to no time if you have the money. If you dont you can still farm dungeons and spend tokens on rare gear and salvage ectos.

I dont know if this idea stands its ground or not, but kind of seems to me it does.

I hope I’ve helped some of you who is getting his/her exotics.

thanks a lot for the quick answer

Hello,

so do you get one per day per character or one per day per account? Is it worth killing for example the fire shaman on multiple characters? Or will I still only get dragonite and other stuff only once per boss per day regardless of how many different characters I use?

ty

Crossaber.8934:

For example I wanna buy an item for a large amount at 39c, but the lowest selling price is 55c, then if i place 1 of that item at 40c on TP, all the sellers will find that selling 39c is better then they will sell their item at 39c to my highest buying price very quick.

Yep, I thought about this as you can see it in my OP. This probably works for a short while, but then some1 buys your listing and its gone. If you are lucky you’ll get more items than you sell within the given time frame, but if you are unlucky (hardly any1 sells stuff to you, but buy out all your low listings) you will only waste a lot of stuff (selling it for too low price) while your buy orders dont get filled. Therefore I find this too risky, especially on high volume markets like ores or scraps.

Not to be mean or anything, but is this really looking for an advice? I would guess this is only indirect boasting… Some1 who has many alts and a crapton of playtime on his hands does ask questions like this? Again sorry if I’m too suspicious, but I think this guy just wants to tell the world how much stuff he farmed so far.

Behellagh.1468:

Again, the OP isn’t talking about 1c upping bids or 1c undercutting of sales. He’s asking about when lowest sale price is 1c above highest bid. Those sawtooth downward spikes in price histories we see all the time and inevitably it’s because a seller is selling more than the current highest bid wants and the leftovers are priced at the old highest bid while the next highest bid was only 1c less.

Yep, this is the explanation that fits the situation the most. You’re right. And from understanding it comes the conclusion that probably the best strategy against this is to wait till its gone. Like a storm or something…

ty

Hello,

my question is: What is the reasoning behind the phenomena that many guys come around the TP and make their sale offer only 1 copper above the highest buy offer? Are they simply braindead or am I not getting something here?

I’ve come up with some possible explanations, and I’d like to get your take on them:

1. They are plain stupid, and that’s their only way to ensure no1 undercuts them (as going 1 copper lower would already mean selling it with the ‘meet highest buyer’ option). I can more or less accept this if the unit’s price is already low, because in that case that 1 copper difference could mean a 5-10% additional income compared to selling it with ‘meet highest buyer’ option. But when it comes to more expensive stuff like gear or something, then… 5g or 5,0001g??? They take the 15% cut if they sell it, and that 1 copper probably gets lost because of rounding-up/down. (The game uses only whole coppers as far as I know.) So all in all: if pricing your sale offers properly is rocket science for some1, then why dont they just sell it to the highest buy offerer?

2. This is trolling, and some guys just enjoy messing up the TP – even if that costs them some money. (In WoW there were a lot of guys like this. Well, at least on the server I played on…)

3. This is actually a wise thing to do, because if you not only push down the sale price, but you are also the highest buy offerer, than this makes your buy offer look prettier. Because others will think ‘The lowest sale offer is only 1 copper more than the highest buy offer, so I may as well just sell it to that guy, as I dont really care about that 1 copper.’ While if that guys sees that the lowest sale offer is 50%+ higher, then he may want to try his luck. So one logical explanation would be boosting your buy order’s popularity.

4. Its a move to simply jack down the price. Then go ‘hoarding mode’, wait till it climbs back up, and then sell.

The problem with 3 and 4 is that – according to my experience – they dont work. On high volume markets they get bought out in seconds/minutes. On low volume markets they drive down the price for weeks or even months. So this leads me to believe that 1 or 2 must be the explanation.

And finally… what do you do against it? Do you wait till its gone, do you buy them out?

Not a world-shaking problem, still I’m curious…

Thx for any1 who takes the trouble to read this.

layzoe.6035:

I second the two sets of armors especially for a guardian. I have a zerker and a knights. (Well actually I have four sets of armor but that’s more because of fashion rather than usefulness) You may want to start off with a knight and work your way towards a zerker. However, use zerker accessories and weapons. I think build is more important than your armor. Use Obal’s build stickied at top. If you are new and don’t know the dungeon encounters yet.. and pug in Zerker, you will find yourself dying a lot which will be frustrating. If I am in a pug with very low dps, I find myself in downed state more often in which then I will switch to knights. Just to mitigate the damage.

I am really surprised that your guild expects you to pug? I would find another guild.. the whole point of guild is to assist each other unless you are in a speed run group or something. Please feel free to add me in game if you are in a US server. I would be happy to take you along to any dungeon and fractals except Arah. There’s also a dungeon mentor group if you go to the dungeon forum stickied at top. The amazing mentors who would be happy to teach you as well.

I really appreciate your offer, but I play on the EU servers.

Before I was accepted to the guild I was told what the situation was and I accepted it. I’d rather have a guild that does hardly any dungeons but goes to high level fractals, than the other way around. Dungeons can be done with PUGs, high level fractals… probably there are instances when they work, but usually its better to have TS and such. So everything is fine as it is for me, it just takes a while until I catch up to them.

And finally… I really did not want to drag eny kind of self evaluation here, but many of you made your advice dependent on my skill level so here it goes: I main a thief and with full zerker glass cannon spec I can survive quite well. In the few guild speed runs, I can totally keeps up with warriors and guards. Started playing mid december last year, got 2800ish achi points, rank 19 in arena, etc. Not a big deal, but its ok. Still got a lot to learn. So… thats the current skill level to which I’m looking for a matching gear set. I think I’ll give it a go, and go full zerker with a semi-defensive spec. Like the hammer-greatsword build…

Anyways, thank you for the helpful answers.

Ty so much for the quick answer

Hello,

I’m planning to make ascended gear for my thief and I was wondering which items to make first. (I’m excuding backpiece because I already have the ascended spinal blades, and I’m also excluding trinkets because they do not require crafting or gold.) My main guidline is the required mats/damage increase ratio. So I was thinking that weapons first. Is that right? Are they the biggest damage increase? I would think so, but I’n not sure. Then legs, because they have the highest stat numbers from those pieces that require only lesser vision crystal to make. Coat last because of the increased mats. Is my logic flawed, or is it wise to do it like this?

Ty

Ty again, I think I’ve read everything that is reasonable to read before actually playing the guardian in exploreable dungeons and fractals. This mainly means reading your guide btw. So I’ll be ok, thanks.

L8r

CptAurellian.9537:

Depends on how bad you are and how bad your group is. If you know how to play the dungeons, then even a bad group won’t hurt you a lot. If you don’t and the group is bad, playing zerker can be a pain.

My guildies say I’m ok, so I’ll probably be able to learn the guard to play. I can survive on my thief so I hope that means something when playing my guard.

Anyway… I got it then, go zerker…

Ty

Hello guys,

so I’m leveling my guard, she’s 75 now and soon it will be time to gear her up for dungeons. My guild has experienced members, they dont really go for simple dungeon runs. But me being a newbie need a lot of dngeon farming to do, so I’m restricted to go with PUGs.

This being the case, I was thinking about what stats to go for. And I’ve read about the seemingly endless debate on berserker vs cleric/etc. And I completly understand the superiority of berserker in higher level content. This makes me kind of sad, as I was hoping to become a heavily supportive, helaer/protector type of character.

So my question is: Is berserker gear still superior to others when it comes to PUGs? Because berserker gear is optimal for skilled/geared groups, but what about unexperienced groups? Am I still gonna be more useful in berserker gear, or is this the only scenario where others stats can actually outperform berserker?

Ty

Ty for the answers guys.

Hello,

so will it be possible? I have farmed all the event-realted mats for 3 ascended backs and 1 exotic. But I dont have the money for the other mats yet (that can be bought later on TP). So can I just sit on them until I have the money, or should I craft it before 18th March?

Ty

xallever.1874:

Oh, besides, Mesmers… Are a bit tricky in terms of mobility. You can either go for Sup Rune of Traveler’s for perma 25%, focus 4 for occasional swiftness and blink. Or use Sup Rune of Air / Centaur for extra swiftness but requires you to constantly use your heals. If you didn’t like Guardian’s mobility, you probably won’t be too fond of Mesmer’s either.

For Ele, you can just simply activate Signet of Air, or use your swiftness staff combos (Earth 2, Air 5, Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, Air 4, go back and forth between attunements to keep going back to air) and it’s more or less perma-swiftness.

Ty so much for the answer, ele class wont my heart. I’m gone leveling. Ty once more.

xallever.1874:

Ele’s Staff #5 is pretty awesome for tagging.

You’re right in that Mesmers struggle a lil bit more for tagging.

I’m confused, though. It sounded to me you were talking about pve as in open world content and then pve as wvw. Which one do you mean?

For open world, Mesmers have clones as pets to tank so it’s very self reliant.

On the other hand, Ele can summon two earth elementals to tank.

Sorry if I was confusing. My main focus would be solo PvE, world bosses, gathering/farming. No pvp, no dungeons. Only open-world content.

FrownyClown.8402:

Ele is primarily all zerker in pve and harder to play

It isnt neccesarily a problem. The question is that how effective is an ele when played to its max potential. Having a steep learning curve is not a problem, but being limited by the class is. I dont mind the effort to learn a class, but I do mind the effort to waste it on a class that gives less in return than others. Keep in mind pls, that this is only for solo PvE and world-events.

Ty

Hello guys,

I am/was looking for a decent solo PvE class. And for several reasons I’ve found the mesmer class a viable option. Here’s the topic I created on the mesmer forums:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/My-PvE-roamer/first#post3766224

And then I see this other topic about ‘mesmer vs ele’ – the usual dilemma, that is asked every so often:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Getting-back-into-GW2-new-alt-Mes-or-Ele/first#post3766245

Where a guy says:

‘if u like roaming them mes will be more fun, but mes lacks group abilities and aoe and non ai traits and multi target skills…’

If this statement is true, then this unquestionably decides the choice between ele and mesmer for solo PvE. However – as I’ve read – elementalists do not really excel in solo PvE… So my question is: Does ‘not exceling’ mean that it requires more skill to be as effective as a warrior for example, or does it mean that no matter how skilled you are playing an ele is solo PvE will always be harder, slower and less effective than other classes?

I’m not keen on any class. I’m just looking for a class that has great mobility, good tagging capability, and good self reliance, preferably ranged. No thief (I main one), no warrior (great mobility and survivability, but longbow is not the best for tagging because multi target attacks have CD), no guardian (poor mobility). So it comes down to the remaining 5 classes. (Got a ranger already, but her damage seems to suck big time. However I’m still open to suggestions on that class as well so I’m not excuding it yet.)

Being on the ele forums I expect mostly ele-realted answers, but ofc feel free to make suggestions on any other class.

Ty

Hello guys,

I do realize that the expression ‘roamer’ is usually used in PvP terms, but what I’d like to do in PvE with my future mesmer is kind of close to WvW roaming. So…

What I mean by that is open-world bosses (Teq, Destroyer, Temples, etc.), solo PvE, farming and stuff. I have a dungeon-goer guardian, and my beloved main: a thief. The thief is a good ‘PvE roamer’ imho, but I dont want to get bored of her. Guardian has mobility issues… I got a ranger as well and she has nice utilities and weapon skills for solo PvE, but her damage sucks. Even now that she’s fully decked out in exotics (bah… what a waste of gold that was to gear her up). Warriors are good at mobility, but only mediocre at tagging stuff. Imho a ranged weapon that has this ‘bounce effect’ (thief – shortbow, ranger – mainhand axe) is the best for tagging stuff in group events, and also useful when you solo-fight a group of mobs that are scattered all over the place. (Cleaving does a lot more damage, but many times its hard/impossible to make mobs stack on eachother.)

So all in all – without playing one myself – the best option seemed to me to roll a mesmer. Nice mobility, a lot of tricky stuff (so that you can skip mobs easily when you go for rich gathering nodes or skill points or whatever – stealth, teleport, lots of AI). My question to the mesmer community is first and foremost about damage. Will my mesmer cut through stuff faster than my ranger? And in general, am I missing something? It would be a pity to level an other toon to 80 just to find out that it sucks just like my ranger.

Please beware, that the above assumptions about the mesmer class are solely based on other players’ experience, I dont have any on my own. So they may as well be wrong.

Thaddeus.4891:

for PvE not at all. Just use the minimum survivability you need, and everything should be for more DPS. As you get better you should try to decrease the defensive stats and trait you have with the goal of being 100% DPS.

That’s what I’ve been doing on my thief. I just thought that being able to solo harder content, would give me better rewards. But it seems the only thing it will do is slow me down (compared to the champtrains). And it may be cool to be able to solo champs, but thats just a time sink I guess.

Anyway, ty guys for the help

Hello,

so before I get into the details regarding class selection, traits, gear, etc. I would like to know if it is worth it to make a toon that can solo group content. Or do I simply get on the Queensdale champtrain, and thats it? Is soloing other bosses or dungeons a better option? Will it give me more gold or loot per hour?

Ty

Ty for the answers guys! They all have been helpful.

Hello,

I would like to get some help on finding (and learning from) top pvp warrior players. I main a thief, and more or less I know the names of top players, know where to find proper and up to date pvp guides, know their streams, etc. And for those who main a warrior probably know all these things/players from the warrior pvp realm. So what takes max 5 minutes for you to type, it would take me hours of research. Would you all warrior players be so kind to tell me which players’ streams I should be looking for or whos guides I should study? It would save me a lot of time. Ty for the help!

Nimrud

TYVM! If you are a good looking big boobed blonde then all my dreams have come true! Mind dating me?

I played a few games with your D/P spec, and I have to tell you I enjoy the tons of control it has. (To me it seems this spec has more than the D/D. But that could be because of how bad I played the D/D thief. :P)

All in all, you got me occupied for a few months.

Ty, and watch your back; I might even get good one day.

L8r

Ty so much, now I only need 1000000000000 hours of practice and I’ll be fine.

Ty for the answer. Pretty much covers all I wanted to know.

What you wrote got me wonder about one thing: initiative management. D/P may lack some stealth uptime due to the higher initiative cost, but using black powder may allows you to swap out the blind-on-stealth trait, and take +2 initiative on stealth. Although HS being a leap, sometimes your target wont be blinded because the smoke cloud – where you leaped from – is too far to effect the opponent. But when in meele range, Black Powder + stealth blind is an overkill imho.

So would you suggest swapping out blinding on stealth for the 2 extra initiative points?

Hello,

For those of you who dont want to read all this:

1. D/D or D/P?

2. Glass cannon vs 30 pts in Shadow Arts

And for those who do want to read:

1. here’s a quote from Narcarsis.5739 (Caed):

Narcarsis.5739:

The difference between D/D and D/P burst potential is minimal, while the trade off for it is huge. While you say D/P has less burst that is actually incorrect, it has a tad bit more, and gets stronger the lower initial health of the target. The only benefit of D/D is a faster and easier combo that is more forgiving on positioning. D/P takes a second to set up, however the damage comes at roughly the same time as D/D (maybe ~0.10 seconds slower). While this is more than enough time to use a stun break (as you can easily do with D/D) it’s a combo that you save until you know the target has no escape. Other combo’s can also kill squishy targets very easily (such as steal/backstab out of stealth). Additionally D/P provides an enormous amount of team utility with Headshot and Blinding Powder, as well as an excellent chase skill (when chilled) with Shadow Shot. Another benefit of D/P is that the stealth is guaranteed, whereas the stealth on Cloak and Dagger can be negated by a skillful player with a blind, dodge roll, or daze.

Full topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Caed-s-Thief-Walk-Through-and-Guide-Mini

and here’s something from DirtyBird.6093:

DirtyBird.6093:

NOW – that being said, i personally play D/D. Its a playstyle choice. The skill level needed to play D/D is much higher as you are reliant on having things to hit to gain the stealth readily and easily. It requires much better terrain choice and selection to win fights. You want to engage combat by NPCs or siege, things you can hit. The reason i play D/D:
1) More fun for me personally, i like the challenge
2) C&D is a good 1/3 of your spike damage that you lose by just going for the backstab.
3) i hate flopping around in a black powder like a fish out of water. its slower in comparison to lurking around and tapping 5.
4) there are a lot of things you can do using the Cloak and Dagger stealth mechanic. I’ve been on top of the lords room with 15+ enemies just roaming around and cloak and daggering off enemies to stay up in there. Ive quite literally won 1v1’s by using nothing BUT C&D (i just wanted to see if i could do it). Constant C&D and when their life dropped low enough, backstab. As well, in team fights you can use a downed player to lure other players out to down them, as well as you can use them as a constant source of cloak that doesnt move.

If you do decide to go D/D, always have a pistol to swap out in case you need perma stealth.

Full topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/WvW-dagger-dagger-or-dagger-pistol/first#post2305029

So the 2 seem to contradict eachother. Which one is better? Is this really just personal preference? Or does this only matter if you are in high lvl tpvp teams? I do like both playstyles, and I want to decide in which to put more efforts to get a nice return in gameplay enjoyment. Jumper’s sword-dagger evade build is just not my cup of tea. (A potentially steep learning curve is not a problem to me, it is worth it to bite the dust a few dozen times to learn the proper gameplay.)

2. Then…

the somewhat standard roaming or beginner builds usually go like: 10/30/30/0/0 or 0/30/30/10/0. (For D/D and D/P ofc.) I took a look at Caed’s backstab D/P build (see above) that is: 25/30/0/0/15 and I thought to myself ‘How the hell do you stay alive longer than 5 seconds with this build?’ Does this only work in well organized teams, where others can cover your butt? Or does it only work with a super-skilled player? I was in a game the other day and the other team had a D/P thief. If he opened on me while I was 70% HP or lower, ha insta downed me with backstab; if I was above 70% HP he also needed one Heartseeker to down me. I never saw him fighting extensively, just popping out of stealth, downing some1 in one second, and then vanish. So is this the playstyle I should be looking for to learn? I dont think you ALWAYS have a situation where you are the opener. And if that happens, you are dead just as quick as you can kill others. However I have to admit that it is quite effective. (If an opener attack instantly takes 65-75% of you HP, thats pretty much a done deal.)

Any constructive feedback is welcome, ty.

Fext.3614:

Nimrud.5642:

But I’m an elitist, I want to be dominant

Elitist dominants go for high risk and high reward paths. Go ele.

Yep a thief and an elementalist are gonna be a walk on a blade’s edge in PvE. I like that challange. Ok it’s not superhard or anything but we are still talking about the two squishiest classes… sad thing is, we started from rangers.

p.s.: I get your sarcasm, and its funny. I did not use the proper wording for discribing my motivations, and you implied that quite well.

kiwituatara.6053:

Anet defines rangers differently

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.”

Our “range” sucks.

Yep these two lines fooled me, wont happen again…

Ok, guys I’m back on my thief-ele-guard-warr quartet. Forget this ranger thing…

But from today, I have the highest lvl trading post character on my server.))

Thx for the answers.

Cufufalating.8479:

If you want to be doing dungeons you arent going to be pew pew’ing (at leats not most of the time).

To do dungeons properly you need to stack for buffs, and LB requires you to stand far away.

Now if you’re doing PvP or WvW you can go pew pew people and it can be effective.. but since you seem more interested in dungeons.. No.

Yep thats what I was talking about with that ‘time on target’ thing. Namely, that this disadvantage is compensated or not. But what I can get from what you are saying, even high level fracs are the same. Stack and unload… quite lame tbh. So all GW2 PvE is about how many boss mechanics can you ignore? From Ascalon story mode to lvl 40+ fracs its all just stack, pop CDs, move on, skip trash, repeat? This kind of makes me question if I want to do PvE at all… or am I drawing a too dark picture? Or maybe too much WoW playing got me obsessed with complicated boss mechaincs? I actually do enjoy having to set up and practice a strategy… maybe thats just me.

Anyway, I’m getting too far away from my oroginal questions… So, all in all:

1. Forget bows as a ranger, except for a few special occasions.
2. Forget doing damage from range with any class, except for a few special occasions.

Would these 2 points sum up the essence of things? If they would than probably thins game has the lamest PvE content compared to the work, that has been invested into it. I get that if you dont have warrior banners, guardian or any other kind of heal/dmg reduction support then you cant play that stacking game. I also get that fights have actually more interesting mechanics if you dont ignore them, and ANET wanted those bosses to be killed with some tactical gameplay. But still, who cares if you can corner-zerg pretty much everything?

Yes, again WoW… in that game these kind of exploits were prevented by stronger boss moves. I dont want this game to be WoW, but ANET still could learn a few things from Blizz. If ANET does not want you to corner zerg the entire PvE content, then make corner zerging impossible. Hell, they even could add some extra, super-duper abilities to bosses. (Again WoW: I do not remember exactly which boss, but he was given an ability by the Blizz dev gods; that he could 1-shot anyone through invulnerability shields too. Because otherwise that encounter would have been expoitable. Simple as that…)

In the end this turned into a rant rather than asking for advice… Actually I was hoping that this corner-zerging was only going on in lower difficulty content. Now you got me disappointed. Why the hell are there ranged abilities then at all? Or am I not getting something?

Xyonon.3987:

I wouldn’t say that. It depends. In general don’t bring any class 2 times in a group, except the guard MAYBE. I allways hated on rangers until I’ve met one using Sword/Axe and Axe/Horn. He was pretty a beast.

• If you are an elitist ranger, just keep all the weapons with you.
• If you have to kill something from afar like sometimes the flame and frost endboss in fotm, or the fire ele at the grawl fractale, you may use the longbow.
• If you have to kite and are completly unable to face an enemy, like maybe mossman, use the shortbow.
• Everything else: Sword+Axe for ultra sexy pull + dmg + vulnerability + reflection. And use Axe+Horn for buffing, short range combat (still in buff range) and some safety to recover.
• Make sure you use the TRAITED frost spirit so you increase the damage of everyone by 7%.
• Also trait for spotter to grant everyone 150 Precision.

Rangers aren’t useless, in fact they are kitten strong. However, 99% of the rangers I’ve met / exist are just bear+bow rangers with 0 utility aswell damage and get kicked nearly immediately and hated etc. Don’t become a bearbow ranger, become an efficient, useful, elitist ranger.

I get that, and ty. So longbow and elitism does not go together. For beeing a melee class there are many many better options, I just hoped that there is a way a RANGEr can be played well. Now I have to realize that, there isnt (except for some special situations as you mentioned).

Probably the closest thing to what I hoped from my ranger is an elementalist. (Sry, but I have to have an obscene amout of free time to go for an engineer. 13 levels of it was enough pain.)

If you are not interested in my background story, jump to the last 2 paragraphs.

Hello guys,

I’ve been a hunter in WoW for more than 6 years, so when I began playing GW2; ranger was my choice ofc… She’s 61 now. I stopped leveling her when the ‘cold shower’ came (meaning: I got to find out, how hard rangers suck in dungeons). I did not want my main to be incompetent in any field of the game. The invested effort / success ratio would have been frustrating. Or well, at least I felt so…

So I leveled a thief to 80, and then got a guard, a warr and an elementalist to their mid 20’s; but the urge to ‘pew pew’ took over me again. Those classes are fun, and I will sooner or later level them to 80; but hell I’m a hunter from the heart, I want a nice bow and pierce stuff with it. (I dont like dual pistols for my thief, and they do crap dmg anyway.)

So with the 1H sword revelations (that it is the most viable PvE weapon for a ranger), and the recent longbow buffs; I thought the time has come to give my ranger a shot again (does this work as a pun? not native, sry guys…).

And yep, we finally get to the point… How far behind is the longbow dmg compared to other professions (LH eles, warriors, thieves)? I thought that ANET’s idea behind making ranged attacks hit for less dmg was that melee professions dont get that much TOT (time on target). I have completed 9-10 dungeon paths so far (types not runs, I had like 40-50 runs up until now), and the usual ‘stack in the corner’ stuff is going on everywhere. Will this change as I reach higher fractals? Are there boss mechanics that can not be negated enough to just stand on one spot for the whole fight? And most importantly, is the longbow powerful enough that in case melee does not have full TOT during a fight, it would even out the disadvantage that I have?

I know that many bosses can be soloed, 2-manned, etc. so just being able to complete a run is possible with any class even if you bite the dirt every other minute. But I’m an elitist, I want to be dominant, useful, and the gameplay to be rewarding. So if there is no hope for my ranger to be viable I think I’ll just simply accept it and go do PvP with her exclusively. But before I make that decision I want to be 100% sure, that all I can do with a ranger in a dungeon is hindering my group.

Ty for the answers

Ty for the answers.

I only plan to use it for PvE as I prefer melee professions for PvP. So the answer is found then…

ty again

Hello guys,

I’m starting an elementalist and I’m more or less done with the theoretical preparation (that is reosonable for start). I have not made up my mind yet wether I want to go power or condi. And my question is that on my way finding out which one I prefer, should I stick to certain wepon sets or utility skills for condi/power? What I mean is… thieves go dual dagger and spam deathblossom for condi and sword/pistol for power. Engies go dual pistol, granades for condi and rifle, flamethrower, bombs for power as far as I know. So are there any weapon restictions/recommendations for elementalists? What about attunement priority? Or does chosing condi/power only effect the distribution of my damage over time (DoTs or direct dmg), but goes well with any weapon/attunement/utility?

ty for the answers

First of all, I’m a noob to this game so take everything with a grain of salt. I may be wrong on many conclusions or even on things I’m presenting as facts. So pls be forgiving…

Hello,

my question is about harder PvE content (dungeons, fractals, and bigger groups of world mobs). I have a lvl 80 thief already, and I enjoy the playstyle a lot. However I found that even if almost every aspect of PvE is doable on a thief, there are other professions that require less concentration and give you a bigger error margin. I like to leave the ‘110% sharpened senses’ – mode for PvP and some exceptionally challanging PvE content (relative to average GW2 PvE difficulty). With this being said – I’d like to find myself an other profession that is more suitable for solo grindig/leveling and dungeon farming.

My approach to choosing the right profession is based on the survival mechanics of the given profession (unlike most, who go for damage output). On my thief I use 25/30/0/15/0 instead of the regular 25/30/0/0/15, because those extra dodges are really helpful. Based on the little experience I have already accumulated, regen or protection won’t help you if you are about to eat damage 160-200% of your HP within the next 1-2 seconds. If the incoming damage is spiky (countering sustained damage did not cause me problems in PvE), you have to avoid those spikes completely. And the thief is a beast doing that. Tons of dodges with Acro traits, shadowstep, teleport, weapon evades, etc. My only problem is that due to the low HP pool, you have to play almost perfectly, because a fly’s fart will 100%-0% you in seconds.

So (yes we finally get to my actual question :P)… How do other professions counter spiky PvE damage? I read somwhere on the guardian forums, that even full survival specced guardians are unable to facetank stuff like tanks do in the old holy trinity MMOs. Which leads me to the conclusion that every profession is forced to avoid(/reflect with Ret) damage spikes, the game is designed that way.

So I’m looking for a profession that wont run out of endurance or defensive CDs that can counter spiky dmg. Again going back to my thief – if I use my 3 dodges, then use utility/weapon skills to avoid dmg. And by the time I have done that my endurance is up again at least for one dodgeroll.

But of course I dont expect other professions to be able to do this ninja-style fighting. I’m totally open to any other ways of survival as long as it will save my butt.

ty for the answers

p.s.: Is this just a L2P issue and every PvE encounter is managable with regular endurace regen? Shall I totally forget this survuval/utility thing and just go full damage (gear, traits, slot skills)? And if I die a lot then just admit that I suck?

I thank all of you guys for the answers, they were all helpful. And being able to use your experience instead of accumulating them on my own saved me a lot of time and headache.

If any1 else feels like being able to add something constructive, feel free to do so.

Before I get started: I do realize that the questions I’m about to ask are not strictly thief-realted, but my own answer to them is ‘thief’ – so I thought this would be the best place to find out if I’m wrong.

Hello guys,

I’m a noob(ish) player. My GW2 carreer goes back like a month or so. In this short time frame I leveled my Thief to 80, got a 60ish ranger and a lvl 22 warrior. And now that I’m starting to understand game mechanics I think its time to decide which character to choose as my main. I enjoy all 3 professions but still thieves look somewhat better to me (seems like this class is the hardest to master which is a great, motivating challange).

So my question is: does the meta comp being 1 guard and 4 warriors hinder me badly? Does the meta comp mean that high-end PVE content is only doable with that setup? Or does it only mean that the 1 guard, 4 warri setup is the easiest way to complete those dungeons? So if I have a good group and coordination, then I’ll be fine with the thief too? (If I dont have a good group then being a warrior/guard wont save me either.) Or will others simply tell me: “Level a guard or a warri, otherwise dont even try to come with us.” And I’m excluding ignorant elitism from this (because if I dont, then all answers will be “roll a warrior”. :P)

So I just add some surviveability through weapon choice/traits/gear and I’ll be just as functional as a warrior?

I’ve already discovered the PvP perspecives for myself as a noob player, and they are quite promising. But I also enjoy PvE and dont want my main to be a ‘no-no’ in harder dungeons.

And first of all (I think I should have started with this question), do these “What profession is good for… ?” questions make sense? I mean I saw warroirs ranked as the total underdogs of PvP in threads that are a few months old, and now they are top. Going a little further back in time and you see the same with elementalists. Is the PvE class balance also a roller-coaster like in PvP? Or should I level a warr and a guard if I want a safe spot in meta PvE comp?

ty for the answers

Hello guys,

so the problem is… I looked up many ranger builds for competitive pvp and this of course excludes all the glass cannon builds, but still leaves a lot of options on the table. Namley: trap build, beastmaster build and maybe spirit build.

I dont really like the spirit build because its a one trick pony (although that may be some complex trick), and its heavily CD dependant. So that leaves trap or beastmaster.

For both builds I think this should be the core – as I want to focus on survivability:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmo9hGa0cRc

And from this point on I’m kinda lost…

For a BM build, I have a few possibilities in mind:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmo9iaGaxocRcVoq

As imho Agility Training is vital if you rely so much on pet dmg. However this build does two things: adds crit chance and crit dmg that are both useless for this build as the build’s dmg mostly comes from your pet and from conditions.

Other versions of this build may be:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmo9hxaxcRqcVoq – this one seems to be the most coherent, however it lacks the movement speed buff for the pet.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmo9iax0xocRqVoq – now your pet is fast, but you just have thrown out a huge amount of survivability buy dropping those 10 point from Nature’s Magic, moreover the useless crit issue comes again

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmo9iaGaxocRoVoq – maybe dropping the last 10 points from Wilderness survival…

And as for a trap build:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmo9ixxa0oRqcRqo – this one looks ‘nice’ when only looking at the skills and abilities that it gives you. But there is a huge conflict again between crit and condi dmg. You need those trap buffs from Skirmishing, but traps do condition dmg… -.-

As you probably have noticed already I’m leaning towards one of the BM builds, although I dont seem to find the right choice from the above. (Nature’s Wrath seems really cool as it turns survivability into power.) So any help would be appreciated.

Ty

p.s: Dwayna’s Runes all the way (They are the heal buffers, right?)

p.s. 2: Just for the sake of simplycity: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmo9hxaxcRqcVoq – is it worth moving 10 points from this build into Skirmishing to have Agility Training? If so, then what would be the most effective way to do that?