Guild Wars 2

I’ll try to add to the meta explanation and give more info

The V.8759:

Warrior: still very good. Mainly for banner.

PVE/Dunegons: Has seen nerfs to GS and general DPS.
Banners and Mightstacking builds A.K.A. PugCarriers are most wanted during runs, No longer Highest DPS
WvW:While Hambow, and Shoutheals still are seen in WvW They have been replaced by Guardians for a major part of the content. Still prized for warhorn and warbanners,

Guardian: needed for dps and group heal.

P.VE/Dungeons: Zerk Guardian has the Highest continous DPS of the 2 melee classes, They excel at mitigation and can be more usefull then a warrior party. Still very squishy when playing zerk. Genrally GS and Sword Focus
WvW: The mainstay of any WvW zerg, All builds tend to pass the revue, being condi-remove shoutbuilds, healing builds, bunkers. Staff seems mandatory, 2nd set can be anything, not eluding any type of weapon except maybe torch.

Ranger: Mid Tier if played well(which players rarely do)

PVE, The longbow has been buffed quite a lot for midrange figting, and rangers shooting opening shot will add 20% more damg for the party in a few seconds, Melee is still lacking even though buffed, Zerk LB and GS(or LB and S/*) can be seen as a viable alternative for many other proffessions Except maybe Warrior, Thief, Guard and Ele as they seem to comprise the meta.

Engineer: top tier dps and nice might stacking. Offers alot of utility.

PVE/Dungeons The Kit builds deliver a lot of dps and conditions, but when build for power, they tend to hamper others a lot by stacking empty conditions.
WVW: As seem in a large discussion lately Light and Blast combo’s tend to make life hard for Grenadier Engineers, as they tend to suicide on greande attacks. Dropping the falmethrower and the grenade kit, makes them viable , but not very special.

Thief: good dps, mainly required in Arah for stealth.

PVE/Dungeons Always appreciated for the highest short term burst dmg vs single target the Thief is still very much alive in PvE and Dungeons. also their ability to produce blasts and AoE stalth makes them a valuable asset in a lot of dungeon paths.
WvW While not adept at zerging due to the fact most damage is limited to low amounts of targets It’s probably the most dangerous enemy 1vs1, As a DPS AND As Full conditions build still dreaded in roaming parties.

Ele: Top tier dps with huge might stacking and fury. Also IB.

PvE Damage output is -Unmatched- by any class, While FGS has been nerfed It is still capable of delivering more DPS then any other character Wile not having to commit to 1 or 2 targets, also unmatched in healing or any other support, It’s only weakness still lies in the fact it is SQUISHY, celestial armor tends to reduc this, but it will deteriorate DPS, so Zerk stays preferable.
WvW While WvW is a place where ELE’s survive,,the DPS is either the same, leaving and Ele in the open no more then a rallybot OR people go clerics of celestial to provide people with very powerful Aoe support spells.

Mesmer: Low tier dps, not needed much. Offers not much more than other classes.

PvE/Dungeons While Not having the highest DPS , phantasm builds can still be very powerful in dungeons, their support abilities (feedback, timewarp) and the ability to give a short AOE invisibilities makes them a poor man’s thief replacement. Very circumstantial , but generally not a big problem to take along. Biggest problem still is the lack of mobility,.
WvW very usefull in wvw due to the Invisibility and timewarp, adding to the DPS of zergs when well used by copmmanders, Not as powerfull in the zerg though, and surely no melee applications. As a Full conditions build very feared in roaming parties.

Necro: Doesnt offer much. Can give nice aoe dps with wells, but CD making it low tier.

PvE/Dungeons, While not seen as supportive, Necro can still do good damage in dungeons, on par with rangers and mesmers or higher when using a dedicated build with well support, As A DPS character it is powerfull but it is hampered by the lack of a decent melee weapons, Dagger has been improvbed to hit 2 targets now, which does double outgoing dps vs multiple targets compared to a year ago
WvW, As a support character Necro can be influential on the MELEE battlefield, staying alive as long as guardians and warriors. running as a PBAOE it can be most dangerous and assist the zerg in ways most people just not thing about. As a Full conditions build still feared in roaming parties.

In PvE all is viable

In Dungeons warrior, guardian, ele and thief are most viable

In WvW all have roles….IMHO mesmer has the short stick on loot…

Still happy on my i7 3930K @3.8, 2x GTX 780. (32Gb RAM)(256Gb SSD (system), 250Gb10krpm HDD (swaps/user), RAID 0 dual 1Tb 7200rpm set(data), backup drive 4 Tb

I run 2 screens 1 for gaming (1980*1200) 1 for the rest 1920*1080… windowed fullscreen, max settings, supersampling, the works…

Framerates can be as high as 220+ when I’m in a near empty map but when a lot of spawns appear it will drop to 120-140, when players appear it will stall and nosedive.
35-65 in LA, at Maw 2 days ago I saw the maw being wasted in a few seconds and my FPS was at 8-16, same yesterday at Fire Elemental, WvW is generally better ranging from 45-65 running with the zergto 16-24 in blob vs blob fights….
Generally when I see less then 30 FPS It’s a sign another thread is busy or hanging (had skype crash on me recently) Or I just need to reboot my PC again (it’s on mostly 24/7, with screens off and power savings for the GPU’s, the CPU has plenty of work when not gaming… During gaming other work is suspended, and my rig has 40-60% CPU available most of the time.)

Only thing I need to remember is to lower reflections from all to 1 lower (terrain & sky?) when @ tequatl, else it sometimes locks up, dunno why….

Win 7 Ultimate (PCI-E 16 v3.0 enabled)

Oshelotae.4176:

Ah i see pax thanks for posting that as i didnt know there we so many. Despite having this game for a long time i havent been able to play it due to worldy duties. So for my Warrior would i go a build that has condition damage?

Like i said for my guardian i was thinking of doing it more for RP reasons so i wanted to do a sword/shield type guardian like logan thackeray. Any advice on that and the above warrior question?

I thing I forgot to mention Is the fact you do not damage items or objects with conditions…: You can kick or stick an armored door with a dagger and it takes damage , but if you set it on fire nothing happens.

For Warrior:

I play a S/S & LB hybrid warrior and I like it, it’s definatley not meta, but it works, at least for me.

My Warrior has 2 armors which I exchange to make myself more or less tanky at a cost of power:
1 Rabid, (CONDITION DMG./precision/toughness) with runes of strength
1 Sinister, (CONDITION DMG./precision/power)with runes of strength

It has Rampagers weapons (with Sigil of Strength, fill the other slot to your liking), and Sinister trinkets for as far as I could get them, the trinkets used to be Rampagers (PRECISION/condition dmg/power), but since the last few stories in silverwastes we got acces to sinister gear, whoich allows for more condition dmg

depending on how and where I run it I use the following build
?/6(III,VIII,XIII)/?/?/?
Variants are:
6(V,III,XI/XIII))/6(III,VIII,XIII)/0/0/2(III) for a more damage oriented build
2/6(III,VIII,XIII)/3(V)/0/3(III) for a general purpose build focused on durability
2/6(III,VIII,XIII)/0/4(V,VIII)/2(III)) for a general purpose/support build
0/6(III,VIII,XIII)/5(II,IX)/0/3(III) for a tanky build (mostly usefull when running Full Rabid)

Skills :
6: Healing signet
7,8,9, For Great Justice and a choice of Banner of STRENGTH! Signet of Might, Signet of the Dolyak, Balanced stance, Shake it Off
10 (Solo: signet of rage, when group Warbanner, unless you do content where it’s not very usefull (dungeons?))

For the idea you’ll get ~1240 condition dmg, ~2000 (1800-2250) power,
You will have no problem getting ~10-15 might (350-525 power AND condition dmg) (22-23 is possible SOLO when you have adrenaline (start LB: F1, 3, Banner,pick-up banner, 5, For Great Justice,Signet of Rage: 17 might) sigil of strength will add some more)
Your banner of strength will add up (170 power AND condition dmg)

And longbow can be very nice to start with in a fight as it will give a long burn , immo and might… If you are not stacking might this fanatically you could also use your firefiels with sword 2 to gain armor of fire for some extra burning duration….
So on average you will have 1850 condition damage and 2650 power, and while sword autoattacks do not scale very well with power this still allows for interesting abilities. Final trusts of 8-12 k are not uncommon and the second skill under impale can still do 3-5k dmg if you time ok, you will need the timeing as the torment is very usefull…

Just as a remark, you’ll be effective vs high armor targets, but in case you think you will outdamage your companions, I need to dissapoint you. DOT is not powerfull enough to really have a big effect in dungeons and PvE, due to the fact you ‘ll need time to apply your condition stacks… And when running with zerk friends there just isn’t any…

When I’m doing dungeons I usually go full Sinister with the support build, for Perma banner (well recharge will be 96 secs, up time 90… buff lasting 5 secs) and empower allies, While I’m not a pug carrier (AoE Might stacking Greatsword Warrior) I can still contribute 320 power and 170 condition dmage to the whole team. and maintain myself very well….

there are more combo’s to be made with the stat points above but ?/6/?/?/? will be base for nearly anything.

For food I tend to switch between sharpening stones (more power) and tuning crystals (more condition dmg) (or toxic variants (adding a bit of condition duration as well) AND +40% condition duration food (rare Veggi Pizza of Cactus fruit salad for example.) when needing pure dps I can take truffle steak(100pwr,70 prc), or fire flank steak(100 pwr/70 condition dmg)

Just look into it. I am not saying it will be better then a pure conditions warrior, I will just say it is more versatile then a pure conditions warrior.

there are more spinoffs but as the main traits are bound to offhand weapons and no warhorn or shield… you are bound to S/S or S/A often… and interesting variety would be axe offhand, for a very fast Adrenaline stacking attack… You’d lose a condition completely though AND a block. The criple you’ll get in return isn’t that interesting as sword has 2 on mainhand. Mace could give you a knockdown and a 10 vunerability attack… allowing for 10 seconds of more dps. and a 2 sec disable.

Oshelotae.4176:

I guess what i mean by bleeds would be most similar to poison where the damage ticks over time and you apply stacks to get it going. That or you reapply the bleed to keep the damage going. I guess you could say something like burn damage where its a DOT. I hope that helps and maybe explains a bit more of what im looking for.

Yes poison does a fixed amount of damage over time and reduces the effectiveness of healing. it is probably with weakness one of the most overlooked things in this game IMO.

For a complete list of conditions see the post above the above post .
Some conditions are meant to do damage, some are more supporting or damage negating. Conditions are “Armor Ignoring” (they will always do the same damage solely based on (modified) condition dmg, not being reduced by anything) Conditions can be cleared. (condition removal can be timewise, recducing a -ge of the time or complete using a condition removal skill ) Completely removed conditions need tro be reapplied for further damage, so if you stack 25 blleds on someone and he clears it you start with 0 stacks again.
There are traits (with most proffesions) which apply Conditions on Critical Hits (crit), as this is managed by precision precision is always handy as a stat on armor or weapons, 33-50 should be a minimum if it’s needed fora build, more is a plus, but difficult unless precision is your main stat, which will lower you maximum condition damage…
Conditions can be reflected, in some cases conditions can be applied to self (see Necromancer mostly), conditions can be spread (see Necromancer & Sigil of generosity)

Conditions are using 2 stats being : (Condition Damage and Condition Duration)
- Condition Damage will buff the damage/tick
- Condition Duration will lengthen the time conditions are applied (normally max 100%, some cases a bit longer due to applied traits)

For condition builds people will run condition gear:
- interesting armor stats (while condition damage as main stat is preferred, it’s not obligatory )
(Rabid, Dire, Sinister, Rampager, Apothecary, Carrion)
Interesting weapon stats
(Rabid, Dire, Sinister, Rampager, Apothecary, Carrion, Givers)
Interesting sigils: Bursting (+6% condition damage), corruption (stacking up to 250 condition damage, (Sigil of Strength (% of applying might on Crit) Sigil of Torment, Sigil of Doom, Sigil of Earth, Sigil of Agony))
Interesting runes: Rune of the Afflicted, Rune of the Aristocrat, Rune of the Undead, Rune of The Krait, and quite a lot more…

Damaging conditions being
-Bleed (Stacking Damage (max 25) over Time)
-Torment (Stacking Damage (max 25) over Time)
-Poison (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)
-Burning (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)
-Terror (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time) short duration, necro only

Supporting conditions are (so damage
- Vulnerability (Stacking Modifier (max 25) over Time)
(^will allow DPS (non condition users to apply max 25% more damage)
- Cripple (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)
- Immobilize (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)
- Fear (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)
- Stun (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)
- Daze (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)

Damage negating
- Weakness (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)
- Chill (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time)
- Blinds (Duration Stacking max 5 over Time) ends after 1st attack

Generally all proffesions can apply conditions while 1 proffesion is seen as a bad character for damaging conditions (being the guardian.)

Stacks are capped, so 25 stacks is the MAXIMUM (!)
Also when doing world bosses and so on, leaving condition builds hampered when doing open world content and when playing with other condition users.

Still conditions can be great fun. Most versatile with conditions IMHO is necro, though I use condition and hybrid (DPS+DOT (= mix of damage and conditions)) on half of my 15 characters.

Conditions seem to be the PvP meta. But I rarely play PvP.
In WvW they can be powerfull but not in zerg combat (blob-fights), only when roaming (small group infiltrations), mostly because the zerg can clear so many conditions)

Main stat = (most armors at l80 have 3 stats: 1 major (or main stat) and 2 minor stats
DOT= Damage over time (condition damage)
DPS = Damage per second (generally used for direct damage)
Hybrid= (using a mix of DPS and DOT, often buffed by a lot of might)
tick= duration of time between condition damage applications

Oshelotae.4176:

So i was wondering if anyone knows a good melee class that can tank and do bleeds. I really like this type of gameplay i have tried warrior and guardian and i like them both but i cant decide. I would prefer not to dual wield swords but if i have to i can. Just wanting any advice from some players who have been around for awhile as i have a renewed interest in playing.

I will be playing primarily pve but may venture into pvp some.

Any advice would be wonderful and thanks again.

Are you looing for a condition (heavy) class? then S+S & LB warrior would be my first idea, but if you’re looking for conditions there are a lot of builds

Some melee:

Earth D/D Ele (bleeds/fire)
S+S/ LB Warrior (bleeds/torment/burning)

Ranged:
SB/ A+T ranger (some bleeds, poison, burning)
Stf/ Sc+T mesmer (PU) (well a lot)
Stf/ Sc+ D necro (bleeds, poison, torment, terror)
SB/ P+D Thief (bleeds/torment/poison)

Grenade/ gasgun engi (a lot)

Tankyness is mostly derived from gear, Rabid or Dire Armor, Trinkets and Weapons tend to make you tank fast.

If you alsso want some power you culd choose a sinister build in a heavy or medium class and add some rabidpieces on legs/chest/head armor, while not very tanky it will have some more sustain and a more balanced way of doing dmg…

Galen Grey.4709:

Its impressive how so many people make it sound like trait / npe changes turned this into a different game.

Well it isdn’;t a different game but it does take away 1 aspect of playing:

The fredom to experiment, even though all weapons and armor conmbo’s seem to pass, you cannot really experiment with it because you need to unlock every trait (which are important to the EXPERIENCE of a build) seperately, and the feeling is you are playing just an empty shell.. It’s nice to get trait points, and it’s nice you see you can unlock something in a lvl xx zone but I found most of the tings I’d appreciate are hidden well away in areas I cannot go when I have the required amount of trait points…

Also the fact the previous system was easy to unlock, as you got ALL minor traits for 10 silver, all master traits for 1 gold and the grandmaster traits for 2 golds, Just for the idea, when you did AC p1-3 at 35 you’d not only be lvl 36 but you’d also have enough gold enough to buy the adept and the master trait books… , well for that matter for the paths 2 and 3 added you’d have enough gold to buy new armor as well…. You could be lvl 40 with master traits available, new armor and major runes… in a few hours after you became lvl 35… and think about your builds…

Now you’re stuggling and you’ll get a trait for AC story.

The fact you started at lvl 20 with traits and got master traits at level 40 and grandmaster traits at lvl 60 was way more open and free, not to mention more player friendly and cheap. I want to experience the world at my pace and I do not prefer forcefed content just because the developers think it’s nice you vistit a sunken boat somewhere to get something… or do ALL story dungeons (AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN, I have 15 characters 5 from past patch and I’ll be honest NONE of those will EVER have a complete trait set, If they’d revert the system I’d run to the trainer and get my adept , master and grandmaster trait books for all 5.

The other 10 have all skills, luckily they also comprise all the proffesions I like playing (I do not have an engi) so if I need to test something I often try it one of those beforehand before spending all cash for the newer alt….. And for skill points I just saw I have abouty a 100 skill scroll lying around, buying them is only bottlencked by a rediculous amount of gold. which hampers gameplay for starters, and discourages it for veterans…

As you can see I’m:
No fan of the trait system…

Well I leveled 5 characters now since the introduction of the NPE, I noticed a couple of things:

1) the levelling has increased in speed,
2) the experience is not as challenging as it used to be (which was just a little)
3) drops have improved, you do not have to buy stuff, and it no longer allws for personal thinking.
4) even though a lot of things are explained, the world became less interesting with:
-the removal of POI’s, Vistas, Skill challenges BLTP in 1-15 area’s. If you know what they are why not leave them the way they used to be before…. I found skill challenges the most enervating thing the first 2 or 3 characters when levelling up..
-the levelboundness of the personal story
-the changes in the personal story and the deterioration of the storyline
-the fact you do not have acces to usefull traits even though you have enough trait points, either due to lack of funds, or due to the fact some are hidden behind things which require ‘achievements’ unfit for your characters level
-the fact the traits are buyable (but no longer for 3 gold 10) for 100+ gold
-the fact the things mentioned above will lead to people just unlocking traits for 1 build, and 1 build only. dissalowing the freedom to experiment…

I notice these things because I’m interested in a new build I’ll just buy neccesary traits, which really annoys me each time I do so, or do not bother and think of a general build and have the feeling the game is not allowing me to improve on it by simple experimentation…

This also means I make a build and if it’s not interesting I park it, This isn’t a problem when having 5 or 15 characters, but it IS when you have only 1 or a few.

In the end I think the NPE was a bloodletting for the game, in versatility and in entertainment value, hampering 100% of the player base.

The hearts are just an introduction to mechanics and sometimes lore (like a lot of other content, being dungeons, skillpoints (at least sometimes).

The grave of Gwen is such a thing. sometimes it is really worth finding the reasons why the grave of Gwen is important for gw2, or The Temple of Ages… just to give 2 minor examples…

Just for the record (doubt many will know) but Prof Yakkington and nicholas Sandford are burried quite close to Gwen & Logan ….

The content is also there to keep you bound at areas for a few minutes giving a bigger chance to notice parts of the living world… If you ignore both then nothing wil happen ingame… mostly because you do not get to see anything… I still find new missions and things in the LS… (5500 hours, 14 lvl 80s, 8 times map completion.)

And some people just do not like MMO’s and RPG’s It isn’t that rare, I hate FPS-es, luckily we are all unique…

No I prefer it stays the way it is. I love my hand operated MG

Also why change things if they work okay???

you can earn 180 tokens for a full run (120 for TA, 240 for Arah) making your loss about 6 full runs, or 18-19 dungeon paths.

And for Karma Armor the same rule applies as for WvW Armor: YOU CANNOT SALVAGE IT! (So runes are not retrievable!)

While I feel your pain there is nothing I can do about it. next time double check….

redo the dungeon a few times?

All armors are lsited in a row, grouped by armor stats (soldiers, etc) then by armor type (heavy , medium , light)

If you bought stats which are non craftable, I’d suggest you salbvage them with a expensive kit /BLSK in the hope you get the insignia’s which tend tro fetch 1-1.5 gold.
Else you could salvage them for ecto’s or forge them (<- last one is possible and not wise)

Also I’d suggest if you salvaged your previous armor before you just use it for now. (even rabid will have armor value) and jsut learn form your experience, I think everytbody in gw2 bought a wrong item before, (me I bought a lvl 70 exotic set in wvw before, wich was in the time there were no boxes yet giving you 250 wvw bages each… I must admit I cursed a few times, and while wanting to salvage them I noticed you cannot, which allowed for another few curses… Luckily you CAN salvage dungeon armor.

Well for sylvari-like organic armors there are actually 12 sets, 3 of which are bound to TA dungeons and not racial bound.
If all people would be walking in the pain kitten,t3 set it would get quite boring, there is already a problem some sylvari-armors (not) accepting gloves/shoulders (mostly orchid) and refusing them due to clipping issues

And I do not mind the t3 being a bit more expensive, it will be a bit less used. Instead of 1 days of dungeons, it costs 10 days of dungeons. Well.. If you really want it it’s not a problem. As we only want the skins nowadays, you purchase them, and sell them back again for a slight refund, For t3 your’ll get ~8,5 gold back or so, in the end costing about 110 gold.

I noticed I prefer t2 and t3 mix generally above full t3. But everyone has wishes.

I’d always prefer chests above seperate drops, even though I have 146+ slot son most characters It’s annoying to stop and use my copperfed salvage-o-matic each time I finish a dungeons/ SW cycle/ whatever.

Chests are good because you’ll have the time to open them at leisure. and they save SPACE

even when you’re talking about the floating thingies in the right bottom of your screen, it still saves space, you can just leave them. There is no need to open them, untill you’re ready.

Well Kaineng wasn’t too nice, BUT I liked the monastary Shing Jea and I liked the part below Kaineng, where the Luxons and the Kurzicks waged war, continously. It was alive.

Also loved the story, the big enemy (Shiro) and the Jade Sea (Luxon area) as a whole, it was beautiful.
I liked the Kurzick area as well it was full of things which were nice, The hunt for the Black Moa included…

My dream feture pack would be:

- Conditions will affect objects
- Conditions will be reworked so the damage output is higher then DPS, together with the ramp up time this would be good.
- Condition caps are based on the level of the creature you’re fighting, 25 for basic, 40 for veteran, 50 for eleite, 100 for champion, 250 for legendary.
- Overflowing condition dmg will damage anyways.. I’d accept armor having influence on it.
- Introduction of Guild Halls
- Precursor crafting
- New dungeons @ lvl 80 1 for 8 persons, 1 for 12 persons with decent rewards)
- Several new lvl 80 areas
- New race(s), and new leveling story(s) and corresponding maps 0-15, 15-25, 25-40, new hearts, vistas and skillpoints.
- New proffesions
- New weapons.

- Upscale of all loot by 1 level, so where you’d now get crap, you’ll get better loot instead fo rare’s exotics, instead of whites blues, and so on. (well ascended was introduced, so lets actually accept: grey = only for event grinders & 24 hr farmers) this could be balance by giving people a warning the’ve been farming to long and drops will go down to the original level.

- I want all semi permanent and permanent currency to have a place either in the wallet or in the bank.
- An idea what there will be in the future. (say a roadmap , but without a timeline.)

-No equipment with better stats than ascended / legendary equipment (ever)

Some attacks will damage 1 target (max 400 retal) scepter/axe autoattacks
Some attacks will damage 2 targets (max 800 retal) thieve/necro daggers 180 melee
some attacks will damage 3 targets (max 1200 retal) swords/fireballs
Some attacks will damage 5 targets (2000 retal) marks
a few attacks hit 10-15 targets (4000-6000 retal) grenades….

looking over time:
Lava font can hit 5 procs * 5 targets 25 (10000 retal)
Symbols can hit 6 procs* 5 targets… 30 (12000 retal)
Wells can hit 7 procs * 5 targets 35 targets (14000 retal)
Rapid fire 10 procs with piercing arrows can hit up to 50 targets, (20000 retal)
Meteor shower 24 meteors with 3 hits each can hit up to 72 targets. (28800 retal)…
5 times a grenade skill will hit a max of 75 targets (30000 retal)…

Yes when you’re commited you are commited…. I cannot stop my Meteor shower, same as you cannot stop the grenades flying, I however have a nice telegraph lasting 3.5 seconds… Symbols and blass will always be there and it should not be changed, imagine the ele meta…. 20 ele’s on the wall and NOTHING you can o to stop it…. it will be Tha Age Of Armageddon…

Still If I’m right grenades can be reflected as well… so your friendly zerg will take some more walls of reflection, or the mesmer reflect, You can say well I can see them better, in which cas I’d say a target will show you a general idea of boons.

SilverWF.4789:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

SilverWF.4789:

Before that (long time ago) we have Omnomberry food, with 66% on crit to steal health.
And it was without cooldown. So, you was able to high up your crit rate and steal health nearly every 2nd hit and it was a huge compensation against retaliation. Not 100% but really huge.
But then they fixed that food and it has 2 sec cooldown. But they are not fixed Retaliation!
Give us our heal-on-hit food back! That trait “heal if kit equipped” or 150 HP/sec this is just a spit on the face!

Or remove AOE-Retaliation from combo-effects.

It has a 1 second cooldown. The reason why is that spammable skills that hit dozens of times per second, or for example engie FT, you could keep yourself at full health permanently. Working as intended.

Before it was 2 sec. Anyway, 1 sec cooldown – too many. Because Retaliation do NOT have any cooldowns and with #1 of FT or with any of grenade kit skills you are literally killing yourself in a few seconds.
“working as intended” was before, when Omnomberry food was without cooldowns. Even in this case you wasn’t “at full HP”. Your crit.rate somewhere at 70-80%, also food has a 66% chance to steal life. Basically, there is every 2nd hit with life steal.
Retaliation hits you at the EVERY hit: crit or not, or even glanced – doesn’t matter.

So, there is a few options to fix retaliation:
1. Internal cooldown 1 sec for the same target. This will be best solution.

No. It will destroy retaliation as a condition. The only proffession which seems affected it grenadier engineer. Instead of changing this and needing to rework 5 classese just change grenades as a concept

2. Retaliation will be affected by overall armor and buffs (Protection and anything else)

Conditions ignore armor, just think what would happen if retaliation would be procced as a normal attack between 2 characters both with retaliation, The one with lowest health would insta die.
(as the attacks would retal 400, seen as an attack: proccing retal again, again, and again till 1 goes down….)

3. Retaliation will be scaled from Condition damage, not from Power

You can trait guardian that way (It returns quite a bit more dmg… as conditionscaling is different.)

4. Retaliation will return 10% of incoming damage (after armor and damage reduction buffs), not fix value.

OP. (when you throw a meteor shower and it procs 72 times for ~6k dmg……) 400 retal is good.

5. Remove AOE-Retaliation (and/or Light aura) from Light field+Blast finisher combo. This combo will give now Protection. AOE retaliation will still exist on skills only.

Retaliation isn’t the problem, it’s the amount of triggers on the grenade skill…

What you prefer?

Adding #6: Reduce the amount of grenades and so create les procs. 1 grenade per skill doing double dmg, with grenadier adding +50% dmg instead of 2 grenades base and 3 with grenadier.

Adding #7: Have throw grenades as a skill proc only once or twice for each retaliation carrying target per throw instead of 3 max…. Also reducing the amout of procs,

IMHO
I still don’t know for sure BUT: the 400 damage in 5 trows times 3 procs would result in 6kdmg , engineer being middlescaled in life should have ~16k health. so you’d lose only 37% of your health when attacking 1 target with 5 repeating attacks, which seems resonable…

Of course if you attack a group this would be multiplied by 5! Hence causing problems.., maybe grenades should proc less targets, maybe 2-3 targets per grenade, instead of 5??

BUT as a last question to the OP: I understand your problems with retaliation, but should 5 proffessions be rewritten and/or rebalanced? Or should the grenade skill be rewritten & rebalanced, or should grenades stay as they are now (which is quite strong if not one of the most powerfull skills vs groups) and should you accept the drawbacks of a skill which can give conditions and damage to 15 people at the same time? There is only a few skills which can tag as much targets, being 5 grenade skills….The end.

I used t play 8 hours a day in the first year,

Well it isn’t that no-life no more, nowadays I’m 3-5 hours day online, tending to my guild(s) where I’m co-leader or officer, I do my daily AC run, cof 1(+2), the daily (fastest way possible) and some LS content (atm 30 min silverwastes, of just something else) If I’ve got time I do a Fractals run, do some other dungeons (TA, CoE,SE) or help someone who’s asking for help in map chat or guild chat.

IF nothing happens I’m gone in 1 hour if soem things arise and my wvw guild calls me I can be up till very late…

5500 hours on my characters combined, but I deleted 2 a while ago and tbh I think my total decreased a little.

Rest in pieces,

You will be missed; along with the Adept, Master and Grandmaster compendium, old leveling system, TA FW/UP … LS Season1, Individual Servers (at least the server based cities)

well episode 6 is nice for the BL key… if you deduct it from the price it’s considerably cheaper

Well tbh not cheaper, just the return seems bigger.

It is a relatively minor adjustment and it would greatly improve the QoL regarding these potions.

My opinions:
Scholar is perfect for ranged combat, staff Ele’s and GS/staff mesmers will benefit a lot, when running axe your necro could benefit as well, BUT when fighting close range, (D/D ele, D/D necro, sword mesmer) it takes 1 hit to get you below the 90% health and lose the bonus which scholar runes have… for necro I’d think about strength (if so take a sigil of strength as well, or blood is power.)
This leaves the question unanswered.

I’m running strength on all my hybrid (sinister-based) and all melee(zerk-based) fighters. During stacking you normally get might. This is ideal for dungeon runs.

I’m still using scholar on my ele, my LB ranger (I also still have a set om my tanky guardian, (he has an old zerk set, it’s a leftover from a n old meta from before the strength update.)) This is better for places where stacking isn’t an issue… more casual dungeons, wvw and pve come to mind.

BUT FOR YOUR QUESTION:

If you have 1 set of armor for all 3 classes (and only choice between Strength and Scholar): I’d take runes of the Scholar

Else you’ll need a way to keep might up at all times, e.g. dungeon stack and it isn’t that difficult:
with ele,(fire field & acrane wave/brilliance, or another blast?), but it tends to be more of an issue with mesmer (I’m not 100 % familiar with shatter and phantasm as I mostly use PU condi). Necro’s can have blood is power, might on deathshorud #1 if traited. Of course you could solve everything with a sigil of strength…
AS A SECOND THOUGHT: I’d even consider runes of the pack and ruby orbs…. yes, really.

Total bonuses from
Scholar 175 power, 100 ferocity , +10% while health is above 90%
Strength 175 power, +45% might duration, +5% while under might

Other options:
(Ranger: 175 Precision, 100 ferocity, +7% dmg having an elemental, minion, illusion (,mini?))
(Pack: 175 power, 125 precision, +30% swiftness duration, 25% to give (might, fury and swiftness (10s)) when struck (20s cd)) (Just think about this one!)
(Ruby Orbs: 120 power, 84 precision 84 ferocity)

-editted to change rune suggestion. I’d consider pack over ranger, as ranger is precision based.- Come to think about it, Rune of the eagle…. infiltration, and ogre are always interesting

Kruhljak.2705:

Doesn’t help that a large number (if not the majority) of so-called “Elite” skills don’t even work under water.

I agree…
But often it tends to be a complete mystery why… The flesh golem is not dfor underwater, all other minions DO function underwater…

I loved the pre searing,I still have 1 of my characters paerked there, a LDOA for those who played it. I used it to help people level and tag tean the char gate and beyond…

Come to think of it It should have some mini’s by now

I found the original levelling eperience just right, I like the change they made to the drops yes it’s nice. But I REALLY hate the fact everything had to be slowed. I miss traits at lvl 20 I miss about everything except for the weapons unlock which was probably usefull change…

The fact you need to be looking for things is something which is part of a rpg, just pointing everything out makes it less interesting, because it will make you do what the developer wants, not leave the player to experiment and feel immersed and at the end rewarded when they made an actual choice/solution themselves.

-edit-
In the end come to think of it: The idea you thought of it by yourself is the summum the developer could reach

I’ve spend 6000 hours and I’m still finding new stuff.

I have 15 characters.and I have my routines now (AC full, Cof) 1,2 each day, daily, and some exploring (say one area on an alt which hasn’t got full map yet. )

I’ve been there and done that 8 times now, I can be helpfull to others, I do not even ask money. People appreciate it, I’ve become Officer in one guild and Co-leader in another. I’ve been Officer in more guilds, but left some. I can appreciate a lot, I do not have so many goals now, I bought most dyes, have 2 legendaries, and 2 times full ascended for my main, ascended weapons for 10 of the 15 and ascended trinkets on 14 of the 15. I am still not lvl 50 fractals, I’m 35 and it’s good, most people who I play with now prefer 11-39 anyways, Sometimes I do a lvl 39 and get another level.

I spend way to much on this game and I’m happy anyways. I do not feel commited other then the fact I have no longer an active account on some of the other games I used to play before. (meaning I’ve not logged into some for over 2 years now. )
Those games are open for my return, and this one will be as well should I care to go somewhere else for a while.

It was the best 75 euro’s (pre-order) since the 5 euro’s I payed for gw1 about 5 yrs ago (bought gw1 from a discount rack and managed to get the price down another 2 and a half euro’s) I played gw1 for 2 years in a row; loving every moment as well, I was more immersed in gw1, and I have very good memories regarding many other games I played before.

While gw2 is not as immersive as gw1, the plot is weaker, the game itself is good, and it’s just different to find content in the end. There wil be more dungeons, there will be end game content, but at the moment we are not at the point where people should be begging for it, all content is playable.It used to be balanced better before the NPE, but it doesn’tr matter… at least not for me.

I do think if you had more then 60 hours of fun form this game it shouldbe worth the 1 euro/hour you spend, There are few things so cheap… for me with 6000 hours the eurocent I played per hour is just a minor expense. I payed more for convenience and some armors. I’m past that point atm, noticing I have done much if not all. I make about 70-100 gold each week. and I have not many things I can spend it on anymore, so I’m buying the missing dyes, (just need some which are about 8-25 gold, got all expensive ones and all cheap ones. ) I could be saving up for half a year and buy legendaries, but I do not care too much about them. It’s not a goal.

If I wanted to grind I could get myself ascended armor of 14 characters, and legendaries, but why would I need to? I prefer leading Guild missions on one of my guilds, doing my AC paths and Cof.
I experiment with builds, I’ve seen every class in zerk, doing “fast runs.” I do not care about it anymore, I just do runs, and one day I have agroup of 4 below lvl 80s in AC next day I have 4 other ppl with 10000+ AP. I run zerk on some characters, but also run a lot of “strange stats” , I have characters with dedicated dungeon weapons (an ele, a warrior and a necro, I’m waiting but will buy an additional set for a guardian as well.
Some strange combos:
cleric necro,
nomad/clerics guardian
sinister necro / ranger / warrior
rabid ranger/mesmer/thief,
zealot warrior/guardian/elementalist
celestial elementalist
others pass If I look through armors,

My 14 lvl 80’s have 30+ armors and sometimes it’s a failure, and I salvage it again, but I always find something new, fresh and interesting… It keeps it alive, just doing the same things over and over shows narrowmindedness in the experience people seek: I sometimes notice it while doing my almost madatory AC and CoF, and I break the chain and go TA and SE, or do a few world bosses, some JP’s or something else. I have helped people new to the game, and introduced and held their hands for a while just to do other things.

IMHO , People want fun, but some have idea’s forced upon them: their idea of fun is not created by themselves but by others forcing “the meta”down others throats, creating stress, toxic environments, making rules for modes of gameplay, because others think they’ll have fun that way, while the only rule should be : “You should be having fun, otherwise you should find something else you do like, either within or outside the game.” the game would die if everybody had to do what I like, Because it’s what I like, and it could have overlap with what you like but it’s not the same, we are not the same, well we’re both human, yes, but there ends the similarity.

IMHO If you pay 60 euro’s and have 12 hours of fun it’s about the price of a cinema ticket, When you play 60 hours about the price of a rented or PayPerView film, and when you played 6000 hours and payed 0.01 euro well… It has been an very good deal.

well if you are really fanatic you could get 5+ fold… with an xp booster (50%), laureate xp booster (30%), celebration booster (100%) and pumpking thingy (30%) and 30% MF food, banner (10/15%) and guild bonus (10%)…

^ love your comment, was actually grinning

Structurally unstable computers and laptops tend to have 1 or more faulty memory modules.

it’s a well known problem… And has been since the high density RAM (DDR,DDR2,DDR3 and on) appeared. Only chance to test it is to run a memory tester for an extended period, (say 3 hours min, when in doubt 12 or even 24 hrs), and see if you experience bit errors.

It can be caused by static elcetricity, static discharge, or just a bad chip. tests are being done very quick and sometimes even only 1 or a few per batch. Some companies tend to have more problems, OC-ing tends to worsen these errors (A LOT!)

The fact you are using AV will cause your performance to deteriorate, especially during gameplay, Gw2 uses 3-4 threads on my pc, I expect one of those is a game related network thread.
I have 12 threads available on 6 cores, which is a luxury.

You say you have 2 cores and this could mean 2 or 4 threads, It would also mean you are sharing limited resources while a lot of things are happening: You run your OS, AV, GW2, background services all on 2 cores…

I’d could advise you to remove your AV during gameplay, but I will not It will boost performance with 10-20% though on a light platform, mostly because it will reduce memory load, cpu load and will require less thread swapping.

If you are playing on an integrated GPU (mostly intel HD) your graphics will be lower performance, If you have a dedicated GPU part of your RAM could be used for graphics when having 4 Gb it could lead to frequent caching on fixed drives (= slower performance).

Windows tends to cache data before sending it, it tends to improve bandwith. It is not so perfect for gaming though. wireless is severely hampered by thefact each channel can only have 1 broadcast in transmitter range reach , else information can be corrupted and rejected, requiring additioal communication and a re-sent of the packets lost (tends to cause problems in appatment buildings, dorms, and other places with a lot of wireless communication.) —> use a wire.

^ Sceptic

I would love more toys, I like some of the suggestions:
An Oakheart for my sylvari or
A Huge PINK Moa (for my mesmer) would be nice
(actually I would love the moa to be color selectable, we could hold moa races =D ), but It would need to be gigantic for my max-size charrs & norns.

Also I’d like:
- A skritt build carrying chair/throne carried around by several Skritt
Features: The skritt dropping you (destoying the chair and grabbing instruments and playing a selectable song, or doing acrobatics and salvaging the sticks and stuff and rebruilding it “skritt-way” when done…. I love skritt being themselves.
A Charr monocycle,
Features: doing burnouts/wheelies, (transforming into a helicopter (fixed position just up and down))
A golem (bigger then Taimi’s’s) with an umbrella and a lounge bar complete with mixin cup and staw dispenser…. I do not mind it falling apart
Features: Bar-golem mixing drinks, messing up, Ice dispenser going haywire, skritt popping from fridge?
A bone charriot pulled by enslaved risen knights.
Features: Risen charriot changing to prison or knights playing xylophone on the chariot, whole charriot becoming animated…
A personal customizable (former siege) devourer…..
Features: Siege devourer doing a nice dance, shooting fireworks, doing tricks
A Dolyak companion (not for riding, see Prof. Yakkington)
Features: Dolyak just being nice, cuddling, bowing, and being very wise….. still loving red-irises
or just
A “Taxi-Tron” (Hobo-Tron with a seat)
Features: Hobo-Tron just being it’s annoying self asking fot travel fare, with 10 new nag lines.

Just to give an overview of some things I’d like. I’d love them all, and I’d like them for some additional entertainment purposes. They would definately be more fun then a box of fun. It would be nice for RP-ers and It should stay just for fun. But I doubt they’ll ever exist…

I’m against speed boost AND/OR combat skills. And I do not mind roleplaying options. Only small mounts should be capable of jumping, I would not understand a person being carried up jumping puzzles by skritt. No matter how many shinies the person in question promised.

Just for the record I’m against mounts for the sole purpose of speed boosts and combat skills no matter how beautiful they might get. There are plenty of games having them and this one not having them sets it apart as well.
As we’ll get into other regions I HOPE to see more waypoints. I would hate to see mounts as an requirement to travel. I also do not understand why mounts need to be something more then gimmicks…or toys… or a role play instrument….

I’ll be brief I’ve no real experience in PvP

Zerk is nice, It is perfect if you know your dungeons and in pve.

BUT, I also use other builds then “META” just beause i like them

Generally you can sift armor in 5 classes

Set 1 Full DPS (generally melee)
(Zerk/A-Sin/Zealot)
PVE/Dungeons(Speed)
(-PvE Meta- DPS Warrior, DPS Guard,DPS Ranger and so on)

Set 2 Damage, Tanky (mixed)
(Knights/Soldiers/Sentinels)
PVE/world bosses/WVW (Zerg)
(well: about any toughness carrying dps build)

Set 3 Damage Support (ranged)
(Celestial/Clerics)
PVE/Dungeons(Casual))/WVW (Zerg)/world bosses
(Celestial ELE, Clerics Transfusion Necro, Clerics support Guard , Clerics Shout heal warrior)

Set 4 Hybrid (mixed)
(Carrion/Sinister/Rampager)
for Pve(niche)/Dungeons (Niche/Casual), WvW(roaming/zerg(niche))
(SS Hybrid warrior, Hybrid Necro, and so on)

Set 5 Condition (mixed, mostly ranged)
(Dire/Rabid)
WVW (roaming/solo), PvE(niche) (terrormancer, PU condimesmer, condi thief, condi ranger condi warior)

(Set 6 Niche (anything))
(Shamans, Apothecary, Magi, Nomad)
Special builds/Troll builds (condi transfusion necro or nomads guard healtank)

Usage of Sets
Set 1 is a PvE and Dungeon basic. They can be a bit more tricky to play but are easy to grasp.
Sets 2 and 3 are very accessible and can be interesting to play without having to make much adjustments shifting between pve and wvw They tend to be All-Purpose
Sets 4 and 5 are accesible and have a big problem with condition caps (and/or removal) making them not usefull for large group play, but quite powerfull in small scale engagements
Set 6 are mostly fun build, troll builds and extreme niche builds. They are circumstantial at best though you can have a ball while playing them. They need a well thought out build and sometimes will have less/no dps.

Requirements of game modes
For PVE builds tend to be more DPS (power/precision)
For world bosses builds tend to be more balanced, with focus on power
For (speed) dungeons builds are streamlined mostly DPS only (zerk/sin(/zealot))
For support more attention is given to (healing, power) and condi clean

For WvW (zerg) builds tend to be more tanky (toughness, power)
For WVW roaming builds tend to be conditions (condi dmg, toughness)
Wvw tends to need more condi removal.

As a final remark, a CELESTIAL build with DIVINITY runes has the most stat points. It is not viable to play though unless you utilize ALL stats….(or at least 6 of 7 stats) in all other cases other armor would be prefferable.

Builds mentioned are examples, not all possible builds there are more builds than an average person could try, but one tends to notic some traits are remarkably the same for proffessions no matter what build.

Lazuli.2098:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

…
Sigil of speed (swiftness on kill)
…

Thanks for such a well thought out and detailed post, but…

I play mostly open world pve and I love using the sigil of speed on the focus of one of my mesmers. I keep her in her melee gear (sword and focus) most of the time and kill most every mob in her way. After big fights she’s usually carrying 3 + min of swiftness. My main, a mesmer with superior traveler runes, seems so much slower in comparison.

And you’re right. I corrected it, hope you are satisfied with my additional comment.
I thought boons only stack for 5 or 10 times max though so 3 min could be a bit much?

Please make a difference and state if you mean GPU’s or CPU’s in relation to AMD.

I hate asura, because their attitude is revolting , so much even I deleted 2 lvl 80 asura when I noticed I had levelled them and had them parked afterwards, 1 became a mule for items I tought wouldn’t be usefull, and I deleted it when the character was full, It felt throwing away the rubbish, the asura included.

I dislike engineer to a point where I think the loss of the engineer proffession would be a good thing, I thought it would be awesome at launch, I prepared to level it and deleted it at level 25, a while later I though let’s try I have several l80 chars already, why not: It became lvl 50 and I deleted it, (around the battle for claw island -old style-), so I leveled an asura to lvl 80 a buit later on and I tried it. It didn’t click, so I tried other builds other setups, I bough a second armor, a third and eventuall a 4th , and then I deleted it after it just recieved the 2nd aniversary bonus. I played it less then 40 hours, in 2 years., I’m still in doubt if it was due to the fact it was and asura or because it was an engineer, but in any case I was glad to never ever have to watch the little chipmunk again… In the end Engineer never brought me a feel of satisfaction, it still feels clunky and dull.

It felt liberating there is something I don’t like in gw2.

I also do not like the build of Norn males, but I think it’s a generally carried opinion, and I dislike the fact there is no difference between male and female asura, I will not play it but it is still a point.

Got 14 lvl 80s and 1 lvl 50 all female except 1 Charr(necro) and 1 Sylvari(guard) :
I love:
5 sylvari (r,g,m,n,t) : I like, no love sylvari with 1 MAJOR exception: Trahearne
4 human (n,e,e,g) : Well I guess there have to be humans as well….
3 norn (w,w,r) : I like norns: they are BIG, me being 2m04 find it reassuring to look over others)
3 charr (w,n,r) : I think my charr are a reaction on the gw1 lore, I really loved Gwen as a character (imho the best worked out character in gw1 tbh), but I loved the ferocity of Charr as well. (and they kill burn and eat humans that’s good isn’kitten Well…. they are behaving atm, but still…)

And I love my:
- 3 warriors (n,n,c), (love all builds, & hate just playing meta, main is S+S/LB sinister hybrid)
- 3 rangers (s,n,c) (love alternate builds, play almost anything except spirits and trapper)
- 3 necro’s (h,c,s)(love alternate builds, condi and power, or both, have a support necro)
- 2 guardians (h,s) (prefer DPS, but my wvw heal tank works perfect if needed.)
- 2 elemenatlists (h,h)(All glass, all fun, 1 DPS, 1 support)
- 1 thief (s) (I experiment and like both DPS and Condi)
- 1 mesmer (s). (tried DPS: no fun, so It’s a PU Condi staff/scepter now. will try sinister.)

Tom Gore.4035:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

shouldn’t we be looking at the i5 5690 now at the moment? Thought the 5th generation was arriving already? Nice DDR 4 and support for new hardware?

Of course everything will be a bit more expensive though…

Well we’ll see. I bought my 3960 when it was a good moment to buy. even though the 4960 was already available (just 3oo euro’s more expensive for 100 Mhz gain at the time…)

Not until later in 2015. Also, DDR4 memory is horribly expensive compared to the relatively small performance boost. There is a reason gamers don’t overclock their memories much anymore. There is just no real benefit.

4960 costs around 300€, so did you get your 3960 (you mean 3570? because 3690 does not exist) free? If you did, it was certainly a good deal.

i7 3930K, 3960X and i7 4930K, 4960X used to be more expensive 2 yrs ago… i7 5930K(560euro), i7 5960X(~900-1000 euro….) are available now, so even the i7 4930K a (~450-550 euro) and i7 4960X (850 euro)is more cheap now

I bought my 3930K for 300 euro. It was on sale at the time. and I mean just the CPU…

-I corrected my post above, I fumbled the numbers, have been looking into a 5960X and 2011-v3 mainboard…. -

^

That’s the way I do it as well. Windowed fullscreen does tend to have some overhead. so you might lose 1-3 FPS

I’m just very greedy, I want LS3 AND an Expansion and it may be ingame, but i expect more then SW in 4 updates, I expect (Drytop + SW) *6, maybe even 8 in 1 update, a race, weapons, dungeons, events, hearts, vistas, JPs In effect I expect a 0-15, a 15-25 a 25-40, a 40-50, a 50-65 and a 65-80 and preferable 2 more 80 areas… 1 or 2 lvl 80 dungeons…

Would the kind devs pls consider making the extended potions of x-slaying account bound?

I have artificer unlocked on sveral casters, but I do need some of these potions as well on heavy classes, It’s a serious waste of money to have my warrior level up artificer so it can make potions.

I hope it’s doable, it would be a very tiny but very welcome change.

Thank you.

Essence Snow.3194:

Wrong section for this

That said I do not exactly agree with Pax’s comment “mid/high-end graphics card 770,970, or r9 280 <- is more important then your CPU”. Since you noted that you were interested in mmo performance…your cpu matters more imo. You could run this game perfectly fine on a 100 dollar gpu and an upgrade to 300 dollar one would not really add much at all. However the difference between kitten (really how does 50 dollars get filtered) cpu and a $250 cpu will be rather noticeable.

Edit…I would not recommend that pre-built with the a-10 linked for this.

True but video and cpu should be balanced, and from what I hear most peole have cpu power tro spare when running GW2

Small remark, It can be handy to have a DVD drive, but if your old PC has a SATA DVD, just remove it and build it in, it’s easy. should save you 15-25 euro

Well buy an :

- i5 (mid/high end (& preferably an unlocked one if you wanto to OC)) (4th gen)
mid/high-end graphics card 770,970, or r9 280 <- is more important then your CPU
- 8 Gb RAM do not waste money buying high performance RAM if you do not wish to OC your PC
- A decent (gaming/ enthousiast) mainboard (Audio and LAN should be included in the package) If you’re just going to run stock do not buy a set with special OC abilities. make sure you have the needed sata connectors, enough USB ports and so on.
- A decent CPU cooler.
- Buy a Solid State Drive (SSD) (pref 256Gb) and a good HDD (1 Tb should suffice)

If you buy a box make sure it has the right exterior connectors for audio, in a place you find easy to use. If you are placing your pc on top of your table, make sure the connections are on the botton, if you are putting it on the ground make sure you have then on top. If you put your pc on the ground make sure your PSU is cooling from the back, If it’s on the table it doesn’t matter too much. Buying and old box can be cheap but it is a shame to find you can only connect your USB 3.0 to the back just because there are no correct connectors on top…

Make sure you keep it clean. Dust causes errors and crashes due to dust bridges and will hinder the flow of air for cooling. the best 2 tools in the mechanical fitness of your pc are a can of compressed air and your vacuum cleaner.

Overclocking can provide some adiitional computing power, it is a trade though as your PC will use more power and the components will suffer in the long run. OC-ing voids warrantees. ALWAYS. You want to try it: NP, your gamble! OC-ing can destabilize systems and cause crashes, Also when buying and OC-ing a pc in winter, do not expect it to run as smooth in summer as ambient temperatures will rise and your PC will run hotter still! . A warmer computer will run SLOWER! we are at a time where your graphics card functions optimal at 80 C, and your processor as well.. you will need your cooling. more cooling tends to boost your performance.

If you gonna build yourself you should know you need
-Box
-Mainboard
-CPU
-cooler for CPU
-coolant paste(should be with you cooler, but custom tend to be better, use as little as possible but too little is fatal. This is what keeps you pc alive. Else ask an experienced friend.
-RAM
-GPU
-STORAGE (SSD/HDD)))
-connectors (should be delivered with your mainboard.)
- A philips screwdriver,
-a credit card/reduction card or whatever
- and some patience.

If you handled computer parts already you should be familiar with dangers of static discharge, so make sure you work grounded and be carefull. Most things are idiot proof…

Lastly prices vary, prices are coupled to the exchange rate with the dollar generally. I can give you details to a very nice set for 850 euro, but if the dollar becomes a bit higher , all of a sudden the set could costs you 30-40 euro’s extra.

edit: I forgot the most important part the PSU Without power you can have everything but it will never calculate. I have owned several PC’s before and in the past cases came with preinstalled PSU’s and they used to be powerfull enough, but it has been a while. Make sure If you buy a computer you buy a PSU with some watts to spare. OC-ing will raise watt usage (sometimes quite a lot) also if you want to put in some additional hardware it can be very nice to have a 100 wats to spare. never skimp on your PSU. try to get a certified one. If you never going to buy additional GPU’s never buy more then 100 wats too much. PSU’s tend to be fairly nicely priced untill 750-800 watts and I doubt you’ll need more. I myself running 2 GPU’s and a powerhungry mainboard and PSU needs 850-900 watts continously and I bought 1050 watt, just to make sure it will never be warm (PSU’s can run hot, especially if they need to use all the watts they were designed for… And It can be overloaded causing burnouts of parts and the PSU when not powerfull enough.) I have had 4 or 5 PC’s before and tend to salvage these things so I never buy new ones unless I know they will not handle the load I will use. It’s also the reason why I forgot to put it in.

Sauzo.6821:

Legendary hands down. You know that ascended weapons will be dated as soon as they push out the new tier and you will have to grind all over for the next weapon. With a legendary, sure the grind is more but once your done, you are set till you are done with the game.

I sincerely hope they’ll not bother with another tier of weapon. What would you want to grind for your new weapon? 800 T6 mats, 100 ecto, a gift of ascension and a vision crystal? for each weapon on your 4 alts? For another 5%? Just because exotic is no longer worth it being 11% behind the new rank?

Do you remember they nerfed all ingame dmg 5% in a patches a while ago, and in effect you are making ascendeds now where you could used an exotic 2 yrs before, so you pay 10 times as much for 0% dmg increase compared with the previous level 2 yrs ago. You never gained anything by getting ascendeds in the end, apart from the fact all people not bothering with ascendeds are dealing 5% less dmg then before. When ascendeds just arrived they were 5% more powerfull, but it has been ‘corrected’. This effect works through in all tiers of course.

Do understand if this happens again your exotics will no longer be the equivalent of “rare armor 2ys ago”, but masterwork, and some things will prove problematic. (think about the influx of new players, who will only start to be be usefull after crafting their ascended weapons and armor, which will becomparable to rare armor 2 yrs ago. If they come due to the newly started grind…)

On topic:

I would make ascended weapons for any alt I’m working on.
I made 2 legendaries because the skins were beautiful, but I’m running out of options. I find the GS’s hideous, I do not like Bifrost, the Moot, the incinerator, Frostfang, the shortbow… I hate Quip, to a point where I remove my headset when i have someone in party using it.

I do like the Minstrel, the Howler, the Predator, and the underwater ones though I do not see the benefit of crafting them… I could actually see myself crafting Bolt.

And yes I own the Meterologicus and the Kudzu. If I’d start another project I’d probably make Bolt I cannot afford it, and I do not have any plans, but….

In the end most chars would do fine with ascended gear. We used to run most dungeons in rare gear when the game started so atm exotic is still fine as well, being what rare was 2 years ago.

depending on professions of course,

Shout heal warrior (zealot/clerics) ~2000 heal /shout.

mace/focus guardian (zealot/clerics) well depending on how you play it, you yourself should never need healing, others will get near perma regen, protection nad decent healing…

transfusion necro (zealot/clerics) using wells and marks a lot of regen can be provided, transfusion will be a short duration heal for 5000 points when specced clerics. has access to protection…

Water Ele (zealot/clerics) Well, when using water fields in staff you can provide serious healing blasts.. enough to refill complete bars in seconds if needed.

I’m wondering what I would use when ranger, mesmer or thief
I do not play engineer, but I guess ican heal, as it can do nearly anything…

2

shouldn’t we be looking at the i5 5690 now at the moment? Thought the 5th generation was arriving already? Nice DDR 4 and support for new hardware?

Of course everything will be a bit more expensive though…

Well we’ll see. I bought my i7 3930K when it was a good moment to buy. even though the 4930K was already available (just 3oo euro’s more expensive for 100 Mhz gain at the time…)

-corrected processor number, fumbled it good. looking for a possible upgrade…. being a i7 5960X -.- -

Well IMHO there are usefull and more usefull sigils with few excpetions.

generally I tend to find most have uses:

USEFULL:

Fixed bonus:
PvE:
Force (5% dmg),
Accuracy (7% crit chance),
Bursting (6% condition dmg),
Dungeons:
Night: +10% dmg while night,
X-slaying: +10% dmg vs x type enemies

Other sigils
Stacking (only 1 type of stacking sigil can be equipped)
PVE:
Bloodlust up to 250 extra power,
Corruption up to 250 extra ciondition dmg.
Cruelty up to 250 additional ferocity
WvW:
Life 250 additional healing,
Momentum, up to 125 extra toughness,
benevolence max +12.5% addition healing to other players
Dungeons:I’d advise against stacking sigils as a down will destory all stacks

Sigils of Condition duration…
Generally lengthening specific conditions by 20%, or all conditions by 10%
tbh if you need more condition duration take some food. usefull though in pvp IMHO.. mostly usefull for condition users, but they will have more use for othersigils

On hit
WVW
Water, 30% chance for a AOE heal,
purity 60% chance to remove a condi
PVE/Dungeons
frailty, 50% chance on a vulnerability, tion

Chance on crit
PVE/WVW/Dungeons
Fire: AOE Flameblast
Air: lightning strike
Strength: might
(Torment: aoe torment)
WvW:
Generosity: transfer a condition…
Nullification: remove a boon. <- nice!

On kill
Restoration: heal on kill
Stamina: refresh endurance on kill

I personally do not favor sigils on swap. as they have an almost automatic 9 s cooldown… even if you’re and ele or engineer or traited warrior.

MOST USELESS:
sigil of demon summoning (at 25 stacks summon a fleshreaver)
sigil of celerity (gain 3 seconds of quickness at 5 stacks)
Sigil of mischief (snowballs, cause blind at swap)
Sigil of speed (swiftness on kill)-except for mesmer where it’s very handy, unless you have a condi mesmer like I do. If you hate staff and shouts as a guard you might also want to consider it…-
Sigil of Incapacitation (cripple on crit)
Sigil of Ogre slaying

One which is surprising (but mostly useless)
Sigil of luck, 75% giving a boon on kill

1 remark, I agree this is a good game I like it, there is no pay 2 win, no real OP stuff.

But while it’s not neccesary to grind , you could do so and get a very nice armor set with special infusions if you wanted to, with some extra stats on it and you’ll be grinding a LONG time to get your 2500 t6 mats to do so. same for legendary.
legendaries cost a lot and it’s because of the huge amount of materials in it. an ascneded GS has the same stats as eternity, but is about a factor 100 cheaper. (40 gold vs 4000 gold (it’s probably the most extreme example tbh.)

If you really want the best in all stats you will pay through the nose. either in time or in cash. But IMHO it is just a waste of effort. Because noone does.

Most extreme example (yes I know it’s just an example):
eternity , moot and frostfang, bolt , howler and kudzu carrying warrior with ascended zerk armor with vitality boosting +5 agony infusions, with specialized power boosting agony infusions on weapons, infused rings and trinkets, with stat boosting infusions.

This is probably the worst grind. Most people would just ignore the stat boosting infusions, and all but 1 or 2 legendaries. It will save you about 2 years of gathering everything ….

Exotics still work perfectly, I run most my chars with exotic armor, some have ascended weapons, most have ascended trinkets. I do fine. Been playing for 2+ yrs now still having fun.

- SSD: wil only affect loading times.
- RAM: Memory will only affect the game play if you have less then 2.5 Gb for gw2 and less then 1.5 Gb for the OS, resulting in frequentloads from swaps.. anything above 4 Gb should suffice as long as you keep your system clean, else get 6 or 8 Gb, when making vids, I’d suggest 16 Gb, but with modern GPU’s 8Gb should still work reliably
- CPU: will affect play if inadequate, most people already stated they do not have full CPU-load on mid to high end i5’s and i7’s
- GPU: load isn’t maxed for my setup at least. It is generally working at the speed ALLOWED by the engine.
- LAN: Network isn’t the problem as long as you have decent ping, a wire and bandwidth.

Leaving the game bottlenecked by it’s own engine. It isn’t able to flood the system with enough data, due to the fact it’s waiting for data. People playing wireless, or lagging, or affected by network lag due to their friends/family /radio taking a moment of peak bandwith, brothers loading his new anime, breaking news, natural disasters and weather influences whatever. LAG. When the server lags out due to players I’m awaiting data from I notice cause my game tends to slow down. I notice because I sometimes have frame drops /FPS drops, Then a couple (of fractions) of a second later I see a character running by, mostly when coming from behind. A WvW-commander I know always says: “I notice lag, here comes the enemy zerg.”

And still people try to tell me: “Well I have the best wireless in the world.” And I still think: “YOU should buy 25 m of CAT 6E !! You are lagging my game!”

Just a remark:

1 first poll: You miss the option : I DO NOT WANT ANY MOUNTS.
2 second poll ANY SPEEDBOOST FROM A GEM-MOUNT IS A PAY-2-WIN AND I WILL SPAM THE FORUM TILL THEY REMOVE THE BOOST, AND IF NOT BOUGHT IT SHOULD NOT EXCEED 10-15% is missing.
3 Skills on mounts not gotten from play but gem-store are PAY-2-WIN as well. And I will spam the forum….. and so on.

just disable emotes?

just a thought?

Click on the small arrow, next to the chat windows, find /emote and reove the check from checkbox, you could make a second tab with eveything you need if you want, and just make it show emotes, so you can just tab and have it dissapear…

if they would use map chat it would be slightly annoying, but I doubt so.

Just thinking , if you can’t beat’m: just try somthing different….

Bring a guild of clerics necro’s and suck the life out of them…

375 marks, 225 wells…. transfusion x75: zzzzzzzzlorrrrppp…… done.

New wvw meta. oh and bring some 10-15 nomads/clerics guards for the pain train. Just to keep ’m busy.

A meta is just a meta because a group of people claim it will work… Until it gets destroyed a few times in a row and people’s trust falters… Problem in wvw is commanders tend to have an influence (some attract the whole community on map, some barely get any people) also the trust in commanders tends to matter a lot. I have some I will run into 50% bigger zerg with any day and I know we’ll have a good chance.
Builds are less important while zerging IMHO, BUT when roaming or solo-ing you will notice some builds are horrendous to fight against.

We have a stealth trap in wvw, which is moderately usefull, and we have reveals with ranger…. but it tends to be to little for condi thieves and PU mesmers, I have both a condi thief and a PU mesmer, and my experience using them was: most people run, upon seeing your proffesion, and get support, sometimes a complete guild gets called in to mash you a few times…. just to deter you from continuing on the map.