Guild Wars 2

Regardless of which is better, Damage is far more accessible than Duration, which means when making a Condition oriented character you’ll end up going that way no matter what. Beyond that point, it’s a question of what value you place on secondary and tertiary stats. The more Damage you stack, the more valuable (per tier) Duration becomes. But you can’t leap on both stats without sacrificing another, probably defensive, stat.

mickeey.6327:

On my warrior i have opted for a high crit build i found based on unused signets and increased dmg form adrenelin.

Please, please please please don’t use this build. If you’re going to use signets, then actually use them. I mean, the trait, and the build idea, aren’t necessarily bad. But they’re best used as a supplement to a more robust build, not as a core foundation for the build itself.

mickeey.6327:

On my Guardian I’v gone into toughness and vitality trait lines as well as trying a high crit build also.
I’ve tried doing power/toughness traits on both but there seems to be a bad synergy between those two lines.

You can find synergy between any two lines. The stats don’t need to line up perfectly, either. Give equal weight to both traits and to stats. Just because one tree contains a few “on crit” traits, doesn’t mean you’re required to pair it with the precision tree. This will get easier as you gain higher levels and have more varied skills to build with.

mickeey.6327:

My warrior feels like a glass cannon, and my Guardian feels way to slow to kill.

Your specced your warrior for pure damage, and your guardian for defense. Switch their stats and you’ll have a completely separate experience.

mickeey.6327:

My warrior has good dmg but i hate the weapon skills, the guardian has lackluster dmg but i much prefer the weapon skills.

Go with what you love, not with what feels most powerful. That feeling of power is subject to change, rapidly and without notice. What feels powerful now may not feel powerful in five levels, in a different zone, or in a different situation (like dungeons).

mickeey.6327:

All i feel i need is a balance between dps and survival. and it feels as though I can only take one or the other.
I keep jumping betwwen the two styles and just cant decide.

It’s much easier as you reach higher levels— and frankly quite necessary— to give your character a balance between dps and survival. As your access to build options increases, the game seems much less black and white. By level 30 you should feel a fair amount of choice in the matter. And by level 50 you’ll get to really pin down your style. You can choose between all degrees of offense and defense through a combination of stats, skills, and traits. But the game starts simple, so you’ll have to just push through that part where it feels like only two styles exist.

If you’re putting down a high frequency of condition application, then yes, condition damage is your friend. But this supposes the majority of your attacks (not the majority of skills on your bar, necessarily) will apply a condition.

Yep, makes total sense. If you really want to maximize that effect, try to carry abilities that Field the damage type you’re applying. Some Power classes very rarely apply conditions, so combo’s are a great way for them to bolster your own timers.

Hah. Well, as a TF2 Scout player myself, I promise it’s nothing at all like the scout. It’s much more cause and effect. Enemy did the charge up? Hit dodge. Stuck in an aoe? Hit dodge. Learning to see the cues that tell you when and where to dodge are a lot more difficult than making the dodge successful. You’ll be fine.

Keep practicing your dodge. There will come a point in the game that you dodge on time, or you fail. It’s alright if you don’t use it wisely at this point. The timing, and especially the mob indicators, are tricky to get accustomed to. But at the very least, it is imperative for you to have the habit of using your dodge.

Tanking and aggro are controllable in a general context. Proximity and defensive stat stacking do most of the work. That is to say, mobs will prioritize the nearest character with the best defenses. This doesn’t work 100% of the time, and no one has figured out the exact formula for aggro. But it certainly doesn’t rely on specific skills.

As for the appropriate class? Apple already hit the nail on the head. Ranger/Warrior/Guardian. If you really want a caster, Necro does well without needing to tweak out.

More important than choosing the correct class is choosing the correct gear. Make sure you’re taking pieces with +vitality and +toughness. This will give you the survivability necessary to take a few hits. You’ll put out less damage, but that’s generally not significant until later levels, or until you feel the need to kill things more quickly.

That said, dodging is absolutely critical to learn. You cannot survive many encounters within dungeons, and even some encounters in the open world, unless you learn to dodge appropriately. Kiting, control chaining, blocking, and etc are all helpful, but unlike dodge, they aren’t necessary. You might pick them up along the way and be better off for it. But you must practice dodging.

Also, in direct answer to your question: armor class generally dictates the overall ability to sit and take hits. Light armor classes depend on kiting or misdirection, medium armor classes can take a few hits but do best with a little evasion, heavy armor classes can stand toe to toe with nearly anything.

This is a question for the Tech Support forums. I would suggest posting there.

Buy one item as a test. If you can transfer it, the item will say “Account Bound”. If not, it will say “Soulbound”.

When you post, you can attach a file from your computer. If you don’t see this option (it won’t show up if you’re writing an in-thread reply) you need to click the “formatting options” button. People aren’t actually embedding the thumbnail from a website.

Engineer damage tapers off at farther than mid-range. But mid-to-close range, they can be monstrous. You can build them to stand and take hits, or to run and gun. They’re versatile, but also very difficult to pin down.

Rangers aren’t apt to stand and take the hits themselves, but a tough pet (bears) will tank just about anything thrown to them. They’ve got all damage ranges covered, too.

Necros are a bit wishy washy. You can’t always stand toe to toe, but you don’t always have to kite. Depends a lot on your build, skill choices, and how much you like to abuse death shroud. They’re a little more complicated, but, like ranger, can dish it out from any distance.

Most professions can include some level of support along with their damage, just by equipping certain utility skills. Only Thieves and Rangers lack so much support that it takes a fully support oriented build for them to do anything except dps, and even then they’re still damage heavy.

As for the second part, yes, every class can build for extra damage. Guardians are no different here. Their weapon options are far more limited (greatsword being the primary choice), but it’s entirely possible.

Not so much. The staff is very support oriented. Since the auto attack is an aoe, it can keep upon damage while hitting multiple mobs at once. But for the most part, you trade off decent damage in return for better utility and control.

Here’s a quick example of supply routes for the Borderland areas.

Not sure what to tell you about the squad thing. I like them, I think they work very well. But to each their own. All in all, you’ll get a lot more information about WvW by browsing the WvW forums. Read the stickies there, if you haven’t yet.

Mart.2710:

Am I right to say that conditions such as fire/ poison do damage based off the person with the highest condition damage who applied it? E.g. I do 400 damage/ second fire for 2 secs while my group member does 50 damage/ second fire for 6 secs, the resultant is 400 damage/ second for 8 seconds for a total of 2.4k condition damage?

Well, your math is a bit off. You’ll end up with an 8 second burn which deals 400 damage per second. That totals to 3.2k damage.

As for the general idea: every source of information on the topic that I’ve come across supports this theory. So, as far as I know, yes.

Mart.2710:

Hence, it would be optimal for JUST ONE person to spec into condition damage in a group while the rest focus on power builds so that the person with the highest cond damage doesn’t get his damage screwed over by someone else?

Well, that’s a trickier notion. Technically, condition damage output isn’t diminished until it hits a ceiling. So long as bleed stacks stay below 25, and burning/poison don’t outgrow the timer ceiling, all players involved deal their full amount of damage. And like that link suggested, you can actually put out greater amounts of dps with duration stacking conditions, given the proper environment.

But are you better off bringing only one condition heavy player? It really depends on the situation, and how the group handles itself. Two players who both stack a 7 second burn on a mob, for a 14 second total burn duration, are both going to lose damage if the mob dies in 6 seconds. In that scenario, more direct damage is better. You can circumvent this problem by having each player attack a different mob, but that takes some careful strategy (or hapless folly) to pull off appropriately. On the other hand if two players can keep up a high damage burn without fail for a long duration fight, while the direct damage players are forced to stop dps for survival reasons, then that second condition player probably increases damage.

It’s difficult to say for sure. I’m not a huge theorycrafter, I don’t spend time calculating these things. My quick opinion is that you’d probably see an overall dps loss with three or more condition heavy players in a party of five. But I have no maths to back up the presumption. Personally, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, unless you’re looking to formalize a static group for dungeon runs.

edits: bloody maths

cujo.1726:

what about magic find? thanks for response

Probably not. I think it’s safe to assume “All Stats” follows what you see on the Hero’s Band.

This thread should help you out.

You could always try equipping a torch.

15-17k isn’t all that much in the way of defense, depending on how much armor you have. Can you be a bit more specific about your stats? Some things which would help are: HP (exact), armor, toughness, trait allocation, what stats you push on your items, and how many of your items are sub-level 80, blue, or green. Outside of stats, it might also help to know what weapons and utilities you’re using.

Why does every schoolyard boy with a crush call the girl silly names, and run away giggling? Why do high schoolers always make fun of the goth crowd for obvious things like wearing black? Why do single men always make the whip noise when their bro skips out for a night with his lady? Why do so many people perpetuate so many unnecessary and ineffective acts of delinquency when in situations contrary to their understood norm?

Because my friend, much like /dancing at an RP session, these are time honored traditions for those coming of age and maturity.

SteveK.5827:

I am a level 72 Human Ranger and have yet to go into a dungeon knowingly in my story line. Where did I miss this ?

Contrary to their name, Story mode dungeons have nothing to do with your Personal Story. They’re just a different event within the dungeon area. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.

SteveK.5827:

Do we need some type of dungeon finder like WOW ? I won’t be hanging around forever waiting for a group of 5 I will give you the strong tip !

Technically, a Looking For Group panel already exists. In the current state it’s a bit useless, at best. The developers are developing a new LFG system to replace the current one, and it will hopefully get released within the next few months. As for now, you just have to stay patient and hang around town.

LithePanther.5027:

If you’re not 80, be prepared to get kicked out of at least some dungeons groups. Many people don’t like running with sub-80’s, especially in the lower dungeons like AC Explorable where lvl 80 groups can steamroll the content and don’t really want to be slowed down.

This is both depressing and irrational.

On the other hand, if someone is willing to kick you for being at-or-above the dungeons required level, but not yet level 80, they probably aren’t the sort of person you want to spend two hours with anyway.

Graeme Fisk.1542:

My question is: What are the basics of joining a group for a dungeon?

Tell the /map chat that you’re looking for a group for a particular dungeon, most often done as, “LFG AC Story”, or some variation thereof. If someone lists that they’re looking for members (LFM, or, LF#M), then it’s courteous to whisper that person and tell them you’re interested. Technically, you can self-invite to their party, but I wouldn’t do so unless their shout out specifies that you should.

It’s important to know whether you’re running Story or Explorable mode. You have to complete the story mode of each dungeon before you can run Explorable mode. Explorable is more difficult, includes multiple path options, and gives better loot. But, it also can require a higher level for entrance.

Graeme Fisk.1542:

Is there a prefered level to start dungeoning (ie 80)?

Depends on the Dungeon. Ascalon Catacombs open up at level 30 for story mode. Each new dungeon opens up 10 levels after the last, until level 70 where they become more frequent. Explorable mode generally opens up 5 levels after the story mode.

Here’s a complete list of dungeons and their entry levels.

Graeme Fisk.1542:

Will I be automatically taken to the dungeon when we have enough people, or do I need to know the location to portal there?

When someone in your group enters the dungeon, it will allow all players in the dungeon’s zone to enter with them. You don’t necessarily need to walk into the portal yourself, but you can’t come in from anywhere in the world.

Graeme Fisk.1542:

What are fractals?

Fractals of the Mists. Unlike other dungeons, you can enter fotm at any level, and you’ll be brought up to level 80 for the duration of the dungeon. Also, unlike other dungeons, only explorable mode exists, and it consists of dungeon “levels”. You’ll start at level 1, and each time you successfully complete the dungeon, you gain a level. Everyone in the group needs to run the same level (which will soon change). As you might expect, as the dungeon levels raise, the dungeon gets more difficult, but drops better loot.

Fractals are currently the only place to earn Ascended gear, which is the tier between Exotic and Legendary.

Graeme Fisk.1542:

P.S. How do I leave dungeons? And how do I leave WvW without logging out?

When the dungeon is finished, you’ll see a little door appear above your minimap, much like in your personal story. Or, leaving the group will portal you to the entrance directly. You can leave WvW by entering the Lion’s Arch asura gate, or by jumping into the sPvP mists, and entering the Lion’s Arch gate there.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

First and foremost, you won’t get thrown out of a party just for playing a certain profession. At least, no one in their right mind will do that. Doesn’t matter what you play, or what weapon set you use. So long as you get through the dungeon successfully, no one should care.

Second, every profession gets mixed reviews. Especially on the class forums. People go there specifically to complain. Just pick the class that best fits your desires and run with it. If, after trying for a while, you just can’t enjoy the class, or the game feels abnormally difficult, then take a break and try another profession.

Ultimately, if the class makes you happy, and you’re trying to play well, it doesn’t matter which profession you choose.

It would help to know what server you’re on.

Also, have you checked out Operation Union?

The money out of your pocket was your decision, and yours alone. To use your personal spending as a relative meter for the game’s progression and maturation is, frankly, unfair. All games suffer from bugs, and all games suffer from imbalance, and none more so than the ones which are recently released. WoW itself, which remains a shining beacon of game development, released to the market with a hoard of bugs (pun intended) that stuck around for half a year or longer, and realistically never settled the issues of imbalance, even after eight years of development.

The business end of the situation dictates wisdom in the face of monetary influx. Even if Anet made enough money to suddenly double the size of their development team, it isn’t a structurally sound decision to hire on a slew of new developers merely to patch bugs and pick at balance optimization. Especially if a large source of the income comes from an unstable market such as the Gem store.

Your buyers remorse is entirely understandable. Especially if you’re throwing money towards an experience which has not yet purchased your own interests in turn. But this is the risk you take when you spend on an item in the hope, but not guarantee, that this spending will make you happier. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not.

At this point I think the best thing you can do is cut your losses and stop playing. Cold turkey. Delete the icons. Uninstall the game, even. Just let it go. Like I said earlier, check out something else. You said you haven’t played Skyrim yet, but you liked Morrowind? Go play Skyrim. Perhaps in a half a year, or a year, or whatever, you’ll have an itch to come back and check out GW2 again. Perhaps— Hopefully— by then it will have become the game you hoped it would be upon release.

I’m sorry to hear that gw2 went sour for you in the manner that it did. Buyers remorse sucks. Hopefully the next thing you try will work out better. Best of luck.

Oh you’ll be fine. If they banned every single person who found an alternate route around some pve content they’d have to ban a sizable portion of the player base. I mean, finding ways to hop over content in dungeons is basically an MMO tradition. But it is good that you reported the exploit.

Now carry on, young one.

SteveK.5827:

If it is soul bound you can not sell or salvage I think.

No, that’s not true at all. Items are either marked as sellable/salvageable or not. Soulbinding changes nothing.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

There’s no permanent boon, no. It would be somewhat annoying if there was one storyline for one race that made them clearly superior to all other choices. (For example, if it was a healing boon, wouldn’t ALL groups expect any healing-spec’d character to have that boon?)

Perhaps, one day down the line, one of those “purely cosmetic” rewards? Would be pretty fun to turn into a white stag now and then.

Necromancer is generally considered to be on the difficult-to-master end of the stick. But I wouldn’t let that dissuade you. Spend some time learning a class in PvE, spend a little more honing your skills in PvP, and you won’t notice a difference between the ‘easy’ and ‘difficult’ classes.

So choose the one that you feel looks the most awesome. Both do just fine when it comes to play capacity, you have nothing to worry about there.

Illegal or a violation of play? Technically yes, what you did is a violation, as skipping any content is a violation. But for a single skill point, I’m certain the mods won’t come after you about it.

Then again, you can always earn back some (real life) karma and alert customer service / the bug forums about this method of entry.

Do you mean condition damage, or duration?

KrakenAZ.9367:

If they did stack, either additively or multiplicatively, it’d just be ridiculously OP against those who couldn’t in PvP. As is I was surprised by the boost to 25% for signets.

Not just signets, just about every traited speed boost went from 10/15 up to 25% as well. On one hand, I can see this makes sense due to how a 10% speed boost probably won’t make it on many players list of important buffs. But on the other hand, it makes Swiftness a lot less spectacular. Although, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Check the trading post. A full set of level 60 blues shouldn’t run you more than vendor cost on each item, and that should total only 5-10 silver.

To be fair, you didn’t exactly, “catch the white stag,” which is the act declared to give you a boon. Gavin caught it. In fact, you liberated the stag. You’ve done entirely the opposite of what was required!

Perhaps you should give the stag a boon, instead.

I bet no one ever gives him presents anyway.

Edit: blackened bones, I take it back. You get a boon for the Stag’s freedom. Not for catching it. grumblegrumble

I beg to differ.

Guardian, mesmer, and warrior all have group oriented boon skills on pretty equal footing. Engineer is a maybe. You can load up on elixirs and throw them to the group with your toolbelt. Haven’t tried this setup in a while, personally, so I can’t speak to the effectiveness.

Edit: forgot to mention, Ele can put out some pretty decent boon/support buffs as well.

Seems like a poor reason to drop the game when you’re enjoying it. Everybody (save a select few) lags in the right places, namely Lion’s Arch and WvW sieges. This is nothing new in MMO’s. Those areas tax even the best systems. And, frankly, sitting above 30 fps for the rest of the game is actually pretty good.

That said, if you want a more specific answer we’ll need two bits of info from you: 1, what video settings and resolution are you currently running the game on? Lowest? Medium? Ultra? 2, what are the exact hardware specs on your computer. We can’t get that info just from looking up the model, as models are frequently sold with separate pricing tiers and, thus, different hardware kits.

If there’s anything that truly sets my heart on fire about the combat in this game, it’s the ability to make weapons work in ways that other games fundamentally cannot. And to that end: nets. Roman gladiator, held in the off-hand, nets. Why? Because if gladiators can make it work, so can gw2.

I’ve never heard of damaged gear affecting stats. Nor can I find any examples of it.

Doesn’t seem like something I’d expect to occur, either. If damaged gear affected your stats then it would force players to frequently reverse direction while they quest/wvw/dungeon to revisit the repair stand. That’s counter-intuitive to enjoyable game flow.

Have you tried playing healer as a Guardian or an Engineer? I’ve played as and with healing dedicated Guardians and the result is excellent. Surprisingly, Engineer can pull it off with some finesse as well. Not quite so effortlessly as the guardian, mind you, but it’s certainly possible. The issue with healing oriented Elementalists stems from their design to utilize all four attunement trees during each battle, which creates an immediate barrier to focal purpose, such as pure healing. That, and they have a shortage of healing-oriented utilities. One of those hopeful situations that never quite followed through to reality.

As for archery, I’m a big fan of both Warrior Longbow and Thief Shortbow. I don’t have much pithy advice to give on the subject, but if the ranger isn’t your thing, perhaps you should check out those avenues as well.

It’s difficult to give you a suggestion with the information you’ve provided. If your interests are, “generally anything, but not so much dungeons,” then either class should work just fine. There’s certainly fewer engineers around than there are thieves, so if feeling original matters at all I’d say go with the engineer. Or, if you aren’t into the support style play (engineers have a lot of support oriented structure), you should go with the thief. And if none of that matters, you can just as easily roll a die or flip a coin.

I see no reason why this shouldn’t work.

Ethics.4519:

I think the thing that is making me not like any is that everybody can do anything. I miss having a specialization like in other games where a healer would heal, support would give boons, DPS would do damage, tanks would take damage, etc.

(This is not directed at you, Ethics. I’m just addressing the idea on a whole.)

Personally, I don’t understand why people feel gw2 lacks specialization. If players stat build themselves into a variation on “deals damage”, that’s the decision of those players, not a fault of the game at large. Nor does the capacity to take on various roles blatantly homogenize the experience. Damage dealers who include this or that support ability into their kit hardly showcase the extent of specialization. It’s entirely possible to build characters that heal, enable, disable, tank, and even deal damage at the loss of all prior mentioned utility as their entire specialty.

It’s true that the game expects every character to deal damage (no pure healers), and does not include manageable aggro tables (no pure tanks), and if you’ve never played in a party with teammates who have adopted those roles you might have difficulty realizing that it does make a significant difference to the battle dynamics. These roles do exist, and they are incredibly helpful to have around. If players avoid them purely because they aren’t forced into inclusion, then I blame their absence on laziness.

It’s true, this game lacks a lot of polish. Yet every game, especially the most recently released, all lack substantial polish. WoW even, when it first came out, was actually much more rough around the corners than GW2 is now. But that’s neither here nor there, because this is not a debate about which mmo is best. Not a lot of MMOs are out and about on the market right now. GW2, WoW, Tera, Swotr. Outside of that there’s a bunch of free to play models that are, well, generally unpolished.

Perhaps you should take a break from MMOs altogether? Borderlands 2 (if you’re into fps styles) just came out. If you’ve never played it, you can expect many facets of sci-fi rpg style play (experience, exploration, and stat ascension) with a solid fps experience. If you really want a fantasy experience, Dark Souls is currently 50% off for the Steam Holiday sale. That will certainly give you the epic feel. Or any of the other wonderful games which were released in the past year or two.

In any case, if you’ve tried everything in the game, and nothing works, I suggest trying something else for a few weeks. Maybe even not play video games at all, it’s a beautiful world out there. While I understand your philosophy on subscriptions, the great thing about not having one is that GW2 will be accessible any time you want to come back. Take some time off until Anet’s next big monthly event, and when you come back the time off might have refreshed the experience.

Best of luck.

What sort of games and genres do you normally like? That’s a good place to start before we give you some suggestions.

None of the above. The server you picked is the server you get. If you’d like to play on another server, you have to move your entire account list over there. Currently, server transfers are free with a 1 week cool down. In the future, they’ll cost a certain amount of gems.

So I just started on the Armaments story. Thurkill tells me he’s found another group of dead soldiers, horribly mutilated. Up ahead on the beach? A bunch of dead soldiers… whom I can resurrect.

And I do raise them. Because, why not? I’m an amiable lass, I like to help out people who are down. So I kneel down and do my thing, and the health bar gets full, and the soldiers get up. But they don’t move anywhere, because apparently they’re actually dead. Upon examination of the ground underneath a recently resurrected soldier, I found out that his hands were tied together before, you know, he died.

Now I’m surrounded by a bunch of dead, but standing vigil soldiers. As if, rather than resurrect them, I actually just propped the bodies up on their feet with something to lean on. It’s creepy, to say the least.

Perhaps resurrecting them shouldn’t have been an option.

Good lord that’s a long list of materials.

Personally, the better question is, what classes can’t hack it in both areas?

Guardian, for their lack of ranged aptitude.
Elementalists can’t really mix the two on the fly. Staff does excellent ranged, D/D does excellent melee, but they don’t cross over all that well.
Mesmers can attack in melee, but they’re rarely tough enough to sit around and get smacked on, which makes kiting a priority.

And even those professions have some capacity in the area they lack. Guardians can do ranged stuff, they just aren’t proficient at it. Pretty much every other class can hold their own in both areas, so long as they have the appropriate weapons equipped.