Guild Wars 2

Another alternative for thieves are Runes of Lyssa, since you have access to a 45 second cooldown elite, thus a 45 second cooldown all boon + all condition cleanse…

But since you don’t want survivability, Ruby Orbs. Simply put, you’re extremely unlikely to remain above 90% health for longer than 1 or 2 hits against a decent player with a squishy thief.

Known issue.

Basically, the condition the champion applies is not burning, just looks like it. So anything that cleanses “burning” won’t cleanse this condition. Neither will anything that’s setup to clean specific conditions (like Guardian’s pure of voice), since they never include this specific condition.

Anything that cleanses “any” or “all” conditions, on the other hand, will work.

He’s lagging a lot, so not that weird. Still hilarious though.

rogerwilko.6895:

You guys need to roll and engineer, get it to lv 80, gear/spec him the best you can, then encounter a thief + memsmar(both lv 80) on WvW and engage them. Tell me how it goes

If they’re any good you’ll be destroyed, like any other 1 vs 2. There’s no 1 vs 2 in this game where, given similar skill, the 1 has any chance to win.

If they’re crap, which a lot of players are, on the other hand, it’s quite possible.

As others mentioned, depends on your toughness more than anything.

In my experience Signet of Stone is almost always better if you’re not a bunker.

Can you guess what one of my favorite game series is?

I’m super original, I know.

Hajduk.5041:

my suggestion to you is never run from a thief as there is a little chance that you can outrun him. Bather stay and fight maybe you get lucky

Let me add: especially if it is a sword/dagger thief. I had a warrior a couple of days ago, full health, while I had taken a few hits, try to run away from my S/D thief… Why? Is there a more pointless endeavor? Constant Immobilizes, cripples, teleports, boon rips, high damage… It’s not gonna happen.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Necro minions are underperforming, while mesmer and ranger pets are overperforming – homing misiles that are mesmer clones, and pet hitting like a truck while its master is bunker specced..?
Sounds like a stronk pvp game.

And yes, the issues with the mesmer are complex, but the reliance on AI is a big part of them.

In both cases it’s not the use of AI that’s the problem.

One of the mesmer’s issues is how much damage is allocated to the phantasms, so it is possible for the mesmer to disregard direct damage (for instances using their time to run away or be a nuisance) and still hit like a truck.

In the Ranger’s case it is because the pets don’t scale with the owner’s stats, so you can go full bunker, focus on you staying alive as much as possible, and have your pet do the damage.

As for Necro minions, I forget which tournament it was recently where someone ran a minion build and showed it works quite decently. Especially in Khylo where they nearly insta-gib the trebuchet.

Let’s put it this way, a Well build without ground targeted wells is like using a staff without greater marks: Masochism.

Sure, it works for open world PvE, but so does everything else… For any more serious use… Why would you do that to yourself?

KarlaGrey.5903:

My point was that classes whose core is designed around AI are by definition bad design, because AI has little place in any competitive game, bar as NPCs, and will always be either under or overperforming, simply because it is AI.
The point of pvp is to fight vs real players, not pets. Pet builds can be an alternative, but they most definitely do not belong to core class design.
There is a good reason why GW2 rangers and mesmers are one of the most problematic classes.

Actually, since the recent changes, minion-necro is viable, if not necessarily the best thing ever…

And Mesmers aren’t problematic because they have minions. They’re problematic cause they have just about anything. Ranger is only problematic because ANet is being stubborn.

Personally I hate minions (unless they’re the very temporary and spammable kind, like mesmer’s), but AI can be used in a competitive setting. Whether the AI in GW is appropriate enough for it, on the other hand, is another issue entirely.

No. There’s nothing forbidden about it.

Do keep in mind that it’s also not against the rules for them to say “yes”, then run away after being ported… Likewise I wouldn’t advise anyone to pay before being ported… It’s a risk you’re both taking.

I’ve used it for a while. Not bad at all, but the lack of Vigor, swiftness and more reliable stuns made me reconsider and switch over to GS and sword + focus/pistol.

Besides, I like the ability to switch from ranged to burst melee and vice versa. Staff/GS is all ranged all the time.

Don’t get me wrong, it works, but I ended up suiting sword more than staff.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Oh my.
I guess I should have added ‘in pvp’.

Mesmers are arguably the strongest class in PvP… Either you left something else out or you know less about PvP than I know about the geological formations of Venus…

Doesn’t matter that much to be honest. I leveled with a less than optimal build, with green gear several levels behind my own (notoriously didn’t get a new staff from lvl 40 to 80). Leveling PvE is easy.

That said, the best to level would probably be a berserkers (or closest you can get for you level – power/prec/crit dmg) set with dagger/axe and staff and wells/life syphon build for survival and mass tagging.

You’re level 60. Why are you bothering with runes again?

As others said, you can salvage them off of armour as well.

Lahm.7056:

but what bugs me the most is why aren’t Banners bound to the character who spawn it?

Because you might want someone to carry it instead of you, for example in a team setting, especially if you drop more than one.

Honestly I’m not a fan of the banners’ design… But that’s why, I’m guessing.

I’ve been running that build forever now (what I affectionately call my AD carry in WvW) and you have 2 ways to add AoE: piercing arrows trait (which depending on your build might be too expensive to run) and traps. Fire trap does surprising damage on a power based build.

If that doesn’t work for you you can always pick up an axe for the free AoE on auto.

Rubykuby.3427:

Proxy, Sharpened Edges kind of sucks. It applies one stack of bleeding for one second, and should be upped to something like five seconds. One second is just ghastly.

Not as bad as it looks since it’s 66% chance on critical and no internal cooldown. But true, it’s not fantastic.

Mesmers are sort of in the same bag as Thieves, in the “why in the hell wouldn’t you use berserker” bag. They get a lot of millage out of burst and they have enough innate survival that they don’t need toughness/vit as much as others.

Convoluted, unnecessary, and doesn’t help the issues necromancers have. Only of any relevance to MM builds.

Ok, there are two different issues here to “dispel”.

First, rangers aren’t exactly the most “on demand” class for dungeons for a good reason – they’re really not that good in a dungeon. Don’t get me wrong, they’re more than capable of finishing any dungeon, but what they excel at is bunkering, which is useless in the current dungeons. Dungeons are the land of the “berserker of the berserker” gear, where you don’t really need to tank (and many cases can’t, even if you wanted to), you dodge and avoid. The kind of defense you want in a dungeon is only the kind someone like a Guardian can provide – healing and protection for everyone, preferably without sacrificing any “berserking” himself.

Which isn’t to say Rangers can’t do dungeons at all. They have perma half-vigor and enough avoidance to go full berserker without issues… But so does a warrior, which, in PvE against stupid enemies, will dwarf your damage… Or a guardian, or a mesmer… At the end of the day we’re still stuck to the pet, and pets don’t do well in dungeons, so we end up a bit crippled in comparison.

This isn’t really that much of an issue for a normal dungeon run, not even high level fractals now that pets share agony resistance, but if you’re into hardcore speedrunning, really shaving off those seconds wherever you can, then there’s no reason to carry a ranger in your team. But to be honest, there’s no reason to carry anything in your team that isn’t Warrior (most of your team) and Guardian or Mesmer. That’s just a PvE design flaw…

Now, what you also have is plenty of wannabe speedrunners – clueless mongs who think they actually know what they’re doing because they read somewhere berserker Warriors are good in PvE (they have no idea why most of the time) and think that now that they made one, they’re kings of the dungeon run. Most of them have no earthly idea what a speedrun is, or how to do one, all they know is how to shakily reproduce those CoF p1 speedruns they were carried through a few times. They don’t understand dungeons, or PvE… or much of anything. They request heavy classes because that’s what they heard was good, without even knowing or understanding why or why it is irrelevant at the level they play.

Those are idiots, don’t bother.

So, in short, my answer to you is to find people who know how to dungeon run and add them to your friends list, then contact them when you want to go on a run. Or start your own post in LFG. It’s not difficult and saves you trouble.

JScott.5892:

Wethospu.6437:

Dodge.

Really? There is a thing called dodge? I’v never heard of such a thing [/sarcasm]

Apparently. Because that’s all you need In PvE. Warriors have survivability issues in PvP. Not PvE. Mini-perma vigor from the signet + extra dodge on WW is all you need.

Honestly, I barely even notice the self-conditions. What you get out of them is way more important IMO.

Let’s put it this way, the conditions never run their full course. If they do, the battle is usually already won and it’s irrelevant. I have at least a full condition clear every 20/25 seconds. If my enemy hasn’t loaded me with sufficient conditions within 10 seconds to justify me using at least one of them, then either they’re not a condition build (so condition clear isn’t an issue), or they’re not a significant threat. If I’m using dagger as offhand I will often send the condition off right away.

By the way, you can use BiP with no target, and you get the 10 stacks of might with no self-bleed.

Andele.1306:

Blood is power is a scepter attack that you dont have to bother with that much, but in general does little (no those 10 stacks of might aint worth that much for the skill slot), self condi as with all corruptions is nice for cc to get another heal proc but overall just ok, LF version was better, Epidemic is highly situational outside of being a zerg in wvwvw, Well of corruption is superior to corrupt boon in pve (the small amount of boons mobs might apply are in pulses either way) and cpc gets replaced by a food buff and/or plain going the condi trait line… So yeah corruption skills are objectively worse for than Lyss.

You’re genuinely saying that 10 seconds of might (that’s 350 power and condition damage at level 80) for 12 seconds + up to 4 stacks of long duration bleeding (because as a condition necro you’ll easily flip your 2 stacks over) are kitten? But 1 random boon and 1 random condition for 5 seconds is the kitten?

And Corrupt Boon is balls because in PvE Well of corruption is superior…?

Just… Get out. Just get the kitten out. You know roughly as much Necro as I know quantum mechanics.

Andele.1306:

Wrong, Lyssa is universally better than corruption skills (since they are situational as a lasor cannon mounted on a sleeping stubborn donkey)

Eh… No. Just no.

Lyssa is a nice and cute gimmick, but, like most racial skills, that’s it.

If you’re making a condition build corruption skills will be your bread and butter. Blood is Power is fundamental, and Corrupt Boon is always worth having since it absolutely destroys boon users (which otherwise are a problem). The other slot will inevitably be used by either epidemic or a stun breaker.

Bit all over the place really, but easy to fix with a few touch ups.

First things first: Sharpening Stone. No. Just no. 5 stacks of bleed for 6 seconds for a utility slot and 36 seconds of cooldown. No. There’s just not enough no for this one… Get rid of it.

That said, you’re running a condition build without shortbow… that’s… Peculiar. But let’s run with it.

Ok, now we’re getting to something that’s a bit confusing, you’re using Signets… But not traited for them, and only one (bad) survival skill, which you are traited for… And you have no condition removal or stun breakers.

Then there’s the gear, which is, again, quite confusing… Rabids I can understand, it’s a good fit for a ranger, but then you throw in carrion jewels, and rampager’s armour… You didn’t really specify which weapons you’d use (rabid? carrion? rampager’s?) but the sigils are a garbled mess.

Also, why that choice of pets? Pets aren’t affected by your stats. There’s no reason why you need condition damage pets. Their stats are independent.

Traits are also a bit confusing… For example: You are a condition build, but then you put 10 points (and only 10 points) in skirmishing, but give up the mandatory Sharpened Edges for Pet’s Prowess? Why? You’re a condition build. You need the bleed stacking.

It’s not as bad as it might sound do. I think all you need is to decide what you want your build to be. Do you want it to be a bunker? Or maybe more offensive? Are you going to be using survival skills, or sigils, or maybe traps? Traps are quite good for condition builds. But maybe you want a condition bunker, fair enough, then it’s a good idea to focus on signets.

Based on what you said and the idea I got from your build, I put together a couple quick “BM bunker-ish condition ranger”:

Example 1 – This is a very defensive, basically bunker, build. It’s designed mostly for roaming or small number battles. You won’t be doing a lot of damage, but that’s ok, because your pet will. It loses a lot of effectiveness in larger battles, and it’s not very useful in sieges, but it’s extremely difficult to kill in 1-on-1s and small numbers. It’s not my favorite build, but it’s an example of a condition bunker.

Example 2 – You sacrifice a little defense for a lot of offense. I prefer this one off the two myself. IMO you sacrifice very little defense for the massive offensive boost you gain. Still, you do sacrifice some defense. Very similar to the above in the sense that it does better in smaller numbers, and less useful in siege, but still better in both situations than the aforementioned.

Example 3 – Close to what I run in PvP (with a bit more BM). Completely different idea here. Trap build. Less passive defense, more active. Different play style entirely, but also quite strong.

These are just some quickly put together examples just to give you some ideas. Don’t feel like you have to follow them exactly.

Cheers.

Ascii.9726:

ProxyDamage.9826:

I have no idea how many hours I have as Necro tbh

Type /age into the chat window, it will tell you how many hours you’ve played total since launch and how many were on the character you used the command on.

Really now… Now that is useful. Ty.

Alright, I’ll play ball.

I have no idea how many hours I have as Necro tbh, but I’m fairly confident I know Necros as well as the game in general. I have one of every class, all but 2 (ele and engineer) lvl 80 and fully exotic/some ascended pieces, all of them played and tested in PvP, WvW and PvE. Necro was the second character I made, and is one of my most played. While I won’t say I know everything about every class I can provide a more holistic and less biased view of the game than most people who have played Necro exclusively.

That’s as much “kitten waving” as I’m willing to do. Feel free to contact me if you are interested. I’ll probably drop you a message in-game at some point to facilitate contact. Interesting idea, let’s see how it goes.

Cheers.

Mijo.3274:

I know that warrior is underpower probably better than you considering i still play the class instead of whine in the forum, the build i posted is just the best full dps build for group roaming.

Yes, the warrior is underpowered. They still have some semblance of viability, but trying to do what other classes already do way better isn’t it. Melee “no defense – all in” berserker damage isn’t a particularly good thing for a warrior.

No, I’m sorry to disappoint, but your damage is nowhere near an equally offensive Thieve’s. This isn’t PvE. You’re not gonna deliver one hundred blades after the other. Backstabs and heartseekers dwarf your DPS. Hell, I doubt your actual delivered damage even rivals a mesmer’s…

Sorry to disappoint again, but most normal melee has standard reach – 130 units. It has nothing to do with how big your weapon is. Warrior’s greatsword has 130 units of range on their standard attack, the same that a Thieve’s dagger. Yes, even if your Warrior is a norn and the Thief is an asura… That’s not how this works. What you do have over a Thieve’s dagger (not their sword though) is cleave. More relevant in PvE where mobs mindlessly bunch up in tight groups than in PvP.

If you mean “range” as in mobility, as in WW and Rush then… Are you serious? More mobility than a THIEF? Since when?

“Assassination” is what Thieves excel at, and even then they’re not particularly hot in the current PvP meta for a reason…

You talk about “group roaming”, but this is tPvP, not WvW. tPvP isn’t about zerging around in a full group. At most you’re going to have 3 roamers – at most. You’re going to have to hold your own in a fight. And this doesn’t.

And yes, I know what you’re going to say… In fact you already said it:

Rennoko.5731:

Where is the condition damage, condition duration, precision armor? Then I could run say a crit-heal food, or endurance/might dodge roll food. I would have OPTIONS on how I wanted to play a condition class.

[…]

I don’t want defensive stats…. I want to be a glass cannon condition player

What about “condition” duration…?

It’s a trap stat most of the times. Conditions, as you might have understood by now, don’t work like “white damage”. You put them on the enemy, and they tick away until they go out or are cleansed. They don’t have criticals. Outside of condition damage no other stat will actually raise the damage they do per tick. All you can do, is unload more of them. That’s how you get your “burst” as a condition build – you stack conditions.

All condition duration does is make your conditions run longer. It “adds damage”, yes. Potential damage at least… Except, it doesn’t really…

First, condition damage only ticks once per second, so any increment of less or more than a second is wasted. Second, conditions get removed. Third, condition duration is a fractional multiplier, generally with very low values. In short duration conditions it amounts to nothing (literally, because it doesn’t add up to a full extra second) and in long duration conditions it’s generally redundant, as condition will have been cleansed by then…

Let me put it another way: consider 20% condition duration – a pretty decent value. Now imagine a 10 second bleed, ticking for 100 damage – pretty decent duration and damage.

Before condition duration: 100 × 10 = 1000 total damage.
After condition duration: 100 × 12 = 1200 total damage.

Seems like a pretty “ok” increase, right? Except it’s a payoff you only notice after 10 seconds. The fight has to go on for 10 whole seconds, the condition has to remain “uncleansed”, the enemy can’t die, and you can’t die. At the end of those 10 seconds, you receive your extra 20% damage, provided all previous conditions were maintained. It’s a long term loan with interests.

In a game as fast paced as GW2, that’s just not worth that much… Most classes have a lot of condition removal. Even if they don’t remove all of your conditions all the time (obviously), they’ll remove a lot of them. And heal. And run away… etc. At the end of the day this is a game that emphasizes burst, even in prolonged “attrition” fights, more than linear long term sustained damage. Long term damage “bonuses” just doesn’t have that much expression. Especially in a game where conditions are constantly applied, cleansed and reapplied.

It’s a nice stat to have if you get it for free (or nearly), but in most cases it’s not worth sacrificing anything for. Especially not the toughness you can currently have in a condition build. Toughness is to health and vitality what Criticals and critical damage are to power…

This leads me to another issue – I don’t think you understand builds in this game.

Let’s look at this sentence again:

Rennoko.5731:

I don’t want defensive stats…. I want to be a glass cannon condition player

You want to be a glass cannon condition player… Why?

Question: What is the point of a glass cannon?

Answer: A build that relies on blowing up the opponent before they can do the same to you. Essentially, bursty builds. All damage, no defense.

But condition damage isn’t bursty… It’s slower, but impossible to mitigate except through removal. That’s the point of condition damage. It sacrifices the burst potential of “white damage” for DoT that ignores armor and protection.

Of course GW2 is still a “bursty” game – your conditions go in bursts, to be stacked, damage as much as possible, get cleansed and reapplied – but at no point will you be able to burst someone down as you can with white damage. If all other stats were equal, a white damage build will always destroy an equivalent condition damage build. Condition damage favors attrition. Which is why they usually come with higher defense – like toughness in Rabid. It doesn’t need criticals – it can’t have criticals, so it trades them for better defense.

Which is why a “glass cannon” condition build doesn’t make sense. It’s self-defeating. Like a boat that sucks water into itself as it goes. Even if there was such a thing as Condition damage/Condition duration/Precision gear why would anyone ever use it in lieu of rabid’s condition damage/precision/toughness?

If you want a “glass cannon” make a “white damage” build. Or an hybrid. That’s what Rampagers is there for – hybrid glass cannons.

Rennoko.5731:

Yes thanks for helping me clarify.

And that would hardly be everything… you do realize that ZERKER gear gives three stats that all synergize together to make a great armor set? I can run FULL zerker, and then run whatever food I want, or traits I want, or whatever, and it will still work nicely.

If I run condition damage armor…… what else can I do to help that work better? Well I can try to leverage the crit trait for more bleeds, or leverage condition duration, but there is no armor that allows me to do that.

You answered your own question. Crits. Rabid gear is my condition build gear of choice for a kitten reason – condition damage/precision/toughness. What else could you want?

You know why Berserker gear is power/prec/crit dmg? Because power is nothing without critical chance and critical damage. Because power is a base state, and criticals are multipliers. The damage increase from adding power is linear… But criticals are exponential…

Because you need all 3 to fully maximize your damage, you have berserker gear. But berserker gear isn’t necessarily the “bestest gear evurr!” – at least outside of PvE. It has absolutely no defensive properties. That’s why you have Knight’s gear, which is more widely used for a reason. It adds a compromise of good damage (power and precision), and defense (toughness or vitality, depends on the game mode for some odd reason).

…But conditions don’t have criticals…. They already deal max damage per tick with condition damage alone… No, condition duration isn’t the same. But do they have any other form of “enhancement”? Why yes! As it turns out, the best way to maximize your condition damage is to stack more conditions, specifically bleeds (most others don’t stack). Critical hits, on the other hand, are also widely used to moderate “on hit” effects. Namely, a lot of traits and sigils work “on criticals”. More importantly, most characters have a trait that gives them a chance to apply an additional bleed “on a critical hit”, and anyone can use sigils of earth (60% to add a bleed on crit).

But that’s only 2 stats… That means we have a free stat… Which can be used for defensive purposes – toughness.

Your traits are a bit of a mess to be honest… I’m too tired to start suggesting builds right now, but honestly, it’s irrelevant… You’re a warrior. With a GS. Killing ONE karka shouldn’t be an issue regardless of your build or gear… So instead, a few questions:

• Was it a Veteran Karka? The large ones? Southsun has stronger mobs than roughly any other area, and Veterans particularly can be quite difficult to solo if you don’t know them decently enough. Veteran Karkas are considerably harder to kill than mostly any other Veteran in the game.

• Did you dodge their attacks at all or just try to facetank everything? Tanking in this game is a lot about avoiding damage, more so than in most other similar games. Karkas almost always open up with a spinal barrage attack, where they crouch and shoot a burst of spines at you. That’s not the kind of attack you should try to tank. It’s telegraphed for a reason – get out of the way. A full barrage can do some serious damage on even a tanky character.

That’s about it really. Killing a karka (or almost anything…) with a Gs warrior comes down to Hundred Blades and WW, dodging while appropriate, till the thing drops dead. It’s one of the easiest classes to PvE with.

Note: Against Karkas specifically, it’s a lot easier to carry a shield and the missile deflection trait. This is because of the aforementioned spinal barrage attack – every spine is a projectile that can be reflected. Meaning that whenever you have a reflect available you also have a completely free karka kill, as they practically kill themselves because of reflect. Practical and hilarious.

XII.9401:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Sigh… Some people…

No, you can’t have it remove chill or cripple (we both know you’d go there after) as well. No, you don’t get to be immune to all movement impairing conditions. Mobile Strikes is one of the best skills as is. It lets you be immune to arguably the strongest movement impairing condition – immobilize. If you want to deal with chilled better, then that’s what your warhorn is for. Use it.

Do you use warhorn in spvp? I’d love to see you destroyed even faster than a regular warrior. Judging from your posts you seem to be playing a thief..mesmer too? Hmm guess warrior isn’t fotm.

Yes, mobile strike does not give you passive immunity to movement impairment effects. Read my post please.

1.It should remove chill as well because it is a movement impairment effect.
2.WHILE using movements utilizing mobile strikes, you should be immune to said movement impairment effects. Not asking for a passive immunity..

We play the warrior class and that is why we want it fixed.

Looks like someone just learned how to use the forum’s code!

Achievement Unlocked: Make a full post in bold.

Next: MAKE A FULL POST IN BOLD AND CAPS. IT’S JUST LIKE REAL LIFE, IF YOU SHOUT LOUDER YOUR ARGUMENT IS BETTER. TRUE STORY, COOL STORY BRO, ETC.

… Anyway…

Yes, I play Thief. And Mesmer. And Warrior. And Ranger… And… I have one of every class. I play them all.

No, I don’t use warhorn in PvP, or in WvW. Then again my problem with Warrior isn’t “OMG I GET CHILLED OR CRIPPLED”. If it was, I probably would, since it’s a Warrior’s best source of condition removal. It’s more along the lines of “we don’t have sufficient sustain/defense, even when accounting for our damage”. In PvP my warrior is currently geared as a condition build with dual swords and longbow, which has had moderate success (mostly due to the abundance of terrible players…).

Additionally your post said nothing about being a PvP specific post. In WvW warhorn is even more valuable given the larger maps.

And yes, I know you didn’t directly ask for actual immunity to those conditions… Much like Mobile Strikes currently doesn’t literally grant you immunity to immobilize… But it does. Because if you’re taking that trait you’re taking at least 3 skills that work with it, and there aren’t exactly a lot of classes or builds with more than 3 immobilizes readily available and practical to land… No, Mobile Strikes is fine as is. It’s already one of the best skills, and you have plenty of ways to remove chill and cripple. Those aren’t the problem.

Warrior has a few issues that need to be fixed right now. Movement impairing isn’t necessarily one of them.

Mijo.3274:

Lol, this is a group roamer build, my team use a group formed by 3 guys. The support u give is killing people in seconds, not healing.

People who are out of stunbreakers. While you’re very squishy and very easy to kill yourself.

Now tell, why should a group have you on this build instead of, for example, a Thief or a Mesmer? Both are capable of similar “insta-gib” potential if equally full-on damage traited/geared, except they both have quite a lot more survivability and utility on their own.

Meridian.8730:

Bunk vs thief = thief dies.

Mainhand Sword.

Enjoy.

(If you absolutely need an explanation, almost every bunker in the game requires boons such as protection and regen. Sword thief laughs at boons and calls them his own. Additionally the abusive mobility and evasion from a typical sword build means that you can get damage in while taking minimal damage in return. You’re essentially a pseudo (anti) bunker, that, nonetheless, has a lot of damage…)

As for bunker vs bunker, it’s not true that nobody wins unless it’s 2 100% full bunker builds. At which point… Why are you dueling a full bunker with a full bunker? Just ignore them… They won’t do anything…

Also not necessarily true that a bunker always beats a glass.

Also, full bunker or full glass aren’t necessarily the best builds in either case. Balance is key.

Rennoko.5731:

My personal wish is that it wasn’t so difficult to boost condition damage and your physical damage and your condition duration, without sacking important food, rune, and trait slots.

I’m sorry but do you honestly not realize how incredibly ridiculous this sounds? Your only wish was that you could have everything…? Wha…?

Bit like Om, bit like Nom, with all the juicy “berry” feeling you could ask for!

ITT: We discuss arbitrary details of things that don’t exist.

Could Jesus microwave a burrito so warm he, himself, couldn’t eat?

Ramiah.5648:

1) Long-range.

GS or Staff. GS is better.

Ramiah.5648:

2) Run speed increase (probably through Runes of the Centaur, but they seem useless on most Mesmer builds).

Only reliable swiftness you’re getting on mesmer is Focus.

Ramiah.5648:

3) Able to do reasonably well in events. Not looking for Orr-farming quality here, but at least gold on events would be very nice.

eh…? You throw a rock in the general vicinity of an event and you get gold…

Ramiah.5648:

4) Useful on teams.

Mostly any build. Sword is especially good for boon ripping.

Ramiah.5648:

5) Able to use staff effectively, if possible.

Seems like what you want is a GS (or Staff) / sword-focus build. If GS try 20/20/0/25/5, if staff try 0/20/20/25/5.

Arganthium.5638:

Yes, imagine how powerful armies would be if they suddenly fled every time they were engaged in battles.

WvW starts with the individual, and when you have individuals out of combat for 30 seconds because of their “lol OP escape”, I fail to see a difference between that and having the individual dead for 30 seconds.

Mostly because you don’t know much about WvW. Or PvP. Either. Or both… You seem to know deathmatch…

I’d go through this nice and easy, but I can’t be kittened, so you have to pretend this is a conversation and play along:

Why is dying bad in PvP?

Because it opens up the opportunity for your opponent to neutralize and/or capture points while you’re waiting to respawn. Surviving by running away is not optimal, but it is better so long as the time taken is inferior to that of respawning and rejoining the fight. Still, “staying power”, the ability to remain in the fight, is superior, as every second matters in the short duration round.

Why is dying bad in WvW?

Well, WvW is a more complex issue than PvP, but for the most part: because it forces you back to a spawn area, away from wherever you’re needed and whatever you’re doing. If you’re attacking something, dying means being forced to walk all the way back. If you’re roaming behind enemy lines, you’re forced to “re-infiltrate”, with all the dangers that carries. The deeper you go into enemy territory the less backup you can count on.

On the surface it’s easy to think “well, they’re both the same really… it’s all about downtime”. But there is a huge difference: scale.

A PvP match happens in a small map and lasts a few minutes. WvW happens across 4 huge maps and lasts a week.

In PvP it is common to have someone covering each of the important parts you own, or at least most of them, so there is far less of an issue with “backdooring”. Yes, you can stealth around, but when you get to the point, at least in decent teams, someone will be there waiting for you. Sure, you can run around in “unprotected” areas, but who are you inconveniencing really? Your team is getting kitten all for it. If you go in and have to run away all the time, you might as well be dead.

In WvW, on the other hand, it’s virtually impossible to cover everything. Hell, it’s virtually impossible to cover most things for any decent amount of time… Unless guilds start paying real money you’re hard pressed to find someone willing to play “sentinel duty” on a camp for a whole week… When you find someone roaming in your backline, the only thing you can do is kill them, so they’re, at least, forced back to their spawn and forced back through your front line of defense. It forces them away from your objectives for a period of time, and raises the chances they might be caught again on the way back.

And there we go, the most crucial difference. In PvP it’s ok to “shoo” someone away. In WvW you need to kill them. Sure, you can defend one camp… But they’ll just go to another. It’s still costing you points. The only way you have of having any meaningful impact in their presence is to remove them back to their closest spawn. If you can’t do that, you haven’t eliminated the threat. You simply moved it around.

In WvW there are other objectives unprotected.

In WvW there are people to catch off guard, traveling between places.

In WvW the 20 seconds it takes the thief to reach a new objective mean nothing. Especially nothing compared to the 5 or 10 minutes it would take them to return from spawn.

In WvW you don’t necessarily have even numbers. A run away in PvP means their team is now 5 vs 6. In WvW 1 person is usually less than 0,1% of that server’s force…

In WvW you need 10 or 20 people stationed around the map just to protect the most important areas for every one run away thief.

I guess the closest way to put it is if disengaging from a fight in PvP only took 2 seconds from “last damage received” to “full HP”, capping an unprotected point was instant and it kept you from re-capping it for a few seconds after… That would be a bit closer to the WvW scenario, and why Thief’s disengage is so much more ridiculous there.

Personally I’m running 0/30/0/20/20. It’s a “custom build” based off of Jumper’s build (which I think is something like 0/30/0/25/15 or something…).

In Critical Strikes take traits II, VIII and XI. Executioner is one of those traits you want in roughly any build, and the other two are there for some signet synergy. Since you’ll be using signets a lot, might as well grab some bonuses.

In Acrobatics you want III and IX. You’ll be using the low cooldown Withdraw as a heal, so you want the vigor on heal. IX is for more initiative. This build requires a lot of initiative.

Finally, in Trickery, you want V and VII. Steal lost its damage “punch” in the last nerf, so this build turns it into a utility. Since the points in trickery also go a long way to adding more initiative and steal cooldown, this essentially turns your steal into a low cooldown shadowstep that gives you fury, swiftness and steals 2 extra boons from the enemy (just for boon-ripping overkill).

As utilities you’re running Withdraw, Infiltrator’s Signet, Signet of Malice and Roll for initiative. Also common to use Basilisk Venom with Runes of Lyssa for that extra full-boon/full condition removal every 45 seconds.

It’s late here, so I can’t honestly be bothered going into details, but I’ll post some extras tomorrows if you need.

Meridian.8730:

Ignorant rambling

L2P.

You seem to be basing your entire build around one long range kitting weapon… then complaining that most of what you do is long range kitting… Really?

Get a one handed sword and a pistol. Or a focus. Nothing’s stopping you from casting Berserker, then switching to get right in there. Then maybe switch again to go out, etc. Mesmer is quite a dynamic class to play… In fact, it’s currently ridiculously powerful at just about anything exactly because it’s so dynamic, and good in roughly every situation.

If all you’re going to do is sit back and spam GS skills don’t complain that it’s not exciting. Pro tip: Staff is a defensive weapon as well. That’s like playing a full ranged Ranger then complaining you don’t get enough melee out of it…

Bloodgruve.6038:

I usually go with Sigil of Force on main hand and Sigil of Accuracy in off hand.

I used to do this in all my power-based characters, but then I realized that if you have decent critical chance (and as a Thief, why wouldn’t you), then Sigil of Air/Fire is almost always better. Sigil of Force only gets better when you have really high scaling moves, like, for example, Eviscerate or Kill Shot on a warrior.

Nyctimus.4109:

The “I have a thief” argument is null and void when I can have a bunker build and laugh all the way to the bank vs spike builds.

But I do run a spike build, because it is fun. I can escape sometimes, but when I screw up, it’s a definite death sentence.

Ahah… “All the way to the bank”. Tell me, which bunker build of yours is gonna catch a thief? With the possible exception of elementalist. See, the difference is that as a Thief, I can choose who to engage and when, and stand a good chance of downing them. And if I don’t, I can always turn around and kitten off… Even on my stealth build without stealth. 180º > Shadowstep (or shadow return in case I used it to go in) > Shortbow > Infiltrator’s arrow and swiftness ad nauseam. That’s even before I throw down some stealth, assuming I was revealed. Goodluck catching me.

If I’m on my sword build it’s even easier. (Shadow return, if I have one down) > Withdraw > Roll for Initiative > 180º > Shortbow > Infiltrator’s arrow and Swiftness away with nearly infinite initiative. See ya. But to be honest it’s not like this particular build cares about losing stealth at all…

But I do love how people overreact. As if these traps cost one copper, and every single pixel of every WvW map will be covered by them. You’ll find them once in a while. At which point you take the kittening hint and move away till they wear out or others leave, so you can trigger them when no one can use them. Or you bait people away from them. In general, you think for a second instead of just charging head in without a thought or care in the world.

Good god, thieves in WvW got so used to having so many braindead “get out of jail free cards” that they panic when one of them is made situationally less reliable… Oh I’m so sorry, you only have the highest spike damage, evasion and mobility in the game. My heart bleeds for you.

Chopps.5047:

Be aware, this has been changing. Southsun is full of enemies counter by apothecary builds and I’m willing to bet R Hrouda and Co .’s new dungeon will bring more of that.

Actually it’s mostly just the Karkas in Southsun… the rest seem like typical HP sponges, particularly the breeze riders.

I hope so, though. It would be nice to have different forms of damage being better and worse in different areas of the game. Instead of having “white” damage be king and queen, and conditions being the red headed step children of the group…

conflict.6539:

Anet, can you please redo all of the warriors weapon skills? Its so boring to be pigeoned holed into a certain weapon

See… the problem with forums is that anyone can comment… Anyone.

In turn, the problem with that is that most people have absolutely no earthly idea what they’re talking about.

You’re not “pidgeoned holed” (sic) into Greatsword. I don’t use Greatsword in any PvP variant, and I’ve only been using it in PvE lately because I can, and I like the absurd overkill of 100 blades + WW. I frequently use different weapon sets, including MH sword and axe, and off-hand shield, sword and axe (haven’t bothered with a warhorn yet because I don’t like them visually). You don’t need greatsword. But it is a good weapon.

Yes, in PvE GS is second to none. This has been demonstrated over and over again. AI doesn’t dodge HB, and having a second source of dodge that also does high damage and has a low cooldown is priceless. That doesn’t mean that the other weapons are bad, simply that GS is ridiculously good. You’re more than on par with any other class using, for example, dual axes or axe/mace, axe/shield.

In PvP (and btw that includes s/tPvP and WvW) GS is your main mobility weapon, but you can easily sub in a one handed sword instead for better overall damage (since HB is nigh useless in PvP) and a bit less mobility. And yes, it works as a power weapon. Personally it’s one of my weapons of choice in PvP, since it has good mobility, decent DPS, a ridiculous root as its burst, and lets me carry a shield as well.

In PvP you may even not carry either, if, instead, you favor a more methodic ranged approach first, and use melee as a fall back. Rifle and Axe/shield is a personal favorite of mine.

If you don’t know how to use the other weapons that’s your problem.

Nyctimus.4109:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Oh no, I have to learn and adapt!

Over and over again.

And only adapt to the fewer and fewer choices we have left. In 3 months I bet you every thief has been forced into a bunker/condition build.

2 months later after massive QQ from people “they have so many bleeeeeeeds”, the thief class is deleted and all characters converted to warriors.

Seeing as I have a thief (changes between S/D and D/P, always with Shortbow) and am quite happy with his performance… I maintain my point.

Oh no, I have to learn and adapt!

Arganthium.5638:

Sil.4560:

Thieves have excessive escape from everyone in WvW and Anet doesn’t seem to care.

This is one of the worst complaints about thieves I see.

“Oh, thieves are OP because they’re really good at giving up points!”

WvW is not PvP. Sil specifically said “in WvW”.

In PvP abandoning a point can cost a match. In WvW abandoning an area so you can survive means you’re still a problem. In PvP staying power is king. In WvW survivability, especially through disengage, is.

Travlane.5948:

evade spam thief is …. interesting but not a highly competitive build.

Don’t drink and post kids – Sword/dagger evasion build is currently the competitive build.

PsionicDingo.2065:

Chopps, I value your input on Rangers. So before I get too hyped about Apothecary gear, could you explain where there “Condis Suck in PvE” theorycrafting comes from?

Probably a good investment for WvW anyway, yeah?

Many reasons. First is that conditions themselves are a natural counter to high toughness and low vitality – since they do relatively low (or at least lower) damage that ignores armour. Most monsters in PvE don’t have particularly high toughness, but most of them (particularly the more difficult ones) have a metric kittenton of health. So in most cases a power based build will beat a condition build in downing any enemy.

Second is a technical issue: most conditions only stack duration, and bleeds have a 25 stack cap. So having more than 1 condition build in any group generally significantly decreases their effectiveness. “White damage” has no such caps.

In short, don’t bother with conditions for PvE. They are quite good at PvP though!