Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

You obviously don’t know how reddit works. The posts don’t get deleted. They get downvoted. THe hard core guys look at posts, think I know this or I know taht and they downvote. Unless you’re looking at reddit 24/7, you’re going to miss stuff. The stuff that gets upvoted that stays on the first page is more about hard core stuff generally.

Even if you go to the new page, stuff gets downvoted pretty fast. People don’t really want fun discussions they want serious discussions. But of course if people downvote just to keep the stuff they’re interested in on the first page and those people are mostly hard core guys, then that’s what most people will see.

The official forums, in my opinion aren’t as good as reddit for a lot of reasons.

How often do you visit reddit because from this response it doesn’t seem like it’s often. Front page posts are likely to rotate out daily because of all the other topics being posted and even then the MAJORITY of them are much less serious than you are making them out to be.

I’m gunna list out what is currently on the front page of reddit just for you.

• Fulff post about chuka and champawat IV and some dudes cats
• Fluff post about some guys revenant being a frog
• Fluff post about someone wanting to move the mithril ore node over in the home instance
• a post about the mass dc last night
• Fluff post about the dude in the well in Lake Doric
• Update to the Hearts and Minds instance
• A 6 MAN DEIMOS KILL
• Asuran fan art (which is lovely)
• A post literally discusing open world builds
• Upgrading to HoT
• Duels in WvW
• PSA about killing things too quickly in Solid Ocean fractal
• A post praising the Obsidian Sanctum JP
• Gem store post
• SAB hype
• Returning players questions
• PvP post about Mallyx rev
• WoodenPotatoes latest video
• 4 year anniversary about removing culling from WvW
• Necro solo fractal 97
• More Gemstore
• An interesting look into hackers

It must really suck having 1 post about raids and 1 post about fractals on the front page of reddit. It must seriously consume you to look at disgust as anyone that researches Guild Wars 2 sees the entire community talking about a variety of topics.

Stop spreading miss information about the game simply because you dislike a very small part of its content. That content being some of the best Gw2 has seen along with Nightmare 100cm. Having those few options for the veteran players keeps those players invested at no cost to any-other, unless you’d rather have the raid team working on gemstore skins…

To anyone else talking about restaurants there is obviously demand for a certain product and Anet is willing to cater to it. There is a reason it hasn’t been discontinued yet and I can guarantee it’s not because a vocal minority dislike raids. Anet has the numbers and they can decide whats best for their game and not a few people on their forums.

Gold and dark blue. https://gw2style.com/look.php?id=10279

Just to note OP, that if I can remember correctly the first 2 or 3 weeks featured a unique problem with Anet’s megaserver system in which it was creating too many instances of the map making it so there would be too few people on those maps. Once this was fixed the maps were packed and everyone was playing.

Currently all of the meta maps still do very well, albeit a few of the Hero Points might be difficult to do without 2 or 3 others. If you plan on doing the final map Dragons Stand just remember to look into lfg before the map starts as groups organize before the event starts.

Happy exploring, the new maps are surely amazing.

Donari.5237:

Hmm. They’ve certainly already long since locked in the method of getting there, but it could be fun to brainstorm ways to make a “ship voyage” work in the future. Keep in mind that even when we took ship from LA to Southsun, that meant talking to the ship NPC and then loading into Southsun, not standing on a moving deck. Also, after the first time, most players will want fast travel for future trips to the zone.

That said … what if the ship were an instance? People load in and after a bit the instance is full (with a timer so you aren’t stuck forever waiting for sailing companions) and the ship “sails” by having scenery move past it (perhaps just a loop of surging waves and billowing sails … or blue-flaming asura propellers, who knows). People can walk around on the deck, enter the cabin, climb the rigging. NPC’s shout out navigational and other sea-faring commentary. It all takes just a few minutes, maybe there’s an encounter on the way.

Just some rough ideas there.

I totally get that no one will use ship travel after the first trip.

It’s already completed mostly as an episode, but I think a cool way to implement this would be part of the living story.

A one time (optional repeatable) trip on a boat to The Ring of Fire with either some idle chit chat with your companions, or almost like an informative scene with your companions about the ring of the fire and some of the old lore associated with it.

Talk about the Door of Komalie and the white mantle, maybe the titans. Of course just an idea. That way after experiencing it once you still get the flavor but can waypoint after.

Thobek.1730:

I’m just hoping we get to travel there in a boat not some instant waypoint thing. I’d like to think its a massive journey to the islands. I want that epic vibe…

It reminds me of the docks area in Rata Sum. So maybe we’ll finally get to use them. Else it might just be a boat or something in LA, personally a little less interesting.

Have to login to the Gemstore on the in-game browser every time i re-log.

Just as the title suggests. It brings up the same webpage to log into your GW2 account just like the forums.

I have not logged into it in fear that it might be something on my end trying to fish my account details.

Nothing about the DH spec was buffed this patch with the exception of traps returning to as 1s daze. IMO, as a guardian main since launch what the most important change was making “Virtue of Resolve/Wings of Justice” remove 2 condies -baseline-.

This was pretty much the only trait most guards would take virtues for seeing as how we lack decent condi cleanse outside of it. Since we no longer take Virtues it opens up multiple builds allowing us to take honor and in some few builds zeal (GS power) or radiance (burn guard).

The few other traits that were taken with virtues can easily be replaced:

- Indomitable Courage→Hunter’s Determination (for stun breaks, or O kitten scenarios)

Or in some cases can be forgotten since they weren’t all that necessary.

- Unscathed Contender/Power of the Virtuous/Virtue of Retribution

The only exception I would make is losing Inspired Virtue, which was nice for boon support.

Even then Medi DH still uses Virtues and unlike ‘Symbloic’ can’t take Honor which gives a massive increase in outgoing healing; which isn’t completely passive but still close to it.

But, since you seem to be complaining about Medi DH and not ‘Symbolic’ (which I prefer) THE BUILD LITERALLY HAS BARELY CHANGED since last season.

It still uses LB, S/F. It still uses Purification, Smite Condition, Judge’s Intervention Test of Faith and either Renewed Focus or Dragon’s Maw. It still uses Marauders, Runes of the Pact and fire/air/blood sigils and it still takes all the exact same traits with the exception of running Hunter’s Determination instead of Bulwark.

Don’t forget sword now has a symbol which has low damage and you can literally walk out of it. Unless they are running Honor it doesn’t cover the point.

Yet on top of this you’re a thief, A THIEF. Guardians since the dawn of this game have countered thieves since forever. “O, but they are all playing DH what do you expect of me…” play another class; Engi Rangers and well played Revenants can easily kill guards. In team fights Necros can do a lot of work if you protect them with boon hate just like @narcx mentions.

It’s kinda sad to see that so many people relied on the god that was ele to protect them from DH’s. Swirling winds, ample amounts of Magnetic aura and healing kept guards far out of the meta along with engineers. Now that it’s gone guards can actually play in PvP again (not that they couldn’t before).

They still aren’t that great in higher end PvP. Yea, some ESL teams run guard now, but you have to remember they are a full team of 5. Most people play solo or duo in GW2 PvP. Any form of teamwork can kill a solo guard unless he’s eons ahead in skill level.

I’m not going to tell you to L2P, but you need to re-evaluate your frustrations with the class and learn how to fight it (i.e shield of ABSORPTION). A thief will not win, yet possibly a well played staff thief could do the trick for lower skill guard players.

In the case of Symbolic guards, play around them. They have ample amounts of outgoing healing (1k heal for dodging just to start off) and damage mitigation. You’re a thief: keep them occupied on a point so they can’t help their team elsewhere, gank them in between points causing them to waste cds for team fights. And in the case of the enemy team running multiple guards just +1, don’t fight just go in for the kill and get out if possible. I mean these are basic things for thieves. I can’t help you if you just yolo onto a point with 2 guards and expect there to be no traps.

Guards feel well balanced, all they need is to tone down the healing or increase their cds a bit. Hopefully if ele ever gets re-introduced to the meta people will have an easier time.

There will always be a “flavor of the month” build. S1=Mesmers, S2=Engi, S3=Warriors, S4=Guards. In the end if you can’t beat them join them, medi DH is a lot of fun to play again. Next to fresh air eles and power mesmer I think it’s one of the most fun builds in the game.

I think Caudecus was well written. He stood out more to me as belligerent and demanding while not understanding anything cause all he wants is power.

What I’m most upset about is Lazarus. He literally pops in randomly, “yo caud, you silly all ya want is powah we have better things to claim.” pops out… Really? I wish we could have at least seen the chamber or tomb thing from the raid blown up somewhere. Or a longer section of dialogue between Lazarus and the player character. Just a tiny bit more and it wouldn’t have been so awkward and feeling a little rushed.

Zeivu.3615:

It’s free content and they want to produce higher quality work. Good enough trade-off for me.

It’s not free content it’s included in the HoT expansion.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

In the recent AMA on Reddit, Mike O’Brien suggested that the team was working on being able to deliver more, sooner. I’m cynically optimistic: I like seeing him write that; I like the plan. I’ll wait to see what happens before I argue that we’re still in a content drought (even during a water drought, it still sometimes rains).

I think I could see them adding more current events into the rotations between LS updates. With the previous events, imo, this would fill the gap between LS updates nicely.

I would say that LS3 is better quality as they wanted it. It’s sad to see how small the update was for PvE outside of QoL improvements and Fractals. Bloodstone Fen and the story has about 3hrs content and a week or two of grind to get the trinkets and back piece. Very meh update content wise. None the less this update had a lot of work put into it. Don’t expect anything longer to be coming in the future.

I do agree with one dev comment made in the AMA on reddit. “Give it a few releases and wait until we get further away from the content drought.” Paraphrased and can’t remember the op of it, but it does hold value.

Wish we could have gotten more

Yea, yea. This topic again.

While I agree it might be hard for Anet to balance 3 different gamemodes at the beginning, it feels like in the long run it would only benefit the game after the initial hurtle.

I offer 2 ways of splitting:
-3 way split: all gamemodes have their own balance
-2 way split: PvE has its own balance while PvP/WvW share the same balance.

http://www.strawpoll.me/10179416

Honestly it doesn’t seem like anet are going to nerf elite specs. Rather they are going to wait until their next elite spec release and hope that balances things out. To be fair once we have 3-4 elite specs it could potentially balance itself out, but that might not be for the next 6 years if we get an expac/elite spec every ~2 years.

I wouldn’t expect anything but number tweaks for the months to come. I hope this can be proven wrong and not just for guardian.

Rated Arena 1v1/2v2/3v3.

Warsong Gulch style capture the flag.

Salamander.2504:

Nothing. Just nerf the other elite specs. Reaper and DH are finally where they ought to be, or pretty darn close (and maybe warrior/scrapper but jury is still out). It’s some of the other elites that are an issue.

I agree completely. While it would still be nice to see updates and fixes for many or our utilities and weapons (not just guard every class that needs it). If all elite specs came down in power and passive procs went to the gutter, guardian/warrior/thief/necro would all be in better positions.

Too bad all a.net wants to do is buff the already strongest elites.

WOOO! Dungeons are being run again. Too bad after every run of CoE we have to re-open the dungeon entrance.

I understand that there is an event item from the boss that people need for legendary collections, but it’d be really nice to not have to open the dungeon after every path. I had to remake groups every time because no one wanted to stay for the event.

I’m not sure how applicable this is to other dungeons as I haven’t done them all yet, but it might be something to look into. I don’t want to get rid of the flavor of the event and the open world, but it’s just so inconvenient.

If you are looking into playing a support oriented class, I would look at Tempest and Druid.

Guardian offers very few boons, negligible healing and o.k. cc at best. Bunker guard used to be a staple but it has been overshadowed. The boons that the guardian does give only last ~5s anyways and the cd on shouts is still too long to keep decent cleanse for your team. Most of the guardians healing in loaded into Virtue of Resolve and to somewhat a degree Empower (staff 4). It doesn’t help that bunker guards have to take shelter and renewed focus to keep themselves alive…before they can even help their own teammates.

You’ll find most of the guardian weapons feel like they are stuck in 2012…even the LB (copy paste ranger bow).

Guardians are in a good spot!

Play a different class. I’d suggest Revenant/Scrapper, revenant if you wanna keep that magic feeling to combat.

…but “guardians are in a good spot.”
/s

Nike.2631:

Treat is as what it is: The top 1% of PvPers and the 5% that raid DO NOT dictate changes to the game as a whole. Any argument the game is being changed solely on their account is between 99% and 95% wrong.

Please try and grasp that the people making these decisions make them with access to summary metrics from the ENTIRE length and breadth of the game. Some of those decision can be a little weird but they aren’t ignorant.

If you’re a Dragonhunter, leverage the added benefit of more 25% more #4 damage and 33% more final tick damage on #5 along with shorter cooldown. Press your enemies with that instead of revealing yourself to be the one-button wonder all the other professions have been accusing us of being.

If you’re a Guardian, revel in nothing but sweet, creamy BUFF.

…Instead of making whiney one-note threads like this one. Which really ought to be beneath our collective dignity.

I agree and while I’m still salty it’s not because of the nerf to the “one button wonder.”

Guardian could be such a cool class if it had interesting mechanics/utilities/traits. Guardian has become one-dimensional with no interesting combos apart from JI+any other skill or pulling knocking someone back though a trap. Even with these ‘buffs’ guardian is still extremely predictable. True Shot just does less damage and the class wont be able to carry any mechanically skill-less players anymore.

I feel as a class we’ve just been neglected for the past 3 years.

Nero.8047:

The problem is that, although Dragonhunter did out-spec everything else that was the Guardian, Dragonhunter is most if not all that would be presumed worth to take in PvP.

Dragonhunters could burst and after that they’d be sitting ducks.
Ranked PvP’ers realize that the Dragonhunter was nothing but a one-trick pony in most occasions and as such it didn’t become top tier.

Instead of improving the diversity of other skills (Spirit Weapons, Signets, consecrations, shouts (5 seconds less on CD isn’t a real help in the long run.)) A-net decided to simply tone down the last ray of sunshine that shown upon our Guardians.

I have been playing a Guardian since the Beta and perhaps most of my comments are biased towards my love for Guardians but right now this feels like kicking us Guardians in the groin while we’re already down on the floor.

Yup I completely agree. At this moment guardians have sub-par dmg across all weapons, traps and a few meditations. As you stated spirit weapons, consecrations and shouts are pretty bad utilities for PvP.

Sword: bad auto chain, skill 3 never hits and locks you in place the only thing its moderately good at is gap closing and even then it’s not great.

Hammer: could still use some QoL in the auto chain speed, a mobile ring of warding, not feeling clunky in general to use.

Scepter: the misfit longbow.

Staff: useless apart from mob tagging and attempting a bunker build only to die just after the rest of your team in which you never helped in the first place.

Then we have our messy half garbage trait lines that didn’t get a single change. At least put heavy light on LB 3 so we have some control over the knockback.

I mean it’s not like the guardian forums have been talking about these exact changes for the past 6 months+. Warrior looks like it’ll be more useful than us; we are the new worst class.

EDIT: yes i’m salty as balls right now since this class has been going to the kittenter for the past 4 years slowly and it’s finally hit the bottom. But guys, don’t forget the great guardian excuse, “Guardian is in a good spot.” Great I love being at the bottom.

I agree. Useless buffs to shouts that are rarely used in PvP. No QoL for any of our weapons (sword, hammer). Nerfs to most of our damage (reflecting shot and symbol of energy are not reliable damage sources). I guess we at least got shorter cds on our virtues.

Time to finally drop guard after 4 years of nothing getting better.

Honestly don’t expect much. The April patch doesn’t seem to be adding any content so there isn’t much to look forward to as a PvEer. Same goes for PvP, there will be a lack of actual balance between minute number changes and tool-tip fixes. Maybe the WvWers have something to look forward to, but that isn’t the largest part of the community.

Game is still great for newcomers, but is severely lacking for veterans. I would say look towards a larger mid summer patch if you want content that isn’t a festival or raid.

Please can someone tell me how I can get Assassins stats trinkets apart from waiting for them to drop in fractals.

People have told me to look at all the vendors and I have. Maybe i’m blind but I cant find them for the life of me.

Ty in advance.

I played with Drew as well, I’m excited to see he made it on warrior. He definitely carried his own weight in the matches I played with and against him.

Gratz on Legend!

While everything suggested here is great and what the system needs to start moving to, I don’t think Anet will change the system until after Year of Ascension.

This is because of the way their achievements are structured and how they already told the PvE player that the backpack will be achievable by the end of the year. They won’t change their system in the middle, imagine the rage from all the PvE players that treat “competition” like a reward track.

My second point would be. Yes Anet needs incentive for players to play PvE, but i don’t think adding legendary items to PvP is the way to do that. I feel the skin alone, or titles/AP/feeling like you actually accomplished something should take president. Adding a PvE item for hardcore PvPer’s was IMO a bad decision.

The strength of the condi mesmer is that it can continuously apply conditions and have periods of burst while being able to survive decently in a 1v1. There will come a time in that duel where you either run out of dodges or condi cleanse. If all else fails you always have moa every 50s. That’s why the build is strong all the while having decent cleanse itself and heals with each shatter.

I’m a guard main and recently picked up condi mesmer to learn more about it and I can say the skill level needed for it is pretty low to play effectively. If the mesmer can get their defensive rotations down and maintain sustained bursts they will dominate anyone who lacks “good” condi cleanse.

In regards to Yannir (forgive me I have no clue how to quote) I’m not sure crossbows have any niche to fill that the game doesn’t already have. Shortbow/Pistol I feel already would fill the “melee ranged” weapon if it was condi or power. Hell scepter already fills the power/control aspect of the guardian for that type of weapon. I would love to see better main hand weapons on the guardian that are more condition focused.

It’s PvE, you can literally play with anything unless you are raiding. Staff is especially good for tagging mobs in areas where many spawn for loot—orr for example.

Any situation where you find your self in need of survive-ability take a focus and match it with scepter.

Other than that Longbow/GS are typically better for almost every situation, I wouldn’t bother too much with staff/focus.

Hello Mesmer forums!

A preface: I play Dragon Hunter, hit diamond comfortably last season and am currently there now this season. With that out I’d love for this to be constructive rather than blaming every other class/balance/MM.

With what I see as the rise of the condi-mesmer (they have their strengths and weaknesses) I am fighting at least one and more than once two of them per game.

My question is that if playing on a team that doesn’t usually have a mesmer how do you counter portals without having an ele or engi just sitting on home point all game. It’s rather frustrating to have a 4 man gank squad teleporting around the map constantly ending everyones life.

What are some precautions to take when going against double mesmer?

Should I bother rotating with them or against them (i.e they go home, I rotate to their far)?

I know well enough that DH itself won’t be able to carry me to legend, but all info is helpful.

Stop queueing into ranked with Thieves/Dare Devils pls. It’s quite impossible to carry one. /rant

I agree with Crimson kittenhat it feels like the MM system is working as intended. The leagues are not perfect as they desperately need a placement system to move players into their proper division faster. Yet I also find that almost everyone complaining about the MM system immediately writes themselves off as above average or godly players who can make no mistake and that all their other teammates are the problem and MM is to blame. As OP states there are the vocal minority who might have some “bad luck” with the MM system. Even then most of the half decent players are at least in saph/ruby by now and it shouldn’t be that much of a struggle to get a few wins out.

Then again the intention of this post was to not turn into another kitten about the MM system. It was a productive post to help some people maybe spot what other teammates are doing and possibly giving them tips as to how to improve, or how themselves can improve.

Honestly no matter how perfect you think you may play, there is always room for improvement. This post is helpful, maybe not to all the MM kitteners, but to anyone else just getting into pvp who want to improve.

Personally, for me currently in PvP I prefer using Sword/Shield. There are some trade offs, but I feel for the most part it is better atm in most games compared to focus. Focus will give you a blind and a few blocks while shield gives you protection, another way to apply aegis to your team and a great way to block projectiles/contest nodes. The protection and heal from detonating shield #5 is just a nice bonus.

A few great uses I have for it are: Longbow druids, other DHs, Reaper Shroud #4 combos for chilling/poison bolts, Rev Sword #2. And on very few occasions knocking back mesmer clones just before they explode (although this is mostly due to luck. It also works well if you need to knock eles out of water overload and have spear of justice on cd.

I usually use it against general team comps with less stability such as 2 necro/1 ele/ 1 DH/ 1 rev, or something similar.

Although I would use focus in many other situations especially when a team is heavy in melee dmg like having 2 scrappers or if the enemy team has a thief and you want to be a little safer on the roads in between points.

In the end I feel like it is more of a play style, but both are very beneficial in certain situations and you should learn to use each of them respectively.

EDIT: I also completely forgot to mention the amazing combo you can pull off with shield and test of faith. Test of Faith>Spear of Justice (pulled through test of faith)>Shield #5 to knock your enemy back through Test of Faith. The combo is easy enough to land you just have to watch for stability. Also keep in mind when executing this combo that passing the threshold for Test of Faith has an icd so you will have to wait about .5s before knocking your opponent back through the ring.

If someone dodges your queue after you have selected maps the Map Selection box gets stuck on your screen even after relog and zoning out of pvp.

http://imgur.com/oP1v2hh

EDIT: seems to have resolved itself for the time-being. No clue if it is still an ongoing issue.

I feel myself decently skilled, lose some win some not yet hitting that 50% mmr, but. Is it possible to actually win a game as a DH against 2 ele bunkers. Whirling winds, magnetic aura and boons out the kitten. Really looking for some insight to taking them down or helping in taking them down.

Tanks will be necessary for raids to hold aggro of the boss. Toughness seems to be the only deciding factor on who the boss targets.

I see two sides to being a tank. Warriors and Heralds seem to be the better choice for heavy armor tanks as they already have high health pools and decent mitigation while guardians have good mitigation and low health pools. The only trade off I see for taking a Guard over the others is that they have access to a generous amount of passive mitigation in the form of regen and protection. Before many of you make an argument for aegis, do know that there are many small instances of dmg that break aegis before it can be useful and the timing needed to make it useful is not always reliable.

I have also heard of reapers being fairly good tank/condi dmg and being able to rely on death/reaper shroud takes some pressure off the healer.

Gear

Disclaimer ( i am in now way a genious of build crafting, hence partly the reason for opening this topic)

With thoughness being the main stat, I’m assuming that it can be made up in food and trinkets. This would allow players to keep zerker or other high dmg gear with a toughness minor stat as to not lose too much dps from the raid group.

I’m looking at soldiers and possibly sentinel’s gear (if you take zerker trinkets) to be the main stat combos for tanks as they offer toughness and power. Knights gear is also a great choice to proc many on crit sigils and traits that cant be made up with consumables.

I have also heard that Dire gear is also very popular for tanks that run condi specs(reaper/necro/possibly mallyx/engi).

Commanders (power, precision, toughness, boon duration), one of the new stat combos also seems to look like it might be popular. It will offer less toughness, which could mean taking soldiers/knights trinkets, but still offer decent power. Alternatively condi tanks can run tank gear and trailblazer (toughness, condi dmg, vitality, condi duration) gear to help keep up attrition.

Runes/Sigils

As little as I have looked, Runes of the Scrapper seem to be the best choice to a tank with the 7% reduced dmg set bonus as well as giving you additional toughness and power.

Sigils seems to be much more personal choice as many of them don’t really interact with a tank unless your a condi tank allowing you to various condi uptime sigils. As for me I see: intelligence, energy and concentration sigils being good for mitigation, boons and on crit traits. Alternatively if you are playing a a tanky/healing hybrid sigils of renewal might be useful as well.

I don’t see too much value in sigils or runes that remove conditions as the raid encounter doesn’t seem to apply conditions to you or allies (at least from what I have seen).

As I see it, Warriors, Heralds, and Necros seem to be the best option for tanking as they have high health pools and can still pump out decent dmg.

Engies I have heard can tank, but I have little to no research or knowledge about them.

Guardians having a low health pool but good mitigation I can see being used to re-leave the pressure from the healer, but they offer far lower dps.

I would love to hear/see everyone’s opinions and builds for the new raids as I intend to try tanking for my guild in the future. This could be a helpful discussions for the community to better understand tanking as well. Post not only builds but also helpful tactics and advice.

Also if anyone knows about mallyx revs for tanking and condi dmg I would love to hear it. I think it would be a very cool tanking aspect but last I heard mallyx was nerfed pretty harshly (if only in pvp).

A few instances where if I used the bouncing mushrooms while in combat, I was never able to break combat unless i left the map or relogged. No matter how many times i killed myself or how far i ran always in combat.

It only happened a few occasional times and I haven’t heard anything from anyone else so i’m not sure how severe it is.

Mostly something I was just thinking about in my free time. Guardian+Mesmer that controls enemies punishing movement with a little boon manipulation and soft healing support. The healing mostly came from the druids current idea for staff and how it heals when it passes through allies.

IMPORTANT This is no where near balanced it was just an idea. A lot of things still needs duration, icds and cds. All criticism is welcome!

/————————————————————-The Purifier

/——————————————————————Virtues

Virtue of Woe: now additionally applies agony to every 5th attack
active: tether yourself to the target; the tethered target takes bonus damage from agony, anyone who passes through the tether becomes tethered and equally splits the damage.(tether for 6s)(18s cd)

Virtue of Transposition: on activation convert 3 conditions into boons, convert 2 enemy boons into conditions.(30s cd)

Virtue of Denial: Create a bubble that shields the next 3 melee attacks. Shatter this bubble to stun enemies around you.(50s cd)

/———————————————————Main Hand: Pistol

Auto: Each attack applies one stack of agony.(2s)

Skill #2: Shoot an infused bullet at your target that ticks x10 instances of damage. If your bullet hits an ally convert 1 condition to a boon and apply x10 ticks of healing.(10s)

Skill #3: Blind your target and drop a symbol of wrath at your position.(12s)

/——————————————————-Utilities: Mantras all mantras have 2 charges

{HEAL}*Mantra of Mending*: Charge a mantra that heals you on activation, drop a minor symbol of faith at your location. (use every 2-1/3s)—(10s cd)

Mantra of Agony: Charge a mantra that on activation applies 3 stacks of agony to your target.(use every 2s)—(25s cd)

Mantra of Shielding: Charge a mantra that on activation applies aegis to yourself (5s).(use every 8s)—(25s cd)

Mantra of Conversion: Charge a mantra that on activation converts conditions on you and your allies into boons. 2 conditions—>boons.(use every 2s)—(18s cd)

Mantra of Advancement: Charge a mantra that on activation grants you and your allies 5s of swiftness and breaks stun.(use every 2s)—(20s cd)

{ELITE}*Mantra of Vengeance*: Charge a mantra that on activation infuses you symbols to deal bonus damage to enemies and grant pulsing fury and might to you and your allies that stand on them.(use every 10s)—(20s cd)
^^^(your symbols turn white and have a pulsing ring on them)^^^

/————Traits————/
/—————————————————————Minors
1: Blaa blaa blaa agony and virtues.
2: Dodging grants 3s of swiftness.
3: Critical strikes have a chance to cause weakness.
/—————————————————————Adepts
1: Blinds now daze for 1s.
2: Pistol skills recharge faster and they heal allies that pass through them.
3: Agony you apply lasts longer.
/—————————————————————-Master
1: Mantras grant 1 stack might for (3s)—(5s icd).
2: Conditions you have converted into boons have increased duration.
3: Agony does increased damage when you are above the threshold (90%).
/————————————————————Grandmaster
1: Symbols grant (3s) of resistance; symbols last longer.
2: Pistol skills that heal allies do bonus damage to enemies based on %healed.
3: When an aegis you apply blocks an attack, apply agony to nearby enemies.

So. As you can see I had a few conflicting ideas, but I though the general idea of it all was really cool. I’m not too sound on the name doesn’t really fit and like i mentioned before it really needs all kinds of balance. Could be a cool hybrid between soft support and attrition. The spec itself lacks escape I found it hard to put in there because you would not be sacrificing and would only be gaining. Also since it was more attrition focused I didn’t see the immediate need to add and blinks as guards we have JI.

Earlier on I was messing around with wards instead of symbols. But, with how I implemented them the battle field would quickly be littered with 4-5 zones that enemies couldn’t get in or out of and it was a little op. Virtue of woe had the same effect but the tether was a ward knocking players who passed through it down and knocking players down caused agony. This could have been a much better support/control spec with less damage more oriented for a bunker guard.

I feel like what I ended up with is a slightly op attrition guard where if you cant cleanse in time you would rather not move as agony can stack fast. A lot of it is short duration so I hope that it would balance it out, no way of testing.

All feedback and criticism is welcome this was just for fun really.

Everyone, please stop. This has become the most useless forum. All it is is bickering with someone too stubborn to realize they are being ridiculous.

Despite what some believe ascended armor is relatively easy to get (apart from sinister stats). I made 1 of every time-gated material everyday for the past 2 weeks. O but what could it possibly be that I grind countless hours of precious life away on. Literally nothing. I do a run of SW, some pvp, maybe run around in Orr for silk and I gather everything. I play the game maybe ~2hrs a day now that i’m back in school and more on the weekends ~5hrs. I do a little of everything and enjoy it all, it is a game after all.

Grind is Subjective and is not necessary to achieve your goals. I can get a set of ascended in roughly a month and a half and for endgame gear I think that’s respectable since GW2 currently lacks endgame. Sure go grind moldy bags from events in Orr for 7 hours a day and complain the game is making you do it when it’s not; that is your choice. If you are so impatient and find you deserve some of the best gear in the game but can’t even log in for your daily laurels then go cry in the corner.

Raids “suggesting” ascended gear is fine imo. GW2 lacks endgame and a reason for players to generally stick around because there is nothing to work towards in PvE other than legendary’s which a lot of people don’t generally like. It will give something for people to work towards.

O hey I hit 80—wow that guy has some cool gear—O! its legendary gear from raids cool—I need ascended gear, well i better start working on it—finally have my gear time to raid!

BTW that is progression that many people suggest the game lacks. It is a clear direction for people to progress on.

Like others have said if you can not so much as log in for laurels and complain at every single detail, then raids and fractals are not for you. Go open world PvE, do dungeons, attempt to get good at PvP or zerg in WVW, hey living story season 3 is just around the corner.

You’re in the minority of players that don’t want to work for anything and want everything handed to them. Sure there could be less dedicated hardcore players on the forums to disprove your point because guess what, they actually play the game and enjoy it rather than playing the forums like its a reality T.V show. Continuously running around in the same argument hoping for like minded faceless internet strangers to give you your justification and make you feel better.

WOOO. What a rant! Get workin buddy cause the game ain’t changing just for you.

Many people in this forum post have offered their opinions and constructive feedback on what you view in the game to be displeasing and unobtainable. None of those comments has harassed or distastefully lashed out at any of your opinions.

I very much agree with the consensus of people posting here that you yourself are putting up barriers that do not actually exist for the common GW2 player such as restricting yourself to a 2 man group to accomplish all content in the game whether or not it was designed for 2 or 10 people.

I am sad to hear that most of your experiences with the general community in game have been unsatisfying as I have not shared many of those experiences save for a few occasions. In such occasions there is nothing that is demanding me, as a fellow player, to keep myself in that situation which I am not comfortable in. I also do not wish to remain in a team that has either harassed me or another in my group. So I leave, make my own lfg and wait at maximum for 10 minutes before it most likely fills and we go on our way to completing that content.

Which leads me to talk about guilds and the up-coming group content. I have been in multiple guilds since launch, ~13. Many of which were small guilds roughly 9 or so people trying to start something big. A few of them succeeded, but I moved on to find other guilds as I personally did not mesh well. I have also encountered 2 guilds (to remain unnamed) that had demanding requirements to partake in activities. Such as the dreaded 100% rep. I personally made a friend in one such guild that required you be in WvW 100% of the time and I did stay in the guild for awhile. Eventually when it came down to being harassed for not dedicating my life to content I didn’t like, I left.

I am now in a comfortable guild that has no requirements. A come and go, be nice to people and lets do stuff guild. We are 494 members strong with 120 on at peak times. All it took was some searching but it sounds as if you refuse to give people a chance when considering adding people to your guild or partaking in another guild.

On the topic of raids. A.net has stated that they are not for the majority of the player base. They are not distastefully rubbing their hands together in a dark room at the idea of players that cannot access 10 man content because they refuse to interact with the player base. This goes back to the idea that you do not give people or yourself the chance to open up to others and make connections. MMO’s are in the end a social game meant to band people together to complete content.

I am not at all attacking you in this post, I am simply restating what many others have tried to offer as constructive feedback on up coming content as well as my own opinions. I do hope that you find a way to interact and enjoy the game that so many others have found and enjoyed.

As for a general comment to those who have posted in the thread, thank you. This has been the single most constructive and civil thread that shows no out-lash at specific posters. I am truly surprised that upon entering this threads second page it has remained constructive and insightful. It does show the truley helpful people that GW2 has for its community that make us so great and friendly. In the event that this thread does become somewhat hostile, I only see it as a reaction that the OP has refused to acknowledge many peoples opinion and to only restate the same thing in many of his responses.

Do not over-use the word toxic as many people in today’s world use tragic.

UAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Seriously has to be on of the most annoying things I’ve ever heard.

Honestly, IMO the zerker meta has never really been the problem, but the encounters that Anet has made in the past. Easily LoS, stackable bosses with an auto attack every 10s that is easily dodged.

These raids are a step in the right direction. Having zerker be optimal is not the end of the world it’s fine. I do not know why people find the stat combo so toxic. What was most exciting to me was that even though the Vale Guardian was decently easy after we got used to the mechanics, (we still couldn’t get it below 85%…puggable in the future) people were still making valuable choices with the skills they slotted and traits they took. We needed a condi team, a boon team, and everyone had to have decent dps thrown in with a druid for a little safety net. We needed skills for the break bar and the boss has to be kited in a specific way.

Those are the things that matter, a mechanically interesting boss. Just because someone ran zerker because it was OPTIMAL as a build doesn’t mean that raids are doomed.

As for feedback.

Earlier bosses are there to teach mechanics but they are terribly boring and easy to kill. The blue boss is alright but red and green are just too mechanically uninteresting. The way you have them set up in the encounter might have left little creative wiggle room for giving them more skills as you wont see them in the Vale Guardian so I don’t have much feedback on how to improve those fights.

The Vale guardian is in a good spot. Just hard enough where it punishes people for not positioning right and just easy enough for a FIRST RAID BOSS. I would hope the encounters after this are harder because the fight is very easy so as long as you stand in the lightning and keep track of your own health, druids aren’t necessary for this boss.

And for all those people who are protesting to get rid of the enrage timer…That mechanic is there for a reason. That reason being anyone in full nomads could beat the raid and all it would take is time. Leaving raids bland and uninteresting. There has already been a beta first on downing the raid boss. All it takes is coordination.

Hello moderately unhappy guardian forums! I’ve decided to make a post dedicated to builds people have created so we can discuss build crafting for our favorite elite spec the “Dragon Hunter.” /sass

I tried medi/DH in PvP (specifically) and saw good success with it. I ran:

*Valor*—2,3,2
*Virtues*—2,2,3
*DH*—1,2,2
Longbow(energy,hobling) Sword/Focus(energy,intelligence) Marauders(Hoelbrack)
Utilities: JI, CoP, and Test of Faith (shelter, renewed focus)

I played roughly 50 matches between Friday and the time I posted this. For the most part the build offers similar sustain to the traditional Medi guards.

I sacrificed smite condition to take Test of Faith as it offers an excellent amount of dmg and soft cc while being on a manageable cool-down.

The new virtues are amazing. It took me most of the games to get used to using them PREEMPTIVELY, but when timed right you can easily out position opponents or dodge a nasty burst. I found that Wings of Resolve were best used in situations when I just wanted to get somewhere quickly and i needed a little heal, anytime I tried using WoR as an o-kitten skill I ended up getting caught mid air and died (as a side note are WoR supposed to be effected by cripple and chill as I was only going about 1/3 of the distance).

In terms of the new longbow I think it is fantastic. Your autos do good damage, #2 can deal massive crits when timed with cripple traits, #3 while hard to land can also deal significant damage when blocking projectiles (I hit up to 5k at one time), #4 is alright I still feel like it still travels too slow and #5 is very niche and almost un-used in PvP unless you’re being ignored and can land on in a team fight.

The style in which I played this build was a melee ranged skirmisher. I found using Test of Faith off point in prep for approaching enemies and the saving it for when Heavy Light comes off cd. It’s easy enough to land a well timed knock back even though I wish we had more control of when you can knock back someone as it is still unreliable unless you’re counting down the icd.

Once Heavy Light was on icd I found longbow to be useless in melee combat unless you wanted to burn WoR early to jump to the other side of Test of Faith to put that obstacle back in your opponents path making it harder for them to get to you.

I took focus over shield simply for #4 as it can give decent regen and gives you access to a second blind as well as traiting for Focus Mastery in heavy melee teams. I seriously considered using shield over focus for synergy with dulled sense, but in the end I found piercing light most useful for the daze and landing a knock back while in your trap. Also Might of the Protector for focus #5.

The build is still lacking in the fact that traps offer nothing else but more dmg and your losing a lot of your dmg from not taking GS and losing the zeal line. I didn’t attempt to play without Virtues as I feel it is absolutely necessary in every guardian build. WoR is awesome for moving around and the cd is acceptable.

All in all I found the DH to be a lot of fun to play even if you’re taking a serious hit in dmg from META Medi.

Also as note this could also easily countered with time. This is the last of 3 betas of all lasted about 3 days. Dragon Hunters do not have specific counter builds in place and the meta doesn’t support many of the Elite Specs. So many players didn’t know how to deal with it yet.

Sanctuary — reduce cd, give it pulsing regen (2’s), detonate for 1k heal.

Merciful Intervention — Allow teleport to anywhere, grant protection (4’s), give 5% revive to downed allies OR 180 knock-back to enemies.

Signet of Courage — Keep healing the same, allow us to cast while moving, cast time reduced to (3’s), passive range 300->500

Radiant Retaliation — allow the player to have good control of the new effect. When the player is under the effects of retaliation they gain stacks of “retaliated” which last for( 8’s) each. This effect stacks once every (1’s) and upon reaching 5 stacks of “retaliated” blinding enemies in a 600 radius and gaining 2 stacks of might. If the player does not reach 5 stacks of “retaliated” before it runs out the trait does not go on cool down and simply resets or have it go on a (5’s icd). If the player is successful the trait goes on a (12’s icd).

I think incorporating binding blades into the traits is neat but there is no way to reactivate them unless you have a great sword.

EDIT: Many of your reworks are a bit overloaded. Sometimes simplifying them makes them not only useful, but easily more practical. Personally I think the unique ‘Retaliated’ status could be a really cool thing about retaliation for guards, having them utilize the boon in a neat and different way.

DeceiverX.8361:

I could see it using some CD tweaks and cast time adjustments. 2s is a very long time.

Unfortunately I think it’s the best elite we’ve got at the moment aside from the obvious use of Lich Form when blobbing WvW.

I agree, I just thought this might be an interesting way to give it a little more play in PvP because it seems too easy to interrupt. Used at the right time the chill might give you that 1.5s window to cast the skill.

And on the topic of Revenant’s “Jade Winds” I feel that it is too strong especially when I saw many Revenant’s chaining it with “Impossible Odds” for a guaranteed stun.

I didn’t play much of reaper, but was talking with my guild about a change to make the elite shout “Chilled to the Bone” feel a bit better.

My suggestion is to make it act a little more like the ele overcharges giving it a primary effect and on finishing the shout give it secondary effect.

Currently the shout has a 2s cast time for a 2s AoE 5 target stun and 8s of chill. My change would make it so the shout would have a 1.5s cast time; at .5s of cast time you would effectively chill enemies in the radius first for 5s and then on completing the shout stun enemies within the 600 range.

Less technical terms once the player character said “Chilled” it would chill enemies, then when the player character finished the shout with “to the Bone” it would then stun.

Thoughts?

The Day time events that we have now are awesome, especially the Itzal events, that is…if they work.

They Night time events, I assume, are still at an early state. Colin stated on Fridays PoI (~48:20m, into the stream) that the night events are still an early iteration. I agree that it is potentially because we do not have a full map and there are events else where that build up to a larger night time meta event.

I love all the new mobs. I wish they were a little more challenging in smaller groups like 5-10 players. 20+ players doing an event does not necessarily make the events harder, but there is a decent increase in mob spawn rate and up-scale that you have to pay more attention to getting caught in the line of fire of say 5 Mordrem Snipers…

Now lets talk about Smokescales. There is of course a thread about them already, but I would love to express my gratitude towards this enemy. It’s dangerous if you don’t know how to deal with it but decent when you know its mechanics. I enjoyed running around and seeing people die to them not knowing what in the world just happened. I’d like to see more enemies like this. Even the Mordrem Snipers seem to be in the same challenge category if you do not come prepared with block or reflects.

My 2 cents.

THIS IS MAINLY FROM A PvE PERSPECTIVE:
Virtues: Need to be insta-cast, it really sucks when u interrupt a channeled skill; might just take some getting used to. Cd’s need to be standardized to 20,40,60.

Longbow:
-AA: Feels good could use a velocity increase as it can be sidestepped at 900 range
#2: Balanced, nice dmg and decent cast time+cd
#3: Could use some more base dmg as been expressed previously but overall good
#4: Alright, wish I could drop this skill behind me
#5: Cool skill, cast time is alright but the cd is too long if only by a couple seconds though this might conflict with PvP

HEAL:
Purification: it’s o.k but because of my preference is nowhere near as good as shelter is. Might MIGHT see some use in WvW.

UTILITIES:
Test of Faith: good, strong skill has good synergy with traits.

Fragments of Faith: I can see its use in dungeons and high level fractals but for the open world it’s o.k, retreat feels strong as you can directly apply aegis and swiftness.

Procession of Blades: Was this nerfed? For zerker its kinda meh, but I can see its use with condi or hybrid builds. O.k skill.

Lights Judgement: Got nerfed, but still a strong skill. O.k I could see the cd of this skill going down by a few seconds.

ELITE:
Dragon’s Maw: All in All, its decent. Cd is fine and dmg is fine, but I still find other elites more useful such as Feel My Wrath. They only thing I ever used this skill for and that its great at is stripping defiance stacks.

TRAITS:
For the most part I have no complaints, although (as expressed previously) a longbow trait with 25% increased movement speed would have been really nice. I don’t see it conflicting so much with pvp as there are plenty of gap-closer’s that can catch up to the guardian…still, at least we have wings of resolve now.

Traits are ok for zerker, but it seems that running a hybrid build or even a condi build seems to benefit from them more which is a nice addition to the guardian and a fun new playstyle. For the most part I think the Dragon Hunter is relatively balanced (as guardians are always in a good place) and is fun to play. A bonus is I never have to listen to scepter AA anymore…never…again.

SOME PvP

I did play a couple of pvp games later in the night running a marauder dragon hunter/medi guard combo;

Radiance: 2.1.3
Virtues: 2.2.3
Dragon Hunter: 3.3.3
Weapons: GS (energy+force), LB(energy+force)
Heal: Shelter Utilities: Judges Intervention/Lights Judgement/Contemplation of Purity
Elite: Dragons Maw

Believe it or not I have trouble with thieves. Not having focus #5 seems to be a bit of a handicap to guardians, or I just needed to spent more time Playing Dragon Hunter in pvp. Dragons Maw+Lights Judgement+Spear of Justice is epic. I didn’t try many builds in fear of losing the survive ability of medi guard, but I have read and heard good things from a carrion build that utilizes procession of blades very well and the knock back from LB. I felt safest in team fights and o.k on points by myself as long as people hit my traps but that can be very unreliable if they know you have placed them. The good thing is that you can now pressure on point if they range you. Although if you got caught roaming in between points its a bit deadly as you have no traps placed yet and without a good choke point things get sticky. Virtues not being insta-cast makes them awful to use in many situations especially safe stomps.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: (First Impressions)
Dragon Hunter is fun. Good for solo PvE, good for group PvE, o.k in PvP even though I haven’t tested some cool builds out there. Virtues really need to be insta-cast I cannot stress enough it feels so much like an unnecessary handicap. Bow feels good and some of the traps have their niche uses but I feel that they are mostly overshadowed by retreat/WoR/Purging Flames and many of the support shouts. Not having calculated numbers and trials on DPS for those min/maxers I feel like it might possibly contend for the current GS/Mace+Torch/Focus, but in bursts of dmg rather than consistent dmg for longer fights…maybe. Overall it’s new and fun now if only they could fix the events in Verdant Brink

Just here to note that this bug is still prevalent to those areas and it’s really frustrating only because the events after that are awesome and people can’t experience them. Hope it can be fixed soon.

Steelo.4597:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR7dlsAhqhY5QwbIwPEH8DVuCzwNEHAzwfeL3NYEA-T5AEQAmDCA8JAAuAAAA

standard i guess, but im new to guardian.. shelved my 3 x lvl 80 warriors since patch. stats are 3k armor, 50% crit.. rest into power / ferocity. i dont see alternatives in the traits for this setup.

id like to hear feedback, tipps and tricks for medi guard (would love a link or two) or even questions if you want to ask a newbie guardian with a ton of experience on warrior wvw xD

seems to me this is some sick combo build (which i cant pull off still)… focus 5 -> sceptre 3 -> sceptre 2 -> judge intervention -> switch weapon hydromancy -> GS2 and smite condition. And press some virtue first for the fury.

You would be correct that this is a massive opening burst (also pairing it with “Feel my Wrath is nice”). Although you have to remember you burn a lot of your cd’s relying on the fact that you catch someone off guard and they don’t know how to dodge. Since you blew focus #5 u lose a great defensive skill and you have already switched out of your ranged weapon. Since most classes have far greater mobility than guard most of the time I see people blink/jump away or blind/cc you, then the next thing you know they are 900 unites away from you and you’re stuck with a melee weapon. Most of the time the only option you have is to try and disengage and re-position, catch them with a nice gs#5 or continue to follow them with gs leap #2 and hope your in auto range.