Guild Wars 2

Boon runes, Ruby orbs, Rune of the Pack/Ogre are all good choices.
Forge/Earth are also good if you want some defense.

Oglaf.1074:

I wouldn’t call Warrior mobile at all. We might be more mobile than a Guardian, but one Chill/Cripple and all Warrior mobility is instantly disabled.

That’s why you Charge into Savage Leap.
Remove all chill/cripple/immob and leap away.

Bah, I gave up with this.

We’ve been requesting the un-nerf of Brawn for 6 months now, they keep adding stuff that has nothing to do with it and isn’t even needed.
Arena Net seems to think that ignore an issue and buff something that has no issues is the way to go.

TwoBit.5903:

A “boon hate” mechanic? The last thing this game needs are new mechanics to mitigate existing mechanics. How about addressing the problem with boons themselves by re-balancing them and the existing mechanics that are meant to deal with them?

^This.

GW1 all over again… a game filled with gimmicks that can only be countered by another gimmick.
How about fixing the gimmick instead?

Boon hate is good or bad depending on how it’s made.
First off realize that only protection and stability are the boons that make bunkers so strong (with retaliation coming next).
Bunkers will simply run with just those 2 boons and maybe 1 more, so unless boon hate is 5% per boon or more, it’ll be useless.
I suspect Anet will make it 3% (they’re scared of big buffs), people will run Prot/Stab and we’ll still suck in tPvP.

I like your idea but it would waste a secondary slot so here is an improvement.
When you harvest a banner on a Warrior you get a another profession skill that allows you to wear the Banner.
Once you’re wearing it, that profession skill allows you to switch to weapons or back to banner.
This way we keep the usual weapons but also carry the banner on our backs.

Tons of misinformations here.
Here is some truth for a change, from one who plays both classes at endgame since 28th August.

Short version:
Warrior has by far highest DPS, mobility, escapes and anti-spike, but less staying power, sustain and support.
Guardian has by far highest survivability, sustain, support and staying power, but less mobility, no escapes, little anti-spike and less DPS.

Long version:
1) Survivability-wise, Guardian wins hands down.
He can bunker/tank very, very, very efficiently.
To the point of nearing immortality if played well.
Warrior on the other hand has not enough sustain even on a full tank build, but has more anti-spike (endure pain, shield block, defy pain).
If you want to sit in combat all the time pick the Guardian, Warrior is burst-and-disengage.

2) DPS-wise Warrior is on top by far. About 2500 ePower above Guardian in comparison.
Thief comes second, full glass Guardian comes third.
If you want to be a DPS please, please don’t waste frac40 teams’ time trying to DPS as a glass Guardian with no support, go Warrior or Thief.
Guardian can get about 4500 ePower while still being support-ish/tanky, so you can get both decent DPS and survivability/support.
As long as you’re not going full out DPS with zero support/survival it’s ok.

3) Support-wise Guardian wins hands down for both mightstacking (Empower+Empowering might) and all kinds of defensive support.
Warrior can get Fury in and banners, but they are not remotely as good as Guardians to support defensively or to stack mights on team (though they do stack with Guardian stuff, so you can play with one and not overwrite him).

4) Mobility-wise, Warrior wins, he is just behind Thief as it has both offensive and defensive mobility (though to use escapes properly you need to learn first).
Guardian comes 4th just after Eles, but that’s only offensive mobility, not escapes.
Guardian has zero disengages. Tons of gap closing/locking stuff, but again, no escapes.
If you get into a fight with a Guardian you win or die, Warrior can blow horn then Savage leap+Rush away safely.
And in general, Warrior gets from point A to B much sooner and on a low CD.

It’s an exploitable decision.

The boons that matter in pvp are only 3: protection, stability, retailation.
People will simply run with just those and don’t stack the others.
Eles will not use the vigor/regen trait, Guards will not use SY.

Basically nothing really changes, unless the damage increase vs boons is at least 5% per boon.

This is a fix not a nerf.
A nerf is something like Ranger GS/Crossfire, Warrior Brawn, Thief’s Dancing Dagger etc.
A fix is like in this case, where players found an unintended way around a design and it needs to be prevented.
Infact the Anet guy explains they never intended for a Thief to be able to restealth immediately through CnD etc.

Symbiosis (Elite): Enter a symbiotic fusion with your pet, becoming one, powerful being.
Toggleable.

Your F1-F2-F3-F4 skills become the 1-2-3-4 skills of the pet you fused with, and you can use them as your pet normally would.
Your weapon skills instead remain the same.

Based on what pet you have a symbiosis with, you get different bonuses.
Bear: +10% dmg, +500 toughness, +500 vitality.
Moa: +15% dmg, +500 healing power, +250 toughness +150 vitality.
Bird: +20% dmg, +500 precision, 20% to gain swiftness on crit.
Feline: +30% dmg, +250 precision.
(these are just examples not optimal values)

This would obviously allow a ton of depth to the class.
You can become tanky with a Bear fusion due to buffed stats/Endure Pain but your damage will be bad, while a Feline fusion would make you into a DPS monster with little survivability.
Every type of animal you fuse with is a new build basically.

Hey guys, my gf wants to get a Guardian to 80 but she doesn’t want to go through the leveling phase again.
She has about 30g to spend on leveling that alt.
So what is the best way of carrying it to 80 with 30g and me being able to level her?
If I bring her to a lvl 80 map and kill mobs does she get more exp or something?

Rukia.4802:

At first I hated ascended gear

And I still do.

The whole system spits on the name of Guild Wars.

And yet it’s the only thing that keeps half of the playerbase from quitting GW2.
Sadly progression is needed for longevity.

Sure we could do with just 1m players instead of 3m, but I for one prefer to have an harmless progression if it means more players in the game.

Daecollo is right on this.
I too tried a 600hps build, it simply doesn’t add enough sustain, especially since it comes with sacrificing your heal skill.
Try frac40+ before you comment on the effectiveness of things.
Any content below that mark can be done traitless and naked, doesn’t make traitless/naked an effective build.

It would still be a joke since conditions are rarely a nuisance.
Vigorous shouts needs to give 3s Protection to the team in order to be worth using.

I’m actually happy this game isn’t for some people.
I don’t want people obsessed with raids, mounts, trinity gimmicks and other stuff to play GW2.

Though the game lacks depth, that’s true.
The whole “we’re scared to change anything to classes” policy ends up making the classes stagnant and not a lot more balanced than the other counterparts.
The whole “we don’t want a big skill/trait pool because we’re afraid of buildmakers” isn’t helping build variety too, infact classes have 1-3 viable builds only.

Anet, sometimes to make a good product you need to take some risks.
Not doing changes is safer but leads to lack of depth / stagnation.
Doing too many leads to unbalance / chaos.
You need to find a middle ground.

I’m happy with the changes, though they don’t resolve any of our core issues.
Biggest weakness of Warrior is definitely not conditions, but lack of sustain.
All other classes can outlast a Warrior, and that’s why we are not good in sPvP.

This system goes to show how little sustain Warriors have.
Guard/Ele/Necro have strong sustain so they can do this efficiently.
Thief/Ranger/Engi/Mes has some sustain/protection and can go like this somewhat efficiently.
Warrior has no sustain/no protection/no blind/no lifesteal = Cannot go full tank.

I have tried a full-out sustain build with 30 defense 30 tactics and 3900 armor, it simply wont work.
Because Anet said they’re afraid that any minimal change to Warriors might make them not-the-worst-tPvP-profession-anymore.

The problem is that a Guardian is much, much better with S/Shield + staff in endgame.
GS Guardians are usually Warrior wannabes that are basically getting carried.
Plus Guard gets more ePower with RH-Strength and Sword than GS so even from a DPS perspective GS isn’t the best deal.

Go Warrior if you want to use a GS in endgame.

I would like to make a really good post on this note but I’m afraid the only Anet people reading posts are mods hunting for infractors.
When I get infractions I’m somewhat happy, like “hey, someone at Anet read actually that!”.

That aside…
I believe the flaw is inner in the fundament of the system.
WoW failed at balance due to wayyyy to many changes in a short time span.
GW2 is failing at it due to wayyy too few.
Let’s take Warriors for instance; they have basically 2 viable pvp weapons out of 9.
They have a bad support spec for PvE, they lack sustain, they have bugged skills, there are still some knee-jerk nerfs from BWEs (Brawn, Evis)…
“We will double the stats of banners”.
What.

It’s like, I bring my car to a mechanic with a broken tire, malfunctioning engine, insensible brakes, failing steer…
One day later I come back and they tell me: “We’re fixing the ash tray”.

Anet, being afraid to do anything is worse than doing too much.
You’re going toward stagnation again.

Dolan.3071:

What they lack is escapes

We totally don’t.
The only class that can chase me is Thief, everyone else sits well behind including D/D Eles.
We have Rush, Savage leap, Bull, WA; as long as you save 2 of these for escape, you can get away safely.
If you’re slowed just pop Charge right before leaping away.

What we lack is:
- Arcing Slice being simply “worth using”
- downed skills on par with other classes (or other classes like Eles get theirs nerfed)
- carriable banners
- proper shout healing (give protection 3s or something, it currently sucks terribly)
- Strength/Arms/Disc Grandmasters worth using
- Brawn BWE knee-jerk nerf fixed
- Evis BWE knee-jerk nerf fixed
- Healing signet / adrenal health improvements for PvE

Sadly the guys in the video said they’re scared that Warriors becomes an killing machine in PvP (hahahaha, sorry Anet but really? We’re the least wanted in tPvP), so expect all these fixes to come over the course of one year.
Yet they keep awfully unbalanced specs like D/D Eles.

Reminds me of GW1 really, some super-specs favored (55/SF) and everything else abandoned into stagnation.

Chronoslol.7514:

Wow so entitled, anet doesnt have to give you any functionality they dont want to, check your priviledge

This, and… DS is designed to be a transformation.
When transformed (and most times, when carrying an item) you cannot do basic actions because you’re busy with what you’re doing.
Infact the dev also said DS is designed to be a transformation to use when on low health to continue fighting or to prevent spikes when fighting – not a tool to “bypass” some fundamental mechanics such as being vulnerable while ressing or buying yourself seconds of cooldown with in-transformation swapping.
DS was never meant to be a normal state you use for every purpose.

danbuter.2314:

Thief stealth is about to get nerfed, so I don’t think this will happen.

I’d rather say fixed, not nerfed.
Constant CnD spam is just abusing the lack of a code that prevents such behavior.

I’m very happy with this change because when it goes live, you will realize what’s the Thief’s greatest asset: mobility.
And this forum will be filled with complaints about it.

Kal Spiro.9745:

While this is true, and I certainly wouldn’t complain if we got it, there is already a disparity in 2handed vs 1handed, in that 2handers do more damage.

That’s actually a misconception and it’s totally wrong.
GW2 doesn’t work like a classic MMO where damage comes from the weapon.
Final damage of a weapon comes mainly from skill coefficients; for instance a Ranger deals more DPS with a 1h sword than a 2h sword, because GS skill coefficient on his skills are lower.
Even in regards of ranged weapons: Guardian has way more DPS on Scepter than Staff.
Let alone the attack speed factors.

2h weapons need 2 sigils or they leave a character with one missing upgrade and nothing else to make up for it.
And believe me, you don’t want to see skill coefficient being balanced around the lack of a sigil.
These kinds of gap into design are those that then lead to design flaws and unbalances.

Not only we were promised it but it actually needs to be fixed for a long-term balance equality.

Kracin.6078:

not trolling at all. that site doesn’t accoutn for constants like might stacks and such

Every Guardian gets tons of might stacks, but 20 might stacks on 1900 ePower are different than 20 on 4600 ePower.
Your build is mathematically terrible on a damage perspective, and to be blunt, whether you accept this fact or not is not really a problem of mine or my thread or my build, but yours alone – I don’t really care for discussing with you on that.

Note that everyone is allowed to make their own build thread.
If you want to talk about your build and get feedback, make your own build thread and discuss it there.

Yeah… one of the main reasons I skip all dialogues/movies is they don’t even have translated subtitles.

They said they’re going to make Rampage more mobile but honestly… the long cooldown is really the most prominent bad design related to this skill.
There is a reason 90% of Warriors run SoR, 9% run Banner and 1% run Rampage.

Nekome.7805:

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/377719641

I am pretty sure he is talking about this interview with some GW2 people. Around 50 min into it they talk about warrior changes. Among them will be changes to banners – giving double the stat bonus they give now. E.g. +180 prec instead of +90. Stuff like +10% crit dmg is not changed though. So even after watching the video, I don’t understand why suddenly warriors should be “forced” into it.

Even with this bonus doubled, they didn’t talk about the disadvantages of banners like being a bit clumsy and stuff like that.

Ah that one?
The guys says they “pretty much double” the stats but then says “if it gave 90 points it will give 170”.
Well, Banners can be used efficiently without traiting them, and if you want full uptime you just need one single trait with 10 tactics, no need to go down to 30 at all.

On that note he also mentioned something about having to move Banners around, and then said “but for this time we will”… that might indicate they might be letting us wear banners?
Having to pick them up every time is just so boring, I definitely hope something is done.

Kracin.6078:

http://tinyurl.com/b6e9exh

^ is what i use, it has a much higher survivability. and your contribution to team dps outweighs doing your own dps

Not sure if trolling…
Your build has 1900 ePower (mine 4600), it can be summed up with: overkill survivability and terribad damage.

mixu.4281:

So, I happened to stop by the GW2 State of the Game stream just in time for their discussion on thieves. Apparently, ANET plans to change stealth so that it applies the revealed buff, regardless if you hit something or not.

Discuss.

About time.

Been playing Thief since August and never, ever abused any form of “restealth-on-unstealth”.
It’s gimmicky and borderline cheating.

You need to understand that a way to gate players from immediately getting items is necessary to prevent early content exhaustion through grinding.
Without this concept clear in your mind you shouldn’t even step into a MMO.

That being said, the current options are grind gating, time gating and no gating.
If Anet added no gating game would be empty.
If Anet added grind gating a lot of people would be crying.
If Anet added time gating a few people would be crying.

They’ve chosen the least complained of the 3 possibilities.

If you have a better option that keeps players playing with a progression, but without the flaws of the current system go ahead and let us know.

Daecollo.9578:

300 toughness, 14% DR does it not give.

Buildcraft says 300 toughness = 14% DR.
If you want to claim differently post evidence.

Daecollo.9578:

Vitality Tree also gives +30% Boon Duration, which applies to “Fury” which is one of the best DPS buffs in the game.

Warriors dont need any boon duration to get perma fury.

Brennus.1435:

I’m still curious as to what changes the OP is talking about.

My bet is on typical baseless player speculations/rumors.

Intellectual honestly is underrated. I salute you OP, well done.

Ascended is a circular treadmill; if you don’t do fractals you don’t need it, if you do you get it by playing.

Tactics is garbage that only really works for pre-frac30 Warriors.

And it’s totally wrong that Tactics gives more survivability than Defense.
300 toughness alone from the tree equals to 14% damage reduction (4k eHealth, 1k more than tactics).
Stance duration means EP will nullify even more damage. DP is 4 seconds of no damage too.
Turning 10k dmg into 0 damage is the best form of sustain, and especially the best form of staying power (which equals more DPS).
120hp/s is just the cherry on top.

But honestly nor Tactics nor Defense will increase your survivability by a lot.
Warriors need to survive by dodges/Endure Pain, our options for passive defense/healing are non-factors in endgame.

All your threads are about you wanting more passive defense.
Now I get it that Warriors aren’t good in that sector, but that’s how the class plays.
If you want passive sustain roll a Guardian, Anet does not care of giving us the “sturdy body” we were supposed to get.

The best way to loot rares is to stop farming them.
Seriously. Go play some fractals and you’ll get tons.

I’m actually happy that rares come more from hard content and not farming easymode Orr with MF gear.

What you’re saying OP is pretty unrealistic actually.
Stopping one bank robbery will not stop all bank robberies to that bank forever.
In my city a bank has been robbed hundreds of times even if half the attempts led the robbers to be arrested.
Just because you stop one bandit assault it doesn’t meant bandits are disappeared from the world and everyone starts holding hands and dancing in circles while singing Kumbaya.

Hyuri.8795:

Where do the 65% damage reduction come from? 33% from protection, but what else?

32% base damage reduction from armor, plus 33% from protection = 65%.

Hyuri.8795:

I thought, Guardians belong to the 3 squishier classes regarding conditions, as they got the lowest base HP and toughness doesn’t matter. Anyways, you might be right with conditions being an ignorable nuisance in fractals, I have never run without PoV and/or soldier runes (or another guardian).

Health pool isn’t the biggest factor vs condition damage, healing is.
Say a Warrior with 20k health and a Guardian with 15k are both getting permanent 500dmg/sec condition with no possibility to remove it (Frostbite in Snowblind fractal).
The Warrior is dying way before the Guard because Guard can heal up all damage taken, Warrior can’t unless he’s on a full healing build (which would lead to him have awful dmg).

Then again, condition removal is unnecessary in Fractals.
The only place conditions are somewhat of a nuisance is the Arms Sigil fight in Colossus because they stack Vuln up a lot, but it isn’t really necessary to remove it in order to succeed.
At most you can slot Smite condition in that encounter, not revolve an entire build around one little part of one of the nine fractals.

Hyuri.8795:

First of all, thx Red Falcon for sharing your experience! I’m searching for a better (than AH) build for 40+ atm and your’s sounds promising, I’ll definitely try it out.
Saying Omnom you mean Omnomberrry Ghosts or Pie? Because you listed Plate of Truffle Steak in the consumables section.

I use omnom pies for 325 heal proc every second.

Hyuri.8795:

I must say, I prefer tonics (if available) and Sharpening Stones (if not) over Oils in a high critchance build too. You won’t recognize a difference between 70 and 76% critchance, whereas 10% more raw damage is huge. And, IIRC, the tonics work for all enemy types in one distinct fractal, i.e. dredge slaying tonics work for the elemental vets / boss.

Your call, I don’t think everyone should play exactly the same setup.
That being said tho, unless you have a stock of potions for every race/mob type in Fractals, one that works on everything is more convenient.

If we’re going the pure min/max route, then the best would be stocking up on every potion type and having a dozen of swords with different bonus dmg vs X, though that would be expensive to setup.

Hyuri.8795:

What would you say, where does your survivability with this build mostly come from? Protection uptime / blinds / reflects? Because you could get all this with a more defense oriented build. Or skill? (I might lack skill)
And how do you handle conditions? You don’t use soldier runes / Purity / PoV.
No offense meant, I’m just really interested in your experiences at 40+.

Defense comes from near-permanent 65% dmg reduction + blinds + reflects + ?500hp/s, 8.6k heal from signet, plus all the heals from Empower/Orb/SoA.
As for conditions I don’t find there is any condition in fractals that’s not a ignorable nuisance; the only places you really need condi removal is where you get bleed stacked and that never happens in any fractal.
I did frac up to 50 on 3 classes so far, and never needed condition removal on either (save for swamp run but on that one you slot specific swap-run skills), and consider that the other 2 classes are much squishier than Guardian.

Penguin.5197:

That should be true, but failing at burst does not mean death for thieves. If they fail they can just as easily stealth and retreat.

Most classes can disengage like that after a failed burst.

Warrior can Rush+Savage leap away.
Mesmers can stealth/decoy/blink away.
Eles can port/RTL away.
Rangers can Swoop away.
Engis can Elixir S/Jump shot away.

The only ones who can’t are Guardian and Necro as they are attrition classes so they aren’t supposed to get a getaway skill.

Sebrent.3625:

Lol @ Red. I can see you coming at me with Rush, Bull’s Charge, Leap, Earthquake, Whirlwind, etc..

I can’t see the Thief steal :-/ I’m just asking for 0.5 sec to react. With latency that’s not much.

I can see you Hundred Blades, Eviscerate, Kill Shot, etc.

I can’t see the Thief backstab :-/ Again, I’m just asking for 0.5 sec to react. In this case, just give me a noise that I’ll probably barely hear cuz there’s other fighting and/or my wife is talking to me :-p

I just want the chance to react to something when it is used rather than guessing when that something will be used.

Steal+CnD is 8k at most, then you have time to pop your invul/block skill and toss 2 skills to kill the Thief and laugh.

Actually even a guild of 10 actives can unlock missions easily in one single day.
Simply run a couple guild fractals and deposit all revenues in the bank, gold made is enough to buy all influence needed.

GW2 PvE lacks the challenge we had in GW1, and lacks more methods to get items.
But the rest is fine overall.

Lineage II, 2003 MMO (from NCSoft too).

I’d really like something of this quality.

Tips:
1. Use Tinyurl to make links clickable.
2. Videos.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

There are some good points there, however, it’s not as simple as crit chance vs power. It’s also about what happens when you do crit, and no, its not about the dps crit brings, which is why some people like to stack precision.

Exactly.

The most recurrent mistake from MMO players is focusing on a single part of the much bigger design that character effectiveness is.
If you tunnel vision into DPS and neglect Survivability and Support, not only you will lose effectiveness but your overall DPS will also be impaired from the consequences that happen from neglecting Survivability and Support.

Maximizing crit chance is done to guarantee the most Omnom procs possible and achieve 325hp/s as reliably as we can, let alone all the usual procs.
+5% DPS is only true as long as you’re effectively surviving and supporting – and as long as you don’t need to stop DPSing because you’ve fallen behind on the survivability/support tasks.

Only with a proper team, aka 100% team protection uptime and at least 70% projectile reflection uptime.
Also helps to have an Ele tossing Rain/Geyser and people blasting in for AoE heal finishers.

The problem is Guardians with that build are pretty rare, most are GS glass cannon so ask for their build before attempting this.

Dredge is actually pretty fast, most PuGs just dont know how to play it.

Get into button room, all team clears it quick, one goes with stealth/kit on the panel.
If bombs make 2 team bomb runs / if door have 3 stealth-destroy it or 3 shoot and 2 pull mobs off.
Pull trash in corner continuously while team spikes it.
Plow through the russian dredge’s healthbar in a minute.
Rush to last boss, if it lasts more than a couple minutes the team is terrible.

Pretty fast considering it’s the most rewarding fractal (1g from just bags).

It’s not hard now that the NPC properly uses bubbles in P3.
Yeah it’s easy and 10 times more gimmicky than it used to, still provides zero challenge.
The ghostbusters part is fun but that’s about it :/

Can we get at least one more quote from that boss?
He yells that a million of times even when he’s one hit away from dying…

This sounds like a very good change.

Welcome to the club of humans who want the norn racial “cape-like” armor, but don’t want to make a Norn because they all seem to have a bad issue to their left shoulder that makes them look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.