Guild Wars 2

Firstly, if you’re having fun, then you’re doing it right.

Having said that, your list is actually pretty complete. The bonus XP you get from simple things like map exploration and gathering everything you see is not to be ignored.

Additionally, halfway through your day of playing, take a look at your progress on your daily achievements. If you haven’t yet finished it simply by playing, which usually happens, take care of what will get you 5/5. The bonus XP you get from this is quite nice. Not to mention the laurels come in very handy at 80. As well, shoot for your monthly if it’s enjoyable for you.

As for karma: at low levels go ahead and spend it occasionally on cool looking gear from heart vendors. However, gold is easier to come by than karma, so spend it wisely as you level up since things get pricier. After 40-50, I’d suggest saving all of your karma. I say this because you seem to be the type of player that wants to experience all the game has to offer. As such, there are high level items that require karma. Here is an incomplete list of karma items in game. Crafting recipes are the one indulgence I have.

Oh yea, and dungeons! As you progress your story you’ll gain access to dungeons. Give em all a try for more variety and fun. By doing these as you level you’ll earn tokens good for gear. Which means that if you like running dungeons occasionally, you could have all the currency you need as soon as you hit 80 for a full set of exotic gear. Not to mention that completing a single path will net you like 70% of a level in XP.

Hard to compare range vs melee telegraphed skills; primarily due to being able to avoid telegraphed melee attacks simply by stepping back 2 feet. Most highly telegraphed attacks root the player. Ele (with the exception of Dragon Tooth…just stupid) can still hit a moving target at range, despite the windup.

@ Bombsaway: I completely understand your theory on strengths balancing weaknesses. However, I think what you’re after is an even 1:1 ratio and I don’t think that’s what Anet wants. I think you referred earlier to one class being +1 while another is -3 in the whole balancing aspect. What Anet may intend is for everyone to be similarly in the plus. Perhaps it’s not warrior that’s OP, but rather other classes need buffing to bring them in line. I wouldn’t want my characters to have glaring faults, but rather obstacles to overcome. In this sense, all professions should be stronger than they are weak.

Actually, if you want great ranged dps and build variety, it’s Engi over Ele imho.

However, since your question was about Warrior vs. Ranger…

Ranger is the better ranged fighter, though it outputs more damage with its melee builds. The major drawback of rangers is that their pets, which account for a huge chunk of their total damage, are easily killed by dungeon and world bosses. You must be situationaly aware of them at all times.

Warrior requires no such micro-management and is absolutely first & foremost a melee fighter.

Padrion.7382:

A nerf of roughly 10% seems just right. An uninterruptable passive heal should not give more hps than our strongest active heal. There is really not much to debate about this.

Buffing the active is a good decision aswell. I hardly ever encountered a situation where the pitiful amount of heal was worth the sacrifice of the passsive regeneration. If that changes its clearly for the better.

Just pointing out that the counter to it is poison. You say that it’s uninterruptable, which is true, but in a condition heavy WvW and PvP setting, the chances of getting poisoned is high, reducing your heal over time greatly without cleansing it constantly. Conversely, an active heal can have poison pre-cleansed and then cast for the full heal. And with most warrior builds bringing stability, the chances of it being interrupted are low.

The proposed change to Heal Sig will actually further reduce the heal over time on poisoned warriors, however, will make a pre-cleanse active casting heal more viable. I actually see this as a benefit to warriors in a condition heavy environment. Rather than having to constantly keep poison off, you have the option to cleanse & heal actively if it gets hairy.

With mostly signets in open world, you’ll probably never use them, especially Fury & Might. Signet of Stamina, for instance, you’d obviously use whenever you get a condition that is truly hurting you. But in open world, you’re generally better off leaving them passive.

Signet of Rage active is hella-awesome and has a 50% uptime! I keep it up as often as possible. Plus, the swiftness makes roaming easier.

FGJ you should use on cooldown in battles.

While leveling my Warrior, I prefer no more than 1 signet in my 7-9 slots specifically because I want to actively use them.

1) Everything Bombsaway said is true about each class requiring counter pros and cons. You can’t have a class excel at nearly everything and only have 1-2 weaknesses.

2) The issue, I think, is that the strengths of Warrior are very easy to see, while the weaknesses are more complex, things that aren’t seen on paper but only in practice. At first glance, Warriors have heavy armor, lost of damage mitigation skills, high damage skills, lots of boon sharing, a great passive heal, and a large variety of weapons. However, they also have weaknesses, some of which Warlord mentioned above. Things like telegraphed animations, the need to remain in melee range, the importance of stability vs the access to it, limited condition build options, defensive boon access, etc.

I think he’s referring to the fact that they’re 3 Borderlands and 1 Eternal Battleground. Not sure why he’s harping on your terminology, since it really has no impact on the validity of your opinion. If he is insinuating that you’re a WvW noob, then it in fact further enhances your opinion, considering you’re expected to venture into WvW-land despite your obvious lack of desire to do so. World Completion is absolutely a PvE achievement.

Julie Yann.5379:

redslion.9675:

What about just swapping the active hps with the passive hps?

That is the most simple solution.

The passive should have been +180 vitalty like the other signets passives and the active should have been a base heal + 15 to 20sec regen.

That would be horrible. Activate your signet and you’d lose hp due to losing the passive 180 vitality. If you had low hp you could actually kill yourself.

thank you!

Ah ok. The info on dulfy makes it seem as if you get a bag of Scarlet’s Spare Keys as a consolation for failing, but that you get something better for winning.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t found much information on the actual mechanics of the fight and, having only done it once, I’m a little confused on how/when/why we earn rewards.

I did the Twisted Marionette fight last night and, of course, we failed. Everyone got zapped dead by a gigantic mouth lazer from the sky o.0

I thought I was supposed to get a consolation bag of Scarlet’s Spare Keys. At least according to dulfy. Yet I got no such thing.

Only tried the event once. The only detail of note I can think of is that, while I spent the entire time fragging waves of Scarlet’s minions, my path never got ported in to fight the Marionette proper. Could that be the reason I didn’t get credit?

Qaelyn.7612:

How do you get 25 stacks of conditions, I mean, in realistic gameplay as opposed to theory? That seems pretty insane and yeah that would make a huge difference.

High crit % with traited grenades + Shrapnel and/or Sharpshooter and/or Sigil of Earth and/or Sigil of Geomancy = 3 chances per button press of crit with multiple ways to apply bleed.

Also, Perplexity Runes + TK Prybar + Concussion Bomb + Static Shot + multiple interrupts = Lots of confusion.

I love Modified Ammo. Especially in a small group where your target is likely to have 4 conditions minimum, that’s a flat +8% damage.

In PvE, yes confusion is a bit of a waste due to low attack speeds. But it’s amazing in WvW and PvP. However, don’t ignore the bouncing blind on pistol 3. No matter your build, that’s handy.

I used to run a power build with P/S, and so can you. You’ll never use the autoattack, but pistol 2 actually hits harder than you’d think. I already mentioned the bouncing blind. Shield gives you a block, reflect, and blast finisher; good all the time.

Everything you’ve reasoned out is true. You can build crit% into a bomb/grenade to make use of the traits I mentioned, but not defensively.

Elixir Infused Bomb makes it difficult because conditions work well due to better stat allocation for defensive gear, yet power would work better for bomb 1 spamming. I’d go power. For WvW you’re going to have to decide exactly what role you want to fulfill. Full tanky support mean mostly spamming bomb 1 for the aoe heals to aid your allies, while still dealing damage. I don’t think you’ll be winning any 1v1 but you’ll be an effective point defender.

Qaelyn.7612:

Thanks. Again, I realize that’s the traditional argument, but I can’t make sense of it given that, in a 30-second span, I’ll end up dropping maybe a handful of bombs that apply conditions, but 40 or 50 damage bombs.

….

Here’s the thing though. If you run a P/P condition build with bombs and grenades, you can throw out:

Pistol 2 (poison)
Pistol 3 (confusion)
Pistol 4 (burning)
Bomb 2 (burning)
Bomb 3 (confusion)
Grenade 2 (bleed)
Grenade 5 (poison)

That’s a lot of damaging conditions right there. And by the time you’ve finished a rotation of condition spreading, the first ones are likely to be off or nearing the end of their cooldown. As well, you’ve got access to a slew of other conditions you’re going to need for control, such as blinds, chills, and immobs. And you’ll get more conditions from various traits like Sharpshooter, Shrapnel, and Incendiary Powder.

In addition, if you bring along Tool Kit or Elixir Gun, you’ll have even more condition skills + survivability tools.

Map clearing is mostly about mobility. By the time you’re doing it fast, you’re probably 80 and have at least rare gear, potentially exotics. If that’s the case, it’s all about the most damage (preferably aoe) you can manage without dying.

But most of all, speed. Nobody wants to putter through the whole world. So sw/wh + gs are your highest mobility weapons with leaps and swiftness. Bring bulls charge too. Any +boon duration will keep your swiftness up longer. Banners too.

Have it cleanse 1 condition or even just poison if that’s “too OP” and either reduce the cast time to instant or make it a stun break.

The concept of a death-defying massive heal is enticing. But it requires excellent timing, an imbalanced risk v reward from potential interrupt, and has a long cooldown making it useable about once per encounter. Why wait till my hp is at 2000 before popping my heal when I can pop HT at 12000 hp and then again in 20s without having to wait for near-death in the first place, all the while using my regen toolbelt skill as well? Oh yea, and AED doesn’t clear conditions…

Bottom line: AED sounds awesome until you use it and realize all of our other options are better.

Wonderful. I just made my full Celestial set 3 weeks ago.

Only procs while in combat. I know many people who have overlooked this detail.

Source? Haven’t seen this change mentioned so I definitely missed a dev post.

teg.1340:

There’s way more +Condition Duration than -Condition Duration, e.g. you get +30% Condition Duration as a trait stat alone. Food counters food, runes counter runes, but traits clearly favor condition builds.

E.g. a warrior get +50% bleed duration but I dont know a single profession with a -50% bleed duration trait.

Well, of course you can’t completely negate a conditioner’s build. It’s good that traits favor condition builds. Defense is good but if it were possible to completely negate all conditions I think that’d be a bit overpowered and imbalanced.

Vigor is fine. What they need to do is reduce the damage of each attack of most PvE monsters and increase their attack rate. This would put them more in line with fighting other players in damage and attack speed. It would make retaliation and confusion viable in PvE, as well as remove the ability effectively dodge every PvE attack. Which means less 100% zerk dps mode.

As for PvP and WvW, professions are balanced against each other. A class with lots of vigor such as ranger will be able to dodge more often to avoid damage, as opposed to a warrior which can pop utilities to negate damage. As long as each class is balanced, vigor is fine.

The point is not as cut and dry as you think Shaogin. It’s obviously not a negative to add a smoke field to one of our skills. It’s whether it’s even worth it, when there are better things to do with FT instead. Personally, I don’t want stealth on a kit that’s designed for attrition. I want more damage. And if Anet gives us that damage boost, they’re probably not going to give us stealth access too. I don’t want to be a thief and I don’t think we need more stealth with all the mobility we already have.

The only reason FT is called a utility kit by some is because its damage isn’t high enough to reliably use in the same way we do with ‘nades and bombs. EG & TK have some seriously awesome utility skills, and I’d personally never take FT in place of one of them for the sake of utility. FT’s damage needs to be boosted to justify Juggernaut and sitting in FT for a while.

Also, I don’t think Anet will ever make a change specifically designed to “skip content.” And if you’re sneaking up on enemies in PvP, you’re definitely not doing it with FT, because then you’re hosed.

Bring blast finishers. Engis create lots of water & fire fields.
Bring a hammer to keep enemies from wandering away.
Bring a rifle and have fun out-sniping your friend lol.

You 2 will literally never die, no matter what you pull.

Your other option is to start your own party with your 35 alt in LFG panel and advertise properly. You’ll get a full party soon enough.

Dailies and monthlies are the obvious 1st step.

Running all dungeon paths will get you 135 AP (plus a few more for Hobby Explorer), as well as some nice loot, gold, and tokens. All very useful.

If you’ve got a character of every race, you can earn 40 AP from buying a full set of just T1 cultural armor for each. (2g88s per set x 5 races = 14g40s)

There are a number of Explorer achievements that can be done quickly, if you know where to go. Check the wiki for helpful info on each achievement.

Thanks Straegen. This is basically the conclusion I came to as well, just with less detail. I had no idea there were that many strong warrior builds.

I just hit 20 and right now I’m having fun griefing-the-computer with a hammer and Bull’s Charge, Stomp, & Kick. Just keep knocking things down and beating on em. It’s funny and I plan on adapting it for PvP/WvW at some point. I think with hybrid stats and Distracting Strikes it could be very annoying.

I think that with all the weapon combinations and useful traits on warrior, I’ll avoid boredom as long as I change builds often and keep things fresh.

I think I’m going to focus on using no signets or banners and changing my weapon sets often. High mobility, high control, high damage, all risk, no defense. If it gets dicey I’ll unload knockdowns and dash away. Become an armored thief. Gonna give this a shot.

Simple answer:

Bombs till 40
Flamethrower till 60
Grenades till 80

This will let you try out the major damage kits as you progress and gain access to the traits that really make them worthwhile.

Asura is always the right answer. The hobosacks look best and the animations and smarmy quips are the best. You’ll be a pocket sized explosion machine.

Depends on what content you play. If you’re 100% PvE, zerker all the way.

If you WvW then you’ll obviously need to tailor your gear to your build. Are you conditions or power? I personally use a full set of Celestial armor with 6/6 Travelers runes and then supplement my build with various trinkets.

If you’re playing with another, one ele and one warrior can be fun. Eles create a lot of combo fields and warriors can blast em constantly. Between the 2 of you, you’ll have a lot of group healing & might stacking.

I personally went S/D with my ele, due to the slight range advantage and the spiking damage style. In open world, spiking enemies seemed sufficient and more rewarding than the sustain D/D has.

@ Nodo: Did your friend get 100% of the food’s effect or a scaled down version?

An offensive guardian almost seems almost entirely trait based, since most of the utilities are defensive (blocks, cleanses, protection, etc). In essence I’d trait for damage and play defensively? Letting my traits augment my attacks for maximum damage while I simply monitor my defenses?

Are heavy control, condition warriors a thing in WvW? I was theorizing a sword/sword + hammer conditioner with Distracting Strikes and some physical utilities for interrupts.

What about a warrior’s role in dungeons? Aside from high damage, are the responsibilities for boon spreading active or just drop a banner and FGJ on cooldown?

Of the 3 you listed, Warrior is the easiest to play, yet the least exciting imo. You’re def not missing something, it’s a faceroll with Warriors in PvE.

Ele is technically one of the hardest classes to play well, but if you’re enjoying it then stick with it. It is best utilized by swapping in & out of attunements as situations call for it. For instance, starting in fire to drop & blast fire fields, swapping to earth to blast em again, swapping to air for swiftness/blind to avoid damage, then to water to heal up/cleanse, then back to fire for more burns and damage.

Ranger is good, but suffers from the perma-pet, which is the subject of much debate as to the viability of the class at endgame. It’s certainly a boon in open world, no doubt. But it becomes difficult to manage (read: keep alive) in harder content, which directly impacts the dps of the class. If you enjoy Ranger and enjoy managing your pet like an extension of your character, keep it up. If you want a pet you can set to aggressive and ignore, you may want to rethink it.

I have 4 80’s and a few alts, but I really want a heavy, Guardian or Warrior. So far, they’ve both bored me. So I need some help figuring out which class is more exciting, more dynamic, more explosive, more variable, more fun to play.

And then, how to make them that much more fun. I don’t want to level 1-80 with a GS spamming 100 blades with a 5 signet build. I want to dodge and swap weapons and pop utilities and have the freedom to try new builds.

From what I’ve gathered, it seems Warrior has more build variety but has a less dynamic playstyle. I like that Warrior has viable ranged options, but dislike all the passive boons like signets and banners. Then again, Guardian has signets and shouts which are just boon stackers too.

Recommendations?? Which class and how to make it exciting?

Kagamiku.9731:

Why not just roll another class…

I have 8 character slots, with the intention of having 1 of every profession. I have 4 80’s: Engi, Ranger, Necro, Thief.

I’m all about variety. I like alts and I like being able to log on and, if I don’t feel like playing my main, messing around with something different.

That said, different still has to be interesting. Would 100% range work, using only rifle & longbow? What about a shout/condition build? Or is the draw of warrior really that it’s strong enough for many to outweigh the boredom?

I just don’t like the idea of putting stealth on a kit that’s designed to stand face-to-face and burn everything. Juggernaut toughness, aoe blind, aoe conal autoattack, aoe knockback…all things designed for attrition rather than stealth.

Trust me, I do honestly believe FT needs some love. But I’d rather see increased autoattack damage and something else to make FT desirable over ’nades or bombs. I want the high risk-high reward kit that Flamethrower ought to be.

+1 great idea for getting people into the open world more. I like that it incentivizes people to play not just the single most farmable zone, but all of them. Region and map specific rewards are a nice touch. And best of all, not 1 time are the phrases “gem store” or “random ticket vendor” mentioned.

Practically speaking, Engi doesn’t have the ability to massively cleanse and/or flip conditions onto an enemy. The most we can do is trait 409 and spam elixirs which, if one is C, can cleanse up to 6 conditions, but that would require a 100% elixir build, which is terrible. More likely, your foe popped 2 elixirs and cleansed 3 conditions, Transmute trait procced and cleansed another, and even 6/6 Lyssa rune effect.

As for application, there are a lot of ways for a condition Engi to apply conditions. Countless bleeds, poisons, confusions, blinds, vulnerabilities, and burns. Not to mention the possibility of Perplexity or Torment runes.

Bomb kit is a good one for early leveling.

When you hit 40 you can try out Flamethrower & Elixir Gun. Get Fireforged Trigger (I) and Juggernaut (VIII) in the Firearms line. Then work on Alchemy until you can get Deadly Mixture (VII). This will give you a fun set of tools to burn enemies down with and keep yourself alive. Also, gives you experience with these 2 kits. Elixir Gun is viable in kitten near every build.

At 60 you can finally give Grenade Kit a go. Now you can pick up the Grenadier trait (XI) in Explosives, which makes grenades hit really hard. I also recommend picking up Shrapnel (II) and Short Fuse (VIII). I’d use the rest of my trait points to either put 30 into Firearms for Modified Ammo (XI) and some pistol/rifle enhancement or 30 into Alchemy for survival, depending on what your playstyle requires.

To build off of Stillshade…when you do hit 80 and begin gearing up, grab a full set of rare gear for <2g and give a build a try. You can completely regear your armor in rares for very cheap and Engineer is a class that has a lot of build variety. So don’t feel pigeonholed into one thing or another.

Once you figure out your preferred playstyle in WvW, then you can amass your exotics without remorse.

I like Smoke Vent a lot, having no cast time and aoe blind makes it a great emergency skill. And while a smoke field would definitely improve the skill, I think FT needs to be improved in other ways first. We’ve got blinds in bomb kit, grenades kit, and pistol mh. And we’re not a stealth class, strictly speaking.

I’d prefer FT be improved with higher autoattack damage and a deshaped Napalm. But that’s just me.

I’ve tried rolling Warrior a couple times, never getting past 20 due to boredom. A lot of the utilities are passive or boon stackers. I know it’s a strong profession, but its strength seems to trivialize encounters.

Do the range of viable weapons and traits eventually make playing Warrior more exciting or is it always a boring faceroll? What advice can you give me for exciting play? (Don’t say PvP)

I’ve noticed that GW2 has the least amount of active chatting for any MMO I’ve played. There are a lot of really nice people, fewest trolls and immature and mean people. But they’re all pretty silent. I try to spice up dungeon runs and zergs with witty banter and am often rewarded with silence. Heck, even when I log on and say “hi” to the 30 guildies that are on, sometimes I get no “heya’s” back.

ArrDee.2573:

if your goal is to stack might and fury every time it’s up, use med kit. if you want a better heal overall, use healing turret.

Correct. Swapping in & out of Med Kit for your Altruism trigger is much more efficient than potentially wasting your heal just to do the same thing.

Infamous Darkness.3284:

Seras.5702:

I love ToolKit. Box o’ Nails needs a quicker cast time but otherwise it’s a great kit. I like the control, not to mention (I think) the lowest cooldown block in the game. And the weapon animations are fun (wrench, magnet, prybar).

Just to let you know its not the lowest cooldown block in the game its beaten out by warrior offhand sword #4 (Riposte), Warrior mace #2 (Counterblow), Mesmer offhand sword #4 (Illusionary Riposte), Mesmer scepter #2 (Illusionary Counter), and ranger greatsword #4 (counterattack). this all being said gear shield is still and amazing block and many of these blocks will only block one attack (especially if in melee range)

I’ll admit I wasn’t counting skills like Riposte and Counterattack that only stop 1 attack. Our Gearshield is a full 3s block of everything, which is comparable only by Warrior Shield Stance (30s cd) & Guardian Shield of Wrath (blocks 3 attacks, kitten cd). Ours rocks.

Don’t underestimate the team healing power of Healing Turret + EG’s Super Elixir.

Even untraited you’ll have 50% uptime on your Super Elixir. And your Healing Turret can be placed, overcharged, blasted with Acid Bomb (EG #4), and then detonated for some impressive group healing and condition cleansing. You can spec full zerker and still pull this combo off every 20s. All that, and without having to spec 30pts into Inventions.