Guild Wars 2

Ah! I noticed the money wasn’t coming back to my inventory, and it didn’t occur to me that it was lumped in with the proceeds I received from the TP rep. Thanks!

How do people handle weapon switching to get the most out of staff and, say S/D? One can’t just quickly click in the inventory, because the dagger will replace the scepter, rather than going into the secondary spot?

Also, how to people who run primarly S/D get swiftness for moving around the map?

I’m not averse to the idea of switching weapons situationally.

Is there any way to get my money back if I place an offer on something and the price trends up?

I’m a staff elementalist, with a spec leaning toward damage, but still some decent toughness. My experience is almost all in WvW, only at little sPvP.

When I fight thieves, I can’t get enough hits in to make a difference. Even in a small group, I can’t lay down enough crowd control for my group to pounce on the thief and pummel him. The thief is invisible too much of the time.

Are there things I can do to stop the thief from continually re-stealthing?

What skills should I be using for those few moments when I can get a target?

I have to agree with Lauren. (Hi, Nora!) Our commanders generally bring a great sense of direction to a bunch of do-your-own-thing free spirited roleplayers!

The Golem God was very displeased with our “sacrifice.”

So that by the time you’ve finished its long casting time, they’re already dead.

I run it in the water.

Intigo.1653:

I think your 50% crit chance sounds a bit high, what gear are you using?

I wasn’t trying to brag, just offering a round number for consideration of “chance on crit” gear.

I have Balthazar karma armor, missing shoulders, and Ruby Orichalcum jewelry. 20 points in air and I run Signet of Fire and almost never pop it. Total 45% crit chance.

Does anyone have experience with these?

I’m a mostly staff ele in WvW. My crit chance is around 50. I have 20 points in Arcana, so I can swap attunes fairly quickly. My main schtick is fighting up or down walls.

Is the healing from Blood or Leech worth it? Or, because when I go down, I usually get burned down fast, is that not enough to make a difference?

I like chill on the WvW battlefield, mostly because I HATE it when it’s on me. I already use Signet of Water to slow wounded players trying to escape, and to cripple my opponent in smaller battles. So Ice and Hydromancy appeal to me. My concern about Hydromancy is what the definition of “nearby” foes is. If I’m doing it right, there are no foes nearby! They’re way the heck away from me!

Does the might from Battle make a noticeable difference?

I’m also open to suggestions of others I might have overlooked. I am currently running a Sigil of Force for the flat 5% damage boost, so whatever I choose has to be better than that.

Thanks for your thoughts.

What can you tell me about the range on those sigils that say “nearby opponents?” I believe the Sigil of Fire you’re talking about is one.

Wow, Liquid, that is almost exactly my build. I have 20 in air instead of water so I can run Quick Glyphs. It speeds up my heal (which provides a boon), my 10-slot elemental, and I’m playing with Glyph of Elemental Power because I like conditions (esp chill and cripple) in small-scale fights. Thunderbrew pointed out in another thread that Glyph of Storms -earth distributes some nice conditions with good damage.

I may yet abandon the glyph angle, but I just hit 80 and need more experience in WvW at that level to see what’s working and what’s not.

Thunderbrew.7034:

What do you mean on the swiftness jumpback? I have not seen that with
Ride the Lightning (unless you are using Updraft).

I was referring to Updraft, which actually grants swiftness so I can (continue) running away. It bounces me back a little bit. I also have trouble clearing my target and quickly getting pointed the right direction before I Ride the Lightning, but that’s just a practice issue on my part.

Regarding the Glyph of Elemental Power, I like the fact that it locks on the attunement I had when I cast it, because I can pick what’s best for a situation. I can continue distributing chills or cripples in a WvW battle, or Weakness in a PvE battle where my side is outnumbered against lots of damage sources. It is only a chance, and for a short chill, but so much of GW2 is piecing together different bits from different allies to tilt the overall slant of a battle. That 2 seconds I chill someone may be enough for an ally to get the drop on them or catch up to them if they’re fleeing.

I like your advice about dropping fields on your allies. I’m going to try that. I just hit 80, and am now investing the time figuring out how best to be effective in WvW. I’m going to focus on thinking about my synergy with my allies more, and putting my allies in a field should be a part of that.

Blake, staff elementalist is very strong in PvlotsofE. If you envision yourself in a lot of 1-on-1 or 1-on2 battles with boss monsters, other choices might be better. But if you envision yourself standing in the back and raining hell on large groups of enemies, you will have a lot of fun with staff ele. Staff also has enough defense and escapes to keep you alive when the enemies do notice you.

Thunderbrew, you bring up several good points. I want to use my elementalist in WvW similarly to what you suggest, designed to fight in large battles more than small skirmishes. It hadn’t occured to me how valuable the traits that increase damage against targets with x condition could be. But now that I think about it, there are not only MY application of conditions to think about, but also all my teammates. If there are 10 of us around, surely the enemy I’m attacking is going to be burning/bleeding/vulnerable a lot of the time, even if it’s not my doing.

I’ve shied away from a precision-heavy build in favor of a more balanced build. I found myself going down too quickly. Is your advice there simply “don’t get hit?” If so, how does your build deal with hostile conditions?

Have you taken a close look at Glyph of Elemental Power? I dismissed it at first, but with Quick Glyphs, it can be almost always up, and the chance to chill or cripple with any hit can be very useful in WvW.

Thanks for the info about Glyph of Storms. I had never taken the time to test them on a dummy. The conditions Earth provides are well worth knowing about!

When you’re travelling with scep/dag, isn’t the little jumpback that comes with your swiftness power annoying?

How do you get the most out of Mist Form and Vapor Form? I don’t do a good job of surprising my enemies with these, and they normally just track me down.

Will Magnetic Aura repel a treb shot?

How much do you value your combo fields? I was fighting the Claw of Jormag yesterday and saw that if I simply put down my fields in front of the clot of players on the corner, I was granting regeneration to more than 5 people, or burning, vulnerability or whatever. Do you do anything special to take advantage of your fields, or are they just a fringe benefit?

Thanks for all the answers, I needed to know this as well.

I’ve enjoyed the fights in Tier 2 this week, and it’s all been pretty classy. It’s nice to see a thread get to 12 pages without getting locked.

In honor of SoR and BG, I’m changing my motto from “Never capitulate” to “Only occasionally capitulate.”

Lalnuir.4957:

I meant does anyone on your server role play as something else when in WvW? Like that tc commander who posts in pirate talk on this forum. Does he talk like that in team chat/vent/ts/whatever???

Yes. But in WvW, it’s pretty rare. Brevity and conveying information are more important. We’re much more likely to RP when meeting in PvE, thanking someone for an assist, or forming PvE pugs.

Shout out to the SoR player who helped a human female ele from TC get the spider skill challenge yesterday! I admit you did the hard work killing the veteran spider, but I helped. A little.

Churros, there was no enemy siege on the ground when this happened. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

I’ve tried using my staff ele’s Meteor Shower (radius 360) as a guide when placing my own siege on top of a wall, but then when the wall’s attacked, enemy players still burn my siege down. What are they using?

What classes/skills can reach the farthest back on a wall they are assaulting from the ground?

Some great tips here, marking this thread so I can review it later. I’ve just started an ele after life as a warrior, and it’s a big change (which is what I was looking for.)

Interesting start. Everybody’s losing their own BL and the score and the pie are very even. FA started with a slight lead, but TC’s crept ahead. YB is right in there, too.

selan.8354:

Instead of getting frustrated with them TEACH them.

This works so well, everywhere in the world, not just in games. Well-said.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

I find it interesting that both TC and Yaks find FA a bigger threat than each other.

FA was in 1st place when I logged in yesterday = bigger threat.

My current character is an 80 warrior, built without WvW in mind. I have made some changes, but I ignored precision the whole way on this character. Just didn’t see the need for it in PvE, when monsters happily stand still for bleeds or hundred blades.

My warrior isn’t useless; he’s hard to kill and a good support character with shout heals and horn for speed and condition reversal. But I would like another character with a different feel.

Obviously, it’s good in WvW to crit, because opponents don’t seem to want to let me hit them over and over. So it’s better to do damage “while the gettin’s good” as some say.

So, I’m looking at starting another character as kind of another club in my golf bag, to do a different job than my stalwart warrior. I’m not looking for “OMFG look at the numberzzzz,” but a steady damage stream augmented with a lot of crits.

In addition to recommending classes/weapons, is there anything I should know about focusing on precision? Is there a cap on crit chance or other details I should know? (Like people making AoE builds should know about the cap of 5 targets.)

To the YB who were in a line dancing at us Sunday morning (eastern US) after taking Godslore right on our doorstep: Well played, noble adversaries, well played.

For my first fractal, my party got the swamp. We gave up after 8-10 attempts that were not even close. Or fun.

On my second, I disconnected and could not rejoin my party.

I am done with fractals.

morrolan.9608:

If there is a delay please tell us.

Yes. That.

aleran.2018:

My aoe shouts only heal for about 1.5k. 5 cap seems pretty low.

Agreed. Disappointing.

Best. Match. Evar.

All 3 servers have robust populations during NA prime time. I haven’t logged in yet this morning to see if any damage was done overnight, but it’s great to be in a true 3-way that wasn’t already decided by this point in the battle.

And so far, I haven’t personally seen any corpsedancers or other silliness, though I’m sure there’s one in every crowd.

Fantastic fights last night on Yak’s Bend borderland. My guild stayed mostly on the border between Arah’s, which we held for a while (an hour?), and the Northwest Tower. The Yak’s team tested our defenses several times from different directions, and we held up well, but they learned from their losses. Yak’s finally put up some really well-defended siege on top of the tower’s vista, wiped out all our siegery in the camp and flooded in.

It seemed that CD was flooding up the east side of the same map, so there must have been good pressure and great fights on all 3 fronts.

Funniest moment of the night was when we snaked up on the ledge behind the NW tower. We were happily banging away at the siege above us, and one guy from Yak’s jumps down, hits fear, and my guild turns into the Tarnished Coast Synchronized Diving Team. All of us off the cliff, and you could see us flying (well, I prefer to call it flying) side-by-side, until suffering deceleration trauma when we failed to stick the landing.

We adapted to that, but Yak’s soon counter-adapted by keeping us off that cliff altogether.

Well-fought last night, everyone!

Thanos.2970:

It is actually much easier for attackers to hit defenders on the walls with AE spells, then it is for the defnders to hit attackers that are standing close to the wall.

That is a really good point.

Tabbycat

TC still doesn’t have coverage 24/7 so I think the mentality is to grab as much as you can while the zerg is still around. We don’t really have the merciless competitive attitude that the Tier1 and Tier 2 guilds have. Most of us want a fair fight and we want our opponents to keep on fighting. For us, it isn’t about winning or owning the entire map. It’s about how much fun we are having.

Quoth for truth. We had one guy storm off a community forum (and presumably off the server) when he found out that we didn’t want to do whatever it takes to be the best. Tier 1 sounds like work to me. Had some great fights last night with CD and got pasted twice by HoD. Looking forward to a really fun, orbless week.

But heck, I had fun last week getting pancaked by Sanctum of Rall. As someone said, we still had fights, took small objectives and tried to hold them, learned a lot. SoR was decent enough to not spawncamp us, so we still had a great week.

Shoot, I don’t care if my server has the maximum gathering bonus. I just wanna have good fights, and last night, everybody was dishing it out.

HAVE AT YOU!

Can someone explain to me the mindset of a person who would log out to avoid paying 1s in repair fees?

Sticky! Sticky!

How do you build a character for WvW? Do you specialize, and try to get tremendous burst damage or condition damage, knowing that people have counters for those? Or do you try to make a well-rounded character that can switch modes easily and continue to be moderately effective?

Note that warrior banner buffs do not stack with the same type of banner. They have a different icon than boons, and do not follow the same rules. So 2 banners of defense in the same area isn’t giving any more benefit than one.

In beta, the GS F1 gave might, which was fantastic. Now I pretty much never use it. I have the same trait you do, that gives +12% damage for a full bar, and I just keep running with that until I swap to my longbow, then blow the adrenalin on a much better skill.

If I have swiftness and chilled on me, how fast am I going? I assume being immobilized overrides swiftness entirely, and one can’t move?

Wasabee, that sounds like great advice. And Lethalvriend, I’m off to check that out right now.

I’ve already read “So You Hit 80: A Quick Endgame Handbook”, but that was more of a what-to-do. What I need to know is, with 40K karma and 5g (I don’t feel a strong need to buy my last training manual), what weapons and armor should I be looking to outfit myself with in the short-term?

I will probably slowly work toward the best stuff available, but for a person newly arrived at 80, can I just look on Black Lion, or do I need to visit special vendors? I’ve heard about cultural items. I’ve also heard that there are items that can be bought only with skill points. How do these things fit in?

Thanks for your replies.

(There are fewer good guides out there for GW2 than any other game I’ve played. I guess you all are too busy playing to write.)

Is Combustive Shot (longbow burst) modified by +condition damage, +burst damage, power, or some combination?

The human hounds do a kitten-ton of damage, and they are usable in WvW, but not sPvP. The 4-minute cooldown is their drawback, but when they’re on, they hit like… well, like hellhounds.

" (Unless you are allergic to awesome)"

Haha, thanks, I actually laughed out loud. (Which, thanks to derps on the internet, I now have to spell out for people to know that I REALLY DID… oh, nevermind.)

I have been running GS/LB in WvW, and am experimenting with ditching the GS for ???+warhorn right now. I like your suggestions for playing it more as a longbow-first mentality. I hadn’t been thinking of it that way.

Do you do a banner or anything for mobility between fights? I really like how the warhorn keeps my whole group moving.

Great guide, Grundnir, thanks.

Is longbow AoE damage enough to take down clones? And how to clones react to fire? Will they move out of it, or stay and roast?

Thanks for the excellent advice. In #7, what is “moa” and what am I watching for?

I am a GS/LB warrior, generally running Great Justice, Bull’s Charge, Banner of Strength, and Hounds.

Mesmers consistently kick my trash. I haven’t played a mes, so I don’t really understand how their decoys work and what I should do against them. Can someone explain to me how to fight them, or point me to a good guide?

Thanks

I have not experienced what you describe. Maybe it is hardware-specific?