Guild Wars 2

You people are funny. The Guardian is still a very strong class and this change has left most of it’s ability to kill standard mobs intact. I can still fight 2 veterans + adds solo with the Greatsword and not need to use my Heal. I can run around Orr not engaging, just letting them beat on me until I’m out of range and not worry.

Even with the recent changes the Guardian is still a very solid class and all this talk about the class now being useless is just whining.

Staff is fine for damage. It’s my go to weapon for Veterans and Champions. Illusionary Warlock does a lot of damage. As for the PvE/PvP split, this has to happen and Mesmer is one of the best examples why. The class is stupidly strong in PvP, but is one of the weakest ones for PvE.

You might have a bit of a valid point that they should be kept minimal, but all things considered, I really like the idea of being able to detonate Chaos Armour. Normally, you throw it up…and it’s mostly useless. Having the option to detonate it (for a blast finisher, please?) it would be awesome.

And someone needs to go watch Indiana Jones and Last Crusade.

If you think Vanilla is bad at 2.5, Coriander is worse at 4+. It’d be really nice if we got a slight supply increase to counter the obviously high demand.

you could buy the items off the Auction House and put them into the Forge.

I actually like the channeling animation on my human female guardian. It might be that she leans a bit too far back, but you actually get the impression that they’re channeling potent magics. I seem to recall that the male asuran dance is a bit like pole dancing though.

If you want to discuss the traits specifically, then that’s fine. If you just want to talk about “what goes best with 30 Zeal & Zealous Blade,” then that’s something else. Zeal is all about power, sigils & spirit weapons. Not that great an option. I can see spec’ing maybe 10 points into Zeal for something like Fiery Wrath, but that’s about it because the traits available aren’t that good. I could maybe, maybe see Focused Mastery if you use the Focus a lot for PvP but that’s about it.

Altruistic Healing beats Zealous Blade. 5% more damage? I’d rather have 20% cooldown reduction on all two-handed weapons, because that’s essentially 20% more damage with the non-auto-attack skills. The minor traits are Sigils and the other stuff is mainly Spirit Weapons.

The other trait lines give so many more options and inter-connectivity…that’s where the depth is.

Draeka, I have to common, with your last two paragraphs there. There are those that just think “more power = more damage”. They just immediately spec 30 points into it, take whatever traits are available there and that’s all there is to it for them, not realizing how much synergy there can be if you put your points elsewhere. It’s just stack power, toughness & vitality, grab a greatsword and see big numbers.

For me, as I’ve said above, Altrusitic Healing, Renewed Justice, Inspiried Virtues, Writ of Exultation, Two-Handed Mastery, etc, etc. There’s interplay between them and it’s just more survivable.

I’ll also agree with Valor missing a good Master trait. I take Retributive Armour & Purity in that line on my way to Altruistic Healing. If you’re playing Mace or Shield, you’re good. If you’re not using something else, not so much.

We’re analyzing traits…in depth. It makes perfect sense.

Also, you don’t need that much power. Try a few other traits and see what works rather than taking the “Moar power!” approach.

Creslin.1758:

The problem I have encountered is that it just isn’t that powerful all in all considered, the opportunity cost of intentionally stacking confusion is too high. In that time you spend to stack confusion, you could have been doing so many other things that produce so much more damage.

Yeha, this is definitely the point right here. I love my Mesmer, but it does take a while to get going. Pulling that sort of thing against a Champion or against another player in PvP or WvW might be worth while, but anything could usually killed much easier.

I think once the Devs have everything balanced out to their like and all the Live Bugs figured out they can start to focus more on a PvP/PvE split which would make things more more reasonable. Once that happens hopefully things will be better.

I was wandering around Straights of Devastation the other night and the Temple of Balthazar chain was happening. I joined in and man, I got I think three drops all the way up the mountain. I just couldn’t do enough damage, either with the sword, greatsword or staff. There was just no way I was doing anywhere near as much damage as the other classes. I did eventually get Gold for participating, but I think that was more the Illusionary Warlock than me. Those guys hit hard when there’s like every condition in the game on a target.

Omnomberry Bars & Dye Packs…that is all.

I’d like Zomorros a lot more if I could feed him all those Locked Black Lion Chests that I keep getting all over the place…you’d think that with all the stuff that people have been throwing into his forge that he’s have enough cash to buy the keys to make use of them…but even he doesn’t want them.

I’d love for some armours that didn’t have power. I’m looking at a 30/10/0/10/20 build for my Ele when I get around to playing her and a Precision/Toughness/Vitality armour would be perfect to cover the gaps in that stat combination.

I think Anet still has plenty of things to resolve and that they they’re probably working pretty hard on things, but can’t just go around promising things. If they did they’d cause an even more problems with people saying “well you said this in the forums, so why isn’t it fixed yet?”

Even important fixes can still take a week or two to go live. You think some people complaining about something which is probably the most used weapons on one of the most used (and one of the strongest) classes is going to get instant attention?

The Guardian might lack some range, and isn’t nearly as quick as some of the other classes, but is otherwise a rock solid class that can go anywhere and not have to worry about surviving running into a couple of veterans, let alone the average mob. There’s plenty more to work on besides a perceived lack in Whirling Wrath.

I’m not entirely sure of the exact numbers, but I think that with Vigorous Precision & Altruistic Healing you heal for about 75 health on every crit. That means with a 33% crit rate this equals the heal of Zealous Blade on all skills. Additionally it also heals for the Buffs that you give your allies so if you lay down Sigil of Wrath this combo will automatically out-heal Zealous Blade as you get Healing for applying Retribution.

Additionally it also Heals for your other weapon set *cough*Empower*cough*, any buffs you give for activating your Virtues or shouts, and I think it even scales with Healing Power…and that’s just with a 33% crit chance. If you’ve got a higher chance, well that’s just even more Heals. If you add Empowering Might, well that’s even more Healing done.

I don’t really care to run the numbers and I know that there are many people that rune low crit builds, but if you do run a crit build Altruistic Healing probably blows Zealous Blade out of the water.

Or you could grab Absolute Resolution and just buff your Virtue of Resolve passive which I think outheals it as well. Might not spike quite as high as Zealous Blade & Whirling Wrath, but overall it & over time it probably outheals it.

On the whole, in my opinion, spec’ing into Zeal isn’t worth the points. You can get all the extra damage you need from all the +power on your gear and you lose too many useful traits from the other attributes.

One way to apply a few stacks is Illusionary Warden along with an Ethereal Combo Field. They’ll throw out some confusion bolts and you’ll get 5-6 stacks on a target that’s in melee range of the Warden. Not the greatest, but it can still do a fair amount of damage.

I personally don’t care about the dying when the target dies thing. I shatter them too frequently for it to really matter. What I’m sorta thinking is that only our targets ought to be able to interact (ie damage them). This might make the class too 1v1 Oriented though. It’s certainly help in PvE so that they wouldn’t insta-gib in big DE with all the AoE flying around…might also make the PvP’ers and WvW’ers unhappy though. :-/

Tuomir.1830:

Heh, I’ve got one…

Masquarade
-Summon a clone with a high health pool. Lasts 60 seconds. (is replaced by a swap skill you can use as many times as you wish for as long as the clone is alive, you and the clone switch places without a “poof” effect. Would not shatter.)

Change this slightly so that you can switch position with any clone you have for 60 seconds and it’d be fun. Might need to call it “House of Mirrors” or something instead though.

Rhyse.8176:

10/10/10/10/30 Evasive Arcana

The rest of the traits you can pick to suit your playstle, but Fire +10% damage, Air +20% dmg to low health enemies, and Earth shield at 50% health are good solid traits. Learn your combo fields and finishers by heart, add Evasive Arcana and Arcane wave for more finishers, put a sigil of energy on your staff (it works with attunement swapping) and go to town dodging and combo’ing your way accross the battlefield and into demigodhood.

Don’t forget to gear for toughness then power, or you’ll be squished. That goes for any build ever though.

Yeah, I was looking to make up for the stats with lots of precision, toughness & vitality gear…I’d kill for some gear with those three stats…there’s far too much gear with +power.

Also, I really want Persisting Flames & Pyromancer’s Alacrity. I’ve had enough support, I just want to wreck stuff (for instance, this character is going to be joining the Vigil). I suppose I could do something like 30/0/0/10/30…I dunno, I’ll look at it.

Rhyse.8176:

Not really. Because of the cooldowns in each attunement, you really can’t stay sitting in one and do maximum damage. This is one of the class design issues (IMO, it should be fixed by reducing a 30 pt attunement to 5 sec cooldown in that attunement, so you can dance to that powerful utility and then hop back to your specialization), so Arcane is pretty much required ATM.

If you’re going to go staff, you don’t to go that route anyway. The power of staff is in it’s many possible self-combo fields, not in it’s direct attacks, so if you stay in one attunement you’ll just feel like a tissue paper ranger that hits like a wet noodle.

Yeah, so far I’ve learned that you do need to keep swapping attunements and I think there’s enough in there, to lay down a lot of firepower. There’s also the possibility of running with two sets of weapons, Scepter/Dagger for instance for just general PvE and then switching to the Staff for DE’s.

So far I’ve leveled up a Guardian and a Mesmer and I’m looking into leveling up my Ele next.

With the support I’ve been doing so far, I just want to play a Staff Ele and just run around PvE wrecking stuff. I was planning on starting with 0/10/0/10/10 for up until level 40. At level 60 I was hoping to go 10/10/0/10/20 and eventually work my way up to 30/10/0/10/20. I’ve been seeing a lot of focus on Water, Earth & Arcane though. Can you get away with going heavy into Fire for Wrecking stuff or are we pretty much forced to play defensive?

I’d really like the idea of something of spawning two clones for every member if your group that don’t count towards you illusion limit. That could be a really fun PvP or WvW elite. Or even PvE, although if you’ve less than a full group, perhaps it just summons up 10 people total.

For anyone that played through the Human Noble plot line there’s a story mission with Countess Anise where she does something very similar. As a tangent, I’d love to have some traits that lets you have an extra illusion or two.

Khisanth.2948:

ShadowbaneX.6273:

More than likely the crafting zerg has moved to the upper tiers now and they’re no longer such a demand for low level crafting mats. It kinda sucks for people’s profits, but it’s a great benefit for the crafters. The prices now are much better imo.

Now, if only Copper Ore would drop…

Those have been dropping since around the 24th.

Sorry, I meant drop down to like iron levels or lower, like half it’s current rate.

I think the placement is too random to really come up with a potential map for them and that’s just on one map. Doing it for two maps would be worse. Frostgorge it’s almost not worthwhile as I think they’re all in the NE of the map.

The only things I’ve really noticed is that:

• I’ve never seen any that spawn in the SW corner of Malchor’s
• they spawn all too frequently in the Scavenger’s Chasm jumping puzzle (orichalcum only)

More than likely the crafting zerg has moved to the upper tiers now and they’re no longer such a demand for low level crafting mats. It kinda sucks for people’s profits, but it’s a great benefit for the crafters. The prices now are much better imo.

Now, if only Copper Ore would drop…

I’ve also started to get Vanilla Beans from Mature Herbs as well.

If they’re account bound you make ‘em for yourself and then stop. If they’re soulbound on equip and tradable that means that people can keep buying more character slots, playing the game, collecting all the items and selling them to other people.

Which option do you think Anet is going to prefer?

Awesome!

…so when is the combined one coming?

I can agree that the projectile damage from Whirling Wrath isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For what it does, it’s more problem than it’s worth as there are times where it will randomly hit a mob you’re not fighting and aggro it on you when you don’t want it to.

As for landing a solid Whirling Wrath, might I recommend since you’ve got your Hammer as your backup weapon: Ring of Warding > Banish > Mighty Blow > Swap to Greatsword > (Sigil of Wrath >?) Whirling Wrath. That’ll kill most things I would think.

Each weapon has their own uses in each place. Greatsword I find is slightly better for PvE, but it can work in PvP.

I’m partial to the Krytan Hammers and you can get those for coppers on the TP.

On the Karma side there’s tkittenon Vanguard Gear (3 karma merchants to the ENE of Ebonhawke). On the grind from, I actually rather like the Royal Ascalonian Hammer from the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon, but that’s a few explorable runs…it glows in the dark though.

I love the Warden, especially with Sharper Images & along with Warden’s Feedback. Nothing better than seeing some massive Fireball being returned to sender.

Warlock is the one I go with for Champions. I just switch to my staff, hang back and let them Crit for massive, massive damage.

Gaiawolf.8261:

So to fully answer the topic question: Warden and Berzerker for trash mobs, Warlock for bosses.

Or pretty much this.

I go with Sigil of Stamina & Sigil of Restoration, but my build heavily relies on Deceptive Evasion which means I like having a full Endurance bar.

With a lot of bouncing attacks and a high % crit chance might I recommend Sigil of Fire or Water? Lots of bounces means lots of AoE Fire Damage or AoE Heals.

sSmething like.

You get different stat bonuses for most items. Chest pieces have the largest bonus, than the Leggings. Boots, Gloves & Epaulets are the lowest with the Mask just a little bit higher. I tend to go Knight’s for Coat & Leggings and then have everything else be Carrion, which is power, vitality & condition damage because I like having the extra HP.

Doing it like this tends to give a good balance, once you factor Weapons, Jewelry & Attribute points as well.

Empowering Might means that you lose Two-Handed Mastery though. It’s tempting, but I’m not sure I like that option. The Sigil of Might sounds though, but so does the Sigil of Fire.

Spoiler for Catacombs.

Brutaly.6257:

@ShadowbaneX
it proccs 1 stack of might with 30% chance on crit. The stack has 10s duration for superior sigilss.

I played extensively with it during beta and with 1h sword it might be good but for a slow hitter like hammer its not worth it.

Yeah, I can agree with that. If it added 3 stacks of might for the entire group, then it might have been worth it. As it is, still need to find another Sigil to use.

Why not mix & match so you’ve got a good balance of each? You don’t have to use the same stats on every piece of gear you’ve got.

A few other points about Altruistic Healing, especially in PvE, Inspired Virtues makes it so that Virtue of Justice gives 3 stacks of Might. That’s another 3 heals per ally, and with Renewed Justice that means you can pop it every single time something dies, in addition to the AoE Blind, AoE Vulnerability (if traited) and the burning.

I usually use a Sigil of Perception for increased Critical Chance, but some people recommend Sigil of Strength for applying might to Allies. Anyone know how many stacks of might this gives when it triggers? It might be worth it as well.

Eveningstar.6940:

Ring of Warding is already a Combo Field: Light.

Good point. I’d forgotten about that.

The Regen from the Dolyak Runes is a different heal than Virtue of Resolve. It will keep working even with VoR is on cooldown. The heal is very small all things considered only about 30 hp (just tested it an it was 31 so perhaps it stacks with Healing Power). Thing is my VoR is only 96, so that 31 extra hp is about a 33% increase in my passive heal and that’s pretty worth while.

I use Power/Vitality/Crit Damge (Valkyrie) for Helm, Pauldrons, Gloves, Boots, Rings & Amulet. Power/Precisions/Toughness (Knight’s) for Breastplate, Leggings & Melee Weapons. Power, Precision & Condition Damage for Rings. Attributes are 0/15/30/20/5.

This is to give a good attack rating, high crit chance to take advantage of 30 points in valour, 18k hp and about a 2800 armour rating.

I think the Guardian could use an extra combo or two. One point is though, it is classified as a physical projectile. We’ve got tons of magical projectiles though, but I guess they don’t quite count though. I guess their reasoning is something like you can set an arrow on fire so it will then do fire damage, but you can’t set the Binding Blade things on fire. To confound the issue there’s Arcane Blast which is obviously not a physical projectile, but some how counts for one.

I’ve always sorta felt that Smite Conditions was rather similar to Arcane Wave and should count as a Blast finisher, but I think I’m about the only one.

Also, since Binding Blade is a Whirl, shouldn’t Ring of Warding be one as well?

I’ve been running pretty much the exact same build (0/15/30/20/5) on my Guardian with the Greatsword with the exact same traits and it’s so interesting to see the exact same build played so differently with a different weapon. I run Dolyak Runes & a Staff though, but I think I’ll swap the Staff for my Hammer the next time I’m out and give this a try.

LeX.9526

Sparkfly Fen ? joking right, acording to http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vanilla_Bean it should drop there from Verdant Herbs, i was there do that and i receive Clove and taragon leaves and in wiki list this one are not mentioned.

Yeah, you got me. I just like to make stuff up and post it on websites to screw with people…

Seriously though, I spent a few hours there yesterday and came out with between 20 & 30 Vanilla Beans and a dozen or so Cloves. That’s nearly 50 silver if I were to sell them on the TP…I’m a Material Horder though so I’m holding on to them. Seriously people just go farm verdant nodes. There’s a good many of them if you just look around for them and while not everyone will give what you want as there’s half a dozen different things to get eventually you’ll get some.

“Everyone” should be able to see that one of the sorting option on the TRADING POST is Legendary items. Seems to me that’d be a bit redundant if Legendary items were soulbound or even account bound…

So I had a nice long post typed out here…and it got eated.

To sum up, Sword/Focus & Greatsword…swap to Staff for big fights.

Attributes: 0/20/0/30/20.
Traits:
none
IV & X
none
V, VII & XI
V & X

Armour: Knight’s Sword, Coat, Leggings, Amulet & Rings; Carrion Mask, Epaulets, Gloves, Boots & Earrings. Rampagers Greatsword & Staff. Runes: Undead. Sigils S/F: Stamina & Restoration; GS: Energy, Staff: Fire.

To be honest, go to Sparkfly or Mount Maelstrom. They’re higher level zones, but not only do you get 3 to 5 Vanilla Beans, you also get 1-3 Cloves which are worth about the same amount as Vanilla Beans and there are plenty of nodes. I still think that the supply could be increased, but because those areas are empty is why the supply is so low.

I’m not sure if this helps, but I just got 5 Vanilla Beans from a Verdant Herb node in Sparkfly Fen which could be a big help with the Vanilla supply.

Linsey, would it be possible to get Coriander added to the Verdant Herb node as well to increase the supply a little?

I said if it gave the Heal per Illusion it would be tempting to take…but I’d probably still stick with Shattered Conditions. I mean, combine that with Deceptive Illusions & a Sigil of Stamina and you’ve got 4 Shatters all the time…and if you’ve got Signet of Illusions you get them all over again.

That’s just WAY too much utility to pass up imo.

Lasaonar.9132:

Especially some of the larger ones you see in the game that look difficult to use when the blade is so large and impractical, it would be completely unwieldly and they’d get tired too quickly.

This is why I run around with the Ebon Vanguard Greatsword , which is probably the smallest/thinest of the Greatswords in the game.

I’m a fan of Shattered Conditions so I’m going to be picking that up when I hit level 60. Restorative Illusions would be very tempting if it gave the heal per illusion, but as it is now, yeah, not going to bother. I wonder if they changed it so that if it was 1.2k heal per illusion when you hit Distortion. That way, you’d only be able to do it every 60 seconds or so and it’d be a decent additional Heal.