Guild Wars 2

You’ll notice bigger jumps with the right gear and at level 80. Just try and work with power, precision and critical damage and you’ll start doing more damage. Condition damage is really not for guardians, even with the burns it’s not worth building for.

Champions are generally for groups to kill though. I’d stick to exploring (doing tasks and getting waypoints) and once you hit 80 check around the forums for a build that suits what you want to do.

Well, a lot of it has to do with how you want to play. While there might be more optimal ways to WvW and support your team, people have different styles. I personally don’t really like symbols, or rather I don’t build around them. In zerg play you’re hardly going to want to stand in it to get the benefits and roaming the other person isn’t going to just stand in it.

That being said, I think there’s better ways to heal yourself while supporting your team at the same time.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlUgKD3GyKEfIFSmCAABtPAQ4CueAAAADB-jUBBYfBKBqIaslhFRjVXDT5iIqGA-w

If you’re looking for survivability, there’s no better way than giving your team boons through AH. The best part about it that it’s kitten at scaling with healing so you don’t have to sacrifice your gear to do it. The more you give, the more you heal.

I use a combination of inspired virtues with renewed justice. On kill VoJ recharges so you can spam it, giving 3 stacks of might to 5 allies each time and 15 AH procs to yourself. Along with the protection/aegis on VoC there’s regen on VoR. Another 15 into virtues gives you absolute resolution which cures 3 conditions on you and allies. And you can use it twice with renewed focus if need be.

As for utilities, stack with condition removals and stun breakers. Our low hp is sustained by AH, so clearing conditions is crucial. A huge reason why I don’t use save yourselves is because you can overload yourself with conditions, making you burn contemplation of purity. I think it’s better to support others with VoR and purging flames as you’re removing conditions from yourself too.

As for my weapon choice, I like to be mobile so I use the staff a lot. Being able to move through a zerg (25% movement speed on runes of traveler) tagging multiple enemies will recharge VoJ when they die, and give you more loot. Dealing plenty of damage spread out instead of focusing on one spot. Hammer in the back pocket for laying down symbol of protection (more AH ticks) when in one spot, or blasting. Even if you’re not in it, people will run through it triggering AH and healing you.

Hope this gave you a couple ideas on how to improve your own build.

I love the AA as is, changing it to something like the spear would completely destroy it. It’s not a single target weapon and it’s fine as is. A lot of people mentioned how great it is in WvW but with the right build it can be amazing.

With 15 in radiance you can spam VoJ over and over, burning and blinding enemies. If traited with Inspired Virtues you get 3 stacks of might for allies per VoJ. Double that with AH and you can faceroll through zergs with zerk gear getting 2k crits on multiple foes. Throw the symbol down and empower for even more healing/boons.

The one skill I don’t like on staff that needs a rework is orb of light. I’d like to put a boon on it like regen to allies, or some type of boon on LoW but it would probably be unbalanced with AH.

Oh, and in PvE the staff is great for control. I always do the kiting on P1 of AC with the staff. Also great for tagging in situations like scarlet’s invasions or gates of arah.

Really depends how much protection we lose swapping the symbol. Should the symbol then last 5 seconds to make it to the next MB?

If the third strike was reduced to 1/2 second it’d be a fair tradeoff to lose a second or two of protection. Could trait out the symbol to make it perma. If the third strike was 1/2 second we would get an extra AA chain to every MB.

A change like this and removing the light field would go a long way to making the hammer a much more viable choice. I never end up using the hammer in dungeons unless I’m pugging with a group that will die without it. It covers valuable seconds of fire fields and wastes blast finishers. It’s a last ditch choice for me.

I don’t think it would be that hard to implement either. There’s already makeover kits that we can go into the options to change looks and gender, so all the tools are already there. It just needs to be implemented, probably some coding, and rolled out.

As for the story, I’d prefer a reset. If I’m changing to a Norn or Charr I want to play their story. Not like we’d lose achievement points or be forced to play it. This doesn’t need to get overly complicated, so a clean reset would work.

And for cultural gear, we can just transmute it and use on another toon. (which would need 12 lvl 80 transmutation crystals = even more money). Adding a vendor for swapping the gear is adding more than necessary when we can work with what we’ve got already. Plus they’d rather you sink another 100+ gold into a new t3 set.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to change the race of a couple toons.

I only see two hurdles really. One would be the story progress, which would have to be completely reset. Not that hard to do. The other would be any cultural gear you have already, which can be transmuted to other toons.

With the release of more things in the gem store that I’m not going to spend money on, I thought it would be a good opportunity to put a price on something we do want.

800 gems sounds fair to me, but I’d be willing to pay more. What would you pay?

What if the ele had a weapon swap, but could only attune each set with two elements? Say you chose the staff with fire and water, you can use the d/d with lightning and earth. I’m not sure if it would be balanced to use for example fire and water for both weapon sets though.

This way you can change from ranged to melee, but not have 40 skills as a result. If we’re talking about ways to open up builds, I think this would be it. A 5th element doesn’t change the gap between ranged and melee. The ele would be a lot harder to read too.

Personally I would rather be undercut by 1c than 300g. Effectively destroying values of things in a couple listings. Undercutting is pointless anyways, if you match the lowest seller the most recent listing will be sold first (same goes for orders).

You can also catch people offguard on buy orders if you match their price, instead of raising eachother 1c back and forth .

I would sub those cleric’s items with Knight’s if you want more toughness. I don’t see where you’re going to get a lot of help from healing. Maybe replace a couple of the smaller celestials with zerker if you want more power/attack.

Tough call for traits. I see you’re going for the shout/condition removal plus VoR for more. To get AH you’d need to sacrifice one of the two. I don’t know the math, but I prefer to mix meditations in for cleansing instead of using shouts. Since you’re looking for suggestions, I’ll give an example of what I generally would use.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAWSlUgSD3GyKEfIFSmiVCBtPAQ4CueARREDB-jUBBYMBKBqIaslhFRjVXDT5iIqGA-w

Gear preference is optional. I put Knights in since you wanted enough toughness, but still a punch. The build has about 3k of both attack and armor, with decent crit chance/damage.

Traits and utilities are a bit different. You still have VoR for condition removal, but a couple meditations are added for that (both of which grant fury for 4s). Smite condition is on a rather short CD with a full condition cleanse w/ CoP. Stand your ground for stability, but really I wouldn’t use Save Yourselves. In a zerg you can get completely overwhelmed w/ conditions and it can burn your removals wasting a slot. You’ll get more fury uptime w/ meditations, you already have perma vigor w/ crits. The might is negligible, regen is supplemented with AH, protection can be gained through hammer, and swiftness through the staff. So the risk really outweighs the boons.

If you put 15 into radiance, VoJ is recharged on kill. With insipired virtues you’re giving 3 stacks of might on every kill (giving 3 stacks of might to 5 allies works great with AH). You can use the staff for tagging and spamming VoJ, with hammer/GS to deal damage. The protection you give with the hammer AA triggers AH, along with empower and SoS on the staff.

I like runes of the traveler for movement speed, but they’re pricey. Hope this inspires your build.

It’s really just trial and error. Go fight some Moas and figure out what works for you.

I myself don’t have my hand on mouse during combat. I use my left hand for movement and the right on number pad for skills. It allows me to move around so much easier and have access to what I want.

My key bindings are:

1-9 = attacks/heal/uti
0 = weapon swap
/ = elite
enter = autoloot
+ = F1 or F2 depending on class
. = turn around (instant 180 is SUPER helpful)
> arrow = dodge

I wouldn’t try and fit what you do to another’s keybinding.

On my mouse I have a few set like interact and autorun for when I’m roaming.

Oh, and personally I don’t change q or e because I take full advantage of strafing in combat. Everyone probably has their own style but without using the mouse in combat I need full motion in my keys.

Brutaly.6257:

All questions in your post is answered in the 30 Point valor sticky and some additional info can be found in the stickied FAQ.

Thanks for that. I knew it was somewhere but must of missed it looking for “AH”. Still, a few of my questions weren’t answered. Like if hollowed ground, and the symbol of protection/swiftness only trigger 5 AH heals. Also, with empower on the staff does it only effect 5 allies once or 5 allies on the 3 bursts?

Stand The Wall.6987:

As a rule of thumb I would not use healing symbols without a high enough healing power. AH does not scale with a high healing power though.

Yeah the only two symbols I’m considering around symbol of swiftness and symbol of protection in combination with AH. Precisely because the healing scale is just so terrible. I was playing around with the build looking at mace & healing until I noticed that.

This is my first time looking into AH, so I want to throw a few things out there and get some feedback. This will be primarily for zerg running in WvW, as I don’t see much any usefulness of AH in PvE.

Well, the two builds I have both start with 0/15/30, but the difference is 20/5 or 5/20 in honor and virtues.

I do have it set to full zerker gear, but that really isn’t my focus. I can sub knight or soldier in at any moment. I’m running staff and sword/focus. The general idea is to spam VoJ with the staff giving might to 5 allies on every trigger (350hp). The sword is for mobility along with a blast finisher with the focus. I threw the hammer onto the second build just to see the difference. It has protection on every 3rd hit along with a blast finisher with 5 second cooldown. Less mobility but might work better with AH.

0/15/30/5/20
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAsdWlUgyCHGyKEfIFSmCRCBtPAQ4CuekQOEDB-jACBYLCiEEgk3Q0HAJPFRjtSqIas6aYKXER1SBExyI-e

With consecrations I’m wondering if there is the 5 ally limit like with shouts or if anyone who runs through would gain stability. That would make a huge difference with hollowed ground and AH. VoR for condition removal, but could use another like purging flames. I’ve got HtL and SyG in that have relatively short cooldowns, but could insert PF in for HtL. I might be stacking more boons than I need to.

With Valor I went with SiN and Purity because I don’t have any meditations in this build, so there’s really nothing else. They seem semi useful.

0/15/30/20/5
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlUgaDnGyKEfIFRuA7DAETBGh/1DIGRGC-jgxAYrAROgSeFRjtSWENWdNmylIqWKgIWGB-e

With this build, I have empowering might on it, which is another 350hp/s. I don’t have AR on for condition removal w/ VoR so I’ve added some extra utilities. I’ve got meditations in this build so MM and FM in valor are a given. An extra stun breaker but less stability. I feel like this build overall has better synergy and a lot more triggers for AH. Also considering larger symbols over 20% off shout cooldown.

Ok, so now I’ve got a few questions.

1) Do consecrations effect more than 5 allies?
2) Does empower on the staff effect just 5 allies once, or each pulse? (For AH)
3) Do boons given through runes work with AH? Like runes of the pack, or ones that work off a healing skill. Or should I just go with what I generally use?
4) Does might stacking with fire fields/blast finishers work with AH?
5) With Symbol of Swiftness do all allies who pass through trigger AH?
6) With Symbol of Protection do all allies who pass through trigger AH?
7) Does VoJ with Inspired Virtue (might) trigger AH?
8) S/F or Hammer?

Thanks for any input that goes with this. Getting some feedback will save me a lot of testing and is greatly appreciated.

Vexander.9850:

Ethaine.8419:

Jagerbomb.9057:

Yup well all the spiteful people who are in T3 don’t want you spending 20g less than them for a fiery T3 do they?! Oh dear lord 20g Less! Or $10 which would exchange into enough gold to buy half of the T3 anyway!

Oh well. Friendly Gw2 community? I think not. I love the flamekissed light and human T3, to me their different.

I think the main reason why people were against it, was because every other race had access to T3 HUMAN CULTURAL gear, what is the point in having CULTURAL gear when other races can get one that is not only prettier but easier to get.

This is the only valid reason to take it down in my opinion. However, by the same logic, why not just every other race’s cultural armor available as well? I’d love to see, for example, a Lightning version of the Norn Heavy Armor. Or an icy version of any of the Sylvari armors. Dark Versions of the Asura Armor would be amazing, I’d totally get a necromancer a Dark Asuran tier 3.

I guess the main issue is that these armors would have to be released in waves. I still think they’d be amazing and that players would love them. I mean, you may pay less in terms of gold to gems and all, but you also don’t get credit towards certain achievements either, so I don’t see a huge problem there.

This is exactly what anet doesn’t want though. There have been pushes to make all cultural armor available to any race. I personally would love the heavy norn t3 on my human. The asuran t3 is awesome too. But, time and time again they have stated that these armors are and will stay for their own races.

It’s the contradiction that was the problem. And if this stayed in place, it would have opened up a huge can of worms for the rest of the armors.

And this fix is taking way too long. All they have to do is take a skin they already have and throw some flames on it. It’s not like any of the flamekiss armors were original designs. All three of them should have been scrapped and refunded for their laziness.

tomlin.8204:

I think it’s good if you’re buying gems with gold, but it’s awful if you’re selling gems for gold. I expect a lot more gold for a £30 charge than what is currently on offer.

I look at it the other way around. I can make money at work quicker to then buy 2000 gems with than I could to make gold in game and convert to that same 2000 gems.

That could be said about buying gems to convert to gold too. I could probably make more gold by working more and just buying it, but that just seems lame.

I use it a lot when either farming PvE or bags in a zerg with the staff. You can cover a lot of ground with 20s of swiftness. I also use it for the aegis block or simply traveling. I do wish it was longer though, maybe an extra 10s to boost our mobility. There can be a lot more useful utilities to bring to a fight.

Though I hardly use it for actually retreating.

Really though, what do you expect? You’re coming up with names that are risky on purpose. You’re not trying to be hypno therapist, but rather hypno the kitten . Clever as it may be.

Looks like the system is working as intended.

As part of the rewards, we get a PvP gear chest that comes with an assortment. With the PvP changes to use our regular armor instead, is there going to be something else instead? Or will it just be one less thing we get?

Anything been said about it?

I want to go full celestial so bad. It just seems only right for a guardian. Even the condition damage doesn’t go completely to waste with VoJ.

It’s too bad too. I really want it to work, but it just doesn’t. I haven’t seen the ascended stats though, not that they would make it viable.

I’m doubting that 500 jeweler will be for ascended, but maybe for legendary trinkets. I remember somewhere along the line they were mentioned. Being able to craft ascended trinkets at this point, while would be great for alts or extra builds and those who don’t have them yet, is kind of lackluster compared to the introduction of ascended weapons and armor at 500 crafting.

So much for no gear progression… :P

If Jormag does get an update, all champs on the map should go on pause while it’s up. That way they’ll either come help or go do something else.

I wouldn’t. You can buy the icy runestones for 100g at any point. And with inflation, 100g is always worth more now than later.

Instead, buy things that are cheap at the moment on the market. Instead of buying tier 6 mats for 30s a piece, try and catch them when in high supply at 18s a piece.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

did you stack onto a server or with your guild in the hopes of getting a better chance at the rewards? if so expect no sympathy from the forums.

also I doubt im the only one who feels this way but you sound very entitled, also you cant make anet do anything by threatening them, especially by saying you wont buy gems, also, you cant buy a legendary with gems

Why does everyone automatically assume that anyone on Blackgate transferred there before season 1 to stack for rewards? If I remember correctly, we were stomping in general long before season 1. With or without the transfers we would of won. Dare I go as far to say it would of been easier without them and their uselessness, adding only to queues and SMC outer wall repair.

Though, I’m more in favor of good rewards across all servers instead of bad loot for everyone. Tier 1s had to deal with queues, smaller servers had to deal with outnumbered. Season one was a pain in the kitten for everyone and as such, we should all be rewarded for 7 weeks invested.

But, then again, threads like this are useless and don’t help. It’s a lost cause, what did we expect with all the QQ on the forums leading up to the end.

Thrashbarg.9820:

Guardian. Staff #1. bind aoe loot to a mouse key….

Pretty much this. Spam VoJ (traited) while spamming autoloot and 1. I just keybind all three of them next to eachother when I’m farming bags (PvE too).

This all comes back to their choice before the season began. Iirc it was free to transfer to a low level population and only 800 gems to transfer to high pops? Did they not foresee the issue of stacked servers? What about the people who were already on those “stacked” servers to begin with? I don’t think it’s right for them to get the shaft on rewards when they have to deal with high queues on top of it.

Though, I’m sure people would of transferred to blackgate for 2400 gems for the possible rewards. Anet could of made a fortune.

I like the idea of ascended buffs. Depending on how much it costs and how long it lasts, I could see a 50% buff on the basic food good. Maybe 100% if it costs a lot.

So an ascended sweet and spicy butternut squash would have 150/200 power and 15%/20% crit damage.

And really, being ascended, I think these buffs should last around 72 hours. It would make it more appealing to craft. Even at playing 10 hours a day, the buff would still last a week of playing on one character. Though, I’d be playing on my alts more often to save time on the buff.

Maybe she’ll kitten with Shatterer and make it a Tequatl tier boss fight.

I’m just as bothered by their choice of medium and heavy armor as i am with the whoring of t3 cultural light armor. Really? Pit fighter armor? WvW armor? Couldn’t you have chosen something that actually looks good? Something with at least one good piece of armor I can put into my set? The light armor will sell, but I doubt I’ll see many people running around with the other two.

Though, I may buy it and mix it in with my current t3 light armor. The shoulders are good looking, and the leggings aren’t bad but maybe too much. I don’t know, I really don’t feel like supporting it at the same time.

I would be okay spending 400-800 gems upgrading our armor we already have, but to sell it flat out in the gem store is disappointing to say the least.

Nothing better to promote WvW season 2 than some kick kitten loot for season 1. Reward those who put in effort to win, and encourage the losers to try better next time. Bad loot isn’t good for future seasons, and could hamper interest before they even begin.

Yeah I was looking at that extra 5 to get that, and dropping retributive armor to put it in radiance would cover the precision drop. Also thinking of swapping some retaliation out for utility cooldowns. Not sure why I have that heal on there I was tinkering around, but with 20 in radiance I could put the signet cooldown on for 8 seconds off signet of resolve.

The armor seems high enough that I could play around with those. And it really is need to have 15 in radiance or none at all.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlYg672GyKEfIFSmiVCBtUMQEEmCMKjuKkQA-jwBBYjBigAI5rIasVNFRjVVjIqWlEzerIa1SBMqwI-e

I think this is more like it. Increasing the duration of retaliation by 25% and adding 20% cooldown to shouts will have more retaliation uptime. Along with gaining retaliation on each virtue use and VoJ recharging on kill.

So, I’m trying to figure out what direction I want to go with my guardian. I’ve already got a beserker build and a PTV, but I’m looking for a combination build to mix it up a bit.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARWlcg672GyKEfIFSmCDEBtKMQYKIwM6SRCRRA-jwBBYjAEEAJfFRjtqpIasqaER1qkY2bFRrWKgRFGB-e

Now, I’ve heard mixed things about celestial armor. That spreading everything out is like one of those good at everything but master of none type deals. But, the guardian to me is a class that does do everything. I want power, precision, toughness, healing, condition damage and vitality.

What I went with is 0/10/20/20/20, with an emphasis on retaliation. I suppose my main purpose here is survivability, but not at the expense of doing some damage. I’ll use this for mostly zerg running or PvE.

2800 attack with bloodlust
50% crit chance with food
3000 armor with strength in numbers active
18,000 hp
600 condition damage (extra bit helps with burning)
700 healing
20% boon duration
104% crit damage

Thoughts?

Durzlla.6295:

Shanks.2907:

The marksmanship trait line is way too loaded, with the skirmish line full of traps and pet traits.

*Spotter would benefit being moved to skirmishing as adept. Similar traits in other classes are adept too.
*Combine both 1500 range and piercing arrows and put them as a grandmaster in skirmishing. Remove the 5% damage increase and add it to quickdraw (20% cooldown on bows)

Those three traits being moved from the power line would make a positive impact on the synergy of power builds. It would open up room to use some of the signet traits while still effectively using your long bow.

Swap the trap traits over to marksmanship to fill the holes. Makes more sense with the condition duration buff on marksmanship anyways.

Why in gods name would you take the bow and arrow traits out of the MARKSMAN like instead of just moving the signet traits into skirmishing? Swap signet traits with trap traits, bam, traps now are in a line that applies a benefit to all of them, you can go signets and longbow,

Any way they do it really results in the same thing. There’s already a bow trait in skirmish so it’s not like marksmanship is the only place bow traits belong. Really though, it’s spotter that needs to be moved over to skirmish (adept). Seems to me that there’s too many signet traits to move, so it might be easier to make the simple swaps I suggested.

I think trap potency could be dropped to a master trait too. Didn’t that get a stealth nerf last update? It would make room for either the signet of beast mastery to move over or a combination of piercing/range.

Either way it’s done, I could see a viable damage build be put together that could compete with other classes.

The marksmanship trait line is way too loaded, with the skirmish line full of traps and pet traits.

*Spotter would benefit being moved to skirmishing as adept. Similar traits in other classes are adept too.
*Combine both 1500 range and piercing arrows and put them as a grandmaster in skirmishing. Remove the 5% damage increase and add it to quickdraw (20% cooldown on bows)

Those three traits being moved from the power line would make a positive impact on the synergy of power builds. It would open up room to use some of the signet traits while still effectively using your long bow.

Swap the trap traits over to marksmanship to fill the holes. Makes more sense with the condition duration buff on marksmanship anyways.

Like many other rangers, I am completely unsatisfied with the lack of attention they’re getting. One person posted an observation that really hit with me. During the web stream of the preview for this patch, they were going over each of the classes. The brief time they did spend on the ranger was void of any interest, they couldn’t even locate traits they planned on talking about.

So? What do we do about it? QQ on the forums? Test the limits of the kittening filter? Reroll and use another class until rangers might be improved? Switch games? That won’t do the ranger class any good.

What we can do is to show them the same lack of support. I have always liked their subscription free business model. We all support guild wars 2 through the gem store with microtransactions. I myself purchase on average 1600 gems a month, which is more than a subscription fee. I don’t mind loading my toons up with bag slots or getting some extra bank tabs. These things can be bought with in game gold by converting to gems, but at the same time I like the idea of supporting the game I play daily.

So, I propose to you my fellow rangers, to make a stand. If you want to see some actual changes and not just empty promises, it seems like they need some motivation. Take a moment, make a pledge stronger than any petition, and take things into our own hands. There is strength in numbers and there is one thing we can do to make them listen.

mzt.3270:

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Well all I have to say is, they wont be getting my gem store purchases till things improve.

^^^