Guild Wars 2

Isarii.2804:

Sure – melee is always more rewarding in GW2. That’s irrelevant to the point about Longbow/Trap synergy though.

The question I would ask the team is: Did they design the traps with intentions to actually have synergy with the Longbow itself or to simply be a needed addition to the profession? If it’s the former, I’d say someone miscalculated. It’s an Elite spec granting you 5 abilities which require your enemy to actively pursue you or no dice. If it’s the latter, someone nailed it and deserves cheesecake. The Longbow works well with the existing heal, utility, and elite skills that aren’t traps, whereas the traps themselves work well with weapon choices that aren’t the Longbow.

Isarii.2804:

I would add that this is only really apparent in PvE boss fights. In OWPvE and PvP, there’s enough movement that things just run into your traps, but in PvE, you’re trying to stay at range to maintain your PoS buff, then you have to run in to use trap, then run out again if you want to use Longbow more. It’s very awkward, but ultimately, probably something we’re stuck with (especially since traps work fine in every other area of gameplay).

Even then, in open world it’s faster to just rush them with a GS. Leap of Faith and drop traps, drop symbol and then WW. You will either gank one guy or a group of them. To me, the bow only serves to provide a safety cushion for viable dps when melee is too dangerous.

Sandzibar.5134:

> longbow, the virtues, and traps need better synergy or at least not work against each other

How exactly do you feel that these mechanics don’t synergise well together?

It’s the traps themselves that don’t synergize well with the Longbow. Unless the enemy is constantly closing in on you, you have to stalk them from short range to keep traps going off on cooldown, meaning you give up 6% damage done from your build that requires you to deal damage from farther than 600 range. If you opt to stay beyond 600 and nothing pursues you, your traps may as well not exist. Traps synergize best with melee type weapons, since they deploy at your feet and don’t require melee to go out of their way to get them triggered.

The thing about these events is that no matter how long, short, easy or difficult the task is, they pretty much all pay you the same amount of XP. During the day, you’re running around doing chores that usually scale into long events in more populated maps. This pay turns out to be pretty terrible. You can join boss zergs at night but I would only do it for the first time rewards. Night pays you way better than daytime, if you do it right.

1) Find a minor camp that comes under attack. Defend it by killing a few guys, but let them take it. Upon failing, you will get paid.
2) Kill the enemies that stick around. In a few minutes, you’ll be charged with recapturing the camp. You’ll get paid for this too.
3) Defend your newly recaptured camp, you’ll get paid again.
4) Check your minimap (make sure you zoom out at least once and turn off Personal Story) for nearby events. These will be Salvage operations or Pact soldiers bringing supplies to your camp. If you leave 1-2 Tendrils alive while salvaging, you can run supplies to your camp for more XP. Bring your own Pact supplies while you escort soldiers to get two things done in one trip.
5) Your camp will periodically come under attack, keep defending it.
6) Run supplies whenever you’re not doing anything important, it all adds up. You can hold down ctrl to see these from farther than the game shows you by default.

These activities will happen repeatedly all night and pay up. Make sure you have any and all applicable XP boosts possible, they make a difference in the long run.

EDIT: Don’t forget to do your daily Adventures, even if you only get Bronze/Silver. The point is to get your XP efficiently, and most of these are easily completed in 3 minutes or less.

I’m running GS/LB with a DH/Zeal/Radiance build.

DH: Top, Middle, Bottom
Zeal: Middle, Middle, Bottom
Radiance: Top, Middle, Top

I use Procession of Blades, Test of Faith, Fragments of Faith, and Feel My Wrath. Choose whichever gear/heal works for you. My friend and I are running around with Soldier and pretty much mass pulling enemies for Trap/WW AoE. I use the LB when it’s not safe to melee, and he uses the LB when he wants to stand on top of a building and go AFK while shooting. Good luck.

Mordrem Troll Insect Swarms trigger traps, but the traps themselves simply despawn and nothing beneficial happens. It’s pretty janky when you’re surrounded by different kinds of Mordrem and somehow those get credit for the trigger and you’re stuck with cooldowns.

Farzo.8410:

It’s just an icon, honestly.

Worry about the traps and the traits.

This. I don’t care about the icon as much as I’d like to be able to place traps in a location that’s not directly beneath me. Oh well.

Yeah, it’s about location. Here’s the same result you got in LA and then the result you get in DR.

CandyHearts.6025:

-Teleport to a Friend item is simply stupid.

I agree completely. Based on the way it works, it should be called Teleport to Party due to only working on party members. What really gets me going though is when I use it to teleport to a party member and get the map full message, AND IT STEALS THE ITEM. Thanks for nothing.

Nemesis.6938:

what kind of build do you use? looking at the traits – those weapons seem to be heavily based around a pure healer…im having a hard time making a shield build look appealing outside of wvw group support

I’m actually rocking Virtue -> Zeal -> Radiance because I mainly use a GS. It’s a Power/Healing Signet build with Hold Your Ground for Stab and I alternate between the passive/active combat heal and Feel My Wrath depending on the activity. Even when I switch to my 2nd set, I still get some offensive benefit because the Mace also drops Symbols. It comes in handy when greatly outnumbered or fighting a Champ with 2-3 people and I get focused.

I use a Mace/Shield in my 2nd weapon set on my Guardian because I’m a thug and don’t care about the meta. All my gear is Soldier and I only do what I find interesting. At the same time, I don’t expect to participate in events where people would demand me to min/max my character and I’m fine with that. I play this strictly for fun and it delivers.

Outfits are a one template for all type deal. You can assign up to 4 colors to one and these colors will persist for every Outfit you equip. You’ll want to pick one Outfit you like most, carefully design a color scheme that makes them all look good, or end up re-dying each Outfit after switching to it. Outfits are not to be confused with Armor Pieces though. Unlike an Outfit, each Armor Piece can be individually dyed and mixed with Armor Pieces of other sets to customize your appearance.

Not sure if you’re aware but it actually deploys right away if you jump and tap jump again while high enough off the ground, you don’t need to wait for the visual prompt. I didn’t have any lag going on myself, so I can’t say anything in regard to that.