Guild Wars 2

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STILL NA KING
For king: Siroso.2769 vs. jcbroe.4329 2-0
Defence 1: Siroso.2769 vs. Fluffball.8307 2-0
Defence 2: Siroso.2769 vs. SadKeanu.3491 2-0
Defence 3: Siroso.2769 vs. tankstager.1975 2-0

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Current king build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YjMq0yaFL+rQ1aAOhqdAMsX67NNUbYXFbBreA-TZBHwAMLDU4iAA4BAoa/hBHBAA

Just had some great fights with SadKeanu, who was running a celestial strength axe/warhorn, sword/dagger build, with bark skin and survival of the fittest.

The second duel we had was pretty insane! I think it went on for about 10 minutes. As we both had bark skin, there were some last minute saves on both sides.

Great time, and some good laughs.

See you next time SadKeanu!

EDIT: Caught up with tankstager today as well… great duels with you too mate.

Yay – glad your exile is over SadKeanu!

I’ve added both you and tankstager… looking forward to our duels.

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STILL NA KING

For king: Siroso.2769 vs. jcbroe.4329 2-0
Defence 1: Siroso.2769 vs. Fluffball.8307 2-0

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Current king build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YjMq0yaFL+rQ1aAOhqdAMsX67NNUbYXFbBreA-TZBHwAMLDU4iAA4BAoa/hBHBAA

Just had a quick duel with Fluffball, who despite being the challenger was running with an accidental handicap of Circle of Life (instead of natures protection) and a self imposed handicap of 7 beers. The beers might not be a handicap, but that is getting to “no more beersies for you mate” territory.

I may miss the details on his build, but I think axe/dagger (energy/generosity), sword/torch (energy/geomancy), celestial and krait runes. The traits were sharpened edges, and standard traits up to poison master and survival of the fittest, except for the accidental circle of life. Hound and wolf I seem to recall too…

In the second duel Fluffball got off a massive condi burst when was fresh out of condi clear, but luckily my melandru runes allowed me to just scrape through.

Great fun as always!

nagymbear.5280:

Other conditions: Confusion can be a way to deal great damage to the ranger due to rapid fire hitting a lot of times.

Just to clarify, damage from the condition confusion is only applied once – when the ranger activates rapid fire. It doesn’t damage your opponent for every hit (if, as a ranger, you are inflicted with confusion, activating rapid fire is better than using auto attacks).

You may be thinking of countering rapid by applying retaliation to yourself. This will damage the ranger for each attack (of which I think there are 10?), resulting in around 2000-2800 damage, so that is a great idea!

I completely agree with Eurantien’s build over the one ROM was using. I do love Nature’s Protection vs. thieves and other burst, but for me circle of life is my must have trait – it is such a game changer, putting you almost at full and possibly even cleansing poison so the res comes faster? Amazing trait.

Would you ever consider taking natures protection instead of evasive purity if you were against a really bursty comp? Or is evasive purity too good?

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NEW NA KING

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I really enjoyed my duels with jcbroe this evening – thanks for taking my ranger forum KotH virginity (am I allowed to say that? we shall see)!

I didn’t really do my research to see what build jcbroe had to stay using as king, so came in with what I’ve been running for Solo Q’s recently, which was this valkyrie BM variant:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YjMq0yaFL+rQ1aAOhqdAMsX67NNUbYXFbBreA-TZBHwAMLDU4iAA4BAoa/hBHBAA

It was a titanic battle without a doubt – our builds both had a lot of sustain.
The fight moved back and forth (with one falling lower little by little) until I got a lucky heal interrupt from a hasted doggy that changed the balance of attrition just enough that I could whittle him down!

For the second round I swapped to a slightly more damage focussed build (as I don’t think my heart would have stood up to another full length duel as intense as the first!) – this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YjEq0yaFL+rQ1agDhiVA8uYX2b2972CVdBPSA-TZBHwAMLDU4iAA4BAM4IAsZ/BA

As you can see, they were minor changes, and although the second duel was far quicker it was still anyones game. At one point jcbroe was all of a second or two from killing my pet, which would have likely meant my loss.

Afterwards we had an enjoyable time duelling more, chatting, and trying out different options. I look forward to both playing with and against jcbroe more in the future – thanks for the fights mate!

I don’t know if there is a rule about this, but it would seem to make most sense to me that I have to stick with the build I first beat the king on, which in this case is the round one build I posted… I look forward to meeting fellow rangers and experiencing new and interesting fights.

Get those challenges coming!

Edit: Just to keep track, this is the build that jcbroe was running as king – http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjMq0savK+rQ1aADhqdK8ulAzAodd+DDRBbqA-TJhHwAAeCABuIAg2fwYZAA

Howdy jcbroe,

I’d love to have a duel or three as we have similar playing hours!

Pretty sure I won’t be swapping to anything cheesy to try and counter you, so will have to do my best with whatever I’m running.

Hope to duel soon,

Broskies/Lulzranger

Prysin.8542:

Fluffball.8307:

Rym.1469:

To begin with, you could list the rules, choose the map, set up a server and time everything could start. This doesn’t even have to be streamed. In fact, it would be better to record it as a video/s so others can watch it later even month after and without 99% muted sound.

I was thinking no rules at all, just 1v1 fights. Win 2/3 and you stay the guy to fight. Duels are on the beach at Forest. Take any build you want, to counter your opponent or just on the whim of your drunk revelry.

I don’t have a custom arena or a stream. It doesn’t have to be streamed, and if only 3 of us show up it would be pretty dumb to stream. So I was hoping we could have some “woo I’m going to kick FrouFrou’s kitten” posts.

Edit: Oh man, who would kick a kitten??

I have custom arena, and i can stream XD

but im not up for dueling. My best dueling build cannot be truly replicated in PvP, thus, meh.

As for my build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBHhxG1JhK0LotsgFLQ1iB4EqeBw3NNUdXsDwCXwpD-TFiIABxpE84TCARK/KT/wO7PgnqCA8EAEUtmAAIA3sNbz2M4oH9oH9oHt7bf7bf7bfSB81yI-w

That is it. It took me a year to fine tune it. And now it is perfect for roaming. It is mobile (perma swiftness), it has DPS (dat might stack is epic. Easily maintains 10-13 stacks) and NOW thanks to Sigil of Cleansing, i got condi cleansing “enough” to not “keel over” at any given moment.

That is such a fantastic build =D
“Oooh, a mesmer… om nom nom.”

If cost were no object, would it be sensible to use lemongrass poultry or stick with the boon duration?

I’m curious why you think this build is less effective (or suited to playing) in the NA meta than the EU meta?

Hi Celeste/Raphael,

Thanks for your comments!

I definitely wasn’t suggesting that this was a new build – I did mention that ROM had popularised the build prior to the latest patch. It’s also cool to hear of the pioneer of the build, Lord Griffin… it’s nice to learn where it originated from. The build you posted has a similar concept, and the use of distracting strikes is not new, but I wanted to make the option of a celestial strength mace/sword warrior clear and public for newer players (and as you will see, I personally think that the choices I make are at least equally valid).

Regarding your comment about fights with condition necromancers being “easy” I would have to continue to disagree – from my skill level anyway! If the necromancer makes correct use of their condition transfers, it will put you in a world of hurt. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware cleansing ire and beserker stance do well against conditions, but a very well played condi necromancer is something that I personally find difficult. Perhaps if I were better at consistently dodging the staff transfer the fights would be easier.

As you know, celestial amulet with strength runes is particularly strong at the moment (despite the small nerf to strength), and I find that adding a decent power element to the build is far more effective than the few additional bleeds and far greater condition damage from rabid with undead. The PvP version of the build I outlined is undoubtedly a power build (it has less spike damage than celestial axe/sword, longbow, but the consistent power damage is very similar).

Utilising Fear Me! is an excellent idea – I run it on Skyhammer at times, but should experiment with it more in WvW… though I do love the range and reliability of technobabble. I can see the AoE CC being very useful for 1vX.

Taking Deep Cuts instead of Burst Mastery is an interesting concept, and one I had not encountered before (incidentally, if my memory serves me right, ROM used burst mastery and carrion amulet). In PvP (lets use pindown, one of only two bleeds in the OP build, as an example) pindown lasts for 14 seconds and deals 5393 damage with 0 might stacks. It would be very rare to be without any might stacks, so your damage would likely be closer to 8000 damage over the 14 seconds. In WvW with condition duration food it will last for 19 seconds and deal 12917 damage with zero might stacks and no guard leech. If anyone has left a 6 stack of bleed on themselves for 19 seconds (or even 14 seconds), then they are in a lot of trouble! I am certain that the additional bleed duration is less important on a dire and celestial build than the ability to use your F1 skills whenever you require them (which is typically almost off CD). However, in the build you suggested, with the additional precision from rabid amulet, and the short bleed from Precise Strikes, I can see how Deep Cuts is useful.

As you may have noticed, I think it is a less effective build on the whole, though obviously still powerful!

Finally regarding my “testimonies” it was really just a jocular addition to the post – I didn’t want it taken too seriously! I do know that often people ignore a build post if it comes without a video, so I used some spoken quotes from well known NA talking about me playing the build to try and raise some interest. I think Snow Crows is an EU guild, yes? I personally play on NA servers. Of the players I mentioned, only Choxie (http://www.twitch.tv/choxie808/profile) is primarily a WvW player – Hiba (http://www.twitch.tv/hibatheshoopuff/profile) and Zoose (http://www.twitch.tv/thundercatshoooo/profile) are both primarily PvP players (who you can vote for to attend the All-Stars tournament), although those humorous quotes from Hiba came from duels we had in WvW. It would be a little harsh to say that any of those three were “playing like bots”.

Anyway, sorry about the massive wall of text, but you raised lots of good points in your reply so I wanted to respond properly with my thoughts. I know I haven’t been very clear, so feel free to pick my post to pieces!

Cheers,

Broskies

Thanks for the heads up – edited now hopefully!

Hi Negatron,

You can also run a condi build with mace mainhand – see my recent build thread here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/WvW-Roaming-Build-Condition-Interrupt/first#post4207497

Mace offhand can work well in a full zerker axe/mace, X build, as demonstrated here by Vaanss here with hammer as your other set (a GS would be more common):

The mace/shield, GS option that Ralkuth suggested is very strong too (you could even run mace/mace, GS for even more disco times)!

Best of luck making Moot – it will have lots of uses in WvW as a warrior.

Hi all, Siroso/Broskies here, from Counterculture on TC.

Thought it was about time I shared my warrior condition build.
I don’t have any videos of it unfortunately, as I haven’t really been able to work that all out with my practically-third-world New Zealand internet connection.

I know that many people don’t try out a build without some kind of knowledge of the creator, or a video, but I urge you to give it a go! I guess I could include some comments from popular streamers on twitch as a form of testimonial, including:

Choxie -

“Best condi warrior NA”

Hibify (hard to post what Hiba says, its generally too salty/uses too many rude words)-

“I don’t even want to fight this s&^%, it’s absolutely kittened.”
“Holy f#$%, that’s gay, god kitten … that’s just lame as f#$%”
“Well, I can’t even play the game”.

Zoose (talking about the sPvP version, with bullscharge variant) -

“This f#$%^@$ condi warrior, he was in my game last night, this guy’s so cancer”

Suffice to say, it’s a very strong build when played well.

I have included the WvW gear I use accurately, to show that you only need exotics. The build would be great with ascended armor/weapons, though I don’t believe that ascended trinkets would be an improvement stat-wise. You could also be very effective using celestial armor… I only take dire because I don’t PvE so dont have access to it.

This first WvW option is the asura + mistfire wolf version – the most cheese of them all:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fJQQNApcTnMdQZIW6GWhABiGoHoQeDxgxAYpV3G3RaA-TlSEABQcIAlgpovBAzfR8AAOS5Xx7Pgj6PNcCFY4IA

The instant daze from technobabble is great vs necromancer in particular (otherwise one of your hardest matchups).

Here is the WvW build for non asura with no mistfire wolf (you could take bulls charge instead of endure pain for more mobility and the extra interrupt):

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fJEQNApcTjMdUGaXIWhwJagegC5NEDGDglW9dMHpBA-TlSEABQcIAlgpovBAzfR8AAOS5Xx7Pgj6PNcCFY4IA4wBKgQAKmDA-w

Here is the PvP version – I would recommend trying bulls charge instead of endure pain for solo q, where mobility may be important even for a warrior (i.e. preventing a decap that wouldn’t happen with good communication). You could also try runes of the pirate or hoelbrak instead of strength, I think it’s personal preference (although I believe pirate just got nerfed). You may see that this build looks pretty similar to axe/sword, longbow celestial, and it does fill a similar role. It doesn’t provide as much power spike in team fights. Instead, it gives you more condition spike, lockdown from mace stun, and it makes 1v1s easier. ROM popularised a very similar build to this pre patch with carrion amulet, though it’s fallen out of meta:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNApcTjMdUGaXIWhwJagfgC5M0CGDgjW9c8GlBA-TpRHwAEOEAFeAAc2fIwJAAwRA4YZAA

Give the builds a go, and I hope you enjoy them!
I strongly suggest also playing things that aren’t cheesy (ie. zerker ranger or fresh air elementalist) to give yourself a break from people hating on you.

If you have any questions, want to duel or play with me to try it out, don’t hesitate to ask,

Broskies

I’m terrible with timezones, so I’ve probably missed the boat, but I would love to know Helseth’s thoughts on TCG vs. the comp that Outplayed ran this week (soldiers hambow, d/d Ele, necro, double engi)…

While I personally use stances, I disagree that Deep Cuts is a must have (I find the bleeds more than long enough anyway). For me Fast Hands is a bit of a must have, as is Cleansing Ire, but there’s nothing to stop you going 0/0/20/30/20.

I always love your builds aussie archer – the melee sword build was a good laugh too.
The life leech idea seems very cool!

I would be very surprised if the build took you from unranked to r77, probably more likely good play and rotations took you up ranks. You also have 345 team q games in that screenshot, so you’re definitely not starting from scratch (if you have fallen through inactivity in q’s it’s far easier to get back up high)!

Don’t get me wrong, it looks like a fun and useful build, but saying the build carried you from nothing to r77 is potentially misleading for newer players.

Anyway, I look forward to trying it out =)

Very little does well against Mace/S + LB…. condi necro, really good d/d celestial strength eles, perhaps particularly patient thieves. Zerker warrior can stand a pretty good chance though, and you get multiple chances due to disengage.

I definitely agree that dire/apothecary healing shouts s/s + longbow warrior is one of the strongest builds for a low skill level player (sitting alongside minion master necromancer and other such gems).

However I definitely disagree with epborden about the right setup for perplexity distracting strikes warrior. In my opinion mace/sword and longbow is the optimal weapon set here. While this build is probably more effective it requires a little more skill than s/s lb shouts (a mentally il monkey banging his head on the keyboard won’t play an interrupt build to full effectiveness).

Good luck – try condi dire with some healing power and you won’t regret it if you’re not a great player.

I had loads of fun dueling Choxie yesterday, a BG necromancer who streams – interesting knowing there were around 60 people watching… it may not be lots, but still feels like pressure. I am playing on perplexity condition warrior, with mace/sword and longbow. Watching videos like this is one of the best ways to improve, seeing how a necromancer handles a warrior and vice versa (particularly as condi necromancer is one of the hardest fights for condition warrior).

http://www.twitch.tv/choxie808/b/535576156

The dueling funtimes start at 3:34:30 and continue on for quite a while. At first I need to pop my mistfire wolf to win, but later once we adjourn to OS I start playing a little better (from around 3:52:00). The other players who feature are Hayvok (his is the first duel, that’s not me) and All The Puns from TC, Harkan from BG and Kasaka from JQ. All of them are excellent, and the zerker warrior vs warrior action is worth watching too.

Kinda cool watching yourself play from someone elses perspective. The main thing I noticed was how fluid fast hands makes combat – I have been using the trait for at least the last year, so it feels normal, but watching back you really see the effect.

Also it’s interesting to note Choxie’s use of Well of Power in my firefield – this converts to aegis, which was surprising for me, and very strong. Other things to note are his use of unblockable skills (greater marks are unblockable, and the warhorn interrupt) to break through my sword and mace blocks for well timed interrupts.

Anyway, fighting condi necro is one of my most exciting 1v1s (dodging the transfers, predicting the instant casts etc.), and these are some great examples of that, I hope you enjoy watching as much as I did playing.

Cheers,

Broskies

EDIT: All the warrior detail is there because I originally posted this in the warrior forum, but it was immediately moved here, where most likely nobody cares =S

Jugglemonkey.8741:

I knew enough not to attack when he had the shield up, but that really only leaves you the option of kiting and trying to heal.

Just to clarify, if possible you absolutely do want to attack him while the shield is up. If you hit it three times, it disappears and does no damage… It’s only if you leave it alone that it explodes. You may be thinking of mace 3, which has a different animation and only triggers a strike if hit. If you spend most of the fight on shortbow you will have a far better time, with poison field, and plenty of evades… Judges intervention has a decent cd and you can kite reasonably well after that is gone.

Yep – warhorn does become pretty reliable aoe condi removal though, and you get vigor too… Worth bearing in mind.

I’m sure you’ll find conditions a good call!

You might find that mace/shield, sword/warhorn or mace/warhorn, sword/shield, with the warhorn converts to boon trait may be more bunkery? That’s instead of empower allies.

Bunker warrior was brought to prominence in the last meta when a player using the character Juarez Feng (sic) shot up the solo q leaderboards. Effectively, if a solo q team had a fully capped point with a bunker warrior on it, it couldn’t be taken without a huge point loss overall. Despite the small nerf to healing signet, and other changes in meta, it should still be effective (particularly at lower ratings).

If you feel like still using longbow and having healing power, go for a condi warrior settlers build, as others have recommended (such as the one the zone recommends, or a banner healing thing).

Best orgasm face during 1v1s: Arken Elric

I’ve just started playing BM ranger instead of zerker (and spirits when forced to!) and I’m loving it.

The owl has always been my favourite pet, and when runes of the privateer were buffed from a 5% to a 50% chance to summon I cried “BIRDIES” and decided to make a build that utilised the tropical bird and the owl. Luckily it’s not just amusing, the owls swooping attack makes it hit quite reliably (in a bursty way too) and the 6 second chill on F2 is incredible. Your friendly parrot unfortunately doesn’t have a lot of hp, but hits like a truck – far harder than rock dog!

I can’t be bothered writing out my traits on mobile, though I’m happy to share if anyone is curious, but it’s basically 20 in skirmishing, 20 in nature magic and 30 in beastmastery. The important traits are pets deal more damage on critical hit, pets gain health on critical hit, pets gain any boon you get (the 3 point minor in nature magic), reduced shout recharge, pets have natural healing and (drumroll please…) masters bond! I love masters bond. Your pet very rarely dies with all it’s health regeneration, and 5 stacks of masters bond gives +40 to the core pet stats. It’s so good, you really need to try it. I think I take the regen duration and protection on hit threshold traits in nature magic. Though I said I wouldn’t write out the traits, that’s them all!

I run greatsword and sword/warhorn with leeching/hydromancy and the clerics amulet. Utilities are healing spring, signet of the wild (for the passive, not the active), sick ’em, lightning reflexes and rampage as one.

You are ridiculously hard to kill (though weak to condis), and provide great single target pressure (or can split your damage with your pet on a squishy target and your cc/distraction/decent damage on another) and have a ton of in combat mobility.

Unfortunately this is all well and good, but nothing can compete with a thief roaming. If you peel from the mid fight and go far, their thief will chase you down and you won’t get the decap. You can move fast with lightning reflexes and sword 2 backwards, sword leap forwards and swoop cover lots of ground while in combat, to compete with a thief in roaming speed on many maps, but your biggest advantage is sick ’em. Revealed really ruins a thiefs day – allowing you to burst them down or ruin other elements of their utility (ie casting it on a downed body if shadow refuge is inc). Hopefully this anti thief skill leads to theify dying, which gives you free rein to exploit your superior mobility and dance all over the map.

In my opinion, BM ranger comes top of the ranger power builds and far ahead of most condi builds. Obvious it’s no spirit ranger, but if your soul has been destroyed by your team forcing you to play spirits, perhaps it can be restored by having two adorable birds bursting some poor unsuspecting fool down faster than you can say “Yarr!”.

I think you could make a build that used mace/shield and hammer with the distracting strikes trait and be effective. As a condi build it would never rival mace/sword, longbow; sword/sword, longbow; sword/shield, mace/sword or basically anything using longbow.

You simply don’t have enough cover conditions to make it a condi build when the best you can do is confusion, maybe poison from a sigil of doom, weakness on mace 1 and cripple on hammer. One condition does not a condi build make.

Because of this, I think you should consider the confusion as an extra part of the lockdown of a power build. I’ll ignore gear for the moment, because what you take should depend on how comfortable you are with the class – it could be anything from beserkers, some kind of knights cavaliers mix, more soldiers pieces (someone other than me will know what’s the best mix). Anyway, power gear, potentially with some tankiness.

With no condition damage, each interrupt will deal 260 damage per enemy skill use. As you are making a build with a feature on confusion damage, that’s not very exciting. As much as I love Lyssa runes I would try running with perplexity runes, and would get two stacking weapons with sigil of corruption to build stacks before roaming. This would then mean that your standard interrupt dealt 390 damage per enemy skill use, and every 8 seconds your interrupt would deal 9 stacks of confusion, giving a respectable 877 damage per enemy skill use. If the 4 rune bonus procs, that’s up to 1170 confusion ticks from one interrupt. As most of your damage is still power based, that’s quite a bonus to add to your lockdown.

While some might suggest that long stuns such as mace and hammer burst skills are counterproductive with confusion, you will likely find that people need to pop their stun breakers before worrying about condition cleansing, giving at least two confusion ticks.

Anyway, something like a knights mix with perplexity runes, a 20/0/20/0/30 build, corruption stacking (don’t run it on your main weapons), and maybe condi reduction food as you have no lyssa will be pretty cool, I reckon. Still not as good as mace/sword, longbow, but maybe more fun for you if massive lockdown through stuns and confusion seems to be your style.

If you have any questions or have trouble following my text, feel free to add me ingame, or reply here.

PS. Learn to dodge necro dagger 4 and try to predict or zerker stance their staff 4, or you’ll die

Mace + Sword / Longbow, 20/0/20/0/30 is typically run with Carrion amulet, from what I’ve seen. This allows for strong condi and power damage.

The main lockdown of the set really comes from landing impale or pin down – each is pretty crippling and requires any squishy target to forget what they’re doing and cleanse. The fact that you give them burning, potentially confusion, deal lots of direct damage and CC them is an added bonus! I think it’s a very strong build, with good team fight capability and 1v1 potential… Lacking in mobility, but you only feel that on certain maps, and it’s only a tiny but worse than hambow mobility-wise.

Not a bad build at all! LB-A/s is a wicked weapon set. If I were you I would take out the “For Great Justice” and soldiers runes – you have a high fury uptime from your Signet of Rage anyway and it’s only one condition cleared. Perhaps you could replace those with Beserker’s Stance and runes of divinity instead?

I’d also suggest trying 20/0/20/0/30, for Axe Mastery in the Strength tree, and the minor restore endurance on burst. You can still get cleansing ire in defence, which is vital for the build as it stands. As you will be using signet of rage and signet of fury basically on CD, and dolyak whenever you need stability, the extra precision isn’t that practical.

What I suggest is more common than your build, but a little more effective in my opinion… You often see it run with full beserkers too, but that is personal taste.

Your build is all good, and very formidable with the extra toughness, but perhaps give what I suggest a try and see how it feels!

As much as I wish that the build you posted was the only condi warrior roaming around in WvW, the real trolls run perplexity warrior…

You basically want the build that Sensotix demonstrates in this video, except with perplexity runes for 9 stacks of confusion (or 12 with the on hit proc) on one interrupt every 10 seconds, and 4 on every other interrupt.

Don’t shoot me, aim your rage at anet!

Also, don’t get me wrong, perplexity isn’t necessarily better than s/s, longbow. You lose the burning condition and 6 stacks of bleeding, and the additional sustain from lyssa runes, which free you up to take endure pain or something. However, you gain a ton of blocks and stuns, which more than make up for the lack of lyssa, and a ton of confusion almost makes up for the lack of burning and pin down.

Pretty sure Tarnished Coast and Fort Aspenwood have one of the greatest rivalries – with such clear backstory!

It’s a well known fact that TC’ers love our Dolyaks, always protecting them with love – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChG0_ThxdJc.

Then some FA supposedly ganked the Dolyak parade, at the height of its popularity (see some of the story here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/14u07l/death_of_a_dolyak_love_and_tragedy_in_wvw/)… in response Commander Jadon and some of our other great commanders at that time destroyed FA for the rest of the week! Good times, good times.

But mainly, FA is TC’s great rival because they fight harder than anyone else, and are always determined to beat us – the two servers bring out the best and worst in each other for sure.

I don’t play engineer myself, but I’m sure it’s best for your needs. I think you’d find the class would fit both your criteria – small group roaming and escaping from sticky situations, plus the ability to rain hell from the back lines.

The grenade kit would give you brilliant damage for the group fighting you describe, and the ability to stealth through combo fields, permanent swiftness from speedy kits, and movement skills like rocket boots or elixir gun leap would be great for survivability.

Have a look on twitch for Jindavikk [sic?] and see if that playstyle would suit you.
I’d certainly want you on my side in WvW!

EDIT: You could also check out Ostricheggs playing WvW on twitch too, some of that is in the GW2 PvP TV channel. As an added bonus, a build like Jindavikk’s or Ostrichegg’s is great for roaming in tPvP too, so you can practise there and enjoy another aspect of the game.

I wouldn’t say condi engi would be best – maybe a variant of chaith’s power/control engi would work better vs. primarily necros and guardians?

I reckon if you’re new a minion master necro, with minions take condis from you, would be easiest to win with. Spirit ranger would be a good call too, but I do reckon its skill cap (using evades correctly, timing spirit use, pet abilities) is a little higher than mm (which basically requires button spam). Don’t get me wrong, both could be played by a four year old, but I think mm necro gives you a better chance.

Send me a whisper in game if you’d like a build or some duelling practice against various classes.

I would definitely try longbow, sword/axe if you go for a glassier ranger – it’s my favourite power set. If you are keen to play something that is strong, even though it has quite a high skill cap, go for a 30/30/10/0/0 build, with a combination of beserker stats and power, toughness, crit damage stats. Grab marksmanship 4, 10 and 11; skirmishing 1, 4, and 10; and wilderness survival 3 (or maybe 1). Then you could rock signets of stone, renewal and of the wild, and rampage as one. Try owl/raven, or jaguar/snow leopard for dps, or the classic wolf/lightning drake. Perhaps if you are in a large group maybe signets of stone and renewal and muddy terrain or protect me (with tanky pets), healing spring, and more toughness and vitality.

I don’t play PvE, but I think you’ll want the glassiness I suggested as your first option, with the sword/warhorn, sword/axe? People must use the spirit that gives extra damage, maybe quickening zephyr? Not sure… I think Brazil has a video that shows an effective dungeon sestup – retrating is no hassle really.

I’ve just been trying out a full clerics build in the mists to see how it might play out… beastmaster bunker is no longer so popular, and I only ever played it with condis before. I think you’ll find that the potential regen is pretty brilliant! I was trying the obvious choice, which is 0/0/30/10/30. Your adept trait in wilderness survival has lots of options. For WvW, the fall damage reduction is always good, but 3, 4, and 6 are also viable options. I also took Martial mastery and empathetic bond in that line. I went 10 points into Nature Magic for Regenerations lasts 33% longer, and took 5, 10 and 12 in beastmastery. I went with sword/warhorn and greatsword (with energy sigils) for all the combo finishers I could fit in. Skills I went for healing spring, signet of the wild (these two are the important ones) and then lightning reflexes, maybe muddy terrain, maybe signet of renewal, or sick ’em. Elite you could go rampage as one for the stability and extra pet damage, or spirit of nature for the regen into rez (no spirits unbound or extra health, but you could keep it up with your regen and combo field finishers). Runes I put on Dwayna runes, to keep up tons of regen (which heals for 300+ a tick).

So basically the clerics build above gives you a ton of health per second and your pet even more (your pet gets about 472 healing a second, and then add 304 from the pretty much perma regen). You then want to use your healing spring as a water field with sword 2, horn 5, greatsword 3 and a swap to your drake (he does a blast as first attack). That would heal for about 7000 just from the combos. Your drake F2 is a big burst, particularly if its in combination with Rage as one and sickem. You get a great low cd block on greatsword, (up for 3 seconds and only 9 second downtime) and an evade every 3 greatsword auto attacks. You also get two additional evades on your sword. Good shiet. The greatsword 3 lets you easily spin and do a sword 2 backwards for awesome in combat mobility (no downtime spinning as you get the end of the greatsword leap to turn).

Pet wise you have lots of choice… I recommend at least one drake for the healing spring blast (lightning drake F2 rocks, but the poison cloud one isn’t bad either). I like a wolf for the cc on activate, and the fear on demand, but you could try some fun stuff like a Siamoth for the plasma forage!

If you already have clerics gear, give it a shot for sure, you’ll have fun.

So many choices, let use know what you decide, or just chuck me a tell ingame if you need any hints =)

Hi Anas,

Love the build, very effective!

I was wondering what you did when solo-q pops onto sky hammer?
At the moment I change onto a necro or other good class for the map, but was looking for good warrior build variants for this map. Certainly swapping bulls charge for stomp seems a no brainer, but perhaps someone has an entirely different build that works better.

I also don’t feel quite fully useful on spirit watch – what role/s do you take on this map?

Thanks in advance!

Only lesson I see here is that running two identical weapon sets can lead to a lack of options… If you had changed to a shortbow, the poison field would have worked wonders. Decent uptime on poison is a hard counter to healing signet and banner regen.

Hyung.6140:

“I’m really worried some of you are going to take this too literally and point out small unimportant ways that football isn’t like Guild Wars that aren’t relevant to the overall point of the story” shouted another crowd member, but that was far too meta for Alex Ferguson to follow so he dismissed it.

Definitely the best part! Great post.

Definitely the main problem with this move is the new guild name! It will confusing having two large WvW focussed guilds with the tag “RE”. Perhaps Red Essence could use the tag “RED” instead? Or change the name? Rethesis obviously gets first dibs.

The best bets for that style of play that I know of would be RIOT and AoN =) Both have youtube channels (tons of footage from RIOT) so you can see them in action.

EDIT: I should mention that those guilds are (I think) in Tier 1 and Tier 2 respectively, so you probably will have a harder time winning a 4 vs. 30 in those tiers. That said, they would be the guilds I know of to give you the best chance.

Can’t wait to see my old KREW again!

I stayed on Borlis Pass for a while after KREW moved, then was eventually tempted to join TC just before transfers ended… best decision I ever could have made.

Anyway, I had an awesome time in KREW, and now look forward to seeing you all – both on the battlefield, and participating in all the frivolity (parties, duels, and of course the parade!).

I already have mad respect for KREW, WE, and everyone on DB, and I’m sure that all of TC will feel the same very shortly.

Of course, I’m looking forward to meeting Maguuma too!

Bring on reset =D

<—— Broskies, an asura warrior with a teddy hat, if you remember!

The hills FABL fight was great – as I was busy dying repeatedly I found myself fanboying over the Blackgate guilds who were there! Ooooh, HB, some LotD, RK, those guys are legends… Oh wait, dead again.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Um… is it just me, or did some of BP’s Guilds just transfer over to DB?

It would seem prudent to wait for a post from guild leaders before discussing any supposed transfers.

*cough*itskrew*cough*