Guild Wars 2

Congrats OP! Sitting it close to 1200 hours myself with 4 level 80s. Planning a 5th ,ranger or warrior

Red Falcon.8257:

Congratulations.

I hit the wall at 800 hours, my girlfriend is at 350 (a bit casual) but still playing.
My main issue is that I have nothing interesting to do left :/ but I believe this is mostly due to the fact most classes are still beta-ish so I can’t get myself to play them.
Got a Guardian to 80 then realized the major flaws of the class (no cripple/way to stay in range, no ranged), got Warrior to 80 then realized a ton of core skills are buggy and clunky, got a Thief to 80 and loved every second of it (most finalized class I played so far, only a couple bugs and the rest is very smooth).
Other classes don’t inspire me remotely, played my gf’s Ele a bit (too simple for my tastes, where’s this “high skill ceiling”?) and I’m tempted to make a power Necro but cannot find the willpower to level to 80 for the fourth time.

Not bad tho, the only game that got me into it for longer is Guild Wars 1 (but taking into account all expansions and farming for rare skin drops which is not implemented in GW2).

Wait what? No ranged and no way to stay in range for guardian? Are we even playing the same profession/game.

1h sword (gap closer), meditations (healing/burning gap closer, healing/damaging condition removal, scepter+torch (immobilize, high sustained damage, burst, burning). Along with that they still keep high staying power compared to any other damage oriented spec.

I have 4 80s so far and I have plenty to do. Also, there isnt much RNG at endgame, people say there is but its minimal.

Anet listened to the people and added tokens for the fractal rings, 10 fractals will net you atleast one ring of your choise. I hardly call that a grind or RNG. The RNG factor only comes into play a little bit, you might be lucky and get 1-10 other rings during those runs.

So far I’ve got 1 great ring on each of my 80s and 1 decent on each of them, the decent one isnt optimal, but it works for the specs just fine til I exchange them for one I really want. I’ve gotten most of these by just running the lvl 10+ daily on 1 character for quite a while, now it will be faster since all my 80s are 10+.

I’m glad they added fractals and the few new pieces of gear, its a bit more fun than buying everything directly.

Besides fractals there are alot of dungeons to run for armor and weapon skins and even stats at times if you miss an exotic part here and there. There is also WvW to fight in and sPvP/tPvP, farming (fractals give you better gold than farming though). You can always reach max level on multiple toons, finish each of the factional stories (vigil, whispers, priory).

The only part of end game I feel as a boring thing to take on is actually legendaries, it doesnt feel legendary the way its designed now, a quest chain (a long one) would be much better suited for it, a pure solo quest.

There is a % number in the tooltip of the salvage kits.

Big tip though, use transmutation stones if you want your old runes. They open a transmute window where you put the two pieces so you can grab the look you want, the stats you want and the upgrade you want. Make sure both pieces are in your backpack, otherwise the transmute wont go through.

edit: Karma bought items and backs cant be salvaged. So in those cases you must use transmutation stones.

Two simple advice for you.

1. Never trust people over the internet.
2. If the price seems too good to be true its most likely a scam.

By the way, how many silver below TP per piece was his price?

They are? Well yes it does say legendary on them, but they still look like kitten.

Well if an item has say 4% chance of dropping and you have 170% MF the drop chance is roughly 10% instead.

It’s just not worth having.

I also think there is a hidden factor, like say. A mob has maybe a 10% chance to drop something, if he drops something there is a 4% chance its mastercraft, 2% rare and 0.2% chance for an exotic. That means that MF doesnt effect wether or not the mob drops something, it only effects what he drops if he drops something.

Then it probably goes from highest rarity (orange) to lowest (grey), rolling the dice for each.

They should just add a personal legendary questline for each weapon. You should be able to do a quest chain for each weapon the class can equip. They should also be non-groupable quests so you must do it on your own so they feel epic and legendary.

It can start by obtaining a precursor, then after many quests (some hard others easier) you should be awarded with a legendary linked to the chain. It could all start from 100% map completion or something.

Nothing legendary whatsoever with the current way legendaries are obtained.

LordArcon.9208:

BUTTERBLUME.3217:

If you play dungeons often enough, you do not die, no matter the gear. It is all about learning the encounters.

That’s my opinion in a nutshell. If you’re running something new though, you’ll most likely need some extra survivablity. Think the bottom line is, if you’re dieing left and right and your team mates are forced to get you up or 4 man it since you can’t stay alive.. it’s time to rethink your PvE stratagy.

Now I feel the OP’s frustration. I’ve seen ‘glass cannon’ builds die left in right, I’ve seen people in Fract 10 with all green/under leveled gear. Only reason why I notice.. they’re dieing, and doing it a lot. So instead of a easy or fun run, it’s frustrating and difficult when two or more people just can’t stay on thier feet. If you’re dieing quick and often – play better, smarter, or you require more survival in your gear. I actualy found out I survive a lot more with only 1.8k toughness (knight) instead of pure extra % crit dmg (Beserk) on my Mesmer. It’s worth the little added loss of Dmg IMO.

And the Trinity arguement is void. I find having a good ‘tank’ mellee, and/or a good ‘healing’ elementalist (even seen a healing guardian) can help and even speed up a dungeon. Sure I need to keep an eye on my self.. but I require less runing, less kiting, less healing, less condition removal – last two save time that I use to DPS. It’s not needed, but sure as hell makes things run smoother.

But at the same time, those 1800 toughness will make you more of a target so you will need to use dodge much more. I’m constantly having aggro on my necro since he has high toughness, combined with low endurance regen its a pain in the butt.

I survive much easier on the classes where I skip toughness, because they dont pull aggro in the same way. I rather stand in the back, debuffing, bursting and buffing than running around trying to lose aggro.

digiowl.9620:

dandamanno.4136:

Bleeds stack intensity, and use the bleed that has the longest duration for the duration.
So let’s say 2 bleeds:
1. 500 damage over 4 seconds
2. 750 damage over 3 seconds

Result: 1250 damage for 4 seconds, and it shows as 2 stacks on the icon.

Things like burn stacks duration and uses the largest damage.
So let’s say 2 burns:
1. 500 damage per seconds for 4 seconds
2. 750 damage per second for 3 seconds

Result 750 damage per second for 7 seconds.

This is how I understand it to work.

Once the stack in bleed is full I am pretty sure it is like digiowl says, the stronger ones push the weaker ones aside. They also seem to always reset the timer, even if it is a weaker one.

Actually, each unit of bleed (or confusion, the other damage dealing intensity stacker) operate independently. So your example would be 1250 for 3 seconds and 500 for the last second (and during that second it would show only a single unit in the bleed stack).

And the burn example would be 750 for 3 seconds followed by 500 for 4 seconds.

Never mind that the tooltips shows expected damage if the DOT gets to run for the full duration, not the pr second damage (making DOTs look way stronger than they actually are).

Actually no, the burn would deal 750 per second for 7 seconds. It only stacks in duration, the damage is calculated from the highest condition damage user.

Say we have a guardian buffing the group, giving their next attack burn.

Player 1: 50 condi damage
Player 2: 100 condi damage
Player 3: 150 condi damage
Player 4: 200 condi damage
Player 5: 300 condi damage

They all inflict two second of burning, thats 10 seconds total, damage is based on player 5’s condition damage. All the other players only count their duration to the burn attack. Same deal with poison.

On a warrior scale he might be a GC, but not really. I actually dont like the term glasscannon in this game one bit. I think many people claim its a glasscannon when it fields a set of dps gear and not toughness/vit gear.

Many people also dont have a clue what people actually wear since there is no inspect. Or that and they have very little knowledge about class traits outside of their own. For example, a guardian that wants to maximize crit chance and crit damage will need to spend points on 300 toughness to get 30% crit damage.

I honestly dont think there are any glasscannons in this game in a WoW/ToR way. There are too many traits woven into the different trait lines so you pick up both defensive and offensive in the trees. Sure a thief can maximize his raw damage stats, but by doing so he misses out on actual dps traits, same with a mage or ranger, they can max power, preci and crit dmg stats, but they miss out on actual dps traits in more defensive trees.

I tend to skip power lines, my mesmer is maxed because it gave me the traits I wanted and the stats at the same time. But most of my other classes have skipped it completely or spent 10 points in the power line maybe.

The only thing I look down upon in this game when it comes to specs are signet users, and I dont mean a signet or two, I mean all they can possibly field. Some of them have their uses when actually put on CD. But things like signet warriors and such… give me a break.

mulch.2586:

SneakyErvin.3056:

I havent seen a single comment from the anti GC crowd that has any real proof that the GC specs are bad. Every comment in here falls back on the subject of bad players.

There’s no consistent sense of what GC amounts to. The one person who specified above was not actually running a glass cannon (able to take double the hits of a true GC, with a bunch of healing).

In terms of proof, it really depends on how they’re actually doing it. IF GC means no helpful boons, control, or conditions, then it’s not hard to show that GC is hurting the group’s performance. But it seems like a lot of people thinking they’re GC still have “Grants Might to nearby allies on crit” and use weapon sets with cripples, blinds, etc. Which to me means they’re not the “selfish” version of GC.

Actually GC has a very clear meaning, the same meaning it has had for years. It has nothing to do with avaiable support spells or not.

GC = A class dedicated to dealing optimal damage while being fragile in return.

This doesnt imply they cant use support utilities etc. Even if they do they are still GCs. GC doesnt mean selfish, thats something someone has made up. GC refers to the structural design of a spec. High dps instead of high staying power.

The game also gives the GC more room, since dodge is something even a GC can have plenty of thus avoiding damage, actually a GC usually has more dodge options than a “tank” due to high crit, traits that proc vigor and passive regen from dps trait lines.

Weapons, armor, spec and trinkets should define if you are a GC or not, not utility skills, since they are just that, utility skills and most arent centered around raw damage or raw defense, most are group centered.

So aslong as a GC player uses his dodge he isnt a liability to his group. If he doesnt hes just as much a liability as the tank not dodging and trying to face tank the enemy. This isnt a trinity game so trinity rules does not apply.

No spec is weak, only some players are.

I havent seen a single comment from the anti GC crowd that has any real proof that the GC specs are bad. Every comment in here falls back on the subject of bad players.

The root of all group issues.

The same players that you encounter that are bad GCs would preform just as badly with any other spec.

The only class you notice it quickly on are signet warriors. They always have their signets passive on, never using the active ability.

IMO the only 2 signets worth having is the healing signet and the end regen signet, since warrior end regen traits are few. And the healing signet can be greatly combined with the adrenaline regeneration trait.

Fractals. You get quick gold in there.

Just salvage everything you get in the fractals besides masterwork items, sell those to a vendor. This should give you T5-T6 mats, ectos aswell as cores and loadstones during the fractal run. Sell all that on TP and profit.

No need to run it with MF gear even, you will get tons of stuff anyways.

Engis are great IMO. The only thing I didnt enjoy as an engi after a while was pistol condition spec. I went over to a chain lightning (lightning procs from toolbelt skills)rifle spec and I cant get enough of it.

It can be a bit squishy at times in PvP, but if you get the drop on anyone its game over for them. Only class thats really annoying with the spec would be thieves that get the drop on you. It’s fun when you face most other classes and open up on them. You can take people from 100%-0% in seconds. And if they dont go down to 0% they will probably go “Where the hell did my life go?”

Its all about dynamic combat.

There is a reason every class has great ranged and melee options. You need to know when to use which. Weapons arent the only thing that decides if you are going to be up close and personal or 1200 yards away. I dance in and out on my classes when needed. You dont need to pick a melee option though, you can carry 2 different ranged sets, but you should learn atleast two weapon setups if your class allows weapon switching.

Engineers and Elementalists are different though. As an engi you dont carry more than one wepaon set, then you have kits that are optional. Elementalists should learn their attunements and use them in sync.

I play my guardian as melee and ranged, both sets preform just as good. I jump into the thick of it to unleash blinds and set things ablaze and dish out damage with my sword and buff my mates with my shield. When it gets too risky I pull out to a safe distance and go to my trusted scepter and torch.

You need to find setups that work well together, things that work with your spec and such.

Sovta.4719:

Point of glass canon is to do more dmg BY YOURSELF and guys that use that build/gear are not very good at math cause with few tweaks in build/gear you can make youar PARTY dps/survavbility or something much better. But then you won’t see those shiny numbers on screen.

You cant tweak from glasscannon and get better dps AND survivability for your party. You already bring the dps, if you tweak for more survivability you do so at the loss of dps. Thats just how it is.

Many glasscannons however have plenty of survival tricks. Not the stand there and tank it tricks, but the “oh look a dodge button” tricks and high vigor/passive end regen. Both much more reliable than trying to tank it like its WoW.

They mostly also field some form of “oh kitten!” utility skill. Like decoy, some form of groups stealth or immunity.

The only profession I’ve actually managed to gain dps on while also increasing defense is my necro, but thats all thanks to rabid gear, condition spec and undead runes.

Close to 1600 condi, close to 1900 toughness, 45%+ crit and around 21000HP unbuffed.

It still doesnt make him survive better than my glasscannons, they die about as often as he does, which is rarely. He has toughness and two lives, they have massive vigor, in the end it serves the same purpose.

One thing that really gives the necro utility is actually his staff skills, they are amazing to say the least.

With improved marks and reduced CD on staff skills you have an unblockable condition cleanser with staff4. You can throw it 1200 yards away, it covers a HUGE area and you as a caster dont even need to stand in it to have your conditions cleansed. It has a 20 sec CD and cleanses just as good as many other classes utility cleanse skills.

It also allows for some pure evil condition combos. Combines with Blood is Power, Corrosive Poison Cloud and Epidemic its pure golden in dungeons.

My suggestion, after some thinging, would be to go with the necro if you like the style of the class, since they are very different from mesmers. I run scepter+dagger and staff on my necro, 0/30/20/20/0 spec, full pres/toughness/condi gear. Have just below 1600 condi damage and 45%+ crit, close to 1900 toughness and around 21000 life.

I used to be 20/30/20/0/0 but lately I’ve come to prefer the healing and vit from the blood tree. I run 50% more effect on siphon health aswell as siphon health on crit. The tree also buffs my regeneration from staff/the trait passive a bit and gives me a bit more healing on my main heal. All spite gave me was 200 power and 20%longer conditions. The conditions are long enough with just scepter skills and extra bleed duration from curses.

With the right setup (traits, gear, tactics, utilites) you and your phantasms will deal massive damage.

Feedback also negates very annoying spells that bosses might have, the fire shaman’s fire bubble+agony can infact be redirected to him.

I enjoy both classes but necro feels unfinished and you need to handle aggro with necros way too much.

Scorpion.1286:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Scorpion.1286:

Real men use MF gear but maybe your no good. I can play very well with what you seam to perceive as a handicap.

Anyways no trolls plz

No not really, thats just an illusion in your head. You cannot play very well with MF gear because it makes everything you do less effective. You might think you play well, but infact you are more or less a liability to your group.

It’s straight out disrespectful to enter a group when you wear MF gear, the rest of the group needs to make up for your lack of support or damage, both of which you do kitten in MF gear.

No matter how you try and argue, MF gear will make you weaker than any other type of gear.

Power/cond/MF Power/pres/Cond
My stats with MF and my stats with out
Power 1715 1765
Pres 1467 2172
Tough 1051 1051
Vit 1151 1151
Att:2744 2794
crit 30% 64%
Armor 2115 2115
Health 17432 17432

Same conditions scores on both equipment.
Please tell me what your going on about because if 34% crit makes all the difference in fractals, then u are clearly mistaken . If 50 more power makes all the difference you are clearly mistaken. Not convinced

The crit difference does matter, I assume you talk about crit chance here. Seeing as you are a condition spec, you effectivly cut down your chance for extra condition procs by more than 50% compared to the non MF gear. That high crit of 64% lets you keep burns and bleed up easier, the means of your damage. The damage you deal that arent conditions hit like wet noodles. And the conditions have a very short duration for engineers, it lasts half as long as a necros does. Traited necro 8 seconds, traited engi 4 seconds.

So yes that loss in crit makes alot of difference.

The slow application of conditions was the reason I went from condition pistols to power, pres, crit dmg rifle on my engineer.

Also, MF is not worth it. Lets say you have 100% MF, that means an item with a drop chance of 10% goes to 20% instead. Thats just not worth it, you still have an 80% window that it will fail to drop. MF also doesnt apply to chests. Most rare (not the color yellow, rare as the word rare) items probably have something like 2-4% chance of dropping, that means you get maybe 4 or 8%, thats still a huge margin of error for it not to drops, while you waste stats on MF instead of killing power.

Killing power effectivly trades off with MF in order to get drops aswell. Lets say you skip your 100% MF and get 100% crit damage on a crit spec, this mean you will kill mobs twice as fast or faster, this means you can kill 2 mobs (or more) in the time you kill one with MF gear. That gives you 2 chances on a 2% drop instead of 1 chance on a 4% drop.

The only time where MF really benefits you is if you wanna leech events or groups, since others will do the killing for you and you one aoe for gold medals/loot. But solo and in serious groups you will not benefit much from it. Faster killing speed means the same chance at loot and higher chance to survive versus many mobs.

Think about that.

Oh and you answered your own question regarding fractal gear.

Power/tough/vit 5% mf

Thats what you claimed you wanted, power, tough, vit. That ring has all the stats you want AND magic find.

I have an 80 necro and an 80 mesmer myself. I can tell you the mesmer has tons more utility in almost every situation aswell as a higher chance of survival, even if glasscannon specced compared to a toughness heavy condition necro.

The reason is the way aggro and endurance works. You see, to get the best possible condition damage for a necro currently means stacking pres/tough/condi gear with undead runes. This gives you high condition damage aswell extra defense, the downside is that it makes you a major aggro magnet.

1. You have high condition damage.
2. Your high toughness will most likely get the mobs attention.

Sure thats sweet and all, if it wasnt for the fact that necros lack any form of endurance regen besides the base one. They have no traitable vigor or extra base end regen. You are a deer in the headlights. Its not a major issue in current dungeons, but when you get higher up in fractals and the mob group size increase you can expect 10+ mobs wanting your skull on platter.

Mesmer on the other hand, even as a glasscannon spec, you have tons of survivability. You also have a very reliable source of vigor, its up 100% of the time more or less. You also dont get aggro in the blink of an eye, even if you dish out heavy crits. I run a balanced phantasm/shatter spec, it works wonders and deals massive damage.

It’s 30/30/0/0/10, I run GS/Scepter+pistol (many argue that scepter suck, but I find it far more useful than sword). Utilities are Feedback, Decoy and Mirror Image mostly along with Time Warp as elite. I can start a fight by doding in (spawning a clone) popping Mirror Image and a Daze shatter, inflicting a nice amount of vulnerability for my group, I can then proceed by another dodge, decoy and a GS2, then mind wrack, after that I summon zerker, duelist, get a blind of then apply some confusion through scepter3+feedback (unless its a ranged mob in which case I save feedback for one of their heavier attacks).

With my necro I pull off some AoEs, Blood is Power, Dagger4 or staff4 to inflict my BiP self bleed on the target aswell. Then I have aggro and feel endurance starved in seconds. Having to pop in and out of DS doing much less damage than I can outside DS.

I like both but currently I prefer my Mesmer. High damage, high survivability, great group sync and so on. If they release a prec/vit/condi set my necro can use maybe it will be more fun, but currently its an aggro kitten.

“Prototype Fractal Capacitor (Ascended)

Crafted in the Mystic Forge by combining the Prototype Fractal Capacitor of your choice with a Gift of Ascension, Vial of Condensed Mists Essence and either Crystals or Philosopher’s Stones. Using Crystals creates an offensive infusion slot and using Philosopher’s Stones creates a defensive infusion slot". – Wiki

You pick the stat type you want, combine the materials in the MF and turn the exotic into a rare cloak.

/wiki Prototype Fractal Capacitor (Ascended)

Thats the ingame command for the wiki page.

Scorpion.1286:

Real men use MF gear but maybe your no good. I can play very well with what you seam to perceive as a handicap.

Anyways no trolls plz

No not really, thats just an illusion in your head. You cannot play very well with MF gear because it makes everything you do less effective. You might think you play well, but infact you are more or less a liability to your group.

It’s straight out disrespectful to enter a group when you wear MF gear, the rest of the group needs to make up for your lack of support or damage, both of which you do kitten in MF gear.

No matter how you try and argue, MF gear will make you weaker than any other type of gear.

ZeroArmada.9426:

Well until I see someone with glass cannon who makes my jaw drop from being amazing at it, I still stand by my opinion.

The thing is, you will never notice it. Because since it doesnt die you will probably asume it isnt a glasscannon. It’s not hard to survive as a glasscannon, what is harder is surviving with stacked toughness, because somehow the game directs aggro towards whoever has the highest toughness.

My necro deals massive damage and has high toughness, hes an aggro magnet, it still doesnt mean he has much staying power when focused. However, I cant chose another set really, because I want the precision and condi damage the set gives. And there is no other spec that combines the condi and prec from that set with another besides toughness.

Infact, my GCs have much better survivability due to high crit chance + vigor or passive end regen buffs, which results in them being able to avoid damage when they need to. Maybe I’m just lazy or have just missed the end regen buff for necros. But I doubt it, since its one of my favorite traits on any class.

@OP: You just have bad luck and end up with bad glasscannons.

Glasscannons are just as viable as supports or tanks, the problem with every spec in this game comes down to player control and knowledge of their class, nothing more.

I run a GC Engi, Mesmer and Guardian. I never have any issues with either class, it comes down to kiting. I have an easy time tanking bosses with the specs, they all have very high endurance regen thats reliable, so dodging isnt an issue. And to top it off, while I tank I still deal massive amounts of damage. My 3 glasscannons are based around power and crit damage, vit as a secondary for my guardian and precision for my engi and mesmer.

My guardian runs a sword+shield/scepter+torch setup, high passive crit chance from traits aswell as tons of self healing through meditations and some nice protection for me and my group with shield+HtL. Running healing elite skill, which is a massive support goodie.

Engi is toolbelt chain lightning rifle specced, running with medkit, goggles, ram and rifle turret. Running supply elite.

Mesmer use GS/Scepter+Pistol, phantasm specced, with feedback, 2 on demand clone utilites (mostly) and haste elite.

It all works very well. Then I run a necro decked out in toughness, prec, condi gear. It also works great.

edit: The biggest problem with GC guardians, thieves and warriors is that they are hellbent on going toe to toe melee swinging a big 2h in the face of the enemy, when infact their ranged damage is just as good during most fights. Using a rifle, bow, scepter or pistol allows you more sustainable dps since you dont have to run around so much or try to fight for survival.

There is a reason all classes are great at ranged and melee.

You think its a grind to spend 30ish hours to obtain 2 rings and a cloak and making nice gold in the process?

Ontop of that you most likely get a few extra rings for your alt while getting the 20 tokens for your own (unless they drop for you while “grinding”). Plus the fractals are kitten fun.

Thats not even remotely a grind.

My biggest gripe with MF is that too many people ware it in dungeon groups.

IMO if you go to a dungeon you should be as equipped as you possible can out of respect to your fellow players fighting by your side. Dropping dps or survivability stats in order to grab MF on your gear is disrespectful and slows down your group and gimps yours aswell as your groups dps.

If the game had a nice inspect button, even if it was just to show your magic find stat I’d be happy. It would mean I could chose not to group with MF people if I dont want to.

Using MF food is all ok in my book, either the MF+dps food or the MF+GF food, the stats matter very litte there. But dropping all of your crit damage or a defensive stat in order to field a MF set is not ok.

Always glad to help.

It does seem, giving the circumstances that Twilight is the best weapon for you, since it has both the looks and the stats you want.

Fine transumation stones will solve your issues in the future if you want other stats than the ones on Twilight and still keep the look.

Derk.3189:

Twilight is the best weapon, followed by Dawn, then Bifrost.

Kinda sad they named a lame staff Bifrost. It would be more fun naming some form of hammer, axe or sword Bifrost i.e the bridge that leads to the land of the gods. :P

Thereon.3495:

I think of Divinity runes in another way. Theyre the only (I think) rune that has level bonuses from one slot up to six. All other runes start off weak at 1 (eg: 25 of a stat) and gradually get ‘more powerful’ the more of that rune you have (eg: 100 of a stat at 5 runes).

Because of this fact I can swap and choose how many Divinity runes I want in my set without fear that im losing anything by putting a low number in. An example of this is the fact I have a boon and might stacking armour set which gives me 30% boon duration along with an extra 20% might duration. This will keep my might easily above 21/22 stacks for a whole fight. If im partying with someone who is giving me might also im stacking too much might so I remove my Pirate runes (20% might) and pop in two Divinity rune armour pieces.

Also, saying that having 60 of each stat is pointless is wrong. The overall benefits of the all round stats on Divinity runes far outmatch other runes providing that you can use each of the stats given to you. As a ranged shout warrior I can make use of all of them.

But the thing is, divinity only looks like its bonus gives more early on, while infact it gives very little compared to the other runes. most other runes give 25+58+100/25+50+90 to your stat of choice aswell as another set bonus. The 60 you get from divinity doesnt make up for it. Because your favored stat caps at 60, the other stats wont make up for it, because they arent that useful.

Orbs are just a better pick over divinity, because it gives you 2 stacks of your liking plus the same crit dmg. They give you 2x the main stat and close to 1.5x your secondary stat.

Those 60 to the other stats wont make a difference. You will barely use the vit or toughness as ranged, even if you get hit its nothing that will save you and the healing is minimal, the condition damage is ok (I assume you go with powerpres, otherwise divinity wouldnt even be remotely worth it since it gives crit dmg), but so would 60 more power be.

There are good rune sets and there are bad ones, divinity is just one of the overrated ones that just doesnt do much good.

The cost gap between runes and orbs make runes less appealing. Some are in a good pricerange and very good, while others cost too much compared to the bang you get for your buck. Scholar and Divinity are prime examples. Scholar isnt worth it unless you are sure to stay above 90% for long enough to outpreform orbs.

Then crit comes into the picture too, if you have high enough crit you are better off with orbs for a more reliable source of damage when you cant stay above 90% life. Seeing how scholar is behind 4% crit dmg and 84 precision, its ahead 45 in power.

edit: No idea why some parts got underlined, they shouldnt be.

Depends what you mean by better than “Twilight”.

When it comes to stats Twilight (and all other legendaries) are far inferior in stats compared to an exotic that fits your spec. Legendaries have generic stats, Pow, Tough, Vit, so the stats only fit a select few players, the rest needs to transmute that legendary skin to an exotic weapon for proper stats (stat points totals are the same for exotics and legendaries).

So by that yes, there are many more weapons much much better than “Twilight”.

If you are refering to the look of “Twilight” and other legendaries, then I guess that depends on taste. Personally I think the legendaries look like crap, but then again I’m not into that type of weapon looks. I prefer clean weapons that look somewhat real, which is easy to find all the way from level 1-80 without even peeking at the legendaries. So that answer the question too, yes, there are plenty of weapons that are better than legendaries.

Just brilliant!

Now I need to listen to Ultima Thule’s version of Frosty the Snowman.

Divinity is a poor example. Your main stats that you actually care about caps at +60, the other +60 just doesnt make up for it.

In most cases it means your big heal heals for 60-80 more, your armor is 60 points higher (trivial for a dps build), your vitality is 60 higher (600 health woopdidoo).

And the runes are better argument because they are exotic is also poor, since they come into play at 60 while the highest rare orbs come into play at 80. They are equal and situational, depending on specs.

Nope not needed. But it cant be fun for kittens and giggles when your friends screw up… or you.

All you need is knowledge about your profession and knowledge about the instance.

Orbs/Crests are just as good as most runes. They give a higher variety in stats. The only “runed” character I have at the moment is my necro whos wearing Superior rune of the Undead, high toughness, high condi and extra condi from toughness.

In almost any other case I prefer orbs.

In fractal difficulty 12 a few days back in the asura one around harpies.

Friends asks me. “Can you stand safely on the yellow energy nets?”
I answer. “I Think… Aaaaaahhh! kitten!”

@OP: First, ignore the two posts directly under yours, never listen to naysayers, they dwell on the forums even though they dont play. They are mad that people enjoy what they cant enjoy.

Besides that a guardian would probably fit what you seek. It’s a very well balanced class, it can deal heavy damage both upfront and from range (with the right weapon choises) aswell as take a good beating. It also has a wide range of selfheals aswell as damage mitigation or damage reflect skills (block, protection and retaliation, you can search for those things on wiki). With the right setup you can have alot of survivability aswell as high damage at the same time, it wont be the optimal survival spec but it will preform amazingly.

My own guardian uses sword+shield and scepter+torch. Along with that I use traits that buff meditation skills (certain utility skills) to grant me health on use (1950 health per use at 80 with 18000 life). In addition to that I’ve reduced the cooldown on my torch skills from traits, increased 1 handed crit chance by 15% from traits and lowered the cd and cast time on meditations and shouts.

I run full Valkyrie gear except weapons where I use the ones called berserkers. It gives me.

40% crit chance (trait included)
104% crit damage
18000 life
3000 attack or close to it

The spec also gives great mobility, alot of condition removals and alot of heals.

Trait distribution is 0/30/30/10/0

Grind, in this game? Where?

Sure the legendaries are a grind, but no one is forcing it upon you. Some of us dont like the looks even. Besides that there is no grind, sure the doomsayers claim fractals are a grind for ascended gear, but that isnt true. It’s just a short run per day. Gearing up isnt a grind either.

The “grind” parts in this game doesnt even come close to asian games. So I dont see what part was contradicting, since I didnt say there wasnt a “grind” I said this isnt and Asia Grind MMO.

Regular MMOs and Asia Grainds are worlds apart.

@OP: GW2 isnt an Asia Grind MMO, so there is a reason why it might feel like its no achievment leveling to 80 if you come from FFXI.

For some people you dont even have to level to do the things you love in this game, like sPvP and such. PvE wasnt the main point of the game either, its a very PvP heavy game, so in order for people to get there, leveling was just a minor part of the game.

FFXI didnt have much except PvE, a big reason I never bothered with it. Well that and being an absolute grindfest.

To me the leveling is just long enough in this game, its entertaining enough and give you a good possibility to level other toons. The only thing I miss in this game is the thrill of WPvP while leveling.

Grinding doesnt equal hard. It just equals boring. Freedom on the other hand is a different thing. This game has so many paths you can take to reach 80, it’s all decided by the player.

If you enjoy Asia Grind MMOs then this isnt the game for you.

I used to play my warrior as a signet warrior… back in beta before I knew how the game worked.

The only signet I use on my warrior is Signet of Stamina, its the only way I can get proper end regen into my build. I’m also used to the 50% extra end regen from playing my enginner. At times I use Healing Signet, but I prefer Healing Surge.

Besides that most other signets are inferior to other utilities you can use. The extra precision from the trait for each unused signet is a waste, the crit gain is minimal and you waste half the effect of signets by not using them.

Infinitism.6019:

I fail to understand why melee warrior type classes are always so popular in MMO’s. MMO’s are mostly fantasy-themed games. I don’t know about you guys, but when I think “fantasy”, I think magic. Hell, the fantasy genre definition is as follows: “Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting.” Notice “magic” and “supernatural” in there?

So, why do people go for the least magical class in a fantasy MMO? I don’t get it. Aren’t games a means of escapism and entertainment? What’s entertaining about hitting things with a sword or stabbing them with a dagger, when you can easily do that in the real world? You can’t conjure powerful orbs of fire to literally burn your enemies alive, call upon minions of death and drain the life force out of them, or summon clones of yourself to confuse your foes in reality.

Magic makes you feel powerful. Who doesn’t want to feel powerful in a fantasy game? Not to mention magic classes always get the best animations. So tell me, I’m truly curious as to why some people always go for the melee warrior-esque classes in games.

Fantasy is a wide genre. It also wouldnt exsist without real life mythical tales and eposes, the ancient grandfathers of fantasy.

Throughout history, warrior types aswell as thieves and tricksters have been well represented in every cultures lore really, just as much as magic, or most oftenly a combination of both.

Sigurd Fafnrsbane in germanic/norse lore, a mighty, yet very regular warrior kinda guy with a magic sword that slays a dragon.

Beowulf, same example, regular warrior, granted a magic sword by a person who at first hated him.

Conan the Barbarian, a thief that hates magic and talks kitten about his patron god on a daily basis. Although not a cultural myth, its still a great example.

Thor, the thundergod, a warrior type killing giants with a magic hammer and wearing a magic belt.

There is a even a whole cult dedicated to anti magic in Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, the Khorne cult. The lore is also filled with warrior type heroes that gain their strength from magic weapons.

Those are just a few examples.

And a question, have you ever seen or can you even imagine a real life guy with a greatsword doing 100 blades? Isnt that some form of magical strength behind being able to swing a sword that fast?

And there are other more regular life professions in this game. Engineer and Ranger, neither of them have supernatural powers really. Both of those are probably more common as everyday occupations within the gaming community.

People still hunt (with bows and xbows) and people still invent and enginner things.

When you blame culling after a car crash.

Support specced players are just not noticed for what they do.

Also people complaining that you have low dps are just best ignored (not by the ingame function, just in general), since there is no way of telling who does what damage or heals at all. You cant pinpoint a person in this game since there is no dps meter, which is good.

@mulch.2586: Healer centered just aswell as glasscannon specs work well in groups too, even if they cant do everything. I run with 4 classcannons + a tanky person in PvE quite often, it works great. People just need to know their specs, thats all.

@Sylosi.6503: You should really calm down and stop being condescending to people. No one wants to see you play the overly used “career card” on the forums. I’m just waitng for a few “son” comments and its all wrapped up in a tidy box.

It doesnt matter how you look at it, ascended gear is not a grind. Fractals are easy, fast and fun. Sure the RNG sucks a bit and the current costs of things are a bit too steep, but all those things are being looked into by Anet.

Its 3 pieces you need to obtain per character, one and a half hour tops per day. Thats not asking much. You also make a few gold per run if you dont have the worst possible luck. Atleast fractals are well balanced with pretty fun boss encounters, except for the boring jellyfish. This cant be said about the regular dungeons, which mostly feel like WP bumrush crap. Bosses are poorly made, too much RNG when it comes to some boss skills and their leathality (Alpha for example).

Once they soup up the regular dungeons things will be much better and more fun.

Ascended gear is just a tier that IMO should have been there at release. Its also intoduced slowly over time.

You also say you’ve played the game for about 30mins since nov 15th patch, which means you havent done a whole lot of fractals, if even any at all.

You really shouldnt have an opinion about something ingame until you actually try it properly. You cant give proper feedback on what isnt working, what is bad, imbalanced, boring and so on unless you try it and play. Anet would do best in not listening to people spewing forth random nonsense without any real insight in the matter.

Quick question to the doomsday people/quitters.

How many of you have even tried fractals in a proper manner or done enough research to know what its about before calling it quits?

Probably not many. It’s not very time consuming to do fractals. You get to difficulty 10 and then you can start doing 1 fractal per day for the ring.

It should take you a maximum of 1.5 hours per day to do the daily. Getting from 1-10 shouldnt take very long either, 10-12 hours maybe (per character you wanna do fractals with). Rings arent even soulbound, so if you get one that doesnt fit, send it off to an alt.

So far I’ve gotten 3 rings total. 1 for my engi, 1 for my mesmer and 1 for my necro.

If you want competative BiS gear for WvW all you need to do is the daily on even levels between 10-18. If you want the option to do more dailies than one you either bring another toon to 10+ or continue to 20+.

@jkctmc.8754: You still do conciderably less damage than a glasscannon build centered around power, crit, crit dmg. You are doing 120% crit damage while a glasscannon does 200% or more crit damage.

So no idea why you call it insane damage. Sure you survive longer, but you dont put even close to the same preasure a ranged glasscannon can. Most well specced/geared glasscannons, no matter what profession can effectivley “snipe” people. And much easier than a rifle warrior.

Personally I prefer longbow on warriors, feels smoother and can deal just as good (if not better) damage as rifle with a power, prec, crit dmg spec. It’s what made me go from “meh boring” to “Ooooh fun fun fun” when thinking about my warrior.

OP: You’re a full glasscannon spec with base health. So uhm, why didnt you just dodge that Kill shot or just daze him with SB5?

Kill shot is no different than what other classes can do at range if specced for it. My engi does the same amount of damage just as quickly. Heck jump shot on its own will do roughly 10k damage vs a glasscannon, then followed by blunderbuss for 6-7k. And neither of those are hard to get off after a lovely net.

And if you dont wanna risk getting that close you have your toolbelt skills that will (with the right spec) instagib any glasscannon in seconds.

Goggles+Diagnostics → Unload your arsenal of goodies.

I love my engineer.

Great burst, awesome utility, great survivability through dodge, a multitude of heals, condition removals, immobs, knockbacks and all that.

I also like necro, high armor, high damage and high base health.

Sarnak Ghostbear sounds good. Fits well in with the Norn idea.

My norns are.

Skallagrim Kveldulv, guardian and Hilding Hrafnson, ranger. Wolf spirit and Raven spirit.

Siv Jarnhyrr = Siv Ironfire
Siv Jarndis = Siv Ironspirit
Siv Jarnfylgja = Siv Ironspirit (although in this case Fylgja refers to an animal spirit)

My two norns are named in a norse fashion aswell.

Skallagrim Kveldulv = Guardian. (wolf spirit)
Hilding Hrafnson = Ranger. (raven spirit)

Skallagrim means either “Bald and masked/helmeted” or “Grim skull”, the interpretation may vary just as the spelling, depending on region and time. Kveldulv means Nightwolf.

Hilding means “chieftain”, can also be interpreted as “of battle/son of battle”.

Thanks for the move heh.

There are also a relation between the animal spirits of the Norn and norse lore.

Fylgjas/Fylgias are animal spirits that follow you through life, watching you and guiding you on your way. They can also go under the name Fylgjukona, in this case they take a human female form. There is also the Hemingja, they follow you till the day you die and then move on to a close relative to grant its protection. A spirit that guards all of your kin really.

The Fylgjas and Hemingja related to the norn and valkyries along with other female spirits, that all go under the name Diser.