Guild Wars 2

darkaheart.4265:

Yeah people tend to test it first in pvp but it doesn’t even workout for me. ugh idk what is it about pvp but warrior sucks there

Warriors are amazingly strong in WvW because of the mobility they get on GS, and the fact that their base stats are much higher than any other profession. Pvp has less base stats, hence warrior is not as strong there. I still think they are ok in pvp.

I like Vaans’ videos a lot, but for me the magic is kinda gone since I saw this video where he duels Arkone. The skill gap between these two is just so high.

robertul.3679:

Also use power-focused gear. And a sigil of bloodlust is cheap and goes a long way.

Weird, I was gonna suggest otherwise. If you focus on conditions, your damage scales with your level and not with your weapon strength, which is of course a nice thing.

Keep in mind that even an Adept trait like Static Discharge is unlocked only at lvl 40. I would advise you to play a condi based P-P + Bombs build, and whatever other utilities you might like. You won’t kill as fast as on a power build, but you’ll be able to kill multiple opponents at once.

Treeoflife.4031:

skills like Switch places with target on succesful attack.

The ultimate decapping skill. WANT!

Most of what’s in the Book is still accurate, and you can definitely believe what’s in it. We’ve gotten a few nerfs, especially on main-hand sword in pvp, but nothing you have to worry about for now.

Thief is a really easy profession to level up. First of all, get your hands on a short bow as soon as you can: just by spamming the #5 skill, you’ll run super fast. Take Signet of Shadow as soon as you can in your utilities, for that extra 25% movement speed.

Every weapon set will work, but if I really had to recommend something it would be the following:

For more action
- Sword-pistol/SB. The one I use in open world PvE. The skill #3 on S-P deals massive damage, and evades all incoming damage during the animation. The skill #5 is an AoE that blinds, useful against multiple opponents. The mobility on this weapon is also amazing.

- Dagger-dagger/SB. It’s more of a hybrid build. You can backstab stuff (5→1), and against multiple targets you can just spam 3 and bleed everything to death while you evade all incoming damage.

Nova.7261:

As it is, I can get more rewards faster by doing custom matches and using them with others that are like minded for maximum returns. This results in pvp players that could be honing their skills, taking shortcuts and ultimately watering down the pool of good players we might find in a match.

That’s just not true. The reward track progression per match is lesser than what you gain in unranked/ranked, the rank points reward are more or less the third of what you gain in unranked/ranked, your gains are capped daily and you gain less if the match is over too fast. As it stands, the best strategies to get maximum rewards is just playing the game normally in unranked/ranked.

Why are these people in the rank farm servers then? Frankly, it puzzles me. Some are probably just ignorant of the true numbers just like yourself, but I think most can’t imagine playing something engaging in a MMO and would rather grind their way to rank 80 than doing it more efficiently by just playing.

In my opinion, this new “Natalie Dormer” hairstyle for Norn female looks amazing. I might even make a Norn character, something I would never have thought I’d do.

UnitedChaos.8364:

Healix.5819:

Projectile attacks without a target fire in the direction of your camera. Tilt it slightly to shoot farther away, towards the center of your screen. For a more obvious view, go in first person.

Nobody plays with their camera parallel to the ground (like 5ft from ground). Everyone plays with their camera slightly above, looking down. I refuse to go into first person to fire an arrow straight.

Speak for yourself. Every time I fight a thief and want to fire a projectile, I tilt my camera. But you have to do it fast. I thought you were going to talk about Spatial Surge: that’s a real problem if you ask me.

MandJ.8965:

Thank you for saying this.
What is for you viable? I know a few Ranger Builds that are harder to play as the Standard Shatter or the Range shatter (both not really hard), same for some engineer builds. Rest of your list, I agree with. But There are harder builds as Range and Classic shatter on Mesmer.

And for OP, if you dont want to play shatter, a hybrid GS/Staff Mesmer is nice for beginners.

I mean builds whose difficulty doesn’t come from the fact that it’s terrible, but can actually compete in the environment you want to play in.

For example, I mostly play pvp, lately on a SD/SB condi thief, and I basically kill stuff by dodging. I could argue it’s hard to play, because you have to find a way to keep your opponents in your caltrops, but mostly it’s hard because it’s unnecessarily bad (though not as much as you would expect).

Would you mind telling me what ranger build you play that is harder than Staff/GS mesmer? I have a ranger and plays on it from time to time, but I never really liked it because I found every build a bit too easy, with a rather stale gameplay. Thank you very much!

Farming Flats.5370:

Kronos.2560:

I have tons of skill point scrolls constantly dropping, my new characters never have any needs. The only issue at this point with them is no option to consume a stack in one click. Same goes with luck.

to consume a stack , just go in the GW2 option and bound your mouse click to your mouse scroll .. then over the stack and spin that wheel ! .. revert to your original configuration .. .. stack consumed in less than a minute.

Wow, I learnt something useful on the forums. Thank you kind sir/lady!

By the way Rune of the Traveler is only used by builds with terrible mobility options, since you basically waste your rune slot to take it. I doubt you really have trouble to catch up with a mesmer or a meditation guardian. The biggest offender of the cowardly retreat tactic are thieves (but you can push them out of their SR at least) and of course GS warriors, or worse, sword-x/GS warriors.

MandJ.8965:

Sorel.4870:

I should warn you however: it’s one of the most difficult build in the game to play.

Sorry mate, but this is bs. Staff/GS Shatter isn´t really hard to play.

We get it, you’re so good Staff/GS is easy for you. It’s still harder than:

1) Every viable necromancer build
2) Every viable ranger build
3) Every warrior build
4) Every guardian build
5) Every somewhat viable elementalist builds including SF, but excluding SD
6) Every viable thief build
7) Every engineer build except SD
8) Most mesmer builds except classic shatter and lockdown

You see what I mean? You have someone here asking if there is ANY viable Staff/GS build, meaning he/she is obviously new to the game. So I’m just warning him/her that this build is difficult compared to others. Once you have a certain experience, every build is rather easy to pick.

For roaming: pack runes if you use focus (they are also among the best power runes right now, even for builds that have no use for the swiftness buff). Traveler runes are still a must if you don’t have a focus. You will need this mobility.

Weird, did you try to change your in-game graphic setup? I play on a MacBook Air, and I exclusively play pvp and WvW, on mesmer/thief, without any issues.

I understand they don’t want matches to go on forever, but come on, this is too short. 20 or 25 minutes would be fine.

The real problem is the timer. Even when your defense is strong and you’d probably win in the long run, the amazingly short timer rewards the most aggressive strategy every time. If the timer was, say, 20 or 25 minutes, I bet defense would be a more viable option.

Like a lot of other utilities in the game (engineer’s grenades for example), spirits need traits to be effective. And a spirit ranger can still be very effective. It’s a very easy build, appropriate for a beginner, and I recommend it to every ranger who’s new to pvp. However, it means the build has a very low skill ceiling, that’s why we don’t expect it to be good in the highest levels of play. It’s still very good in team fights.

Necromancers and rangers are usually terrible players, and spend most of their time in downstate, that’s why it’s so good.

Lawl, this looks even worse than camping the trebuchet on Khylo. Let the warrior swim, he can’t contest points, and every single skill he has are single target. And he probably can’t stomp either.

Wat? Rune of Speed just gives a 25% to movement speed. In combat, that’s the maximum you can get, Swiftness included. But anything with leaps (warrior sword 2 skill, for example), will have you run faster. I’m not really sure of what you’re problem is.

#esportz

rchu.8945:

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Shifts in meta usually happen to either counter the previous meta or overcome weaknesses of the previous meta. For example, the condi meta some time ago was the reason why there’s so much condition cleanse in every comp to the point that condition-reliant compositions are no longer effective. DPS guards are steadily replacing mesmers in the meta to overcome the mesmer’s weakness to thieves.

Mesmers have not been in the meta for a while…

That’s arguable. Sure, they have a lot of weak points (like getting eaten by thieves, for example), but you see a lot of them in EU teams. Portal plays are fun, and often rewarding in conquest, that’s why they survive despite their lack of… well… most things.

ukuni.8745:

full celestial ascended on an engineer in WvW isnt worth it, at minimum id take the trinkets and weapon but going complete to me atleast felt like it was neither the best at tanking or damage as far as WvW builds go and i think its simply because of your ability to effect your stats much more drastically then in spvp, so id recomend not getting it for your engineer in WvW, not to say full cele aint great but for me it just dosent feel like its optimal in wvw

It depends on what you play obviously, but I agree: if you add some precision in your armor, you don’t need the sigil of intelligence, and you deal a bit more damage.

rhodoc.2381:

If they make when you auto loot the item when the kill the enemey before even appears it on the ground, it may help the server load in WvW where 100 ppl spamming loot button during haevy fight.

True WvW players die with a hundred loot bags and chests surrounding them.

Needless to say, I need that!

I should warn you however: it’s one of the most difficult build in the game to play.

In WvW, GS/Staff is the one of the most viable build. However, it’s a power-based shatter build. You could probably tweak it to become a power-based phantasm build in PvE, since shatter builds are not very effective there. Here is the pvp version:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Mesmer_-_Double_Ranged_Shatter

You should consider taking a condition removal instead of Portal in WvW (Mantra of Resolve is the one I keep coming back to), and use full berserker gear, with some knight pieces if you feel too squishy. For the rune, if you can afford it, Traveler is really a nice quality of life improvement, because of the +25% movement speed.

I don’t really see it being a condition build. GS especially has nothing to do in a condi build.

Since this was bumped, I would like to add something. I’m a Mac user, and I think I finally found a recording program that works well.

You can use OBS. It’s free and works fine on Mac. You can even record in 60 fps if you can, which Quicktime doesn’t allow. It also causes less lag.

It really depends on the profession and what you’re aiming for in the build. For example, on my shatter mesmer, the power damage I bring to the table is a lot lower than I would like it to be. But I’m forced to: I want Traveler Runes for the mobility, and my trait set-up forces me to have some stats I don’t really care about.

There’s no real rule of thumb. If you want to burst people down, add power as much as you can, but consider what you have to trade in exchange for that extra power. Finally, try different things.

If I REALLY were to give you a number, I guess a pure power build would have to be above 2100 (in exotic weapons/armor and ascended trinkets), and a pure condition build at least above 900 condi damage.

I hate being forced to wait in the Mists. However, the old system and people constantly showing up late or not at all was much more infuriating. I’m afraid that if they let us out, people will show up in the last minute and put the PUGs in a worst situation they are already.

A good solution in my opinion would be to be able to do something in the Mists. My first idea would be a dueling area, where your duel would be instantly interrupted by a queue popping.

Two major reasons:

1) Development: it’s easier two design a beautiful outfit if you don’t have to worry about clipping or the division between torso and legs especially.

2) Purpose. Outfits are meant to be worn over the armor. They require no transmutation charges. So they are meant to have more restrictions of course.

That being said, as a mainly pvp player, I have a lot of transmutation charges (also the whole “locked into HotM” situation drove me to spend plenty of them already), and I would like more armor sets to be added in the gem store, rather than outfits.

Dahkeus.8243:

Will be trying out hammer/GS war and maybe lb power ranger as well.

I like Hammer/GS! What role will you be playing? You’re not really bursty, and have no group utilities on that. The mobility is great though.

Gaaroth.2567:

Which is for our EU hommies 2100 GMT+0 ;-)

20h GMT, 21h in Paris. You might want to finish what you have to do one hour earlier

Hello folks,

I’m trying to decide what build I will play tonight. My favorite professions lately are in that order mesmer, engineer, thief and warrior.

I don’t like playing stealth thief (I usually play SD or SP), and I feel like shatter mesmer lacks a bit of utilities to be good in that game mode, especially in soloq where Portal doesn’t shine.

My early choices would therefore be between a cleric shout hammer warrior (but that sounds boring), or maybe a condi bomb engineer or an engineer with heal on bombs.

What do you guys think? Do you have a good build you would like to suggest? And what will you personally play? Thank you in advance for your answers.

Gern.2978:

50k HP? I wanna know what voodoo magic these warriors are using to get that much HP, let alone do as much damage as you claim while having so much HP.

You may get there with a full Sentinel ascended set, max points in the Vitality trait line, vitality food, 5 guard stacks and near the NPC commander in a WvW Borderland (don’t know his name in english). Someone should try that.

Not likely to happen in pvp though.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

A meta build is a build for a class widely accepted as “effective” or “extremely effective” in normal battle situations (1v1, +1, vs Counter, Sustainability, condi purging, etc).

Any build that lets you maintain proficiency in pvp without extremely substantial effort can be meta. (not that a build that is not incredibly difficult to play well is a bad thing, because sometimes pvp situations require flexibility.)

You’re right to some extend, but not quite. For example, some of the meta builds are among the most exigent for their profession (shatter mesmer, celestial engineer, meditation guardian), and are still meta (or meta-ish for the mesmer).

A meta build is a build that fits a role in the current meta game. Sometimes balance defines the meta (it was the case for Dhummfire necro or spirit ranger), sometimes the change in the play style leads to some builds becoming meta (SD thief a year ago, celestial engineer now).

Let’s take an example: guardians. In the recent past (not talking about condi meta, I wasn’t playing then), guardians have played bunker builds, and provided useful bonuses to their team, for example stability, essential to counter the numerous hambow warriors of that time. Then warriors got nerfed, and people started playing celestial builds, and play with sustainable builds with excellent 1v1 capabilities and good mobility. The paroxysm of that meta was the comp the Abjured play in the WTS finals: 2 cele elementalists, one celestial engineer, one condi necro, and one SD thief. But the meta now seems to be getting back a little to a bunker/roamer kind of comp, but with the “bunker” role being more about healing and cleansing conditions: shout bows, and in some EU teams clerical eles. In this “inter-metas” phase, meditation guardians have the advantages of both worlds: they take down targets fast (RoW and burst potential), but they are also fairly tanky and can contest points in 1v1 for a while. I think that’s an element of answer.

I think berserker builds should never 1v1 a turret engineer, like any bunker build, because it’s a waste of time, especially at range where you can’t decap.

For the rest, I find your guide to be quite good. I still think this build should be balanced a bit (to offer more mobility by having shorter CDs for example, and having the damage reduced), but if my fellow team mates in soloq were to read this, I think I would have more enjoyable games. Thank you.

Warrior in general is easy to play, which makes it a very strong profession in low tiers. Keep practicing, maybe play one yourself, and you’ll realize in time that they are not so dreadful, especially if you know what to dodge/avoid.

TheGrimm.5624:

GrandHaven.1052:

PowerBottom.5796:

So just to be clear. Once the event actually started, an unranked queue will be Stronghold 100%?

Yes.

Vote for it. Could be wrong and they mean that it will be the only choice but by saying featured and vote, I am not working under that assumption. So there is a chance it won’t be selected. I am looking forward to the test but it sounds like people could vote for other maps and then with the RNG it might no be the map that is run. Find out later. Good hunting!

I think I’ve read or heard somewhere that Stronghold would be the only map in the rotation. If it’s not, however, I hope they at least put it in every dice roll, because who in their right mind would want to play anything else.

Stronghold being alone in the rotation would make more sense. They want to test this game mode, so they probably want to make sure that everyone who wants to play it can.

lordkrall.7241:

In about 4 hours 57 minutes.

Are you sure about that? In ready-up, they said Stronghold was available from 12pm on Tuesday, Pacific Time (3h from now). That would be 21h in Paris and 20h in London. So you might want to be there one hour earlier than you thought.

The twitch stream, however, starts at 1pm Pacific Time, and goes on for 23h.

I would love a new Conquest map. However, it is likely that Anet will wait until they know which game mode will be the most popular between Conquest and Stronghold.

Try playing the game in french. It’s very close. Sorry you didn’t have a huge colonial empire that would justify the addition of your language to the game.

My cele engi is one of my absolute favorite roaming build. You should go for which appearance you like the most, since the stat difference is not that big. Another good argument in favor of celestial is the time gate you face with celestial gear anyway: you might as well do your two time gated materials (mats and cristals) at the same time.

Light berserker is also a good choice. It’s very expensive, but in my opinion it looks incredible (especially since light armors in this game are the ones I like the least), and you could use it later on a shatter mesmer or a power necro, both very fun and viable builds.

Good luck on your decision making struggle!

naphack.9346:

If you CAN dodge it.
It’s not like the guy on skillhammer blasts away at empty points. He blasts on players, who are engaged in combat, possibly have already expended their dodges or are otherwise unable to react. If you plan on dodging and eat an entangle just half a sec before it goes down, you won’t be able to pop a cleanse and dodge in time. You are just dead.

You know, Skyhammer might be a fun map, if the canon dealt like half the damage, but inflicted a debuff(let’s call it disorientation) on anyone knocked around by it.

You could say the same about Battle of Khylo. Except that on Khylo, the treb is harder to dodge, and yet you don’t see any experienced players getting hit more than once per game by that thing. Skyhammer is a bit easier to operate, granted, but also easier to predict. The damage is in the same order of magnitude.

In general, HoT would be a good occasion to add more options for Legendaries. For example, toggle the footprints on and off. I would like to craft Twilight, but these footprints look silly to me.

naphack.9346:

You forgot “remove Skyhammer.”

Seriously though, skillhammer is one of the most obnoxious maps around. I really like the map layout, but that kitten skillhammer just hits too hard.

I’t also really easy to dodge, and lets you 5v4 the other team on the map. I don’t really like Skyhammer (I never pick it), but so do most players, that’s why it’s almost never chosen. If it is, it means a player voted for it, and he deserves a fait chance of playing the map. If you really, REALLY can’t stand one game of Skyhammer out of 30 unranked matches, play ranked.

I somewhat like this build, but it seems that you’re not really sure of what role you’re playing. Healing Bombs are currently not worth taking, but suppose you’re going with that: it HAS to be used in team fights. So you can’t play decapper at far. I’d drop the Flamethrower and take EG instead.

Amadeus.5687:

Is it overall game balance that have put us in a better spot? The Introduction of Celestial? or is it really just people getting mad over the Turret’s?

I think it’s a mix of the introduction of the celestial amulet and above all the abandon of bunker guardians in the meta. No more party stability, and since it’s a meta relying more on mobility, engineer and its mobile tankiness is king.

Well well well, that’s a thread I haven’t seen in a while, thank you sir.

Deejjster.3702:

No clue, but it’s the same way with the Thief’s Blinding Powder skill. Instant blind and stealth, but it cancels stomps.

Actually, Blinding Powder was recently buffed to not interrupt casts anymore, and can now be used for safe stomping. I wouldn’t mind to see The Prestige buffed in that way, but I thing safe stomping is actually one of the few things the mesmer does well.

No need to panic. Ranger gets staff, Guardian is maybe getting LB, Necromancer is getting GS, and it is relatively likely that thieves will get a rifle. So each of these professions will have access to 5 brand new skills.

That’s why I think there is still hope. If Anet cares about profession equality (and I believe they do, to some extend), they should logically add one mh and one oh weapon. Since Colin said one more weapon per profession, we would likely be getting mh and oh shields. Fingers crossed.