Guild Wars 2

Guts.4967:

This is completely in the subject, we’re talking about patch right ?

“Out of line” and “off topic” aren’t the same thing, but in this case, your post is both off topic as well as out of line. You’re firing off criticism of the devs’ work methods in a thread asking what changed with the small patch today. That’s off topic. The condescending tone in your post is what’s out of line, since you’re presuming you know how to do the devs’ jobs better than they do. Your advice to them was to get off the forums so they can introduce new features and fix bugs, after you complained that the devs haven’t had a strong presence in the community (i.e. the forums) up until this point. How does that even make sense?

Back on topic, I’m glad to hear that the solo que bug is fixed – I was having trouble getting in the past couple days, so I’m looking forward to trying it out.

Jasper Jadeite.7820:

Thanks for your reply Soryuju, but you’re asking me to do anets job for them. When I go to PVP I just want to have some quick fun and not have to try to calculate a lot of variables. As I stated above I wont click on the ‘Play Now’ button unless I want to duel now that I know, hopefully this will take care of the problem…Youre not saying I’m going to run into this on the other servers now are you?

It’s still possible to run into it when you’re manually joining games, but it’s unlikely if you’re joining games with 8-9 people. As for “doing Anet’s job for them,” yeah, I agree that we shouldn’t have to be working around people trying to duel, but that’s the unfortunate reality of the situation. You’ve already seen what happens if you try to play normally in a dueling server – you take abuse and no one enjoys themselves. Cooperation is the better option, even if it means you have to try a couple servers before you find a game. Or, again, you can use the new solo que.

Also, to avoid interfering with players dueling and drawing abuse, learn to recognize the signs of a server being used for duels. Look at the timer and the score – if the game’s 8 minutes in and both sides have less than 50 points, they’re probably dueling. On a similar note, watch for multiple uncapped, uncontested points, since this is also a good sign that a regular game isn’t taking place.

Granted, it can be frustrating sometimes when you’re trying to play a normal game and you can’t find anything but duel servers, but that’s also what the new solo que is for, since you won’t have to worry about it there. Until a proper place for dueling is implemented, players just have to try to work around each other as best they can.

I also love doing this, and it usually works like a charm, both when 1v1’ing Thieves and in team fights. Just to add a note to the tip, try to wait a couple seconds after they cast the Refuge to use the Shield, since most of the Stealth stacks at the end, and you want to make sure they don’t try to run back in. Knock them out so that the Refuge disappears as they’re getting back up on their feet, and then proceed to wreck them. SoA is also useful for dealing with Dagger Storm from condition Thieves, basically negating half of their Elite.

Setun.4368:

SuperHaze.4210:

Ynna.8769:

Try PvP, Sword and Board works pretty well there.
Also, you have to keep in mind that weapons in Guild Wars 2 correspond to a playstyle, and the Greatsword offers a popular playstyle. This doesn’t mean the Greatsword is a better weapon than all other weapons, just that what it offers is more popular.

So true. I run scepter/torch and sword/focus in my meditation build. The playstyle is very in your face. I have a lot of fun with it and if timed right, you can unload some serious damage. I only pvp though. The only thing missing in my build is an interrupt, but I just don’t want to swap the focus with a shield because of the burst potential from Shield of Wrath.

I run the same setup, only I use sword / shield instead of the focus. The shield skills are extremely handy in pvp for causing disruption (aoe knockback / burst heal on #5 is amazing), and the protection given to you by the #4 shield move is very nice as well. Granted the cooldowns are a bit high, but seeing as how I’ve taken on 2 people in wvw at once and killed both with more than 80% health remaining is super sexy.

Oh! One distinct advantage of sword / x-off hand combo is having 2 sigils that can proc compared to the 1 from greatsword. Something to think about! (I use 30% lifesteal chance on sword, 60% bleed chance on shield, which gives me amazing results)

Just to let you know, all sigils with on crit/on swap effects share internal cooldowns, so your lifesteal and bleed procs are interfering with each other. Every time one activates, the other sigil can’t activate until the first is off cooldown (and if I recall, Sigil of Blood’s tooltip is wrong, and it actually has a 5 second cooldown). It’s the same thing if you’ve got a crit sigil on one set and a swap sigil on the second: if you change to the swap sigil set while the crit sigil is on cooldown, you miss out on your on-swap effect. Because of the way it works, it’s best to pair these sigils with passive sigils, like Superior Force or Bloodlust, so you get a bonus without interference.

I don’t think food effects interfere with sigils, though, so if you’ve gotten attached to the Sigil of Earth, you could use Omnomberry Pies to compensate for the non-functional Blood Sigil. I’d personally recommend something like Sigil of Fire instead of Earth, though, which will be better DPS overall.

I also agree with everything here, for what it’s worth. I doubt we’ll see any of this realized any time soon, but I think all of these changes would promote a healthier game.

My only disagreement might be about removing hotjoin. I think hotjoin needs some serious re-structuring, but not outright removal. Having a more relaxed environment for testing builds is important, after all, but such an environment should not reward poor play. On the other hand, 8v8 does need to go entirely, since it’s not even newbie-friendly in the way that it was envisioned, and thus serves little purpose outside of glory farming. Of course, those are things that people have been saying since launch, so we’ll see if anything ever happens on that end.

Ramides.5403:

Alarox.4590:

10/30/30 with Sword/Scepter. Utilities being Meditations. Bam.

You now have a lot of survival with a lot of damage. This is the best 1v1 build the Guardian has. The downsides are lack of AoE and support, but you’re maximizing single target damage and survival.

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You really don’t need PVT. Just go Knight’s gear (Pow/Pre/Tuf) and use either 10/30/30 Meditations or 0/15/30/20/5 (or) 0/0/30/20/20 Altrustic Healing with Hammer/Greatsword/Staff.

Forgive the confusion, but is that 0/10/30/30/0? 0/0/10/30/30? Any traits in particular?

Not asking for a extreme in depth explanation, but just some clarification.

For the sword/scepter Meditations build, he probably actually means 10/30/30/0/0. Traits are Fiery Wrath, Signet Mastery, Blind Exposure, Right-Hand Strength, Meditation Mastery, Monk’s Focus, and most likely Retributive Armor. Purity is also an option if you need more condition removal. Runes are a matter of preference – anything aggressive will work fine (Ruby Orbs, Divinity, etc.). Alternatively, you can give up some damage (100 Power and Fiery Wrath bonus) for more durability and support by going 0/30/30/5/5 (500 more HP, Vigor on crit, boons for the team on Virtue activation).

I’m fine with this. Pies were a crutch that let people build full glass while staying durable, and they diminished the value of skillful play. There are plenty of other great defensive food options out there, but now if you want to play a glass cannon, you’re going to actually be squishy. This is the way it should be, and we might even see some more build diversity now that building for survival is more important. Definitely a good move on Anet’s part.

Also, forgot to mention:

“Food items that give special bonuses upon a critical hit now have an internal cooldown before they can produce the special bonus again.”

I see this having a huge impact on the PvE/WvW meta for all classes, but for Guardians in particular, with our emphasis on passive healing. I think it’s a positive change, but I might be biased, since I never ran Pies in either mode (kinda saw them as a crutch, to be honest).

Pure of Voice fixed, Spirit Weapons re-buffed, Staff buffed, Healing Breeze buffed…not a bad patch at all for Guardians. Still waiting on a Scepter projectile fix, but I can be patient. I’ve got to be honest, though, even if all they fixed were Spirit Weapons and Pure of Voice, I’d still be pretty happy.

In general, small changes this patch (as usual), but most of them seem positive and geared toward bringing lesser-used specs/weapons up to the level of what’s popular. Next patch I’m hoping for a trait cleanup, though. Too many professions have messy/useless traits, and not many were addressed this patch.

With all that said, I still think that the Hammer is a great PvE weapon, but as I stated before, I believe it’s a more defensive/group-oriented tool best suited to situations where the odds are stacked against you. It has fantastic healing potential when combined with AH (much better than the GS’s), the Protection uptime is wonderful, frequent blast finishers are great in groups, and you have your choice of defensive CC when situations get tough. It’s an awesome choice when facing down champions or hordes of enemies in dungeons, and you can get the best of both worlds if you pair it with the GS (which I often do). When you’re not as worried about survival, though, GS is going to be the more efficient choice for clearing enemies.

2) I’ll be much briefer about this one – I don’t think you can make the blanket claim that the GS is the best offensive PvP weapon, unless maybe you’re referring to WvW. GS is a good option, certainly, but for a DPS role, a dual 1h set is just as popular and effective. Sword and Scepter combined can drop some heavy burst damage on a target, and RHS gives the build a respectable crit rate even when it’s packing a Soldier’s Amulet. The result is a very, very tanky DPS that can shred glass cannons and 1v1 anything short of a Trap Ranger. The GS will bring more AoE to team fights, but will not perform at the same level outside of them (largely because it’s much harder to balance armor, HP, and crit rate with a GS build, since RHS is missing).

Alarox.4590:

From an offensive perspective:

Hammer: Good AoE burst and CC, lacks a solid auto-attack for PvP, but has highest PvE DPS. Best PvE weapon.

Greatsword: Great AoE and gap closing, is good in PvE/PvP, AoE/single-target, lacks defensive CC. Best PvP weapon.

Mace: Let’s be honest, this isn’t an offensive weapon. Only good for support/tank builds.

Sword: Good sustained damage against a single target, but lacks burst and any form of CC. (Zealot’s Defense sucks, be honest).

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And that’s why you see so much Greatsword. If you’re in sPvP and want a 1v1 build you can use Sword or Greatsword. If you want a PvE damage build you can use Greatsword or Hammer. If you want a more group oriented PvP build you can use Greatsword or Hammer. (In terms of ‘best’ options)

Hammer and Greatsword are both versatile weapons while Sword and Mace are niche. Greatsword is useful in more situations than Hammer in PvP scenarios (offensively).

You would have a lot more options if the Mace had more offensive capability and if the Sword had AoE/burst.

I’d like to disagree on two points:

1) I don’t believe that the Hammer can be so easily described as the best PvE weapon. I think it faces stiff competition from the GS for that position, with the GS being the more aggressive weapon and the Hammer being the more defensive. You can, of course, make an argument for MB’s DPS potential (I’m well aware that it can drop 4-5k crits every 4-5 seconds), but there are a couple factors holding the Hammer back when it comes to matching the GS’s DPS. The first, and most critical, is that most of the Hammer’s DPS is focused into MB. The Hammer’s autoattack is much slower than the GS’s, and while you can argue that Symbol of Protection can help to close the DPS gap, that extra DPS is focused into a small, static area, which is not ideal. MB can make up for this with its low cooldown, fast animation, and wider area, but since the Hammer’s 3, 4, and 5 are not DPS tools, MB is competing not only with Whirling Wrath, but also with Leap of Faith, Symbol of Wrath, and even the damage ticks on Binding Blade. These latter skills not only bring additional damage to the GS, but boost its clearing power far above the Hammer’s, since you have a low-cooldown gap closer with AoE damage and the ability to pull distant enemies into tight balls. The Hammer’s toolbox is relatively limited and situational in comparison – while you’ll certainly find uses for Zealot’s Embrace, Banish, and Ring of Warding, you won’t use any of them nearly as often as you’ll use the GS’s 3, 4, and 5, because you’re not always going to need to use CC against mobs, but you are always going to want damage. The Hammer’s an excellent weapon when you’re in over your head, but when you aren’t getting overwhelmed, the GS is going to outperform it.

The other reason why the Hammer’s DPS is not as reliable as the GS’s is because MB is concentrated into one hit, while Whirling Wrath is spread out over multiple hits. Most GS and Hammer builds have a crit rate somewhere in the range of 35-50%, so you’re going to have hits on MB that don’t crit, and which only deal around 2k damage as a result. Since the Hammer doesn’t have many other DPS tools, that’s going to lower your DPS significantly until MB is off cooldown again. The GS, which hits many times, does not suffer from this problem – on a moderately tanky DPS build, the damage is consistently going to be in the 3-5k range. Even if it hits on the low end of the spectrum, you’ve got all of your other skills to pick up the slack until you’re ready to spin again. With that in mind, Whirling Wrath still does have twice the cooldown of MB, but you can’t just say that MB is going to deal twice the damage. It doesn’t work that way, because lower crit rates work against MB much more strongly than they do against WW.

Wow, old thread. But…somehow still relevant.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We totally agree! We’re working on another upcoming PvP stuff update that’ll be coming out shortly once we’ve verified everything is working correctly.

We’ve actually posted in a number of threads here (now no longer on the front page) detailing what our plans are in the near future for SPvP, as well as posted a blog post that summarizes what’s coming shortly, and the build note preview on paid tournaments for the Halloween update. We’ll be going into more detail specific about competitive pvp next week on the blog including screenshots and feature descriptions, and of course will continue to update in these forums as well.

Transparency in every part of the game is very important to us, and I think you’ll be thrilled so see how quickly new features for pvp come rolling online over the next few months. This is a huge focus for us, and a community and part of the game we take very seriously, and we’ll strive to keep making sure you all know what we’ve got planned, and where we’re taking the game to reach its ultimate long term goals.

Posted 4 months ago. What went wrong?

It sounds like they had big plans for November-January, but the reality is that those months had very little to offer for PvP, with Temple and the new Paid system being the only really notable changes (invisible matchmaking to a lesser extent). They’ve said numerous times that making new maps is relatively easy, meaning that Silent Storm/Spirit Watch can’t have sucked up that much of their development time. So where did all of their plans go? What exactly interfered with their schedule when visible changes have been so rare?

I expect the new map and not much else. I feel like if there were any other major things coming, they’d have made some sort of announcement about it with the rest of the teasers for this patch. We’re certainly not getting custom arenas or anything this time around, so in terms of “features,” I’m expecting a dry month.

In terms of balance changes, I expect the usual dissatisfaction. For instance, I expect that there will be enough Ele nerfs to kitten off Ele’s, but not enough Ele nerfs to satisfy the people who dislike Ele’s. I’m a bit optimistic that Warriors and Engis will get some buffs, based on the state of the game talk a couple weeks back, but again, I doubt there will be enough to satisfy the people who have been complaining about these classes. For my part, I’d really love them to make Guardian Spirit Weapons usable again, but I don’t expect them to fix the HP scaling for another couple months, since they haven’t (to my understanding) even acknowledged that this problem exists yet.

They did say that AoE’s would be getting tuned down, but that’s been quiet for long enough at this point that I’m not sure if I should still expect it in this month’s patch. I predict much QQ over the matter, though, even though it’ll probably be a healthy change for the game if handled correctly.

One other thing I’m a bit more optimistic about is the potential for weak specs to get buffed, since they also mentioned that in the SotG discussion. I don’t expect many specs to get buffed, but I do expect them to make a start.

Essentially, I’m keeping my expectations very low, based on past patches. I understand that the PvP team is doing their best, but the results have been consistently disappointing thus far, so it seems silly to keep getting my hopes up until they can prove themselves. If they can put out an awesome patch this week, I’ll happily change my tune, but I want to see it happen first.

I have to admit, the only problem I have with Scepter in its current form is the speed of the autoattack at long range, and I think both Smite and Chains of Light are fine as is. I’m personally in the camp that would like to see the stream of magical tennis balls swapped for something else entirely, because besides the speed issues, it’s kind of a boring/goofy aesthetic. Give me fast-moving blue fireballs, as opposed to slow-moving blue orbs, and I’ll be happy. If the Scepter’s autoattack damage or rate of attack needs to be reduced (I’d prefer the latter) in order to compensate, that’s fine. I don’t even need the fireballs to move at arrow speed – just fast enough to be practical as a weapon at 1200 range.

I personally believe the other skills are fine as is. I don’t really think of Smite as an AoE attack, simply because the area affected is too small for it to serve that purpose. I think of it as either an area control skill that’s good for harassing targets, or as a spike-assist skill when used with Chains of Light. Basic combos like CoL > Virtue of Justice > Whirlng Wrath/Zealot’s Defense already hurt opponents pretty badly, but if you drop Smite under their feet as you chain them down, you can get some really nice burst going even without running a glassy build. In that sense I’d agree with Setun, that part of the Scepter’s use comes in as a setup weapon. I’m not going to say I’d mind adding a combo field to Smite (Light most likely, though I think Fire would be more interesting), but I think it’s already a strong skill, and you’d need to increase its cooldown to 8-10 seconds to keep it balanced if you buffed it.

TL;DR: Get rid of slow-moving orbs, replace with decently fast-moving fireballs at a slower attack rate. I think Smite’s fine, but if you’re adding a Light or Fire Field to it, it’ll need an 8-10 second cooldown instead of 6.

DreamOfACure.4382:

Anyone know how stacking Toughness compares to stacking Vitality?

After all, toughness has no effect on conditions.

Generally speaking, Vitality scales considerably better than Toughness does, but that doesn’t mean that Vitality is always the better choice for a build. Typically you want some Vitality, but how much you want in relation to your Toughness comes down to your class’s base HP, how susceptible you are to conditions, and what sources of healing you have access to.

Toughness becomes more valuable than Vitality as your HP rises – you probably already have a good idea about this, but if you’re rolling a Necro, you want to invest in Toughness before Vitality, and if you’re rolling a Guardian, getting some Vitality needs to take priority over Toughness. In either case, investing in the wrong stats will lead to incoming damage taking much larger chunks out of your maximum HP. Typically, a balance of the two stats is optimal for survival.

One other important point that you touched on is that Toughness doesn’t affect condition damage. This seems to swing things in favor of Vitality, but something to also consider is that Toughness makes all of your passive and active heals worth more, since damage can’t come in as rapidly when you’re stacking Toughness. Healing doesn’t synergize nearly as well with HP – more HP just means that your heals aren’t going to top you off when you get low, and that you may have a couple extra seconds to hit your heal button before an enemy downs you.

One of the best examples of the defensive power the Toughness/Healing Power combo can yield is the D/D Ele. Ele skills/traits scale very well with Healing Power, so after an Ele picks up some Vitality and drops 600+ points into Healing Power, they’ll probably want to go pouring points into Toughness. Toughness and Vitality both help keep them from being spiked down in one go, but since Toughness slows down incoming damage, their many sources of healing can help to erase damage as quickly as it can be dealt. Their strong condition cleansing and anti-spike tools (e.g. Mist Form) complement this defensive setup perfectly, so you’ve got a character that can’t be spiked easily and which is also resistant to most forms of sustained damage. Some Vitality is still important for the Ele, since a good burst will drop a character with 10k HP regardless of their armor, but Toughness plays a far more important role in their defense.

In the Guardian’s case, the balance you strike really comes down to how much cleansing you have access to. If you don’t have much in your build, higher HP might be a good option for you, but if you’ve got good cleansing and many sources of passive healing, Toughness can be an absolutely fantastic stat for Guardians. In the S/TPvP scene, the popular bunker builds are currently cleanse-heavy, high-armor builds with around 16k HP, a Cleric’s Amulet, and plenty of different sources of passive healing, so that might tell you something.

I also had the same issue the other day at the CoF P1 boss. I figured it was just a fluke, but apparently other people are running into it too. Fortunately, like Rookni said, the hero panel manual swap fixes it, so there’s at least a workaround until Anet can address it.

jportell.2197:

What about just taking some of those empty servers and labeling them duel only servers? All it would require is a change in text instead of an actual programming and coding issue. Anets really good about changing texts/tool tips (sarcasm)

I agree with this, but I’d like them to separate 8v8, 5v5, and dueling servers into three separate tabs on the game browser. With all due respect to Anet, the current browser is cumbersome and aesthetically displeasing, and just generally feels like the product of lazy design (not to mention the perpetual “world is full” bugs that plague it). Separate tabs would make navigating servers easier in general, since it would eliminate the dueling conflicts people are having while also giving 5v5 games a more proper place in the browser (instead of being buried beneath the 8v8’s).

I don’t really think this would be much more difficult than changing the text on the servers, so it would be nice if Anet could invest some time into cleaning it up soon. Honestly, though, I doubt we’ll see this sort of change before custom servers are released. Count me pleasantly surprised if we do.

Chi Malady.2015:

22k health and 2.1k armour? You also have absolutely no condition removal.

You will get shredded if caught by a burst/condition spec.

Doesn’t that go for most glass cannons, though? This is basically the standard 100B Warrior with 10 trait points shuffled (less GS damage for more fire fields and AoE damage) and a different secondary set. The loss of the Shield means you have less direct mitigation, but having the Longbow means you don’t always have to be standing directly in the line of fire, either. Warriors in general won’t hold up well against condition specs, so burst is the main factor he needs to consider, and I honestly don’t think this is a bad trade.

The Longbow has had a stigma against it since beta, but here it lets him bring more to a teamfight than he could with Axe/Shield and leaves him less vulnerable to kiting. I see it as sort of a preference thing, and still think Axe/Shield is a valid choice, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this spec stick around in the meta. It preserves the core of the 100B build while bringing a new style of utility to the table.

Nuka Cola.8520:

This game had free allocation of traits and they removed THAT?? Holy **** that’s not smart at all, anet. I had no idea this was in the game and even made a thread about this as a suggestion a week ago… They should seriously consider to change this back as it was so we can actually use traits we want to use and not be forced to spend points in a certain tree just for 1 trait…

As Ayestes said, it was a balance nightmare that promoted build homogeny, due to the power differences between various traits. Who’s going to take a trait like the Guardian’s Powerful Blades (5% 1h Sword and Spear damage) when you can take something like Right Hand Strength in the same line (15% crit chance with 1h weapons)? Putting 10-20 points in a trait line would usually get you everything worth taking from it, and then you just moved on to the next line. Tiers actually create more strategic decisions for players by increasing opportunity costs and preventing the most powerful traits from directly competing for slots with the weaker ones, and the system gives Anet an extra means of balancing builds. Since balance is a heated topic around here lately, taking away the tools they have for promoting balance would be a poor decision.

If, theoretically, every trait had the same power as every other trait, free allocation might be more feasible. Unfortunately, this isn’t a realistic scenario, and likely never will be – that’s just the nature of games that offer min-max friendly customization like this. The more freedom you give people, the worse balance is likely to be. I do agree that weak traits need to be cleaned up for all professions, however – too many feel like filler, and this isn’t helping the meta evolve.

Back on topic, my hopes for the 28th? Besides the aforementioned trait cleanup (I can dream, right?), maybe tune the current Ele builds down just a little bit, and make it so you have to aim the Thief’s Heartseeker. It’d also be cool to see lots of buffs to weaker aspects of all classes (Ranger Signets/Spirits, Necro Minions, Ele DPS builds, Thief Traps/Venoms, Warrior survivability, Engi kits, Mesmer Scepter/Torch, etc). As a blatantly-biased Guardian main, I’d also love some buffs for non-bunker builds (though I’m not holding my breath), and hope that any nerfs bunker Guards receive don’t hurt offensive specs too badly. That’s my wish list, at least – I’m not honestly expecting to see most of it, considering the rate changes come at.

Um, based on the bolded parts of his post, he’s not asking about anything specific to the meta – he’s asking how you go about convincing your team to try different compositions from the current meta, particularly when it may involve players having to change to classes they aren’t familiar with. In his case, he’s saying he doesn’t care if his team wants him to switch from a BS Thief to a PW Thief, because he’s familiar with both and the Thief class as a whole, but if his team needs him to switch his class to something he’s not familiar with for the sake of a new composition (he used Warrior as an example, but it could be Guardian, Ele, Mes, or whatever else), he wanted to know how exactly to deal with it.

The answer really comes down to the players involved. For the first question, if you’ve got a team of players who only know how to play one class each, and who have enjoyed good success with that composition, convincing them to switch things up will probably be hard. In such a scenario, your best bet would be to pitch the idea shortly after balance updates, when lots of players will be curious about new builds and experimenting with different tactics. If you’ve got a more flexible group that knows a wider range of classes, pitching the idea shouldn’t be that hard, and you just need to come up with a convincing argument about how your new comp can counter the current meta. You may or may not be right, but you need to give your team a reason to get excited about something new, and the promise of pioneering “new meta” is often a good way to do it. Finally, it might also help to expand your team past just 5 members, so you have a pool of players you can run different comps with (this also lets you practice at times when some members aren’t online, so it’s beneficial in multiple ways).

As for your second question, where you’re worried that your profession is going to be forced out of a new comp, there are a few possibilities. The first is simple – start learning how to play other professions. Other professions may or may not interest you for their own sake, but learning the details of how they work can be beneficial to your skill on your main profession, and you might even find that you like your new class. Besides being able to bring something new to your team, you’ll gain familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of these professions, common rotations and tactics they might use, and you might even be able to apply the knowledge to your main (for example, I main a tanky DPS Guardian, and after playing a glass cannon Necro for a while, my positional awareness with my Guardian improved dramatically). If you’ve never played a profession before, your team will hopefully be understanding of the time you’ll need to learn and master it. The second option, if you really don’t want to learn anything else, would be to negotiate with your team and try to figure out Thief builds that could fill the role they’re looking for – presumably, if they’re trying out new team comps, they should be receptive to new approaches and ideas (this may be more or less feasible depending on what role they’re looking for, of course). Finally, if neither you nor your team is willing to budge on the issue, recruiting more players to your team, as suggested above, will allow your team to test new compositions without forcing you to play something you don’t want to – the obvious drawback being that you’re sitting out those games. This isn’t a perfect solution by any means, but it’s probably the best you can do when compromise isn’t on the table.

Archer.1658:

As far as Brutaly is concerned he can go play his cookie cutter AH build in t1 and act like its impressive.

I enjoy the part where you dismiss viable, competitive Guardian builds handled by good players and go on to criticize other builds played in the worst possible ways. I sincerely hope you’re trolling.

Speaking from a PvP perspective, the metagame disagrees with your analysis. Guardians are considered mandatory for any competitive team, while Warriors of all varieties are lucky to be chosen for the 5th slot. A well-played 100B Warrior is not able to take down a well-played bunker Guardian without help – if they were able to, Warriors would be meta, rather than fringe choices. A typical bunker Guardian has access to multiple stun breaks, sources of Protection, extra dodges, Aegis, Stability, invulnerability skills. various forms of CC, and so on, and all of these forms of defense are excellent for disrupting the Warrior’s burst combos and/or mitigating their sustained output. The only time a Warrior is going to down a decent Guardian is when the Guardian is already occupied with/worn down by the Warrior’s teammates, and many classes would be capable of downing a Guardian in such a scenario. The Warrior, in general, is useful to a team when his combo is up, because a standard 100B combo is a glass cannon that isn’t suitable for prolonged combat against decent opponents.

In regard to your arguments about the 1h Sword…I really haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, and have to question if you’ve actually used the 1h Sword before. Flashing Blade missing? Maybe if you try to use it without taking a target first, or trying to cast it out of range, but otherwise, that simply doesn’t happen. Zealot’s Defense will miss in the same way that the Warrior’s 100B will miss if you don’t set it up – I would personally suggest leading with the Scepter’s Immobilize while mixing in Smite (which will also hit quite nicely if you set it up) and Flashing Blade for the gap closer (no need to waste JI, which you seem to be concerned about).

Overall, I have to agree with Brutaly that this is a L2P issue. Maybe Guardian simply isn’t the class for you, if you’ve played it for so long and haven’t seen good results. Many other people have come forth in this thread to claim that they do not struggle when using the Guardian, and, conversely, enjoy great success. As things stand, the fact is that Guardians are considered a critical class for high-level Fractals, TPvP, and serious WvW, while Warriors do not share that distinction. If Guardians are somehow terrible in spite of being required in all game areas, and in spite of thousands of players seeing superior results with them, I would love to know how that is.

From what I recall, this came up in the first state of the game discussion, and there were a couple of problems with AoE in its current state. The first is the natural impact AoE skills have in a game mode that encourages players to fight in (mostly) small areas, where movement outside of a specified zone is punished. If you can cover a point like the Keep or the Clocktower in AoE damage (which isn’t difficult at all, given the typical sizes of AoE skills), you put your opponents in a lose-lose situation, where they either surrender the point or try to eat the damage. The team that can pump out more AoE damage at whatever given time has an advantage in taking the point, and that doesn’t encourage very strategic approaches to capping. As you say, it takes more skill to avoid AoE than other forms of damage, but it doesn’t take any particular amount of skill to aim and cast AoE spells. By spamming AoE’s, you’re getting fairly large returns for a questionable investment.

I believe another problem noted was the effect AoE skills have on manual rezzing. It’s extremely difficult, if not completely impossible, to revive a player in the middle of certain popular AoE spells, which forces dependence on things like the Necro’s Signet of Undeath in team fights. This essentially limits which professions are capable of rezzing in these situations, which goes against core gameplay mechanics – the Necro is most certainly not meant to be GW2’s Monk. Downed state situations are perhaps the most important ones in the game, strategically speaking, and offer teams a chance to push their advantage or turn around a close fight. Being able to prevent revive attempts on downed players with something as easy to use as AoE damage could be seen as sapping complexity out of the game.

You may or may not agree, but you could essentially understand the changes as shifting where skill lies in the game, rather than simply reducing it. I doubt they’re going to make AoE damage useless, so positioning is still probably going to be very relevant, but now it may be reasonable to intentionally stand in the red circles for the sake of defending a point or getting an ally back up on their feet. That’s just my understanding of Anet’s position, though – I’m curious to hear what other people think.

Sprawl.3891:

I think sataar is jealous of powerr running a different comp sucessfully and trying to do it himself now.

Y’know, I’m okay with that. The meta has felt stale for a long time now, so if high level players are ready to start innovating, I really don’t care what their motivations are. In the long run, it’ll probably be healthy for the game and the way people approach the meta.

Best of luck to you guys with the Staff Ele – hopefully it works out, but if not, I’ll look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

BloodMyst.3296:

I really think that if a player has volunteered or is automatically chosen to switch teams then if their new team loses that loss should not be counted on their personal win/loss ratio, but if their team wins then they are credited with the win.

This way you still get the bonus for volunteering but you won’t be penalized for trying to balance the teams. I know it’s a stupid thing to complain over, but I really dislike the fact that my games played and games won tally doesn’t reflect the fact that easily 25% of my loses come from switching teams.

I’m pretty sure that the way it works now, if you volunteer and get swapped, you’re given the win regardless of the outcome of the match. At least, that’s what I’ve noticed from checking my record before and after volunteering, and I remember other players mentioning the same thing in the past. I believe the change was implemented at the same time as the 5 point volunteer bonus was added, but don’t quote me on that.

Also, old topic. =x

Divinity.8041:

What is this thief build you guys are talking about? Is there a general name for it besides zomg op face roll

They’re most likely referring to the standard Backstab burst build. Here’s a general template for the setup (copy/paste):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQNAoYVlUmaO3eS6E/5Ex2jeqTe6fgs6MoZLB;TsAg0Cno4ywlgLLXOukctsYQxECA

Equipment, traits and utilities will of course vary with preference, but the general idea is always the same – pump out the highest numbers you can in teamfights with SB, gank unsuspecting solo targets or those fighting your allies with the infamous Steal+CnD+BS combo, and clean up anything that’s left with HS.

In reply to the topic, I’d agree with everyone else that anything with good AoE damage and high mobility is what you’re looking for for glory farming. Trap Rangers, Well Necros, BS Thieves, and most styles of Mesmer/Ele are going to be safe bets for you. Warriors have good mobility but generally lack in the AoE department, since most of their skills that can hit multiple targets have a relatively small radius. You can achieve good results with them, but you’ll have to work harder than you would with other classes. For Engi, things like the Bomb kit can be your friend for AoE damage, though surprisingly, I’ve found that the Engi’s tank builds are also decent for getting high scores (250+), since you have high mobility (Speedy Kits) and can tie up a lot of players until your allies can help, meaning you end up getting consistent kill credit. For Guardian, a GS build would be your best bet, since it has the most consistent AoE damage and mobility. You could try to leech kill credit with a Staff, but you’re unlikely to be killing anything on your own with most Staff builds. Hammer is the Guardian’s other primary AoE weapon, but it doesn’t offer any mobility and has a slower killing speed, so it’ll be harder to compete with other high-scoring classes.

Shukran.4851:

@andyj.5809 : well u read almost all the post so i am quite happy oh and enjoy the report

@Turbo Whale.1738 : i sayd and i repeat HS is strong, but why it is strong? because thief put all his effort in damage output gear and traits. obviously his skills does so much damage. but HS doesn’t give any kind of protection, so in the time you leap at the target u can be focused. and a thief with 14k hp with no protection during skill animation means that he must (should) think about risk/reward everytime he “spam” hs.

try to play every class with berserk – scholar – 25/30/x/x/x and see how long you live.

HS doesn’t offer any protection, no, but why would you use it to leap into a situation where you can be focused (implying 2 or more living enemy players in the battle)? Doesn’t that go against the very core of Thief gameplay, and better describe a situation where you should be standing back with a Shortbow?

Typically when I get hit by HS, it’s by a roaming Thief who used it to end a 1v1 I was having with another player. I haven’t experienced many Thieves wading into teamfights to use it, and that’s because (as far as I’m aware) most Thieves prefer to save it for low-risk situations, where their target is weakened, outnumbered, or 1v1’ing. In these sort of situations, HS ensures very, very high returns without requiring the player to do anything besides look at the opponent’s HP and press a button. No aiming or positioning is required, and this is what is most upsetting about HS. Its spammable nature isn’t even the issue – if someone wants to burn all of their initiative trying to finish me, let them go ahead. The problem is that they even have a chance to kill me by mindlessly pressing a single button, when my survival is likely to require considerably more effort on my part.

In my eyes, the only players who should be opposed to an aiming requirement on HS are bad thieves. Good thieves don’t need the autotargeting – presumably, they’ve had to aim other skills before, and being able to successfully aim HS will help set them apart from the mindless HS spammers plaguing hotjoin. As a good thief, your gameplay will be unaffected as soon as you get used to aiming HS, and you’ll probably get a lot more recognition for your abilities when bad thieves are launching themselves halfway across the map with the skill.

I sense that this topic is quickly going to become another full-fledged argument about everyone’s favorite stealth profession, but in general, I agree with the OP that skills which don’t take much effort to use shouldn’t be as rewarding as skills that do, or should at the very least come with significant risks/drawbacks (such as the infamous Hundred Blades).

I use a Naga Hex, so all of my weapon skills, utility skills and my elite are bound to 1-6 and Shift+1-3. WASD movement, dodge Q, jump E, autorun R, Call target T (none of this CTRL+T business – that’s for assisting). Z-V is the profession mechanic. F is interact, TAB is weapon swap.

My most important keybind? Heal on the Space bar. It’s a huge, easy-to-reach key set apart from most of the others, so I never have to worry about hitting it by accident while I’m moving or using skills. Most people have Space set as jump, but I prefer jump with the rest of my movement keys, since it makes it easier to manipulate midair movement, and if I hit it by mistake, consequences are minimal (compared to something like putting a skill on cooldown in a close fight).

Trigr.6481:

Everyone is aware that the qp system is a sad excuse of judging your experience yet you use it as a benchmark? This thread was intended for those who needed advice but yet your being bias about who goes where? So much for helping the newcomer

Even if the QP system isn’t ideal for gauging player skill, how else are you going to judge who’s qualified to give advice about paid tournaments at this stage? There are probably plenty of highly-skilled players out there who have never or rarely set foot into paid tournaments for one reason or another, but just because they’re skilled doesn’t mean you want them teaching other players about something they aren’t familiar with. If you have enough QP to be on the ladder, it means you’ve been through enough paids to have some idea of what you’re talking about. The QP ladder is a poor system for ranking because it mostly rewards time commitment and the success of a team above the skill of the individual, but it’s still a decent measure of experience in paids.

That said, I think this is an awesome idea for reviving some interest in PvP, and once it picks up some steam, I’d also encourage advertising this service in the PvP lobbies, so more people will become aware of its existence. I’d definitely recommend coming up with some sort of name for the project, and perhaps making a guild that helpers can represent so they’re recognizable in-game when they’re taking questions. Wonderful as it is, this idea can’t help PvP if most people aren’t aware of it, so good publicity is going to be critical to its success.

Good runes for damage include Divinity, Ogre, Air, and (if you’re going full glass cannon) Scholar. Divinity works well with high-crit builds and has the advantage of giving you some extra bulk. Ogre will give you excellent sustained damage regardless of your crit rate, both from the passive boosts and the Rock Dog (the Rock Dog, besides hitting hard, benefits from your activated Virtues and can track stealthed characters). Air doesn’t give much in the way of stats for damage, but the Lightning strike it can proc can hit for up to 5k damage on glassy opponents. Although you didn’t indicate this in your post, if you want to play a glass cannon Guardian (which I don’t personally recommend), Scholar will give you the highest damage output, but you need to really know what you’re doing to make it work, and even then, other classes can do the job better than the Guardian. 5x Scholar and 1 Divinity is also a high-damage setup that can be suitable for some non-glass builds, doing more damage than 6x Divinity at the cost of some defensive stats.

If you’re looking to make your offensive build tankier, Runes of the Forge, Earth, Dolyak, and Soldier (if using Shouts) would be decent options. These are pretty self-explanatory, and may not be relevant to your build, so I’ll leave it at that.

Sigils are pretty straightforward – Fire and Bloodlust are your basic sustained DPS tools, though you can use Rage if you want to be more bursty (just remember that its cooldown will block the effects of your on-crit and on-swap sigils for 45 seconds after every time Rage activates). Force/Accuracy can be used if you’re running a mainhand and offhand set, but you’ll typically only bring them along if you’ve already got an on-crit sigil (Fire) on the set, and Bloodlust is still usually preferable. If you want to be tankier and don’t mind losing a little DPS, Blood can make a good replacement for Fire and give you some decent lifesteal. Lastly, if you really feel you need more defense, Energy is always a good choice for Guardians (just keep the cooldown rules in mind, since like Rage, it’ll block your Fire Sigils while it’s recharging, and vice-versa).

There are lots of ways to build an offensive Guardian, but the builds above are some of the most prevalent, and should let you deal plenty of damage with the GS. If you want to try something more advanced for TPvP, you could try Kaypud’s far-point harasser build, linked below, though I’ll warn you that playing it is less intuitive than playing either of the builds described above, and you may be better off with something else.

http://www.teampz.com/threads/kaypuds-offensive-guardian.35/

Odarion.2947:

I’m looking for more of a solo pvp 2h build where I can just roll people alone. Another build that is great for Tpvp that’s a 2h build as well would be nice, but I want my main job to be dmg dealer.

Those are the kinds of builds I’m looking for. Any suggestions?

Thanks

With the exception of the Staff as the second weapon, the build that Alarox linked should be pretty close to what you’re looking for in PvP. If you don’t want the Staff, the Hammer or Scepter (with the offhand of your choice) would both complement the GS, and the 1h Sword can work well if you don’t mind losing the ranged capability the Scepter would bring to the table. One optional change would be to drop Shelter and Blind Exposure for Signet of Resolve and Signet Mastery, which provides extra condition removal (very important for Guardians) and a much larger base heal on a very similar cooldown. Shelter, generally speaking, is the choice for glassy Guardians or bunker builds, since it can’t really be interrupted (with a few exceptions) and can make up for the difference in healing by mitigating damage outright (which may amount to more HP gained if you’re being focused). Shelter also synergizes with the Might of the Protector trait, if timed well.

Alternatively, you can go with a 10/25/30/X/X build, which will let you take advantage of both the Fiery Wrath and Radiant Power traits the Guardian possesses for +20% damage to burning targets. You’ll want the same utility setup as in the build Alarox posted, perhaps switching SYG for Contemplation of Purity if you find you need more cleansing/healing and aren’t having problems with CC. Hammer of Wisdom is also an option if you need more burst and control, but Stability, stun-breaking, and cleansing will probably take priority. The major traits will also be similar to Alarox’s build, but the last 5 points can be used either for 30 Radiance, 5 Honor, or 5 Virtues. All of these options will give you an excellent trait: Right Hand Strength in Radiance, if you decide to take a 1h Sword or a Scepter along with your GS and want more damage; Vigorous Precision in Honor, which will give you permanent Vigor while in combat, allowing you to mitigate a lot of damage, and Inspired Virtue, which will make you much more durable (Protection on Courage is invaluable) and which will let you burst harder (active Justice is a big part of our DPS).

In general, the Amulets you’ll be looking at for offensive Guardians are Berserker’s (glassy), Knight’s (balanced) and possibly Soldier’s (tanky, typically used in bunkers or 1h offensive builds). Experiment with them and see which suits you, though you can usually get away with a Berserker’s Jewel in the Knight’s or Soldier’s Amulets, and may sometimes want a Knight’s Jewel in the Berserker’s.

(Continued)

khefka.2804:

Sounds like you had 20 in virtues and respec’d, lost the boon duration you were used to.

I think that this has to be the case, unless you’re remembering the durations you had incorrectly. The last changes to Shout duration were cutting SY down from 10 to 5 seconds in SPvP, and before that, increasing the Aegis and Swiftness durations on Retreat from 15 to 20 seconds (back in beta). If you haven’t respecced, you might have also changed runes/equipment giving you bonus boon duration.

In case people haven’t seen, this thread was originally posted 3 months ago. Probably time to let it die again.

I’ll start by saying that if you’re playing a 2v1 against good opponents, you probably won’t win. However, in situations where you don’t have any choice but to engage (e.g. your team needs you to keep a couple people tied up somewhere, you’re desperate to defend a point but help can’t come in time, etc.), your response is going to vary depending on your build. If you’re a bunker, do what you always do – 2v1 shouldn’t be anything unusual for you. If not, aggressive play is the key – you need to put whichever enemy you think is going to drop fastest under some sort of pressure and force them to go on the defensive. An enemy who’s trying to stay alive isn’t going to be able to focus on killing you at the same time, so you’re taking less fire than you would be if you just tried kiting both players or turtling. Unless you’ve got a lot of AoE, splitting your fire between them won’t be efficient and is most likely going to end up with you on the ground alone.

In the scenario you offered, Guardian and Thief, focus the Thief and try to catch him with whatever burst/CC/AoE your build can offer – don’t let him stealth, but if he does, remember that you can still hit him if you have some idea of where he is. Keep pressure as high as you can until your target goes down, while trying to pace your cooldowns (especially your defensive ones). If you burn everything you have killing one player, great, you got the kill, but you’re probably going down right afterward, and that’s not ideal. Similarly, if your opponents manage to break your offensive momentum and relieve pressure on the more fragile player, the fight is probably lost, so try to keep some tricks in reserve to help get you bounce back from interference.

In order to secure the kill, it helps immensely to have access to Blinds, Blocks, Stealth, Stability, Quickness, or Invulnerability of some kind (Poison can also be useful for slowing down revives). A mix of the above is ideal, and this makes some classes, such as Guardians, Thieves, and Rangers, naturally more suited to handling downed players on the field. If you can’t safely go for the stomp, back off and use ranged damage to pressure your downed foe while you kite and wear down the other – AoE can be a big help here, since it’ll let you accomplish both tasks simultaneously. If you’re in a position to down both opponents in rapid succession, try to keep some distance between them, to limit their ability to protect each other with their downed skills (unless, again, you have good AoE damage ready to go).

Finally, your specific approach will probably change based on the types of opponents you’re fighting, but there’s too much potential variation here for me to give advice that isn’t really just common sense. Generally, just be smart, and know that fighting a pair of say, glass cannons, is going to go down differently than fighting a pair of balanced builds. Once you know what you’re fighting, you can adapt the above strategies to handle your opponents appropriately (or at least put up a good fight before you drop).

In summary:

-Focus the more vulnerable player
-Pace your defensive skills as much as possible
-Have something ready to secure the stomp
-AoE can help a lot
-Play with your opponents’ builds in mind

It’s pretty basic stuff when you lay it out like that, but of course, the execution is where it gets tricky. Best of luck with it!

jkctmc.8754:

Kerithlan.1659:

jkctmc.8754:

Bakitten291:

jkctmc.8754:

In WvW……

As my Warrior, I’m going to kill you every single time we engage. You just can not handle the damage my build puts out, nor do the damage needed to kill me. Running 3100 attack, 3200 armor, and over 50% crit hit (65% crit with full adrenaline) with Knights Armor, you just do not stand a chance as a Guardian in killing me.

Shelter eating a 100b and giving me might on every block would say otherwise. Not saying warriors arent tough and can deal alot of damage but even the best geared are still killable. Its just dependant on avoiding the big bursts they can do, and using the right defenses at the right time. Focus #5, shelter, and aegis use can negate alot of damage warriors can put out. Te biggest thing is just watching for the quickness buff with warriors. The second you see it throw up a block and eat their burst.

I don’t use Greatsword brother. And “if” I have the quickness buff up on my bar, I’m going to stun, or knock you down long before I use it. <grins>

You act as though playing against guardians doesn’t come along with having stupid amounts of stability/stun breaks.

You can’t stun break a knockdown, and you sound like you think the Warrior only has access to one stun. While your stun breaks are on long cooldown timers, my stuns, and knockdowns are on smaller timers, thanks to the Mace Adrenaline ability.

Even if it becomes a battle of attrition, because you’re a meditation build, I still win the fight.

You can indeed use stun breaks on knockdowns – I do so frequently in PvP, breaking them and getting back on my feet in a fraction of a second rather than 2-3. Stun and Knockdown are functionally the same thing – only the animation is different. Test it yourself on the Warrior NPC in the Mists – you can instantly end any knockdown he uses on you with a stun break. If your opponents aren’t using stun breaks on your knockdowns, it either means that their stun breaks are on cooldown, that they’re trying to save them for later in the fight, or that they’re simply bad.

Also, not to say that your Warrior spec can’t or doesn’t do well against Guardians, but the most popular/powerful stun breaker the Guardian has is Stand Your Ground, which can be traited down to a 24 second cooldown (not terribly long) and which grants 5+ seconds of Stability on use. That’s at least 20% uptime if you have the trait, which isn’t bad at all for something as powerful as Stability. A Guardian using it will block all CC for that period, so it doesn’t matter how many control skills you have on your bar.

Speaking from my own experience, I play a tanky DPS Guardian in PvP, and when I face CC/Damage Warriors in matches, I’ll combine SYG with Blind and Aegis to soak up the CC and create a window to exert my own pressure, which is also a mix of CC and damage. Aegis, Blind, Immobilize, Stability, knockdowns, knockbacks, dodges with perma-vigor, and Renewed Focus are all a part of my defensive rotations, and unless a Warrior is entirely dedicated to CC, he’s not going to be able to keep me down through all of that (and if he is, he’s easy pickings for other reasons).

Again, not saying that you’re not capable of locking down and killing Guardians with your build – I’m sure you do so on a regular basis. However, there are many ways Guardians can respond to CC outside of stun breaks, and good ones are going to make themselves hard to pin down through their various sources of mitigation.

Caffynated.5713:

So you weren’t being sarcastic in the last thread?

/faithinhumanity off

We have really different definitions of what 1 second is.

The first fight, you initiate at 0:12 and down your target at 0:16.
The second fight, you initiate at 0:42 and down your target at 0:47. You weren’t alone
The third fight, you initiate at 1:07 and down your target at 1:11.

The deeps is nice, but compared to thief, ele, warrior, and mesmer, 3-5 seconds is barely considered burst damage.

I’m pretty sure he’s just extending his satire about how people QQ on these forums. Replace the Guardian in these videos with burst Thieves and Mesmers, and you’d have dozens of people jumping in to complain about how OP those classes are, despite the fact that we’ve seen the same threads done to death since release. Posting another thread about it is, as I understand it, just mocking the abundance of threads about Thieves and Mesmers, and isn’t a serious complaint about burst Guardians. So you can hold on to your faith in humanity for a little while longer. =P

Piercing projectiles on ZD would be cool, I have to admit. The small, single-target burst damage that it does right now definitely feels limiting sometimes, especially considering the move’s low accuracy at range. A boost to FB would also be nice, but honestly, it might be overkill, too – there’s really nothing inherently wrong with a blind and a teleport on a 10 second cooldown. It’s a solid defensive mobility spell, so I have a hard time convincing myself that it needs more damage or Fury or something added to it.

Also, I still don’t understand why people think Sword just does single-target damage…every swing of the autoattack chain is AoE. Every part of the chain has a range longer than the GS’s autoattack (#1 and #2 are 150 range, compared to the GS’s 130, and the #3 is 300 range in a cone). I never have trouble hitting groups of enemies all at once with the sword, and frequently kill multiple enemies at a time with it. If you have trouble hitting 3+ enemies with the sword simultaneously, you need to work on your positioning, because the potential is most definitely there.

I posted a build that’s fairly similar to yours in a thread the other day – it’s very much a tank, able to hold 3v1 for quite a while, but it’s not helpless when the time comes to fight back. Here it is, if you’d like to swap notes, so to speak (copy/paste the link):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQJAqelspicnvSdF17IxIFdW0hUgfDL6xjp8kB;TsAA1CtoQygkAJLSOkkINW4IyUEA

The big difference in our builds is that I stuck to the Pistol/Shield, and I made that choice for two reasons. The first is that I find the Shield skills to be a major part of the Tankcat build’s defense and control, and I frequently use them to fill in the gaps when my other defensive skills are on cooldown (the extra armor is a bonus). The second is that Pistol/Shield lets me bring along 2 Sigils. I wanted some sort of passive damage boost (I chose Corruption, though this may change), but with the Engi’s flexible weapon swap mechanics, the Sigil of Superior Battle is too much to pass up on in a Might-stacking build, so having 2 slots solves the problem. The build can easily climb to and maintain 15+ stacks of might in battles, and I usually top out somewhere in the 17-20 range by the time I kill my opponent or get overwhelmed. All that Might makes my direct damage hit hard (4k Prybar crits), but it also pumps my condition damage from Bleeding and Confusion up to respectable levels.

Other notable differences between our builds:

-I opted for Elixir S over R. Both are good choices for the build, but I find S invaluable for its invulnerability, which allows me to stomp and rez very easily (the former is especially important when fighting multiple foes), and which also just helps me tank.

-I specced into Inventions to synergize with P/S, though Firearms makes sense for a rifle variation. I’ll have stronger overall defense, while you’ll have a better base crit (I can still get decent crit with Elixir B and Hidden Flask, but I’ll never rise above 24%).

-I took reduced Elixir cooldowns for more Might stacking and defense, and considering how many CC’s I manage to block outright with things like Elixir S, I found it more useful than Protection Injection.

-The final trait difference is that I run with Speedy Kits, which basically serves the same role as Kit Refinement for you – better kiting, though SK also gives me high general mobility, and I’d actually recommend swapping to it for your build to take advantage of the extra utility it offers.

-Last thing: Ogre Runes are usually my preference for damage. Might-duration boosters are tempting, but honestly aren’t necessary with 20+ seconds base durations, you get a flat +4% damage boost with Ogre, and the Rock Dog can add a lot of damage over time while tracking down stealthed characters for you.

Anyways, hope this was helpful! I personally think it’s one of the more entertaining Engi builds to play, so I wish you the best of luck with whatever you come up with.

I’ve been using a modified version of mischwoof’s TANKCAT build as a sort of tanky-DPS PvP build. It definitely favors the role of “tank” over “DPS” – I’ve held some 3v1’s for several minutes at a time with it. However, when you build to 10-15+ stacks of Might in battle (which is not unusual at all), your attacks really do start to hurt (Prybar crits for 3-4k, not to mention buffed confusion damage afterward).

Copy/paste the URL:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQJAqelspicnvSdF17IxIFdW0hUgfDL6xjp8kB;TsAA1CtoQygkAJLSOkkINW4IyUEA

The basic idea is to tank/kite opponents with your Shield skills, Tool Kit skills (especially #4), Elixir S, and dodges while building up Might to buff both your direct damage and condition damage. Mobility is critical, and you should be swapping kits frequently (you need to in order to take advantage of all your defensive cooldowns, but you also get Swiftness for doing so, which is important for kiting, and 3 stacks of Might every 9 seconds, which will help you fight back). Don’t forget about your toolbelt Elixirs, since you’re getting at least 2 stacks of Might from each of those, as well. Lastly, as with the original TANKCAT build, Confusion and Retaliation is a strong combo against fast-hitting classes, so try to combine Elixir B and Prybar/Static Shot when you can to melt them down.

Hope this was helpful!

Edit: Forgot to mention, Ogre runes are there because I found I was surviving just fine, and I wanted more offensive presence. The Power stats, Rock Dog, and 4% base damage boost do an excellent job of providing that, and the Rock Dog will also sometimes sniff out stealthed characters for me, which is useful.

Ojimaru.8970:

Gunning for this new rune for my Cleric’s armor set to synergise with Healing Breeze.

The internal cooldown on these runes is probably going to disappoint you. HB stacks effects from things like Healer’s Retribution because they don’t have an ICD. Your first pulse will activate the effect, but the remaining 4 won’t, because the 10 second ICD will kick in after the first. You’ll only get the 3 stacks of Might and single stack of Fury.

This rune would mostly be for classes that can spam their heal quickly – for instance, Engineers with Med Kit, who would be able to proc the effects as often as the 10 second cooldown allows. The boons would synergize with AH, and it does give us a source of Fury that we don’t have otherwise, but there’s not likely to be any powerful new Guardian builds based specifically on this rune.

Same for me – it’s been most noticeable with my Guardian’s Virtues and my Ranger’s Lightning Reflexes. It’s ended up costing me quite a few deaths, since it usually seems to happen when I’m getting pounded on 2v1 or 3v1. >_>

Not that that’s anything more than anecdotal evidence, but I also thought it had something to do with my keys or latency. Perhaps not.

I’ve used the following build with great success since beta:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBlYDbkoqyOuyui1SQ0ekJOhJ2D+7oH9F4FkxK1wqB;TsAgyCuo8xAjAG7MOfkzs8YsweBA

The build is basically a tweaked version of your typical Trap ranger. The Carrion Amulet gives you high HP and lets your Sword hit reasonably hard without sacrificing condition damage. Since the build doesn’t run a Torch or Dagger, it has slightly less access to Poison and Burning, but you get more team support and personal mobility in exchange. Also, Hunter’s Call + Rampage as One = Lots of Might for your pet.

The specifics of the build are really a matter of personal preference. I prefer a Black Moa as my second pet over the Krytan Drakehound because of the Daze and healing it offers, but you can use whatever else you like. Runes and Sigils can also be changed around, but I find that stacking some sort of bleeding duration makes a considerable difference in damage output, so I personally wouldn’t stack less than +30%. I like having an extra Corruption Sigil on my Shortbow because it’s the build’s primary weapon, and I don’t want to be switching away from it whenever I’m trying to get a kill, but you could run Agony or something if you prefer. Also, Bark Skin is a good alternative to Empathic Bond, since the build has good HP and doesn’t need to fear conditions as much as a Ranger running the Rabid or Shaman’s Amulets does. Try stuff out and see what you like.

Final note: try to reserve your pet swaps for when an ally/enemy goes down. There are exceptions to that rule, of course, but fast stomping/reviving is one of the most important things a Ranger can bring to a team, and you don’t want to lose a kill or let an ally die because you swapped your pet when it wasn’t necessary. You can and will win team fights by using your swaps carefully.

Hope this helped!

Pure speculation, since I’ve never run into a tie situation before, but maybe it was because the Red team had more glory points accumulated than the Blue? Last kill may also be a possibility, but I feel like individual player points make for a better tiebreaker category.

Edit: Ninja’d

FuVirus.6398:

Soryuju.8164:

I’m going to have to agree that this buff was a negative change for the metagame, since the Shatter spec was already the dominant Mesmer spec in tournament play, and one considered almost as mandatory for teams as bunker Guardians. Now the same spec that was already considered top-tier for tourney play is running around with 9+ stacks of Might, so there’s no room for other Mesmer specs in competitive play. I’d love to run a Legion build or something, but if I do, I’m handicapping myself and my team right off the bat, because there’s such a massive difference in power between the specs.

If anything, Shatters needed to be toned down a bit last patch. Not by much, but enough to allow other styles of Mesmer to appear in the metagame (many other Mesmer builds are already strong, and just can’t quite compare to the Shatter spec). Now, even when I’ve gone into Hotjoin recently, I’ve only seen one type of Mesmer build, and that’s the Shatter build. That, in my opinion, indicates that something’s off with balance.

Lol wow since when do any of you guys play mesmer? shatter did not get buffed at all…. Phantasesms did…….

Um, Phantasms were debugged, not buffed. They’re still weaker than they were a few months ago, when they didn’t need LOS and attacked instantly upon summon. The underwater phantasms got some direct boosts, but everything else involved tooltip updates, fixing the bugged attack rate, and restoring bugged damage on Phantasms like the Berserker.

And…how can you possibly say Shatter specs didn’t get buffed at all? It’s right in the patch notes from the 14th:

Shattered Strength: Increased to three stacks of might and ten second duration.

Edit @ Levetty: I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say Anet is trying to completely stop legion builds (considering how many traits involve buffing phantasms and clones), but I think it’s a spec you have to be very careful with balancing, since so much of the damage comes from the AI. You have to make the Phantasms it uses strong enough to be worth playing, but if you make them too strong, bad players can use them as a crutch to compensate for low skill. Then you’ve just got another FOTM class until the nerf bat comes down.

As noted above, though, Phantasms were at least put back close to where they used to be this past patch, so we’ll see where it goes from here. I don’t think they’ll see any competitive play with Shatter specs where they are now, though.

I’m going to have to agree that this buff was a negative change for the metagame, since the Shatter spec was already the dominant Mesmer spec in tournament play, and one considered almost as mandatory for teams as bunker Guardians. Now the same spec that was already considered top-tier for tourney play is running around with 9+ stacks of Might, so there’s no room for other Mesmer specs in competitive play. I’d love to run a Legion build or something, but if I do, I’m handicapping myself and my team right off the bat, because there’s such a massive difference in power between the specs.

If anything, Shatters needed to be toned down a bit last patch. Not by much, but enough to allow other styles of Mesmer to appear in the metagame (many other Mesmer builds are already strong, and just can’t quite compare to the Shatter spec). Now, even when I’ve gone into Hotjoin recently, I’ve only seen one type of Mesmer build, and that’s the Shatter build. That, in my opinion, indicates that something’s off with balance.

Speaking from a PvP perspective, Torch is definitely a specialized offhand, and I was initially skeptical of its worth, but actually testing it has led me to believe it does have its uses. It’s not going to find its way into nearly as many builds as the Focus or Shield, but if you’re running an aggressive Guardian, it’ll pump your numbers for sure. If I’m not mistaken, one of the Guardian builds on the Team PZ forums includes a Torch as an offhand, so it’s not necessarily restricted to casual play, either.

Zealot’s Flame is an excellent pressure skill for close-quarters combat. Besides the damage you get from AoE burning, builds running Fiery Wrath and Radiant power will get a +20% damage bonus on all nearby enemies for 6-10 seconds (less if they cleanse, of course), which is huge. With Virtue of Justice, ZFlame makes it easy to keep opponents on fire for a large percentage of the time, so that 20% bonus sticks around. Activating Zealot’s Fire will trade the last 3 seconds of burning and normal cooldown for a big damage spike, which, as others have said, can crit for 4-6k at range. Considering the Guardian’s low access to spike damage and ranged damage, this is a very nice complement to an offensive build’s skill set. If you’re using this to end a fight, the increased cooldown isn’t that big of a concern, though if not, it’s best used with discretion.

Cleansing Flame is also a much better skill than most people seem to give it credit for. I imagine its bad reputation comes mostly from those trying to use it as a single-target DPS move in close combat, which is the worst possible way to use it. Cleansing Flame excels in three situations: team fights, chasing weakened opponents, and mauling CC’d targets.

In team fight situations, Cleansing Flame can hit multiple allies and opponents, cleaning conditions off of allies (fantastic support) and dealing considerable damage to multiple foes. Against a single target, CF won’t offer better DPS than the 1h Sword’s autoattack, but when you’ve got a lot of bunched up enemies, it does much better than the 1h Sword.

Outside of team fights, CF is an excellent chasing tool for when you’ve got a weakened opponent kiting you. Getting within 400 range isn’t hard when you’ve got the Sword’s Flashing Blade or the Scepter’s Chains of Light to help narrow the gap, and CF’s steady stream of damage will often put low-health foes over the edge more quickly and easily than the Sword or Scepter could.

Lastly, if you pair the Torch with the Scepter, you can use it to absolutely destroy opponents who you catch with CoL or who are otherwise immobile. ZFlame>CoL>Smite>ZFire>CF is the basic rotation, and it can put out a lot of damage in a very short time frame (ZFire and CF alone can sometimes reach 10k, and the burning/Smite damage is just icing on the cake. Mix in Virtue of Justice if you’re feeling mean).

Overall, Torch is not for all builds, but if your build can handle less defense than the Shield or Focus would offer, it’s very nice for offensive utility and some spike damage.

mouse.1689:

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Rangers downed pet heal is Astonishingly strong underwater… I killed a ranger underwater today on Capricorn (1v1) and we had mid, there were 2 sharks chomping on him and me DPSing him in his downed state, his downed damage ended up downing me, AND HE REZZED from his pet with 2 sharks and me damaging him. It was ridiculous, since you can’t stomp underwater. The ranger whispered me and was laughing “lol that just happened, that kitten is op.” I couldn’t believe it. We really need to be able to stomp someone underwater.

Second this. Had a similar experience on Capricorn a couple nights ago, except it was 3 players beating on a downed Ranger on the point for over 30 seconds. He was outhealing the damage, and would have rezzed had the game not ended.

Anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but it’s pretty ridiculous. Underwater stomps would be nice, but barring that, Ranger’s rez may need tweaks for water specifically.

I’m honestly amazed this hasn’t gotten more attention, but I guess it’s just because most people avoid underwater combat as much as possible. Rangers are far and away the strongest underwater class, more so than Thieves, simply because of their UW downed state. Whenever I take my Ranger out onto Capricorn and fight at the Ruins, I just consider whatever damage I can do to opponents before going down as bonus damage. Downed state is when the battle actually begins. Unless you get 3+ players and sharks focusing you, you’re pretty much guaranteed to win any fight once you go into downed state. Fun as that is, it needs to be addressed.

This is also the reason Ranger and Warrior projectiles had their speed buffed this patch – you could just strafe at a distance to make all of their attacks miss until they moved in close, at which point you’ve neutralized the advantage of fighting at range. The fact that other slow projectiles received buffs this patch has left many Guardians scratching their heads about the Scepter’s exclusion, particularly in light of the fact that Guardians lack soft CC like cripple, and most of the CC they do have is on 20+ second cooldowns. Due to the low speed and potential for enemies to evade the projectiles in the way you described, the Scepter is not an effective weapon outside of 600 range.

I like it much better this way. A few thousand glory will get you decent-sized bags for all of your characters, so there’s no more betting on the RNG for them, and I like how this will clear out room for gear and other rewards in chests. Unless you’re really trying to save your glory to spend exclusively on chests, this system should be an improvement for people trying to get bags through PvP.