Guild Wars 2

1) It depend on what you will want to do. Personnally I stayed out of crafting and tome or all that kind of stuff that speed up your levelling on my first character. The first character is fun to level up, but when you get to your 3rd and 4th alt its when you like to speed things up and don’t waste time leveling them. But other ppl just want 1 character ever so keeping them for later will be useless. It really depend on what you prefer and it won’t affect you in any good or bad ways that you used them now or later.

2) No you can’t PvP in PvE map.

Behellagh.1468:

Problem with fractals is the teaming requirement. Dungeons are also PvE and we don’t get them as PvE dailies so why is it okay with Fractals?.

GW2 is a MMO right? I think that the first M stand for Multiplayer right? Just checking.

shion.2084:

So basically the Assassin meta relies on the fact that you are using nades? I run bomb/EG/random as I disilike nades. So would it then be suboptimal for me? I do take traits that proc off crits, like burning…. My thought had always been this is an only if you run gernades thing…

I didn’t do the math for a non nade build and never saw trust worthy number for non nades build. After all ppl that take time to that kind of stuff try to do it for optimal setup. So I can’t tell you if you are better with assassins or zerker for your build.

My instinct tell me that Zerker will be better for you (I could be wrong on that), but keep in mind that whatever setup or profession you are using the difference between Assassins and Zerker is ALWAYS pretty small. You can either go zerker gear or assassins gear and still do pretty decent.

I don’t have anything to add for your question 1&2).

3) Elementalist have the highest dmg in the game, but that damage come mostly from Damage modifiers. All profession have accept to those in their trait, but none can access as many as the Elementalist can in a single build. Since dmg modifier are multiplicative and you can take even more with runes, sigils and potion, then the dmg of the Elementalist will drastically change depending on how many you are able to get. From terrible dmg if you take non to godly dmg if you take most of them.

4) Marmatt explained it perfectly

5) Like Marmatt said there is diverse way for the Elementalist to heal himself or others. But as Guardians of Angels pointed out, GW2 PvE is all about avoiding damage and not really healing after being damage. Healing power don’t scale a lot and everybody have a healing skill that is strong by itself without trying to buff it.

voxrar.2859:

Guardian only being into removal and boons.

Removal and boons are like the less important things the guardian can bring as defensive support. I don’t say that they are not good, but Aegis, Blind and Reflect are far more important.

voxrar.2859:

I barely see Engis in dungeon runs. Are they rare? Are they needed by may in Fractal runs?

No profession are ’’needed’’ for anything. But engineers are pretty good. They kind of fall between two stools so they are not part of most records run. But the vast majority of group don’t do record run. They are still 3rd best dps in the game.

The reason why no that many ppl play Engineer compare to other profession is for two reason in my opinion.

The ideal rotation can be hard to get. You gonna switch between your weapons and 2 or 3 kits and it can be difficult for some ppl to pull that off.

The second reason is the aesthetics of the profession. Not only engineer seem out of context in a fantasy game the kits and weapons settings of the profession limit the customization. Its hard to make a legendary on your engineer since half the time you will be on a kit and when you are on a kit it can screw up your skin and your back item will disappear. Engineer was my first character and that’s the reason why I changed my main to guardian. Not because Engineer wasn’t good, but because I had more liberty in customizing my guardian over my engineer.

Ya its not like its hard to find a ordinary LFG or create one yourself. I’m talking for myself and problably a good portion of those elitist zerker, but we don’t mind if you are not 100% zerker and meta, just make a intelligent mix for yourself. There is a difference between someone using the meta but take a defensive skills and a couple of more defensive gear pieces and someone going full healing or full tanky. 99% of ppl will have fun playing with the first, but the second will have a hard time finding friend in some party.

Kodiak.3281:

I really don’t get why people have such a hard time with reading comprehension around here.

Because you give bad advice to ppl?

CoryTrance.8739:

I’m curious on what I should look for as a end result. In terms of stats such as power and condition damage etc. Also what end game gear should I look into?

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/11/gw2-elementalist-pve-class-guide-by-haviz-and-zelyhn/

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Staff_Conjure

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/first

Here the best sources of information about staff Ele. Keep in mind that its the optimized form of staff Ele and it can be really hard to play. Ele is the most glass canon profession in this game. There is other option like Kodiak said. They are optimized option, but they exist. Ideally if you find that meta build are too hard for you , you could swap a bit of stuff from zerker to celestial or soldier or valkyrie to give you a bit of a safety net. But those three guide are what your end goal should be if you want to optimized your build.

Lawful.5314:

Wow i hate how people are so serious about the " Well it took us 3 years to realize how to play elementalist"

No guys, thats a ton of bull, there were good elementalists right off the bat, it doesn’t take you longer than a few months to figure out how to play a class very effeciently.

The only reason why elementalists became better at something is:

1. They got buffed
2. Everyone else got gradually nerfed/balanced.

There is no, it took us 3-4 years to realize they are great, people always knew elementalists were universal but it just wasn’t there, there were jack of all trades but master at none so they couldn’t get the job done completely.

If they became viable and competent, the reason isn’t that people finally discovered it, please.

The game is less than 2.5 years old so calm down with your 3-4 years. Anyway here is the history of Elementalist PvE build.

Kitsune posted the first iteration of the current meta build in March 2013. It was about Light Hammer and stacking damage modifier, but lacked the might stacking.

Early June 2013 we start to see ppl posting might-stacking rotation like Hamartia.

By the end of June Neko posted a completle guide merging S/D might stacking with the LH+Damage modifier. That was the birth of the early S/X+LH meta build.

So it took about 1 year for us to develop that meta build and they didn’t buff anything or change anything during that first year that would make S/X+LH build useless during the early first year in the game. We just didn’t figure out how to put all of that together into a good build.

voxrar.2859:

I understand that Guardian is not a tanky but can do decent damage while providing removal and a few buffs. While Engineer seems to be debuffing and heals only.

Well not really.

The guardian have decent/ordinary damage. Whatever your adjective its in the lower tier. But it provide defensive support. Blind, Reflect, Aegis, Condi Removal, Protection, etc.

The Engineer is a Jack-of-all trade, master of none. It have a really good dps but not as good as Elementalist, it can provide stealth but not as good as the thief, it can provide might but not as good the Ele or Warrior, it can provide defensive support but as not good as the guardian. But he can provide all that by himself and he’s the best at Vulnerability.

Ya I often have a hard time getting pugs to attack the SE path 3 boss directly. They all stack in the corner while I fight the boss alone for like 30sec-1min before they realize something is different.

Pss Hroatgar, I’ll tell you a little secret. This game isn’t for you at all.

You mostly talk about vertical profession, making your character stronger, etc. What you are searching in this game is the number one enemy of most GW2 player. This game have a target audience and you ain’t one of them.

PhilSRD.1476:

Thanks for the responses,

Pretty much what I expected and not an issue since I do enjoy my Thief.

It just seems an ongoing theme that Staff is bad and it happens to be my favourite weapon.

Elementalist Staff is the highest DPS build in the PvE game. It’s also the only profession that is worth taking 2 or more of them in a dungeon.

If you want the most block then the meta GS + Sw/F would be better for you.

GS 3 (Blind)
Sw 2 (Aegis)
Focus 4 (Blind)
Focus 5 (3 blocks)
F1 (Blind)
F3 (Aegis)
Renewned Focus (Invulnerable) and give you another F1 and F3
Retreat (Aegis)

That’s can deny 10 attacks in a row if you time them well and they all work for your whole team, not just you.

Staff Mesmer – Condi/Power IWarlock
Awesome in pvp, horrible in PvE

Rifle Engineer – Turrets
If you are willing to replace turrets by nade then you are golden

Staff Necro – Minion Master
Minion is horrible in PvE. Staff isn’t that bad, but not good either, you shouldn’t rely on that.

Staff Guardian – (Probably the most hated dungeon class?)
On par with Minion Necro. You can keep your staff as a support weapons with a Hammer. Use the staff between fight and at the start of a fight, then swap to hammer and keep it for the fight. It will be a good build.

D/D Thief – Venoms (My only viable choice?)
D/D is perfect for thief, but drop the Venoms. Won’t be a that big of a deal if you bring them, but at least don’t put trait into that.

CCLilly.2139:

Coming back to the main topic. Nothing has changed? After 2,5 years, really? (yes there is fotm)

What are you guys doing then? I mean I love grinding. It’s fun for me to farm for ‘that’ item or be tested by hard/challenging areas. But I did all of that or failed it.

It would make me sad to say no to the friend that asked me.

Well we got 42 content upgrades. Some were super great (SAB, the first Halloween, etc), the majority was nice and some were lacking/boring. The majority were temporary, other improved existing content, some added some stuff like a new dungeon and the hardest world boss.

Don’t know for everybody but i’m doing solo dungeon, speed run, WvW raids, team PvP matches, and I just completed my 6th legendary.

If you only look at precursor drops to measure the rewards in this game you’ll be sad. Just like ppl that cry about not getting any precursor drop are sad. That’s a nice thing when it happen, but nobody should expect to drop a precursor, that’s one of the rarest drop in the game.

Yes the trading post is still the best way to make crazy amount of money if you know how to use it.

If that’s why you stopped playing gw2 then you shouldn’t get back because that’s how the game is, that’s not an issue waiting for a fix.

As for difficulty, the game was always build for casual. Everything can be done with anything. The difficulty must come from you. Solo dungeon, speed runs, WvW raid, team PvP, etc. If you just take the content and play it normally, you will never get that challenging content because it made so that anyone can complete it in one way or the other.

voxrar.2859:

Please explain, don’t just say “don’t do that, do this.” I am not a cookie cutter build user.

Don’t cookie cutter me please. Ask question and i’ll answer, I hope you don’t expect me to explain every single aspect of the game everytime I’ll give a advice that would take a freaking long time. Especially since I already explain it to you.

Thaddeus.4891:

while boon duration on gear only give you ridiculous bonus, getting that from trait, runes and food is the best way to go.

Condition build are not super great in PvE group content. But they are still decent in solo PvE situation. Engineer, Warrior and Necromancer are the best at that.

In WvW roaming and sPvP is where condition can shine. Engineer is on top either full condi or celestial hybrid. Elementalist is good but only as a cele hybrid. Other than that : Mesmer, Necromancer, Thief and Ranger are pretty decent. Guardian get more and more attention as hybrid these days, i’m not a fan since it focus mostly on burning and have limited access to other condition.

Engineer also have a decent zerging condition build.

Overall Engineer is probably the profession that give you the most good option for a condi build. If you want to focus on a particular mode, then take the list I gave you.

Nikaido.3457:

Uh, not, necromancer outdps a few other classes single target wise. The issue is the lack of offensive buff/group contribution.

And which profession would that be? Guardian and Mesmer are really close to necromancer, but they still have a little bit more dps. Of course this will vary, the mesmer can have a hard time keeping phantasm up at all and when the Necromancer use its lichs he have a temporary bigger dps. But overall, its in the low end in term of dps.

noteru.3284:

AdaephonDelat.3890:

Also this game uses a level scaling system so that when you enter a level 15 area as a level 30 character for example you will be scaled down to level 15.

So if i’m level 30 and go there and i’ll go there and become 15 and then level up to 16 at that place, my char will be 31 by default or i’m wrong? Sorry if i wrote something stupid i’m only level 3 at the moment.

You will still be 30, only your stats will be downscaled to 15. So you won’t be leveling to 16 you will be leveling to 31, but your stats will still be downscale to level 15.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAs9elsApUo9CxZI8DNR8QlbKOGW/BtwGUVAA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1L0r+zjSQA-e

You should still use just a modified version of the meta build. Just remove 2 pts from the first line since you are not using a GS, put one pts in radiance for right-handed strenght since you gonna always have your sword. You gonna have 1 pts left to spend. You can either put in it zeal for a bit more power, in honor for vigor (more dodge) or virtues for absolute resolution.

You can also swap master of consecration for absolute resolution when you are in a dungeon that doesn’t need reflection like CoF, CoE, AC, etc.

Kodiak.3281:

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having the stance that there is only one way to play and that’s your way. Even better, as you say, these days you can even back it up with some nice numbers that are based on in game data.

However what you can’t do is say there is only one right way to play an Elementalist and then say there are multiple ways to play an Elementalist. It’s a contradiction. It’s like you saying there’s no problems with people who want to sit in half tanky gear or just wants to heal. Yet on the the other hand there is a problem with it because you want to “educate him” on what’s the best in the game. If there’s no problem, why are you educating him?

I mean if people are going to be elitist zealots for their cause then just do it. Stop pretending you’re everyone’s buddy and it’s all cool when all you do is call people bad for playing bad and they should play the right way.

WTH are you talking about. My stance and probably the stance of most ppl is :

There is a more effective way to play the game. We can teach you what are the basic of the game and what work best. From there you can adapt to what you prefer. Its not white or black, there is stuff that can be changed and you still be 80 or 90% as effective, which is far more than good enough if you don’t speed run. You can even change more and more stuff if you want. You’ll be even less effective, but you’ll still be able to complete stuff with pugs, but some ppl may call you out. 1 guy like that, it won’t be much noticeable, but if 2-3 ppl are like that in a party, its start to be dragging on the team. You will complete everything, but it will take time, ppl that are zerker but are not that good will die, etc.

Everything is viable in this game, but not everything is good and a lot of ppl don,t want to run with ppl running bab build.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

If I remember correctly it was Kitsune who first introduced the idea of stacking damage modifiers and using LH.

Also, Neko has had a strong role in bringing the elementalist out of obscurantism

Its been a long time and you are right about Kitsune. Why I remember a fox. I think kitsune avatar on guru was a fox, but I can be wrong. Its been almost two years, unbelievable how time go fast.

DingoVad.1945:

Hey guys

Do you think they will fix the meta and make support builds more viable and maybe even needed in dungeons?

Since Meta build use A LOT of support, this sentence only mean that either you don’t really know the game or you would want another type of support than the game focus on or that you would only want to do support. Watch the video of Nike that Artemis posted.

Arkinos.7245:

This thread will most likely be moved to the daily feedback anyway.

But yeah the problem today is the 21-30 fractal which cant be done without preparation.
I asked in LA if its possible to do this level without AR and was told not to.

And yes you shouldnt do the event dailies.
Its typically a horrible experience to do them.

I personally only run the daily when its convenient, mostly when things like harvesting and vistas are up.

Event completion just takes way too long and forces you to deal with people that you wouldn’t even want on your server tbh.

Really? Just do the first part of a fractal level 1 then. It will take 10min at max, plenty of ppl will want to do that in the lfg.

‘’Daily fractal 1, just first fractal’‘. Hell at that level there is no agony resistance, just don’t run swamp and you can solo it, its super easy at that level.

Because the PvE meta is build around procing as much as possible with your nades. There is two main things that you get from procing with the pve meta build.

1) Vulnerability : The engineer is the best at stacking that. Against regular mobs that’s not a big deal, but bosses with unshakabel decease vulnerability duration by half, which mean that most group won’t be able to cap it at 25 stacks. Two way around that, either an organized group or a engineer that can keep between 10-20 stack by himself depending on his build and if he’s good or not with his rotation. That’s a huge boost of dmg for him and for the whole team.
2) Bleeding. That’s sound weird, why bother about bleeding on a power build? That make no sense at all. But still, 20-25% of your dmg will come from condition (mostly bleeding).

Keep in mind that the difference between both is not that high. In zerker you will hit harder, but give less vulnerability, so in the end you will do a bit less dps. But the difference in dps is not a big deal, you will mostly notice the difference in the number of stack of vulnerability that you can keep up against a boss.

voxrar.2859:

Ok, I prefer to do some damage but also have nice buff times over healing. What stat do I roll for that? Damage and boon duration, I mean.

You shouldn’t run Boon duration stats. That’s nice thing to have, but if you focus your build around that, you will hurt yourself. Of course you can do it, but it won’t be good.

One thing you can do is getting some food with boons duration. Chocolate Omnomberry Cream will give you 20% and if you are using the build 4/5/0/0/5 it will give you an additional 25% for a total of 45% boon duration. You shouldn’t try to get more or you will screw up your build.

Elementalist : Constant condi pressure will drain their sustain and dodge their CC (their CC give them time to recuperate, don’t let them). If they go in air, they gonna updraft you, if they go in earth they gonna earthquake, etc. D/D Elementalist are all about might stacking, so use your CC like crazy just after they used their fire field, don’t let them gain might and they won’t be able to hit your hard. And finally the WORST enemy of a D/D ele is Chill. That kitten up their rotation and put them in a super hard position. The trick is to put chill on them just after the got out of water. For you that’s won’t be possible since you don’t have chill on demand.

Mesmer : Condi pressure is the way to go, they don’t have condi removal most of the time. Just make sure that you don’t attack them while they have chaos armor unless you can finish them, otherwise you hurt yourself and buff them. Be prepare for their burst. When they are on staff they kite you and wait for their cooldown. When they switch to sword be ready for the incoming burst. They gonna want to stun/daze you and make a blurred frenzy while mind cracking 3 illusions on you, that’s what you want to evade.

Thief : Again, heavy condi pressure is the key. NEVER stand in their blind field, that’s just giving them the victory. Its a static blind field, so just move out of it. They gonna want to backstab you, so you know exactly where they gonna go when they are stealth : on your back. Put condition pressure around you, move a lot so they can’t land their backstack correctly. If they black powder/HS, they won’t have a lot of stealth run away or leap so they won’t have time to backstab you, then rush to them. If they use a SR, its because they are in trouble, use cc to knockthem out of that or put heavy pressure in it. After the SR you should run, they have a long duration of stealth from SR so if you run you gonna have to run for a long time. Stay there, more and put AoE pressure on you. Thief are the best at disengaging so don’t feel bad if you bring him low and he run away.

Keep in mind that you don’t have the best profession against thief and mesmer. But Elementalist should be piece of cake if you have a longbow.

Ppl used to play D/D auramancer in PvE and we were sure it was a good PvE build. OF COURSE ppl were sure that Elementalist were bad in PvE, everybody was using a bad build. I don’t remember when, but it was someone name fox or something like that who introduced the LH build and started to change the mindset of ppl (he wasn’t alone, but he was one of the first to make video with strife and others). From then, elementalist had more and more attention and the FGS make it godly in PvE. All stategy in record and solo were built around corner FGS everything you could. But by then we know that Elementalist was in the two best dps in PvE even without FGS or Frostbow.

It was about the same thing with PvP. Ppl used to be all about fresh air build. Some ppl knew about the celestial D/D combination but it wasn’t until the last year that this became more popular.

Keep in mind that most stuff that is becoming popular was knew by a portion of the community for a couple of months before. It just can’t become popular until ppl start to using it, refine it and show its potential.

Anyway, Elementalist is the best PvE profession right now and in PvP its on the top 2.

Kodiak.3281:

And there you have it. The “right” way. The “most efficient” way. The fact that it gets done is of no concern to you, only the way in which it was done.

But it is the ‘’most efficient’’ way. It’s not about what our opinion is, the most efficient way evolved with our knowledge and update. It was proven with solo and group run on video. The math was done and not by someone on an excel sheet on his own, number were published and ppl commented on it for several years, it was done with in-game result so its actual and theoretical numbers.

That doesn’t mean that its the only way to play, that’s its the most fun to someone in particular or that everybody should use exactly what we tell. But ppl should try to reach that if they can. If they don’t play enough so they don’t know the game enough to be able to reach that, there is no problem. If someone just don,t give a kitten and just want to play the game relax in a half tanky gear, there is no problem. If someone just want to heal and only have fun doing it with his friend, there is no problem.

But that doesn’t mean that we won’t try to at least educate him on what is best in the game so he don’t waste gold on gear and time on build to make the same mistake we did 2 and a half year ago.

Like SkyFalls said, wait until HoT. For two reason. Maybe they will introduce a new Legendary Greatsword that you will love more than twilight and for a more interesting way to gain your precursor.

But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t get ready for the expansion. Gift of Mastery and Gift of fortune will be needed for new or old legendary after the expansion (like 99.9% sure of that). So make your map completion, do your 77 mystic clover, accumulate 200 skills points, around 500 obsidian shard, accumulate your tier 6 and craft your two gift.

You should also keep all your material and don’t craft the gift of twilight just in case that you will prefer the other legendary. If you don’t want to waste gold in crafting profession wait for the expansion, if you are a completion like me or want to craft ascended gear in the future you could level them up while waiting for the expansion. You can also take this time to accumulate a good amount of gold.

By the time the expansion come out, depending on how much you play, you could be ready or not be that far from being ready to craft your legendary.

Its never a good idea for someone who want to make 1 legendary to play the Mystic Toilet to gain your precursor. That’s profitable if you do it on a large scale to sell them (you approach more the average with a lot of try). But for only one, you will be at the mercy of luck.

Anyway you should wait for the expansion since you gonna be able to unlock a collection to get your precursor.

Frost.1503:

I went too look if i could do this ascended armor…
1) Expansive
2)Ask a lot of time
3)Unfunny
4) You must w8 15 hours for every piece of damask so 1 day for every piece unless you wake up in the night and start to play or don’t have any kind of life outside. The helm need 5 damask so 5 days. 5 days x 6 piece 30 days.
5) i can’t do the armor for my guardian becouse i should arrive at 500 of armonsmith. But i have 500 in tailor. Becouse i like very much the conditioner necro and i would like use it more or less everwhere. Is good a conditioner in Fractal, Pve and WvW? I don’t see them very much, can you tell me why?
Anyway tnx for the answer.

For your guardian the chest in the most expensive pieces, in total it will take 25days for a complete heavy armor. To level up armorsmith from level 1 to 500 it will cost about 60 gold, its around 7-9hours of dungeons. If that’s too much for you, you shouldn’t have the top gear of the game.

I don’t get why you transfered 4 times.

Before january 28th it was free to transfer, after january 28th you could guest on other server of the same region. Why on earth did you transfer 4 times kitten and do you have friends in Europe and North America? Did you immigrate somewhere from one continent to the other? That’s a really weird situation.

voxrar.2859:

Ok one last thing. Why zerker over other types of enchants like knight or celestial?

Because there three important thing to bring to a team. Damage, Support and CC. CC is often skipped by most pugs group, it will help but you often need coordination in the group of really take advantage of CC. But Damage and Support are really important. But the stats on your gear don’t improve support. The gear can give you 4 type of things.

1) Condition Damage : good in PvP, it’s broken in PvE right now so nobody should use that except if they play alone. (Hopefully, Anet will fix that eventually)
2) Personnal Survivability : Vitality and Toughness only improve your own survivability. Since active defense is so powerful, more and more ppl don’t need personal survivability to stay alive in PvE. It’s all about knowledge of the encounter and timing.
3) Support : I lie two stats improve you support. Healing Power scale terribly and is not worth taking except in niche situation, while boon duration on gear only give you ridiculous bonus, getting that from trait, runes and food is the best way to go.
4) Direct Damage : With the other three not that important for PvE, that let us with Direct Damage gear which is either Bezerker (Power, Precision, Ferocity) or Assassin (Precision, Power, Ferocity).

The support will come from your trait, runes, weapons and skills.

cletiscake.9173:

Does all of that stuff offset dropping down to 184% crit-damage?

Yes it does. You will bring more support and more dps to your group. The thing is that damage modifier do not add to each other they multiply. The more you have the more powerful they will all be. You already got a couple from your trait (one you switch), Rune of Scolar give you another, sigils should give you 2 more and slaying potion give you another one. All these little buff end up boosting your dmg by a lot.

cursE.1794:

That it’s wrong to state that cornerstacking should NEVER be done (..at the first boss in cof p1) by bringing up the frequent case of doing a run in a pug group?

But it should never be done in pugs group. I mean, no big deal if your pug group do it, but it won’t make thing easier to survive.

voxrar.2859:

Sorry to both of you so far but GS is not my favorite weapon. I prefer this set up cause I trait into blinds giving Vulnerability.

Which is good, its a really good trait to have. FYI the GS also have a blind. So you could play Hammer + Sw/Focus, but Sw/Focus + Staff is not a great choice. It will work, but it’s not a great choice.

cursE.1794:

If you find something that disproves you, declare it as pointless and cheesy and gtfo. Well played, son.

And what exactly did you disprove?

cursE.1794:

He gets pulled, nothing has happened dmg wise and my full zerker ele gets his 5k fire grab.

Iris Ng.9845:

First CoF boss, he doesn’t need to be pulled and shouldn’t be pulled ever after since FGS is nerfed

cursE.1794:

2) Let me enlighten you about the advantages of corner stacking AFTER the fgs nerf:

And we never said that you said that you should always cornerstack.

Its ok. Metabattle just give you the generic build. Most ppl are always using night/force because the dungeon that give the most gold and are the most runned by pugs are night dungeon. That’s where its important. Of course if you want to play more optimized you can’t rely only on metabattle, no guide ever will be as complete as they could be.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

I think I know what good groups do.

But you still think that what you propose will change zerker meta? Ya we will adapt, we will change how we play a little. But most of use will be thrill to try those thing out in our zerker gear. It won’t change anything like you seem to think it would. Healing power will still be garbage, active defense will still be better than passsive defense (toughness/vitality) the optimal way to go will still be zerker gear with dps/support traits.

cursE.1794:

It’s funny how ppl always forget about the overall topic when discussing such things. So basically, everyone out there in gw2 knows about the “camera-facing-down-the-ground” and “swap-weapon-during-the-channeling” tricks, runs full zerker, does 30k lightning hammer attack chains, runs scholar runes etc etc right? Then every boss is dead within under 10 seconds. So we have no problems staying alive. Wait, why are we discussing survivability then?

….

Is it possible that not everyone runs in organized groups?

Staying alive is a problem in pug groups . And if you don’t run in organized groups, groups will tend to start spreading and bosses will walk out of fields if you don’t stack them in a corner (oh I forgot, they will be dead in 3 seconds anyway, right?). I was never saying that you should ALWAYS cornerstack. All I’m saying is that is has its advantages and it’s simply wrong to state that one should never do it (.. at the first coe boss) like you did.

YOU brought up the corner thing and we called you on it because you were wrong. Before you brought that up we were give him some options to survive. I run zerker and most of the time I run in dungeon I play either with pugs or guildmate that are not organized. I run organized group like 5-10% of my time only. You can learn to survive in full zerker ele because a lot of ppl did it. Its hard, but it can be done. And if someone think that its too hard, there is a lot of good option to help them.

AkaXan.1096:

Well, tbh, i knew that there is no best thing. I was looking for a general build. The main problem is that i can’t experiment myself since i play with 28 FPS, graphics set at lowest. In order for me to be able to experiment in wvw i basically need to get a good graph card 1st. Just out of general curiosity though, but do you go panic strike, 2/6/0/0/6, 2/6/6/0/0 or 0/6/6/2/0?

Keep in mind that GW2 use more of your CPU than your video card.

2/6/0/0/6 is less sustain but more interrupt/boon stealing, its better for small scale team play.
2/6/6/0/0 is more sustain, its better for longer fight or against several opponents.
0/6/6/2/0 is similar to the other on, but you sacrifice a big of dmg for either speed while stealth or blinding powder when fall. Those are two big advantage in WvW when you need to run after you target or use terrain at your advantage, but its useless in sPvP.
Panic strike is a specific gameplay. You like or dislike. Its great at securing a backstab, but useless against profession with a lot of quick condi removal (for example Shoutbow).

Especially if Elementalist in your party have Tempest Defense. Its a 20% dmg increase while the boss is deep freeze.

voxrar.2859:

So I am not 80 but planning ahead. I plan on using Sword/Focus and Staff for general PvE and Dungeons. My question is which stats do I need to focus to to more damage but still maintain my healing and duration on boons?

You shouldn’t use staff + sword/focus. Sword have a good auto-attack but need the burst dmg of a GS. Staff have poor support for PvE but if you really want to use it, its better to use Hammer with it since its a good weapon on its own and don’t need constant swamping like the GS and Sword need.

Healing power is not really good in PvE and the only good source of boons duration are trait and food. You shouldn’t focus too much on that. There is FAR better support in this game that you should focus on instead. The stats you should focus on are offensive stats (because your support don’t come from stats, its come from your trait and skills). Zerker should be your goal, but you can use defensive stats gear if you need them as you learn the game.

Opinions range because the options range especially in a PvP scenario. For exemple you can have a D/P thief using hidden killer and full valkyrie gear and focusing on landing its backstab.

But you can also have a D/P that prefer to slowly decrease the hp of its enemy and use executioner to burst down them. For him full valkyrie will be a bad idea.

Different build and different playstyle have different need and that’s why ppl have different opinion about that.

Rune of Strenght work if you give yourself might, traveler is less good in combat but give you movement speed with is nice in WvW, pack is a good dps boost if you are in the middle of the battle and get hits, but if you retreat each time you get hit you won’t use the strength of the rune. Again is depend on your playstyle.

Omnomberry ghost give you a good sustain but if you have low precision or just focus on backstab its useless. Spicy butternut squash soup is high dps but cost a lot. Truffly steak is a good compromise. Seasweed salad is good if you are moving while landing your shots. Orrian Steak frite is cheap a hybrid dps/vitality food.

In addition you can dodge through the mobs to have almost zero downtime in dps compare to dodging in a wall.

Ranger and Thief are taking advantage of flanking, which they can’t do very well in a corner

The downtime of pulling mobs in a corner vs rushing and killing the mobs where he spawn is really high in some situation. Especially when the boss is green when you reach him, that let you time to stack might on him and start killing him fully buffed the second he turn red.

Corner stacking is a good strategy in some fight. When you need to regroup a group of mobs or when it make the fight easier. But for most fight, stacking directly on the mobs is a more efficient strategy.