Guild Wars 2

There is also some weird item that you need to double click on them to make a choice. Don’t really remember what choice is what maybe stats, there we all green weapons so I didn’t take a good look.

grayskull.2367:

Face Palm! do you even play gw2? Do you know the defence between a region, zone, map and a area. As i think you have no kittening clue what your talking about.

70% of Maguuma region are you high learn what your talking about before spreading rumours.

Here is a MAP that i very quickly made up to inform you on the differences.

Well I totally agree with the point you are trying to make, you made some mistake.

There is two Maguuma region (probably three).

The Maguuma Jungle have several existing map like Rate Sum, The Groove, Caledon Forest, Metrica Province, Brisban Wildlands, Sparkfly Fen, Mount Maelstrom and Labyrinthine Cliffs. They could had some more of them in Tarnished Coast and Sea of Sorrow. But to be fair, we pretty much have 70% of Magguma Jungle already explored.

The Magguma Waste also have some existing map. There are the 2 last maps of Dry Top and Silverwaste.

And finally Maguuma falls. It may be an new region or just part of the maguuma jungle or maguuma waste, we don’t know yet.

Jerus.4350:

Thaddeus.4891:

Marthkus.4615:

Not really. Mob Damage is high enough that you have to dodge the big attacks regardless of gear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VhmwLwvrM

I was expecting that to be this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKO11Y55DTM

LOL never saw that one. Did someone ever watched it from start to finish at normal speed? I bet the guys fall asleep in the middle auto-attacking.

Marthkus.4615:

Wow look at that amazing video worthy achievement and team coordination with active defense/healing skill burst.

You are right perhaps dodging is not the only mark of skill.

The only 5 man zerk that is impressive are the ones setting speed records for a dungeon. Aside from that, zerk is low skill play.

Its low skills because content is 2 years old and everybody know the content by heart. We all want new content and diffcult one because right now we need to push father than the content to have a challenge (record runs, solo runs, etc…)

Marthkus.4615:

Not really. Mob Damage is high enough that you have to dodge the big attacks regardless of gear.

tom.7468:

1003/1087*10 = 9,227230910763569% Increase in stats. There you go genius.

1) That was never MY claim. The guys said that ascended increase dmg by 20% not 5% and I responded 20% increase in stats doesn’t not equal to 20% in dmg. I assume he calcultated the incrase in stats, I didn’t do the math myself because it been a while since then and i only care about the result. I don’t know how he come up with 20% so calm yourself down and read carefully. IT WAS NEVER MY CLAIM.

2) You are terrible at math. Lets take your numbers to see what is the percentage of increase. 1087 – 1003 = 84. So it was a 84 increase over the original 1003. So you do 84/1003 = 8.37%. To make sure if that work, you do 1.0837 X 1003 = 1087 so it work.

3) You didn’t took the right numbers anyway, you only took the amount of major stats from wiki. If you want the right amount you need to add 1 time the major stats + 2 times the minor stats. So the right number should be 1003+698+698 = 2399 for exotic and 1087+745+745 =2577. With mean a increase of 2577-2399 =178 pts over the orginal 2399 points. 178/2399 = 7.42%

Leo G.4501:

I see the problem here. Semantics. Boy do I hate that guy.

Well, you consider stat buffs as passive. Alright. I understand your viewpoint to a degree.

However, consider Healing Power. That is a passive boost to heals. Does that make healing (at least the majority of it) passive?

No, that’s not what I mean. Your healing skills is active, but healing power is passive. Same with offensive stats. Your greatsword auto-attack is active, but power, precision and ferocity are all passive buff. For toughness and vitality it’s even worth since they don’t buff a active things, they simply are passive by themselves. There is no stats that improve my game style, they are simple passive buff. I do care about what is active.

1) I do dmg with my weapons and utilities, that’s active and its fun. Its boost by offensive stats like power, precision, ferocity so I want those stats.

2) I survive because of active defense. That’s dodge, blocks, blind, invulnerability, reflect, etc. They are fun, but there is no stats that increase those, so I can take any.

3) Healing power can be fun (love to play a healer in other mmo) and its an active defense that need stats. But the game made it very unpowerful to make sure that we don’t have a dedicated healer in the game that would make a Trinity.

4) Passive defence have stats with vitality and toughness, but that’s not fun AND I can survive with only active defense so no need of those.

Leo G.4501:

FYI, if you’re replying to me, I never said that. If you’re not replying to me, I’m more curious what players really want. Yeah, you have some that want to force some sort of hard trinity so people (or some of them) have to be bunkers. You have yourself who feels satisfied ineffectualizing (lol that’s probably not a word) a mob so its fair to say once that’s done, take out that trash and move on. People brag and tell stories of soloing this or that or how a group rides the thrill of pushing faster clear times or the desire for harder challenge etc. etc.

Ya my bad, there was suppose to have a quote from xDudisx between the two because I was responding to him. But now I can’t find his quote, that tread is too big now lol.

sorudo.9054:

but but….the trinity is already in GW2……
warrior, ele, guardian……

If you are a pug that need a guardian to babysit him ya. Otherwise you bring the profession you need to a particular place, most of the time its a thief, some time its a mesmer, on some occasion a guardian, etc.

Nick.6972:

I just love these people who want more diversity but are against the implementation of PvE content where Healing Power/Toughness matters.
“No Tanks!” “No Healers” “No Berserkers!” “No Roles!” “Nerf Healing Power” “Nerf Toughness”
So where does it leaves us?

The problem is not making toughness/healing more viable. The problem is where to stop. You can boost toughness and healing more if you want, zerker will still be the way to go since active defense will alway be better than defensive stats.

If you push it too far and healing/toughness become better than active defence, then you get back into a Holy Trinity, which we do not want. This game is more than 2 years old and its been 2 years of ppl coming into the forum and trying to find a way out of this without succeed. If someone found a way to keep active defence, not getting back to the holy trinity AND healing power/toughness being part of an optimized build then most ppl would agree with the idea. But I really really don’t think that this will be possible.

It always push too much emphasis on passive defense or bring back specific role that you need to wait for in LFG (aka same problem as the trinity), or healing power/toughness is not the optimized choice (meaning just like now).

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Will mostly just go back to straight melee in the center of the room which is how I personally liked it to begin with.

Well except for some specific boss, we mostly kill at the center of the room right now.

There is a lot of boss that were corned only because of FGS. Pugs still continue to corner because they don’t know any better, but that doesn’t mean that its a good idea. Not corner the boss in those instance is faster and easier.

Some bosses are better in corner because they are easier that way, but not the best way to do it. CoE Alpha is a good exemple. You are better just rushing to him and killing him in place, but its safer to corner him.

Some bosse are better in corner because you can exploit them or use questionable tactics that will eventually be fixed.

And very few boss are really best killed in a corner and its only when the boss come with a lot of trash or adds that you want to come at you or if you want to boss to be far away from something like the Tar elemental in Arah path 1. You corner him only to give your team enough time to immobilize him to death and not run the geyzers 4 times.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’m not sure where you are getting your numbers, but the damage increase from exotic to ascended zerker/assassin gear is a 20% overall increase. (in lvl 80 content)

The only two sets that have a 5% dmg increase are soldiers and rabid gear, since they rely on a single main dmg stat.

20% increase in stats doesn’t equal 20% dmg increase. A complete set of zerker exotic vs a complete set of zerker ascended = 9-10% dmg increase by itself. When you add up all the buff in group content (might, vulnerability, fury, banners, etc), then you reach a boost of 5%.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

and that’s just the beginning soon

Ice Storm will get nerfed only functioning to the efficiency of ranger barrage but with chill

Lupi’s projectiles will no longer be reflectable and will go into a constant freak out if you push him into walls.

a man can only dream.

I wouldn’t mind any of those change. I will still be able to solo Lupi, this will liberate one place on my skill bar for my Ele. They nerfed FGS and the game is better wihtout it, don’t know what tactics we will use if they nerfed Icebow and remove the reflect of Lupi, but i’ll have fun trying to find out something new.

Leo G.4501:

You’d be hard pressed to say offensive stats don’t affect your playstyle, at least. You and many people here constantly say “try to stand in one place in zerk gear” which obviously means you utilize various means to defeat while not being defeated and offensive stats plays a larger part in that than defensive stats. Not that defense stats play no part, but if it played a larger or equal part, people would be using them as an alternate tactic, not as training wheels.

But that the major point right there. Stats are passive buff whatever you do. Defensive stats are not good because you can replace them with active defence. And that point right there is unbalancing the PvE game between defense and offense. You are totally right on that point. But where we have different opinion is that you see that as a problem that limit diversity as I see that as a GREAT gameplay design. I don’t want to have defensive stats that give me passive survivability, i want active gameplay that use damage mitigation.

You want fewer big attack and more medium attack so that active defense wasn’t enough by itself and that we need more defensive stats to survive, i want big attack that you can dodge or block and few medium/low attack that you can do nothing about except soak it.

Both design are ok, but GW2 is build around the second one and ppl that love this game, love it because of it. You want another kind of game and its ok, but that not the game that we have now and its not the game that we want. Maybe you are right and anet will change the game in the future to adapt more to the gameplay you prefer and at this moment I’ll cry like a baby and quit the game. We just prefer two style of gameplay that are different and its ok. Now all game need to be the same, they can be different gameplay in different game for different people.

pamela.8196:

So im stupid because I want to lvl my toon ?
im sure im not alone on this
and you sound like the person that have 10 toons and doesn’t know a kitten about any of them …

No you are not stupid and yes a lot of ppl would like the same things. But ppl here are pretty sensitive about things like that because they like different things than the usual MMO player and GW2 is basically the only game giving them what they want, while standard MMO rain every year the marked (even if most of them are not that good).

So when some ppl talk about raising lvl cap, adding tier of gear, geargrind, holy trinity, etc Then they automatically enter defensive mode (I do too, but I try to stay calm). We just love the game that Anet gave us and its the only MMO that fit our needs, so we are fast at defending it, even if we react like idiot while do so sometime.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Thaddeus.4891:

Its on of the two best build of the PvE Elementalist.

Which raises the question: which one is the third?

That’s a trap I won’t answer that one

Wynne.3908:

Sisho.5431:

No offense but as I said above. I am very comfortable as an Elementalist and my build ankitten ot in need of a full build. I just want tweaks from someone with experience. I have 0 interest in builds for throwing stupid amounts of damage out. I want the build I already have, a hybrid, solid damage output, high survivability build.

I think he was -in a polite way- trying to tell you that your build doesn’t really fit into what’s going on in GW2 PvE at the moment. If you took a little time to read the links provided you would see why!

Also you cannot expect to post a build in a public forum and not have it torn to shreds.

No offence taken, you ask for ppl to comment on your build, expect to heard that your build is bad. It have bad dmg and high survivability. If you want some little advice to help you here it is.

S/F in PvE is all about might stacking. Its an horrible weapon for dmg other than his might stacking burst dmg rotation. In between you should use Lightning Hammer. So my suggestion is to replace gylph of renewal for Lightning Hammer and use it between might rotation.

Another option is to change your weapons. Best option would be Staff or D/F, the one you prefer.

Her some small tweaks to your build to improve it, because like I said S/F is an awesome weapons set for small burst dmg/might stacking rotation, but then he other nothing in between those rotation.

Leo G.4501:

I want defensive stats to have as much meaning for defensive tactics as offensive stats have to offensive tactics.

So basically none? Offensive stats are only a passive buff to your dmg, they don’t change how you play, that is done with weapons, trait, runes, sigils, etc. Offensive stats change nothing to that and so defensive stats shouldn’t either, they should only be passive defensive buff like they exactly are right now.

OH YEAH. I want to see xDudisx go into that. The game is obviously too easy for him he will crush any competition.

- He figure out a better rotation than everybody else where you only need to use 1 or 2 skills and auto-attacks. Silly me that use 6 skills + 2 different auto-attacks for my dps rotation on my guardian or my 10 skills on my staff Ele. He can do better with 3 skills only WOW.

- He can kill bosses under 5 seconds (duration of Icebow #5) and not only AC. A lot of bosses and the best part is that he don’t even have to try, prepare the right group. He just need the basic meta build and everything die by themselves. Me that was talking with my friends to have the proper composition, have a strategy, make sure to stack might, fury and vulnerability, etc. I’m must be so bad at this game if he can do this without thinking or planning anything.

- He can block everything with his guardian. I mean everything, its braindead.

I thing everybody should just quit the tournament right now because xDudisx will obviously win since he can do the same stuff records run do without even thinking about it, planning or practising.

Vukorep.3081:

i dont understand how someone can compare dungeon runs and pvp arenas…do you gear the same in dungeons as you do in the arenas?
do you use the same weapons in arenas as you are in dungeons?

if so you might wanna check some other options your class is offering…

or you might just as well go full zerker in wvw too while youre at it… and then be surprised howcome a class with the highest armor rate and the highest health can go down in a millisecond….

What are you talking about? Nobody compare pvp and pve, we are just talking about the current situation of the Warrior in different aspect of the game.

creepmatic.9435:

Don’t camp Hammer build all the time.

Well Hammer have a great dps by its own and swapping to GS or something else won’t boost its dmg over camping Hammer. If he have a reason to switch ya, but otherwise camping Hammer is a good way to go if you have the hammer build.

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

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_S/F_LH

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

Here all you need to know about S/F Elementalist in dungeon/fractals. Its on of the two best build of the PvE Elementalist.

More difficult bosses would be awesome. But it wouldn’t change the meta. Ppl would bring an Hammer guardian, all take skale venom and find a way to melee it and its not a bad thing.

Harder difficult will only push ppl to go toward more active defense, damage mitigation, etc. Stuff that is already good in the game. They won’t go for passive defense like defensive stats. Which again is a good thing.

Devata.6589:

“But you can grind if you want something special.” Well no, if you want any of those items you need to grind. It’s not like you have the option to grind for them but also have the option to do some fun, or challenging content or even farming that dungeon. For many of those items the only viable option is grinding gold.

Which items? They are very limited. Most stuff in the game can be done from a lot of place. You can play where you want and you eventually gonna have your items (with few exception like fractal weapons). Now of course you can grind to have these items faster, but you don’t need to. You can play what you want and eventually get the items you want and that’s the important

xDudisx.5914:

I said the bosses die before icebow #5 effect ends (effect = deep freeze) not the cast of #5 itself. It is very common that bosses die before deep freeze ends. Want 1 example? Ac p2 final boss. The FGS/norn form helped a little making stuff harder but it was just not enough.

I see you don’t have arguments and tries make use of ad hominem.

AC have scaling issues since the last feature pack, not really fair to talk about how melting this boss is easy. Its easy and its a bug in my opinion because of the problem with scaling.

But outside of AC, not that much bosses can be melt down before the Icebow #5 ends unless you have a really organized team, optimized and prepared.

Crash.5362:

So, basically, he’s still on a good spot for PvP and WvW

But on PVE has fallen to the mid level of DPS’ing and nowadays its importance relies on the fact he brings banners ?

I can still hit 35k+ with my 100blades, its surreal to hear that this is low dps nowadays =o !!

We used to make 50k 100blades in normal runs with my best shot being 80k a while back. Don’t be fooled by the big number, 100 blades is a long attack, big burst but not necessary big dps compare to other professions.

But you pretty much got the picture. In PvE there is also the Phalanx build that drop Warrior dps to low tier, but allow him to stack 25 stacks of might, which is really really good for pugs run or some long fight.

Oh oh. I don’t like that term, but I think that I need to use it here. Wait, don’t hate me, I know its bad, but I don’t have any other option. L2P

Jeez i said it. Thief is one of the best profession in PvE, sPvP and WvW roaming right now. What else could I respond lol.

Bunker guardian are ok, but not part of the meta. Celestial Ele and Engineer can bunker a bit less than the Guardian, but they can actually kill ppl and in good team, ppl rotate fast enough that the additional bunking capability of the guardian is not that useful.

That said, you aint gonna go against big coordinated team that will make your guardian useless so don’t worry too much about it. As a bunker guardian, you shouldn’t move too much of your point. Stay mid only, but if they play sides, then switch to one of the sides until they switch strategy. If they are good players and you are not in a team that can back you up, then go home because the other team will kill you fast. If they are not that good, but just gonna use their better coordination to win the game, then go at their home to draw attention to you while the rest of your team can take keep home and mid. Don’t worry if you die, if they are 2 or 3 on you, then you are winning time for your team and that’s what important. Or course you team can no taking advantage of the time you are giving them, but that’s not your fault.

That’s the standard fractal hammer build, you should 100% keep your zerker gear. If you have difficulty, GS is not that necessary here. It won’t increase you dmg like with GS+Sw/F. Hammer is able to do good dmg by it self.

Since you don’t play with a guild, but with pugs, you could replace GS by Scepter/Focus for a bit more survivability. When kitten hit the fan at some harder boss like Archdiviner or May Trin, you can range them, rez the pugs, get back your hp, etc before you get back in melee. That’s give you a OMG option, when things don’t go as well. Take Skale Venom with you, they give Weakness to the boss to scale down a bit the incoming dmg. Work best when more than one in the team use it, but it will help. Something that will help even more, but not everybody want to do it, is using different slaying potion at different fractal. Not only it give you 10% dmg, but it decrease incoming dmg by 10% too. Like outlaw potion in Cliffside or Scarlet potion for Mai Trin.

xDudisx.5914:

High skill? hahaha. Some bosses die before the icebow #5 ends. How is it hard to kill a boss that doens’t fight back? In most cases you dont even need to dodge, just spam dps.

I see no reason for them not increasing the difficulty of the the easiest paths like cof1,2 ,ac1,2,3 ,etc….

Oh goddies. Can you link me a video of someone killing a boss before Icebow #5?? Please Please pretty please. You always seem to write stuff that is so precise and always working in reality and never Hyperbole just to make your point even if you never experienced yourself that kind of situation. Please pretty please senpai, explain to us how you do that? Killing a boss before Icebow #5, wow you are so good at that game.

NeXeD.3042:

People usually accuse others of using a macro if they are good at lightning whip stow or any weapon skill stow mechanic. When I originally heard about the stow weapon I too thought macros would make it easier. In truth the macro is unnecessary and doing it without a macro is braindead simple. If you do it with a macro you are losing some form of control as you might hit the macro too many times screwing up the rest of your casting.

Well, LW stow is a exploit that will be fixed tomorrow anyway so cheer

GreenZap.1352:

Here’s my critizism or my personal (uninformed) player view if you will of this game. My issue with the combat system is not the lack of the Trinity but rather that the game mechanics doesn’t “reward” you to play in ways outside of an offensive approach to tackle an encounter.

See that’s the main problem with GW2. The combat system have a really bad PR and Marketing.

Ppl only see the gear and don’t try to actually understand the game (sorry but even if its partially the game fault, its not totally…)

Support have a HUGE part in that game, equal to dps. If dps was the only thing in that game, then only Elementalist would run dungeon. But that’s not what we see. Even when you go in the meta, all profession bring something else than just dps. But that support is different than other MMO. It do not focus on tanking and healing. It focus on damage mitigation, active gameplay, buffs, etc.

Guardian for example bring damage mitigation, blind, aegis, reflect, condi removal, etc. He keep his team alive before they can hit, and don’t fix the dmg after by healing. That need more timing and knowledge of the game as you are proactive not just reactive. For me that’s a way better gameplay than an healer looking at his side bar and clicking all his skill in the perfect rotation.

The other aspect that ppl don’t understant because of the gear is diversity. They look at the gear and say kitten, this game have no diversity and everybody have zerker gear. But diversity don’t come from gear stats in GW2. It come from traits, skills, utilities, weapons, runes, sigils, etc.

There is a difference between no mandatory grind and no grind at all. They will always be grind in a MMO. Devs just CAN’T (in like physically impossible) to create content faster than ppl can experience it. So at some ppl either ppl do the same stuff over and over or they stop playing.

You don’t need to grind for anything in this game. But you can grind if you want something special. People can disagree if they want, but personally this game fit the majority of the manifesto (can’t believe we are still talking about that )

Novuake.2691:

Again, elitist, BEST time, BEST tool. While using LESS efficient class can still do it, it will just take a little longer.

That is EXACTLY what elitist is, is it not?

Nope. Being able to recognize which profession is best at what is not elistim. Kicking everyone that is not exactly like you would want them to run their profession, insulting ppl that do not play ‘’the right way’’ or laughing at them THAT is elitism.

I like to run the best possible way my profession and I like to run organized dungeon with my guild. But I’m happy when a guildmate join my run without a meta build and I never kick someone in pugs for his build/profession.

Its one of the top 5 best profession in pvp right now, so its not that bad of a place. The problem with Warrior is that ppl use to play a lot of GS, but it got nerf bad. Ppl just have a hard time trying other weapons I guess.

For PvE, Warrior are pretty much buff/banner kitten only now. But they are really good at that lol.

Man some ppl must be sleeping with Anet Devs to have all that information. (Sarcasm)

Can we at least wait until they tell us what will be in the expansion before crying about what isn’t there. Its was the announcement of the trailer, not an complete presentation of the expansion. Maybe you are right, but for now WE DON’T KNOW.

And keep in mind that they don’t NEED to do the exact same things as other mmo. Maybe they are not gonna give us new race or new dungeon but give a bunch of other stuff really cool. We don’t know, lets find out.

PvE (Organized Dungeon)
1 ) Elementalist
2&3 ) Warrior & Thief
4&5 ) Guardian & Mesmer
6&7 ) Engineer & Rangers
8 ) Necromancer

PvE (Pug/Casual Dungeon)
1, 2 &3 ) Elementalist, Warrior, Guardian
4, 5, 6, 7 ) Thief, Engineer, Rangers, Mesmer
8 ) Necromancer

WvW (Organized Zerg)
1,2,3 &4 ) Guardian, Necromancer, Warrior, Elementalist
5, 6 ) Mesmer, Thief
7,8 ) Ranger, Engineers

WvW (Pug Zerg)
1, 2 ) Guardian, Warrior
3, 4, 5, 6 ) Elementalist, Necromancer, Engineers, Rangers)
7, 8 ) Mesmer, Thief

PvP
1, 2 ) Elementalist, Engineers
3, 4, 5 ) Warrior, Thief, Necro
6, 7, 8 ) Engineer, Ranger, Mesmer

Xyonon.3987:

So you say I should go 05063 and rotate with strength runes. And if there’s an engi with me I’d beeter go 06062 and camp gs with scholar runes. I guess the first one is more common, especially for pugs.

If the engineer play nade properly and there is at least one other source of vulnerabiliy (Ele or Guardian for exemple) then yes.

If your team can stack 25 might (for exemple with S/X Ele), but can’t keep vulnerability then 6/5/0/0/3 with scholar and GS+Axe/Mace would be best.

If your team can stack 25 might and vulnerability, then 6/6/0/2/0 with scholar and camping GS. (But that will almost never happen).

But you don’t need to be that specific. You can simply play 0/5/0/6/3 with GS+Axe/mace. This will covert most situation. Its rare that pugs group can max out vulnerability.

hybrid.5027:

Oddly enough, it seems a lot of people are hyping “stack with scepter and swap to staff for the fight” tactical meta whereas I’m sorta moving in the direction of finding Staff worthless in dungeons outside of static field. Most fights are 10-30 seconds and unless the boss has a huge hit box that gets annihilated by Meteor Shower I would be surprised if double staff killed faster than double Scepter/* Lightning Hammers for most encounters. People can do their records runs however they like, but from what I’ve seen and done it appears that 2x hammers is far superior.

Oh ya that’s for sure. Unless your fight last more than 20sec, you are better off with S/X. And for most of my runs I prefer to stay to S/X even if some fight last a bit longer because i don’t always want to switch around. But for stuff like Arah and Fractal, enough boss last longer for staff to be a good assets.

Thief : They are a strong profession in both PvE and PvP, but mostly for spvp and roaming, not really that good of a profession for WvW zerg.

Guardian : They are loved by pugs both in PvE and PvP, but are about in the middle in term of overall usefulness. They are rarely in top profession, but still really usefull. In WvW zerg, they are one of the four main profession, maybe the most important one.

Warrior : All party in PvE should have 1 of those, but not more. In WvW they are part of the zerg meta. They are easy so they are popular amount pugs both in WvW and PvE. For spvp they on the top half best profession right now, but this may change on the january 29th with the incoming might nerf, we’ll see.

Ranger : They have a bad reputation because of how anet marketed them and they were lacking a year ago. Now they are in good shape both in PvP and PvE, but still have stigma from last year in some pugs group that don’t keep up as the game change. For WvW zerg, they are not part of the meta but can do ok in pugs group.

Mesmer : In pve they have great utilities, but they are more of an organized group profession. You can still do decent with pugs. Its a good profession in sPvP, but not at the top anymore, again its at his best with a organized group. In WvW zerg its the same thing again but worst. Not that useful unless you are in organized group. Don’t get me wrong, its a good profession, but unless you are organized, there is better option.

Engineer : About in the same place as ranger in PvE and WvW. In sPvP and roaming its one of the two top profession right now.

Elementalist : Its the profession in the best situation right now. Queen of pve, part of the meta WvW zerg and the other top two profession in spvp. It can be hard to master, but its one of the best profession all around these days.

Necro : In a ordinary place in pve, its a correct profession in spvp and its part of the meta for WvW zerg (maybe the second most important profession after guardian).

IllegalChocolate.6938:

nearly invincible eh?

care to put that to the test with a solo of the entirety of the volcanic fractal on lvl50?

I don’t think that anyone that would want to debunk that will pay for a full cleric ascended gear to have enough AR to go througth a level 50 Fractals. But here what I found.

Solo lupi with cleric Warrior
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKO11Y55DTM

Arah path 2 – Group of 5 with dodge disabled
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VhmwLwvrM

Jerus.4350:

I was always curious on this, is it a dps increase at higher health? HS certainly doesn’t pack that big of a punch at higher healths.

His points is not of using HS for dps, but to use somescreen+HS to stealh himself and save a cloak&dagger which cost more than a HS in initiative. Each time you can get a backstab from somecreen +HS and not from C&D, you save 3 initiative. Since you can’t always C&D wihtout depleting rapidly your initiative, it would be a gain in DPS. The actual dmg of the HS is irrelevant in that particular situation, its just a nice bonus.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Thaddeus.4891:

Your longbow should be your secondary, but anyway.

Sword/Axe will be the better dps, but it’s hard to play because of the animation of the sword auto-attack. You can’t dodge, you need to use skill 2 and 3 of the sword to evade.

Sword/Dagger will be a small lost of dps, but it give you an additional evade.

Greastsword is less dmg, but far easier to use than sword.

Officially LB should be the primary weapon since you always need to start the fight with it, then swap to S/A ;P

Also S/A should be the default melee. Keep a GS and a WH for special ocasions.

Really yellow lol. As long as you use it at the beginning of a fight, but keep Sword after the initial burst, i’m good with whatever title you want to name which weapon

D/F stacking capability can change a lot depending on your setup. Like hybrid say, you can get between 15 and 10 with the right rotation. But if you can keep 9-12 might for all the fight with your D/F (Scholar), then the fight isn’t hard enough to justify using D/F. D/F is use in hard fight when you won’t be able to keep your rotation perfect.

Spoj The Second.7680:

Well nothing lasts long in an optimised group. But say you are doing fractals which have long drawn out fights. What you want for that is D/F ele and a staff or second D/F ele. Easy 25 might when done right. And you also have to keep in mind almost every class can contribute a blast or two mid fight.

So with a staff ele and LH you should have no problem maintaining might no matter how sloppy you are in a dungeon. Its simply the best sustained might combination (ignoring phalanx) for regular dungeons. Phalanx only has the advantage if you lose time by prestacking might. But theres almost always a way to pre stack might without losing time. Sometimes it involves a short range portal.

D/F Elementalist can only keep a constant 7 might of stack over long period of time while doing 2-3k less dps than a staff ele. PS Warrior over D/F Ele without question for that situation, except for some fight where the utilities of D/F will be more important than the dps lost. But ppl usually bring a guardian in Fractal to take care of that part.

For other party member having some blast in mid fight. Unless you don’t take a meta build :

- Guardian have 1, but can keep 2-3 constant might
- 1 warrior can provide 4 with the help of other (banners), but only at the start of the fight.
- Engineer can blast 5 times, but only 3 are reliable (1 other is their elite and the last sacrifice their healing turret).
- Thief have a good amount, but switching to Shortbow in the middle of a fight? Really. Only blinding powder is a reliable blast mid fight.
- Ranger, Necro and Mesmer don’t have one.

Again, like I said. Engineer and Guardian can pick up the slack for 1 staff + 1 s/x Ele.

Tree.3916:

What do you mean “make a phalanx warrior”? You can change your build at any time so there is no need to create an entirely new character that specifically runs this build.

Both build use different runes. No everybody want or have the gold for 2 set of armor with different runes.

Spoj The Second.7680:

The LH auto attack in lava font is enough to maintain the might with a little help. For example other party members + arcane wave and arcane brilliance.

Yup, but that doesn’t change the fact that a 1 S/F Ele (Strength) + 1 Staff Ele (Scholar) can keep at max 25 stack of constant might wihtout room for error and not counting for the S/F Ele taking Glyph of Storm over arcane wave. If you have a Guardian or engineer to pick up the slack, that’s ok, but if you don’t a PS Warrior would be a better option.

For short fight, 1 staff ele + 1 S/X ele is perfect IF the S/X is not using glyph of storm. But for longer fight keeping a constant 25 stacks of might for the whole group become a bit more tricker without outside help. My only point is 1 staff ele + 1 S/X ele is not that reliable to keep 25 stack of might by themselves in every situation. A party should have a third source of might if needed, or transfer the might responsability to a PS warrior and free the Ele to max their dps.

Lendruil.9061:

The lh ele can restack might after 30 seconds. As far as I know the szepter skills are actually a dps gain compared to lh autoattacks.

Not all of it, but you are right. The lost in dps don’t come from the rotation itself, but from all the step you need to do. If you can LH in air you have it easier, but if you LH in water, you need to switch in fire before your LH run out otherwise you won’t be able to complete your might rotation since water will be in cooldown. Its also more place for errors, time lost to get your hammer, etc. In theory its all good, but in practice it won’t be that clean. The same problem as before, if you only have 1 S/X + 1 Staff, you don’t have much room for error to get 25 stack of might. Don’t forget that Staff have 9% more dps than the S/D + LH build with the best dps. It can go as far as 20% more dps depending on what build the S/X Ele use.

Its all about balancing between the ideal situation vs reality. But also adapting to your party and your encounter.

Your longbow should be your secondary, but anyway.

Sword/Axe will be the better dps, but it’s hard to play because of the animation of the sword auto-attack. You can’t dodge, you need to use skill 2 and 3 of the sword to evade.

Sword/Dagger will be a small lost of dps, but it give you an additional evade.

Greastsword is less dmg, but far easier to use than sword.

Frontline guardian often if not always have the AH trait for the sustain healing which is really good when you are in a zerg.

Here some different trait distribution that can be nice.
0/0/6/6/2 : Main things here are AH for self healing, Pure of Voice for condition removal and Master of consecreation for lower cooldown for you purging flame.
0/1/6/6/1 : Lose the CD on consecration, but gain a blind on F1 for stomp and a aoe blind against a enemy zerg.
0/0/6/4/4: This is the current meta, you lose condition removal (but with melandru runes and lemongrass food you aint that much affected by them), but you gain stability on F3 and boon duration. Stability is the most important boons in zerg fight today, but that’s more for organized group, not that much important for pugs zerg.

Runes choice :
- Melandru is the go too choice for big zerg of 20+ ppl. With lemongrass food that’s 65% less condition duration on you.
- Soldier runes used to be the main choice and its still a good cheap choice in pugs zerg, but for organized group the guardian shout have group support purpose and can’t be kept for condi removal.
- Monk runes : Give you a good boost of sustain healing. A good choice for small zerg of 10-15ppl.
- Hoealbrak runes : A good all around runes, you only have 20% less condi duration on your compare to 25% with melandru and you loss the decreased incoming dmg when stun, but stun is far less a problem now than it use to be. Hammer Warrior were dominant in melee dmg, but now the need for stability mean that there is more guardian and less warrior (so less risk of stun). But in return you get a good amount of might duration, which is perfect since guardian is the main source of might in a zerg fight. This is more of an organized zerg rune, you are better off with another rune if you just want to pug zerg.

Start by choosing your mix of trait and rune depending on what you prefer and what are your weakness. Once your trait and runes are settle, then choose your gear. You shouldn’t change your armor, it will probably always be soldier. Soldier is a better choice in my opinion because you can’t have too much power, so you will never have to change your armor, while knight gear can be good in some situation, you don’t want that with melandru rune for exemple.

You also need to choose your weapons. Usually ppl keep a staff and then choose between hammer or GS depending on what you prefer. Not a big deal. Hammer + GS can be good, but only in very specific situation and shouldn’t be use all the time. You usually have GS or Hammer to attack and staff when you regroup for healing and might. Zerker weapons are usually the choice so you don’t have to change them when you change your stuff around later.

Now you have your trait, your weapons, your runes and your armors. You need to choose your trinket. You want to choose them last because they only change your stats so they are perfect to make the last little touch. You want to reach a comfortable point in HP and Armor, the rest should all be dmg. You don’t want to have less than 15-16k hp or the burst on your will be too hard. 16-17k hp is a comfortable zone for a experimented player. That’s the sweet spot you should looking for. Keep in mind that HP is only there to give you time, there is no amount of hp that will protect your from a zerg burst. You need to use either Renewed Focus or Shelter to get out of a burst and your hp is what give you enough reaction time. More hp = more reaction time . 18-19k is a good amount for new players. More than that is useless. except if you are a commander that need to stay alive to lead.

Like I said for your armor. 3k is the sweet spot. 2.8-2.9k is good if you feel you can survive. 3.1-3.2k is good when you need more protection. Higher than that and you will be a tank with a pea canon doing nothing but absorbing hits.

Lendruil.9061:

With 1 staff and 1 lh ele you should have perma 25 might.

In theory yes, in practice not all the time. Outside of the chance that someone screw up or that 2 of those blast are heal that an elementalist could need to use outside his might rotation. A lot of S/X Ele don’t have arcane wave on their bar anymore with LH+Icebow+Glyph of Storm. Some staff ele need to alternate their two arcane blast to keep their trait up. Add the chance that someone screw up, the possibility that both Staff and S/X can’t blast their maximum at the beginning of the fight (because of glyph of storm or Arcane Lighting) and the possibility that an Elementalist need to heal outside the might rotation and you are pretty sure to never have a constant 25 stack of might without another profession there to pick up the slack.

Also for some fight, having two swirling winds will allow your team to go strait for the kill and save a bunch of time like with the Spider Queen in AC.

It really depend on the situation. Usually my friend stay in S/F and I switch from staff to S/F during our run to fit the situation.

utred.6085:

Is phalanx warrior + 2 staff ele better dps than dps war + staff ele and LH ele?

It depend on the situation. If the fight last more than 20-27second, then you can’t burst the boss down with 25 stacks of might at the beginning of the fight. The constant 25 might and higher dps of staff ele will be better there.

All the fight that can be burst down in less than 20-27 second will be better with S/X Ele + DPS Warrior. You will have about the same dps as Ele because your will almost only do some burst, you will have 25 stack of might for your burst and your warrior will do more dmg.

You boost by about 30% the dps of your teamate with a PS Warrior if nobody is giving might. Overall, that’s a 20% dps boost to the party. Since everyparty do some might anyway, its will still probably be around 10-15% boost in reality. Still worth taking if you group can’t maintain 20 stacks of might or more.