Guild Wars 2

Kormeg.2469:

SO what you’re saying is that just do zerkers and be done with gear stats, and look to traits and weapons for diversity. That’s a breath of fresh air from what i thought of the situation before.

Pretty much. That’s the concept of GW2, but a lot of ppl just hit a brick of wall when they see zerker only and can’t see farther than that.

Keep in mind that going full zerker can be hard for some ppl. You really need to know the game, the content and your profession to not die a lot. If that’s your situation, a couple pieces of knight or soldier gear is not a bad thing. They are perfect training weel so if you need them use them. Condition build are also viable in solo situation or against some specific enemies like husk in the world boss Triple Wurm, they are just not great in group content like dungeons.

Some profession are really limited if you want some of the best build in dungeon. Warrior for exemple is pretty straight forward in that regard. One build is there since a long time and nobody come out with a better build yet. You still have phalanx build for more support but other than that if you take another build that will only to fit what you like, not to optimize your stuff.

Other profession on the other hand have several good build to fit different situation. The guardian have different optimal weapons depending of the situation, and different build depending on the needs of your group. The elementalist have three main family of build and different trait setup can be use in each of them to fit your group and your game style.

It come and goes. I think there was maybe 5 or 6 waves like that. Gold sellers starts whisper everybody like crazy, ppl report them, anet accumulate information and mass ban their accounts, we don’t see any gold sellers during months, then the circle start again.

Nothing more can be done. Anet actually do a great job with gold sellers, but from time to time they just spam players like crazy before Anet can mass ban their accounts. Usually these account were hack from player that no longer play so Anet can’t do much to prevent that, just fix the problem as good as they can when it get out of control.

Carrion and Valkyrie are not the most popular stats. But here my opinion where it can be best use.

Engineer carrion zerg grenadier. Mostly a WvW pug zerg build. You’re a backline dps, with some support. It does the job well. Use to play that a the beginning of the game when engineer was my main.

Thief D/D or D/P WvW roaming build. Valkyrie pieces on a backstab thief is popular since that give you power and ferocity and you can trade the precision from zerker to the vitality from valkyrie because of hidden killer trait that give you 100% crit on your backstab anyway. This is a great way to increase the survivability of your thief without sacrificing much dps on your main source of damage aka your backstab.

I guess there is probably some PvE solo build that can use carrion, but i never used them so I’m not sure.

Black Frog.9274:

The day they institute GvG is the day they end WvW. Casual players who aren’t interested in hyper-competitive play would be left out in the cold. I suspect that’s the reason they haven’t done it yet.

It may not die, but they will need to change things up, because a huge chunk of the WvW player base will simply migrate.

Ya, its horrible. I’m so glad that I made my 8 professions before the change. If they ever add a new profession I have a stack of tome of knowledge and skill point scrolls to reach 80 right away before buying all the trait that I need, but still that way, its ackward.

I liked the idea of quest or buying the new grandmaster trait they added, but for all trait, this can be costly for a new player that want to experiment with different trait or just annoying for a vet.

Kormeg.2469:

Well thanks for the lengthy explanation, i don’t think i fully understood why zerkers was the absolute best way to go

Its the optimal way to go, but you don’t need it to complete any content and have fun in the game.

The reason why zerker (or assassins) is the optimal way to go is simple. There is three category of stats for the gear.
- Damage : Power, Condition, Precision, Ferocity, etc
- Personnal surviability : Vitality, Toughness, etc
- Support : Healing Power, Boons Duration, etc

In support, Anet wanted to exclude a specific healer so we don’t get into the Holy Trinity. By doing that, we end up with good personal heal and bad scaling from healing power. You can’t outheal the incoming dmg, making it useless in pve. Boons duration is just too small in gear to do any good.

Personnal surviability only give you that. Its selfish and don’t help you team at all. BUT it’s an amazing training wheel when you learn the game, a new profession, new content or just want to play casual/relax. Its purpose is clear and does is well.

That leave us with dmg only. Unfortunaltly, condition dmg don’t work well in group content. Because of technical limitation, the cap on condition restraint the number of ppl playing condition before you start to cancel each other. One condition damage build can do 20 stack of bleed, leaving no place for a second guys to do bleeding. That only apply in group content, so in solo there is no problem with condition build.

So we end up with only 2 optimal gear : Zerker and Assassin. Now ppl complain that there is no diversity in gw2, but they are wrong. There is no diversity in gear stats, but there is a great deal of it in trait, sigil, runes, weapons, utilities, etc. A lot of ppl are changing their build or weapons several times inside a single dungeon to adapt to a specific situation.

1) For the golem, there is not much you can do. That’s the job for a mesmer or a guardian. There is a lot of source of dmg in there, a guardian or a mesmer can make sure that the golem don’t have boons. Without regen/protection, the fight go faster and without retal, you won’t kill yourself. Of course if he aggro you and spawn static field and laser on you all fight, this will be really hard. Just make sure you enter combat last, that will help.

2) For alpha, you should have any dragon tooth on you. If you keep yourself close to him the only problem will be the burning and his cone attack. They are quick and not much you can do about it to evade them. That’s where focus invulnerability and deep freeze will help you for a moment. At that point, its out of your control. Enough DPS and support from a guardian/mesmer are the only thing that will keep you alive. Just do your job with the dps, try to get into good pug group or find a guild to run it.

I’m confused. You made your build in the PvP section of gw2skills, but didn’t use any amulet or runes and you are talking about soldier gear. So I guess you didn’t check and just wanted to show your trait and skills, but that’s a PvE build?

If that’s the case, then its terrible.

1) Staff have no use in PvE except for TA. If you REALLY want a staff, then take hammer (its a good weapon on its own. GS without a sword is not that good). Use your staff on engage, then keep your hammer until the end of the fight. Otherwise, take a sword/focus over your staff or a sceptre/focus if you can’t play without a range.

2) Your build is all over the place. You have both medi and shout, and don’t boost neither of them completely.

3) You put trait to improve your retaliation, but only have 2 source. Retaliation is bad anyway in pve since mobs attack slowly.

4) You have a trait to heal on aegis, but you have limited source of aegis.

5) You have a trait to deal burn on block, but you don’t have shelter or a focus? Anyway, the only reason to bring more burning on a guardian would be to trigger fiery wrath, but you don’t even have it in your trait.

I think you need to define exactly what you are looking for so we can help you with a build that will help you more.

Ezeriel.9574:

If you are using clerics, your health pool is so low that any zerker can burst you down with ease, after your blocks are gone.

Weird. I have 2 blocks, 1 invulnerability, 2 aegis and 3 blind. This is usually good enough to survive any zerker. Bunker Guardian have its weakness and some attack can interrupt my shelter in the wrong moment, exposing me to a burst. But there is ways to protect myself.

Ezeriel.9574:

You add in the fact that a lot of guards have no increase in run speed, and other classes can just walk normally in order to kite you. Giving up any chance to win a fight, just to stay on a point for 5-10 seconds longer is insanity.

I don’t need no run speed. I’m a bunker. My job is to stay on point whatever what. If I need to die on a point to keep it for a couple more second I will. They can kite however they want, I’ll keep the node. I’m not there to win fight, i’m there to give time to my team.

Ezeriel.9574:

So this is not a solo bunker weapon, it’s at best a support weapon.

…and I cannot see a situation when hammer isn’t better support.

It has roots, leaps, barriers, knockback and most importantly protection..

You can’t compare mace vs hammer. You need to compare Mace/Focus or Mace/Shield vs hammer. I prefer Mace/Focus because you have 2 source or regen that can help you allies, a blind, a block and healing on auto-attack. It’s awesome with the Mace of Justice trait.

Hammer is also really good. But personally, I find it more unreliable against experienced ppl. True the protection from the hammer is better than the healing from the mace. But if both rely much on their third attack for sustain (which is easy to interrupt), mace/x have a couple other stuff in their sleeve keep yourself alive. Which the hammer don’t.

verskore.4312:

such negative comments wtf, the build is rlly good. looks like the guys giving negative comments are super pro…

I don’t know for everybody, but I think that most of the negativity come from how the guys explain it in it video. He’s super excited and explain how this is such a SUPER SICK build. Its a legendary build after all. But oh kitten its that old 0/1/6/6/1 build?? Nothing legendary or even remotely innovative or new about this build.

OMG guys I got that new food that will blow your mind. This is super awesome. Cheese and Pepperoni pizza.

Ya not that legendary. Correct build in pvp, but not the best. And for PvE that’s a newb carrier build, not a good build.

- Use focus like others said. You can use your invulnerability while doing your might stacking to save you 1 or 2 hit.
- Use Icebow to deep freeze when you can to save you and your team 1 or 2 hit.
- Don’t go in first. This was my main problem when I started play Ele. The guardian in always push me to start fight, not a good idea as an Ele.
- I never had to use the Water Elemental, maybe it help. I would have to try it, but I fear the boss could destack in crucial moment. I have deep trust issues with npc.

There is also thing that you can’t really control. A good guardian or mesmer will help your team survive that fight longer. And a good dps team will make the fight short enough so you don’t have problem at all. I try to not pug, but when I do CoE with my Ele I ask for exp and speed run. That usually go well.

Mesmer is a good profession that ppl like in dungeon, but I wouldn’t recommend it to your wife. Like someone else said, they are dependant on trait which make the early level can be difficult.

Guardian is far easier to play at low level and everybody love a guardian in dungeon.

Necro is also a good profession to play, but ppl don’t really like it in dungeon.

creepmatic.9435:

Pvp, wise, I don’t have any experience, but in pve I think giving necro a similar party buff like Spotter but make it give 150 ferocity, it might be OP but it will surely give necro a spot in speed runs.

No that wouldn’t make it op in pve and wouldn’t give him a spot in speed runs. Necro is in the same dps range as guardian and mesmer, but don’t bring as much utilities as neither of those. Ranger use to be in that range and bring spotter + frost spirit and it wasn’t part of any speed run back then.

Taku.6352:

Necros are rather powerful in pvp provided the players knows what he’s doing. They are a direct counter towards the current boon/might/celestial meta and can turn a whole fight around and the best way to counter this is to cc spam the necro so giving them more stability/survival skills would make them outright overpowered in SPvP and WvW.

Ya like spoj said, you can say that of all profession. A good player in an ordinary profession won’t mean that the profession is too powerful. Necro is in a good place in PvP, but lack a bit to be consider as top profession or OP right now. They kinda fixed the ranger in PvE and this didn’t broke the PvP balance, they could do the same with necro.

Ya don’t use the dual axe/gs farmer build. That’s for solo when you need the extra fury from offhand axe, that’s bad in group content.

Zerker gear with rune of strenght would be your best choice. Zerker gear with hoelbrak would be second. But keep in mind that its for roaming build in wvw. Don’t do zerg with that unless you feel confident enough in your abilities.

1 armor for everything is rarely a good idea anyway.

honvas.8792:

Hello guys can u little help me withmy 80 lvl thief for pve ?

I see on dulfy guide but im totaly confused ..i play in pvp d/p

So i have to switch weapons in pvp right coz playing d/d in pve + what exotic gear i should take i see two difference gear ?

IM rly confused how making him good

ya you need to switch weapons between pve and pvp if you use different weapons. For you gear you gonna need 2 set of gear if you play pve and WvW, but no need of another set of gear for sPvP.

If you really don’t want to have 2 set of gear for PvE and WvW you can use Zerker gear with scholar rune for both and only switch trinket in WvW. The rune choice is not ideal especially for a new player because scholar is hard to maintain in pvp. You are really better with two set of gear. Exotic don’t cost much.

Ya you can destroy those things. But what is frustrating is that Anet could add a new sink anytime. I used to sell silk to the npc vendor and now I can’t get enough. This can be frustrating if you destroy thousand of ascended crafting material and 2months later you need several thousand of it when they finally add the precursor crafting or some other stuff.

Ya you don’t want to be try to be tank in this game. The community tried that during the first months of the game with an Anchor build, it doesn’t work. You can’t keep the aggro, you can’t stay alive in hard situation, you won’t buff your team more, you will lose most of the best defensive support the guardian can bring and you lacking dps will drag fight longer making your team’s life harder.

rabidsmiles.5926:

Thaddeus.4891:

Full zerker is kitten ele, but that’s the optimal gear. So you are better to go full zerker anyway and if you need some more tanky pieces take them in your trinkets instead since they are WAY more cheap, so not a big deal to change them up over time as you get better.

What trinkets do you recommend to play with that aren’t berserkers? I have full berserkers…but was looking to get some tanky ones as back up for the harder fractals. Solider’s maybe?

Putting some more soldier trinket won’t help you much. Elementalist are squishy by nature and unless you go full tanky gear you will still lose a big chunk of live everytime you’ll get hit. Like Oxtred said, D/F will give you those pratical survival skill you need. Most ppl prefer to play D/F in fractal over S/F. If you still prefer using a bit of tanky trinket then soldier could do the job, there is real good answer there.

SHM.7628:

I don’t PVP, Craft, do JP’s, dungeon run or WvW with any regularity.

So you don’t participate in 80% of the game. PvP, Craft, JP, Dungeon and WvW is ALL what I do in the game except the Living Story and Achievement Hunting. I have a hard time to see what do you do in the game if you are not a casual but don’t do any of those things. I guess you level up toons whic is suppose to be a way to learn your profession and the game, not an end game to get the good stuff.

Dasenthal.6520:

Thaddeus.4891:

To OP : Go zerker, especially if you are casual with exotic only. In your build you didn’t choose any stats for your weapons so it should be 63% crits chance. Rune of the Ranger is a bit less dps, but if you play casual Ranger could be more dps since the buff is always there. Either are good it depend on what you prefer.

Rune of the Ranger is a bit less dps than what? I am currently using Ranger Runes but been trying to up dps so it might help me.

What Taverius said is right. If you can keep yourself at 90% hp about half the time then Scholar will be about 4-5% more dps. If you can’t, then Ranger will be a safer bet.

I concur in part. If he like to play S/D, S/F or D/F, then ya Rune of Strenght is the best choice, but its so costly. About 70-80 gold for a complete set.

But if he play Staff, rune of strength is not that good. In that case Scholar would be better. Flame Legion also do a good job and its really cheap. Rune of the Ranger is also a good choice if you always keep a mini with you.

Ya that’s the one.

Full zerker is kitten ele, but that’s the optimal gear. So you are better to go full zerker anyway and if you need some more tanky pieces take them in your trinkets instead since they are WAY more cheap, so not a big deal to change them up over time as you get better.

Experiment with exotic gear, try out meta build in Dekeyz sticky in top of the Ele forum. During this time accumulate crafting material, go after you acended crafting material (Bloodlust stone, Empyreal Fragment and Dragonite Ore) you will need 1500 of each of them, and level up your tailor to 500 (Use gw2crafts.net for a nice guide).

Once you are ready you will need 1 ascended insignia, 2 specific crafting component (like Strap and Padding for the Helm) and either a Lesser Vision Crystal or a Vision Crystal.

hybrid.5027:

Oh my the twists and turns of this thread.

On topic,

Someone made a rather unlettered recommendation that having higher Vitality should increase dodges.

I’m down.

so long as we’re doing that, though, increased Power should lower weapon skill cooldowns. Increased precision should increase the damage of my attacks the closer I am to my target. Increased Ferocity should increase my attack speed.

Sounds fair to me. Let’s do it.

That was always bugging me when they talk about giving a double use to vitality, toughness and clerics, but leaving Power, Precision and Ferocity with only 1 purpose. I always though this was a bias approach.

NewTrain.7549:

Thaddeus.4891:

That’s between 100-200 hours. That’s a lot of hours for most games.

That’s a lot of hours for SINGLE PLAYER games. For games with multiplayer components, that’s laughably few. In one of my favorite games of ever, having only 100 hours of play will get you booted from most lobbies for being a noob (unless it’s a noob-only lobby).

Did you read my post or you pick that sentence and freak out? I said EXACTLY THAT. Most ppl play MMO like they play a single player RPG. Even when they join a guild, they stay in their corner, complete the storyline, do a couple dungeons, get some get and that’s it, they are out of the game, and right into the next one. I was like that with WoW and SWOTOR. I was in 3 different PvE guild in GW2 and it was the same kitten for all three. About 50-60% of the players were never mixing with the rest, played 100-200 hours and never came back.

They are single player gamers that try out MMO to get that single player rpg feeling. Whatever you do, you won’t keep them in the game, that’s not what they search.

Krakilin.1524:

Dont even care about other players lol. wonderland and mad kings are impossible to most people I know.

And most of people I know loved them both. Its all about opinion. If they make them easier ppl that love Jumping Puzzle will complain, if they make it harder, ppl that don,t like Jumping Puzzle will complain.

We just have to accept that we not all love new content.

Do you complain because can’t access everything you missed from past update or do you complain because for this season they give you a way to buy some of the past content?

Because all of season one is not available if you were not there when they were launch. Are you complaining about that? Festivals are still limited in time so if you miss them (like winterdays now), you won’t be able to access it. Are you complaining about that too?

Just making sure, because buying the past update is an additional option that you have compare to having no option at all to experience every free update you missed.

timmyf.1490:

The real problem is that this is a distraction from the reality. Here’s what your real problem is:

Player retention in this game is bad. I don’t know how bad, but given that having 3500 Achievement Points puts you in the top 10% should give you an idea. 90% of accounts on this game have less than 3500 AP.

80% have less than 1800 AP.

Do you know what the 50/50 split is? It’s somewhere around 800 AP.

But you assume that this is somehow special, that GW2 is different in that regard, that other game do different.

Do you know how many game did I tried and not got into, or pick up for only a couple weeks? And everybody is like that. Saying that GW2 is not good at keeping their player because half of ppl that bought the game don’t play that much. Do you know how many hours in game does 800 AP mean in average. That’s between 100-200 hours. That’s a lot of hours for most games. With that amount of time, you play a MMO like you play any single player game. You go through the storyline once, you level up your character get some cool stuff you are stop playing. That’s what most ppl do even in MMO. So many game out there, the vast majority of ppl send a limited amount of time in a game before switching to another game.

How GW2 does? I don’t know. We will need to compare it to other game to really know. But you can’t just assume that the game don’t keep its player base because about 50% of their player only play through the story and dungeon only once. That’s what most ppl do in most of their games.

Ya I retrait and switch weapons all the time in dungeon. If you are quick enough, in a speed run an elementalist with go through other weapons to stack more might.

How much of that you are willing to do in a dungeon depend on a lot of factor.

cafard.8953:

In the very average circles i PvE in, i’ve never seen anyone kicked for class/build apart from Rangers. Your mileage may vary, but it’s a pretty class-exclusive issue from where i stand. As for the toxic elitist community, is any other class forum so bent on looking down on its own?

That’s because pugs are stupid sometimes, they heard thing but don’t really know, they just heard rumors or read something in the forum. Ranger back before september had really bad DPS and were view inferior. Still, a good ranger could be better than the average pugs, that didn’t stop pugs to kick them simply because Ranger had a bad reputation. Now that ranger is way better than it used to, the bad reputation will still take time to get ride of.

And to be fair, a lot of LFG post said no Engineer, Ranger or Necro. Engineer and Ranger are out of the bad zone, but Necro are still in it.

creepmatic.9435:

OP, if u really want to go support, u can even go clerics, just go 6 in virtues and 6 in honor, u should be good. Heck I was rolling TapDatMouse WvW build in dungeons and was wondering why my build does 0 dmg, it’s ok I guess every build works, meta means efficiency, If you don’t want to roll with it now, u will curse yourself later for spending unnecessary gold on unnecessary gear. My 2 cents.

That’s a bit late for that dude. 2 days ago the OP said that he understand what the meta bring and will use it. No need for sarcasm lol.

Tom Yzf.5872:

Maintenence oils should provide about at least 3% crit chance in AC. Thats gotta be better than nothing right?

The way the scaling work is that if you reach a point then any additional points won’t really help you once you are scale down. But I think that maintenance oils can work. Its mostly sharperning stone that have a problem. If you have a lot of power, you can be in ascended gear with sharpening stone, you will have pretty much the same amount of power in AC someone with exotic gear. The lower level you are scale down, the less advantage you get from those things.

That’s just a rare tonics dude. Ya it will be hard and ya some people won’t like trying to get it. If you really wanted that tonic why didn’t you try to craft it in the last year? Recipe were 1-2 gold for all of them for 300 days, they jumped in price in the last 2 days.

So NOW you want them and you complain that its hard because a lot of ppl want them too?

Windsagio.1340:

But this question is already in the game, are you playing with other people? I asked myself this question during the first 9months of the game. At some point it changed from I need AH build with knight gear to, I need AH build with zerker gear to, I need zerker gear with good dps trait. I asked this question and as I was getting better and known more about encounter the answer changed. Same with everybody I know. My friend asked this question and needed the 2 pieces or knight with Shake it Off and at some didn’t need it anymore. I got another that still need 3 pieces of Valkyrie on his Mesmer but can melee. I got another one that just can’t melee, so she use a range weapon most of the time. We talk about meta because that’s the optimal build, but everybody know that you need to be honest with yourself : can’t you survive in a meta build? If not add more defensive stats until you get better at it.

I said that already, but I’ll say it again. People were able to do fractal level 80+ in a time where AR could be high enough to do a difference and each agony attack was 1 shot dead (not down, dead). And they were able to do it in zerker (I only reached 60 myself if I remember correctly). There was never an harder content in the game ever, and I don’t think that there will be a content as in the game ever. Mostly because these fractal level 40+ were not intended by Anet in the first place, it was kind of a bug. But the best bug ever.

If you push the slider the situation will be the same. Some ppl will take longer to know new encounter and a larger portion of the community will run non meta, but the meta won’t change much. It will probably adapt, but won’t drastically change.

Silverwaste is a bit harder when you start, but it not more of a challenge now. I don’t know anybody, zero, nada, none, that needed to switch gear to do silverwaste.

Windsagio.1340:

Hybrid; the trick is that despite what people tell you, nobody is on 100% of the time, everyone makes mistakes.

The problem to me is that the slider is way off, so it’s far too low-risk for most people to play pure dps, even with relatively high error rates.

I’m fine with a person that’s say 95% on being able to run pure dps stats (although they need to fix balance between dps types still), but it should be extremely challenging for someone who’s say, 50% on to complete that content in pure dps stats, or else we end up in the situation we’re in now.

If we’re in a place where people look in askance at the person who gears zerker, but then someone says ‘no wait that guy’s awesome he can totally do it!’ and that guy helps the group’s speed, that’s a perfect scenario, as far as I’m concerned.

If the top-end groups are all in pure zerk, because all of the players are good enough to live, that’s great, but it should be a serious quesiton and consideration in mid-level groups and pugs.

But that’s how the game already is. People that can survive in full zerk play full zerk, but a lot of ppl can’t so they use a mix of piece. That’s not ideal, but even when you check guide on the meta, there is often a small portion explaining what you can do if you can’t survive in full zerk, like adding more knight gear or things like that.

I got ppl in my guild of all level of skills. Some go zerker, melee, meta. Other use meta trait with some knight or valkyrie gear, other use ranged weapons.

You get you laurels from log-in reward not daily anymore. You get laurel on day 2, 7, 9, 16, etc.

Clip.6845:

The arrow while exploring can be turned off in the menu.

About the dailies, I dislike and like a lot about it.
The rewards for them are great, but the achievements themselves were narrowmindedly created. They should be a lot more general. Fractal level shouldn’t matter, class you play in PvP shouldn’t matter, etc. etc.

I agree with that. It should be more general so that more ppl could do it without getting out of their way.

If I agree with the fact that, there is just not enough option. Ppl complain on both side. Those doing level 50 fractal hate to do a level 11-20 and low level hate that there is content only for level 80.

But you are not forced into this content. Its only AP guys. If you really want AP, then go for it, if its not worth the effort for you don’t. Daily was a must before because of Laurels et other reward, but all of that is in the log-in reward now.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

The FACT remains that not just on the forums but in game players have been very unhappy with a lot of the decisions made in the past year.

That’s the weird thing. After reading some portion of the forum I feel almost depressed about the game. Then I get online the game, I have fun with my friends and guild, speak with ppl in the map, go in WvW with my second guild, have fun, laugh, get reward and sleep happy. Every time someone start to bash the game for no reason in the map chat, he’s receive badly with ppl ignoring him or telling him to play another game if he don’t like it.

I receive a totally different vibe in the game and in some more negative part of the forum. But maybe that’s just me alone in my bubble.

Btw, I’m not talking about constructive criticism of the game. There is a lot of stuff that I don’t like about the game. But when you start your speech with Play How I want is dead in the this game, the discussion don’t start in the right direction. You can say that you want the reward (AP or else) , but don’t like the change they did to reach that reward. But you are not force to do this content.

Draaconis.2574:

So the word meta means post or add. Can someone give me some context here? Based on this definition of the word, I don’t follow this thread at all.

No meta mean the best build the community can come up with. It used to be 1 build for every profession, but since you can switch trait anywhere, you can find a couple of meta depending on which content you are doing. The Meta change over time depending on what the community find outs about the game (happen a lot in the first year of the game, less now), and depending on update that balance stuff like trait, skill, etc.

The final definition can be blurry. For exemple : The guardian have the hammer build 3/5/0/4/2 for fractal, the 4/6/2/0/2 for dps, and 4/5/0/0/5 for a general purpose/utilities. I myself consider them all meta because they are best on their specific situation. Other consider 4/5/0/0/5 alone as meta because it work everywhere. Other consider only 4/6/2/0/2 as meta because its the best dps.

But you could also consider 6/6/2/0/0 as more dps if you can’t keep up aegis. Or 6/6/0/0/2 with scepter against large hitbox mobs. See the problem? Where is the line? Can we only consider 1 build per profession? Do we consider only first 3? Or we consider all the different build even if they are the best only in 3-4 fight in the game.

The exact definition will change depending on who you are talking too.

Yep, the game changed a lot in low level. Not at the core, but how to unlock your character and the evil arrow.

I was fortunate enough to have most of my character to level 80 when they added that, the game is still as awesome as before once you reach level 80.

Don’t follow the arrow, you can do whatever you want to level up. There is over 300 hearts in the world so of course some of them will be really bad. But don’t worry, they are like 1% of the game. If I didn’t need map completion (aka doing all the heart) for my legendaries, it would not have touch 1 single hearts in the last 18 months. Hearts are really just an easy way to do content for new player that are used to do quest in other MMO. You could only do the first heart on your character and then never do one single heart again if you want.

GuzziHero.5104:

1) The dailys encourage participation across the entire world.
2) They reward players for loyalty and frequent play.
3) To keep the game world active and vibrant.
4) As a delivery agent for Laurels and AP.
5) To bring players together at large scale events.
6) To encourage players to enter game modes that they normally do not.

That’s just from my personal experience with my friends yesterday.

1) Yes it did. I did PvP, we tried different profession and it was awesome and funny at some time, we did a silverwaste run and after we when do a fractal 20 where one of my friend afk at the beginning so we 4 man it. kitten didn’t remember that it was so easy at level 20 lol. I had a good time all over Tyria last night. Loved the reward. Reward Track Xp in PvP, 1000 of karma in PvE, and WxP in WvW. I wanted to do them all lol. Of course I won’t be that exicted in a couple of weeks, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll always complete the spvp dailies.

2) Yes it does. Is it a good way? Not sure.

3) Don’t think it help or hurt that aspect. Daily are just a small portion of the game, actual content keep the game active and vibrant. Daily don’t do much about that and will never be able to do so.

4) Well it give you Laurel and AP, so I would say yes.

5) Not really. Like point 3, its the content that do that, not really the daily.

6) Yes and no. The reward is all about the game mode you are doing. Someone that never did fractal don’t care about the pristine, someone that never did spvp don’t care about reward track, etc. It could help push ppl on new type of content for them, but my guess is that daily won’t be the main reason they try that new content.

I can’t talk about the NPE stuff, I already had my 8 level 80 before they did it.

World Boss.
- I prefer this system to the old one by far, especially for Teq. But I can see your point. Did you know that not all the world boss were in the timer? Still plenty of boss that you can fight just like before : Dredge Commissar, the Ogre, the Shaman, etc. A lot of World bosses were pressing 1 method even before the change, some were changed a bit, but I agree that the scaling system should be more punishing. You shouldn’t be able to akf auto-attack a world boss in the middle of a zerg.

Home World
- Now that sound like a guys from a village spitting on the city. Use your friend list when you meet someone new and you want to continue to play with him. Ya I saw ppl more often before, but its not like it was a big deal. I say hi and then nothing else, sometime they didn’t responded. Its not because you saw someone 2-3 that you are now friend. For me the disadvantage of the megaserver are so little compare to the advantage. Every map feel alive with ppl running around, doing map completion, doing events, guild missions. Compare to the old system, where a lot of map were completely deserted because there was only a couple of people on that map on each server.

Like I said I can’t comment on the NPE stuff, but the Personal Story and Exploration are just like before at level 80. Don’t know when you are lower level.

Daily and log-in reward
That complain doesn’t even make sense. Every reward from the old daily and monthly are in the log-in reward system where you literally have to do nothing. The only thing you are missing is the AP. Its the ONLY thing. Now if you are saying that doing 3 of those daily are too much for you to get a strait 10 AP, I call bullkitten. Oh you are too busy to take 1min to go in kryta chop 3 trees or 30sec to go in ascalon to take a Vista, really, really.

You get the reward for nothing, if its too much for you doing 3 daily then don’t go after the AP seriously. Now you seem like trolling. You don’t get punished for doing lower level stuff. If you do your level 50 you will have ALL the reward you used to do. If you want to do the level in the daily you gonna have something else, that’s it. Ppl need to calm down. Rewarding something specific, doesn’t mean punishing everybody else.

Iason Evan.3806:

My issue with it now is the communication of it. I posted a thread about this a week ago. There is still no answer and we are all just here speculating. When changes to the game happen, it should be clearly explained. That’s my opinion and it feels reasonable to have changes be clearly and concisely explained.

I don’t get it really. They announced that their will be a change we just had to wait a week to see all the specific when the update was launch today. They could explain everything when they announce things, but why? Why do you absolutely need to know the exact amount of laurel you gonna have with the new system that’s gonna be launched a week later? Especially, since we already knew that they were gonna give use Laurels in the log-in reward.

I saw your post. You didn’t die for waiting for a week to get your answer didn’t you? It’s not like Anet don’t have much post asking question right? It would been nice if a dev or somebody from anet would have gave you quick answer. You will have around the same amount of laurel, no the price won’t change, no item will be added or removed. (I honestly don’t know about the karma yet.)

But in the end, its not a big deal, its only a week.

Yup, 35 laurels per 28 days. We’ll see what’s the amount of laurel in the 28th day, but with the old system you had 485 laurels per year, now you have kitten laurels per year (excluding the reward on the 28th days. So my guess is that you could have something like 700-750 laurels in a year if you always choose the laurel chest every 28th day, which is a lot more than it used to be.

Terromancer (Necro) : 0/6/4/0/4 with carrion amulet and Scepter/Dagger & Staff.

Condi Ranger : 0/2/6/6/0 with Rabid amulet and Shortbow & Axe/Dagger

Hambow (Warrior) : 0/0/6/2/6 with celestial amulet Hammer & Bow (that’s more of an Hybrid and not a pure condi).

That’s some good condi build, but other exist for Elementalist and Engineer. For other profession, condi build are less good.

Its Potion of X Slaying. The more powerful version will give you a 10% dmg bonus against that type of enemies, and reduced their incoming dmg by 10%.

AC : There is no potion of graveling slaying and the only potion of ghost slaying is so expensive that nobody use it. In that dungeon, most ppl use sharpening stone or other stuff like that.

CM : Potion of Outlaw slaying will work for pretty much all the enemies in the dungeon.

TA : Potion of Scarlet’s army slaying or Potion of Nightmare Court slaying.

SE : Potion of Dredge slaying and Potion of inquest slaying will work here. Its a bit trickier here since enemies alternate between the two. Path 1 will be Inquest all the way, while Path 3 will be mostly dredge, except of the final boss which will need a potion of destroyer slaying. I don’t use the destroyer potion since its only for 1 fight. Path 2 I think its mostly dredge, but I don’t do this path often so I’m not sure.

CoF : Potion of Flame legion slaying will work for all path.

CoE : It can be the trickiest one. You will need to switch between inquest and undead slaying. But since subject alpha is undead, I tend to only use undead slaying here.

HotW : I don’t do the path often enough to care about the potion here, but Icebrood and Son of Svanir potion work on different enemies that alternate throughout the dungeon.

Arah : Undead slaying for all path.

Forsving.9162:

I really despise the ‘’focus on all players going all-out damage’‘. It destroys variations of gameplay. Though this ain’t no news and it wont help with my arguing about it being a flawed system. Its just sad that it discourages players who prefer to play support roles instead of dps roles…

The thing is that is not true. The focus on dps is real don’t get me wrong, but variations of gameplay is real too. Ppl that come from other MMO want to play healer or tank and since there is no such thing in GW2 they automatically assume that there is nothing except DPS. Ya dps is a major focus for every profession, but they also each bring their speciality to the group. You can play support in GW2, its just not the same kind of support that ppl are used too.

Warrior bring offensive buff with banners, fury and might. Guardian bring defensive support with blind, aegis, reflect and protection. Mesmer bring utilities with reflect, portal, pull and boons removal. Ranger bring offensive buff with spotter and frost spirit as well as reflect. Elementalist bring conjure weapons, might and fury. Thief bring stealth for running. Engineer can bring a bit of everything from stealth to might. Only the Necro is in really bad shape right now. All of that is support and can be use in specific situation to help the party go through content, but non of that is mandatory, so you can complete any content with any party composition so you can play with your friend and don’t wait for a specific role or profession in a LFG.

Forsving.9162:

It really is a shame how it seems like everything is focused on the individual player instead of the groups of players!

As you get better in the game and you run with the same group of ppl, you start to see all the teamwork that can be done to make your run easier and faster. We even see these teamwork strategy slowly use by some more experienced pugs. We use the thief to skip through a part, we all use our blast finisher on the smoke or fire field, the rest of the team focus on dps while the guardian protect them, on mobs without defiant you can coordinate you interrupt, on those with defiant everybody deplete it so someone can cc the boss, etc. A lot of little trick that each player do to help the team.

But again, that’s not mandatory. So ppl that play alone are not stuck at some content because pugs can’t complete stuff without coordination.

WoW some misinformation in there.
­@ McWolfy : Its 1200 untraited, and 1500 traited
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Long_Range_Shot

@Ardenwolfe : You are way too much liberal with the term ’’best’’ here. Ya its a good PvE profession, certainly not the best (Ele is). Its good at surviability, but certainly not the best. Its good at healing, but certainly not the best. I agree with most of what you wrote, but ’’best’’ was use way too much.

Pros :
- Damage wise in PvE it used to be bad (7th), but not its better with the september buff. Now I think that Ranger are 4th. Still most speed run group don’t bring them since they do about a bit more personal dmg than Warrior, but Warrior buff the party almost twice as much. So warrior do better offensive buff and Ele/Thief still do more dmg than ranger. But outside of record run, they do really good.
- sPvP : They have a couple of really good build. From condi semi-bunker to Power ranger they can do wonder in most game. They can be a really danger.
- WvW : Similar to spvp, they are decent in roaming.

Cons :
- The are limited in the number of really good build for dungeon, and the sword can be hard to master. You are stuck in a animation that can kill you since you can’t dodge like normal at certain moment. Pet can also be a pain to control in dungeon, especially those where you use stealth to skip stuff. Pet can ruin strategy if you don’t control them.
- sPvP : If they do well in normal game, against good player they are too much unilateral. You are strong, but have clear weakness that good player will use against you and you can’t do much about it. In higher level of spvp, ranger can have a hard time.
- WvW : If they can be decent in roaming, they are very limited in zerg fight. Most of organized group in WvW don’t bring ranger as Heavy are better in the melee train and thief are better as gank.

Overall, if they used to be a really bad profession, they are not in the middle. They are really good for most ppl, but are not really part of the best profession that organized guild bring.

You can really use whatever you want. We can’t really answer that because the right answer would be zerker. If you want to experience some type of diversity in term of gear you need to go outside of typical dungeon.

You have some condition build around sinister stats for soloing content like dungeon. It would work for duo, maybe even trio a dungeon, but then it start to lose efficiency. But that kind of build don’t work at all on a guardian. You will need to take stuff like a Warrior, Engineer. I’m sure that other profession will work, but that’s the three that I know for sure.

In you want to stay Guardian then you will need to go in sPvP where bunker in Clerics (or soldier) is good. Or in WvW where soldier with a mix of cavalier/soldier/zerker trinket is pretty solid.

There is diversity in the game, but if you specify group dungeon, then the diversity is in the trait, not the gear.