Guild Wars 2

Bezagron.7352:

Ok slightly confused Thaddeus, you say defensive roles/builds/skills should be included in high end play but not defensive gear? .

No i’m not confuse. Defensive gear only give you selfish passive surviability at the expense of a massive amount of DPS.

’’SOME’’ defensive trait on the other end give you party wide active or passive survivability at the expense of only a small amount of DPS.

Bezagron.7352:

How is the role or build defensively focused if not using defensive gear? Isn’t this just an offensive focused role or build that brings the required defences. In my mind that would be offensive defence not defensive focused.

Well you’re right there. Maybe I wasn’t clear on that. I know the guys asked if Defence focused build/gear/roles needed to be excluded from high end content and I should have said YES. Defence focused build should be excluded. But like I said, defence roles/build shouldn’t be excluded. I said it clearly, Offensive should always be your main focus, but it doesn’t mean that some defensive support should be excluded when they are needed. When you do a speed run, there is NO reason whatsoever to bring a guardian except for his defensive capabilities. You need offensive support? Warrior and Ranger. You need DPS? Elementalist. Need reflect, aegis, blind? Guardian. That guardian will still be DPS oriented, but it will bring specific defence support to help the team.

Bezagron.7352:

At the moment building offensive feels very rewarding in regard to skills. As you almost always feel improvement with the skill. But building defensively is more passive in design and as such with regard to skills feels a lot less rewarding. So many defensive skill don’t seem to have an improved effect when building defensive. These defensive skills feel the same no matter if offensive or defensive.

It just feels that the defensive focused player in GW2 are relegated to passive play. Everything but active defence for a defensive focused player feels passive. And active defence is independent of your focus. So a defensive focused player is unable to improve the effects/skills of their active play (active defence). Defensive focused play feel less rewarding then offensive focused play.

Your right again. Defensive focused play style feel less rewarding. The only play where a defensive focused play style was rewarding in the history of video game was in the form of a Tank. Your suppose to kill your enemy, and you are not doing that be receiving a couple hit on the face. Your winning by killing your ennemy with dmg. Even in the Holy Trinity, you had 3/5 of your team PURELY focusing on damage, while the other 2/5 were defence focusing but were still doing dmg.

You said defensive focused ppl feel unrewarded? Well, on my guardian my main focus while i’m playing is defence and it feel amazing. Don’t get me wrong, my build is mainly offensive (Zerker gear, meta build and all of that) and I do my share of DPS. But the dps I do feel on the background since I just do my DPS rotation and that’s all. But i’m always looking at my party and at the enemy. Oh he gonna do a big hit, does my party have aegis? Can I blind the guys. Ok, i’ll need to put my wall there. Ok swap to stability for this stage. Oh kitten the warrior and ele have condition i’ll clear it, etc.

You want defence that feel rewarding? There it is right there. What is fun, efficient or rewarding in passive defensive stats like vitality or toughness?? And why would I want those stats to be fun, efficient or rewarding?

Do I would want more good defensive options? Ya of course. I would like to have some gear that give you a good amount of boon duration so you can give protection, vigor, etc. I would want the game to have more focus on Weakness, because now its pretty rare except for venom skale and necro. I would want to condition duration gear for player specialised in Vulnerability or Weakness.

But that’s just small addition. For me the core game should stay the same. DPS oriented for everyone, with the Defence support needed.

Try to add Arcane brilliance as your healing skill. It give you 18 might over the 15 you have. Later, there is a trait that give you ferocity boost after you used a arcane skill, so you can alternate you different arcane skill to get the boost for long period of time.

Also, scepter is not that effective as a dmg weapons (except for the burst you talk about). The best effective way to play scepter/dagger is to only use those to stack might and then use Light Hammer as the main source of your dmg. Of course right now, the sceptre is fine for you. Its will burst down most enemies, but latter you will need the LH to get good dmg over a longer period of time.

RavenRecoil.6103:

You have given me a lot to think about. Thank you! So I’m thinking of doing knights armor with rune of scholar. Couple questions. Sorry feel like such a noob for someone who has played guild wars for years.
Can I replace the rune on a dungeon piece of armor? And how much are superior runes of scholar going for? At work and no game access.

You can replace the rune, but that will destroy the original rune. Not big deal if that rune is cheap, but that can be sad if that cost is higher. Runes of Scholar are about 4 gold each so, a full set will cost you 24-25 Gold. You can put those in your knight gear, but if you later decide to change for zerker gear, you better buy a new set of armor, salvage with a BL salvage kit you old armor to retrieve the Runes of Scholar and put those in the new armor. It will also cost you a transmutation charge to change the look on the new armor.

Raven Twospirit.9342:

If one is still learning proper situation awareness and dodging (noobs-r-us), would Soldiers, Knights, or Valkyrie armor pieces be better to improve survivability?

Also, would it be the same recommendation for PvE material and event farming, versus Dungeon runs?

Thank you!

I wouldn’t recommend Valkyrie because you need to craft it or buy them on the TP. Each armor piece cost about 4 Gold and the weapons are more about 15+ Gold each.

Soldier or Knight? It depend. Knight is more dps than Soldier, but Knight give you a lot of toughness, so after 3 piece of those, you start to aggro stuff on you if you are with a group of full Zerker guys. So watch out for that. So if you are good with 3 pieces of knight and the rest zerker, then that’s the best choice. If that’s not enough for you? Then go for Soldier.

PvE is PvE. The same apply roughly the same with some exception. You don’t crit on some world boss so zerker or soldier will do the same amount of DMG on them. Also, some event could be a kittenaotic so soldier gear can help you survive in those situation, but most time you still better with zerker gear. Boss Blitz for exemple, a lot of ppl come with uplevel character or level 80 with soldier gear. If everybody play like that, they will never be Gold reward, so by going on these event with tanky soldier gear, you actually put more pressure on zerker guys, while relaxing with your high survivability. Not all events are like that, you can’t crit on some world boss. But on things like Gold Boss Blitz or Triple Wurm, then ya it make a big difference.

Silv.9207:

Actually I use that build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJAsdlsApcoVDxbI8DNR8gY9nWbqKw1/CmD-TBCEABFqEkl9HUU9nnUi5kyj40DAwDAggTAAA-e

Very good dps (total bonus of 37% damage: 10% by sword and 27% against burning enemy), 50% critical chance (35% + 15% by onehanded weapon).
And very good defence: 3300 toughness, 16k hp (for a guardian it’s a good amount of hp…) and healing Meditations that grant you Fury, mobility and clean conditions. And if you need you can use merciful Intervention to heal 2k2k hp in only one utility skill (and heal allies by 2k hp).
About your second weapon set, I use scepter + focus/shield/torch, depending on the situation. You can also use Staff to support, or GS. But whit 2 handed weapons you lose 15% critical rate.

If you want to be more defensive you can use Dolyak runes, to obtain more toughness, vitality and passive healt regen.

If you want a total passive healing ability you can only be a bunker build whit dolyak rune, Altruistic Healing and Traited Virtues of Resolve.
Spirit Weapons don’t work. In dungeon, spvp or wvsw is the useless build ever. Spirit weapons die quickly, expecially in wvsw and against multiple mobs or a boss. That’s why you never see a spirit weapon guardian in game.

You can make a 0/0/6/6/2 or 0/0/6/4/4 Hybrid whit Soldier Armor and Knight Weapons and Jewels, to obtain defence and a lot of critical rate. But you will be a Supporter whit a lot of damage, nothing more.

If you really want a full Passive Healing Skills and Active Damage Skills try the Warrior.

Ya that’s not very good dps. That lesss than average dps at most. Very good dps is when you have DPS trait, DPS gear and DPS food&nourishment.

You can’t have very good dps if you have hybrid trait, defensive gear and no food or nourishment. Its not as bad as a AH/Soldier gear build, but that closer to the bottom than to the TOP dps. Either go
- full DPS trait with Defensive gear or
- Offensive gear with defensive trait or
- Hybrid trait with Hybrid gear

Then you can say, that’s an hybrid build with normal dps.

If you go hybrid gear with full DPS trait or DPS gear with hybrid trait, then you can say you have good dps.

Add some information

Luck : Until you reach 300 base MF you should use them. But I still prefer to accumulate them a bit and when I got 2-3 stack of 250, then craft them into exotic 200Luck and use them then. Otherwise the number of click become insane.

Karma : Use them. It used to be good to accumulated them and use them with some karma booster, but that don’t work anymore.

Blades : Keep them if you want to make back items. If not, destroy them.

Bloodlust and Empyreal : It depend on how much do you wan to use. It take 500 of each per ascended weapons and 1500 per armor set. Personally, i figure out how many I think i’ll use them ever and only kept that amount. The rest get destroy.

Agony Infusion : I accumulate them until I have 512 of them so I can craft a +10 Infusion (because at that, it take just insane amount of infusion). If you didn’t have infused trinkets before the change, then just craft the +5 you need with only 16 +1 infusions and when you have all the +5 you need, then go for a +10 on the long run. Or destroy them if you don’t care.

FINY.4710:

Thanks for the reply! :-) So .. you equip two melee weapon sets and take a ranged weapon with you, “just in case” your team doesn’t play so well?

And aren’t there any bosses or mobs that are better dealt with by using ranged attacks? I can’t remember anyone fighting Giganticus Lupicus in Arah in melee range, for instance ..

Ya for pretty much all profession you should ideally bring 2 melee weapons and only have a backup range weapons in your inventory just in case.

The just in case for me is like the cart in SE or the Dredge Fractal Boss. I never needed a range weapon because of how my team is bad (except in fractal). It more about your own survivability skills.

This was ask when they transfer the FotM weapons into skins as a drop. They officially said, they would love to do that, but they couldn’t do it.

I don’t remember what they officially said, but it was around the line of : ‘’We can’t do it automatically because we didn’t do anything to keep track of the weapons drop, so the only way to fix that problem is case by case and that cost too much money we won’t do it’’.

So basically. That suck, but i understand their point of view so make sure you get them all in your wardrobe and destroy them because Anet won’t do anything. (And personally, I understand why they won’t do anything).

For me too at the hunter/crusher the WoR is only a quality of life. It can do a good job, but you still need a bit of condi removal, because the wall is not that reliable in that fight.

In fractal there is a lot of place where is a really good addition.
- Bloomhunger to reflect the agony resistance in melee. Not that big of a deal, but it help melee him down faster.
- Harpy : This is a major one, except if you gonna stealth and run through them. Especially at higher level, when they can down you so quick.
- Volcano’s Boss : Against the boss when you revive someone to protect you from the arrows, or against the grubs and arrow (you can put a WoR, Binding Blades them just in front and then burst them down in melee while in safety behind the wall).
- Snowblind : At the elemental, when you need to revive someone you won’t get knowback or killed by the Elemental, or when you try to killed the small ice elemental with a WoR you just have to worry about the AoE Ice.
- Dredge : Against the range ennemies (Rifle and Greande) so you can finish the melee in relative safety.
- Aetherblades : a couple ennemies can be reflected. Especially if you stack in the room right before the boss.

They all help a lot.

haviz.1340:

Thaddeus.4891:

It doesn’t change really the game. I would like to see more hard content. But you know what would happen? They wouldn’t change their build, or just a little bit. There would be more hammer guardian for protection, there would be more skale venom for weakness, you could see more blind, more aegis, more reflect, etc. That would be the kind of support that you would see more. But ppl would still be whining because the game is still dps oriented, zerker is still the best gear, toughness/vitality/healing is still kitten, etc.

The game being harder, mean more active defense, more damage mitigation, more support. But not the same thing of support and defense that the ppl whining want. They just want to play with their soldier and knight gear or bring their healing profession because that’s the kind of ppl that want to be part of the high end gameplay, while have a high survivability because they die too easy.

Why do you fight completely different in pvp then?

1) Because sPvP is not the same as PvE and WvW. The skill and stats don’t give you the same advantages and disadvantages.
2) Because Mobs and the path is predictable. Better AI would change that a bit, not not completely. Mobs even with better AI will still predictable, just more fun fight. It will take several decades before we can have unpredictable AI and will take even more decades before you can put that kind of AI into a games that can be played on commercial PC. But even there, the path of the dungeon is predictable, you can make your build accordingly because you know what is going to happen. In PvP, you don’t know. At one time you can be 3 on someone and you don’t need any defence, the other second you have 3 ppl on you and you need as much defence as possible to survive and keep the point while your team come to help you.
3) In WvW, there is just too much going on at the same time to keep track of everything. At some point, you will see that there is 4 Necro wells under your feet and if you don’t have enough defence to survive that peak of dmg, then you’ll be dead.

PvP is not ’’harder’’ than PvE. Its unpredictable. And the only reason to bring passive defense is unpredictability.

Oh you can put that into PvE. But that doesn’t mean that it will be a good game. Right now the technology don’t allow us to do much real unpredictability. Mobs need to be overpower, hit so fast that you can’t react, have random trap that can kill you, or kitten like that to make PvE ’’unpredictable’’. It can be nice in some game, but most of the time, that just kitten people off. That kind of game are usually not main stream and are only a niche market (rogue like, etc).

So harder PvE would be nice, but would not make it unpredictable. So you would still be better with active defence.

Just a couple things.

You don’t need any toughness or vitality on your gear. The best options is full zerker gear (armor and all 6 trinkets) and scholar runes (for dps) or runes of strength (if you give might). Usually scholar for staff and strength for S/X. For D/F (or D/D) strength or scholar do the job depending on if you might stack a lot of not, its more of a middle ground so you can go both way.

Now, that the best gear you can get. That doesn’t mean that you should run that, but you should try to get toward that goal. But that’s a really squishy. I play full zerker, with scholar runes, I use LH so I stay in really close range, my have zero defensive utilities (arcane wave, signet of fire and LH) and I mainly use my healing skill to blast might not to heal myself. So ya its possible to survive. Its hard as kitten and its ALL about movement and position, but you can do it.

You should use a defensive rune, because there is a lot of really good rune. Damage modifier like in Rune of Strength, Scholar or if you don’t have the gold Rune of Ogre or Rune of Flame Legion (only if you do a good amount of burning) can do the job better than stats. So you better stay with good runes and take some soldier or knight piece of gear than go full zerker with some defensive runes.

Get the balance you need after that so you don’t get down too much.

Jerus.4350:

Appreciate it Obal. Lets just leave it at, I feel like I need it in some situations so I use it, and I’m looking more at knowing the opportunity costs of the choices I’m making more than looking for reaffirming that it’s not optimal If my group was more optimized I’d probably be running GS + S/F anyways, though I do like bludgeoning things with a hammer. So 1k or ~11% loss, thanks.

I apologize if I come off a little rude on that topic but really I run with the same group of guys, and I’ve tried running the same parts of dungeons with and without things enough to know where I want them and where I don’t for that specific group. I’m really utilizing that new change with traits to maximize my efforts by swapping things on and off as I need them. My buddies seem to chronically have cripple or poison on them, sometimes in places I didn’t know you could even get those conditions So I just look for ways I can maximize while covering the butts of the people I play with.

But your post does remind me of another question I’ve been meaning to ask you masters of the profession.

Assassins vs Berserker.

I’ve noticed with zerk gear my guard is well below the 65% crit chance goal for 100% buffed crit chance. If I went full Assassin that’s 64% according to GW2skills with what I generally run.

Doing just the head/chest/legs I did on my mesmer(his exo of course) I’d be at 63% with a little higher power.

What are your thoughts/suggestions on that topic?

Hey your not rude man. At this point you are still doing more dmg than a lot of ppl in pugs so don’t worry. There is a huge difference between someone trying to do his best while taking a bunch of stuff that he know is less good, but give him a easier run when playing with friends compare to someone bringing whatever he wants and arguing that healing and toughness is good and that zerker meta is kitten. Its a game afterall.

Anyway, from what I see, i would rather take you in my pugs party than more pugs i get. I have a guildmate that bring celestial gear on his guardian, but I still enjoy playing with him.

I once had the same respond as you Akira. How can you survive with such a lot amount of hp and armor. But then I tried the meta. Its hard at first, but i’m actually surviving SO MUCH MORE than before.

I had a similar build than your a while back. I could stay alive for sometime in melee, but always had to retreat and range a bit. Even with 2.7 armor and 15-16k hp. But with the meta now, the only time I use a range weapons is my staff in TA for the blossom or my sceptre at the cart in SE. With all the blind, aegis, reflect, protection, etc. I usually, not only stay up, but a lot of time i keep my team at 90%+ hp for long enough for us to kill most stuff. It need practice to time your active defense right, but I have more fun, I do better support and more damage with any of the variation of the meta (and there is a lot of variation there).

I got 2 heavy armor set and i’m working on 1 medium set for my thief and 1 light set for my elementalist. I also crafted about 6 ascended weapons.

The only things that can be hard to get are dragonite and silk. Silk, i get them slowly. I can usually make a bolt of damask each 4 days now. But I kept my silk for like 6 months before ascended armor was implemented. For dragonite, just do some world boss everyday. It will take you 2 week if you do only 1 world boss per day, but you can easily get 1 gift in 3-4 days if you do the complete run or world boss.

Well it can be a difficult situation. Since my main is a guardian for almost 2 years, i can be pretty critical of other guardian not doing what most would consider ‘’their job’’. Granted, that a bit harsh, but ppl kind of expect some profession to at least bring their most powerful tool. I expect warrior to bring at least 1 banner because that probably their most powerful tool. I expect guardian to bring wall when needed. I expect thief to bring stealth, etc.

I won’t be a cry baby about it if they don’t. And I will certainly not kick someone because of that. But I’ll probably ask them to bring it, especially since that’s only a skill, that can always take it, whatever their build are. Some can be new as guardian, or not play that much dungeon, or just never learned where its best to bring WoR. I will never be mad a someone for not knowing something. But if the person just respond : IPHIW, or ‘’your not my mom’‘, then i’ll probably just finish the path and get the hell out. It’s a group content after all. If you have a better idea than mine in the middle of a dungeon, you can tell it to me. I always listen to new idea and way to improve my runs. I learned a lot from pugs over the years.

Bezagron.7352:

• So should defensive focused roles/builds/gear be excluded from high end game play?

• Does defensive focused only mean passive play as active defence is just something we bring and doesn’t matter what favour we focus on (Offensive/Defensive).

Defensive gear should be excluded ya. But not defensive role/build/skills.

You just need to be smart and follow a couple of simple rules.
- Good defense/support is party wide. If it only help you, that’s shouldn’t be focus on.
- Good defense/support should prevent your party from being damage, not repair the damage after. Its always better to prevent a problem, then try to fix it after.
- DPS should still be your main focus and you should only bring the defense/support you need to the content. As a guardian, when I go in Fractal, I usually bring protection from my hammer, superior Aria for more shout and master of consecration for reflect and condi removal. But I never bring those in dungeon like CoF or CoE because they are not needed there.

Things like aegis, blind, reflect, block, protection, vigor, weakness, etc are really good defense/support. Condi removal is also good, but you don’t need that much in PvE except in some specific situation.

haviz.1340:

I have 5 potions I send to 4 other party members. Support?

People want defensive support to be used more commonly. That means the game has to be much harder and less solo-able. It should require from your team to support you so the lone person is no longer able to complete the group content. Make mobs strong enough that you need defensive support and resilient enough that you can’t just burst them.

It doesn’t change really the game. I would like to see more hard content. But you know what would happen? They wouldn’t change their build, or just a little bit. There would be more hammer guardian for protection, there would be more skale venom for weakness, you could see more blind, more aegis, more reflect, etc. That would be the kind of support that you would see more. But ppl would still be whining because the game is still dps oriented, zerker is still the best gear, toughness/vitality/healing is still kitten, etc.

The game being harder, mean more active defense, more damage mitigation, more support. But not the same thing of support and defense that the ppl whining want. They just want to play with their soldier and knight gear or bring their healing profession because that’s the kind of ppl that want to be part of the high end gameplay, while have a high survivability because they die too easy.

I like Lemongrass because I use Melandru runes, so I have a nice % less condi duration on me. But I usually also have saffron bread when i’m against a hammer train of warrior (-20%dmg when stun, can save you life against those). Omnomberry Compote is also pretty nice in huge zerg for the healing. But mango pie is not bad at all. Its nice in longer fight, escpecially in GvG when you usually don’t kill that many ppl. There is usually a couple of warbanner and when you start to finally kill ppl, the GvG is really close of ending, making omnomberry compote useless in those situation.

For sigil, I like a stacking sigil like bloodlust or perception since when you are in a good group, its easy to get max stack and keep it up all the time for the best dmg bonus you can get. I usually keep a Sigil of Force on my GS since its my dmg weapon, while on my staff i got a energy sigil for OMG situation where i need more dodge. But there is several good option other than those.

Perception or Bloodlust? It depend on your build. There is no other rule than math there. There is a ratio of precision vs power depending on your crit dmg that you can find if you google it. It really depend on your build from the trait, to the gear, to the food and nourishment. Its really unique to each build. For example a build could profit more of bloodlust, but then you have master sharpening stone and applied strength and suddenly perception is better. Its really a case by case kind of thing. But if you don’t want to do to much research, i would suggest to use perception, only because its cheaper. The difference on dmg won’t be that much noticeable on the field.

Jerus.4350:

Out of curiosity, do you have the numbers for 33044 hammer camping? I figure it’s a little over 10% loss as you lose the 10% modifier. So, little under 8.5k?

It would a bit more than just 10% less dps since you would also lost burning duration, 100 precision and 100 condi dmg. Also keep in mind that Damage modifiers multiply each other and are not only added. So the lost of the 10% from radiance would be more like 12-13% dps lost. So I think that a 3/3/0/4/4 build would be more like a 15-16% lost of dps overall. Lets say 14% just to be sure and you get about 8k dps at most, but probably more between 7.5-7.8k DPS. Which is still a little bit better than a staff camping build, which say alot.

Its not a really good build, but if you are full zerker, scholar runes, the right sigils, use food and nourishment, etc. You probably still have more DPS than a lot of ppl. Its even WAY better than all those cleric, knight, soldier or AH guardian out there.

There is no definitive answers on that. Personally, when I pug I don’t really care about what other ppl bring. If i’m with 2-3 ppl of my guild I rarely care at all, if i’m alone i usually just ask for speed run. But there is a lot of ppl that have some very limited view of what meta or zerker mean.

There is a lot of option to get a high amount of DPS. How can someone can look down on someone using ruby orbs and assassins gear if you don’t use food, nourishment, or even worst use some bad trait.

For the Runes of Ogre. Its a good DPS, but I still don’t really like the Rock Dog. It can screw up some stacking or LOS tactics. Its like minions or ranger that can’t manage their pets. It can screw up a lot in a little time.

Devata.6589:

Complaining about a lack of roles is not the same as saying it has to be the same as another game. GW2 did try a lot of new things. Some things worked out some not so well. I don’t think them dropping the Holy Trinity was bad. However I do think them not really replacing it with something else (they did try that but it didn’t really worked out that way) is bad. Some people might be asking for the HT because that’s what they know but when talking about a lack of roles this argument is not really valid.

I understand your point of view about roles. But I still don’t think that replacing Holy Trinity by something else would be good. The point of getting rid of the Holy Trinity was to remove those static role. You want role like in the Holy Trinity (but different). But that’s exactly those role that provoke those problem with the Trinity. If you concentrate role in specific build, then you get the same problem.

Let say, Anet did their own trinity of Damage, cc and support and you can’t do all of these thing in the same time. Each profession can go into only 1 of those branch. Then, let say Anet made CC important. Then you gonna have LF Support Guardian or LF CC engineer and that would lead to the same problem with LF Healer or LF tank in a Trinity game.

Now, the current system do the great job of making everybody do a bit of everything. Whatever the setup you have you can complete the content and you don’t have to wait for anything. You can use a guardian to reflect, if you don’t have a guardian, then you can use a mesmer or don’t use reflect at all and take another solution. All profession can bring something different but lacking something in particular won’t equal in the impossibility of doing a portion of content.

Even if I think they got the essence of that right, they still have several things wrong. I say it several times. Some are just bad design :
- Condition is bad in group PvE content because of a technical problem that they still didn’t fix or try out a way around.
- CC is super limited in PvE because is would be too much powerful. And when they should have fixed that, they simply slap defiant in there for an easy fix before launch.
- Gear is only for survivability or DPS. Nothing to help support, CC or any other profession mechanics.

That’s not where you get roles or profession variation. That’s where you get more diversity. But they don’t change the mentality or core concept of the game. DPS is, should, and will always be the main focus of any build. No role should be limited to a profession or a build so you won’t be limited by the player you have or don’t have in your group.

You can’t craft a precursor. They were talk about precursor crafting, but they postpone that a couple times already so it could be in the game in 1 weeks like it could be there in 2 years.

You got 3 options.
1) Wait for your precursor to drop. Good luck with that. Even if you drop a precursor (which is rare), the chance that you got the precursor that you want is even smaller. Usually ppl would sell that precursor and then buy the one they need on the TP, but for whatever reason you don’t want to buy anything on the TP.
2) Mystic Toilet. You can put all the rare you get in the mystic toilet if you want. Good luck to get your precursor. Most ppl, buy hundred of rare off the TP to get their precursor that way. If you don’t buy anything on the TP, then you’ll have a very limited amount of rare/exotic to put in the mystic toilet.
3) Just buy the precursor on the TP. That’s what most ppl do.

I would never suggest to buy a Legendary on the TP. In my opinions it was a mistake from Anet to allow that. Still, you pretty much gonna need to buy stuff off the TP if you want to complete your legendary. You gonna sell stuff that you don’t use and buy stuff that you need from ppl that don’t need them. If you don’t want to us the TP at all. Your journey will take a lot more time. But your choice.

Devata.6589:

Lastly I also know multiple people who already left the game because of this problem (no roles, dull combat, all DPS), not all complaining on the forum. GW2 might be able to get some of them back. Not all however, for that it’s to late. You should be happy with the people that put up that information on the forum.

THIS PROBLEM DON’T EXIST DUDE. Stop already. Its a different gameplay, if it don’t fit your need, find another game and leave GW2 alone. For good sake. If i don’t like the core gameplay of a game I don’t whine on forum how if we change everything in the game then it would be such an awesome game. NO i just find another game and move on with my live. I’ll complain and try to find solution to some specific change : Oh they should fix the issue of condition dmg in PvE Settings group, or oh i would like that they give more active support gear option like condition duration or boons duration, or Oh i would like they make AI more active for better fight, etc.

Constructive criticize to improve a game that you like VS whining about a game that you don’t like.

You got the base. Personnally, I think you have a big too much vitality, not enough condi removal and not enough dps. But that’s just my gameplay and I know that a lot of ppl don’t want to run my build because i got 2800 armor and 17k hp. Anyway, the balance between vitality vs dps is not a bad things, everybody have some different idea on that and it depend on your role and what you are doing exactly. Some tanky guardian are still important in WvW.

For the condition problem thought, this could be your nemesis. A condition based player will eat you with such ease. You don’t have pure of voice, runes of trooper or melandru and don’t have lemongrass food. You don’t need all of that, but you should look to get a least some of that.

Also, don’t use save yourselves. Your build is clearly a Zerg build and in that case, it will only draw conditions on your that could kill you (especially since you don’t have much condition clearing capabilities). Save yourselves is more of a dps skill when you are alone while roaming and that there is nobody in your team around where the skill could take conditions to put on you.

Faux.1937:

5/5/04/0

The Idea is 10% more damage from symbols and Symbols last longer.

Would this for Main hand hammer damage be more than other hammer damage builds?

Ive done testing and it seems like more damage to me.

Well 5/5/0/4/0 is pretty much the best DPS build for a Hammer/GS or a Hammer camping build.

If you were thinking of comparing it to a 3/5/0/4/2 build with UC, then you need aegis about 50% of the time to get higher dps than a 5/5/0/4/0 build. Personally, i prefer 3/5/0/4/2 build for my hammer since I only use my hammer in Fractals where i need MoC. But ya when you don’t need MoC 5/5/0/4/0 is usually a better choice since UC rarely proc 50%+ of the time, especially during harder fight.

Hattoni.8597:

I’m grateful for responses, didn’t even suspect this community would be that helpful. If we are talking so much about classes we can try to create rankings, which class shines where. My suggestions are: wvw, dungeons, small scale pvp and mass pvp. Let’s sum up all of other threads about x class or y class. We can make it simplier and give just top 3 classes for every mode.

Everyone will say thing differently and it change depending on what you are doing. Even in PvE.

Each dungeon will need different things. For exemple, I always bring my guardian when I do CM, SE, Arah or Fractals. But i’ll prefer to bring my Elementalist in AC, etc.

Also, each profession usually bring different stuff. In a good PvE dungeon team, the only profession that you want to bring more than 1 is elementalist. The rest of the team will bring only 1 represent of any profession. It also depend on the gameplay of a team. You can bring a Warrior Phalanx for easy constant might or a S/X Elementalist for a big burst of might at the start of the fight. A team could give the responsability of vulnerability manly on a Staff Ele, or could spread it to a Hammer Guardian, Warrior and Thief. For PvP and WvW this is even worst. So many composition possible and nobody really know how each of those compare to each other because they are so close of each other. At this point the skill of the player will make all the difference between a composition slighty less good but player by better player vs a composition really good but player by ppl a bit less good.

Pretty much Bezagron. The possibility to improve diversity in PvE gear already exist. Anet just need to find a balance and implement it. Boon Duraction and Condition Duration would make powerful set, usefull in several occasion and if you add to that the fix to condition duration in group PvE, then now you suddenly have several choice that open up.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Assassin vs Beserker (simple) comparison:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8NoIeoyKFt+DahNoyAoBu6IA-TBBXgAA7PK/C1N0r+zjSwAAHA/+b+23gzP/8zP/8O/8zP/8zLFQEjBA-e

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8NoIeoyKFt+DahNoyAoBu6IA-TRBXwAA2fU+FSzgLdALV/5hSwAAHA/+b+23gzP/8zP/8O/8zP/8zLFQEjBA-e

tldr:
Power: 2646 vs 2498
Crit Chance: 57% vs 64%

You can draw your own conclusions. % modifers alone favor Beserker.

Meta is all about the best. THere is no deviation from it. You can’t substitute/change and still be considered the best.

You can learn just as good in ‘Zerker gear as you can in Knights/Soldiers because of the one shot mechanics in this game. Therefore, Meta ’Zerker is the only gear you need, learning or not. I personally don’t like this sentimentality, but it is what it is.

If you look at the Meta builds and their “variety” they are pretty much geared and built the same way. DPS, DPS, DPS. That’s all that matters. And that’s what’s disappointing about this game. Sure there’s a little variety (3-4 weapons, a trait point switch here and there), but when you step back away from the Meta builds and look at what the proffession, what each profession, has available as a whole, it is disappointing at what’s effective and what is not because there’s a lot not being used.

????????????
I talked about an Hammer build, Mesmer reflect build, solo play, etc. And you present me with the great GS+Sw/F build???????

Someone who say that there is only 1 possibility for each profession and that if you ever do something else than that, then you suck is as frustrating as ppl that say that AH staff Guardian is good in PvE. Tell me oh master of master what is the true BEST AND UNIQUE build that I should use on my guardian?

- Should I use UC? Because if you use aegis to block, you decrease you dps and then 4/6/2/0/2 is now not the best dps.
- So i should use 6/6/2/0/0 then no? More dps in these situation right.
- But you dodge man, when you dodge you make less dps right. What if my team have a hard time meleing Arcdiviner for the whole fight? A Hammer build can do 97% of a Sw/F build. Does sacrificing 3% of your personnal dps to get almost constant protection will give my team a fair chance to full melee that boss up to the end? If i can allow my whole team to max their DPS, why should I limit myself to the Sw/F when the hammer build will make my team better?
- What if I end up in a party without any might stacking??? The party is not bad, but still no might. Hammer camping is about 95% DPS of a GS + Sw/F build, but you can take a staff and stack might just before a fight and then switch to hammer and never get back to the staff during that fight. A 10sec where you gonna boost by a good margin the dps of your team, while sacrificing only 5% of your dps. Why should I do that.
- Ok, well if you fight big slow bosses like AC graveling bosses or Lupi where smite can hit all 10 times? You kind of have a higher dps than a GS +Sw/F build man. Not by much, but hey DPS DPS DPS man.
- What sigil should i use? DPS DPS DPS man so I’m sure you have a set of weapon for each fractal and dungeon possible right? Night + Nigthmare slaying for TA, Force + Outlaw slaying for CM right?
- But wait, Bloodlust will be better once you get to 25 stack right. So you should always use BL? What about short dungeon where you will only max the stack for the end of the dungeon, so you had less DPS for the whole duration of the dungeon. Which one is best? Should I choice different one depending on the dungeon? I’m not a god that NEVER die so maybe BL is not the best option even if you’ll get the most DPS out of it.
- What food? Buttersquash right. But seaweed Salad is a 10% dmg incease, that more DPS right. So we should always use seaweed? I mean on a guardian you can always move while dpsing so.

Ya your right there is only 1 true answer guys. kitten , now i’m exicted. Lonewolf Kai will tell us what is the ONE TRUE BUILD to rule them all. I think i pee a little.

Hattoni.8597:

I do really enjoy elementalist (I also enjoyed him in GW 1), I believe I can master him as I’m not new to mmo world, but would I even be able to master him that much to be better than, let’s say – guardian played by average player? I mean, are those disadventages of certain classes big enough to unable me being better than others, or it’s only up to me how good my class is going to be?

The answer is yes.

There is two side here.
1) The skill of the player, the build/gear he use and the knowledge of the player make 99% of the job.
2) When you talk about teamplayer, then is not the same thing. A team will need different things depending on what he does and what they need. In this aspect, not all profession are good in all game modes. That doesn’t mean that they can play, complete or help their team. Its just that if you want to get to the next level, then some profession will give you more bang for your buck.
- WvW Zerg = Guardian, Warrior, Necro, and Elementalist will always have a place there. They make the core or any Zerg bursting team. Mesmer and Thief are also some great profession for that, but they complete some specific role with only 1 or 2 of both are needed only.
- PvE = All profession bring something specific in dungeon. But necromancer don’t bring anything really unique. There is always another profession that can bring the same stuff, but better. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be better than 50% of the PvE population with a Necro. But at the same level of skills, a player with a necro will be less usefull and he’s usually excluded of speed run. Engineer is still in debate. Part of the community view it as a versatile profession that can do the job of several ppl freeing more space for pure DPS build. While other (the majority) view it as a jack of all trade, yes he can do the job of several profession, but always in a less efficient way, making it a bit less useful. Ranger is also excluded by several ppl in PvE. Its because the profession only have 1 meta build and it can be difficult to master so a lot of ppl either quit the profession or use a bad build (that give the ranger a bad reputation in PvE).
- sPvP : Usually Thief and Mesmer come out on top. But most profession can do a good job here. Its probably the more balance part of the game.

Yup. You can’t go wrong with Berserker. Whatever the build, zerker won’t hurt you and you can still adapt exotic gear. While other stats could be better for some specific build, if she ever change her build, there is a big chance that she’ll regreat her choice. But with zerker, not so much.

You trait are pretty standard for WvW no problem. But you shouldn’t use sword/torch for WvW. Staff, Hammer or even scepter would give you better result or adaptability. Sword and GS give you that same thing : Melee dps.

If you have a full zerker gear for wvw, you should have the same for PvE. Zerker is the best gear for PvE. You should really really change build during PvE. You should switch torch for focus, it give you a blind and a block, while torch give you condi removal which isn’t that useful in PvE (you just need a bit, not too much) and a burn (you already burn a lot). About trait, the basic guardian PvE build always use 2/5/0/0/0. After that, there is several options you can choose like :
- 4/6/2/0/2 for max dps
- 2/5/0/2/5 for support
- 4/6/0/2/2 for dps with vigor and shout reduction

For PvE, Dekeys guide is pretty much the best and more complete you can find.
For sPvP, i have no idea, never played my ele there.

For WvW, staff with x/x/x/6/6 trait is the standard basic build. With a mix of soldier/zerker/knight for gear. That’s not the best build, since it doesn’t have that much dps, but that’s a good starting point as you get better you can put more pts in fire and get more offensive gear.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I disagree with most of this. Meta build is pretty definitive in what you should have to be the most effective. Any deviation from this and your less. There aren’t 2-3 good builds for each profession when it comes to PvE. There’s usually only 1 with slight, and I mean very slight, alterations to the traits/skills.

Also, the most effective PvE gear is zerker ONLY, assassins isn’t needed because zerker’s provides enough crit chance, and knights or soldiers gear is certainly not needed at all.

For people that want more than that, it certainly is disappointing.

I speak for Guardian only because that’s my main.
Good Build?
GS+Sword/Focus : 4/5/0/0/5 for support, 4/6/2/0/2 for dps
GS+H: 3/5/4/0/2 for support, 5/5/0/4/0 for dps
Hammer Camp : 5/5/0/4/0
GS+Scepter/Focu : 6/6/2/0/0 or 6/6/0/0/2

All those build can give you 10k+ DPS and are all top dps. You can say that Hammer camping is too similar to GS+H. Ok. That still give us 3 different set of weapons, with different gameplay.

Same thing with Ele. You have the S/X + LH might stacking build, there is the staff fire camping build, there is also the D/F more balance build for fractal. All are three high dps meta build.

Assassins is good for Solo gameplay, and for Mesmer reflect build. I didn’t say that it was always the best option. But some good PvE build use it or at least some pieces of it. Also keep in mind that right now, a lot less ppl are using stacking sigil. For the Guardian hammer build, if you don’t use perception sigil, precision food and maintenance oil (a situation that happen more and more in dungeon these day), then assassin is superior to berserker. Not by much, but it is. I prefer myself to keep my armor to berserker and make adjustment with food, nourishment and sigil, but there is other good options.

I said knight and soldier for when you ’’LEARN’’. I will always push ppl to get better, but i will never say, zerker or gtfo. Some ppl, and some of those are friends and guildmate, just don’t play enough to care about the best build possible. I have no problem with someone that take 2-3 pieces of knight or soldier while they are learning the game, a new profession or simply because they are casual. They will still be accepted in my normal runs and I’ll still have fun with them. Remember, i never said that soldier/knight was needed or optimal. I only said that is was a good option for Learning.

1) Armor/Weapon : I think we have plenty of armor alreaydy (You can see the high numbers when you go into the wardrobe). Still more is always good and they shouldn’t stop adding armor on a regular basis. Same with weapons, but some particular weapons (I’m looking at you focus and mace) need some serious love compare to other like the Greatsword. Especially since focus and mace are part of a meta build for Elementalist, Warrior and Guardian, these weapons are use a lot, but we still don’t have a lot of really nice looking ones.
2) Ya the story was terrible in LS1. Well the global idea of the story was pretty good, its was more in the execution. It always felt flat. Gameplay and story are suppose to reinforce each other and there was none of that in the LS1.
3) I think that scarlet was a freaking awesome character. But again, super hyper devastating bad execution. A super intelligent sylvari gone mad and psychopath by the supernatural influence, but that still seem to combat it at least at the beginning. That could be an awesome character. Think golum, the Joker, Patrick Bateman, etc. There is so many exemple of how they could have approach the character in a engaging way. But most of the time you see scarlet at the end that only say : ‘’Ahah that was me all along, kitten you.’’ And then get the hell out of there. No character developpement (except in some stuff that you read, but never when you face scarlet). I wanted to see her get mad at us because we kittened up some of her plan. I wanted to see the interior combat, see her get completly crazy at some point, I wanted to see her mental state get worst and worst over time (because she have a elder dragon in her head for god sake), she could talk to herself and everybody is like wtf. I wanted to see some interaction with leader of all those alliance, when they start to doudt her mental stability, but she still give them victory so they continue to follow them for a reason, not just because ‘’script, kitten you’’.
4) Ya, ppl want more place to explore. I rather that they make the current world more rewarding. There is plenty of content that most ppl ignore because they give 200 karma and a couple silver for about 30min of work.
5) I hate white and black. Nobody is white or black. Every white knight ppl have some kittenty grey down their pants and every evil person, is not totally evil. That make the story more believeable and the character more likable.

I’ll add.
- Meaningfull and challenging stuff to do. Some LS1 were great, but a lot were bad achievement hunting.
- Legendary Weapons and precursor crafting. It a bit late now don’t you think Anet. I get it, that there was some problem, but almost a year late is a bit too much.

Good jobs making assumption by only reading the forum and not playing the game. Of course, opinion on forum will be extreme a lot of time. If you watch news in the US, Obama is a terrorist that found al-quaida and Bush is a war criminal.

GW2 have a pretty good balance. Sure it need some adjustment (and everygame always need more of that), but most profession work good in pretty much all aspect. Add to that, some misconception or old information and you have a bunch of non sense on the forum.

The thruth is, take whatever profession you want, level it up to 80 by doing whatever you want and exploring the different weapons and trait. Then try to check what the strenght and weakness of that profession is and try to find what are the best build of your profession. Of course some profession are better than other in certain field.

For exemple, necromancer are not that good in PvE
Ranger are not that good in ZergVsZerg
etc
That doesn’t mean that they can participate or do their job. But they are at a small disavantage. Still, I prefer to bring a good necromancer in a dungeon than a bad player in any profession. The player skill is a big part of the gameplay.

Brother Grimm.5176:

How did Ruby Orbs get “nerfed” more than all other Zerker gear? EVERY item that had % Crit on it got “nerfed” when FEROCITY got introduced……unless I’m missing something here.

Ruby Orbs was the second best DPS options after Scholars before the nerf. Why? Because like celestial suff, it gave you the best amount of Critical Dmg compare to the amount of stats it gave you.

- Ruby Orbs had a disproportional amount of critical damage and was hit the hardest
- Trinket also had a disproportional amount of critical damage and was hit hard
- Weapons & Armor had a good proportion of critical damage and were practically not hit at all by the nerf.

Devata.6589:

“If i need stealth i….” The point is that the main thing you always need is DPS. Would be really great if you could mix it with some toughness.

Toughness already have a role for learning or easy ride when you lack the skills to survive without it. Can you find something that toughness could bring other than aggro or personnal surviability? (AKA Tank). No thank i don’t want that. Good for me, apparently Anet have the same opinions as myself on that.

Devata.6589:

“Yup, noobs can complete dungeon with DPS build. What’s your point? ”
It proofs that roles are not important.
Also it shows the claim that somebody just is a noob or just don’t get it (when they say you don’t rally have roles) is invalid. Because those same people complete the content without any problem. So there is no need for teamwork where everybody uses his speciality. Proving their point.

I said complete right? You saw that right? Anybody can complete anything with any build. It will take them 8 hours, but they will complete it eventually. It can be ppl in super tanky stuff that press 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 or it can be noobs in full dps gear that don’t get how the game work and will be dead and wp every 5 sec the result is the same. They will eventually finish it if they want too. Its will just take a really long time.

Good player will survive in a meta full zerker build wihtout much problem, that’s why we said that the game lack some challenge sometimes. But a lot of ppl are casuals or a bit bad and can’t use that kind of build. They need some passive defense because they lack the knowledge of the encounter or how to best use the strength of your profession so survive even if you have zero defense stats.

Role in GW2 are optional. Meaning that you can complete encounter is different ways. Ya of course there is a general thread that is always the same, but I’ll play different way depending on my profession. You want role that are more different from one another and you want that these role to be important enough that they can’t be replace. I don’t mind the first, I would hate the second.

Devata.6589:

Maybe it’s not the game for anybody who says combat is to easy, that there are no challenges and there are no roles. But then Anet would have a problem..

I think this game is too easy and need more challenge. I would love for hardcore difficult dungeon. I still don’t agree that there is no roles. But I understand that we don’t have the same definition of role for GW2.

Devata.6589:

Anyway I think you summarized it perfectly here: “That’s not totally true. DPS is always the major focus of a good build. But a lot of good build also sacrifice some of their personal DPS in order to get more party support. ”

So it’s mainly DPS.. I am not saying every class is exactly the same. Everybody has it’s own skills. The problem is that that all is just more of a side note “sacrifice some” while it mainly boils down to one thing “*DPS* is always the major focus”.

It would be better the other way around.

Yup. The main focus is always DPS and active defense. And that’s what make that game so awesome for me. If you want more bigger, important, different and obligatory roles, there is plenty of those in other games.

Devata.6589:

Ropechef did not give a good answer to that. It was basically somebody telling he was great and other people suck. You don’t need or have really roles in this game. You can imagine a lot of roles but if your plumbing is broken you also don’t call the hairdresser to come and fix it (because you know she might be able to fix it). These predefined roles sure can be used in multiple ways but it is also what makes everybody ‘special’ or useful in the group and what makes team-play more interesting. You can start screaming that everybody just don’t get it and it are all noobs but all those noobs just complete the content with not problem focusing on dps. That proofs here are no real roles and that makes combat less interesting (when using teams).

Also “Stealth if you’re doing content that benefits more from Stealth than a 3rd FGSer or 2nd Reflector. ”. Nice if but content is hardly designed that way.

What are you taking about. He listed what each profession can do the best. What each profession can bring to a party. What do you want more? I just don’t get your point. I don’t call a warrior if i need some damage mitigation i’ll call a guardian, If i need stealth i won’t ask for a necro i’ll ask a thief, if i need more dmg booster i’ll ask a warrior or ranger, etc. Each profession can bring something different to the party, but they are all optional so you can bring whatever party composition you want.

‘’You can start screaming that everybody just don’t get it and it are all noobs but all those noobs just complete the content with not problem focusing on dps. That proofs here are no real roles and that makes combat less interesting (when using teams).’’

Ok. English is not my first language and I hope that’s the case for you too, because I can hardly understand your point here.

- I can scream that everybody just don’t get it and they are all noobs, but these noobs can complete content without problem while focusing on DPS? I get it right? Still don’t understand. Yup, noobs can complete dungeon with DPS build. What’s your point?

- That prove that there is no role and that make combat less interesting? I think i get that. DPS is not the only things that exist in GW2 btw. Warrior will focus on Offensive support, Mesmer on utilities, Guardian on defensive support, etc. Ya we talked a lot about full DPS build. That’s not totally true. DPS is always the major focus of a good build. But a lot of good build also sacrifice some of their personal DPS in order to get more party support. For me, that make the combat super interesting. We can both have our opinions. For me Anet should improve the current system that is already good. For you the system is broken and not that interesting. Maybe the game is not right for you?

Not bad, you lost 3 of your teamates, but not bad.

I should reroll my S/F full zerker Elementalist into an healer lol.

SemmlerTh.2685:

well, I came up with the idea, because I thought it would help me, carrying weaker groups through the dungeons. Turns out, healing and being tanky cannot replace the individual skill of the surrounding players. Might as well go for Zerks then. Thanks anyway for all your advice. At this point, they should just remove everything and make it zerks, as this is the only thing that seems to be viable.

Seriously Disappointed….

Don’t get disappointed. Yup, PvE gear is pretty limited to zerker or assassins (or some knight/soldier gear while you learn). But the diversity in runes, trait, weapons, skills, sigils, etc can be amazing. In a lot of game, you end up with 1 good build per class that pretty much everybody run. In GW2, you have 2-3 good build for each profession, and even there, you can switch several times during dungeon to adapt to each situation if you want. Diversity is not in gear, but its in everything else.

unkillable is impossible, and if you wanna go all the way defense, you gonna be pretty bad. But still here some standard build for a fronline guardian in WvW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARWlsApWotCxZI8DRRCRkjNY/FmedwyBA-TVRWwABV/Bw+DFU+NRJYJdBkBgZMA-w

A lot of little stuff that you can change.
- Exotic : I use ascended in the link, but mostly because is was faster to click on it on the website. Go exotic first.
- Zerker : You can go for a bit of zerker gear. Personnally i go full trinket and weapons zerker. But you gonna have a hard time if you strat with that. Full soldier will give you a lot of tankiness.
- Trait : In valor, retributive armor is a good options to replace strenght in numbers or purity. In Honor, two-handed mastery can be swap with empowering might. You can remove 1 pts in radiance to put in Virtue and get Master of Consecration or do the opposite to take signet mastery in radiance if you want to use signet of resolve as a heal (but don’t get ride of shelter too quick, the block is powerful).
- Runes : Melandru is another great possibility.
- Sigils : Bloodlust and Force do a great job on the GS or Hammer for dmg. While a Energy sigil on the staff can give you more dodge to survive.

Da Sonic.6521:

Just because you can’t complete the dungeon at the minimum level requirement doesn’t mean they should punish people who wish to.

And since when, you can’t complete a dungeon at the min level requirement? I know AC can be rough on a level 35, but If you know the dungeon, you can do it. And for all of the other dungeon, there is no problem at all for doing them at the min level.

cavemanreborntwo.5614:

So iv just got my first zerker armour, have ruby orb on all 6, a sword with power. W/e and ferocity, two axes with same as sword, ruby amulet, two ruby mithril. Rings and a ruby earing, in doing upto 20,000 with banner of discipline up, iv heard of people getting 50k hits tho, so in not sure if in doing it right, sorry for lack of information, i can research all my gear stats tommorow.

any help and info is much appreciated

In order to get crazy him 100 blades, a lot of small things add up.
1) You should look into ascended trinkets. Armor and Weapons can be costly, but trinkets are fairly easy to get, especially rings and amulets. Earings are easy to get if you can get into a guild that do guild missions each week, while the back item is usually a bit of a longer goal to achieve (but not that bad, especially if you like fractals).

2) Runes.
- Scholars is the best for dmg (4 gold).
- Strenght give you less dmg, but is crazy for might stacking (16 gold).
- Ogre do a bit more dmg than ruby orbs, but I hate the summon (1 gold).
- Pack is between Ogre and Ruby in dmg, but wihtout stupid summon (1.5 gold)
- Ruby Orbs is still good dps. Its the most cost efficient choice (11 silver).

3) Sigils. Here you can go crazy. You could have so much combination here for each specific situation.
- Night&Force. That give you a direct 15.5% dmg increase and work well in most dungeon except CM, HotW and Arah. Who care about CM and HotW, so that leave you Arah. That’s my standard equipment.
- Slaying&Force. You can get a secondary set for Arah if you want to do that dungeon on a regular basis with a Sigil of Undead slaying.
- Accuracy&Force. Perfect for CM, HotW and Fractals, where you can’t use a specific slaying sigils or nigh sigils.
- Stacking Sigil like Perception and Boodlust. It a never ending discussion. A stacking sigil or not. I won’t get into that disccusion here. They are good, use it if you feel like it.
- Other options exist like Battle, Energy, etc. I like energy for some specific hard fight that need more dodge. Remember, you can stick with 1 set (Accuracy&Force will work average everywhere), go crazy and have 3 or 4 different version of all weapons, or go somewhere in the middle depending on what you like to play the most.

4) Foods&Nourishments.
A lot of list circulate about those. Use them as much as you can. Some cheap version exist. They won’t make all the difference, but every little details add up remember. You can buy powerful version of slaying potion for 1 little dungeon token, take advantage of that and you can keep different level of food (and price) for when you pugs, play with friend, do a speed runs, etc.

5) Ascended armor and weapons. That’s a longer term goal. Weapons in particular give you a nice dmg bonus. Armor are less powerful and cost more, but still. You can accumulate most of the material over time so that a full set don’t cost you that much. Its optionnal, like everything else in the game, its just a nice goal if you like that kind of stuff.

6) Your group. Even if you are full ascended, use the best build, the best sigil, the best runes, the best food, etc. You still won’t be able to reach more than 30-40k 100 blades. The groups is THE major source of dmg (you won’t believe it). Might, Fury, banners, EA, Spotter, Frost Spirit, etc. All are source of dmg coming from your group or yourself. In a pug group, you’ll be happy if you have a bit of might from time to time, and 1 banners from a warrior. If you get all of those? That’s when your dmg skyrocket.

Here some info the for best ways you can acquire the trinkets.

- Amulet : WvW vendor will sell it for 20 laurel and 250 badges of honor. You should get BoH from achievement so it shouldn’t be a problem and you gonna save 10 laurels, which is good even if you have plenty of them.

- Rings : Fractals is the best way to get those. You need do do only 20 fractals to get all of them. Of course if you don’t want to do fractal, you can always buy them from the Laurel vendor. WvW vendor cost less, but if you start to run out of BoH, the normal vendor can do the job.

- Earings : The best way to get those is to be in a guild that run Guild Missions each week and buy them with Guild Commendations. Of course if you don’t have a guild like that and don’t plan on searching for such a guild, then Laurel Vendor will cost you a bit at 40 laurel + 50 ectos (about 20 gold on the market).

- Back item : There is 3 main way to get a back item. Ascended crafting, Mystic Forge and Fractal capacitor. (Keep in mind that all these method will need the mystic forge, but i named some ‘’Mystic Forge’’ because they only need to mystic forge and nothing else.

If you want to do Fractal and reach a high level, Fracal Capacitor is your best choice. By the time you reach your goal in fractal, you’ll have your back item. And get rings in the same time.

Mystic Forge recipe are costly in term of gold (between 100 and 150 gold), but can be crafted immediately if you have the gold (These include Book of Secrets and Quiver of Switf Flight).

Ascended Crafting : These are special ascended back item. You get those mostly for their looks. Sclerite, Light of Dawna, Grenth, Lyssa and Spinal Blades. Sclerite and Spinal Blades use special item that can be hard to get by (or even impossible) if you didn’t took part in the living story linked to them. The 3 human gods’ back item need a recipe that you can buy on the TP. With the recide, take a crafting profession to 500, the time-gated material and all. These back item will cost you the most. But if you like the skin and you already want to do some ascended crafting for an armor or weapons. That can be less expensive than Mystic Forge back item if you take your time. But if you wanna have your back fast, these recipe will cost SO MUCH. Lyssa can cost about 400-500 gold if you wanna craft it right away.

krooton.8035:

So I have seen plenty of “Warr/Guard OP” “Only ever need 1 Ele” “Ranger/Engi are trash” types of posts.

It got me thinking about profession balance, and the perceived lack thereof. What if you could take some aspects of the Holy Trinity, but still create variation between the professions?

Warr/Guard are OP
Only ever need 1 Ele
Ranger/Engi are trash

That’s three post from ppl that don’t know how the game work. You don’t base modification of your game on ppl that don’t know how it work. Variation between the professions?

Robechef already gave a excellent answer to that.

Lodius.5392:

obal.3218
I have to disagree with 2 things in your post.
1) “Healing power is a wasted stat since it scales so poorly.”
-Healing Power is one of the only stats in the game that scales linear with the amount of points placed within the stat. I run full Cleric gear (focusing on healing) and notice a strong difference in the group survivability rate than when I run a different class.

2) “…so a full shout bar and pure of voice is a waste.”
-I focus on altruistic healing (which provides healing to myself each time I cast a shout)… I load 3 shouts “Stand your Ground” , “Hold the Line” , and “Retreat”.
Hold the Line Regeneration to the entire team which is bolstered by the increased healing power. Stand your Ground for stability as well as “block the next incoming attack”… Retreat for the speed boost and I also think it blocks the next incoming attack.

Shield Healing / Staff Healing / the Virtue Healing … this build allows me to run as close of a true “healing class” in GW2.

Sorry man. Your 16 months late on that. The build that you talk about (minus the healing power) is an old meta build when the game started. Since then, the community figure out that it wasn’t the right direction to go and the build was use less and less by players.
1) Ya healing power as a linear scaling. But only add so little advantage compare to the base healing you get from skills. Take AH for example. The formula is 69 + 0.01 X healing power. So 1000 healing power will give you 10 more healing compare to the 69 basic healing from the trait. Compare that to 1000 power. Lest take someone with 1500 power compare to 2500 power for a GS auto-attack. 1050 * 1500 * 0.8/2600 = 485 dmg compare to 1050 * 2500 * 0.8/2600 = 808 dmg. You almost double your damage output with that, while you give yourself a 15% increase in healing only. That’s the same things with all healing skill. Anet didn’t want to approach the concept of healer even with a 12 foot pole, so they make it almost useless. Of course you have more group survivability if you heal them man, who gonna die more when you heal them???? But at the same time, you’ll automatically see a decrease in killing speed. The question is what will give you the bang for your buck and for that healing power is a really inefficient way of spending your stats points.

2) GW2 meta build are all about group synergy. You must ask you, does that trait, skill, stats will help me? But also will it help my team? Most of what you say is either completely selfish, (you heal a lot yourself, but not that much the group) and inefficient. Why inefficient? The Guardian have access to a lot of support. Aegis (Retreat, F3), Reflect (Wall), Blind (F1, GS 3, Sw 2, F 4), Absorb (Shield), Protection (hammer, etc). Those will save yourself and your party from a couple hundred to several hundred thousand of incoming damage, while your healing stuff will heal your of about 10-20k max before you run out of heal. Ya of course, healing will be better against small but rapid attack, but the game is based around more big slow attack where damage mitigation work better than heal after the damage is done.

sazberryftw.3809:

Thaddeus.4891:

That build is more tanky than my frontline WvW guardian build. I don’t consider that a good starting build at all. I used it for a while during the first year of the game (strife’s Anchor build)

I was sent to Strife’s guard build by my guildie when I first rolled guard, that’s all. My guild was mainly dungeon running.

Ok. Still, strife’s build was built around the concept of anchor. 1 single tanky guardian to control the aggro and support the team of 4 heavy dps guys. It was a seducing idea 16 months ago, but since then we figure out that :
- there is better way than AH to survive that also help your team and not only you (aka F1 blind)
- shouts are good for boons, but better support exist for the guardian (aka consecration)
- If you replace shout by other stuff like consecration, then pure of voice or troopers runes are useless (purging flames enough job by itself 90% of the time in PvE)
- Toughness can help controlling agro, but that’s unreliable and only make fight last longer. Better go zerker gear if you can.
- Damage modifier are the big deal when you choice trait and strife’s build didn’t have any.

With all that, we figure out that, Strife’s build was a nice attempt, but also a failed one for PvE. But a lot of the stuff from strife’s build was keep and form now the base of the standard general purpose guardian build in WvW.

sazberryftw.3809:

I recently put the build I use on Build Editor. I didn’t create it (I won’t take credit for a widely used build) but it’s basically the standard Knight/Zerk set. It’s a good build to use to start as you have much more survivability than full zerk.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVUQNAR7dl0ApUo1CxVI8DNBDBl1PwODJfEXXgIEAA-TBSBwAeuAAXV+tT9Hq7Ps4BAo5gAA4IAYWJIA-e

Do check out this link though, it explains zerker guard, for both GS and S/F builds and also hammer build (which is also a good place to start as a newbie, as well as for Fractals).

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12501056-dnt-guardian-build-5914

That build is more tanky than my frontline WvW guardian build. I don’t consider that a good starting build at all. I used it for a while during the first year of the game (strife’s Anchor build). DPS is terrible, limited support (you give boons and remove condition, but meta guardian have better support). For ppl in my guild that want to get into a good build, but don’t want to go full Meta right aways, I always give them 2 options.
1) Use one of the best build right away and use a mix of zerker and tankier gear. You are still learning the gameplay of a meta build, practicing how to blind, aegis, reflect, the hammer symbol management, dps rotation, etc. But with a couple of tankier gear, you can survive more easily while you learn the profession. As you get better, change piece by piece until you get full zerker or at least reach a balance you are comfortable with.
2) Most new player don’t have much transmutation charge, have a lot to learn so they may want to stay hybrid for a longer time, but they still want to have a nice look on their character. In that case, gearing full zerker with a hybrid build is a better option. The downside is :
- good trait is better than good gear
- you are learning the profession, but not the build
- The learning curve when you want to get more toward full dps is drastic as you can change 1 piece at the time, you need to change the build.

Jerus.4350:

Curious did you factor in the 3s of 0 damage into that staff DPS? You’re actually only getting 7s of staff attacks for every rotation, with 1 symbol, and what like 3-4 balls?

I still like staff for the out of combat utility, while focus can pull as thad pointed out, a focus doesn’t really fit into a Hammer build, it’s basically Hammer + something, ideally GS for damage but camping hammer isn’t bad so you’re really pretty open to what’s in the secondary. But a sword/focus, no real point sword is an AA weapon as is hammer, mace/focus… why? scepter/focus… again why? So personally I keep finding myself going back to staff or GS depending on if my group is willing to do everything they can and keep up the swiftness and pull things when needed.

Sure I could pull with hammer3, but I really hate pulling with immobilize. Plus on things like subject alpha it’s nice to be able to turn the corner before they take that damage so you don’t get frozen on your way back or stuff like that.

Ya i thought about the 3s of empower during which you don’t dps. But still, i didn’t decreased the staff DPS by taking that into account. Like i said, that rought math. I didn’t took into account condition neither. I prefer to be generous with the Staff DPS to make my point even stronger. In reality, using staff during a fight would be even less good than what my rough math show. So even is the best situation possible, staff in never a good option in the middle of a fight.

But ya, like we talk about, staff is a good choice if you don’t use it during fight and camp hammer. I still prefer to use GS (pull and some burst) or scepter/focus (for some range fight in some specific situation) over a staff, but that’s mainly because I usually run with my guildmate that bring might. And since i dropped zap and crafted bolt, i must say that i only play hammer in fractal anymore. I need to show off that bolt now

Ok its some rough math, but

Here the DPS a player using good trait, gear, food, sigil, buff.
Hammer (no might) : 7 300dps
Hammer (12 might) : 8 500dps
Staff (no might) : 3 000dps
Staff (12 might) : 3 600dps
Staff and Hammer (no might) : 5 150dps
Staff and hammer (12 might) : 6 050dps

Let say, you have 4 guardian using hammer and 1 switching around. (I use guardian hammer only to keep the math simple) That’s about :
Party (no might) : 34 350 dps
Party (12 might) : 40 050 dps

If you have 10sec of might and switching around take weapons take 20sec. (10sec in Staff, 10sec in hammer). This mean that you will have 12 might around 50% of the time. (Not true, but i’ll talk about that latter).
That mean that in average, you party will make about 37 200 dps
A party of 5 Hammer guardian with no might will have about 36 500 dps

You won’t have 10sec of might each 20sec right. It will be less of that, over time. But that give you a general idea. So not that bad idea overall, but it won’t gonna give you an improvement. At best, you are practically the same amount of DPS with or without that.

Now, I consider myself a good player. At least I use a good build with high DPS and I die not too much. What happen, if i’m with pug, with an average build. Do they use food? Potions? Full Zerker? Good runes? Good sigils? Do they use best trait? Just remove some buffs like potions, foods, scholar runes or UC and you got other numbers. My own portion of the overall DPS increase, making the 12 stack less and less of a good option. So you have two possibility.

1) I’m with a average pug, where It’s gonna better for me to keep my own dps high compare to boosting the low dps of the rest of my party.
2) I’m with some good pugs, which whom it could be a good option to use staff or at least not decease our overall DPS. But in that case, if i’m playing with some good player, i’ll probably have 25 stacks of might because other profession, better at stacking might will do their jobs, while as a guardian i’ll do my job of damage mitigation with aegis, blind and reflect.

There is a 3rd options. If you play with 4 good players and you bring a bad dps build. Then ya, use your staff to boost their dmg. But either they gonna kick you for joining them with a bad build, gonna give themselves 25 stacks of might or don’t care and carry you by killing stuff fast while you empower and put switfness symbol all over the place.

Here some steps you need to do in your journey to ascended crafting.

- Leveling a crafting profession to 500. Visit gw2crafts.net to see the cheapest way to reach that goal. If you start from fresh, it cost between 2 gold to 20 gold to get from level 0-400. And to get level 400-500 it will cost about 100 gold per weapon profession and 50 gold per armor profession. Don’t rush into it. I had enough material when I started that, it only cost me about 150 gold to level up 400-500 all of the 6 professions.
- Ascended Crafting Materials. There is 3 of those. Empyreal, Bloodstone Dust and Dragonite. Empyreal come from Chest, Dungeon and WvW, Dust come from champion bags and Dragonite come from World Boss. Dragonite are usually the only one that ppl have difficulty with (i destroy the other two for the last 3 months, i have too much of those). Get started asap on Dragonite. Do some world boss from time to time and accumulate them and have a bunch of those ready when you need them.
- Tier 5 Materials and Time gated. This is mithril, elder wood, silk and thick leather square. They are the more common material you get get as a level 80. Salvage most thing and you shouldn’t have much problem to accumulated them over time. I have 10 ascended weapons and 2 ascended armor and I never bought any of those materials. Once you are 500 in your crafting profession these Tier 5 will be use to craft time gated material. Do these asap. You can only do 1 each day so start slowly and craft them as you accumulate the other material so you are not stuck waiting a months with everything you need just waiting for the time-gated crafting.
- Tier 2-3-4. Metal, Wood, Leather and Cloth. Once you crafted the time-gated ascended material from the Tier 5, you will need to refine it with those Tier 2-3-4 material. As a level 80 you will have a lot less of those (they are level 20-60). Some are easy to farm, especially metal. There is some rich metal vein that never move. You can go farm them each day and accumulate them over time (especially efficient if you have several character that you leave next to the vein). For wood, you can gather them, but its usually better to accumulate them and then when you need to craft, buy what you still need. For leather and cloth you can’t really farm that. Accumulate what you can and buy the rest when you need it.

That’s the most important things you will need to get into ascended crafting. Like you see, most stuff can be accumulate while playing, you just need to check what you get the less and work more on those over time.