Guild Wars 2

A) ya, make a bit of everything. Try to keep up with your personnal story as much as possible. Don’t let it lag behind you level like having to do the story level 30 while you are level 60. The quest won’t be that much easier, its just that if you wait until you are level 80 to do your personal story, it became boring quickly and you won’t enjoy it as much. Same thing with map completion. Go ahead right aways, while you are exploring you get more into the universe and story.

What i would keep for latter? Dungeon and Crafting. Crafting will level up you so quickly and won’t give you much to use while leveling. It will be very useful to level up alt later when you don’t want to repeat everything to level up your 3rd or 4th character for exemple. Dungeon on the other hand can be hard to get into when you are low level and don,t know the game very well. You could end up in a speed run group that will go super quickly and leave you a bad impression. You will do A LOT of dungeon after your level 80 so better use that time at low level to explore and do quest than forcing you into dungeon just because its said that it at the same level as you are.

Yup. At least for me. Exploring, Personnal Story and doing the hearts were a lot of fun while leveling, but a lot less once I reached 80 and I had a lot more stuff to do.

B) No shield for Mesmer. Sword/Focus, Sword/Sword and Sword/Pistol are the best set of weapon for mesmer. You also have Greatsword that is less good, but give you some range option when you need it (you’ll probably need it when you start the game, melee can be a bit more difficult when you start playing).

Sooneroo.2074:

@Thaddeus: Highly disagree with your opinions on the staff. Empower alone gives quite a long duration (around 15 seconds with 16s cd) of 12 stacks of might, so I don’t see where you got the idea that the might doesn’t last long enough. Staff 2 is good at pulling and staff 3 also compounds with the symbol of protection to give vulnerability. Furthermore, staff 5’s wall is much easier and more reliable than the wall of the hammer.

I figured using the staff along with my hammer was a good way to compensate for the light fields of the hammer because of Empower which I can constantly use during long fights without the need of fire fields, and the weakness from symbol of swiftness.

1) Staff empower give 10sec of might on a 20sec cooldown. Now, you need 50% boons duration to get that 15sec you have. That mean that you probably have like 6pts in virtues and superior rune of water of something (food maybe) to reach 50%. And you have two-handed mastery trait to get the 16sec CD from your staff. So ya you sacrifice a good runes and some good trait to reach that level of empower with your staff. A might blast is 20sec wihtout any boons duration, FGJ is 25sec, HGH is 25sec there is better way of getting might than the staff Empower for PvE. So if you want to use boons duration, use that on an Ele or a Warrior for might, not for Empower.
2) Ok so you have 15s of might on a 16sec cooldown. Ok, but if you do that in the middle of the fight, you will do kittenty DPS (from what i can see of your build you probably don’t do that much DPS anyway) with a staff during 10sekittenil you can switch to the hammer.
3) Everything range is good at pulling man. Focus skill 4 work just fine 100% of the time. You want to pull stuff more? I rather see a sceptre, at least you can put a high DPS symbol on the ground before switching to your hammer, or use your staff to pull, empower, switch back to hammer and then never switch back to your staff until the fight is over.
4) Oh ya skill 3 is good right?? Vulnerability right?? Its just that GS symbol do 8 times more dmg, but shhhhh. Staff 3 is good.
5) There is no hammer wall, its a ring. And for the staff, its a line. But anyway, both line and rings and rarely useful PvE (except maybe in solo). Ya you denied the passage of those mobs. Cool. What does it give me? Either i kill them, or i run past them, and if i’m gonna run and skip, i rather have my focus shield than a line of warding. Its not useless, but not a really efficient skill in PvE.

Conclusion. Staff have kittenty DPS and inferior support for PvE. But its a kitten great weapon for WvW. That’s why I crafted Bifrost for my guardian. I don’t dislike the staff, i don’t want a buff to it to make it better. Its an awesome weapons, but PvE is not really its place unless you get it a really specialist role like Jesus do (before fight, never during the fight) or during TA for the blossom.

My frontline Guardian use between 2800-3000 armor depending on the situation and composition of the enemy zerg we encounter the most during a certain raid. I know a lot of ppl are using about 3200 armor. More than that seem completely useless to me. Whatever amount of toughness won’t make you invulnerable, you still need to move, dodge, block etc. So for me the toughness/vitality is only a buffer, enough to keep me alive to get out of danger or block. Since in ZergvsZerg there is too much stuff going on to see everything coming, you need a good amount of surviability stats. But you still want as low as possible. The right amount of defense you need to be able to keep fighting in a fight is totally depending on you and your gameplay. For exemple, i know i need 3000 armor if i’m gonna use my hammer, but 2800-2900 is fine if i have my Greastword because the leap is a beast to get out of difficult situation and move out of those nasty AOE. But 3200 armor is usually a good start.

LordByron.8369:

Expecially in fractals there are bosses that doesn t require an insane amount of dps.
Lava Shaman is one of them, you can kill grubs at 50 reasonably fast in a mix of zerker, celestial and pvt, but you really need to be able to stand still to ress people long enough (something a full berserker ele can t do).
While its even better to recharge your cds between phases.
).

If I have at least 1 other party member alive with me, I simply agro the boss and kite him far from the other while they all rez each other. On my guardian with reflect, aegis, block, invulnerable, dodge and vigor I can keep it on me as long as they need for everybody to rez back. I won’t gonna use a tankier gear if I can do that with my zerker gear.

Sorrior Dragneel.5019:

Thanks and kinda what i figured/thought..Been an MMO player for YEARS..On break from FFXIV right now and started in VANILLA WoW..So yeah i just wanted to make sure what would work best…

And thanks again..Gonna start saving up my Karma and try and get a start via the merchants in Orr.

If you want to get the best, knight if a good as you learn the profession. I suggest that you start with knight armor with ruby orbs or superior rune of flames legion (because they are both really cheap and do the job), you can go strait to ascended trinket, no need to start with exotic for trinkets, all least for amulet and rings. I suggest to go directly berserker for those amulet (you don,t want to waste some precious laurel). For weapons, berserker or knight depending on who you feel. But you should go to a good build (trait, weapons) right aways so you start to learn it asap. If you start with a learning build, you’ll could have some difficulty relearn everything on another build.
GS/Hammer or GS/S&F are the most popular right now, if you need to keep a range weapons for a little bit H/Scepter&Focus is probably the best choice, but GS/Scepter&F work well too. Use trait from a meta build and learn to use blind/aegis/reflect to keep you alive, while switching knigh gear to zerker gear as you get better over time.

I man a guardian since the start of the game and have all 8 professions at 80 full exotic or ascended and I agree with Anet that Guardian is in a good place right now. But sure, there is some small things that should be work on.

- Conditions are lacking on the guardian. Ya burning is awesome and its probably the most powerful condition in sPvP. Still, we are lacking for everything else in the condition department.
- Shield need some change. The skill 4 do as much dmg as an GS auto-attack with 5sec of protection but on a 30sec CD. That’s useless. Either reduce the cooldown to like 20sec or boost the dmg so it become a burst DPS attack. Make a purpose for that skill because right now it have none. For the Shield of absorption, same things. Right now its only a push back, the absorption part is rarely use since you can’t move. Either allow the player to move and attack (but not switch weapons set) while using the skill 5 or scrap the absorption part and reduce the cooldown to 25sec to be equal to the banish.
- A new off-hand would be nice. A offensive direct-damage off-hand because that’s lacking right now. Maybe like a off-hand sword.
- I don’t like torch, but its alright for a sPvP condition build so. I guess its ok.
- 1 more range weapon. We only have 1 real range weapon, the scepter. The staff is close range so it doesn’t serve the same purpose. We need another choice than the scepter even if that’s a good weapon.

Slither Shade.4782:

so you claim that you would not have kicked myself and other for going to kholer at that time… very interesting

it is interesting that you see yourselves from the perspective of the three and believe that your choice to not do kholer is the correct one… unable to accept someone elses wishes as relevant as if there is a correct choice and as if there is an order it is to be done in… an order taught to you and that you accepted and now anything outside of the box causes distress… as if everything must be written in the lfg and accepted as a legally binding contract… i dont even remember what the lfg said but somehow you seem to know that it said nothing

Well, it completely depend on the LFG description. If it said killing kholer, then its alright. If not? Then you can ask if ppl want to kill kholer, but it seem like there was 3 ppl vs 2 ppl that didn’t want to kill it. At least that’s what I do. I never said killing kholer in my LFG, but in the dungeon i wrote ‘’killing kholer?’’ and react depending on what the rest of the group do or write. For me the power of the host is limited to the LFG description, after that it a decision that the party should take, not just the host. I don’t want to be rigid in pugs, if i want to play in a really specific way, i’ll stick with my guildies.

aldwid.7548:

Warriors are really good all around. Can you explain why most dungeon soloing(exp Arah) runners are Warriors? And whereas Necros…. sigh…

Ya I can. I also saw guardian, mesmer, elementalist, thief and rangers solo arah, but your right that warrior make about 75% of all video on the net. Why?

- Warrior is a good solo profession. Its have good passive survivability, its easy to do good dmg with it and have all around utilities. That mean that warrior have skill for most situation and are easier to play. You don’t need to concentrate as much as other profession to make your dmg or survive, so you can concentrate more about the added difficulty that a solo run put on you.
- Warrior were view for about a year as the OP BEST PROFESSION EVER at the beginning of the game. Of course a lot of ppl will play them, and of course a lot of player will use them for difficult content. We start to see more and more of the other profession, but since most of the solo stuff were done a year ago and the videos are already on youtube, ppl that are doing the same thing now with other profession don’t necessarily put it on youtube, there is already a lot of video about solo run already.

The fact that you see a lot of solo run or even group run with a lot of warrior in it, doesn’t mean that Warrior are OP and do everything better than any other profession. Warrior are the best a offensive support and that’s how they are use now. But a year ago, most speed run used 3 or 4 warrior because back then we didn’t know how the game really work and a lot of ppl were sure that the other profession didn’t do as much or more dmg than the warrior. Right now its the Ele that have that position, maybe that its gonna be the Ranger in a year, who know.

For Necro, well. It have as much dmg as a warrior, but it don’t cleave at all and bring no utilities or support that another profession do better. So its at the bottom of the food chain for now.

Miroe.2054:

Thank you for your posts and actually you’re right, its not the Zerker meta thats bugging me. I’m gonna try this from another angle. I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of the game. All the glitching, the stacking and the skipping replaces something I’d like to experience. A real fight where I use the space and the battlefield that is given to my group, positioning, placing combo fields and finishers, seeing different classes cooperate within a dungeon. Thieves and Engineers and Mesmers and that Mace Dual wield warrior.

But I don’t see that a lot. Mostly my group tries to imitate those 5% of really skilled PvE players. What follow is the PUG trying some kind of a speed run without really knowing what that would mean. The result is neither fun nor effective. Seeing the kick window pop up every now and then doesn’t help either

Yea probably this is a whine thread, so lets hope we get more Battles like Molten Berserker and Firestorm and the glitches are being fixed and I’ll stop whining around.

/thread imo.

That’s a WAY more legit position, that a lot of ppl could follow.

There is several things important in there and we shouldn’t try to put them all in same place.
1) Stacking. Its all about opinions. From stacking is awesome get me more Anet to stacking is boring, exploiting things that should be ban because you all gonna go to hell. I think (i may be wrong) that stacking is a legitimate strategy, but there is 2 problem with it. Sometimes its just too easy. It replace a hard fight by a 2 sec no brain fight. Some fight get it better. You should need to blind, block, stability, reflect, dodge timing and its should be done in 2 seconds. It should be hard but highly rewarding to stack. Something that not every pugs can do and need some coordination and knowledge. The second problem is that its THE solution to a lot of fight. I like stacking, but when you stack 6 times in a dungeon of 10mins, that become ridiculous. There should be a difference in scale and kind in any video games to keep the player interested.
2) Glitching is a normal human reaction. Like water we gonna use the path of least resistance. A video game as big as an MMO will alway have glitch and ppl will always try to use it. I don’t think that a huge problem in GW2 and its usually temporary. Like a glitch become popular and then get nerf. It normal in a game.
3) Skipping. Its a simple effort vs reward. I won’t skip something that is rewarding, i’ll skip something that is not. Take for exemple the little grab in CoE path 3. That a classic situation of enemy that should be skip. But most ppl kill them because they give 5-6 tier 5 and a chance for 1 tier 6. That a good effort vs reward ratio. There were a lot less skipping a while ago when most bosses and mobs elite and above use to gave a bunch of silver for each kill. But anet removed all of that and concentrate the reward at the end to ’’fix’’ the dungeon farming that was going on back then. Its a legit solution, but its created more skipping.
4) Real fight that use space, positioning, combo field and use different profession that coordinated together? That pretty much meta and speed run mentality 100%. If you know the game well enough, you will have no problem having any profession in your party as long as the player know how to play that profession. (some are maybe a bit more resistant to necro, but that’s because that profession don,t have a lot going on for them in PvE). But don’t for pugs if you want that. Pug don’t coordinate and usually have a kittenty understanding of the game. (I’m pointing at you pugs that want heavy only, don’t coordinated banner, don’t want ranger, engineer and necro in their party or bring kittenty build and argue that ‘’kitten IPHIW’’ in the middle of a speed run). Coordinated group coordinated, pugs don’t do that even if they can, because that’s too much problem.
5) Dual Mace warrior? Comon, you were on the right track man. Don’t screw things up. Its not because it exist that it should be good everywhere at anytime. Someone like katana, katana are cool, but that doesn’t mean that you should bring that into a war where other ppl have guns.
6) Bad player try to follow how the best player do?? kitten . You mean like those idiots that try to race in the middle of a street with their civic like a F1 driver? Or those stupid kids that try to imitate kitten for fee while the actual kitten received millions of dollar for doing the same thing? You mean like all those wannabe celebrity that would do anything to get 5min on the TV screen? Ya that exist everywhere. We are doom to have those kind of ppl around. Sorry.

In theory, that’s a nice idea. I wasn’t a fan of SWTOR, even if i had a good time playing that game for a couple of months. But one thing they did right was the deep difference between organical and droïd enemies. Some attack where useless against one type and vice versa.

But to implement that to GW2 would be difficult. It a concept that is core to gameplay mechanic and can’t just be added easily into a game. A balance problem would come into play. In PvE, condition already have a lot of problem versus direct damage. Condition are so bad right now, that only a small numbers of ppl play them in PvE right now. Even worst, most profession and build will concentrate on 1 or 2 conditions with some exception like necro and engie that can put most if not all conditions. That mean that, for exemple a fire condition guardian will be completely useless in some situation. Layers and layers on top of more layers of restriction that are all good thinking by their own, but that in the end give no reason what so ever for someone to choose condition over direct damage in PvE.

- Condition can damage object. That make sense, object can’t bleed.
- Condition have a cap because of bandwidth so you don’t lag. That cool, i don’t want to lag.
- Condition have different effect depending on a enemy so you can’t burn a Ember or bleed a rock. That seem legit.

Oh kitten , right now condition is useless and nobody play that. Oups.

I used to run AH build in WvW. Its not that AH itself is so powerful by itself, its just that
1) Toughness and Critical Damage are such good stats in WvW. With Soldier armor, I already have enough vitality, but i still would like a big more toughness without adding more vitality, this is were the trait line come into play. I also already have good amount of power, so a bit more critical damage is the obvious thing to get next.
2) AH work with my way of playing. I always have 2 shouts, staff, symbold ect that give a lot of boons and i always have a lot of ppl to receive these boons in WvW. Making the best use of AH. That added survivability allow me to reduce my amount of defensive stats for more offensive stats.

Anyway, in my guild we are trying out something else. We usually have a standard AH build with strenght in numbers, but the second guardian usually run something like 0/4/0/6/4 or 0/3/4/6/1. It sacrifice AH mainly to spam F1 blind in the middle of the combat.

Miroe.2054:

The weapon with the superior utility deals a little less damage. Not so much less that people deem it useless, but so much that it outweighs the better utility. Imagine short bow getting +1 damage, good enough to use? If no, repeat process until you’re not sure anymore. And there we are.

Of course we have weapon favoritism, but not because one is strictly better. But rather because you… and this is going to seem insane… because you like it. The space of viability is so narrow at the moment, that entire classes are excluded.

We already have that for most weapons. I’ll take guardian as an exemple, because that’s the profession i know the most.

- GS have pull, great burst dps, a blind, condi removal, but bad AA dps.
- Sword low burst, but good AA (but bugs out against object), 1 blind and some reflect.
- Hammer have best AA, protection, but no burst, a blast finisher and some CC.
- Focus have a blind and a block
- Shielf have protection and CC for PvP
- Staff is the best for tagging, give might and CC so usefull in WvW
- Scepter have the best range single target DPS, a huge burst DPS and an Immobilized.

Each of these weapon have a use. Not all are good in every aspect. Staff if bad in PvE, but good in WvW. Sword is good in PvE, but not that much in ZergvsZerg, etc.

Now you could bring range weapon more useful in PvE. But right now, range weapon are already balance in WvW with melee. So if you buff range weapon to be balance in PvE, you will make them overpowered in WvW. And even if the range weapon would be useful in PvE, you would still be better to stay in melee range with them.

1) Completely wrong. 100%. Warrior = OP is a year old thinking that is been proven so wrong. Warrior and Guardian only have average damage compare to thief, elementalist, etc. Like every other profession except elementalist, there is no reason to bring more than 1 of each profession in a dungeon. Each provide something specific.
- Ele is the best DPS, stack might and fury or vulnerability
- Thief bring stealth, vulnerability, blind
- Ranger bring spotter, frost spirit and fury
- Warrior bring might, banner and EA
- Guardian bring blind, aegis, reflect and protection
- Mesmer bring utilities and reflect
- Engineer can bring utilities and vulnerability
- Necro bring nothing that someone else can bring better. Sorry necro

PUGS like warrior and guardian simply because they are easier to survive with it. And also a lot of false idea. Like kick someone only because they are ranger. Its make no sense since a ranger can be better than most other profession if build right. But what do you want pugs and pugs.

2) Your right. No arguing that. I like the 2 weeks update, but having a expansion would be nice.

3) Anet don’t accept that. But there is a difference between not accepting that or spending a lot of money in law suit and other legal mean to stop everything. You do what you can with what you have. Banning ppl that use these services (when they can figure it out) is a better tools. At least that seem to be Anet view.

4) You are wrong. Warrior have about the same dmg than an engineer, but not as an elementalist or a thief. There is balance if you know how to build a profession and play it. Sure the average pug will have more dps on a warrior than anything else. But that’s because its easy to do that on a warrior and that’s why Warrior was view as the GOD PROFESSION when the game started and nobody knew what the kitten there were doing. Could the game have more balance? Ya of course. Support Gear, condition, Necro in PvE, more than 1 good build on ranger, etc But there is still a lot of diversity and balance between each profession.

5) True. Leveling, legendary gift, Ascended gear, some food and some dungeon recipe. That’s pretty much all crafting does and its a shame. For me crafting should bring something more. Thing like useful item that don’t necessary make you stronger, but QoL or fun stuff. Thing like a parachute, transformation potion, balloons, firework, etc. Things that are not necessary to have, but thing that are nice and that ppl would want and that come from nowhere else. Also, crafting should be more balanced compare to other way to get equipment like armor and weapons. You want 1 or 2 set of armor? Better use dungeon token or buy it from the TP. Want to gear all you toons? Then crafting should be the way to go. High initial investment, but crafting stuff itself should be less costly than buying it. So there is a reason to craft or to not craft depending on what you want.

Well, if you gonna camp 1 weapons as a guardian. Hammer is by far the best choice. Even GS camping is only meh. But hammer camping can hold its end in term of dps, while giving protection. So if you have a good hammer build, using a staff as secondary (if you use it right) is really not a big deal. Using a GS won’t help you dmg that much at this point so.

I’m still not a fan of staff, and you maybe found the only way staff may be ok to bring in dungeon lol. GS + Staff is bad guys don’t do that pls. So if staff is something you like, then go for it man.

There is not final answer to vitality or toughness. But here so point you need to ask you

- Vitality help you the most against burst and condition, while toughness is better for constant direct dmg. This is mainly for PvP, but that’s kill you the most is what you better prepare for. If you have a lot of condi removal and know how to dodge the big hit, then toughness could be better. If condition is your nemesis, vitality could be the way to go. In PvE that apply, but not as much as in PvP.
- The right ratio. You can calculate the effective HP of your toons. At some point one stat will bring your EHP higher than with the other stats. Reach a equilibrium between those two stats for the maximum return of investment.
- With experience you know what level of HP and Armor you feel comfortable with. In PvE i want as little as i can. For WvW? I want between 18-21k hp, while having between 2800 and 3100 armor on my frontline guardian. I know that i can do my job within those limit. But that’s different for each role and for each person.
- Toughness give agro so watch out. Of course, toughness is only 1 or several reason for someone to have agro. But toughness on an Ele can be a bad thing if you are in a party with only full dps guys. There is a chance that your Ele will have more mobs bashing the hell out of you.
- Basic amout of HP? I always want vitality over toughness on my Ele or Guardian. While i always what toughness on my Warrior and Necro.

Ya i don’t want everything to be equal. Everything must have a place ya, but not everything equal. Guardian for exemple.

Mace Shield is good in PvP,
Sword, Focus is good in PvE
Staff if good in WvW
While GS and Hammer are good everywhere.

Everything have its place .

Same thing with gear. Soldier is not good in PvE? So what, its freaking awesome in WvW. Healing Power is bad, but not in sPvP. Condition Dmg is useless in dungeon? But powerful in small PvP or solo.

Now, I already said it several time. They could bring more diversity in gear for pve.
- Condition dmg should be good in Dungeon
- We should have support gear that is usefull. Meta build use support in their trait, gear should also (i’m talking about condi duration, boon duration and other thing like that, not healing or tankiness).

But range weapons and tanky gear is in a good place right now. They are good in PvP and are only second rate stuff in PvE for ppl learning or casual that just want a easier gameplay. I don’t see why that need to change.

I see a bunch of condi and direct dmg in PvP. I don’t think there is much balance needed there? Keep in mind that in sPvP is completely different that PvE. For exemple, sPvP crit dmg wasn’t affected by the crit nerf.

Now if you talk about PvE, then ya some balance need to be done.

A couple things here.

DON’T interrupt your hammer AA symbol, EVER. That’s your main source of dmg (make sure to use writ of persistence). You just need to use it at the right time. Stacking might usually occur before the right or at the beginning of the fight (the first few second). In an organized group, you will have almost constant might stacking with a staff ele. That’s why in speed run with my guild I usually take S/F instead of hammer. But for pugs, don’t worry about might stacking during the first. Just make sure you don’t use your hammer during like the 5 first second of the fight. You can put your symbol on top of the first field, no problem.

I would suggest you use something else than a staff. Staff is a really bad weapon for PvE (freaking great in WvW). The might stacking last way too short to count for anything, the dmg is poor, swiftness is not that useful in dungeon and the cc have limited use. Check for a Greatsword, you can start the fight with it so you don’t put symbol right away, then switch to hammer for the rest of the fight (or switch around both to maximize dps). Or if you need a range weapons, the sceptre is better than staff for this purpose.

Anyway, Hammer is one of the best weapon for the guardian in PvE, so good choose.

Miroe.2054:

Wow
I wasn’t aware of how much love people show for the dodge rolling against the wall and the “everyone stand in the corner and press 3”. I don’t want to tell anyone how to play. I wish that we are able to make an actual creative choice instead calculating the right answer.

That a thing man. We don’t like stacking and press 3. But that’s not what we are doing. We’ll make sure we aggro the boss at the right time wihtout LOS, in the right position, we’ll time our might stacking so we are ready just as the boss arrive, some boss will need to give reflect, other stability, other will need the guardian to go through all his mitigation skills in the right order while he’s keeping an eye on the blind and aegis to pop them at the right moment, some will need the ele to use an arcane shield, some need some timing for dodging, some need to know what your doing while aggroing the boss, etc. Most of the time, its not just stack and skill 3. Stacking can be nice if it need you to do something. Stacking is a creative strategy by its own. Who find out that hey man, its better to play that way. First time i talked about it to my guild, they we all doudting me, saying that i’m a freaking idiot. But then i explained myself and some of them say, hey that’s make sense, lets try it. We died a couple of times, but we got the hang of it. Stacking was a creative strategy once, its just became the norm and not the exception. Stacking is not a issue for me. Its nice, but boss mechanic allow for it to become the answer 80% of the time, and on several occasion you don’t need to do much during the stack. But if stacking would only work on some occasion and would be challenging to survive in it, that would be nice.

Miroe.2054:

If people run zerker, thats perfectly fine with me but they shouldn’t do it because they copied a PvE warrior from the internet so they can picture themselves as the “Play 2 Winners” and the “Crème de la PvE” and have attitudes against Bearbow Rangers.

We have all of these choices but people repeatedly try to reduce this variety to yet another means of determine the “elite” of players. Yet another group of players creating a hierarchy just to position themselves on top of it. I don’t have anything against zerkers, but I utterly despise this mindset. And I want the bad builds to be buffed just to see the wonder and surprises of a fantasy game return.
.

Your right that some ppl are like that. But we didn’t created the best way to play the game just to create a hierarchy. Its simply a couple of dudes that try to find the best way they can with the information that they have, which some time turn out to be wrong. Then several group of dudes find that they all come out with the same answer and they post it on the internet, where even more dudes talk about the strength and weakness of these build. In the end, the community in general will see some build as more powerful. Now ya, some ppl will just copy paste a build and go with it. And there is nothing wrong with that. Its not because you didn’t create a new build that there is no value in it. That doesn’t mean that everybody should only use build on the internet, build change and get better over time as more ppl explore new option.

And if you buff ‘’bad build’’ and they become the new good build. Then a lot of ppl will simply use those and a bunch of zerker guys will whine on the forum about those elistist soldier build guys that created a hierarchy about their superior build.

Legendary Armor limit so much the customisation options. Maybe there is only 1 (or 3 for GS) legendary weapon per type, but not everybody use the same weapon type. Legendary Weapons are already too much common (especially GS), but everybody use different skin and dye so everybody look unique. With a legendary armor, ESPECIALLY if it only cost about the same price as 1 legendary armor, everybody will want it. 2K gold is not that bad for a complete ascended armor that have the possibility to swap stats. And keep in mind that Armor cost a lot to create for Anet. That’s why new Armor usually come by the Gem Store, while they keep things like backitem or single piece of armor from the living story (because they cost less for Anet). Legendary Armor will come at a very slow pace. Meaning that for a long time, we probably have only 3 different Legendary armor (1 for each armor type). Everybody will look the same.

No i prefer something like a legendary amulet that give a special effect to the armor you currently worn. For exemple, one could cover your armor with shiny chinese letter, or give you a special aura, etc.

Aza.2105:

yLoon.5289:

Nonetheless, AOE blind is still > Regen Symbol

Only for dungeons. I’d take mace+communal defense over any sword build any day for teq and three headed wurm.

I wouldn’t take a sword for Teq or Wurm. But i wouldn’t take a mace either. For Teq, the hammer would be the best I think for protection. Hammer is also the highest guardian DPS if you don’t swap weapons.

For Wurm, you can’t take either Mace or Hammer because you gonna kitten up fire field during burn phase. So I camp Greastword, since the sword 3rd AA can screw up a bit against the Wurm (a bit like against object), and just make sure not to use attack 4.

Lian Olsam.9541:

And it will also be funny compare yourself with multiple run of same dungeon for improve, and be cmpetitive with others… ofc downed state and death is important for compare full zerker noob and avoid to increase elitism

Not so hidden agenda there man. Keep it up with the zerker hate.

Lian Olsam.9541:

Second: it be really usefull for increase the knowledge of your build, atm ppl just look how it is possible to do the max dps then they will run with this build doesent caring about anything else

Yup exact. That’s why a lot of meta for the guardian use trait Master of Consecration, Superior Aria, Writ of Persistance, Justice is Blind and Renewed Justice. Or even worst, how they use utilities like retreat, wall of reflection or purging flames. Oh my god all those elitist meta guardian that only care about DPS and about nothing else.

Lian Olsam.9541:

Third: they should make a little bonus for completing a dungeon if entire party will run it w/o die and in a certain timing (for example cof p1 w/o die in 15 minutes) so we should also appreciate other stats and not only full zerk, other builds and not only full dps, and ppl dont play for farm can have more funny with other goals…

I know right. Me too I can’t stand those bad zerker player that die each two second. They shoudn’t understand their limitation and use some defensive piece while putting some effort to get better, no that’s only for loser. Anyway, everybody know that someone that play zerker don’t have a soul and CAN’T have fun playing the game. Right? I mean its a job for them no, they just can’t have fun, that’s impossible.

Like Mystic said.

Fractal 40 while you are level 50 is a good way to gain karma and obsidian shards. EOTM train is also a popular way to do it.

There is also Gold Boss Blitz that give a good amount of Karma. This is the best for me right now, because it also give you a bunch of Gauntlet Ticket, Festival Token and WAY more champion bags than any champion farm. So you can make two things at the same time. Only things is, it can be hard to start or find a map with gold blitz. And when you find one, it can be hard to get in. There is ppl giving taxi on the LFG Open World, if you are with TTS, they also make several run (when there is no Teq or Wurm), otherwise its all about luck to find a map that work or organized a map by your own. But if you can make it, its a great way to make champion bags and karma.

MrSimpleMan.6194:

Thank you, may I ask what type of armor should I get for my thief to play in sPvP or roaming WvW if I wanted to burst down with s/d or d/d ? There are many different opinions on this, dont know what to follow – would appreciate someone’s ideas who plays a thief.

Well there is different opinions because not everybody play the same way. Use a mix of Beserker and Valkyrie gear to reach ’’your’’ comfort zone. There is no best option her.

I use full zerker with valkyrie weapon, while another friend use full zerker and another one use 3 piece of soldier gear and that a lot of ppl like valkyrie armor and zerker trinket/weapons. It also depend on your build. I use a lot of zerker, but my trait are mostly defensive to compensate.

Haxwell.7398:

Only a small selection of legendaries, each requiring an obscene amount of time to make. Some weapon types don’t even have a legendary, no legendary armor and only a small stat increase. You do the math.

- I think they had a good amount of legendaries selection. Only problem, they should have had a bunch of new legendary after the game reach 1 year, like they were suppose to.

- Obscene amount of time? Legendary are a joke to make now. They take time and that all, and not that much time neither. It take usually 3 months for a normal player (not casual) to make a legendary if you put your time at the right place. Karma and Badge of Honor used to be hard to get, but they nerf that to the ground (at least Karma is better now, but a lot of ppl accumulate enough karma for several legendaries back then). No challenge (badge of honor used to be a challenge), only gold and time. And its even worst since you can buy one of the TP. Its been almost 2 year and now we can see legendary everywhere.

- All weapons types have a legendary. Don’t where that come from.

- I’m not a fan of legendary armor. How its gonna work? Like a Legendary weapons? Then there is no where they can do more than 1 set of Legendary armor per armor type since they cost a lot more to create for Anet than a simple weapon. So what, everybody will eventually have the same skin? At least, the weapons depend on what weapons type you gonna use. We are 7 in my guild with Legendary weapons and we only have 1 Legendary weapons that’s been crafted by two different ppl. But with an armor, you gonna see a lot of ppl looking exactly the same in about 1 year after they release that.

- Legendary weapons have a small increase of stats only. Thank god. I want the legendary for the Looks. Stats swapping is only a small QoL feature, but only the skin make me craft a legendary. I don’t want to have higher stats with it.

Legendaries have some issues.
- Precusor crafting and new legendary are about 1 year late with no sign of arrival.
- Legendary have zero legendary journey to make it.
- Legendary are too easy to get. A big farm, but an easy one.

1) Gear. 1 awesome gear that work everywhere? Its a rare situation. In PvE you want full Zerker, so you need a profession that can work full zerker in WvW, which only exist if you gonna do some roaming, because that won’t work in ZergvsZerg. I play full zerker on my thief in WvW and it work. But your still limited if you only take 1 gear. Keep in mind that a gear in exotic is really really really cheap to get, so no reason to limit yourself there.
2) Dungeon and Fractal? Everything can be good there with Necromancer being the less useful. You just need to build it right (I still prefer to have a good Necromancer than an Ele with a bad build). See the link with point 1), don’t limit yourself to one build/gear for everything or you’ll be bad everywhere, whatever the profession you choose.
3) 1v1? Thief, Necromancer, Mesmer, Engineer and Warrior are usually on TOP, but most profession can do ok.
4) sPvP and WvW roaming, check number 3. You can add Guardian in sPvP for node protection. In ZvsZ Guardian, Warrior, Ele, Necro and Mesmer are pretty usefull.
5) Squishy is important in PvE. Learn to deal with it, or you’ll always be stuck with casual friendly build, no good one.

1) Off-hand sword : Guardian need a offensive off-hand weapons, that would be a nice way to bring us that.
2) Longbow: We have sceptre for good range dps and Staff for utilities and short range AoE. Longbow could be a mix of both. Like 1000 range weapon with some utilities like condi clearing and burning. Something like that. Probably a PvP weapon.
3) 1 Hand spear : I see a melee weapon with higher range than normal with 1 CC (push back). Use it with shield and you could have annoying melee guardian, perfect for node protection?
4) 2 handed weapons : We already have GS for burst damage while hammer and sword have good AA chain. What about an hybrid that could better dps than any of those three weapons alone, but lower dps than a mix of GS + S/F or GS + H. That would make a great weapons for casual player that need a range weapons or to replace the GS as a general purpose damage weapons in WvW (Less burst than GS, but higher constant dps).
5) Whip : Eh really not sure i want that on my guardian lol.
6) Mainhand shield : Boring.
7) Halberd : Too much like a spear for me. Its pretty much a 2 handed spear. I don’t see what it gameplay it could fit honestly.

Peow peow.2189:

I literally take 2 steps in wvw or pvp and i get backstabbed for 20k

I like that both sPvP and WvW dmg is the same level for him.

Peow peow.2189:

Thief press cloak and dagger and hit and rinse repeat keep 10k dmg over and over.

Oh kitten, a 50% nerf in dmg. 20k to 10k. Thief lose too much dmg over time man, that’s not fair

darksilklips.3165:

Warrior is the most overpowered class, but it’s also great for beginners. You can range or melee, you can wear heavy armor yet have incredibly high base vitality (unlike a guardian which has one of the lowest base vitalities to make up for innate defense/healing skills). You can basically wear full berserker (power/precision/crit-based) armor and still tank.

Guardians are great but they’re support. You heal. You don’t die easily. You can solo incredibly hard bosses and win without dying… in like an hour plus. You’re best if you’re working with a few classes that focus on DPS, like ele or thief.

Personally, I would always recommend a ranger for a newbie. They’re not hard to solo and that lets you learn the basics of the game. And they’re very versatile, whether you want a tank, a healer, or a powerhouse, they’re not limited. They are a fantastic class, but especially good for someone learning how to play. Warrior a close second.

Ya, not really lol. That’s old information from like a year ago.

Warrior are not overpowered and only have average damage. The difference, is that warrior damage come mainly from pure stats, meaning that its easy to get a good damage, while on other profession you need to have a good build to reach high level of DPS. Like I said, Warrior have average DPS, but bring a lot of Offensive Support like (Banners, FGJ, EA, etc) These are the strenght of the Warrior. The guardian have about the same dmg than the Warrior. Usually it have a bit less, but can even have higher dps than a warrior if build and play right. If the warrior bring offensive support, the guardian bring defensive support. If you are thinking oh ya heal, you are wrong. Guardian healing is pretty selfish (and healing is pretty bad in PvE anyway). No when we are talking about defensive support its aegis, blind, protection, stability, reflect, condi removal, etc. That’s where the guardian is the best.

Warrior survive because of pure defensive stats (high amor and hp pools), but the Guardian survive because he have a lot of active defense.

I wouldn’t recommend a Ranger for a newbie. Usually, ppl see the ranger as the Hunter with a bow and pet. Why woudn’t they, that’s how anet present them in marketing. But that’s the worst way possible to play that profession in PvE. That’s sad but that,s the reality. Ranger can be a real beast in PvE with Sword, Frost Spirit and Spotter, but that’s hard way to play the profession and sadly the only really good build for the profession and it can be really hard to go into it. For that reason, ranger have a bad reputation in PvE (good player usually change profession, good build is hard to master, this leave the profession with a high number of bad player with bad build to represent the profession) and are usually discriminated against in dungeon.

Seras.5702:

As for the Symbol Build, you said 5/5/0/4/0. Why? What in the Radiance line should I be taking? I understand the strength of Radiant Power, but 5 pts just for that? What am I missing?

I was thinking more like 5/0/4/4/1 for Fury from Meditations. Can symbols crit?

Clearly I’m missing something.

You ALWAYS want to have 5pts in radiance for a good PvE Guardian build. Why? The first 3 pts give you the blind spam which is powerful. Then the 5th pts give you Radiant Power. Damage modifier is one of the best way to increase your dmg in this game. That’s why the Elementalist have such a high dmg, since its the only profession that can reach sky high amount of damage modifier in a single build. As a PvE guardian, Radiant Power and Fiery Wrath are the two damage modifier that you want. Together they give you 21% more dmg and if UC can only be activate from time to time, these two are practically always on.

If you use a Sword, the 4th trait is easy, you go with the Sword 10% dmg, but if you have a hammer you need to choose, something else. Radiant Fire is not a good trait, but its the best you can get if you don’t have a sword. And its worth it, just to make sure you get Radiant Power.

5/0/4/4/1 is not that good of a build. Keep in mind, that the base of most if not all good PvE guardian build is 2/5/0/0/0. If you have that, then your build is in the right direction. Guardian don’t have a lot of fury, so for solo meditation fury have some advantage, but most of the time you will have fury in a group. Fury is simply not a strength of the guardian, if you want to absolutely go for it, you gonna lose other things that the guardian do so much better. Let the Warrior, Ranger and Ele in your group take care of fury, they do that way better than you. And yes, symbol can crits.

I agree with most of what Adam said.

- Glacial Heart is a no no. Its seem like a powerful trait, but the internal CD make it useless.
- Decrease your toughness a bit. 3700 is a crazy high amount of armor and even the tankiest player in WvW usually have like 3200.
- You have a serious lack in condi clearing : no Melandru Runes, no Lemongrass, no Purity, no Pure of Voice and no condi removal skill. Take a lot some of those or condition will kick your kitten (especially movement restriction condition).

Try to do CoE All path and CoF path 1 and 2 everyday. With the token, buy some rare gear to salvage into ectos. For CoE and CoF alone, you should be able to get 7-8 ectos per day.

Anierna.6918:

So I’ll ask again… wtf is Guang going on about?

Ya I don’t get it either. FGS Skill 4 is high DPS, FGS Skill 3, 4 and 5 with some 1 when everything else is on CD is also high DPS. Its not like say a guardian GS that have some good burst dmg skill, but poor AA so you switch to S/F for the AA.

Necro are really good in WvW, Roaming and sPvP. In PvE they are probably the weakness profession at the moment. The problems are that :

- They have good single target dps, but don’t cleave.
- They have support, but they are mostly fix for PvP
- The also have PvE support, but they have nothing unique and everything they do can be done better by another profession

Don’t take that as a Necro can’t do kitten in a dungeon. I’ll take a good necro with a good build anytime over a bad player with a good profession and a good build or a good player with a bad build.

But some pugs have a hard time accepting Rangers, Engineer and Necro only because they read they were bad on the forum. If you build your Necro right and play it good, it shouldn’t be important except for a record run, but it don’t work that way in reality. With a necro, some ppl will discriminate you. Hell, ppl will discriminate you even if you are a good ranger with a good build that can fit into a record run. Don’t take it personal, but keep that in mind. People can be stupid.

Seras.5702:

I’m trying to make a PvE symbol build

For now the best ‘’symbol build’’ is probably the Hammer build.

5/5/0/4/0
or 3/5/0/4/2 if you want master of consecration (like in some fractal)

Edit : About the symbol of the hammer. It take 3.7sec for the whole AA chain and the symbol last 2sec. With the trait, the chain also take 3.7sec, but the symbol last 4 sec. So you need the trait for perma symbol.

Star Ace.5207:

Also, this talk of carrying others is stupid arrogance. Nobody carries anyone in Dungeons, regardless gear. I rather not play in ANY group where a guy/gal claims he/she is carrying the group.

Well, I did a AC path 1 run with a pug group. I didn’t ask for anything, it was just a casual run and I was alone since the 5 other guild mate on-line at that moment were doing a fractal. At the burrow, I killed 4 of those almost alone, while the rest of the team were running like headless chicken and 3 of them died. At the boss, i was the only one left alive to kill it.

So ya you can carry a group. Don’t get me wrong, the group could have done the dungeon without me, but it would take them a bit more time, so I went ahead and carried it. Its not something that happen often. Most of the time, there is one or two weaker member in a pug that do less job than the other and sometime there is 1 player that get pretty much carried. Still, you can carry (especially if you are 2 or 3 of the same guild) a party.

But its not about gear. I play Zerker, but I used to ’’carry’’ group when i used to run knight too. Its all about the level of skill and knowledge of the encounter and less about the gear (except if you go all the way defense gear like sentinel or something and you get like no dmg).

Ppl already answer your first question well. For the second question.

Yes you can make money out of magic find. From my personal experience, i have a lot more rare since I have a bunch of MF on me than before. Ectos accumulate way faster, but also tier 6 materials.

True. Fractal level would be far more useful than crafting profession. WvW rank would also be a better choose. Both are account wide level that have a real meaning.

Yup no sympathy there.

Do I think that their post was stupid and didn’t helped them in any way to complete their dungeon faster? Absolutely.
Do i think that they are probably bad player just taking strait information from the community without thinking it through (ya most ranger suck, but a good build on a ranger is awesome)? Of course.
But I also think that everybody can make their own choose. Its a game after all and everybody should be able to play how they want with who they want.

Play and let play.

Corpus Christi.2057:

2 years old and the balance hasn’t moved a bit in the right direction since the game’s launch.

Good players don’t have any worry to bring any profession in a dungeon if the player know what he’s doing and complain that this and this could be better. Bad Player complain that balance is kitten in the game and only play with 3 professions.

Umut.5471:

No vertical progression = No real end game content.
What will you be grinding or raiding for ? You will always lack best in slot item motivation. This is why PvE has no point to play after a while.
There could be visual, horizontal progression targets for motivation to compensate this, but there aren’t.
Lack of motivation(target to achieve) to play is the most important problem of this game.
But you can still play for fun purposes vs. other players in WvW or tPvP and you can play to grind AP. This is what I’m doing.

If you have no motivation except for vertical progression then you are definitively in the wrong game. No Vertical profession is one of the core element of this game and the Ascended gear was already a huge disappointment for the community, huge enough to make Anet back off this vertical profession hopefully.

Here some way to get some survivability AND team support as a guardian.

- 3pts in Radiance : Minor trait Justice is blind and Renewed Justice allow you to spam F1 and blind ennemies. Of course this don’t work that well against single target, but against a group of mobs that’s fantastic.
- 2pts in Honor : Vigorous Precision is a powerful defensive trait. Its not as powerful as its used to be, but still it give more a lot more dodge. You also take Superior Aria so that the CD on Retreat is reduce from 60sec to 48sec. One more aegis now and then can make the difference.
- 4 pts in Honor : If you want to go Hammer, then Writ of Persistance will allow you to have perma-protection while using Hammer auto-attack. Great against hard hitting boss like in fractal. GS + H also have very similar DPS than a GS + S/F build.
- 5 pts in Vitures : Master of consecration is great for Purging Flames and Wall of Reflection. Reflect is a good defensive ability in some situation, while purging flames stay the best condi removal of the guardian (low Hp of a zerker guardian make them vulnerable to condi). Not a big deal, but inspired virtues give you protection and regen. Abolute Resolution will give you a better F2 regen, so that’s a big deal and it also remove condition when you activate it. The 5pts is not for surviability or support, but if you go 4pts into virtue you better put a 5th one to get 1%dmg for each boons.

I would be ok with that idea, but

1) Anet feel unprofessional when they don’t make their patch notes complete. They always hide stuff. Are they lazy or just don’t want to communicate it, but its feel so bad. I don’t dislike some of these change, but the fact that they just shut up about it, its just frustrating.
2) BUGS, BUGS, BUGS. Half the time they do such a thing, they mess things up. AC token in HotW, Golem in CoE, etc. I don’t mind a change from time to time, when its needed, but don’t push these change or we’ll have even more bugged dungeon. We already have enough with the infamous AC path 2. I hate so much NPC in dungeon, kitten .

CoF, CoE and HotW dungeon is also a good way. Use the dungeon token of those to buy cheap rare at 30 token each and salvage them, it also give you a good amount of gold while doing it. CoF path 1/2 and CoE path 1/2/3 take about 1,5h in standard pug group and this will give you about 10 rare. With a usual rate of 0.75 ectos per salvage (mystic salvage kit), this will give you 7-8 ectos each day just for that.

World boss are also a good way. If there is a good group of people doing it at the same time, in 1.5 hour you can make about 6 World boss that will give at least 6 rare, but more probably gonna give more than that like 10-12 rare.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

You and I seem to be of similar mind, but perhaps there is a language barrier issue at hand. Then again, perhaps I am not being the clearest. My husband regularly gripes at me about it.

I’ll say it again though. I do not feel zerker gear is the problem. I am not asking for it to be nerfed.

Perhaps it would have been better to say that zerker gear simply helps to highlight symptoms of underlying problems in the game and the disparities between established roles? shrug

Ya maybe

The thing is. The role exits in the game. Not only they exist, but they also exits for the gear. I’ll classified like this :

Direct Damage : Power, Precision, Ferocity
Damage over time : Condition Damage, Precision, Condition Duration
Support : Healing Power, Boons Duration, Condition Duration
Survivability : Toughness, Vitality, Healing Power

These are true role, but represent the major direction of your character into a specific role. I can be a tanky/support, I can be a dps/support, i can be a tank/dps, i can be full DPS, etc.

All 4 of these ’’direction’’ for the lack of a better word, are in a pretty good shape in PvP. But when it come to PvE, there is some specific things that make some of those useless.

- Surviability in PvE is ok if you ask me. They are there only for a little breathing room or a safety net if you are learning or aren’t that good with active defence.
- Damage over time is broken for several reason : can damage object, don’t receive as much bonus from a build (think damage modifiers which are really powerful for direct damage build), the cap limit their use in group settings, lack of a full dps version of zerker for condi (Condi dmg, precision, condi duration or Condi dmg, precision, power or Condi dmg, power, condi duration). All of those limitation make condi build a really poor choise for most PvE situation (exempt for solo).
- For support its even worst. Healing Power scale so badly, that its useless. But its a tricky thing to balance because you don’t want healer neither. Condi Duration and Boons duration are a joke right now. Not because they are not powerful, but because of how poorly they are implemented. Who would take a full Giver’s armor in PvE? Not only it only give you 6% boons duration, but you also need to take toughness and healing power.

I want to see a Necro with condition duration for weakness, I want to see a elementalist with boons duration for might, I want to see a thief with condition duration for vulnerability, etc. This is the kind of support gear that could be useful.

maha.7902:

1. Fiery greatsword
2. Ice bow
3. Reflecting fully projectile-based bosses

#1, the fiery noobsword can literally be removed from the game and I would be jumping for joy, #2 needs to be nerfed because if #1 is removed people will just spam more #2, and #3 is simply a case of bosses having weak mechanics.

I agree partially with that.

1. - I don’t think that FGS should be remove completely. The weapon is only OP when you can stack in the wall and use skill 4 that do massive amount of dmg. Two easy way to deal with that would be to decrease the amount of dmg of the skill 4 or increase his cooldown. 10sec is crazy low for an attack that powerful. Of there is downside. Increase the cooldown and you decrease the mobility that FGS give to the ele. Decrease the dmg of the line, and its become a useless skill when us outside the wall. But in the end, i woudn’t be mad if they nerf it because is so powerful right now.

1. - I don’t agree on the Ice bow. Only 1 skill is really powerful on that thing. So, ya it crazy powerful againt big target (burrows, boss, etc), but its a niche things. I’m not using my ice bow all the time and when I do, I use it for a really short period of time. Its a great dmg burst, but its doesn’t make any content trivial (except AC burrow). Maybe they could redesign the burrows so that you can’t one shot it with an Ice Bow, but you can’t make their life as big as a boss since they are not damage by crits or condition.

1. - Of course if the enemy is only launching projectile, its a bad thing. You put a wall of reflection and that’s it. That’s totally a design flaw in some of the encounter of the game. But they should really retract on the ‘’some projectile are reflect, but some or not’’ mentality that they started recently.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Except that your gear affects your dps, and the majority of players seem to be under the impression that if you aren’t pumping out the max dps (of which a component is having zerker gear) you’re not as valuable as someone who is.

Well they are not as valuable at least in that factor. There is several ways to be useful in a group.

- Do you have a good DPS?
- Can you survive by your own?
- Do you know well enough the encounter?
- Do you know enough about the other profession to bring some synergy with them?
- Do you bring useful support to the team?

In reality, someone with Soldier gear could bring more to the party than a zerker dude. The guys with Soldier gear have a good meta build with blind, aegis, reflect, etc. He know what to do and when to do it. He never go down, etc. While the zerker guys don’t know kitten, is always down and kitten things up in certain situation.

In this case, i want soldier dude not the zerker one. But if you focus only on the gear, a zerker wil always bring more to the group than someone with any other gear. This been said a lot of time. Gear only offer a trade-off between dmg and you OWN survivability. Vitality, Toughness, etc Bring nothing to the group. Nothing. All the non dps stuff that are interesting for a group are in trait and skills not in gear.

Indeed. Currently, different armor have desirability for different functionality.

Toughness, Vitality = Survivability
Healing Power, Boons Duration, Condition Duration = Support
Power, Precision, Ferocity = Direct Damage
Condition, Condition Duration, Precision = DoT

There you go, you got 4 big branch of role for different stats. That’s awesome. The problem is not there because that ‘’desirability for different functionality’’ already exist in the game. You go in sPvP or WvW then those 4 branch of role are in good shape. DoT is strong, Direct Damage is strong, Surviability is strong and Support is strong (but it fall behind the other 3 for stats). The problem only come in PvE, but different reasons.

- Survivability? : From my point of view there is not problem there. Passive surviability should stay only for ppl that learn or ppl that don’t have the skill to play without that. I think its just fine.
- DoT? : Now we get a problem. Its not 1v1 fight or 10vs10 fight. Its 5 players against 1 boss or 75 players vs 1 big World Boss. Everybody know why condition suck in PvE group play, everybody know why the situation is where it is now and everybody still waiting for Anet to fix the situation.
- Support? : That’s a tricky one. Why? Because its so easy to have support overpower if you go into stats. Why? Because they are so many source of stats. Way easier to get support from trait or skills because its easy to manage it. But when you get it from stats, then its another story. Healing Power scale so badly that its useless right now. But if they buff it, it could directly lead to a healer role to develop. What is the best balance? Its hard to create a balance there. Same thing with boons duration. Boons is hard to get except from food and trait. They added boons duration to other pieces, but they are so small that it just doesn’t make any sense to use those. But if they buff it, support could be so overpower. Right now you can reach 117% boons duration but for that you sacrifice so much that its bad. But if they buff its so you can reach 100% while just sacrificing a bit of the other stuff not everything. Then someone that sacrifice everything for boons duration could reach 200%? 250%? 300? What would be the best balance? You can reach a balance, I’m sure, but that’s hard and Anet took the easy road.

There is so much ways to fix the problem, but that’s not a zerker problem.
- Make conditions hit 3 times harder, but last a third less time, making it hard to 2-3 ppl to reach the cap of 25.
- Balancing existing support stats from gear. Imagine a Power/Ferocity/Boons Duration set that you could use as a Elementalist to stack might even more. Imagine a Necro using Condi, Precision, Condi Duration set not only for DoT dmg, but also to use weakness on a larger scale. Imagine a thief using Power, Precision, Condi Duration set to keep 25 stack of vulnerability for long period of time on bosses.
- Create New Support stats? Could a gear give you profession mechanic stats like on the last line of every professions? Virtues recharge rate for guardian, attunement swapping for ele, etc.

So much ways to increase build diversity from gear (because that already exist with trait, ect, but more build diversity is always nice). But the more you create, the harder it is to balance everything.

Aomine.5012:

Harper.4173:

Anet is not actively encouraging zerker but is enforcing a policy where you can’t spam 1 while afk for 30 minutes and win. That’s just not going to work.

These bosses you mention ( except teq) have unique mechanics that have to be learned and used. Yes there’s a timer on it because if there wasn’t players couldn’t fail.

The mechanic would be useless since you could bypass it by running in, hitting it a bit, dying, repeat. So you’ve bypassed the mechanic supposed to punish you if you’re not engaging correctly.

If you don’t play the encounter right you will die. If you die you don’t dps. If you don’t dps the timer will run down and you will lose.

Anet isn’t encouraging zerker, Anet is enforcing mechanics by punishing players that fail to adhere to them.

Wurms phase 2 burn phase, Six Mins Knightfall, Crown Pavillion has “unique mechanic”? Seriously?

All you need to do is stack in one spot, stack mights, wear highest dps gear, bring as many FGS ele as you can, and kill bosses in VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.
(2 mins, 6 mins, and 7 mins)

How can this not be just another hardcapped DPS check?
Many people can’t win these because they do not spec enough in their dps, and you can’t control them or change them whatsoever.

Timer does not make an encounter harder, it’s just an easy way for Anet to increase
difficulty without adjusting anything or make versatile mechanics.
There’re numerous ways to increase difficulty, such as defending certain objective, dead people cannot rev, capping certain objectives together, etc.
However, Anet does not know how to implant these type of mechanic and makes it hard enough to poses any challenge to our zergish type of play-style, so they just add a timer so they don’t have to do anything to their contents.

Also, my previous posts already provided numerous ways to increase the encounter difficulty. Husk by itself is an good example, but there need to be more enemies with similar mechanic and infest them all around Tyria.

Yes they have unique mechanic and they all need some level of organization. The timer is option for 2 of them btw and maybe some ppl will figure out that there is no reason to bring their cleric or sentinel toon.

But back to the topic. Thread about this (from every point of view) appear a lot in the last days.

Gear is trade-off only between DPS and Surviability. The reason why Zerker is THE gear that everybody talk about and ask in dungeon is because Surviability is selfish, that only help you and yourself alone.

You get active defense, support and cc from skills, trait, runes and sigils and all those things are good for the party (except healing).

PVE : There is a lot of stuff to do here. Personal Story, Map Completion, Jumping Puzzle, Dungeon, Min-Dungeons, Achievement Hunting, Living World, etc. The content like everything is limited, so once you did it once, you need to repeat it. Some like, some dislike.
sPvP : Small battle between a limited amount of player. Usually the best you can do about fairness, everybody is equal and usually the numbers are equals. So if you are bad there, its only because you are bad. Short and intense fight.
WvW : Its more strategic and organized fight are a lot more about cooperation and organization than pure individual skill. But you have the issues of unfairness in some ways. Ppl don’t all have the same level, the same quality of gear, buffs, and numbers. Some view this as lame unfair PvP, while other view it as a strategic decision for concentration of power. Victory is part strategic movement on the map to make sure you have the advantage.

How deep you gonna go into these 3 fields is on you. And of course there is the aspect of building a character. Getting the gear, stats, and look you want for 1 or more character is a big part of any MMO.