Guild Wars 2

Before the April 15th patch, for some profession 3 piece of assassins and 3 pieces of beserker was advocate by several ppl. Several DnT ppl were using that or planned on using that. But its not a great idea now with the crit dmg nerf.

Scepter is the best range weapons of the Guardian. It you play your guardian right in PvE, you shouldn’t be using it much since melee is far superior. Still, I end up using my Meteorlogicus from time to time on my guardian. In WvW, this can be good for roaming i guess or to attack people on top of the wall while sieging, but other than that. The Guardian scepter is a situational weapons for pretty much all aspect of the game right now. Its a powerful weapons, but its only a backup for some risky situation.

I think that i will transfer my Meteorlogicus to my Elementalist eventually. She’s using a LH S/F build and i think that its the best build for a Scepter. Necromancer could be nice too in sPvP or roaming, but I don’t use my necro for that right now.

saikodan.6721:

Carpboy.7145:

saikodan.6721:

just a question – why does he need dungeon tokens?
I mean, I collected them in order to buy staves I can throw in the forge hoping to get The legend.
but after he got dawn, why does he need tokens?
for ectos?

Every legendary has a specific gift required to make that legendary ie. gift of twilight, gift of lightning, etc. you need 500 of a specifics dungeon token to make that gift.

I know, so after i got the gift of zaithan, I don’t “need” anymore tokens?

You don’t need dungeon tokens directly no. But still, dungeon token is a big part of the Gold per hour you can get from dungeon. If you are lucky enough to get some of the most profitable dungeon recipe you can make good money out of that. Otherwise, CoF, CoE and HotW token can be use to get rare that you can salvage for ectos, which are needed for your legendary (or are simply a good source of money). The other dungeon token (AC, CM, TA and SE) you can buy exotic and salvage them for inscription, that can sell for a good profit (I usually do about 15-20 Gold per 2 000 dungeon token from inscription alone).

Not really. At least not until they change something in the way precursor are created. Its all about demand and offer. The precursor price always reach a balance point. When legendary got upgraded to ascended are receive stats swapping, that increased the demand so the price went up. Then when the wardrobe allowed you to put your legendary skin on all your character for only 1 charge, then the demand grew again so the price followed. We’ll have to see what will happen when they will introduce the legendary patch (maybe one day?). With the addition on other legendary skin, we could see a drop in the demand for older precusor (a drop in price). The addition on the precusor crafting is a bit more tricky since ya it could bring up the offer, but it could also drop it.

Ya stats swapping is not making someone with a Legendary stronger. Like Flissy said, you could craft several ascended weapons (which would cost less than a legendary) and swap the weapons between combat. Its a QoL feature which is the kind of thing that go well with a legendary in GW2.

Lord of Rings.5371:

1.. when you found no Commander tags and 3 players in the “Crown Pavillion”
2.. when your zerg has a size less than 30 in Eternal Battle ground
3.. when you could not find a zerg in Orr
4.. when you could not find a tag in Lion’s Arch
5.. when you only see two guildee’s online
6.. when you see players quitting on the forum
7.. when you could not gain an skill point after hours online
8.. when you see unbalanced WvW scores
9.. when you spend more time on the forum than in the game

10.. when you uninstall the game

1) Never seen 3 players in Crown Pavillon. For the numbers of Tags, i usually don’t tag up in the crown because if I do and i’m alone all pugs will group up on me, which is bad.
2) Depend on server (pretty standard on low population server or PvE server to have not that many ppl in EBG. Also coverage is important. A server can queue EBG during prime time Europe and North America, but have only 10-20 ppl during Oceanic.
3) Couldn’t say, i didn’t go at Orr for several months exempt for temple from time to time.
4) Well, I don’t like to tag up in Vigil keep or L.A. since its seem to me that doing that would only be to show off or so people could see that you have a tag. So I don’t see why that would be an issue if nobody tag up in L.A.
5) Suck to be in your guild. Last year we had the same problem in mine during the summer. Now we have plenty of people online each day. People go and come in the game all the time, if you don’t recruit the number of guildmate online could only drop over time.
6) Players quit the forums couple hours after the launch of the game.
7) Suck to be you. Do you know you have to do stuff to gain xp?
8) That’s a core problem of WvW and don’t have anything to do with the total number of players. WvW is unbalanced by nature. You dominate a lower tier, go higher and then get dominated, drop in lower tier and dominate, rinse and repeat.
9) Personal choice? Weird personal choice but still.

Keep in mind that the market for standard crafting material (wood, metal, leather and fabrics) are boosted by the temporary higher demand (to buy Zephyr Boxes) so watch out if you try out this kind of promotion right now, since the price act really weird right now and they will change a lot when the patch will end.

yayuuu.9420:

Thaddeus.4891:

yayuuu.9420:

Actually tanking is working in GW2. If you want to know how, read this article: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

It’s not like in most of the games that tank can stand still and be healed, but he can take some hits and hold mobs in place for long enought to nuke them by the rest of your team. For most of the mobs / bosses it’s enought to just stay melee and have enought armor to become their only target for the whole fight. I’m not sure if this approach is faster or not, but it is for sure easier.

NOOOOOOO don’t spread LIES. We already have enough tanky people that think that they bring something to the group even if they don’t. Don’t give them another reason to hold back groups. Surviability is for you little kitten only and bring nothing to the group except if in full DPS you die each 2sec. Having enough survivability to match you level of skill is the only reason to use defensive stats or healing in PvE.

What is a lie? Wiki article? The stuff that I said is basically the confirmation of wiki article and from my experience having a lot of toughness keeps most of the mobs on you. It’s not like tanking is neccessary in PVE, you can do everything just fine without it. I have tried it once and went to lvl 9 fractal on my elementalist with 3.5k armor and build based around magnetic shield (couldn’t try it at higher level because I don’t have agony in the set that I bought just to do this test) and somehow it worked.

The lie is not about toughness = more likely to have aggro. Its about the old ’’Anchor’’ theory of more than a year ago. The principle is have 4 full DPS character, with 1 tanky anchor guardian (because it work better on a guardian for some reason). That way, the anchor take the aggro while the 4 other DPS more easily. That was an interesting idea back in the days and I was an advocate of that. But that was a bad technic as we found out. Why? For it to work properly you do need 4 full DPS character with you. If you have some hybrid and other stuff like that, you won’t have aggro most of the time. Ya in a particular run you could have aggro on you for most of the time, and there is ways of playing to get yourself more aggro, but with hybrid in your party that can change in a second, leaving the system without any purpose (except that you are not a DPS without much damage but a good survivability that serve nothing since you no longer have the aggro for some period of time). But even when you have 4 full DPS party member, sometime the mobs change target for no apparent reason. Why? Because some mobs don’t seem to respond to toughness more than damage they receive. Toughness work well in fractal (Legendary shaman and Ettin are the best example), but others like the flame legion shaman (the one with the Ettin and rabbit in Harpy Fractal) most of the time attack the guys that hit the hardest and switch target a lot. On top of that, you add the current global strategy of stacking. The game encourage to melee, to share boons and support and to stick together. That mean that all the party member will likely be hit by the mobs, not only the ’’anchor’’ guy. That leave not strategical purpose to a tanky character other than you self survivability.

I not saying that tanky build can’t influence greatly the aggro. I’m just saying that its unreliable and don’t help the party that much if you use the best strategies.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Most people don’t assume any role portrayal in most MMOs, holy trinity or not.

It depend on what you define as role. The term Role Playing right now in the game is more about people really playing a role like in a theatre. They have a backstory, they talk to each other like it was them and not only a character, etc. But I would argue that, it only pushing the Role Playing farther, but that everybody do it to a certain extend. If you compare the RPG to an FPS or an Action game, you don’t really have any direction over the character your playing. It have its own personality and looks (choose by the game developers) and you simply go trough the game with that character, that could be really nice, but you don’t really identified yourself to it. Its the same character everybody play in that game.

But in the RPG, you customize the appearance of your character, you choose the profession, the play-style, what weapons it will use, what armor, what dye, etc. You put a little of yourselve and you will usually have a idea of what the character is. I don’t identify myself or play a role like other does with my character, but they all have a bit of a personification that i choose for them. Its not only ’’A’’ guardian, its ’’my’’ guardian. I’m not role playing, but its a kitten Charr, with cool armor that can become a mad king ice cream cone when i feel silly or a pirate when I feel like it. The feel that you play ’’your’’ character is what make it a Role Playing Game.

scabrous.7835:

TG is horrible imo – those guys have less hp and armour than 30/30/0/0/10 gc ele :P.

Well, I’m using my Thieves Guild in sPvP only. They serve as a big distraction in 1vs1 and give you a nice interrupt (even if you can’t really control the timing). Either your opponent concentrate on killing them first, leaving you alone for the a couple second, or they don’t care about it and you get just enough damage for you to win the fight.

No, I’m not here to say ‘’ranging is evil’’. However, it is limiting.

I find them just right.

Thief Guild give me the advantage that I need in 1vs1 when the fight is tough.

Basilisk is perfect when i run with my roaming party to stun and instant burst down an ennemy.

And Daggerstorm is powerful in a outmanned scenario, especially against projectile profession like Engineer (not bomb) or Bow Rangers.

The trick is to have the right elite equip at the right time since they can be really useless at the wrong moment. Like a Daggerstorm in a 1v1 against a Mesmer not using Duelist or Basilik Venom in a outmanned fight.

You can invite them into your party. There is a good chance that they won’t accept since they don’t know you, but if they do accept, then you can chat with them and see their name to latter chat with them without being in their party.

Evans.6347:

Ironically, since the QoL update changes, you could argue that this problem has been greatly reduced. Seems to me that for armour there are quite few options and that Runes of Strength are the end all solution.

Not at all. Strength are nice if you want to stack might and you’re pretty much alone to do so, but if you don’t give much might, then Scholar is still the best DPS options, while Ruby Orbs stay the cheap alternative for people with low budget. And that only take into account PvE, in PvP the options are LARGE. Anyway, we are far from having legendary armor (if ever). Its true that the QoL Updates reduced this problem since there is a lot less weapons swapping after reach 25 stacks of bloodlust, but still the problem is still there.

yayuuu.9420:

Actually tanking is working in GW2. If you want to know how, read this article: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

It’s not like in most of the games that tank can stand still and be healed, but he can take some hits and hold mobs in place for long enought to nuke them by the rest of your team. For most of the mobs / bosses it’s enought to just stay melee and have enought armor to become their only target for the whole fight. I’m not sure if this approach is faster or not, but it is for sure easier.

NOOOOOOO don’t spread LIES. We already have enough tanky people that think that they bring something to the group even if they don’t. Don’t give them another reason to hold back groups. Surviability is for you little kitten only and bring nothing to the group except if in full DPS you die each 2sec. Having enough survivability to match you level of skill is the only reason to use defensive stats or healing in PvE.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I can accept that but keep in mind that I don’t really play this game that much anymore, it’d be a special occasion for me to get motivated enough to make a pug video, much less find four other guys (most of my friends quit a while ago) to do a speedclear with.

Are you kidding right now. 16 months ago you were arguing against Strife and others that the Guardian was so much more DPS than a warrior. They said, your theory don’t seem quite right, but show us a video to compare to our video. Back then, you said I don’t have a group to do that and I don’t have time anyway. You finally did a video with pugs showing that you couldn’t do better. But you said, it was a pug group of course I couldn’t do better, but you see my damage. So strife went frame by frame to check all your dmg numbers in your video and calculated your DPS which was inferior. They finally proposed to bring you into their group to end the conversation. At that point i just let it go since this went on for a couple of weeks, but obviously you didn’t join them or you did and you couldn’t prove your point since Guardian is not better DPS then the warrior now (even if they boosted the guardian damage since then). You were never able to get a group together for a speed run, not 2 years ago and not now.

Jacklinger.2908:

When I join these “Zerker” parties, often they get one-shotted by bosses and I’m the only one left standing, then I sometimes solo the boss and they STILL blame me for not being in full zerker gear! It’s like an irony sandwich.

Several reason why :

1) They don’t really know what zerker is meant in that context. They have zerker build but with AH trait or warrior shout, so they lack the dps anyways and can’t really play the full DPS game by stacking at certain place.

2) They don’t really know how to stack. They will destack the boss, they will aggro not at the right moment, or they will stand in place without anyone using blind, aegis, dodge, block, to allow the group to survive some situation. Usually, these people joined several speed run group, but were never the leader and they lack knowledge because there were always someone else that did all these little things wihtout them knowing it. Now if you get 5 of these people together, they will fail and not know how. Since they did the same thing they always do and it usually work, they will blame the non zerker.

3) The group was not really a zerker group. You joined it even if you were not full zerker? Maybe 1 or 2 other people did the same. The leader of the group, which is zerker, use strategy thinking the boss will melt, but the boss hp dropped too slowly, leaving him no chance to survive that long. 1 or 2 Zerker dead, that leave you with a party with really low DPS. Add to that 1 or 2 people trying to rez and the boss receive no damage while he’s bashing you all.

4) In some rare situation, having 1 person non full DPS can make the difference. For exemple, trying to go againt the champion wolf in CoE with no FGS and 4 zerker not that good with their rotation or no might and the 5th become really important if you want to down the champ before it does the second big AoE that will one shot everybody.

But anyway, if the group had 4 good full DPS party member, the fact that the 5th wasn’t full zerker don’t explain the wipe. But it was a easy thing to blame while it was a total lack of respect to join a full zerker group without reaching the requirements.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Wanze.8410:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

BladeMate.3517:

Some one mentioned that 1 skill point = 1 gold how they did it?

They were definitely BSing you.

I get an average of 3g per skillpoint.

Well aren’t you kittying magical. You probably won’t tell anyone how though. But I’m pretty sure that is not a typical exchange.

Edit: I’ll add the disclaimer that I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but I have been told by what I thought were pretty reliable sources that the max exchange they had ever gotten was 1SP -> .5g.

Lillith, i don’t know about 3 Gold per skill point, but crafting the Eidolon Shield give you about 2 Gold per skill point. I tell that, because it really don’t sell well so its not a reliable source of income (if you try to sell it, you may be undersell for a long time). But there is other source. Its pretty easy to get 1G per skill point.

T5 – T6 = Between 20s to 80s per skill point (on average), but some will cost you money like Totem so don’t do that. Of course, keep in mind that you will get different profitability depending on what you do exactly. Do you buy T5, transform them, then sell T6? Do you buy T5, transform them and keep the T6 for something you need? Do you only transform the T5 you have and don,t sell them? All this will give you different amount of G/skill point. And of course the market is changing everyday. A couple of months ago no T5 to T6 transformation were really profitable.

Edit : And not Superior Ram is a terrible way to transform your skill point in Gold.

This been posted on the forum numerous times in the last year. Most of the time the idea put forward was to rick put all the sigil you want in your legendary to unlock them. Once you unlocked them into your legendary, then you could swap between them like you can with the stats currently. This may or may not be added to the game at some point in the future, no comments from Anet on that.

Lightsbane.9012:

ah. yet another uninformed player. your shatters are your mechanic, kits are ours. yet not every mesmer builds around shatters. just like not every engineer builds around kits. so saying something like this is a blatant show of being uninformed at the very least. you also mentioned about 2x more weapons that the engineer has in his/her inventory. most engineers swap to kits for maybe 20 seconds maximum and in certain situations. You also don’t have to waste a utility slot to shatter your illusions, or to even summon them in most cases. i have to waste a slot to equip tool kit, when i’d rather just be able to build around my rifle some more.

Well its debatable. Shatter are the F1 to F4 skills of the mesmer. Someone could argue that Illusions are the basic mechanic of Mesmer and all mesmer are using illusions. Whatever if its shatter, phantasm of only clones for defence.

Anyway, again two different subject guys. Out of combat or in combat weapons swamping. Please stop mixing the two subject.

- Trading between player : Don’t think its a great idea. You can make the same thing with the TP. I prefer to go on the TP, rather than search for someone to trade with me. I find it a way better system

- Dueling : I aggre. But its not that important since I can go in sPvP for that. Still, its not exactly the right thing, dueling would be nice.

- more sPvP depth : more mode, maps, options, etc. All that would be really nice and was asked for a while now.

- Dummies in PvE. Ya why not. Its nice in sPvP, that would be even more nice in PvE.

- Hardcore Dungeon : Yup its would be nice.

Guys we are mixing 2 different points.

1) Switching weapons out of combat is a Quality of Life feature and don’t change balance one bit. I agree with the core idea of helping inventory managing. But like I said, its a problem not about Ele or Engie but about all the profession.

2) Now some people are talking about balance, then its about in combat weapons swaping. That’s a totally different conversation. So I suggest we stop talking about this particular issue in this post since its wasn’t the topic at hand here.

Now, for the initial topic, i talked about unbalance only because of how sPvP match is working right now. You can’t switch weapons from inventory while in a sPvP match if Ele and Engie could swap to another weapons inside a match while they are out of combat. But in PvE, that bring no unbalance whatsoever, that only bring Quality of Life like a build template would. I just don’t think that give a secondary weapons set to ele and engie that they can switch to only when out of combat, would be the best way to fix the problem.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

gives Thaddeus whatever he wants

YEAH. You can send the gold and precursors by mail, thank you.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I don’t really agree that rangers were built around bows. When I think ranger I think Aragorn. But meh. Semantics.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

There is nine image on this presentation page about ranger. The first one you see is with a bow, the 2 screenshot are with a bow. On the 6 screenshot you can see a weapon or a weapon skill on 4 of them and 2 of those are about a bow.

Here the Ranger presentation by Anet. :
‘’Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.’’

They talk about how ranger are so good with bow. No mentions of any other weapon. Google ‘’Rangers GW2’’ and look at image. Bow, Bow, Bow, Bow, no weapons, Bow, Bow, Bow, Bow, Bow, Bow, Bow, Bow, Bow, Greatsword, bow, bow, bow, bowwwwwwwwwwww.

Come one Lillith. Anet TOTALLY sold the Rangers as an archer, give me that.

Beldin.5498:

Ya its TOTALLY FAIR. The ele have access to attunement so they don’t have access to a secondary weapons set. The engie have access to kits so they don’t have access to a secondary weapons. That is balance. If they wanted to give 2 weapons to an Element, then attunement would not exist. Now you can say that that most of the 20 skills are not that good and you would be right. Some of these skills need a bit of modification. But overall elementalist shouldn’t have access to a secondary weapons set. But anyway, that wasn’t the argument in the first place. We were talking about out of combat switching and it get back to my point. I aggree with you guys. I’m just saying, lets try to build a global system for easy weapons switching while out of combat because right now the inventory management is really bad. But that’s a global issue with all the professions not Ele and Engie specifically. In fact (but that’s only for me personnally, its not a argument) I switch weapons from my inventory for most of my professions, but almost never for my Ele or Engie.

Taygus.4571:

I wonder if the naysayers play eles/engies? ..and play them often. the 20skills isn’t really a good reason against this, as we use multiple weapons anyway, I switch when ooc quite alot. so I’m still memorising and using all those different skills, what we’re asking would save the hassle of dealing with the inventory.

Engineer was my first profession. During the first 3-4 months of the game i played almost exclusively on my engie on which I completed my storyline, did all the dungeon. After my guardian became my main in PvE, i still continue to play only Engineer in WvW and sPvP for about a year. Ele was my third character and I played it a long time only a few times per week. But for the last 6 months its my main for dungeon running.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

But the issue here is actually pug perception. They think rangers are nerfed and they suck just like OP says. The fact is that they’re not nerfed or whatever… players are just… dumb.

The issue is really pug perception. But i’m not sure about ‘’they think rangers are nerfed’’. It feel strange that even if Necromancer are even worst than ranger in PvE, that its Rangers that got all the hate (or almost all the hate). I think that mainly 2 things explain that.

1) The Pets can be annoying not only the the player, but also for the party. In several occasion the pets get in the way and it need to be more closely manage by the player, which can be frustrating.
2) A lot of people get into Ranger for shooting a Bow. If they wanted too melee with a sword they would go for a for a Warrior or Guardian. Not on a ranger. So most new player, use bad weapons which is clearly visible for any player in their party.

The ranger is in a identity crisis. Anet build the ranger around the idea of a Arrow Shooting Hunter with his pet animal. But both of these 2 themes are bad in the game, which screw a lot of people.

deSade.9437:

I wonder wut y’all going to say when they nerf fgs.

Can’t respond for everybody but as a Elementalist dungeon speed runner, I’ll say : ‘’oh… Well, lets find something else then’‘. My Ele will still do one of the best DPS with my LH and i’ll still bring a good amount of might to the party so, it won’t change much. I’ll still continue to use FGS since I use it even without a wall in some situation. Even if I don’t think that FGS into a wall is a exploit, its kind of broken (lets face it, way to much damage for the cooldown if compare to other skill of any profession). My Ele won’t suck if they change FGS and i’ll have as much fun if not more running my Ele in dungeon.

deSade.9437:

Then I’m pretty sure someone will come up with the revolutionary idea rangers or random x class will be worth taking, and then maybe someone will actually bother to l2p said class.

This would be awesome. I would like to play my ranger more. Personnally I don’t think that it will happen in the current state of the game. The Pets can be a pain because of the AI and low control you have over it, the Swords is hard to master and you have limited amount of good utility skills. Even if you can do right now a good job with a ranger, the profession carry a pretty bad reputation, which don’t help it cause. But if someone figure out a way or if Anet make an update that allow the Ranger to become one of the good profession in Dungeon, I think that everybody will like that and what that to happen.

Vesuvius.9874:

THIS! Agreed 2000%! Some people just need to learn to take a moment and read before blurting out garbage.

Its not about garbage. If I come into a sPvP match, i don’t have access to my inventory and I can’t change weapons. With my thief I have access to 2 weapons each with 5 skills. When I come with my Elementalist, i have 1 weapon with 4 attunements, each having 5 skills. Its not fair If the Ele can use S/D against a certain professions, then get out of combat and switch to D/D because he see another professions and then engage that guys with a different set. I get that its out of combat, still that give a advantage to the Ele that now have a lot more choice of skill during each battle.

Now if you talk about PvE. Its only a quality of life things of how you can switch around weapons between fight. What you propose don’t give you any real advantage over someone else, which is ok. But why just add a out of combat weapons switch for only 1 weapon set and only for engie and ele? Maybe its better to give better tools for inventory management? Like a set of shortcut that allow you to use item form your inventory by only pressing a key. Like if i press shift+1 i use a potion of slaying, when i press shift +2 i switch my Staff to a Scepter, using shift + 3 will put a focus as secondary weapons, etc.

That would fix the real problem witch is inventory management between combat while not giving advantage to ele and engie in PvP content. Don’t say that my idea is the best (i just throwing the first thing that i could think of), but fixing inventory management see to be a far better thing to do than just fix Engie or Ele.

Retaliation is really bad in PvE. Simple reason, the mobs attack really slowly. Retaliation is more for PvP where it can be really powerful.

I would replace Healer’s Retribution for Blind Exposure. If you want to use the best of the guardian, there you have. You can spam blind in some situation, which is really powerful to support your group.

I would also replace Wrathful Spirit to Superior Aria. You already have 2 meditation with condi removal, no need for Purging Flame. You could replace it for Retreat. Its not only a good skill by its own. It will also work well with your other traits : Unscathed Contender and Might of the Protecter.

With that, your build is good overall. You have less DPS than the meta, but are more independant for Fury and Might, which is a really good thing for pugs group.

True, it would be easy. But how many people would ask for that? And how many people would ask for all the other skin that they deleted? How much time Anet would need to put on that to respond to every one of these demands? Would they need to dispatch someone out of a current project to help respond to all the tickets? Or maybe get a new employee?

It’s sad, but they can’t do that kind of stuff.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Ele’s are currently the best only because their conjured weapons are unbalanced and do stupidly high amounts of damage, inc nerf.

Not at all. They are the best because of all the Damage Modifier you can get from Adept trait (so you can get almost all of them) compare to others profession that have fewer Damage modifier and they are usually in higher tier of trait, which make impossible to get more than 2 or 3.

If the Ele were the best because of they unbalanced conjured weapons, then why the best personnal DPS from an Ele come from a Staff? Anyway, only the FGS on a wall is kind of unbalance. LH and Icebow are just right, while the two other conjure weapons are pretty much useless.

This is fine while you are learning the game, but there is several things that don’t work quite well in it.

- Scepter/Focus is fine. I mean, I use a ranged weapons on most of my character for a long time, but eventually, you should challenge yourself to keep your scepter in your inventory for some specific situation and keep 2 melee weapons on you. See the scepter as learning wheel. As long as you keep them, you will never learn how to be good on your bicycle.

- Hammer is a great weapons, but you miss the Symbolic Power trait to get the most out of that weapons. Especially since you don’t have Greatsword to boost your DPS with some burst damage skill between your hammer auto-attack.

- Shouts. I know they are so nice to have on you. They feel confortable and good and all. But the fact is, stand your ground is situational and hold the line is useless (especially with a hammer build since you already have 100% protection uptime). So you keep a skill for 1000 heal each 28s? Skill like Wall of reflection will reduce your incoming damage by far more than 1000 hp each 28s, while Purging flames is more than enough to control your condition in PvE.

So as I said. Your build is just fine right now. Just keep in mind that you will need to let go of shouts and ranged weapons in the future if you want to get better with your guardian.

Then if you are mainly in GW2 for PvE and that picking the right build and profession is important for you, here some advice on different profession.

- Necromancer is the worst in PvE. They are good at condition damage, but condition is a no-no in PvE. There are also good at burst direct damage, but have low overall damage (good in PvP, not so much in PvE). And the support they bring is better for PvP too.

- Ranger have a terrible reputation in PvE (worst than Necromancer). But they can be pretty good. Its just that most Ranger want to use a Bow, which is terrible. But with a Sword or Greatsword, with the right build, a ranger can bring a lot to a party (Frost Spirit and Spotter being in the TOP). But Sword can be difficult to master. Even if you can be a pretty good player with ranger, there will always be some hate and discrimination against you because of the Ranger reputation. Add the fact that a part of your DPS come from a poor AI pet and form your own conclusion.

- Engineer is not that popular (probably because it’s not the usual theme character for the usually MMO like a mage or knight). They can be hard to master since you need to switch alot between kits. They have good DPS and have the best vulnerability capability of the game. But since they are so unpopular (because of their theme) they are underated and not that much information on how good they can be is available on them.

- Thief have one of the best single target DPS and stealth is always nice to skip stuff. But they lack AoE Dps, which leave them more as a PvP profession. But they can do ok in PvE and do great against Bosses. But they also lack in party support.

- Mesmer is good in PvE. It have one of the best potentiel DPS of the game, but its hard to reach it since its all about phantasm which are kind of AI controlled (but predictable so you can use that at your own advantage). They also bring some of the most useful utilities which make them extremely important in some situation. But rarely, more than 1 mesmer will be needed. The DPS of that profession come a good part from the skill of the player and not only smashing buttom, which make this profession cool to play. Also, it have huge survivability even with Light Armor because of all the clone and phantasm.

- Guardian are a supportive profession. Rightly build they gonna give might, protection and aegis to the party (some of the most powerful boons for PvE) and they will blind the kitten out of mobs to keep your party alive. This is not only a defensive tools, but also an offensive one when this allow you to attack more mobs in the same time and keep your party HP higher than 90% (some DPS bonus activate when your hp is at 90% or more). They also bring reflect, which is a powerful support and can do a decent job in the damage department. It can be tricky to reach that, but guardian with the right build can reach the TOP of the dps chart (but not on a regular basis or in every situation).

- Warrior is the most popular profession and the easiest one. To get some high dps is a no brainer for a warrior. If you want to get the highest possible dps from your warrior, you will need to master your rotation, which can be tricky. Warrior is all about pure stats offensively and defensively. Almost no active defence (except dodge) the warrior have the highest amount of armor and hp. Its also the best at party offensive buff with banners, trait and other skills. Since its easy to be good with that profession, you will see those a lot in pugs groups. Its was also view as the best DPS of the game a year ago and this reputation tend to stick (even if this is not true anymore, they still have pretty good DPS).

- Elementalist are in a really good place right now in PvE. In theory they are out of the chart DPS wise. In practice you can’t really reach that amount of DPS in a dungeon. Still, its the best DPS if played right. But if you go all the way into damage, you will have the WORST survivability of the game. High risk, high rewards. Elementalist damage is highly dependant on trait, so any ’’hybrid’’ build that mess with trait will have a hugely handicapped dps. That make some people think that Ele have really poor DPS. Build it right its the best DPS, build it wrong and you will have pathetic damage.

Ya some people like to said that there is no end-game. Compare to the typical MMO, ya GW2 don’t have a end-game for PvE. In normal MMO, once you get to max level you need to complete specific stuff to get a tier of gear, then you need to do another specific stuff to get higher tier of gear, then you need to do another specific stuff to get the highest tier of gear, by that time, there is a expension where you need to do anothe specific stuff to get the highest tier of gear. That the typical PvE endgame, which don’t exist in GW2.

Its been almost 2 years since i started to play and I still have SO MUCH to do in this game. But not eveything seem attractive to everybody. For me, the three end-game for GW2 (and its only personnal).

- PvE : Getting better with my guild at running dungeon fast, and accumulating gold and rewards to get all the stuff I want : Legendary, Cool looking skins, Filling as much as possible my Wardrobe. And completing achievement permanent or temporary.
- WvW : getting a WvW organized group for raiding on a regular basis and beat the crap out of larger group.
- PvP : A couple games now and then it really nice, but I not even near this end-game of tournament and creating a sPvP team.

Well more of everything is always better. But i think there is a lot of ‘’middle ground’’ skin.

Reave of the Mists, Titan’s Vengeance, Flux Matrix, Spirit Links, Anomaly, Cobalt, Foefire’s Essence, Volcanus, Genesis, Mjolnir, Azureflame, Wintersbite, Wings of Dwayna, Lyss, Abyssal Scepter, Eye of Rodgort, Wall of the Mists, Aether, The Crossing, Whisperblades, Infinite Light, Jormag’s Breath, and several others.

Of course, some weapons don’t really have a lot of choice. For exemple, i hope you like purple if you want a good looking focus, because other than that or skin wihtout effect, you will be disappointed. Staff also lack in diversity and cool looking skin, same thing with dagger and other weapons.

Like Maha said, a Warrior with the proper build can give a high amount of might to a party and its probably the best Might Stacker for a pug group.

In organized group, LH + S/X are usually the best choice to stack might. It have less might than a Phalanx Warrior overall, but they give a fast buff of might from the start of the fight and not accumulate might as the first go like a Phalanx Warrior do. Also in organized group, even if the LH ele is usually the main source of might, most party member help to keep the might at 25 stack for the duration of the fight (Warrior, Guardian and Staff Ele are pretty good at giving might on a constant basis to complete the burst might of a LH Ele).

I like the 4th Virtue. But 33% is WAY too much. A bit modification here for this 4th Virtue.

It should be 25% movement speed and not 33% so you are on par with other profession. Also, the other profession need either a skill or a trait to achieve that, so you can’t only give a free 25% to the guardian. Also virtue passive or active give you the same things but with in different ways (Aegis each 40 sec or Aegis now on longer cooldown, Burn every few attack or everybody burn now, Constant Regen or a boost of hp now) So this 4th Virtue would need to have the same concept. Something like Vigor each 30sec for passive (or a 33% Endurance Regen that don’t stack with Vigor) and for active that give vigor to your party. And after that a trait could give 25% Movement Speed when the 4th Virtue is on passive.

I like the glacial heart.

Flashing Blades, it could be nice to have a cripple. But for movement speed, that would be really nice if Flashing Blades had a longer range like 900 and could be use to teleport in from of you even when you don’t have any target And the skill should work even if you are not in range of your target (It would only teleport you, not damage or blind since your not in range). I can’t stress how much its frustrating when you use Flashing blades at 610 range and that just give you a cooldown and nothing else.

Deitus.6053:

so the main themes i’m seeing from the majority of replies are as follows:

-mace is a no-go, switch to hammer
-i need to rework my traits
-skills should be reflection and heal, only one shout (which one?)
-for pve (fractals, dungeons, etc) healing is nowhere near as important as buff, reflection, condition removal, etc, and i should probably go with either knight’s or zealots for both armor and accessories
-eventually i should get a separate set for wvw, which would focus on healing and tankiness like i originally thought i should build

thoughts?

1 and 2) You get it about right. Keep in mind that Support in GW2 is 90% about skills and trait. The only support you get (and i really mean ONLY support) from gear is healing. But Healing Power have a really bad scaling so you lose of lot of other stats for just a small addition in healing.

3) No skills should be reflection and heal. For the guardian specifically, you should bring supports in general, but not really healing. Skills like Wall of Reflection, Shield of Avenger, Purging Flames, Retreat, Santuary and Hallowed Ground are some of the best support skill for the PvE Guardian. Using which one at which moment is something you will learn while playing. But Retreat, Purging Flames and Wall of Reflection is a good mix of skills that will be useful in the majority of time.

4) That’s good. But about gear. Like i said, this is not a tradeoff between support and damage. Its a tradeoff between damage and surviability. Your end goal should be to go full berserker. I know its scary at first, but if you play the meta build correctly, you get SO MUCH surviability from all the blind, aegis, reflection etc that you will end up dying less (ya I was surprised myself the during the first few week that I got good with the meta). Still, using all these active defense need you to actively play and know what to use when, so defensive stats like Vitality and Toughness is good in the beginning, while you are leaning the game. Ascended Trinket are relatively easy to get so get them Zerker now so you don’t waste precious laurel on temporary defensive gear. Use the gear to give yourselve a bit of surviablity. Soldier, Valkyrie and Knight are the most popular for that purpose.
5) Yes and No. In WvW there is two kind of Zerg. Organized and Pug. In organized group, usually the healing come from blasting a water field, which is not really affected by healing power (because the blasts come for 7-8 different people and not only 1 with high Heaping Power). So in organized group, healing power is a no-no (with some specific exception). In pugs, you can’t really wait for people to blast a water field, so healing need to be done by yourself. In this case, ya healing power would make more sense. Still, I have a huge hate toward healing power for the last 17 months since i stopped using Healing in my Guardian gear since it suck soo much. Here, a video that explain the best what is the potential of Healing Power to support people around you exactly like you want.

I would suggest to keep so tanky/damage build for WvW. Here the support you bring is different. A shout oriented Guardian is pretty much the meta in WvW. Stuff like Hold the Line, Stand your Ground and Purging flames are great there (protection and stability are really good in WvW). Similar to what you originally talked about, but without the healing power gear.

What kind of game mode do you usually prefer in a MMO?

- Small PvP battle? Where the skill of the player is the most important element.
- Large scale PvP battle? Where you need organized group to support each other while keeping the global strategy in mind to win the week?
- PvE content? Where you’ll perfect your build and gameplay to get the best over encounter ranging from World Boss to Dungeon.

I tried to put as little GW2 specific terminology here since you are new. Keep in mind that your focus could switch over time in the game. I started only playing PvE and now I PvP most of the time. Also keep in mind that if you just want to stay casual, playing a 2-3 hours per weeks, then play whatever profession you want, they are all great. Its only if you want to go deeper into 1 of these game mode that picking the right profession and the right build will become important. So you can just continue to play your ranger with a Bow for a lots of hours if you want and its will be more than enough to enjoy the game.

Incenerator also work pretty well for a necromancer.

So of the 5 weapons the necro can use on the ground. 2 of them work, 2 of them don’t work at all (staff and scepter) and the final one, the Warhorn could work. Its more of a wild hunt/animal theme, but its dark and can fix the necro.

Ranger are better in PvP for small encounter only.

If you want to do more PvE content, you better get into melee weapons (sword and greatsword for the Ranger). GW2 PvE content emphasis melee combat while staying close to your group to support each other.

Ranger don’t have a good reputation in the game since, like you, a lot of people take this profession for the Bow, which is a really bad playstyle in PvE. Don’t get me wrong, you can complete any content with a Bow Ranger, but be prepare for some hate since you’ll be carried and won’t participate much in most group.

I kept enough rings to full a complete tab in my bank, but since them, i just can’t keep more of them and I destroy all the one I found (except if there are zerker, these ones I always keep them). Would be nice to be able to do something with all these rings.

1 bank tab for the rings and 1 bank tab for the Dust and Empyreal Fragment. These take a lot of place in my bank kitten .

You can’t be wrong with the Warrior. Its popular in ALL the game modes.

Guardian, Mesmer, Thief and Elementalist are also really popular in most game modes. But for exemple, the Guardian is lacking for Roaming, the Thief is bad for zerging, the Elementalist is not that great in 1vs1, the Mesmer is usefull only 1 small quantity in Zerg and Dungeon.

Necromancer is on the bottom for Dungeon, Ranger is in a pretty bad place for anything else than sPvP and Roaming and Engineer is good in most place, but usually is not that popular in Dungeon.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

geogyf.5087:

Because it was never the Zerk gear that was OP.

Rangers are required to have Zerk gear and are usually kicked from the Zerk Groups.

If you notice the Zerk groups, you will notice usually only 3 classes.

Warriors & Guardians (zerk gear)
Mesmers (for the aoe invisibility)

You can blame the Zerk gear all you want, but in reality its the
Warrior/Guardian – Zerk combination that is OP

You posted this in the wrong thread, I think you were looking for this one:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Most-Uninformed-Embarassing-Personal-Posts

Ok that one was nice

Warrior and Mesmer party. So 2012.

Charming Rogue.8071:

1. With the number 2 trait in fire, you will get an additional 10 charges. And you will have charges indefinitely because by the time you have used your 2nd hammer your LH skill will be recharged.

2. This might be true, but even for staff (if you run the proper build) you will need to be in melee range. For dungeons you need to stack, and if you have the earth trait (which you should) you will do 10% more dps when in 600 range (e.g. melee range).

3. The might blasts do a significant amount of damage, during might blasts I can assure you that your DPS is not lacking in any way.

I agree that Staff ele is the best DPS. The loss of 25 partywide DPS outweighs the personal DPS you get from staff though. So if you’re the only ele (or person that can do Might to the party) then you should run a mightstacking set. Else run staff.

With 2 or more ele’s definitely have only 1 LH/might stacking ele and the rest on staff for the max DPS group setup. 1 LH ele that keeps hammering (and blasting) away in the constant firefield should provide 25 Might and 2 minute fury all the time.

But to get back on topic, staff for necro is pretty good as it provides AoE (though necro in is kinda iffy in pve in general).
Staff guardian is just bad, unless you’re tagging mobs in open world.
Mesmer staff is just bad.

1) True most of the time with the 10 charge you should be ok. But I saw several build that don,t use that trait because they stack might anyway, so they don’t need the additionnal charge, but that can come back bit their kitten in some situation, leaving them wihtout a Hammer for several seconds.
2) Well for me melee range is 150, while with the staff I’ll stay in a 300 radius to get all the boons I can from my party. But anyway that wasn’t my point. If i down with my hammer I lose it and I do kitten DPS. If i down with my staff, once i’m revived i’ll still do my TOP dps.
3) Ya you do DPS when you stack might, but NO WHERE NEAR LH auto-attack or even less than Staff Lava Front. Ya Pheonix, Dragon Tooth and Arcane Wave do decent damage. But Magnetic Wave, Arcane Brilliance and Comet are really slow damage.

But anyway, we aggree after all. If you gonna have 1 Ele, better have a LH + S/X, but more than 1 of those is a waste depending on your party composition.

And back to the Topic. Mesmer, Necro and Guardian all have great Staff, but they are only good in PvP (Necro and Guardian, mainly for Zerg, while Mesmer is more for Roaming)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infusion

Marndeis.7815:

I love WvW but my server isn’t super active and I’m hesitant about switching servers.

Have you tried to Roam? Its even better with 1 or 2 friends, but it work also when you are alone. That’s what I usually do when I play during a slow time on my server. That way you don’t need a ton of numbers.

Sauzo.6821:

Actually if you read DEKeyztoChaos sticky on the Ele forums, he says staff is a low dps weapon unless you are in fire. It does provide good fields like you said though but scepter/dagger or scepter/focus provide a much better burst dmg while providing more utility for your group imo. I personally run scepter/x but have used staff a lot and I just felt staff was meh at best…..but to each their own.

You are totally right Sauzo. DekeyztoChaos said that staff not in fire is kitten dps. But that point of that build is exactly to keep camping fire.

LH +S/X = Lower DPS than Staff ele in fire camping because
1) You can LH auto-attack continually since you don’t have enough charge with the two harmmer to always auto-attack and that you need to go take your second hammer. Obviously if you are good, that problem is limited, but still at some point you won’t have a hammer to use if you attack, attack, attack, attack. But with the staff, that’s not a problem.
2) LH + S/X is squishy and you need to stay in melee range. If you don’t, you lose a huge part of your DPS by losing your hammer. Again, this can be limited if you are good and never die. But seriously, even the best Elementalist will die from time to time with that build. You have like zero defense and use your healing skill to pump might so.
3) You pump might, time during which you do little DPS compare to when you use LH. Of course that help your group DPS, but its less personnal DPS.

Overall, the LH build will have less personnal DPS, but give more might. Personnally, i prefer to have 1 LH Elementalist and then all other elementalist should be Staff Ele, because there is no really any reason to get a second LH Elementalist since you already have enough might. Ok maybe a second LH Ele, if nobody else in your party can stack might, but that’s rarely the case and Staff Ele can pump a couple of might themselves anyway.

Just saying Guan. You a good theory crafting, but you think too much of yourself and of what you come up with and that’s what kitten people off on the forum. From Guru to here, you always have people attacking every single line you write (for good or bad reason) simply because you make people hate you and always have to push it a bit too far.

Everybody say that Staff Ele is NOW (after the December 10th and October 15th patch) one of the best DPS of the game, better DPS than LH + S/X but serious lacking in might stacking. Both build are complementary and are good addition to a speed run group. But no, you have to say that Staff Ele is the BEST dps of the game no doudt and that LH + S/X is kitten.

Back in the day, people use to say to you. Ya Guardian is good DPS, but not as good as Warrior, especially if you use scepter in that build. A year latter, Guardian was offensively buff, while the warrior was nerf and now the Guardian CAN have higher DPS than a warrior only if he can keep aegis always up (which is impossible). How’s that make you right back then? You had a good build, but you were wrong.

You get bored of the game with 2-3 hours of gaming?? That said, here some answer.

1) Leveling alts : Did you try Eotm? Personnally, i don’t like it. But several of my friend do that on a regular basis. You get good loots, and level up pretty quickly. Other than that, do you only complete CoF? There is several other dungeon that are really fun to do. And you can use these dungeon to level up your alt. Switch character at the end of the dungeon so you complete the dungeon with a level 80, but get XP on a low level character (its about 70% of a level in XP). If you get into sPvP, you can level up by using Tome that you get from Reward track. Its not that fast, but hey you can play as a level 80 in sPvP and if you enjoy it, it will feel faster than doing something that you don’t like.
2) Endgame? There is no special endgame in this game. The endgame for me is to do whatever I want. You can level up several alt and take time to produce a nice looks on them, getting ascended stats but also armor and cool weapons. All that, especially if you want that for more than 1 character, can take a long time. You can also push a part of the game farther. Dungeon running is pretty standard, but form a speedclear party to see how fast you can do stuff, and push your build to the max. Doing fractal to level 50. Doing WvW raid as an organized group to go again bigger numbers. Roaming alone or with friends to form a havoc team or simply pick out people that run around in the map or even follow an enemy zerg to killing their tail one by one. Or go deep into sPvP to match up, do tournament or simply develop your skill in small 1 vs 1. Pick the mode you like the most and push it as far as you can do challenge yourself, that the endgame for me.
3) Tier 6? You better accumulate gold and buy them as there is not really efficient way to farm a particular item in this game. Just play and you will get some and buy the rest (gold is more farmable). You can also use laurel to buy Tier 6.