Guild Wars 2

Uncle Salty.6342:

Only thing a longbow has over a shortbow is 300 range, if you are traited in terms of range and dps.

And in terms burst dps, I hope you don’t mean barrage. Because shortbow auto attack in the same casting duration of barrage deals more dps.

Otherwise, use LB only if you find the range or knockback useful (or aoe). Never because of its “dps”.

Rapid fire for me hits 15k damage and hits through stealth so it’s a very good thief destroyer, along with barrage after the inevitable shadow refuge. Rapid fire has to be used with quickness, and rangers have a lot of ways to acquire quickness. Auto-attack does about 4k from max distance so it’s a good finisher.

The range is incredible and the knockback is a lot of fun.

Only use longbow if you know how to manipulate range though. Sword #2 is very good for creating distance. I think the problem that makes a lot of longbow users seem weak is that they get drawn to melee too easily and can’t utilize the 1500 range.

Here’s one. It goes well with the longbow as skill #2 creates a fair amount of distance between you and the opponent. Autotargeting has to be off though for it to work.

The autoattack is a bit uncontrollable but with quickness it can melt down a glass thief in mere seconds. Best not stand next to a cliff though when it starts going crazy.

Caffynated.5713:

I was responding to your claim that eles could be tanky and do viable damage. You then used that video as an example of an ele doing “viable” damage. That guy’s damage is negligible. He wins fights by being unkillable and wearing down players who don’t know how to dodge over the course of minutes.

Negligible in comparison to a full glass cannon maybe.

That is not a middle ground. It’s a bunker and the damage would shame a level 2 staff ele.

A bunker build is going all the way on defense and doing a few hundred damage, not 5k AoE crits.

The whole argument was that only a glass cannon can “destroy” bigger groups because apparently more survivable builds don’t have enough damage to take enemies out. Based on all I’ve seen it’s the more survivable eles who still do viable damage which are the ones that take out bigger groups, while glass cannons usually go down like a sack of grain in any situation other than 1v1.

These builds definitely don’t need a vapor form to bail them out of situations as they rarely go down in the first place. As said, an elementalist has more than enough defensive abilities to not need an ability to go through tower portals while downed, it’s just a weak argument in my estimation. Making it appear as if eles go down more than other classes which is untrue.

The thing about eles not being able to switch weapons is kind of silly anyway when they have access to 10 more weapon skills than any other class.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

TheGreatA.4192:

Bugged garbage, like much of what has to do with the pet. When you go down, unless underwater (for whatever reason it works OP there), just search for the closest waypoint already, it’s over.

Why do that. As rangers we have the best down state (when pets work). We have acess to our f skills. Other than a warrior ranger are the only ones that have a real shot at ralling. wether its pvp or pve. For other classes one you blow your interupt its over. With ranger you still have you pet.

That is if they work. The point of this thread is that it doesn’t.

Caffynated.5713:

I made it as far as the 2619 damage fire grab crit, before going “YUP!”

A glass ele hits for 12-15k with fire grab.

Every class in glass cannon gear does nice damage. Thing is people made it out to be as if an ele can only be either extremely glassy or do no damage. You’re not forced to be a full bunker build in order to be survivable.

Syeria.4812:

Well, I guess it was you who made this about glass cannons. That was a pretty sad attempt to try wheedle your way out of that though.

Umm, no.

Please find the statement in which I say anything about glass cannon eles other than them being able to get out of harms way in a zerg fight despite going down like a sack of potatoes due to vapor form. How exactly does that statement argue for them being OP when it’s about them going down easily in the first place?

My argument is that when you go down, you’re supposed to stay down, and I think we all agree that going through keep doors while downed is rather annoying.

Another thing I said is that a skilled ele, not a cookie cutter bunker or glass cannon, can be a real beast in the game. You don’t have to be glass to do damage, and you don’t have to be a full bunker to be survivable.

If you think your ele goes down easy then you don’t know how to play the class or have the wrong build for your playing style.

This is my first few days of playing with a fairly glassy ranger (it’s even glassier now), worked out alright:

I’m a newb to the class still but surprisingly won many 1vs1 against thieves and eles and mesmers. On a good day of playing I don’t get killed once, but I guess I play a little cowardly with it. Mostly meant for defensive situations in WvW where I can shoot down the upleveled people filling out the ranks.

Max damage with rapid fire was 16,000 on a mesmer, would love to get it up to 20k.

Bugged garbage, like much of what has to do with the pet. When you go down, unless underwater (for whatever reason it works OP there), just search for the closest waypoint already, it’s over.

Gaudrath.6725:

Simply and utterly not true. A skilled ele will not go down easily if specced for it, but they won’t be destroying anything either. An ele who has the ability to destroy entire groups quickly (I’m one of them) WILL go down easily if focused by even remotely skilled players.

P.S And you don’t have that much survivability in 1vs1’s either.

covenn.7165:

Actually, if you can’t and don’t 2/3 shot glass cannon eles and let them do damage to you unhindered, then the learn to play issue is on your side. I see a glass cannon ele… gap closer -> 2/3 shot. Done.

The only thing people have any right to remotely complain about is making it through keep doors. Outside of that, the down state is worthless.

Edit: Seriously, if you can’t and don’t kill a class with the lowest armor in the lowest health pool, in GC gear with no toughness and vitality…. l2p isn’t on anyone but you.

Who said anything about glass cannons? Those are generally agreed to be pretty much trash.

You don’t have to go full bunker with ele to be survivable. Spec out a little toughness and vitality while retaining a viable damage output, and you are a beast. The class has enough innate defense not to need to be a full bunker build.

We have eles in our server that nobody will fight in a 1on1 because they will destroy you, likely even if you have a couple of teammates with you.

It seems like you only know two builds, glass cannon and full bunker. There is middle ground.

Let’s take for example Rizadon from Unity, he’s certainly not glass is he but his damage output isn’t exactly negligible, is it?

Corrupt boon and Well of Corruption are good to have equipped against a guardian. Anybody who uses Save Yourselves does themselves in.

My 1vs1 against tank guards have been epic grindfests usually but I end up winning them due to a greater burst and health pool. Against glassier guardians I usually win inside 30 seconds. They generally feel they can out-melee anybody and will facetank, only to realize all their big attacks are being interrupted or absorbed by death shroud, while I keep hacking away with the dagger.

I played a guard for 6 months which makes it easier for me to deal with them. Ranged and cc options are limited and many of the attacks can be avoided by simply moving in and out of range.

Both had wrong skills equipped and it wasn’t exactly my best fight but here is one example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EZSqtDayenM
0:45

Gab Superstar.4059:

You can still stomp eles with a blink. There is no reason they should be able to make it back to their zerg alive.

I don’t play a mesmer.

Sure there might be some counters to this, like an ever important immobilize skill that you just love to waste on a guy you already beat, or a skill one single class in the game utilizes for its main defense. But I’d prefer not to waste my skills on a stomp when there’s still other people to fight.

I reckon you’ve never been in zerg fights where a glass ele can run into a zerg and safely run back to their own zerg after going down like a sack of potatoes. Having to chase a guy after you’ve already beaten them, and get focused by his teammates, is not something I enjoy to do in this game. When you go down you’re supposed to stay down unless you get ressed.

If you go down a lot as an ele, I’m afraid it’s you who has a l2p issue. A real skilled ele will not go down while destroying superior odds with relative ease. To get into a tower you have invulnerability and a blocking skill and stability, shouldn’t be awful hard.

It is rather annoying that the strongest classes in the game also receive the best downed skills while the least powerful ones have to worst.

As if they don’t have enough as it is.

If it works, it works but I don’t think it does. Usually I’ve seen this end up horribly for the campers. Either most of them get bored and leave, with a few newbies staying behind not realizing what’s going on and getting stomped, or the other server’s zerg comes in and uses the two other routes to sneak up behind the campers and wipe them out.

Not much changed. It appears that I will no longer get insta-killed while using barrage on a zerg though, due to how retaliation is now handled.

Fact is those people 90% of the time are probably among your most productive players so I wouldn’t hate on them for it. If you go for the points 24/7, you will burn yourself out on the game. PvP and GvG are a nice change of pace until viable alternatives are added in.

Easy way to nerf zerging is by relocating defeated players to a waypoint, or atleast give only 30 seconds of time for them to be ressed back into action. Right now 20-30 people can get killed and have the other 40-50 zerglings remaining res them right back up.

No longer will you have people facetanking a gate down with 50+ people under AC fire without even bothering to put up siege.

Greatsword whirlwind attack in my opinion is one of the best attacks in the game when used right. But you need a damage spec for it to truly shine.

It adds the ability to set up duels with skilled enemies and is generally just a fun option to have in the game.

I always end up having some “arch-enemies” with each server I play against, people I focus in fighting and who focus on me, so being able to chat with them other than with directed taunts has been nice.

If you get flamed by some random guy then it means you are doing a pretty good job and should pat yourself on the back for that.

I’ve been trying out a DPS build with longbow in WvW for defense purposes. While it’s certainly not as useful in PvP situations as the tanky build, it works fairly well in group fights where I’m not being focused down too much due to the 1500 range.

The key to it for me has been multiple sources of quickness. With quickness, rapid fire turns from a lousy skill to a fight finisher which does 10+ k damage. Surprised people haven’t seen those numbers, I only have 90% crit damage and 80% crit chance (including fury) for the moment and have done 10+ k numerous times (use of signets will boost it even further), with video footage to back it up. Autoattack at max range can do anywhere from 2000-3000 damage so it’s not entirely horrible for shooting down people trying to run from you. Thieves can barely take 3 of those hits.

Targeting issues and arrows randomly missing or being obstructed by seemingly nothing makes it a pain to use sometimes. You lose fights you should win due to these issues. On open field or defending though I have no problems. Anybody who stands too long at the edge of a tower or keep will go down from rapid fire/barrage combo.

This change is terrible as long as you only have to get 1 person to shoot at a gate from 1500 range in order to contest it.

Orange swords were not a problem in WvW in my estimation.

Had a a good time on Riverside borderlands fighting over Bay. Proper quality fighting displayed on all sides. No complaints.

Thieves are usually so glassy that I just auto-attack them down after the initial teleport. The stealth won’t make them move away, it just breaks the stomp animation, so keep hitting.

It only makes sense for the invaders to double team the defensive team, although only to a reasonable point. I doubt you would see the invading zergs running together in an effort to take one of your keeps, which would be the true definition of double teaming.

Just taking advantage of the situation is what it is. Next week we will likely be defending our borderlands against attacks from both Riverside and Gandara and they surely won’t be attacking each other much, that’s just how it goes.

Tap Skis.8240:

+ i havent meet 1 AG that wants to fight my STAFF ele 1v1 yet. always 3-5 ppl need to fight me which shows how strong your individuals r

You shouldn’t be having problems finding 1v1’s against AG players. This is one server that enjoys their dueling and often holds duels between our players and enemy server players as long as all parties are willing.

I consider myself a fairly strong PvP player, but the fact that most people will run away from me to their zerg does not mean that Gunnar or Shiverpeaks players lack skill. It’s just that most are there for the WvW aspect, not PvP. Getting your WvW support build stomped by a PvP focused player when there was an objective to take or defend is just not smart.

Acotje.5689:

Cool story, but next time you should check walls litle better
This is what i found at hills west wall (2cata’s and an AC)

This is what happens when people go to sleep.

Wouldn’t work and people would become even more afraid to fight. If anything we should encourage people to defend and possibly get killed in the process. A lot of the time people will just shoot projectiles at each other hoping one of them will miraculously kill the enemy player.

Far Shiverpeaks was running wild on other maps, but forgot to leave scouts in their own borderlands, allowing our 5 man group to take fully reinforced and sieged Bay and Hills without much resistance. You never want to leave your own borderlands undefended, same goes for us.

I still see outmanned a lot for AG so our numbers can’t be that overwhelming. Haven’t had any queues recently. We have high points but overall our presence is nothing compared to what you will find in the higher tiers.

They’re annoying enough. Yes you can solo them but it should take enough time so that reinforcements can get into the camp if they care about it. If they don’t defend the camp on any level then they deserve to lose it. NPC’s should not be making the difference in WvW.

Our guild did the dungeon with a variety of classes and builds and did fine until getting to Dwayna. After several failed attempts, we just decided to bring in our warriors and mega DPS it down in 1 attempt, which worked.

I just think the boss should be made less about DPS’ing it down, because right now that’s exactly what it is about.

There are lots of ways to escape with the necro.

Spectral walk & locust swarm offer perma swiftness (which cripples chasing enemies), spectral walk can lead your enemies to another direction for 8 seconds, chasing enemies can be chilled and feared to another direction with the staff, flesh golem can mow them over and plague form can tank almost anything for 20 seconds, dark path can teleport to a random npc as you are walking towards another direction, you can jump off from any cliff without falling damage in DS, etc.

Takes more skill and smarts than spamming ride the lightning or stealth skills, but the survivability is there.

With necromancer if you have life leech attacks, you will see green numbers each time you hit a thief in stealth.

As an example:

http://youtu.be/EZSqtDayenM

7:05

What I find somewhat unfortunate is that most of the zerg followers will never actually learn how to be good players and effective in their group because most of what they’ve done consists of stomping single players or being stomped by an equal group of people in turn.

They are actually a hindarance to the group without even knowing it. When they chase a single roamer across half the map the zerg loses its effectiveness. An organized zerg stays clear on its objective and only stomps those that are deemed as threats to their team.

Nowadays I do much of my work as a “zerg breaker” by tailing the zerg, ganking those who are left behind due to lack of swiftness and aggroing a part of the zerg elsewhere.

As for the code of honor, I personally prefer to leave the 1on1 situations be, unless it’s a situation such as a thief vs an upleveled person, and try to have our zergs focused on clear objectives instead of rushing after every red name tag they can see on the map.

Red is not always dead to me at this point, I prefer to meet real challenges instead of trashing some level 2 guy who is somewhere he does not belong.

I also understand that I can’t uphold everybody to the same standards but tens of thousands of kills later you kind of have to move away from the usual zerging and start doing your own thing.

LoT have a good reputation but I agree this was not one of their best moves.

I am proud to say I have never used the invulnerability spot in the camp, except the one next to spawn last night when a full zerg of Riverside players had built ballistas there. Sorry about that.

Eventually they got tired and we picked off the ones who remained, and took a couple of towers there with 5 man group.

Done alright. I can outmelee warriors and guardians because of interrupts & clever use of deathshroud to stop the big attacks.

Some choppy gameplay footage if it helps:

Thankfully most thief builds are still extremely glassy and rely on melee. It’s the tankier ones that utilize range that you need to watch out for.

Learn to out-think the thief’s next step and utilize auto-attack and AoE to reveal where they are hiding. Once you get good at predicting their next step, dealing with the thief becomes a lot easier. Usually it comes down to me hitting them at the same time as they are attacking me, relying on my tankiness, and most of the time I win those confrontations.

I also have lots of channel skills which hit the thief even while they are stealthed.

Rytlock also uses pistol.

Guild Wars 2 does lack a good old two-handed battle axe. If they ever decide to add weapons, that would be on my list.

Full glass cannon or full tank for the way I guess. Hybrids get the shaft as usual. Cavalier is the only one that is remotely useful for me, but crit damage is useless without the precision. Don’t know why they can’t put Knight and Valkyrie stats to ascended items.

It’s more difficult to play with some classes but it’s not like a necromancer or a ranger will automatically lose a 1v1 against a thief or an ele. The player skill and build has to be taken into account.

Is it easier for a player of similar skill level to beat another class with thief or a D/D ele? Probably.

Necro/Warrior team has worked extremely well. I tank the damage while the warrior deals the damage. I focus on removing the warrior’s conditions and control the fights with my conditions.

Yes it’s all about timing and your timing has to be far more perfect than the elementalist’s. You’ll have to work more for your win but it’ll feel good when you do beat them.

A problem for necro is all the knockdowns and knockbacks that can be spammed by elementalists, but once you get accustomed to it dodging shouldn’t be a problem. Have some stunbreaks at hand though while facing elementalists.

For the finisher once I corner them I use Dark Pact, Wail of Doom and a couple of wells (Suffering and Corruption should do). After that they’ll go down from a couple of slashes with the dagger.

Whirling axe isn’t too great. The axe auto-attack is the true damage dealer. If you have a proper group the hundred blades can turn into a powerful weapon. Let another person do the immobilizing, dazing, chilling and crippling for you while you go for straight damage. Puts enemies out of their misery in double quick time.

Whirlwind is pretty great on the greatsword also.

Running a build with dagger/warhorn and staff, I have a relatively easy time escaping opponents, including WvW zergs.

With spectral walk and locust swarm I always have perma-swiftness. I can’t count how many times I’ve been able to fool people with spectral walk, by pretending to jump off a cliff or from the outer walls of a keep, only to teleport back 8 seconds later.

Necro cannot die from fall damage while in death shroud, so during a chase you just have to find the biggest cliff around you, jump off it and hope anyone is stupid enough to chase you down.

Locust swarm cripples anyone near you and with staff you can chill and fear people running towards you. Dark path can often work in confusing enemies if you port to a random NPC away from your direction. Dagger has an immobilize and warhorn has a daze which can be used for defensive purposes.

Necromancers have so many ways to remove all conditions that it shouldn’t be a problem even if you get focused with immobilizes, chills and cripples.

Plague form of course can be a last resort when all else fails.

I’m from Aurora Glade. We were primarily a PvE server and that part of the game is still going strong. In recent months, due to the efforts of our dedicated WvW players, we have begun building an organized WvW community which uses a Mumble server for voice comms and discusses weekly strategies on our forums.

The site and forums can be found here: http://www.auroraglade.eu/

As for queues, during primetime EB and our own borderlands might have a short queue but I never have had a problem. The longest I’ve ever had to wait was a couple of minutes. Often I don’t have to wait at all.

We usually maintain a solid presence 24/7 so there’s no worries to losing everything we own to night capping. Aurora Glade usually gets better and better as the match-up goes on so no need to get discouraged if we are behind on points early on.

We are facing Gandara right now and they seem very organized with several prominent WvW guilds.

Distaste.4801:

As a thief that also plays a necro, I laugh at most necros. Wells are great for thieves only when you can immobilize them. A good thief is going to dodge out of the wells, wait 5 seconds then dodge back in(springing all your marks but evading damage). Wells are now on cooldown for 40s and most of your marks are on 20s+ cooldowns. All that’s left is your other weapon and Death shroud. A thief can drop DS in seconds and the necro in another few seconds.

On my necro my best bet is usually, death shroud through the initial burst using DS siphon, DS fear, Dagger immobilize+wells, then marks as fast as I can place them around the thief. The problem here is if the thief has the CC trait that shadow steps him. By that time they usually run and use whatevers handy to kill them. If DS is on cooldown at the start of the battle though it’s game over, no way to soak that burst and have enough life to pull everything off.

This is why I use a 4 second immobilize followed up by a 3 second daze to keep the thieves in position. It’s definitely harder for a necro to beat a thief than it is for a thief to beat a necro (the same can be said about almost any class dealing with thieves) but it can be done. Probably easier than with most classes. Another thing is that I’m half-decent at predicting where they are moving next and do most of my damage while they’re stealthed.

Thing is that most thieves are so used to playing with low health and stubborn to kill you that they won’t run.

Dark Pact-Wail of Doom-Wells-Dagger Autoattack

Works everytime.

DarkDream.3012:

What you mean about going all the way? Full healing power build? If not:

How about full magi’s armor and accessory set? Healing power, vitality and precision.

Healing power does not affect it at all. That’s why it works even for a power build, you don’t have to sacrifice any power to healing while having some form of damage mitigation/regen.

Going all the way means taking advantage of all the possibilites, meaning the food buffs, sigils and traits. Otherwise it won’t be all that effective. Once you start adding them all up, it gets better. It’s not a life saver even now but allows you to absorb damage from less hard hitting mobs without having to pay too much attention.

For example in WvW I don’t enjoy having to worry about bunker builds causing damage over time.

Life siphon + vampiric traits + omnomberry pie + sigil works alright with high crit chance. Executing dagger auto attack, with each hit a critical, can give me around 600 health from omnomberry, 450 from the sigil, and around 400 from the traits. That’s nearly 1500 health from an attack that takes around 1 second to execute.

Life Siphon can give well over 3000 health.

So it can be pretty good, but you have to go all the way. Don’t forget that you can get regen from staff and focus.

It’s amazing for tanking a massive amount of damage in lord’s room defense or holding a supply camp until reinforcements get in. Once I survived vs 20 enemies and 2 omega golems in garrison defense solo with the plague form, allowing for reinforcements to come in time to wipe them.

Usually people don’t know what’s happening to them and ignore the plague.

I use flesh golem though for most situations.

A bit of a damage boost would help.

However, if I manage to trap people with dark pact & wail of doom, I can usually burst them down in 3-4 seconds with dagger and wells, unless they’re a complete tank. This despite boasting 2500+ armor and 27,000 hp.

It can be pretty good, but it’s more about control than damage. When you have your opponent going WTF at every chill, fear, daze, cripple and immobilize you apply on them, they have little time to focus on you.

Thieves are usually toast against me. I just keep spamming dagger auto-attack while surrounded by wells and marks and they go down before I hit the ground. The average thief has less than half the health that I do. You can’t beat every thief, but you can get more comfortable with them by learning how the class works.

Keep in mind that your channel skills will hurt them even as they cloak in stealth.