Ever since the 4/15 balance patch I’ve been trying out a lot of secondary sigils in combination with Battle but am having a hard time choosing. I’ve gone between Energy and many others back and forth. The ones I’ve tried and know to be good are Energy, Doom, Force, and Air/Fire. Strength and Hydromancy seem borderline-good but not good enough. Accuracy and Generosity seem to be more dependant on what the build is lacking.
Doom is what I’m currently using and seems to be great against Guardians/Warriors/Elementalists when I’m solo roaming but I wanted to know if anybody had any other sigil suggestions that I’m not giving enough credit to or a good case on what is most logical to use.
I’ve never been completely sure on how Force’s damage modifier applies in relation to Might or other damage modifiers either.
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Aside from Fractals, D/D is good for when you’re feeling really lazy and you’re pugging with a not-so-great group (at least this is my mentality when I use it).
D/D Elementalist is in a really strong place again in WvW, not as strong as the glory days near launch, but way up there now. A lot of people are claiming it to be OP now in WvW because of Strength Runes. I do not agree that it’s overpowered, but it’s definitely one of the top solo or small group things to play across all classes.
It’s always been “good”, but now it’s back to “great”.
Guardian + Engineer or Guardian + Thief.
Not to point out the obvious, but Engineer has a lot of AoE condition damage and control, while Thief has very high single-target burst. Basically something that is slippery and mobile (and does a lot of damage) which usually forces people to target the Guardian eventually.
Should just make it so you can’t revive fully dead players while in combat.
Thanks for the PMs from people — it’s basically between SoS and JQ for us with SoS being the top choice still, not really interested in any other servers between those two.
D/D for WvW — either for dueling.
Hello,
My guild, [vT], is looking for a new server for the next season, somewhere in the Gold league. We were in Silver for the first season and Bronze for this one that is just ending. We believe Gold is where we’d like to be because the action we assume is non-stop no matter the time of day, and that there are other bonuses such as people being in the Obsidian Sanctum to duel frequently, lots of GvGs, etc.
We’re mostly looking to fight other roamers (not necessarily stack on a server with them) and to join a healthy WvW community that has personality, a TS server and website. We run at a maximum of about 8 players (15 players purposely total) with 2-4 typically. We tend to gravitate towards flipping camps and taking smaller objectives with intention of finding fights with enemies or looking for reinforcements to kill on the outskirts of larger fights or objectives. We play for fun.
So my questions would be:
Which server would we fit best on?
Are our assumptions about Gold true?
What is the roaming like on Gold?
Currently without much knowledge of Gold league servers, we’re thinking of moving to Fort Aspenwood. We’d like to fight SoS and Maguuma often if possible, and aren’t sure FA is high enough in rank for that to be common.
Edit: having talked to multiple people from different servers, SoS is looking like the best option for a guild like mine. Still open to other ideas if anyone has them.
Thorp (Thorp.7982)
Cookie (Fralans.1268)
Myztik (Kabro.6518)
Xan (Sam.8193)
Some guild videos:
8v8 GvG
TS Audio
Elementalist
Necromancer
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Thanks for the answers so far. It seems there is agreement over most people that thief is the best profession for roaming overall, considering all aspects of roaming.
What builds for Thief would be the best?
No need to be very detailed if you don’t want to.
Most popular WvW roaming Thief builds to my knowledge are 10/30/30/0/0, 0/30/30/10/0 and 10/0/30/0/30. Basically 30 Shadow Arts for outnumbered sustain and either 30 Critical Strikes for damage or 30 Trickery for utility/lesser damage. The x/30/30/x/x builds are typically between Mug in Deadly Arts and Fleet Shadow in Acrobatics.
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Typical condition PU Mesmers are about effective as a GS+S/WH Warrior. They’re only called “cheesy” because they’re awful in terms of utility in combat of any kind, do no significant damage, and are just designed for getting away/surviving for nothing. You can however troll large numbers of players with either of these.
For groups, I would say Necromancers are actually the strongest class to have if others can help them disengage somehow with stealths/veils/FGS/etc. Same goes with Guardian.
For solo roaming, I would say Engineer or Thief because they’re great in 1vX and can disengage better than most/all others while still doing good damage.
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For pugging Fractals, I use:
0/30/0/10/30
S/F, Runes of Strength, Sigil of Battle/Air
Ether Renewal
Lightning Flash, Mist Form, Conjure Frost Bow
Conjure Fiery Greatsword/Glyph of Elementals
0/10/0/30/30 Staff if it’s a rough group
Basically DPS, might stacking, utility and some self survival when you can — Condition removal/healing and CC when it’s needed.
So many jealous Elementalists who wish they could single-handedly redefine the meta like Attunejam has accomplished to do. You can’t go anywhere without seeing a glyphomancer now.
I have never heard of you and I could not find you in the top of solo queue ladders nor team arena.
Maybe you should get more informed about the game? Thorp is obviously very up to date and in the know, so…
Yeah my ignorance is public knowledge by now.
Anyway maybe you can provide us with some videos to showcase what you can do with your build?
How dare you question this God among men.
Attunejam best Ele NA EU AFRIKA
The AoE cap and blob-rezzing have been two of the main things driving people I’ve played with/fought against away from WvW or the game completely.
Lately, stealth has been going from a minor annoyance to something that is totally throwing off the balance of the game. Everything in this game has numerous amounts of direct counters except for Stealth. Control skills are countered by Stability, Blind, and Block. Conditions are countered by skills like Berserker’s Stance, Empathetic Bond, 409, etc. The balance between these mechanics may not be perfect, but they exist. As far as stealth goes the only real “counter” out there is Sic ’Em on the Ranger.
What we need is more skills to have the ability to put Reveal on stealth classes like Thieve and Mesmer. It does not have to last for long, just long enough that vs stealth heavy builds you throw them off their game long enough to mount a counter attack. Not all of them should require a target because skills like Shadow Refuge and Mass Invisibility are often times used when the target is already stealthed. These long duration stealths allow for them to totally reset the fight while the other person flails around trying to get lucky. It drives me insane when I hear people say “you can still hit them in stealth you know!?” (Yes, we know) as if that means you can magically always know where they are. Any stealth user with half a brain is going to get the hell out of danger and not stick around and they generally have shadowsteps/teleports to do it. The ability to also stack stealth after being downed is also ridiculous and can lead to the player being downed but conditions or what have you and being able to revive.
What I would like all of you to do is propose skills on your main class that seem like good candidates to receive the ability to apply reveal. I’ll start with Warrior:
Fear Me!: The best candidate by far. It has a fairly long cool down and if you want to reduce that you have to find 10 points to put into tactics and would also have to swap out Bull’s Charge.
Stomp: Even with the buffs it’s still not an amazing skill. It would be another reason to justify it being on your bar and once again has a fairly long CD. Might even give people a reason to grab Physical Training (but probably not).
Also, if ANet even gives Warriors an elite shout I’d like to see “None Shall Pass!” from GW1 brought back. It knocked down moving foes and it would be nice for it to have reveal as well.
I’m tired of being unable to reliably do anything about stealth heavy classes that have the ability to simply stealth up again after messing up and having to wait around for 10+ seconds wondering if maybe I downed them and don’t know it.
Because your guild’s hammer spamming isn’t enough.
What I do in WvW as a 30 SA D/D Thief:
Cloak and Dagger off phantasms to put them on the defensive and spread blind
Chain-cloak off clones if needed to remove conditions/heal
Basilisk burst combo when they’re out of stealth and don’t have protection
Finalize with Heartseeker when they stealth if they survive the combo by predicting where they are
The fight is just about keeping them on the defensive and typically all that means is making sure they don’t have more than one phantasm out.
You take advantage of how their set works. For example, when they Heartseeker through the field, they cannot cancel or change direction which tells you where they are. The stealth leap-finisher doesn’t last as long as other stealths, another thing to take advantage of to predict when they’re going to be behind you. If they’re stacking stealth, just stand in the field for them to accidentally reveal themselves. The blind they put on you can also tell you when they’re close to you when it gets removed by hitting them, telling you they’re right there for a Cloak and Dagger off of them. Immobilize after they drop their Black Powder can give you an opportunity to open up on them or force them into a bad position if they were low on initiative. Lastly, and most obviously, attack them from outside of their smoke field.
Play defensively when they’re in stealth, and counter them with burst. If they’re decent and actually use their daze, gain distance before healing.
I really love my Celestial gear and find it worth the time and gold. It’s interchangeable between D/D and Staff also, speaking in terms of WvW. I just started working on my Ascended version of the set.
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0/10, you have no points into Arcana whatsoever on a D/D Elementalist. Sceptre would probably be better for what it looks like you’re doing, and put at least 10 points into Arcana for the vigor on critical hit. The stats are fine, everything else is preference.
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There’s always some scrub hater. Coming from CD, I’m sure you would have ran first. That’s the main reason we left CD — the “run first, fight later” attitude. The only decent guilds on that server were [FKVA] and [NA], the rest of you are as good as ogre or dredge mercenaries.
So glad you guys left. Good riddance.
We’re so glad we left too!
Probably cramped your style; I know you guys would rather use siege and PvD than actually kill people. Did you guys settle on a TS or is the “community” still a joke?
I thought vT was pretty cool for not ganking me when they could have and actually dueled with me the other day. The engi beat me but I’m pretty sure I put up a better fight then a coyote. You also didn’t interrupt that stupidly long duel with the warrior either even though he wasn’t vT. My necro isn’t really set up for 1v1 duels though.
Sometimes we just kill whatever we see, but letting people 1v1, etc. is the typical mindset we’re in on most nights. The people who get chased and ganked until they die are PU Mesmers and S/WH+GS Warriors out of principle. :p
Feels good to be decent (or at least piggy back with cause I was always running). Give us our props though, we are at least as good as the quagaan mercs.
I meant to say great. <3
Was expecting something more impressive given all that hype and pomp. Am disappoint.
Am disappoint in your trollin’ skill. GET GOOD SON!
Not trollin’. Just dont really think it backs up your attitude.
There’s no impressive “cherry picking” (you stand on a bridge while pugs trickle into a choke).
There’s no impressive d/d play (pretty sure the staff ele pugs carried harder).
There’s no impressive group play.
I’m sure it was fun and all, but you guys kind of just AOE’d in front of you and zerglings ran in and died. I’m sure you guys have better than that, is all I’m saying.
The Necromancers and Engineers were actually pulling people into our group. How do you kill numbers like that if not with AoE? Siege? Should they have just stacked boons and ran in there spamming AoE and hammer stuns like all the “zerg-busters” do? This is an easy game with a broken combat system when it comes to large numbers.
There’s always some scrub hater. Coming from CD, I’m sure you would have ran first. That’s the main reason we left CD — the “run first, fight later” attitude. The only decent guilds on that server were [FKVA] and [NA], the rest of you are as good as ogre or dredge mercenaries.
Maybe have your zerg portal bomb our 5man groups more. Get good.
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If you’re using a D/D Elementalist for AoE burst rather than a power Engineer, Warrior, even a power Necromancer, you’re doing it wrong. I consider D/D Elementalist very weak in terms of AoE burst or even simply damage compared to these professions.
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I play with between 2-8 people at the most, three on most nights, eight on reset. Having 10 points into Air Magic is overrated. You get a little bit of precision and +10% critical damage on top of the already weak damage of a D/D Elementalist, along with the fury/swiftness mentioned before. The protection and stability from Earth Magic fit the play-style of D/D Elementalist better — being sustained in the fight and getting stomps, damage coming afterwards. Aura-sharing the protection with a higher boon duration gives melee fighters near you near-permanent protection when combined with the protection applied from attuning to Earth with the Arcana trait.
I’m aware of why 30 Water or 10 Air is popular. I’m saying they’re bad choices with the exception of going 30 Water for aura sharing with 10 Earth for a D/D Elementalist.
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Using Trait V in Earth Magic has been the way for several months to a year as far as I’m concerned. 10 points into Air Magic for fury/swiftness on auras is useless as those two boons are either easily obtained through other means or just not very game-changing. For D/D, 30 points into Water Magic is only good for sharing auras, and even that is only good for particular group compositions (having at least two other heavier melee-oriented professions).
I go 75% boon duration simply because of the 20 points I put into Earth Magic for protection to drastically increase my survivability, and stability for almost-guaranteed stomps in group fights.
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Runes of the Ogre are powerful because of the +4% damage bonus. I also forgot to mention Runes of the Wurm which are also pretty decent. Ruby/Beryl Orbs do just fine though, they’re all pretty similar. I believe 5 Runes of the Scholar + 1 Ruby Orb is supposedly the next highest DPS to 6/6 Runes of the Scholar if you don’t include Rock Dog from Runes of the Ogre.
To get more armor, you could swap in Soldier’s or Cavalier pieces. Mess around on a build calculator to see the stat differences you’d gain/lose: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/
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Your armor is really low. In my opinion it’s best to have at least 2500 armor and 15k health for any WvW character. To be honest though, the armor and health won’t help you if you don’t out-play other burst builds/professions anyway — it’s just there as a buffer for their opening combo or if you’re jumped on. Your critical hit chance is normal, but personally I’d say it’s too high for a Hidden Killer build. Definitely swap out Sigil of Accuracy for Sigil of Force (+5% damage).
Hidden Thief (VII) in Shadow Arts is an interesting choice for your build, you’d probably be better off with Infusion of Shadow (V) if you’re running dagger/pistol. I also don’t find the Descent of Shadows trait in Acrobatics particularly useful, but if you like it then whatever. Try changing it out for Fleet Shadow (VI), enabling you to drop your Signet of Shadows utility for something more useful like Blinding Powder.
I would recommend either Runes of the Scholar (highest damage potential by far) or Runes of the Traveler (frees up utility slot and traits), but since you’re on a budget, Ruby Orbs/Runes of the Ogre/Runes of the Thief are fine. Ogre is probably the best rune of these cheaper options, but beware that decent Thieves who are using off-hand dagger will be able to Cloak and Dagger off the Rock Dog if it spawns.
With these changes, you’d pretty much be a cookie-cutter WvW Thief, but there aren’t too many decent options.
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WvW perspective:
1. Yes
2. Power build (Power/Critical Damage)
3. Shadow Refuge, Shadowstep, Blinding Powder
4. 10/30/30/0/0 – Mug, Hidden Killer, Shadow’s Rejuvenation
You can have offensive slot infusions in everything besides one ascended accessory if you don’t want to use the Mystic Forge. To have two offensive ascended rings, you just have to infuse one offensive infusion slot ascended ring of the same name so that one says “(Infused)” at the end of its title and the other does not.
You would also find it more efficient to obtain ascended rings from Fractals of the Mists rather than from a Laurel Merchant.
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You can have +5 power in every infusion slot with Versatile Mighty Infusions.
I’m sure this has been suggested before but I feel it’s long overdue. I’d really love to see keybinds that are personal for each character rather than account-wide. I play an Elementalist and Thief, and my keybinds are different for both characters because they have different playstyles.
Maybe have seperate tabs per character in the keybind part of the options and a global keybind check box by default for the players who like it the way it is.
Assuming you’re just trying to get WvW map completion, put on Fiery Great Sword and you can escape anything.
Don’t play a condition Thief unless you like being useless in groups and never killing decent players.
Thank you ANet for resolving my issue.
From a WvW perspective, I used to stay around 40-45% critical chance with a Hidden Killer build, but honestly even that’s too high. I believe you can go as low as around 25-30% as long as you pick up Furious Retaliation (I) in the Critical Strikes trait line.
I have no Berserker pieces, just Valkyrie/Soldier/Berserker+Valkyrie ascended, and one Cavalier piece being the back item. With a 10/30/30/0/0 build I’m hitting at best around 10k Backstabs on glassy 80’s and up to 12k Backstabs on up-leveled characters all while having 17k health before Guard Stacks and 2700 armor. It’s definitely worth the drop in critical chance because you can easily make that up with traits.
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Here are a few great WvW Thief players to give you an idea of different options as far as weapons and builds/playstyle go:
Xeviel, Ehmry Bay — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA78Ln-JlhM
I Am Mugi, Northern Shiverpeaks-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKX_FoT2VVo
Lychon, Crystal Desert — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kohq_aSOKE
I’m supposed to receive the appearance item separated from the stat item. Not two stat items. I would like my gems back.
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I’m still going to try it twice on the Gasmask. One to get it off the 80 exotic, another time to get it off the account bound low level helmet.
Oh, so I have to use another one apparently? Wow.
Okay, so it gives me the rune, the light armor helmet with stats, and an 8 defense Gasmask with +2 vitality on an account bound light armor helmet.
Great design.
I have a light armor Gasmask. I would like to use the Gaskmask skin on a medium armor helmet. If I use the Transmuation Splitter from the Gem Store, would I receive the Gasmask skin that is applicable to any armor type or would I receive a light armor only Gasmask skin already on a stat-less level 1 light armor helmet?
Thanks.
GvGs might be more your thing.
Oh, that 4v4 where we stomped you and another person and you both came back? I’ll go with option A. Chill out, man.
He’s referring to Magicclown, not you.