Guild Wars 2

This may be something already widely known, but in case it’s not and for those who may not have known I will throw this out there anyway.

If you receive one, stow it away safely. You do not get a prompt like other items and it auto salvages. I just lost my final pve goal this way and I don’t want anyone to experience the same discomfort I did, especially seeing how rng based getting these things are.

I’m not sure why everyone wants more burning. It becomes redundant in overall play and the FT’s potential as a power weapon is so much more attractive in my eyes. We already have a plethora of condi potential, why want more?

I’d go with tanshiniza’s build. It’s pretty solid and self explanatory. I don’t personally run it because my build is refined for my style of play — but I can say that his is very straight forward and you’ll have a very easy-going time in general play.

As for acquiring gear, dungeons can be fine. I don’t want to get into karma as that’s worth researching on your own. When I was new to the game and needed gear I google’d farm spots and just bought a cheap MF set to farm charged and corrupted lodestones. Really bland but it got the job done within a reasonable amount of time. I’m sure someone will post a much friendlier method of going about your gear than I did, but this is what I did because I could do it alone.

I sent a ticket about this but when I went to check upon it, it said my account had nothing to do with a “support” account. Not only is this confusing but I’ve no idea whether or not it will be taken seriously and towards me.

That said, I will try again. After many hopeful hours, I finally got the 1 fractal skin I wanted. What a celebratory moment! But it was quickly dismantled by trying to salvage my rares and accidentally clicking the weapon I’ve spent arduously trying to get. One click; One irreplaceable achievement. Even basic rares, regardless of level, give you a prompt. For my case, I saw my one goal disappear into oblivion and the rng involved will result in me never seeing it again.

I’d like to say this is my fault, but prompt is already built into the game and there’s no way in hell I’d agree to it. I would like my skin back and I’d also like a fix to this for those who have suffered the same fate.

Connected will be a screenshot of me actually receiving the hammer and the 1 ecto I got by salvaging on mis-click.

There’s no real comparison to original ascended gear other than it’s protection against very severe and unique damage. I think I’ve read some weird theories about the mursaat dwelling within the fractals or that it’s their plane that they dip out to, but there’s nothing to back that up other than mursaat fanboyism. I’d just leave it alone and hope it doesn’t take a-net 5 years to comment on it.

It’s rewarding for me as a higher apm player, so it’s a nice change of pace from my main.

Gw2buildcraft — I know that’s probably not what you want to hear but you’ll just end up with different answers across the board, so you’re better off playing around with it yourself and getting the #s you want.

Creating huge costs like that will not be fun at all. Would be much simpler for a daily to have the chance to reward a “Fractal weapon token” instead of a random weapon.

Looks like a twisted charr to me. The weapon art and legs are just too similar. Can’t explain the 4 arms and other added features but we’ve all seen crazier things happen to the basic races.

I do find what kootz says in his second post to be true, to some extent. I’m just one of those who thinks going full soldiers like that does not mesh well at all with the guardian class.

With food buffs, my guardian sits at 13.5k hp (this is my sweet spot as I’m a shelter user) and 2.8k armor. However, I have these stats while retaining 49%crit and 92%dmg. I think the idea of building as beefy as possible to actually be a huge detriment to your group since you do no damage.

I do see a lot of “tank” guardians who try to fill the tank/support roll 100% with no complaints from their group though — But I think that just has more to do with groups just wanting a utility bot and not really caring. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think these guardians are coming even close to actual team effectiveness as they they think they are.

But hey, if it works for you and you enjoy the hell out of it that’s great

He can be rough when he has his sights on you during regular fighting and if he decides to pop on you during stealth it’s very likely you’ll be ooe. One little thing that can help though is to have your team not completely kill the adds as you can quickly dispose of them for insta rallies. gl.

I prefer it because I run pretty low hp and I can use it proactively to prevent huge spikes.

5mins is what you keep saying, which isn’t always the case. Since you want to bring time into this, a 5second conversation asking for kill/skip isn’t that big of a deal either.

Sure, most groups opt to kill them and most people show they have no preference, but I still ask because I don’t know what kind of time restraints the other 4 members in my group may have.

I love the engi too, but taking a step back due to tedium. It takes too much effort to be average because of having to juice every little bit from everything. Now, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to have this playstyle (and please no ele comparisons, eles are ridiculously easy to play in comparison), but the outcome of playing flawless is not a very positive one and I’m always left feeling underwhelmed. I’m sure others have the complete opposite outcome with the class, but I definitely don’t like knowing that I could be a ton more effective if I put my effort into any other class.

Be vocal and use a “carry” mindset. When you get yourself about 15-20AR, just join fotm 26/28 dailies for your progression as you’ll have better luck grouping with seasoned players.

The answer to the OPs question is actually very simple. High level fotm players know that thieves are actually very good, however, gw2lfg is a tool for pick-up groups and guardians are much more pug friendly.

It’s that simple.

I disagree on people wanting more condis from the flamethrower. We already have easy burns and SO many options for condis. I want the flamethrower to be another viable option for power builds. I’m already using it in one, the damage is just subpar and the auto is unreliable, but the potential in that regard is much better than being redundant with more burns.

As stated, weapons/skills are very situational. As for builds, standard AH builds are still the go-to and work well. I’ve personally taken a liking to 20/20 honor/virtues over the standard 30/10, though.

Fire is definitely a good choice. I wouldn’t say strength is good but I guess it depends on build. Force is often overlooked and much better than most think.

Kit Refinement

Juggernaut

Adrenal Implant

It’s simple, really. The majority of players are mechanically pathetic and give no kittens about optimizing gear/traits/skills/weps per what’s optimal for their team. A perfect example is me expecting a quick 22 run for my daily but being stuck on cliffside for nearly an hour because of idiots like the ranger in my group who is still using human racial abilities.

In the end, though — This is my fault for not seeking a guild better suited for such things.

DaedalusDragon.3754:

I run a hammer build. Right now I’m using Hammer/(anything else) in an AH build. I have full knight’s armor, 5 ranger runes and 1 emerald (?) orb, Valkyrie hammer with bloodlust, Ruby berserker earrings, solaria ascended ring, red ring of death, and the replicator amulet with emerald jewel and my magi’s spineguard of the valkyrie. Now looking at it it is really mixed but the stats are all there.

I run 0/15/30/20/5. I don’t even know anymore. I want to be survivable but I would rather not see all of my attack fly out the window for a small bit of survivability.

Your stats are fine, hell you’re more survivable than I am by a longshot. If you sacrifice damage for more tankiness you will not notice ANY difference in fotm. I would advise against 15radiance, though. It’s absolutely useless. The only trash that should give you overwhelming trouble is dredge and they’re…immune to blind.

Since you will eventually (or perhaps already know) what to expect from bosses, I find 0/15/30/20/5 to be a fantastic basic pve spec due to nice traits, stat layout, and of course blind spam hf

Polle.6908:

Thz.7569:

I keep hearing this and it’s getting increasingly annoying. 2MB is not the same damage as whirling wrath, open your eyes. Whirling wrath is a channeled ability and its damage ramps up — the damage isn’t even close.

On a single target, a well initiated whirling wrath will do a lot more damage than a Mighty Blow. However as you’ve already stated, Mighty blow isn’t a channel so the damage it inflicts is more reliable at a longer range. Couple that with the short cool down, the damage output between the 2 is closer than it first looks.

I’m not talking circumstance — Just stating that MB damage isn’t even close to WW. How consistent MB’s damage is isn’t what I’m getting at. I was just targeting those (and not just this thread) who keep saying 2MB=1WW when that is incredibly wrong. But to talk circumstance, using MB on cooldown is lowering the hammer’s main dps outlet and if you want to talk consistency don’t forget that a lot of hammer’s dps comes from a full duration symbol.

( the last bit isn’t directed at you, Polle:> )

I keep hearing this and it’s getting increasingly annoying. 2MB is not the same damage as whirling wrath, open your eyes. Whirling wrath is a channeled ability and its damage ramps up — the damage isn’t even close.

The greatsword wins in aoe and single dps. The issue with the hammer is that mighty blow’s CD is too short with the necessity to completely finish the hammer’s auto chain. Basically, when you mightyblow your light field, you will find yourself with mighty blow back up again around your 2nd hit. In order for mighty blow to maintain it’s dps with the GS, which is around 70-80% of actual whirling wrath damage considering it’s a channeled spell and damage ramps up, you’d have to use it on CD. However, not completing the auto chain greatly reduces the potential DPS of a hammer and severely inhibits anything comparable to a GS.

Now, I’m not against the hammer as I main it myself, but these flaws are extremely obvious and the pay off is zero.

What I’m hoping a-net does:

A.) Increase the cooldown of mighty blow and bump the damage accordingly since hammer users -have- to complete all 3 hits of #1
or
B.) Stabilize the casttimes on the auto chain in reflection of mighty blow’s short CD.

—I love the hammer and I use it way more than I should out of preference, but the way it’s setup is inferior and not at all optimal for just about any situation.

There are no staff builds; Using a staff is personal preference. You still go AH and most likely 2h mastery. It’s more about seeing what your team needs and using your set correctly.

Nayaru.4716:

OP didn’t specifiy PvP or PvE.. So I’ll go with PvE since that’s my strength. I’m a Hammer/Greatsword Guardian who sometimes switches either of them out for Sword/torch. If you want to do a short burst of decent AoE damage and then sit with auto attack for a while then you want greatsword, if you want constant AoE damage with some handy utility then you want Hammer. Greatswords are shinier and Whirling Wrath looks good and all but… I only use it to leaproy in, pull mobs in, spin to win for a a second then weapon swap immediatly. I’m aghast at the countless guardians I see who only use greatsword and never swap except to back off with a scepter -.-, the DPS on GS is only good while you’re using Whirling Wrath because “yay big numbers happened” otherwise, no, get a hammer and deal damage to everything near you the whole time you’re attacking with probably the handiest bind, the most powerful knockback and the most useful warding that guardians have access to.

The only time the hammer auto atk will out dps the GS is when traited for symbols and the enemy you’re attacking stays in it for the full duration — which even in pve is not always likely. Those utility spells you mention have very minimal use and any hammer user that isn’t constantly utilizing the auto attack chain is actually being a detriment to the group by putting out pathetic damage.

The staff is usable in arranged 5s when you have a reliable team to help you out and classes that benefit from all the might given. In basic play the staff is weak and offers next to nothing because the fact you are stuck with a terrible auto atk while waiting to swap back to a real set.

Issue is the utility granted from hammer 3-5 are also very slow and easy to miss. I’m sure tweaks will be made to it when the weapon updates come to at the very least bring the overall dps up a bit or make things a bit quicker so it feels more fluid because right now the GS excels not only in damage but has great utility to boot. Not to mention the GS is kitten easy to use. The only time you should ever consider using a hammer over the GS is because of the short CD blast finisher — if that wasn’t there it would be close to useless in comparison and just used for people who prefer the hammer aesthetic.

Edit: I’d also like to add the fact that to actually make use of the hammer you are pretty much forced to trait symbols while the GS is perfectly fine as is allowing you to go 2h mastery which easily boosts your damage and fire-and-forget utility as well.

*I’m not going to reply to anything but the OP

I love the idea and I read all of your points, but there’s this part of me that would still never grab it because I feel all that traited condition duration is absolutely worthless because of the way burn works. I know that’s kind of a dodgy point and perhaps irrelevant to conversation — but a fantastic trait like that would still not be worth the points imo.

Ryosukii.5472:

I understand that using dodge is very important, but there’s some situations where you’re not going to be able to dodge, so the question is, if you’re unable to dodge at the appropriate time, are you going to be 1 shot?

Not meaning at appropriate dodges on boss fights that are required, meaning any hard hit from any mobs.

That’s the beauty of being a guardian — If we are unable to dodge we’ll in most cases have another trick up our sleeve: shelter, elite, f2-3, etc. That aside, we’re able to constantly maintain vigor with crits and SY if you run it. I personally prefer an energy sigil on my offhand which comes in handy quite a bit.

It baffles me how people would opt to cry nerf over very situational utility spells instead of being kitten about fotm being largely projectile based. I think the logical things to do are to be happy about guardians while staying hopeful anet spices mechanics up with future fractal releases.

swiftpaw.6397:

I’m after a zerker build for Fotm 40+ if anyone’s got anything. Don’t want much vitality if it can be helped of course.

Just get the gear. 20 virtues can help a ton because it can make your f2 extremely strong — but really you just play the same cept have more dmg.

The issue is that it’s possible to get a crit dmg %age where armor tends to not relaly mitigate much. I think this is something you have to realize and change how you build/play. Fast reactions and proper spec will allow you to survive. Also like someone mentioned, lol at your elite. You’re probably just sub-par and don’t know how to properly react to burst. May even try running an energy sigil to give you triple dodge. That will allow you to freak out and gain some composure and extra health.

LITF.2576:

Well, so far it’s tricky, but possible. Most of time it’s about not rushing, using ranged weapon when needed, using heals and shouts. I don’t always go with same setup of utility skills. They are all situational.
Amins thanks for your link, that build looks pretty nice, but going full berserk armor sounds for me like PvE suicide It will not end well in high level fractals or in Arah. What is good for wvw is not always good for PvE.

Why would full zerks be bad for fotm? Agony damage is %age based. Good reflexes with the plethora of mitigation tools we have make us one of the most solid candidates for glass gear.

I’ve found 20virtues with 2water4altruism to be really nice for the boon duration and traversing—mobility is addictive.

Can’t ever go wrong with just slapping an energy sigil on there.

Hello, I vaguely remember reading a thread about this but I haven’t had any luck finding it again so I’ve just one quick question: Is the dmg on the major the same as the superior?

Besides lining up your combos, mesmer damage is extremely lacking. I think complaints are moreso just annoyances with fighting the class in general.

uh…swap to focus and immediately swap out. I’m not sure how you can just randomly get caught unless you’re blind.

Roidrage.1832:

whats the best class for pvp/pve?

Oh boy….Just make a warrior

Appreciate the help)

A pretty healthy combination of everything; I suppose a server that feels a lot more active. If I had to get to specifics though, instances and WvW would definitely be higher priorities.

Hello everyone. I’m currently on Sorrow’s Furnace as that’s where my friends were but they no longer play the game so I’m on the lookout on choosing a new home. I know there’s a lot of praise for Tarnished Coast but it’s full atm. Are there any other good alternatives out there?

Thanks.

My only pieces of advice are to get accustomed to much bigger skill rotations and bind your shatters to easy to reach keys.

As said by others, it’s just the way the class is. I think the biggest reasons a lot of people stray away from their mesmers is the obvious lack of aoe and my biggest gripe, which is all the downtime. By downtime I mean the time before illusions and CDs are back up as no matter which weapon I use the auto attacks feel worthless. The visuals and utility, however, are helping me stand by.

Jumper.9482:

While this change may have been a good idea, they should have finished (or…started, rather) to buff those weapon sets that were only used for out-of-combat movement or buffs.
I mean like Warrior, for example, why would I use Warhorn to give my team swiftness and then completely gimp myself the rest of the match by missing out on a stun or block from wielding a shield?
With this change in place, we can see things like Warhorns get buffed to be on-par with other sets without being abused by weapon swapping.
For example, maybe the new Warrior Warhorn could give AoE swiftness and vigour (duration increased by 50% or more) plus a skill to give aoe -% dmg from condi dmg or something idk.

Yet your example is completely nullified by the fact warhorn and traits associated can bring great utility to not just the warrior, but mitigation towards their team. I’m sure there could have been something else to bring up. The teams that utilize underused classes and builds will get on top with team play and spread utility because of these changes, while gimmick setups will proceed to stomp terrible teams (probably most these “pro” teams).

The ignorance about gw2 you show yet still calling yourself a pro player is hilarious. It’s even easy to add on you know nothing about competitive play in any game. QQ teams are already thinking of running double portal! Yeah, of course they are. It’s the easiest kittening cop out that raging kids can come out with on a whim. Wait until real teams put together actual team setups that make you look like the moron you are.