Guild Wars 2

mPascoal.4258:

thanks for that
but if i plan to main D/D or shortbow is that build a good build?

After some thought, I’d say Yes. For your opening Shadow Arts T1 Major trait, switch it to Shadow’s Embrace. The ultimate bane of my personal Venomous Aura build is condition damage. I’m not running any source of +Vitality, so the only bonus to Health comes from my Critical Strikes trait. If you don’t quickly remove conditions, they will eat you alive.

To deal with condition damage, I’ve got the following:

1) Sword #2 – Inefficient use of x5 Initiative to spam it twice in a row to remove x1 condition, but it’s great as an emergency resource.

2) Hide in Shadows – While it won’t stop unique condition dots from bosses or Confusion, this is my main source of condition removal.

3) Superior Runes of Lyssa – Although the 50 second cool down on the Elite proc means that it will only happen every other Basilisk Venom use, it’s another great source of condition removal.

From what you’re thinking about, using Shadow’s Embrace and Dagger #5 would fullfill the same function that I’m using Sword #2 for. All things considered, it should work out pretty well.

EDIT

Also in regards to your original question, my Thief spec is designed around giving debuffing conditions through all of my venom choices. (The 15pt Deadly Arts trait turns the Spider Venom into another great source of Weakness.) With the +10% from the Lyssa runes, I’m increasing the net duration of my debuffs by +40% and the Lyssa also gives me a great boost in the crit department. For the purposes of healing on crits, I care more about getting crits and not as much about how much damage the crits are actually doing. As if this isn’t good enough, the Lyssa proc with a venom spec’ed Basilisk Venom is really nice on multiple levels.

There are a lot of ways to make a semi-tanky Thief. My own build is a Venomous Aura AoE buffing spec that generates a bunch of free healing for everyone. When combined with the built-in evade of the Pistol Whip skill, various ways to heal when I crit, and using Knights gear, I’m pretty dang survivable. (Though I have an extreme fear of conditions in that build and have had to build in multiple ways to deal with them.)

If you’re curious to see more details, you can take a look at my linked build. Just be warned that it doesn’t play like a traditional Thief.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|c.1n.h15.a.1n.h15|5.1n.h19|1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i|1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.8g.67|u48c.a6.u19c.0.0|55.7|57.5t.5s.5b.5u|e

1) There are some known support specs that can help fullfill the “healer” role, though they all go about it in different ways. Rangers have their spirit spec, Warriors have their shout spec (with gear procs), Engineers have their elixer gun spec, Elementalists have their water spec, and even Thief has a some through their venomous aura spec. (I’m sure that there are more, but I can’t think of any right now.) Having said that, there is no such thing as a devoted healer spec. Though a water focused Elementalist using combo field procs would be the mostly like candidate for the title of “healer”.

2) While no one can survive being a full time “tank”, it is very possible to off-tank if you’re built right. These builds tend to focus on defensive effects to prevent incoming damage, using various skills that have a built in dodge mechanic, having access to various forms of self-healing, and stacking up lots of Toughness (which is a multplier that raises the effectiveness of the Armor value that you’re wearing). Your most typical tanky builds use either a Guardian or Warrior. However other classes can also do similar things. My own Thief is built to act as an off-tank as needed and can tie down Champion level trash mobs during large public events (though I’ll never kill them on my own).

(As a general FYI, people have discovered that having a high Toughness score does increase your inherent threat generation. Even when a mob aggro wipes, it is more likely to go after Toughness builds that are doing significant dps and debuffs. This is basically what my Thief does, which is why I end up having aggro from time to time.)

3) (Already answered)

4) From a dps perspective, it really matters if you’re talking about large Group Event grade dynamic events or if you’re talking about instanced dungeon content. The issue is that there is a damage dot cap of x25 stacks for Confusion and Bleed. At the same time, adding stacks to Poison and Burn only increase the total duration and the highest dps player source will always be pushed into the front of the damage duation. What this means in layman’s terms is that it really sucks to be a dot build when you have to compete with other players’ dot attempts. Currently dynamic event rewards are based on the net dps that you did in an event. Due to the dot mechanics, your average Necro dot build will probably only get Silver or Bronze rewards (instead of the usual Gold rewards that every other person will receive). I’d assume that a Confusion focused Mesmer might run into similar issues, though few other classes can produce Confusion effects as much as a Mesmer.

If you’re running a pure Power / Precision damage build, then you won’t have to compete with your fellow players when it comes to getting personal rewards. Though at the same time, the largest dynamic event bosses (aka dragons) count as objects that can’t be critically hit. Therefore Precision does have occassional situations where it’s not that useful.

Umm… The whole point of the Legendary process is to force you into +stats that you probably don’t want. Based on ArenaNet’s track record, the people who already transmuted their Legendary appearance onto an item with decent +stats won’t get their item upgraded whenever Ascended weapons eventually come out.

I feel for you, but this is how things are. While I didn’t play GW1, those vets have said numerous times that their old versions of Legendary weapons followed the same general rules. If you want an item that it forever viable, then you’re going to be forced into a specific gear spread. Otherwise you’ll be forced to constantly update your gear whenever new content comes out. It’s an intentional trade off.

My own Thief is rather tanky. I’m running a Venomous Aura spec (30/10/10/0/0), S/P, Knight gear, and food / sigils that heal me when I crit. Between the crit proc heals and the steady healing from Leeching Venoms, I can usually quasi-tank a Champion trash mob during an event like Jormag. The constant evades from Pistol Whip and the various sources of healing really do add to your survivability. Also being able to AoE share my x2 Basilisk Venom procs also helps to lower the incoming dps.

Trinkets that add to all +stats are very rare in PvE. The is the Triforged Pendant and the Karka Shell Ring. (The Karka ring is Unique, so you can only have x1. See the Mystic Forge page for the Triforged information, which under the sub-link of Other Items on that page.)

Beyond that, you’ve just got the Divinity armor runes. As a general rule, universal stat items aren’t very accessible in PvE.

The free caltrops from dodging got nerfed some, if you were using that trait. There was a universal nerf to Quickness, which reduced it from +100% speed to +50% speed. Then to deal with the PvP / WvW stealth builds, the Revealed debuff from attacking out of stealth was increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.

The Revealed nerf might be restored in the near future for PvE only, but no one knows for sure. Other than that, there were numerous tweaks made in the past months. I remember S/D players complaining about their spec getting hit at some point, but I can’t recall whether it was Combo #3 or some other issue.

Your “on next hit” or “on critical hit” sigils should work for all of your weapon skills. At least, that has always been my understanding.

If you have the Fire’s crit proc sigil on Weapon Set #1 and the Air’s crit proc sigil on Weapon Set #2, then that will work fine. However you can’t have both Fire and Air on Weapon Set #1 without one of them no longer working. But having said that, you can always double up on a proc % sigil.

For example, you could use x2 Superior Sigil of Fire on Weapon Set #1 to increase the net proc chance. Assuming a sigil that had a 30% proc rate, running x2 sigils together would come out to an adjusted proc rate of 51%. (For the math on how dimishing returns affects the 2nd sigil, see the Wiki entry for Sigil.)

penatbater.4710:

buy green high level weapons, combine in MF to get rares, then sell the rares :p

Interesting idea. Out of curiousity, does anyone know what the average karma cost is for an 80th green weapon or armor piece?

No. They both add +stat stacks, so only the 1st sigil with work and the other sigil will sit there doing nothing. You also can’t mix your +stat stacks together. Just pick one of the stack sigils that best fits you, then take another sigil of your choice.

The BLTC only offered them because they were forced to. Instead of getting an infinite supply of income through Ori picks, they were forced to match the publicly available technology of the Molten Alliance since the BLTC can no longer lie about such technology being impossible.

Starbird.4029:

S/P seems to be the top spec for leveling, with D/D being pretty popular too. I just really don’t want to be a melee thief :|

Ah… Then you pretty much don’t want to play a Thief. Our AoE ranged option of Shortbow is a decent back up weapon, but Pistol/Pistol is our weakest weapon set available and is in serious need of a rework.

I’d suggest that you take another look at a Pistol/Pistol build for Engineer. If you use P/P in some kind of condition / critical hit build and combine it with one of their weapon kit utility skills (like Grenades or Bombs), it should probably play closer to what you’re looking for. That kind of build can have almost permanent Quickness through a couple of Minor traits, which can lead to your having Vigor whenever you’re under Quickness (for just another Minor trait choice). This will let you still dodge around like a Thief and will let you ranged combat to your heart’s content. (My personal vote would be a Charr Engineer since they have exclusive access to the Dual Hidden Pistols toolbelt skill. This skill is the Thief’s P/P skill called Unload, just with a different name.)

If you’re dying constantly as a Thief, then you’re playing a combat style that’s not well suited to your personal tastes. My own Thief uses Sword/Pistol and it makes leveling remarkably easy. Between Pistol #5 spam while you Sword #1 everything down or through using Combo #3 when you’re against Champions / dredge, you’ve always got something up your sleeve. I personally like S/P because it is far more about holding a specific area of land than it is about dodging like a butterfly.

For reference, P/P is considered to be one of the weakest Thief weapon sets and it’s not something that you’d want to play through on your 1st Thief character.

I love Fergusson’s Crossing, but we are ranked at last place in WvW and we’re probably closer to a lighter server population. It’s a great place to go for the community, but we’re not a destination server for WvW guilds.

Darkwolf,

The lack of interesting armor graphics has been a constant complaint about the lower levels and it’s a very valid one. Up until around 30th or 40th level, there isn’t a lot of visual variety between your various looks. Yet with this in mind, you can get some vaguely interesting armor appearances from the karma vendor pieces and from completing portions of your Personal Story quest line. Now that you can Right Click to Preview gear pieces, you can see how they look on your character and this can help you do some customization.

In the mean time, a low level character is stuck in a boring place. I still do like some of the low level armor graphics and one of my Warriors still does use Copper armor for looks since I like how I can blend colors using the armor scales. However that’s more of the exception and not the rule.

One interesting armor option comes with Cultural armor pieces. These gear pieces cost pure in-game cash, which can be far too expensive for your 1st character as they are leveling up. However each race does have their own unique graphics for the x3 different Cultural item tiers and it is something to think about.

Beyond that, don’t be afraid to mix and match item pieces. You may like a set of armor, but loathe the shoulder pieces. A simple option of switching to a lower level shoulder piece is always available. Other people cherry pick armor pieces that they like and mix them together to create really interesting combinations. By the time that you’re running around the popular farming events at 80th level, you will see tons of variety.

While I’m starting to spread out my karma jugs onto my various alts, I currently have far more karma on my main character than I’d ever use. With this in mind, I’m trying to figure out ways that I can turn some karma into a bit of extra coin. To me knowledge, the options listed below are my only choices. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

1) You can buy the Orrian Jewelry Boxes. This will get you a bit of coin and possibly some other items.

2) You can buy x4 pieces of a specific armor slot / armor type. Then you can throw these Exotic gear pieces into the Mystic Forge for a new Exotic armor piece that you can actually sell or tear apart.

Is there anything else that I’m not thinking of?

Vayne.8563:

In Guild Wars 2, when ascended gear was introduced, a decent portion of the population actually walked away from Guild Wars 2. I don’t think Anet is willing to open this can of worms again.

That would pretty describe my situation. The introduction of gear progression, making it only available through grinding the new dungeon, and the general karka special event fiasco in Southsun Cove made me walk away from the game for about 3 months in complete disgust. It made me actually willing to try another SOE MMO, which is a statement.

The Laurell system has helped. Guild missions are also helping. Yet people at still more than a little jumpy on the Ascended subject and I shudder to think about what will happen when Ascended weapons and armor are introduced.

Since I personally run a S/P & SB Venom Share spec, here’s what I’ve been having a lot of fun with.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|a.1n.h15.a.1n.h15|5.1n.h19|1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i.1n.7i|1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.8g.67|u48c.a6.u19c.0.0|55.7|57.5t.5s.5b.5u|e

For soloing, remove Shadow’s Refuge and replace with Signet of Shadows. Also remove Basilisk Venom and replace with Thieves Guild.

As possible, slowly replace with Knight’s jewelry pieces with the Ascended equivalent. The advantage of the Ascended is that is favors Precision as the main +stat and not Toughness.

EDIT

This is a PvE build which can easily be tweaked for WvW.

Limited time means limited time in ArenaNet speak. They are being sold for a limited time. To date, I have NEVER heard of ArenaNet removing any piece of game content that was purchased in GW2 because its “limited time limit” expired. You bought a Consortium box? It’s still there till you use it. Did you get a weapon skin from the holiday themed Black Lion chests? Then that’s also still there. People will sit on these kinds of things for half of a year before they sell them. All of this is completely normal in MMOs.

If you can get a red post response, then more power to you. Otherwise you’ll keep this loop going forever.

Based on how all of the past “limited time” things have been run by ArenaNet, it’s only the Supply that is being limited. Once they cut things off, you will no longer be able to obtain these items. It might be only temporary (in the case of yearly holdiday events) or it might even be permanently removed.

1) If you buy a dye from the Gem Store or the BLTC, you shouldn’t have to worry about your existing unused dyes disappearing.

2) In fact, I expect a bunch of people to buy up all of the new dyes that are for sale. Then when it’s around 3-6 months from now, they’ll try to sell them for an inflated value because they’re now so much more scarce.

1) I love making alts in this game. Interestingly enough, I’ve felt compelled to make a 2nd character of every character class that I’ve played so far. When I’m playing Character #1, I always find myself wondering about a completely opposite character build for that class. This results in Character #2, who tries to ignore many of my 1st character’s choices and takes everything that I couldn’t fit the first time.

2) Farming for Ascended is on your own terms. You can Fractal grind, but you seem as frustrated as I am on that subject. Yet there are the Guild Bounty missions, which drop tokens towards Ascended ear slot gear. Also whenever you complete the Daily and Monthly achievements, you get Laurells that can be turned into Ascended gear.

3) Beyond that, you just have to figure out what makes you happy in this game. I’ll happily admit that I get tired of this game from time to time. It has always been my impression that this game was designed towards a more casual style that support playing part-time. When I need a break from GW2, I play another F2P MMO (Planetside 2) that lets me satisfy different parts of my personality. Just be warned that the game economy’s inflation won’t stop while you’re taking a break. If you come back a few months later (like I did), don’t be surprised if many things have doubled in their BLTC prices.

The main builds are Dagger/Dagger, Pistol/Dagger, Sword/Dagger, and Sword/Pistol. Of these four, only one is a non-stealth build. D/D and P/D can be condition focused. In fact, that’s the whole point of P/D. Then on the other end of things, S/P is purely physical damage.

1) Decide if you want to go into a stealth build. If so, then accept that you must use a Dagger in your off-hand slot.

2) A lot of people like the Acrobatics trait line. There’s something attractive in there for almost everyone. Also if you’re built around conditions and ranged combat, you’ll want to take at least 10 pts in the Trickery line for the Uncatchable trait (which drops Caltrops for free whenever you dodge).

3) Beyond that, it’s really up to you. Stealth builds will normally dip into the Shadow Arts trait line for some of the stealth traits. (Shadow’s Embrace is a great source of condition removal.)

4) If you want an odd build, the Venomous Aura trait from the Deadly Arts line is something to think about. To play it effectively, you’d have to devote 30 pts in Deadly Arts and 30 pts in Shadow Arts to get everything out of Venomous Aura. It’s certainly not your standard cliche about a stealthy assassin. Yet it’s a decent soloing build and remarkably strong when you can buff your fellow players.

5) Otherwise just experiment. There are so many different Thief builds that you have to find your own voice with the class. We can all give you advice, but only you will know when something feels like what you’re looking for.

(For reference, my own Thief is a S/P Venomous Aura build. At least on my server, we seem to be ultra rare since most people don’t become a Thief to be a group buffer. However I adore the build and we can bring things that no one else can.)

Holding still in PvP / WvW situations is a bit counter-intuitive, so your natural response makes sense. Beyond the parts listed, you can also switch up your skills for some more lock down opportunities. Devourer Venom can be useful. The same goes for Sword #2. I’ve even had some luck using Scorpion Wire in certain situations.

In the end, your goal is to simply make them fight on your terms and to not fight on their terms. Easier said than done, but mastering that should be your focus.

Articluna.4509:

You cannot dump them to forge – stands for all exo minipes. (Same thing with exo runes/sigils since you cannot gamble with them, only use in fixed recipies such as legendaries.)

Disappointing. Ah well. Thank you for the information. I’d rather find out now instead of finding out later.

On a related question, have people been throwing x4 of the Exotic mini pet from the Orrian Jewelry Boxes into the Forge? If you’re already burning karma on the boxes, I’d think that there might be a bit of money potential with the mini pets.

1) Lyssa is just you. Even if you’re some kind of AoE buffing spec (like my Thief who uses Lyssa and AoE spreads Basilisk Venom), it will still only help you. The Lyssa benefits trigger whenever you’ve finished casting your Elite. For a Warbanner, it will kick in instantly since it’s not a channeled attack.

2) The random boon from Lyssa is only for yourself. However the Banner’s AoE stability (which is an inherent function of the Banner skill) would still help everyone within range.

3) Yes, the Blast trigger from the Warbanner would cause an AoE heal. However as stated in #2, people would not get the Lyssa rune benefit (including yourself). The random boon proc only activates when you use a Skill #6 ability and it has a cool down timer (which would apply if you were an Engineer and constantly switched into their healing weapon kit).

4) I do agree that Banners have gotten the short end of the deal. With people running Shout powers and Superior Rune of the Soldier for AoE condition removal, it makes you wonder about the value of Banners. Yet I’m still seeing people run them for dps farming situations and for longer boss fights against mobs like the dragons, so the Banners still do have their place. It’s just not in the condition removal department.

5) As for the Mace question, I’m not sure.

Damion,

As a general FYI, the Thief is unofficially slated for a class overhaul. It might even end up being massive. There is no ETA on this process beyond general game dev comments, so it could happen anywhere from 1 to 6 months from now.

1) All forms of Stealth just got a nerf by increasing the cool down timer in between stealth periods by +1 second. This has severely messed up the flow of almost any stealth Thief, which covers the majority of Thief players. However a recent dev post on Reddit (which is where they do a lot of their posting) has indicated that this stealth nerf may be removed for the PvE side of combat.

2) Despite this comment by ArenaNet, tons of people are still whinning about stealth. In my personal opinion, I expect to see stealth get nerfed again within the next 3-6 months. If you’re only focusing on PvE and ArenaNet restores their recent nerf, then it’s likely that you’ll not feel the likely nerf in the near future. Yet if you’re planning on playing a lot of WvW and PvP, it’ll probably hit you hard.

3) ArenaNet devs have made comments that the burst dps potential of a Thief is too bursty. They want to nerf down some of the burst aspects of the class and want to buff up some of its long term damage potential. The only specific comment has been about giving Thief access to Burning, which is the only damage dot type that they currently lack. However that really doesn’t say a lot about what ArenaNet’s true plans are.

My main is a Thief and I love it. However I’m a non-traditional build that doesn’t stealth or do mega dps bursts. As a Sword/Pistol build that’s designed around using the Venomous Aura trait to AoE buff myself and those around me (including our Thieves Guild temporary pets), I’ve been able to dodge a lot of the Thief nerfs. Yet my specific build is odd by Thief standards since “it doesn’t play like a Thief”, which is sometimes thrown around like an insult.

Guardian is currently in more demand since people always expect Thief players to be running glass cannon dps specs. But having said that, both classes are very viable during the leveling process and at the level cap. Play whatever you like and make sure that you excell at your class. If you’re one of the better players, most non-idiots won’t care about your specific class when you’re bringing so much to the table.

In a nut shell, it depends on the healing output of your spec. For example, my Thief is a S/P Venomous Aura build that runs x2 Runes of Blood & Omnomberry Pie for healing on crits. Then I also have constant heals through my Leeching Venom trait. Based on this, I favor Toughness since my healing output makes it more attractive. The flaws of the build focus around my need for multiple forms of condition removal, which prompted my use of Lyssa runes and a condition removal proc on my ranged / underwater weapons. I basically run Knight gear or the Ascended version of that gear which favors Precision as the primary stat.

Your average Thief is going to want Vitality. On my own character, I took 10 pts in Critical Strikes for the minor trait to gain 5% of my Precision as Health. This took my 11k Health to 12k Health. Unless your build is specifically designed to deal with 11k Health, you really need to stack up on Vitality as a means of survival.

If you want a true tank in a game that’s designed to be a bit anti-tank, that would be the Guardian. They have the most potential to reduce incoming damage on a consistent basis, which they will then heal back.

Having said that, there are many classes which can temporarily off-tank in PvE. My Thief is designed to do this and I’ve survived temporarily holding aggro on Champion mobs in 80th PvE when I have all of my tricks available. You can’t survive a Champion for very long, but locking down Veteran mobs in some kind of off-tank spec isn’t that hard.

1) For specific Thief advice, I’d sugget that you start a new thread over in the Thief forums. Having said that, it’s also rather opinionated over there.

2) My own Thief is a Sword/Pistol and Shortbow build. I use the Venomous Aura end line trait to turn my Venom powers into AoE buffs for people who are close to me. Basically I’m a grouping oriented character that rarely stealths and I will even do a bit of off-tanking. (Well, as much as anyone can truly tank in some of these situations.) This character build lets me do everything that I want out of a MMO character, but it’s a poor representation of your typical Thief. That’s why I don’t want to preach about the Thief builds that I don’t personally enjoy.

3) Pick a race that you enjoy. It’s really that simple. Asura have a unique dodging animation. Charr will end up running on all four limbs. Those kinds of things are completely unique to the race and are all matters of personal taste. As a Thief, I haven’t seen any specific race that had racial skills that I considered vital to my build. You’ll already have enough trouble picking from the large pool of Thief skills, so just pick a race that feels fun.

4) As to what I like in general, I’ve been feeling the need to make multiple characters for a given class. My current character stable has x2 Warriors, x2 Engineers, and my primary character Thief. Once I’m ready to work on a 6th character, I’ll probably make a 2nd Thief. I guess that my point is that each class has so many different spec choices that it’s very understandable if you want to make a 2nd character to try out all of the neat things that you couldn’t fit into your 1st character.

5) There is no ETA or even vague announcement about the 1st GW2 expansion. Right now we’re in the middle of the Flame and Frost story series that seems to be updated about once a month. (See the GW2 Wiki for a nice source of information about what that all means.) I would personally assume that the Flame and Frost series is going to end up making some permanent changes to the world, which will likely be the subject of the 1st expansion. However we really don’t know. From what has been implied, the final “end boss” of an expansion will always be an Elder Dragon. We formally kill one of them in the original GW2, but we have no indication about which dragon will be the next target.

Minos.5168:

The issue here is that Ascended gear was never planned from the beginning.

We perfectly agree on that subject. Yet the Karka Shell ring was also Unique, so it’s not just the Ascended stuff. Though to my knowledge, all of this Unique stuff didn’t exist under that massive game update that released the karka and Fractal content. So with that in mind, it’s still pretty half-baked.

1) Mounts aren’t happening. It’s been said before and it will be said again. People debate why and assume it’s due to the PvP / WvW oriented speed caps. Or it could be due to the kinds of animation issues that caused player worn cloaks to be removed in the early stages of the game. Perhaps it’s just a personal style choice. Regardless of the reason, there won’t be mounts.

2) If you’re going Dagger/Dagger, then I’m assuming that you’re probably going Shortbow as your ranged weapon set. (Some people like to pair Pistol/Pistol with that melee spec, but SB is a better weapon in general and would likely blend better with D/D since it doesn’t require a lot of trait choices to be effective.) People using D/D tend to stack up on either Power/Precision for mega backstabs or they focus on Precision/Condition as they use bleed and poison to tear their opponent apart. Either way, a D/D build tends to have at least 10 pts in Acrobatics as a way of dropping free caltrops whenever the Thief dodges. Some also take the caltrops skill by itself.

There are multiple ways to play a D/D Thief. However I really don’t enjoy that character style, so I’m not the person should you talk to about characters builds for that weapon combination.

As a general rule, a low level Thief isn’t going to worry about defensive stats until you start to reach dual stat gear. Once you’re in your 20’s, you might find it more valuable to use Power/Vitality gear instead of Power/Precision or Precision/Condition. Then as far as the offensive stats go, it really depends on your weapon choices and your specific utility skills / trait spec.

This subject always comes up and my response is always the same. ArenaNet has intentionally trained their player base to not look for the Unique tag since it only appears on a small number of lvl 80 items. If ArenaNet actually wanted to teach people about game mechanics like this, then they would have introduced some Unique items in the lower level areas of the game. Most people will mess themselves up when they initially encounter Unique items. It would have been far kinder to have people learn things the hard way when they’re lower level and still rapidly leveling, which would help to negate much of the impact of their mistake and it would still provide a valuable learning experience.

Kaleban,

1) That’s a loaded question. The specs of these classes just play so different. For the purposes of cliche answers, I’m going to assume that you’re playing some kind of stealth dependent dps spiking Thief and some kind of elixer grenade AoE dps Engineer. (Those are some of the most currently popular specs, though they are just a sample of these classes.)

If you asked people at this very moment, it would be Thief. Engineers have a poor reputation, which really isn’t very fair to them. The concept of the “boom head shot” stealth Thief is still alive and well. Your grenade Engineer would put out very respectable damage, but the obsession with Thief and stealth is still at the front of people’s minds.

Having said that, stealth just got hit with the nerf bat. Based on many people still whinning, I’m guessing that it will be nerfed again within the next 3-6 months. At the same time, ArenaNet has basically said that the cliche burst Thief is just too bursty. In theory, this will likely mean that Thief will lose burst potential for an increased dps output over longer periods of time.

Your question is sadly ironic because you’ve picked two classes which I consider to be in a state of flux. There are far too many Engineers who feel like they are playing an unfinished class and feel that ArenaNet doesn’t know what they’re exactly doing with the future of the Engineer. At the same time, it seems that the current incarnation of the Thief is likely going to see some serious overhaul within the next 3-6 months. No matter which class you choose right now, it will probably look noticeably different in the coming future.

2) Right now, I’d say the assassinating stealth Thief. Yet as I just covered in Question #1, this answer may seriously change in the coming months.

3) Most of your average Thief builds will run a dagger in your off-hand slot for the stealth spamming. Beyond that, you’re got the face tanking sword/pistol build and the sub-par pistol/pistol build. While my own Thief uses s/p and runs the AoE buffing Venomous Aura spec for PvE, I’m the exception to the rule and my build is considered to be a bit moronic by a stealth Thief since my build “doesn’t play like a Thief”. There are a lot of different ways to build your stealth spammer, but they all come down to spamming stealth (which seems to be a primary nerf target by ArenaNet).

Engineer specs have a lot more variety. Between their various skill kit weapons, you can easily devote yourself to a single kit weapon or you can run a couple of them at the same time. I run x2 Engineers and both of them play noticably different. Having said this, their turret spec line is still considered to be sub-par by a lot of Engineers since only the turrets’ dps output was increased and nothing has been done for the turret being able to survive a battle. Right now, Engineer has a lot of options. Yet you can also debate over just how functional or valuable these various specs are.

4) Fun is a subjective thing. I’ve currently got x2 Warriors, x2 Engineers, and my Thief primary character. When I do make a 6th character, I do intend to make a 2nd Thief. With that in mind, I’d say that there is easily enough variety in both Thief and Engineer to make multiple characters for each class. That’s pretty fun by itself. But having said that, it would have to be my Thief because my total spec lets me do everything that I love in a MMO class. I can fight in melee with relative safety, I’m hard to put down, I’m a debuffing machine (which is a pathological need in me), I’m a player buffing machine (thanks to Venomous Aura), my dps output is respectable, I can easily solo, and I can provide abilities that are very rarely seen in the game (since far too few people run Venomous Aura and Basilisk Venom).

To be completely honest, you need to figure out what kind of playstyle would be the most satisfying to you. Do you want to AoE heal, AoE buff, debuff, single target dps, AoE dps, fight in ranged combat, or fight in melee combat? Once you’ve picked out the qualities that you consider to be the most important, look through the skills and traits of each class to see if you can find a spec that meets your needs. Then try to take a glance through the forums to verify if that spec is relatively viable.

EDIT

WTH! I just took this long to respond to a necro post? Grr…

From what I’ve heard on these boards, an extremely well gear group of around x6 people who know the fights and have group coordination should be able to take down many of the Guild Bounty targets. With that in mind, I’m really doubting that x2 people could do it. However you could always ask people in zone chat in your target zone (or Lion’s Arch) for assistance.

One of the guilds on my FC server actually has a PUG rank for these events. The member ranking is simply called Guild Bounty and has pretty much no permission settings. This guild will invite PUG players to their guild, have them temporarily Represent with the hosting guild (in order to give the PUG player the Guild tokens), and the PUG members can switch back to their standard guild after the PUG event is over. (Every so often, the hosting guild will purge off their PUG members if they’re tight on membership space. However the membership upgrades are extremely cheap and asking for a one time membership donation of the 50 silver from the bonus Guild token chest really isn’t unheard of. But then again, you can also just re-invite them back to their old PUG rank at a later date when they join you again.)

No, the two of you can’t realistically solo these mobs. But if you offer to take along some PUG members, you should do fine. It will help yourselves out and it will also benefit your server.

Last I checked, the damaging portion of Leeching Venoms was the only thing that changed. It used to be a flat damage value until it was changed to be based off of +Power. Now you need to invest in +Power for the dps output of the LV proc and you’d still need to invest in +Healing for the healing output of the LV proc.

Mays.5839:

Thanks a lot! So I just put 10 on Arms, get the Deep Strike trait, then put the other 5 into Discipline and spend the next 6 on it while I wait for level 40 so I can put the other 10 on it?

Do I go for condition damage on the weapons?

Double edit: 11 blades doesn’t really do much with the deep strike trait? does the same as before..

Your net goal in the big scheme of things would look something like…

Strength 20 – Berserker’s Power & Slashing Power
Arms 20 – Deep Strike & Forceful Greatsword
Discipline 20 – Signet Mastery & Heightened Focus
(Insert the last x10 Trait points where ever you want.)

My personal priority order for the Traits: Deep Strike, Signet Mastery, Forceful Greatsword, Berserker’s Power, Slashing Power, Heightened Focus, & (insert). (If you find that your Crit Chance is dropping off too quickly, you can move Heightened Focus to somewhere earlier in the listed order.)

This is the top dps build for a Warrior. If you really wanted to do spike melee dps, I’d use the Greatsword (which is what the spec is designed for) and Axe/(Off-hand). Basically you’d want the Axe’s F1 ability for single target spikes and the Greatsword for 100 Blades.

In your 20’s, a devoted Deep Strike spec will give you 100% Critical Chance. That means that you have a guaranteed +50% Crit Damage that is being added onto every hit. This crit bonus will also slowly increase as your invest Trait points into the Discipline line. As a low level Warrior, this is the highest possible damage spec in the entire game (assuming that you keep your Crit Chance near 100% and that you stock up on as much +Power & +Crit Damage as possible). Enemies explode into clouds of bloody mist as you slaughter your way through groups of mobs using your frontal arc range of 100 Blades. If this isn’t enough dps for you, then there are absolutely no other options for you as a purely dps Warrior. (All of this is based on the assumption that you’re using all Signet powers to activate the +Precision bonus from Deep Strike and that you aren’t constantly activating your signets.)

No, +Condition is completely worthless for the cliche Greatsword build that I’ve been talking about. You’ll get some of the stat for free due to your Trait spec, but it’s a worthless stat for a non-condition Greatsword build.

As another poster tried to point out, this is a soloing build. It is really only viable until around lvl 60. By that point, the unbalanced amounted of +Precision from Deep Strike is well within the standard +stat range for a 60th character. At that point, you’d need to revise aspects of your build. However up until 60th, this is the easiest (if somewhat boring) build that a Warrior can have. Your high armor and health pool values will be more than enough to sustain you during the short time that mobs are alive. Yet you will run into problems against any mob that you can’t immediately burst down, which is why I suggested using a ranged weapon to help you kite a veteran mob in between your 100 Blade cool downs.

munkiman.3068:

Hmm, i must have not gone down when i used oils. I never really noticed that they dropped. I know food doesn’t for sure, what about stones?

Stones and Oils will drop. They’re like the +stat stacks that are generated from the weapon sigils that give up to x25 stacks of buffs after you kill things. The moment that you get downed for even a second, your “on killing hit” sigil buffs and your temporary stone / oil buffs fall away.

That’s not to say that the buffs still aren’t nice. They certainly are useful. However I do consider them somewhat unreliable and I don’t like to depend on them when I’m doing fights against powerful champion mobs and other zones bosses. You often find yourself getting knocked down and getting back up again in a continual dance during those fights. In those moments, stones and oils don’t have a lot of value to me.

People try to sell and trade through the Mail system. Eventually someone gets ripped off and cries to ArenaNet to save the day. Based on what I’ve seen on the forums, ArenaNet might try to help you out the 1st time. However you will be lectured about how avoiding the BLTC to sell / buy is essentially a form of personal gambling and how it’s not ArenaNet’s fault that you were being dumb. (ArenaNet’s actual posts put the situation in far kinder terms, but essentially give this message.)

No, I don’t know of a site that arranges 3rd party trades. However based on the limited amount of horror stories that I’ve already heard, I would have to be a moron to risk a fortune on a potential scam. The BLTC might cost more, but it is safe from scams. When that much in-game money is on the line, I prefer to play the safe bets instead of losing everything.

1) As of lvl 21, you should be able to find Blue grade armor on the BLTC that is Power / Precision. Gear yourself in dual stat armor that is appropriate for your current level.

2) Make sure that you’re using lvl 20 or lvl 25 jewelry. Since the Carnellian (Power / Precision) jewelry is only available at 30th, I’d suggest that you equip a full set of Amethyst Silver pieces (Power / Vitaility) since they’re usuable at lvl 25.

3) Make sure that you’re using Power / Precision weapons that are level appropriate.

4) See your Warrior trainer. Choose to respec your Trait choices. Put x10 points into Arms for the Deep Strike trait. Then put the rest of your points into Discipline for eventually getting the Signet Mastery trait at 30th.

5) Equip the Healing Signet in skill slot #6 (for constant healing). Then equip the Signet of Stamina (for extra dodging & condition removal) and x2 other Signets of your choice. My personal recommendations would be the Dolyak Signet (for the times when you need to ignore enemy control effects) and the Signet of Fury (for extra +Precision and instant Adrenaline as needed). Though if you’re already at 100% Critical Chance rate by this point, then I’d remove the Signet of Fury and replace it with the Signet of Might (for just the passive +Power).

6) When you hit 30th, take the Signet of Rage as your Elite. Don’t be afraid to activate this as often as needed for the nice list of buffs that you skill from the signet. Getting the buffs is more important than using this signet for the Deep Strikes trait.

7) Greatsword -> 100 Blades -> Profit? With the Deep Strike trait, you’ll be brokenly powerful for your level. This build will finally become sane again by 60th level. By that point, you should have a good enough grasp of GW2 to be able with becoming a mortal again. Deep Strike gives your +Precision for ever signet that isn’t on a cool down timer. Basically you only activate your signets when you need one of their special abilities. Otherwise just think of them as permanent offensive buffs in their passive state.

8) You really need a ranged weapon. While most people would suggest Rifle for a Deep Strike build, also take a look at the Longbow. That weapon basically functions closer to a modern day shotgun than true ranged weapon. Longbow #2 is designed to be used when you’ve got mobs right next to you. It also have some nice control effects and a potentially useful F1 fire field (which you can use to trigger AoE Might through Longbow #3). To be honest, the single target Rifle would still likely be better for you. However the AoE potential of the Longbow does make it worth trying out.

In theory, the chest drops from the open world dragon bosses have the highest drop rates. Since the Fractals have come out, the highest difficulty settings for Fractals might have a slightly better drop rate. However all of the “good” drop rate situations equate to a “cold day in Hell” type of scenerio. No matter how much you try to stack the deck in your favor, getting a precursor to drop is like winning the lottery. It’s that rare and that special.

ghettogenius.9174:

Out of curiosity, what potion recipes would you make at lvl 80? I dont see many useful recipes, and the ones that do seem useful require lodestones and bloods, etc. Doesn’t seem worth it to me.

My friend makes things like potions against undead. Orr is just a fight undead fest and those potions make you take less damage from pretty much everything in the zone while also dealing out more damage.

At times, he’ll make other specific potions if he knows that he’s going to an open world zone or instance and there is supposed to be a ton of a certain creature type present.

On a side note, Oils and other temporary buffs are also nice. However they are a bit costly to make and they disappear when you get downed. They’re situationally nice for the situations where you aren’t going to fall down, but it’s so easy to lose those buffs when things get a bit crazy. I’ve always found the idea of buffs that tend to disappear when you need them the most to be rather counter-productive.

Goloith.6349:

Compared to almost every class I’ve played, I feel like Im getting face rolled leveling up in PvE. Is this normal?

If you want to play some kind of dancing finesse build, then the early levels are painful. Yet if you want to face tank with a relatively easy build, just go with the cliche combination of S/P.

Use Sword #2 or Steal to teleport into melee. Hit Pistol #5 to create an AoE Blind cloud around you that constantly re-applies Blind. Let Sword #3 swing through a full auto attack sequence. Then hit Pistol #5 again. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Against anything other than Champion mobs, dredge, or a mob with a non-targeting AoE (like the male bandits in Queensdale), you’re pretty much a god.

Crafting is good for free +xp, making the neccessary items towards a Legendary weapon, and it’s good for making consumable items.

All things considered, you could just buying gear from the BLTC instead of making it yourself and you could skip the Legendary weapons. If that’s your point of view, then I would suggest going into Artificer for their potion buff consumables and Cook for their food buff consumables. Though both of these buffs occupy the same buffing slot (so you can only use one at a time), you’ll have a lot of self-buffing options and you can change things around whenever you want.

That’s a lot of factors and the answers will be very subjective to many of those questions. However your questions are basically asking about what class you should use to learn about GW2. My personal answer woud be Warrior. You’ve got a high Health pool and Heavy Armor, so the class is very forgiving in the low to mid levels as you’re making beginner’s mistakes. Grab the health regeneration signet as your heal, take the dodging / condition removal signet for utility, and then whatever powers sound like they fit your playstyle.

To be completely honest, I eventually dropped my Warrior. I used it during Beta and during the 1st month of the game’s release as I took my time to learn and explore, but the class ended up boring me. Yet my experience with a Warrior was extremely helpful. It made the process of learning Thief and Engineer so much easier since I already understood things like aggro ranges on mobs and where/when to use dodging.

As a 100 Blades Warrior, you should know that there was a universal nerf to Quickness. It now only provides +50% attack speed and not the original +100% attack speed. The Warrior’s specific Quickness skill had its duration slightly increased, but the damage penalty that the user suffers was not changed. This means that for PvP / WvW, a 100 Blades spec lost a large part of its burst potential and is still just as easy to kill. Or it might be even easier to kill you since people will survive your burst and will be able to hit you back.

Banners had their +stat benefits almost doubled, but that really doesn’t change much. Kick had its melee reach slightly increased, but this also doesn’t help. Beyond that, Warriors haven’t received any major nerfs or buffs that I can think of in recent memory.

Right now, PvP Warriors are considered a joke. They aren’t that popular for WvW. People will still use them for PvE, but that’s really their only focus.

Once again, it depends on your healing output. For example, my Thief in Knight’s gear (Power/Precision/Toughness) does absolutely fine in Orr thanks to my constant sources of healing through my venom procs and my “heal of crit” procs. While I do need to run a bit of condition removal, it’s really not a big deal once you’re in Exotic gear. (You can even do it in Masterwork armor, but it requires a lot more conservative gameplay.)

As an Engineer, you should have easy access to your Cleaning Formula 409 trait that wipes off conditions whenever you drink or throw an elixer skill. This should really give you more than enough condition removal if your dps output is respectable and you keep at least x2 elixer powers slotted. My own elixer Engineer uses my Healing slot as one of my two elixer sources, but any slot will really do.

Yet if you’re not willing to run a couple of elixers and Cleaning Formula 409, then your dedicated flamethrower build will have issues with condition removal. In that situation, Toughness is kind of danger for you to use since you aren’t wiping off conditions and you aren’t healing yourself. At least Vitality gives you the ability to soak damage from either source.

There’s a running thread for each of the popular temples in the Dynamic Events forum. I’d suggest that you keep on eye on the Lyssa thread and Guest over to any server that has recently cleared the temple.

At the moment, not really. Having said this, I haven’t seen the +1 second increase to the Revealed debuff calming people down about stealth. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think that we’ve seen the last of the stealth nerfs. It may not happen any time soon, but it is coming.

If you’re planning on playing a Thief that is focused around going into and out of stealth, then I expect that you will get nerfed at some point in the coming months. Beyond that, it’s really hard to say since there are no other aspects of the Thief class that people are complaining about.