Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing for some time now, but I’ve never managed to get my head round why classes have different base health pools?

Take for example..

On my Ele I can get the same stats and output roughly the same damage as my Necromancer. Though, my Necro has much, much more health.

Can anyone please explain why there is a difference in health pools?

I’ve mained a Warrior for a while and recently moved on to playing Mesmer and Guardian a lot. I’ve been playing a relatively tanky build on my Guardian and only recently decided to try get some DPS going. When I traited full zerk I was shocked to see that I only had around 10,000 health. My Warrior has the same stats, does better damage (and more efficiently) and still has around 20,000 health.

Why on earth?..

The hammer nerf is REALLY disappointing.

As of right now, Greatsword is superior to Hammer in PvE. I still choose to use Hammer as I love the animations. After the patch the difference between Hammer and Greatsword is going to be so great that it would be extremely inefficient to use Hammer over the other.

I can admit that the Hammer was extremely powerful in PvP and it should be altered, but removing damage isn’t the way to go. It should have some stun/KD/KB (whatever) removed. Or add an ICD to them. Lowering the damage of a weapon that is already relatively low compared to the others is baffling.

To those who were complaining.. where you complaining about being chain stunned or the damage dealt?

Sure the damage was high, but if you ignore the stuns, then any other weapon in the Warriors kitten nal can do that damage and more. It’s the CC effects that were the issue, not the damage it dealt.

Sigh.

I really, really dislike GS.. but I’m practically going to be forced to use it if I want to kill efficiently after patch.

I don’t care what we get.. I just want utilities that can be used in PvE that aren’t passive or banners.

Right now, basically the only two utilities that I actually activate are FGJ and Frenzy really.

I’d kill for banners to be placed on back, but I doubt that’s going to happen.

Signets are boring.
Shouts are meh, FGJ is decent.
Banners are only decent for dungeons, hate hauling them around.
Stances are PvP
Physical are PvP

Mace offhand in PvE is great. Constant vulnerability stacking and the AoE knockdown is a nice bonus.

Agony.3542:

Straegen.2938:

Zach.3264:

Axe/Axe is better for leveling, and Axe/Mace is better than GS in my opinion (at end game).

GS gives faster travel which is why it stayed equipped on my warrior during the leveling process.

And that is exactly why I do not recommend Axe as a secondary weapon set but Sword, the mobility you get is just crazy. Axe offhand sucks, period. Even facing 5 enemies you will still deal less damage with axe 5 compared to axe autoattacks. Warhorn helps you to maintain permanent swiftness, FGJ! and SoR will provide permanent Fury once you have reduced Signet CD.
Mobs won’t stand a chance to a warrior using 100b, the cooldown is extremely low and you can pull up to 3 enemies together if you really need it (which you wont).

Depends. If you’re surrounded then Axe kittens more targets than 1. Axe 5 is also great for tagging in group events.
I use Axe/Mace + Sword/Wh at endgame. Axe/Mace is far better than GS in my opinion. The traits seem to flow far better. GS feels too clunky.

Diamond skin will be OP unless they change it somehow.
Condi builds are going to be practically useless against you. Little direct damage to drop you below 90% health and their conditions do nothing at 90%+

Really needs some sort of debuff.

Axe/Axe is better for leveling, and Axe/Mace is better than GS in my opinion (at end game).
Axe auto-attack does really high damage and allows you to be on the move while doing so.
You also get 2 sigil slots as GS you only get 1.

Warriors are really tanky, just take +damage traits, gear, food, sigils, runes etc

I mained a Warrior, and I can admit they aren’t on par with some of the other classes.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying they were overpowered, I feel that the other classes should be brought to the same level. I think the main cause of problems in Gw2 is the difference in health pools. There should be a minimal gap, if none at all in my opinion.
I can get the same stats on my Mesmer/Ele, but Ele has far less health and I feel they are both completely viable in terms of what I want them to do with said stats. Why there is such a difference in health I do not know.

That being said, I’ve shelved my Warrior at the moment as I’m getting no enjoyment from it. I think that’s down to it being really easy, and the whole melee chop chop chop gets boring after a bit.

Nerfing isn’t the way forward, but it’s probably going to happen as it’s the easier option.

godz raiden.2631:

Viking Jorun.5413:

I think this is quite laughable, considering it’s more telegraphed than the warrior’s Earthshaker and one interrupt puts it on a large cooldown. You’re an engineer. You have more spamable interrupts than thief, so learn to use them.

And let’s not forget, even if he doesn’t interrupt the stealth and the heal, stealth doesn’t prevent any incoming damage or anything. Just because us thieves are invisible doesn’t mean we can’t be damaged. Bomb kit and point blank grenades will keep a stealthed thief off an engineer.

I hate this argument. If it’s 1v1, chances are they are going to miss the Thieve more often than not, unless immobilized/stunned. Also, what use is damage when you can stack stealth, have great healing and condi removal and have a get out of jail free card?

You’re not going to get an honest post in the Thieves forum. They think their class is broke.

Go WvW and all you find is broken roamer Thieves hitting terrible 8k backstabs on 3k armour. If not, terrible condition stacking and terrible constant stealth and terrible healing/condi removal in stealth.

Sigh.

Runes of Speed are decent aswell. 2 of their bonuses are Swiftness related, but you get a nice 1.5k+ hp from them. Works well if you are low-ish on Vitality.

Just try different things, you’ll get bored really fast if you get told to do this and that. Try the weapons, see what you like. When you’ve found what you like, try to build around that.
You’re obviously not going to choose condition gear with a power weapon.

If you really must know..

• Full power armour, weapons, runes (buy 10 power ones for each slot), food
• Dagger/X (I used Dagger/Dagger for condition removal)
• Wells
• Try to focus on purely damage traits and well cooldown, though they don’t come to later.

Use those, and you’ll fly through levels.

The new changes seem absolutely amazing.

Personally, I love playing my full tank Warrior in PvP as I can hold a node by myself extremely well. Though, since I’m not really able to kill anyone, and I’m not capping any nodes I often finish at bottom of match.

There’s a few changes that I’m really looking forward to, I just hope to god they will be as exciting as they sound.

It’s probably already been said. Though, I think adding a debuff to the trait would be the way to go (if not completely rework it). I was thinking along the lines of “Take X% more direct damage while health is above 90%”

alanis.6094:

2800 power and 2000 cond damage? Seems implausible.

Sorry, I meant Attack. Anything to add about sigils? ;3

Hello fellow Necromancers!

I’ve recently just got back on my Necromancer after shelving it for a while.
I played Condi Necro for a lot a while back and got stressed out far too often due to not being able to escape enemies in WvW. I finally decided to remove Signet of Spite, Epidemic and Corrupt Boon from my bar and add Signet of Locust, Wurm and Spectral Walk. I have found a new love for the class.

My question to you now is.. what Sigils should I be using on my S/D?

I’m currently around 2,000 Condition damage, 1.3k toughness (I know it’s a little low), 1.5k power, 35% crit chance, 23.3k health and 70% condition duration (with food).
I’m using Superior sigil of Earth on my Scepter and Superior Sigil of Bursting on my Dagger at the moment.
Are there any better options?

I’ve always thought the Superior Sigil of Earth to be fairly decent but found the Superior Sigil of Bursting to be a little underwhelming recently due to the way conditions are shown (not sure if they’ve actually changed other than appearance).

I was thinking maybe tormenting sigil?
Or should I just play safe and have a Corruption sigil, as swapping weapons to gain stacks can be a pain

.#2 and #3 are great.
.#1 is pretty garbage though. On paper, it’s great for clone generation.. but, the cast is extremely slow and so is the projectile. It also has no special effects tied to it other than summoning clones.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Slow cast time provides the possibility of counter play in pvp. In pve it is not an issue, just start casting a second earlier than you have been.

Er..

Casting a second earlier doesn’t remove the fact it’s still a second cast.

I mained a Warrior when I first started, I could click a target, press 1 (with auto on) and then I could swap to another screen and I’d have absolutely no worries about killing said enemy.

I started playing a Mesmer a while ago and compared to Warrior, they are far more difficult to level. Their decent traits don’t come to later on, and along with Ele, they are both very squishy.
I leveled mostly with GS and Sword/Focus. GS is great due to the relatively low cooldowns and a nice damage spike while engaging from a distance. The #3 skill also applies nice stacks of might every fight which helps a lot.
I also started to use the Mantra of Pain later on and it helped a great deal aswell. Mobs are spaced out enough in PvE for you to activate it after every pack.

That being said, with most mobs on Gw2 you are able to kite them simply by running round in circles. If you get into the habbit of that, you’ll find yourself killing enemies with little problems, providing they aren’t ranged and heavy condition dealers (those don’t come to later anyway).

If you’re going to be in a prolonged fight i.e. a Elite/Champion/Legendary then I wold advise using the staff. #3 on Staff does great damage.

Go full power gear for leveling, it’s easiest.
Mesmer is great for the challenge though, I get really bored of my Warrior often due to it being so easy. Mesmer I actually have to use evades, heals and utilities to be effective.

Also, about AoE damage.
There’s a great Condition Build at 80 that makes your Glamour skills blind enemies in their AoE, when blinded you apply Confusion to them. Glamour also applies Confusion to anyone entering and exiting their areas.
If you use this build on a large zerg in WvW you see absolutely huge stacks/amounts of Confusion splats appearing everywhere. It’s very satisfying.

Just know.. Mesmers are very sought after in groups as they have – in my opinion – the best utilities and elite there is to offer.

I’m blabbing on a bit too much now, so I’ll let you get on with it.
Good luck with the Mesmer!

Bhawb.7408:

Zach.3264:

What utility is that under “W” on your bar? o.O

Necrotic Traversal, the Flesh Wurm active.

Ah, knew it seen it somewhere before but I couldn’t find it.

Cheers.

Bogey.5423:

Next time you could take screenshot of combat log, that would show actual numbers. I tested my Life Blast (screenshot) and hit around 3k (critical) with 3,728 attack. Potentially I can gain more might with Reaper’s Might. Practically top hit is around 4.5k to squishier target, this was probably tank in medium armor since damage was really low.

What utility is that under “W” on your bar? o.O

It was implemented by the Illuminati to increase forum activity.

And this thread was created back when it was like 10 silver for 100 gems.. facepalm
It’s like 20g for 1 revive orb nowadays, pretty hilarious.

Sorry, but I am by no means an elitist or consider myself an amazing player.. but Necro is an absolutely amazing class for 1v1. The rate it can apply conditions on enemies is insane. My Necro is kitted in full exotics, so I am by no means maxed, and I rarely have any problems 1v1. I usually win or lose by a small margin, the only time I face issues is if a heavy power build gets the drop on me with a large crit.
Other than that, you shouldn’t be struggling to 1v1.

I’d love unlimited uses but I doubt it’ll happen. Like others have said, they make too much cash off gem store for them to make any changes like that.

Well, I’ve had my fair share of both bad and good luck.

A friend of mine threw 100 rare staffs into forge and got 2 precursors. I decided to spend my last 9g on shields and managed to get “The Chosen” on my very last gamble, which sold for around 260g over night.

Though, since then I’ve spent around 400g on forge and had nothing notable. I’ve also opened between 1400-1450 champion bags (not exaggerated, I’ve been opening them in large quantity’s) and only had 2 exotics, both under 3g each. I also only average 2 exotic drops/month with 120% MF.

So, I’ve gone from good to pretty horrible luck.

notabot.3497:

Wait, I was under the impression that legendaries are soulbound. Is this not the case?

Either way ranged combat is kinda crappy for mesmers in dungeons. Sword with offhand swaps (focus, pistol, sword) is the preferred, and dungeon groups hate mesmers that camp a GS or staff, and honestly don’t like either on the rotation (because your dps or build is bad as a result).

All weapons/armour can be transferred to alts as long as they are not race/class specific.
White armour is account bound, you can use those to transfer them to and from characters.

korelg.7862:

man I waited sooooo long for this, since the 1st time I saw the human light armor I wanted it and now finally my Norn mesmer can wear it…

also, look at those abs!! kitten! it looks way better on a Norn than a Human

Ew.

Nice, but that Warrior with the GS made me laugh a few times. Running around spamming 1 all the time, also the low detail/low character quality setting only added to the comical value of him swiping at thin air with the pommel of the GS.

Ignore, I was using wrong gear :>

Cards would be cool, but ye.. they would be difficult to make different skins for.
Fans, sure.

I’m thinking maybe mainhand books?
Though, the ideas I have in mind are really close to Guardian.

A 2 handed book that summons different illusion weapons to attack enemies/buff allies whatever you want.

And you can use that without CD several times in a row.. smh

You do realise you’re talking to everyone except thieves, in the thieves section of the forum?

Feedback
Decoy
Blink

Medic’s feedback is also my favourite trait. Though, 10 seconds does seem awfully low. Knowing Anet, it’s probably a mistake and they’ll bump it up to 60/90 sooner or later.

Mantra’s just aren’t worth the effort of using in my opinion. Sure the damage one was great while leveling as I had time between groups of mobs to cast it again. Though, when you’re fighting groups in WvW or solo, it’s 2 seconds~ you’re left getting beat on while you charge something that’s not going to make a huge difference.

The sword does great damage when it hits, but that’s just it.. it misses loads (without the text like you say). Not to mention the animation for chain 1 and 2 are such an eye sore.

Towren.1745:

Play the way you want to play is the obvious reply. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone, and in the end this is about YOU having fun for YOURSELF. Nobody really has the “best” build that they can point you to, it all depends.

Myself for example, I run staff because I like staff. I can play any weapon set, but I just prefer staff. I concentrate on boon support, AoE field support and condition cleansing… Could I run full beserker and AoE everything to death? Of course, but how boring would that be? Plus, what a lot of PuG’s don’t realise is my build complements the builds of my regular guild dungeon runs who like to play glass cannon without condition removal… I’m not going to change my build set up for random PuG’s who’s opinion I care little for anyway. My guildies and I work just fine clearing everything for the FUN of it

HOWEVER!

If you are looking for some of the “meta” dungeon running specs, then this is a good place to start, if that’s what you’re after: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/The-Ele-Meta-Dungeon-Speed-Runs

It’s easy to say “play the way you want to play”. Though, you join a PUG dungeon and you’ll soon find out, not everyone else shares that same opinion.
It’s also easy to say “don’t play with PUGs” aswell, but at the best of times It’s hard to even find people in my active guild to run dungeons with.

STRanger.5120:

Zerker Staff Ele here, if you position yourself good, you can do big things, trust me I even managed to reduce a single enemy zerg to half by my Lafa font + Meteor Shower and then my zerg came in and finished the job Got a lot of bags that time, nice one

Any class with any weapon can do the exact same in that situation

Zerker gear + not being attacked = easy bags

This thread is great.

I was hoping they’d be placeholders, I was also hoping they would be changed soon. Though, it doesn’t look likely.

While you sleep you get night protection.
That would mean they get night protection also.
In the end, there would be very, very little time to cap anything.

First off, I’m not talking about the Living World achievements.

Why on earth are the WvW achievements so difficult to get?
I’d be first to admit I spend a heck of a lot of time on Gw2, more than I should. Though, for anyone to get those achievements in their lifetime really need to seek medical help, or plan their funeral well ahead.

To name a few;
“Defend Stonemist Castle 500,000 times”
“Capture Stonemist Castle 25,000 times”
“Defend 500,000 keeps”
“Kill 1,000,000 enemy supply caravan”
“Successfully escort 500,000 supply caravan”

Surely these achievements can’t be serious? I’m all for achievements to be hard to obtain (hence the reason they are called achievements), but those numbers are plain stupid.
If I were to obtain any of them I would sure as hell have to have it written on my headstone.

Even capturing Stonemist Castle 5 times a day for 7 days a week, it’s going to take 715 days solid of doing that EVERY day. Which isn’t likely.
2 Straight years for a Title?
The title is not the only reward.. oh no. The second reward you get is a whopping 56 Achievement Points!

On a serious note. Are these Achievements really serious? If so.. why?

Shouts are good for PvE
Stances are good for PvP
Banners are good for PvE dungeons. That being said, I really wish they would add banners to the users back, even if it means them boosting stats less. Having to haul them around, or people running off with them is extremely off-putting.

Play with whatever weapons you enjoy, and try to adapt your own build of what you would like to do with said weapons. It’s honestly so much better than using a build someone else has created, even if there’s minimal difference (unless ofcourse the build is what you want).

Play what you enjoy, not what someone else tells you is best.

I really don’t think DS needs any heals. DS its’self is already a really powerful ability. It buys you some time and allows you to either finish your opponent, kite them (not very often, but can happen) or simply allow you to hold off to let your Heal CD lower.
It’s amazing as it is.

There’s also runes of Speed. They are around a 1/5 price cheaper. Though, their stats aren’t as great as Traveler. They do provide +1650 health, though 2 of their buffs increase swiftness duration and chance to trigger on hit.

Either way.. if you see a huge zerg disappear in front of you, chances are they are trying to get the drop on you.

Why have they become worthless?

I play heavy condition spec on my Mesmer in SPvP and it’s mainly focused on Confusion and it’s great. I also recently played my Guardian with Perma retaliation and it seemed to work well too.

Has there been a really recent change I don’t know about?

It won’t be added for a long time, if ever. Though, I would love a mainhand Pistol for mesmer. I don’t entirely agree on the skills you’ve chosen, but I would love one all the same.

Mesmer Sword was great at low levels, the damage was fantastic (and still is), though you could kill most enemies before they got a decent amount of time to attack back. Nowadays I -and I think every other Mesmer- only use Sword for the 3-3-2 combo and then swap again. We don’t last very long in Melee range, having a pistol benefit us the closer we are wouldn’t be a great addition in my opinion. I don’t think it would make sense having a ranged weapon require you to be close to increase it’s effectiveness either.

Your #3 skill would also be extremely overpowered in my opinion. If traited, it could be used every 12 seconds. Not only is 5 torment stacks on a 12 sec CD (Scepter requires it to be triggered) and apply more often than not pretty strong, but Mesmers have the ability to gain some serious advantages from interrupting enemies if traited properly.

I think I’ve went on enough, I would like to see a new ranged weapon though.

The 25% buff from runes is great. I run them both on my Guard and Mesmer and it honestly feels so worth it.