Guild Wars 2

Fay.2357:

bearshaman.3421:

The changes to condi application on Pmage is more important than just the 20% increase because frequency increase. I noticed in several places they shortened condi duration in favor of more stacks, which has the benefit of us actually DOING more of the condi damage instead of it being WASTED when the enemy drops before the duration is up. The only time long durations on condi is possibly desired over more stacks is with champions and bosses (world, raid, fractal, etc), and even then I don’t see why you’d want duration over stacks (only a few things have reachable caps on stacks after they changed that back last year).

Yeah, but the point is that the skill is still garbage even if you get 100% effectiveness out of the attacks it uses.

Fair but as you said, less garbage. They’ve done the same thing on some other classes, which means they realize this is a general problem with condi, and are trying this out to try to fix the problem. That is cause for hope imo.

MM was viable and preferred for a lot of stuff before HoT came out. No nerf to Rise is gonna change that. And Flesh Golem got better too!

BiP is a dps increase, because you are more likely to get more of the damage off on the enemy before it dies! more stacks over duration is always a plus.

Power definitely got a buff. The Axe skills, the AA in DS, etc. Much better options. I hated that Life Blast was most effective if it wasn’t using it’s awesome range.

Also I don’t understand this “logic” of “why are they buffing a skill nobody uses?” Umm… because no one is using it, so it needed to be made viable? I know other people understand this concept….

No reason for QQ people…

Also, more generally, they have slowly started doing skill splits between pvp and pve!! (glimmer of sunshine on the horizon, hope awakens…)

Minion master was a viable build before HoT dropped, and the preferred OW build. Rise only added to this. No nerf on Rise is gonna change this fact.

Thank you for pointing this out. I feel like people decide if a patch is good or not based on their particular tunnel vision. By that, I mean if the skill or trait or whatever that they want buffed RIGHT NOW doesn’t get buffed, the patch to them is garbage regardless of any other positive changes.

The changes to condi application on Pmage is more important than just the 20% increase because frequency increase. I noticed in several places they shortened condi duration in favor of more stacks, which has the benefit of us actually DOING more of the condi damage instead of it being WASTED when the enemy drops before the duration is up. The only time long durations on condi is possibly desired over more stacks is with champions and bosses (world, raid, fractal, etc), and even then I don’t see why you’d want duration over stacks (only a few things have reachable caps on stacks after they changed that back last year).

I want to point out that the 900 range decrease on scepter isn’t a big deal. We need to be close to other people for most of our abilities to really shine anyways. We don’t need massive range, and it actually hurts us to be that far away from others. Scepter got a buff. It’s more viable now, not less.

The cooldown nerf only served to bring our cooldown reduction traits more in line with what everyone else had. I’m not bothered by that. If it was less then what everyone else had, then I’d be upset.

This class has been the top (not top tier, the top!) of dps for a very very long time. The fact that it got a balance update that serves to slow down how quickly we can use our cooldown skills doesn’t surprise me in the least. If anything it will force people to get better at managing their rotations/priorities, and not faceroll their eles.

So this is one of those cases where game mechanics doesn’t or maybe can’t mimic lore?

Is there a lore or story explanation for the paying of monies to teleport to a waypoint?

Scrapper/engi. Doing well by all accounts in pvp for power builds, and also good in pve.

engi can be squishy or not, depending on how you build it. I’ve seen builds that were tanky as anything, and I’ve seen ones that squish with the best of them. It’s a pretty flexible class tbh, so it depends on your playstyle.

It’s a negligible dps loss for a noticeable vitality gain. No reason not to do this. Only the most type A of individuals will take issue with you using marauders over berserkers.

Ryn Shaia.8640:

Cool, thx everyone for your input! I’ll play around with your suggestions. Good point about the Spite vs Death on the traitline. It was something I was also thinking about as well, but wasn’t sure. Will definitely switch that out and also will switch to plague sending.

In that case you will have fixed the main two things I would have changed with this. Plague sending is why you do want crit, though between the 2% crit for each condition, and decimate defenses, you should be close to 100% crit, so you just have to make sure you dont get stuck with 1 or 2 conditions on you. If that seems to be an issue, you can switch to consume conditions for your heal skill until you get the timing/rotation down.

human remains? I missed this…

On a different note, interesting that part 3 mentions 2 of the remaining dragons specifically (primordus and kralkatorrik) in terms of having information in the rata novan system on them. It’s like two possibilities for who’s next on the dragon hit list…

Also really curious what’s going on with that egg… Hope she can at least get to do scans on it…

I started with mesmer, because I love illusions. As I learned more about how mesmers work (aka shatter) and how it’s mechanic can feel self defeating (burst at the cost of sustained damage) I ventured into the other classes. Now I don’t really have a main so much as a flavor of the week/day/hour? just whatever I am in the mood for. I have 3 with full elite specs (guard, necro, ranger), 2 more lvl 80s that I’m working on elite specs (engi, ele), 2 that I have had at 80 and deleted to change the race for rp reasons (mesmer, thief) and 2 that I am leveling but haven’t seen at 80 yet (warrior, rev). Plus a second necro that’s gonna be my priestess of Grenth condi/minion necro (the other is my power reaper of melee range destruction). Thinking of leveling something to 53, and stationing them at a bank for when I need mats in that range for reasons.

What I’ve seen from Raids is it depends on what kind of damage is needed. Engi for condi, Ele for power (for the two classes that matter for this thread).

As for Solo PvE…

Both will do well. Engi gets its max dps through heavy kit-switching and has a priority list instead of a rotation for maintaining that dps (keep X skills on cooldown, use this AA while waiting for them to come off cooldown). Ele tends more towards rotations (which are harder for me, but that’s a subjective statement) since its attunements have CDs worth accounting for. That said, if you can get those rotations down, your dps and might stacking will be amazing, at the price of feeling squishy when you get hit.

I won’t get into dungeons or fractals since you specified solo pve.

IMO, Engi is the better option, just because it’s easier to switch things around based on what you’re dealing with, without changing your entire build. I feel the ele’s abilities are a little more tied to the traitlines (Who uses fire attunement without the fire traitline?), and thus requires more adjustments when changing things around. That said, Ele can be a lot of fun to run around with, and if the extra bit of tweaking isn’t an issue for you, well it’s a coin toss at that point. I have always felt that these two classes appeal to the same kinds of people, so it’s hard to differentiate them for me. Just my 2 cents.

Weird… I also boosted a toon to level 80, and the gear I had didn’t mention pvp at all…

Chaos skin is also kinda nice. Gives that “holding a staff made of pure energy” look.

Topher.5631:

kamedin.4698:

I would just go back and play gw1. Great game for lore reasons and also as a place to waste time until Anet makes good content again.

^^^^

Great choice, gw1 was infinitely better for pve than gw2 ever was

Really? I was told that gw1 was even more focused on pvp than this game…

Edited the title to account for the ongoing story.

Thanks for the input. It’s good to get other perspectives on this sort of thing. I have a hard time playing a character if the character doesn’t make thematic sense in my head.

So I want to make an asura, but I can’t seem to make it work in my head. First consideration: I’m enough of a lore monkey that I want my characters to make sense within the overall lore of the game and the flavor of their race. I know every race can be every class, but some combinations just fit better thematically. What are your thoughts on the different classes? I know engi is an obvious choice, I’m just wondering if it’s the only one.

It would seem confirmation that the ley line craziness as a direct result of Mordremoth’s death is confirmed, but the nature of ley lines and magic in general is still up for grabs. Not to mention, the gate coming on at the end…

Thoughts?

wmtyrance.3571:

Blude.6812:

wmtyrance.3571:

I just came back to the game after a year. So you have to give up your 3rd traitline to use specialization. Wonder why they just didn’t make it a 4th traitline in the first place. I have a ranger which means i would have to give up BM which seems real crappy.

Don’t worry about it. I tried the druid specialization, and didn’t care for it at all or considered it use full in any way for the way I play. Went back to the Ranger.

Thanks for this reply. I was thinking of doing this also. Wish i could get the points back that i wasted on it.

Druid is actually really good for non-healing builds as well. Not trying to make you use it, but don’t toss it aside without checking out what it can really accomplish.

There is nowhere I can’t go with my ranger.

Don’t you get a Central Tyria Mastery Point for it as well?

Have you tried explaining to them why using that in a group situation is a bad idea? If you explain it (nicely), I think some of them will listen. If they don’t and keep doing it, then feel free to kick them from the group.

So what happens to the other 3 attunements?

If they stick to the schedule/pattern that has emerged, we should have the summer balance patch near the end of this month.

Yannir.4132:

bearshaman.3421:

Yannir.4132:

bearshaman.3421:

Ok when explained that way, I have a lot less of an issue with DH. It’s still not my favorite elite spec, but I can accept it more with that explanation.

You really didn’t see that without Ghotistyx’s explanation? I thought it was obvious enough. You might need more points of reference. AD&D and Warhammer are great for this for example. The class section in Forgotten Realms wiki is awesome.

PS. I +1’d most of Ghotistyx’s posts in the last 2 pages. Finally a voice of reason.

I’ve played D&D for over 25 years. The guardian has been compared to the paladin and the cleric classes from that by Anet people. Neither of those classes iconically use a longbow. Same goes in Forgotten Realms, which is just one of several campaign settings D&D has used over the years. It is precisely because I’ve played these games that I had a problem with DH. It seemed like they were merging ranger or scout into the paladin/cleric type class.

Can’t say for warhammer, never played it.

Good class development usually runs around it’s restrictions, it’s true. Sometimes, though, you have to step out of that hamster wheel, and approach class development from the perspective of what it can/could do. That’s why they brought out DH, to try and introduce a ranged playstyle to a traditionally melee class.

PS. I brought out FR because it’s the most comprehensive of all DnD worlds. Greyhawk and others have great ideas but lore for FR is by far the widest. That includes class lore.

I get that about class development, and that’s why I can accept Ghostiyx’s (sp?) explanation. I’m just saying that Anet basing guardian off of two D&D classes that stereotypically do not use the longbow was the reason I had a hard time accepting it in the first place, contrary to your experience of looking at guardian through the lens of D&D. Not saying your experience is invalid; that would be dumb lol. No one’s experience is invalid, ever. Just saying that there is more than one way to look at it.

In any case, based on G’s (I’m not gonna spell it right) explanation, I kinda wish the “traps” weren’t PBAoEs but I guess that’s what kiting is for lol. Guardian has always been the “immovable object” in my head, so it’s weird to switch to a more mobile playstyle.

On another note, elite specs can also take an aspect of a class that’s already there and expand on it. Such as what happened with Druid being an expansion of the Nature Magic tree, or Daredevil expanding on Acrobatics. The Tomes idea I think would expand primarily on Honor, though if it is done like the engineer kits, than each one could expand on different aspects of the class, which would be better imo because it wouldn’t completely overshadow the base class like some of the elites do now. For instance, one tome make focus around healing and support, and get used in support builds, while a different tome might focus on burning dps, and be good for a condi build. You would still have slots of existing skills, and it would increase build diversity, not limit it like pretty much all the elite specs did this time around.

Yannir.4132:

bearshaman.3421:

Ok when explained that way, I have a lot less of an issue with DH. It’s still not my favorite elite spec, but I can accept it more with that explanation.

You really didn’t see that without Ghotistyx’s explanation? I thought it was obvious enough. You might need more points of reference. AD&D and Warhammer are great for this for example. The class section in Forgotten Realms wiki is awesome.

PS. I +1’d most of Ghotistyx’s posts in the last 2 pages. Finally a voice of reason.

I’ve played D&D for over 25 years. The guardian has been compared to the paladin and the cleric classes from that by Anet people. Neither of those classes iconically use a longbow. Same goes in Forgotten Realms, which is just one of several campaign settings D&D has used over the years. It is precisely because I’ve played these games that I had a problem with DH. It seemed like they were merging ranger or scout into the paladin/cleric type class.

Can’t say for warhammer, never played it.

Cuz if they told us what they were gonna do before they do it, the forums would start complaining about it before it even happened. Guaranteed. I mean the spring balance patch was really good imo, but almost every class still had a bunch of QQ threads…

Ok cool. I wasn’t really looking at it for survivability, more from a build diversity /“would this work?”/theorycrafting/understanding how things work standpoint. Thanks!

Jugglemonkey.8741:

bearshaman.3421:

D/D would work fine, especially in a condi build of this with #3 skill counting as an evade and putting out respectable bleed to multiple targets, as well as taking Lotus Training and other stuff. I would of course use staff as the other weapon, and maybe keep a pistol or two to swap out with.

If you’re already going for lotus training, shortbow is actually a better swap than staff imo. Reason being the poison fields from choking gas work really well with the projectile finishers of the daggers from lotus training, it’s a hefty chunk of extra DPS and makes cleansing the bleeds that much harder.

That probably makes sense for pvp. I’m not a pvper, so condi cleansing isn’t a problem I have to plan around when applying them.

Anchoku.8142:

Condi in HoT solo takes too long. Sure, it works, eventually, but kiting where more mobs may aggro or re-spawn is courting death. I charge in and put down HoT mobs as quickly as possible to get back out of combat and reexamine the playing field. Shroud and Rise are as crucial as being able to crit right from the start and as much as possible.

I lead off with Death Spiral for vulnerability, then Nightfall, often saving Grasping Darkness to interrupt enemy skills. I use shroud a lot and finish with Gravedigger once I see an enemy’s health fall below 50%. The combination of vulnerability, might, Close to Death, chill, and high precision and ferocity is what finishes fights quickly enough to solo roam. I need to be 100% committed to zerker-melee for this to work, though. The moment I start playing defensively, the build becomes a glassy death-trap. Kiting does not generate LF or do damage with this build.

Alternatively, if you want to use scepter, use minions to hold aggro. A MM build is the easiest HoT roaming build but your minions will pick up aggro and land you in combat more than you might wish. In that case, a dire or rabid setup for traditional condi-MM possible but does not beat full zerker-shout builds in effectiveness.

I have found condi or hybrid to work better than straight power builds, in my experience. I’d suggest the MM condi builds, because the minions tank for you while the condi damage does the heavy lifting. Definitely rabid gear, as you will want the precision to make plague sending proc as often as possible. If you are getting hit with a lot of condi from enemies, you could even go rampager, so long as your minions are the ones drawing aggro.

apharma.3741:

Zynt.5769:

The amount of times a Mesmer or Ranger has knocked mobs out of my AoE fields -_-

I think in PvE, players just have a tendency to use all their skills in succession. Obviously not all players do, but I’ve seen players (not just Mesmers and Rangers) using their knockback skills, multiple times when there’s been no need to.

Some people just like to watch the world burn…but yeah most of the time they’re just mashing buttons.

Having said that, I think Helseth had a video of him doing HoT PvE to unlock gliding and he was doing knock backs like it was PvP so maybe they are PvP players thinking “ewe get it away from me!”

I can see that. The few times I’ve done pve content with people who were primarily pvp players, it was kinda obvious they weren’t used to cooperative play.

As per thread title, I’m mostly curious about PVE, not the other game modes. I’ve edited out the special characters that were making it less clear.

I didn’t even know half of these were farmable. You should put a link in each post to the other one in case they get split apart in the feed.

Revenant might give you a monkish feel with staff, but generally I would agree that Thief/Daredevil with staff is the closest thing we have.

Battle mage: honestly I don’t feel like either gaurdian or revenant is gonna give you that feel. Guardian is like a D&D paladin or cleric, and revenant is like a dark mirror of the same imo. The closest thing to a battlemage would be taking any of the light armor classes (mesmer, necro, ele) with melee weapon specs. I know those aren’t the classes you were looking at, but I don’t want you to start down them and be disappointed that it’s not what you are looking for.

Which game mode are you playing it in?

Mnemesis.8257:

The reality is that you can use anything that you feel is optimal for you to function optimally. I personally see nothing wrong with starting a profession, or the game for that matter, with survival based gear in order to better learn your role and combat potential.

In regards to what you mention about being a viable option, it most certainly is; remove expectations of being received as the best performance. When HoT was released I converted my gear into Cavalier in order to gain my bearings and had no regrets in doing so. The damage is fairly comparable to the Berserker, but obviously needed supplemental crit chance in order to function in such a way. Something along these lines provided me with that option. Obviously you are not going to reach the reliability of full damage potential that Berserker would instill, but you could certainly use sigils/runes to effectively allow the offbeat sets like Cavalier and Valkyrie to function well, which I assume was the intent.

Firearms does have quite a bit to offset the lack of precision, and with the runes you picked and the sigil I mentioned, I guess it could work. The funny thing is you would have a higher crit chance than berserkers in lower level areas (like when doing world boss farming). I suppose it could work…

Any other thoughts out there?

So I’ve seen a couple builds (not for engi, but elsewhere) where people have used Valkyrie to give their class some survivability and used Intelligence Sigils to proc the ferocity. Now I feel like that’s pointless unless you are doing a lot of weapon swapping and then immediately thought of ele and engi. Is this combination of stat set and a sigil a viable option for a power Engi build?

So I’ve seen a couple builds (not for ele, but elsewhere) where people have used Valkyrie to give their class some survivability and used Intelligence Sigils to proc the ferocity. Now I feel like that’s pointless unless you are doing a lot of weapon swapping and then immediately thought of ele and engi. Is this combination of stat set and a sigil a viable option for a power Ele build?

cletiscake.9173:

Jack Skywalker.5674:

You could experiment with this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeWlsAhqhY/OwRIwPEHJE1dZDgLAvBPXZm3v/LAB-T1RDQBAwEkc0HYJ1fcy+DaUpxrUCGFlZBAOA88zP/8zP3yLv8yLnUARM0C-w

That’s actually a really good looking build stat-wise, but the big issue is that despite your high stats in power and ferocity, you have zero crit-chance and zero healing power. Without crit-chance, you’re never going to take advantage of the high ferocity level, and without Healing Power, you will never be able to heal enough to sustain yourself through damage, even with Symbol of Protection. This build relies on Healing Power just as much as Toughness and Vitality to stay alive.

I saw a similar build to this somewhere stat-wise, and the person who made it was using the sigils in his weapons that gave 100% crit on the next three attacks on weapon swap to proc the ferocity. This is a viable option I guess if you do heavy weapon swapping (like engi or ele does), but I can’t see how that would be good here?

Here’s a question: Does Purity of Body(Honor) work with Battle Presence(Virtues)? It shows as such on gw2skills.net, and that would be a great passive way to not only heal allies, but boost their endurance regen without using Vigor (and stacks with vigor).

cletiscake.9173:

bearshaman.3421:

Just looking at ideas for a pve party support/healing build. Any suggestions/links to builds?

Not sure if you’ve seen my post, but this is about as tanky/supportive as a Guardian can get. It’s probably the best and most effective way to truly “tank”, as you are pretty much sacrificing all your personal DPS in favor of being able to stay alive to virtually everything that gets thrown at you.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Tank-Healing-Guardian-Build/first#post6230203

Yeah I posted in your thread a while ago lol. There have been about 4 threads along these lines (mine incl.) recently. I’ve got it pretty well figured out now I think.

Catastro.8410:

As a Mesmer who kind of knows what he’s doing, there’s probably 2 reasons for this.
Either they’re using it a misguided attempt to get some breakbar damage, or they’re just using whatever’s off CD.

Having been that guy before, and having learned it was a bad idea, yeah the second reason is pretty typical for newbies. I’ve been careful to stop doing pushes unless really necessary (I got yelled at once for not using it when running longbow on my ranger when it was actually desirable lol).

D/D would work fine, especially in a condi build of this with #3 skill counting as an evade and putting out respectable bleed to multiple targets, as well as taking Lotus Training and other stuff. I would of course use staff as the other weapon, and maybe keep a pistol or two to swap out with.

Can I bother you both to post a gw2skills link to I can look over the builds you are using/proposing?

http://dulfy.net/category/gw2/class-guides-gw2/

This website has really good guides for every class except revenant.