Guild Wars 2

I’m gonna piggyback on this thread real quick. Is Viper gear worth the added expense? Precision takes a good sized hit, and you lose some condi, to increase power (not your main focus for this build) and gain some condi duration. Since crits is how you proc alot of the bleeds and burn, isn’t this shooting yourself in the foot? Wouldn’t Sinister or Rampager or a mix of the two be better?

This is a question I’ve had for several condi builds, but especially for this one with two traits giving conditions on crits.

Also armor runes: Krait, Balthazar, Berserker, or Nightmare?

what about condi?

I read the dulfy.net guide and I know he doesn’t have the highest opinion of it, but I hear condi is really good at higher level fractals…

Before I recall seeing stuff about mesmers having 5 different kinds of builds (shatter, phantasm, support, interrupt, and something else…)

Now I am only seeing this one. That’s why I said reduced to.

Ok, so I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with my mesmer. (Note: I play PVE, pretty much exclusively.) I look around on the forums, and it seems it’s all about chronomancer giving out alacrity and quickness, and nothing else. I know some people have put forth other builds, but it seems like this is the general sentiment, and you will get dropped from groups if you show up with a mesmer that is anything other than this.

Is this seriously what we have been reduced to?

This is more complex than I realized, but then that’s why I asked. So it seems condition damage is more useful in the advanced fractals because of bosses having alot of toughness, but I’m getting a mixed read here on boons.

It’ll probably be a while before I can get to the 75+ range anyways, but I want to start preparing now for those, and build the character in that direction.

So I’ve noticed that there seems to be a bias towards certain professions and/or builds. I’m trying to figure out which of my characters to make ascended gear for.

Currently I have a ranger that is geared for either full berserker power damage or boon support/healing druid, a power reaper, and a condi mesmer. I also have a dragonhunter, a engi and a celestial elementalist, but I don’t want to use the first one for fractals, and the second two I’m still learning.

Any suggestions (beyond “play what you like”, I wouldn’t have made these if I didn’t like them lol) on what would be a good choice to use for fractals would be appreciated.

Note: I’ve played most of the 1-20 fractals, but haven’t gotten beyond those yet. Still learning some of the mechanics for them.

Was in fractals scale 8 and my pet wouldnt go passive. In the past, i switch to passive and the pet comes back to my side. Now I have to hit F3 in addition to making him passive to get the same response. Is this intentional?

Any clue on when this or any guide to mesmers post-HoT will be done? I know they are about to change a bunch of stuff, so I know that will push a date back.

Neat trick. Ok thanks for the advice. I’ll run around with this for a while and see how I like it before spending the insane amount of money needed to craft Viper gear.

I’ve seen people do this on builds before, but I don’t know why this is done. Why only offhand on one, and only a mainhand on the other?

Yeah, I was gonna make any weapons that used conditions (axe/torch of course) Viper. Not sure on what to use for a second weapon.

Why not staff? too much healing at that point? Or the fact that it doesn’t have conditions on it?

If there’s a preexisting build out there along these lines let me know. The above linked one is just my current baseline to work from, but I’m open to other ideas.

Also, any suggestion on runes, since those tend to impact stats as well?

So use Viper gear, and Apothecary rings and accessories (which you can’t get Viper for anyway)?

Or would celestial be a better way to go?

So I saw this build posted:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid/

And I really liked it, but I wanted the beef up the healing ability.

(I am a PVE only player, so keep that in mind. basically wanting to do lots of condi damage and healing my party.)

So I was looking at some other stat blocks, since rabid doesn’t offer any healing power.

Tragic recommended a mix of Cleric/Magi for a healing druid. Awesome, totally makes sense.

For conditions and healing, I’m thinking a mix of Settler and Shaman, or just going full celestial.

(this is the early stages of the idea, and we don’t have a centralized place for druid builds, so I’m stuck bothering you guys.)

Any thoughts? I could use some suggestions for this one.

@Tragic, what about Minstrel for a healing Druid? I would have thought the concentration would be good from a support role.

Nice! I don’t pvp so that wouldn’t be an issue but that could be a useful thing on those dungeon fractal runs when someone bails mid-run and you’re down a man.

Fluffball.8307:

bearshaman.3421:

…. I just want to see the animation for when the drags your party members to you… I think it would be hilarious to see….

That’s what I was wondering about as well. I assume they’re going to teleport, and not actually show a raven dragging a norn across the map like a piece of carrion.

XD

Omfg, I wanna see that so bad right now, you just don’t know….

Oh please!!! XD

I wanna see that so bad now!!!

I’d say your assessment is spot on. I can’t tell you about pvp/WvW though.

And I apologize for my overuse of the word “awesome”. hangs head in shame

0_o

That would be kinda awesome actually… Each of your clones/phantasms is now doing a stack of burning in addition to whatever they normally do? And mesmer condi is awesome already? If that works, it would be awesome!

…. I just want to see the animation for when the drags your party members to you… I think it would be hilarious to see….

^^^ I’m guessing that’s all pvp stuff, which since I’m apparently a pacifist according to the game, I don’t play.

More interested in PVE stuff, building for dungeon/fractal/raid, but also do a lot of open world events as well.

@Umbra, is that what Tragic meant? I guess I got mixed up.

So even though the pet has a condi score, it still works off of yours, but all other allies use theirs? Weird but if that’s how it works…

Thanks for the info!

@Tragic, I’m guessing Cleric/Magi is for healing Druid?

When using sun spirit to give the chance to inflict burning to allies, does the burning inflicted work off of your condition damage or your allies?

I haven’t seen many builds being put forth with the new gear sets from HoT. Is anyone using any of them, and if so, how? General thoughts on the new sets also appreciated.

My thoughts:

My ranger is the first (and only) class I’ve taken into HoT, so I only can compare it to my bf’s experience with his thief, and I definitely had an easier time of it than he did. I agree with the idea of having some toughness or vitality on your gear to help with things, but I didn’t need it with my ranger, since tanky/1500 range made it less necessary.
I currently have 5 lvl 80s as well (ele, guard, mes, ranger, necro), and I do find that each excels in different situations. my guard is a monk build, and is my solo world completion character. My necro doesn’t die for anything (spite/soul reap/blood magic DS build), mesmer is a work in progress (easily the most difficult class to play imo), ele does WBs and pretty much whatever (cele build). Ranger is currently LB/GS assassin/berserker mix MM/SK/BM, but am wanting to branch out.

I had not seen the speed runes, but they seem to have the same function as traveler’s runes (25% movement speed). I think the travelers set is the better option, since I don’t use staff, and the boon and condi duration increase would be awesome.

Any other options?

What is the most useful way to buff movement speed for guardian? I’m not a fan of staff (4s out of 15 just isn’t very good), and the only other thing I know of is Traveler’s runes. Suggestions?

So this is probably buried in this forum somewhere, but I hope someone will humor me and answer this simple question. Do the traits from the non-DH trait lines modify the changed virtues for DH? The wiki seems to indicate that they do not, but I was wanting to make sure.

I agree, the autoattack animation looks awkward as hell to me.

I’ll have to check that out. my first character was a norn mesmer, and I couldn’t stand looking at him. Big beefy guy in a dress…

Remade it as a female asuran. Much better.

Yashuoa.9527:

Do you find it fun in pve? Why?
Can you describe how it plays in pve?
What are the things you do?

Is it very different from how you play in pvp?
Can you describe what is different?

I’ll start by saying I don’t play PvP, but since you have an idea on that, I figured “why not, I’ll answer this too, even though I’m not nearly as experienced as Alpha and many others”

I enjoy it a lot in open world. The clones/phantasms can basically be used to distract and/or kill most anything you run across. The utility is pretty amazing, though I am admittedly still learning how to use all of it. It is, at the risk of sounding elitist, a class that rewards intelligent, thoughtful action as opposed to smash and grab tactics. If you are willing to keep most of the weapons and maybe 2 or three sets of gear on you, you can custom to the many different zones/WBs/etc that you run across, and be effective.

That said, if you don’t do that, you will find many situations that are more difficult for you. Fighting a large mob, and built around clones that are getting decimated as opposed to phantasms? Walked into a bunch of ranged dps, and don’t have focus equipped or the utility skill feedback? It equally punishes you for not being thoughtful and flexible about what you are doing.

I enjoy a thoughtful class, but I’ll admit I’m conflicted right now about it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of mesmer, and its the first class I leveled to 80. That said, I don’t feel like I’m using it to its full potential, and am trying to change that, but it can be daunting given the need to know what you are walking into, and being flexible with it. Also, while it is really good at conditions, power is still the meta, and there’s a mental disconnect for me between using shatters and in the process, destroying my (depending on what I’m doing) main source of damage.

All of this is just my opinions and thoughts on the matter. I’m not one of the authorities on mesmer, just giving a beginner’s (4-5 months now?) look at it.

Raven, thanks for the insight. WvW is kinda an afterthought for me, its a game type I haven’t messed with yet, and may try at some point. Open world is most of my experience, and I want to try doing dungeons more (only done AC once so far).

I can definitely see Skirmishing being better over Nature Magic, just need to gain more experience/confidence before I take off the training wheels I guess.

The more I look at the traits/skills, the more I think there isn’t ever a reason to take Assassin over Berserker. Thoughts?

I probably will for the condi build I plan to craft after this power build. I plan on having the gear for a few different builds; I’m not trying to make a one size fits all.

Your (Heimskarl) PVE build and, ironically, the build that someone posted on your thread in the last 5 hours are pretty close to what I’m going for. Thanks!

I took NM for survivability (regen added to Clarion Bond, regen below 50%, boonsharing with pet). Skirmishing seems too situational with all the “from the side or back”, and I haven’t gotten practiced enough yet to do that consistently. I was wondering why you took the endurance regen over the bleed on crits trait, but it make sense if you are strafing around your target to get the other benefits from Skirmishing.

Looked through those a long time ago. None really fit. Thus why I laid out exactly what I am going for/using, and asking for suggestions around that.

Chaos
Inspiration
Chaos
Chaos
Domination

Yeah…

That’s actually a really good response. Very magnanimous.

I would like more info on the interaction of precision with reflects? I am not clear on that build mechanic and what the connection is. Just a quick response; don’t want to sideline the thread.

So I am doing a PvE (mostly living world, world bosses, silverwastes, but want to do dungeons and maybe WvW later) LB/GS ranger. I think Berserker is gonna be better than Assassin, but not sure yet (mostly because I’m traiting for Opening Strikes as much as possible, and they always crit anyway).

Edit: accidentally posted before finishing my question.

So, First is: Is there a trait set that makes Assassin preferable over Berserker, given how easy it is to get fury?

Second: I’m currently slotting Marksman (Clarion Bond, Steady Focus, and torn between Remorseless and Lead the Wind), Nature Magic (Bountiful Hunter, Windborne Notes, Protective Ward), and Beastmastery (Companion’s Might, Two-Handed Training, Zephyr’s Speed). The idea being gaining lots of boons on pet swap and Opening Strike as much as possible for damage and Vulnerability stacking. Oh and additional F2 effects on pets. How would I make this better?

Third: suggested pets?

Fourth: Rune Sets? Looking at Scholar, Ranger, Strength, Ogre, couple others…

any help appreciated. Just got my ranger to 80.

Fifth: Weapon Sigils?

2. Empowered Illusions and Mental Anguish have no effect on condition damage. Chaos, meanwhile, adds 10% of toughness to condition damage, which in rabid gear is decent. Chaos also contributes some condition duration, and some decent defensive traits, neither of which are available from dom.

So just so I’m clear on this, anything that gives a static % boost to damage is specifically talking about direct damage, not condition damage, and only boosts to specific conditions or to the condition damage stat influence damaging conditions.

couple questions… (primarily for Alpha but anyone can answer):

1. What’s broken on the Malicious Sorcery trait?

2. Why not go with Domination over Chaos, and pick up Empowered Illusions and Mental Anguish? Or do those not work the way I think they do?

Create a new bug thread and post it there. Gotta keep trying.

Do the speed increases stack?

I just started a guardian (up to level 18 now) and so far I’m liking greatsword and hammer. Not sure what I’ll do long term, but I play alot of PVE content too, so I wanna know what peoples opinions on this are, aside from standard PvP advice and “go with whatever cause you’re just doing PvE”.

Thank you all for your input. To be clear, I’m not seeking for condi to be superior to power. It just seems universal that DD is preferred or meta. As idealistic as it may seem, it would be nice if there wasn’t a meta as far as DD vs condi is concerned.

Do most of the AoE cleanses clear all conditions, or only 1 or 2? AoE cleanse is a little OP if it cleanses all conditions imo.

So I’ve been reading various profession forums, and it seems that the main reason that DD builds are preferred over Condi builds boils down to it being way too easy to dump conditions once they are on you, primarily in group situations (PvP, WvW) which, let’s be honest, seems to inform all of the balancing decisions for the professions over PvE.

So if this is a known issue, why hasn’t this been scaled back enough to make condi builds equally viable?