Guild Wars 2

When doing normal PvE I run with dagger/warhorn and axe/focus, traited for extra axe damage.

When wanted to do heavy condition damage, I use scepter/dagger traited for extra scepter damage.

I have both a mesmer and necro.

The shatter mesmer I run in PvE is pretty good and very easy to learn. You run with a greatsword, that is all you need. Second set for me is sword/focus for the focus #4 speed buff. Slot a full set of runes of the centaur and you can keep up a near constant speed buff between focus #4 and firing your healing skill. Sounds lame, but it works ..

I use my condition necro only in PvE for a very specific role in the new 3-headed wurm event. The events requires 3 parties of 4-5 condition necros to deal with the champ husks that spawn. Easy peasy to do and quite fun being part of a 140+ well coordinated team taking down this boss.

CHIPS.6018:

bri.2359:

CHIPS.6018:

Saint.5647:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there isn’t a Light/Medium/Heavy version of the backpiece right?

Just craft it with a character who is an armorsmith or leatherworker. Problem solved there. You don’t need to do it with a tailor.

What if tailoring is all I got? This event is time limited and it is way too late to start levelling up leatherwork now.

Too late for what??
You can level leatherworking from 0-500 in under 2 hours!!

Sir, will you pay for my gold?

If you don’t have or cannot farm enough gold to level leatherworking, then you have more problems than crafting this back-piece, mate ..

CHIPS.6018:

Saint.5647:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there isn’t a Light/Medium/Heavy version of the backpiece right?

Just craft it with a character who is an armorsmith or leatherworker. Problem solved there. You don’t need to do it with a tailor.

What if tailoring is all I got? This event is time limited and it is way too late to start levelling up leatherwork now.

Too late for what??
You can level leatherworking from 0-500 in under 2 hours!!

Oh my ….
I thought Anet armour design hit new lows with the flamekissed release ..

The only constructive thing I can say, is delete the entire mess and start over.

lordkrall.7241:

Well to be fair they never actually claimed that EVERYTHING would move to Vigil Keep.
They said essential things, which would mean things unique to Lion’s Arch, and all those things are fully available at the Vigil Keep for no charge whatsoever.

And lets be honest: How many of you actually used Lion’s Arch for crafting in the first place? It was after all one of the worst areas for it.

I have 3 crafts at 500 and 5 others at 400.
I do a lot of crafting.refining, and since launch the only place I have ever crafted was in LA.

I would never craft in any of the racial cities because I cannot stand being in most of them. Hoelbrak is the only one I can tolerate, so I harvest my home instance nodes there.

At a time when new game releases are close at hand, Anet should be bending over to keep players in-game, and not pulling boneheaded stuff like this …

For the Wurm event I run a 30/30/0/0/10 with carrion/scav armour and rabid trinkets .
Weapons are rampager scepter (sigil of bursting) / dagger (sigil of corruption).
I buff with toxic focusing crystals and super veggie pizza

I use corruption utilities and plague elite.

1. Sword – Ranger
2. Greatsword – Guardian and Mesmer
3. Mace – Guardian
4. Hammer- Guardian
5. Staff – Guardian
6. Focus – Necro
7. Shield – Guardian
8. Torch – Ranger and Guardian
9. Dagger – Ranger and Necro
10. Scepter – Necro and Guardian
11. Trident – Necro and Guardian
12. Spear – Ranger
13. Harpoon gun – Ranger
14. Shortbow – Ranger
15. Longbow – Ranger
16. Axe – Ranger and Necro
17. Pistol – Mesmer
18. Rifle – Warrior
19. Warhorn – Ranger and Necro

You forgot Warhorn

Then expect to see a flood of lvl 70-80 food hitting the TP shortly there after.
Ingredient costs will continue to rise, while end product prices will drop.

What?
You need patch notes to tell you Gendarran Fields will be on perma-overflow for the next 2 weeks??

I leveled a condimancer just for the new Wurm event. A party of 5 are heavily relied on at each wurm to keep the champ husks under control. The event cannot succeed without 15 condimancers, so there is an important PvE niche role for condition necros.

However, I would never consider bringing my condimancer into a dungeon …

Some of the best looking weapon skins in the game, ruined with those stupid hearts …

I have 3 unused tickets, and no intentions of investing in these skins. Just do not see the long-term attraction in them.

I am currently at 145% and will stop salvaging for essence when I hit 150%.

My go at this …

If you are looking for a light armour ranged class, then a schatter mesmer is what you want. In fact, imo this is the best ranged class/build in the game!

I will chime in here with one word: competition

For 1.5 years GW2 has had little or no competition from new releases.
This will change in April and beyond.

Q2 2013 vs Q2 2014 will be very interesting. as will the year-on-year figures at the end of 2014.

And yes, cash shop sales figures has zero correlation with player numbers, time spent in-game. Cash shop sales might be booming, but my server population certainly isn’t …

First, condition damage in PvE is generally crap because of caps. If you are at an event with a nerco and a SB ranger, you condi warrioe will not make much difference. I would stick with your zerker warrior for this content.

Having said that, I just geared a condition necro to do husk patrol at the new wurm event.

This is what I went with:
Armour: Carrion with runes of the scavenger
Trinkets: Rabid with crests of the rabid
Weapons: Rampager with sigils of bursting, corruption, blood, etc.

All of the above are exotic. I didn’t see the point in investing in ascended just for this.

By far Mesmer. After playing a guardian, you will enjoy the variation in play style. They are a pain to level, though. But once at 80, you have some build options.

I run a shatter mesmer with greatsword and sword/focus. You won’t see high damage spikes, but you will do very decent steady DPS. As bonus, this build is the best I have played for ranged combat. Downside is they are slow, very much like guardian slow. Only speed buff is on focus #4. You need to use runes that increase speed duration.

1) RANGER
2) RANGER
3) RANGER

Fenrir.3609:

There is some pants on head lunacy in this thread.

Had to quote this for truth, and it made me laugh …

I have been at this event many times. I have seen the ‘let me do my own thing’ approach constantly fail, and I have seen the all on teamspeak, well organised, min/max approach succeed.

I can confidently tell you if 10 players, out of 140-odd doing the event, do not know their roll and/or are incorrectly specced, the event will fail. The margins between success and failure for this event are that tight.

This is about organisation and each player min/max’ed for their roll in the event. The required builds are those best suited for doing a particular task, specific o this event. This has nothing to do with the overall game meta this is not a dungeon speed run.

It does not mean you need to be a super ‘elite’ player, only that you try your best at what you are supposed to do, follow instructions. At each wurm there should be around 40-odd players with you, so it is not like you need to solo the event.

Here you go:

Cavalier Balthazar
Rabid Dwayna
Magi Lyssa
Soldier Grenth
Dire Melandru

Over the weekend my necro was part of a successful wurm event.

I was in a party of 5 heavy condition damage builds, 4 necros and a ranger, assigned to the Crimson wurm and our mission was to take out the champ husks.

I used this:
30/30/0/0/10
V, VII, XI
II, VII, XI
V

Armour: full carrion with scavenger runes (all exotic)
Trinkets: full rabid with crests of the rabid (all exotic)
Weapon set 1: Scepter (sigil of bursting) / dagger (sigil of corruption) (all exotic)
Weapon set 2: Staff (sigil of blood) (exotic)
Buffs: Master tuning crystals / rare veggie pizza

Utilities:
Consume Conditions
Blood is Power
Corrosive Poison Cloud
Epidemic
Plague

With death shroud, this seemed to work very well on the champ husks.

Sartori.6758:

I gotta ask though, why conditions for open world zerg content? Is it a specific mechanic for the wurm fight? Condi damage is usually a poor choice for zerg content.

Yup the champ husks that spawn during the wurm fights have a heavy buff against direct damage, blocking around 90%. Condition damage is he only method to take them down quickly.

One of the most important tactics for this event is to have 3 parties of 5 heavy condition builds assigned to each wurm group. This is all the they do, chase and kill off the husk spawns, and a party of 5 condition necros can do this very well.

In fact my necro was in a successful wurm event over the weekend,so I know this works.

Scyllalice, thanks for the input.

Yes, the build I used while leveling is not the same build I will use at lvl 80. In fact, I just hit 80 last evening, so will respecc my traits. 30/30/0/010 is what I am looking at.

I currently have a full set of carrion armour with scavenger runes, and 2 rabid accessories, with a buy order on a rabid amulet. Will need to run down to Dwayna temple for the rabid rings and backpiece. The rabid rings on the TP are just too expensive right now.

I still need to place buy orders for rampager weapons and decide on sigils…

Fortunately, gold is not a problem.
The problem is figuring out what to spend it on!

Ah, thanks for the input guys!

I ordered a full set of Ogden’s armour (carrion stats with runes of strength) on the TP. Scavenging runes are pretty cheap, so not a big deal to slot those over the runes of strength.

Wasn’t sure about weapons and trinkets, though.
I have a carrion legionnaires exotic axe and Final Rest in my bank I can give to my necro, but will need to place orders for the other carrion weapons.

Will need to run through Orr to open up Dwayna temple wp for the rabid trinkets…

I have been playing PvE since game launch and, until now, have avoided condition classes and builds for obvious reasons. However, with the new content, I figured on giving a ‘conditionmancer’ a go to help deal with husk spawns at the wurm event and the like.

Problem for me is, I have no clue on how to build for condition damage in PvE. All the build info I see here is for PvP /WvW, which is not what I am looking for. The only PvE advice I have seen says to use carrion armour with scavenger runes.

I can see carrion armour, but the runes?? 183 CD is fine, but the other rune options seem pretty useless. Why not runes of strength, or any runes that add and/or sustain might for more power and condition damage? I focus on might for all my DPS builds, and seems to work well enough.

What about weapons/sigils and trinkets?
Go with full carrion or mix in something else like rabid or dire? The trinket set from the temple of Dwayna look to be useful.

As for traits, I guess it will be something glassy like 30/xx/0/0/xx

My necro is currently lvl 77, and I should hit 80 in a day or two.
For leveling I have been using this:

axe/focus;
dagger/warhorn
Lots of death shroud

30/0/25/15/0
Healing: consume conditions
Utilities: 3 signets
Elite: plague

I avoid using minions because I find them very annoying …
Started with power/pre kit then swapped into carrion/rampager drops.

Thanks in advance for any suggestion/advice

This re-skin of one of the worst light armour sets in the game is so bad, it is hilarious …

Would really like to see the number of refund requests ..

Some of the best weapons skins I have seen in this game, all ruined with those very annoying hearts …

This what I do when leveling.

Level 1 – 62
I use whatever masterwork items drop that are better than current.
Do not buy anything, save your gold cos you will need it later.
Do not craft anything for personal use, this is a waste of expensive mats, only craft items that generate a profit or at least break even.
Do not buy cosmetic items such as cultural, this is a major waste of gold while leveling .

Level 62 – 70 something.
Lvl 62 is when the 3 stat items appear, and you want these.
Buy a full set of BLUE (Fine) armour and weapons from the trading post. These items cost coppers. Use these for 10 levels or so (upgrading with any drops). At level 70-something, buy another full set of BLUE (Fine) armour and weapons. Again, these cost coppers and will do you until you hit lvl 80.

Level 80
Now you can spend your saved gold on a full set of exotic armour, buy it off the trading post. Do not pay listed price, place buy orders. If you have some gold left over, then place orders for whatever exotic weapons you can afford.
Again do not buy cosmetic or cultural items. wait until you have done enough game content to afford it.

Crikey, I must be the only player left who has never bought any of the unlimited harvesting tools. These seemed a bad idea to me from the start, too expensive and very annoying animations. Now, with this new pick, it all seems rather like slimy marketing.

Anet has hit some new lows recently when they should be bending over backwards to keep players happy. If they think that CDI crap will do the trick, they are fooling themselves.

I pre-ordered ESO the other day, so the clock is ticking …

Guardian armour …

Draconic boots, gloves, chest
Invaders legs
A/C shoulders

Hey, after 2500hrs on my ranger, I will be the first to admit the class has some serious problems. I stopped running dungeons on my ranger a year ago after I leveled a guardian, but it is still the best class for open world PvE.

For a class that is hated so much, this sure doesn’t say much for all the so-called ‘better’ classes. Oh, and I have 2 of those ‘better’ classes, a guard and mesmer., but I still play my ranger more than those 2 other classes combined.

The flaws are well documented and known and I do not dispute this. A good ranger player can only do so much to compensate for very bad design and worse implementation. It is blatant myths and non-truths about the class ,and the players who play the class, that get constantly circulated that really bothers me.

My guard is a female norn, the smallest physical size the sliders would allow.
Not a fan the big and bulky look …

If I had to do it again, I would go human for a guard and norn for a ranger.

Sorry, my 15 mini Priests of Balthz used your mini lynx for a ritual …

I cannot believe the thread is still going …

Was in Lane 4 again last evening, and sure enough, lanes 2 and 3 failed so we got the Lane 2 champ again. I think this champ has a thing for my female ranger and knows when she around …

Again, 3 of us (my ranger, a warrior, and some other player who was down most of the time) did the Lane 2 champ and regulator. Then all lanes after us failed …

There is so much crap about rangers in this thread, it is appalling. Sure I don’t know everything about some classes I leveled to only 22 or 23, but I know enough to not to spread misinformation about them.

Morrigan.2809:

First take a Ranger- it is the easiest class to solo them on.

I used Kessex hills and Gendarran fields.
All the thumpers are near wp’s.
Just clear one map and got over the next- go back to the first one because they have respawned by now.

It took me less than 20 min to get all of them.

This^

Also Diessa Plateau has a few.

The most difficult ones are those with watchwork minions guarding them.
Try to pull mobs one at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed.

Finally, you get 10 cores just for discovering the ‘secret door’ even if you do not have enough to open the door. So, do that if you have not done so already.

Well, I use Runes of Melandru in the PVT armour sets for all my lvl 80 toons.
Not sure if these will be good for you, but worth a consider.

Also keep in mind all runes will under go changes in the March features patch, so don’t spend loads of gold on runes just yet.

If you do not like LS content in WvW, for whatever reasons, the best message to send Anet is to simply ignore the content!

It will be gone in 2 weeks anyway, and then the WvW’ers will have the new map all to themselves.

Lol!
I been at the robo-puppet, so many times since it was released, every time on my full zerker ranger.

Even though I usually lane up in 4, I have faced the lane 2 champ more often than all the other champs combined. Every time I faced this champ, we were successful.

For rangers, it is very simple, put pet on passive and use range weapons to kite the thing over the mines. When it goes vulnerable, close in with melee (sword), rise and repeat. This is brain-dead easy.

Failing this champ has nothing to do with rangers, it is about bad players not knowing the mechanics.

Thing is, it is not just the platform champs. It is critical players keep the mobs from entering the gates at all times.

As long as the super cannon bar is low, you can afford to fail a platform or two and cycle though the champ rotation. If players are AFK in the lanes and the mobs fill the cannon bar, the that is not possible.

I would first suggest the people doing this event read dulfy’s guide. All the info is there on how to advance the event and which champs are at the end of each lane.

Secondly you need around 20+ players per lane and a ‘roaming’ team of 5-10 to deploy where need arises is a good idea. Do not stack DPS classes in one or two lanes, you need spread the classes out. It helps if your server has TS to assist in lane coordination and shifting players both before and during the event.

This is what we did on Gunnar’s Hold last evening to complete the event.

For runes, I don’t care because my current one are runes of the centaur that were dirt cheap to buy. If I like the changes to these, great, if not, no big deal to replace them., apart from the cost of the new runes …

I fear for the sigil of fire on my GS. If this gets an increased CD, like 10 sec, it will become near useless. I have one of these on my guardian’s staff as well, so will be double bad news.

In fact I run a lots of sigils on various toons and weapons that proc off crits (air and strength). I am not looking forward ot these changes at all …

Where the crit damage nerf will hit most is ascended zerker kit, particularly the trinkets. Anyone in zerker exotics will be less effected.

As for rangers, I run with ascended zerk trinkets and exotic zerk weapons and arnour. I use sword/xxx and axe/axe with cats and speced with sigils and runes to stack as much might and do as much directed damage as I can. Also, I have decent crit chance in order to proc my sigils.

I will notice the nerf in my crit damage output, I doubt I will see 6k damage on my sword auto attack anymore …

Doncpauli.4217:

Full run of The Twisted Marionette Battle. This was done on 22-01-2014 at server Gunnar’s Hold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6q61iisjn0
After that run we had 2 more succesfull runs :o.

Really??

I tried the Marionette 4 times on Gunnar’s Hold (twice in overflow) in the past 2 evenings (21:00 and 23:00) and all failed.

I am pretty sure ‘economist’ is just another name for “someone who gazes into crystal balls and tries to dazzle the public with charts and graphs based on cooked up numbers and assumptions pulled out of their a*se’.

I’ll take the ancient Roman soothsayers poking around in chicken entrails any day over an economist. If they got it wrong, it was usually their last mistake …

Durzlla.6295:

I’ve had someone say “thank god we have a ranger here!” To me last night on the marionette fight! Brave little Beary face tanked the NPC immune to frontal attacks while all the players stood behind him and pounded dat kitten

All the players??
I have never been on a pad with more than 2 others, and usually one of them goes down within secs of entering.

That champ at the end of lane 1 is the easiest of the lot, my cat ‘tanked’ it while myself and one other player beat it down. We were only 2 players on the pad.

I am a full zerker sword/xx ranger, and I learned the best place for rangers during this event is staying outside in the lanes.

Ranger do not have the burst DPS needed to beat down the champs within the time limit, and if a ranger is paired up with other low burst DPS classes, the lane fails. Oh and any ranger not using melee in the arena has no business being in there. Bows cannot do it.

Leave the arena to the burst DPS classes. Do not waste the slot, go help defend another lane instead or the entire event will fail.

Playing selfishly for the AP’s guarantees the event fails.

Kokiron.5879:

Yeah i’m gonna buy all zerker exotics I just gotta save up some gold. I’m hearing that bows kinda suck right now so i’m using greatsword/axe+warhorn….is the greatsword ok or should I swap it for sword/warhorn or something?

I also run a guardian, and the ranger GS is simply pathetic in comparison. I have not used the ranger GS for over 1 year.

I only do some open world PvE and certain world bosses on my ranger. I run full berserker with sword/xx (dagger or warhorn) and axe/axe, and use cats.

When doing the Jormag event, I only use the weapons found near the cannons, the charzoka (sp?) missile thing during phase 1 and the flamethrower in phase 2. All ranger weapons are pretty useless in this event.

For events like Maw, or running with a champ train, I use sword/warhorn and stack a lot of might I share with my cats. In Forstgorge, I do min 2k damage with spikes up to 6k on the champ kodan and norn.

I do Shatterer, and any world event where staying at range is important, on my GS shatter mesmer because this is far better at range combat than my ranger.

For any difficult content, I go with my zerker guardian.

Gallows.4318:

Perhaps your expectations of succes on the first, second or third attempt is the issue. It’s a challenge. Figure it out and help people at the event figure it out.

Sorry, but no.
There is a difference between challenging content and buggy, poorly designed/implemented content that leaves players frustrated …

Too much of the LS has been the latter and not the former ..