Guild Wars 2

I disagree. Theres a very good reason for me to not go into Arms if I’m using Axe; especially so if I’m trading points in discipline for it.

300 Precision gets me about 14% crit chance.
Heightened Focus gives me 12% at max adrenaline. And this build is all about saving up max adrenaline. Also, it is more difficult to use Attack of Opportunity because I’ll need to rely on Precise Strikes for bleed, or another teammate. This is less of a problem really, but I definitely won’t trade 30% crit damage for an extra 2% crit chance.

I thought about moving the 10 points from tactics to arms, but no adept major in Arms is particularly appealing for my build.

Deep Strike: I get less than 2% crit chance for not using Signet of Rage, but I get 20% crit chance + other traits for using the signet.
Furious Speed: Unnecessary thanks to Signet of Rage.
Deep Cuts: Not useful with this Axes.
Rending Strikes: This is OK, but this build probably doesn’t crit as much as berserker builds.
Furious Reaction: This seems good, but we are stacking vitality, which means 10% is harder to come by.

You do raise a good point about using orbs though. Currently Rune of the Ranger gives:
165 Precision, +8% Crit damage, +5% damage

Against Beryl (valkyrie) orbs:
120 Power, +12% Crit damage, 84 vitality.

Its a hard pick!

Hm, sorry I have to disagree with most points except maybe stealth in greater abundance.

I think 4 seconds traited stealth is already WAY TOO LONG.

I have a guardian using Magi’s gear with rune of mercy. mace/shield and staff. I can walk around orr with zero fear of dying, and often chat with my friends while I have a mob or two wailing away on me without needing to do anything. needless to say, my damage is pathetic.

CoaxialMazer.9140:

I see what you mean. I too dislike parts of the precision tree due to the focus on bleeds. Regardless to what build you use, 29% of crit (Heightned focus+fury) is extremely easy to obtain + 2 sigils of accuray is instant 39% regardless to what build you go for. Also didn’t know banners = companion O.O

If that rune set up works, then I think you have enough to work with to get over 50% crit chance. And if you want some extra through food, i think you can get like 4-5% more crit chance, (didn’t check) And Maintence Oil I think with high vitality 2k + you get around another 4% and another 3% from base toughness, so another 7%.

Hey thanks for the tips about the consumables; I’ve never looked into that stuff much. I think the idea of a high crit damage warrior with good survivability is very lucrative!

nakoda.4213:

correct me if i’m wrong, but the ranger rune set requires a companion for #6 to work, no?

Works with banners apparently! If it doesn’t, back to the drawing board for me on the runes

I guess I can always go rune of the wurm

brunohstein.9038:

Interesting.

I would like to suggest you to actually invest those 10 points in Trickery. As you describe the build as a supportive one, it may be useful to have Thrill of the Crime.

Yeah, Trickery is my second choice. I just happen to think Acrobatics is more versatile.

CoaxialMazer.9140:

Im guessing you won’t go into the precision tree at all? Cause you coulda used swords or hammer/sheild to activate the traits to give crit chance there. But if your gonna get precision from runes that contradicts what you want in your build, idk what your aiming for tho >.<

Explain how you plan to get crit chance without precision? or trying to get precision without using it in gear/trinkets? I don’t understand >.<

Well, first of all I like making my builds unique across all my toons, i.e. none of them use the same stat combination/runes. I know rune of the ranger gives precision but I thought the 6th rune ability and the extra crit damage is too good to pass up on for this build.

So essentially, I’m trying to make a crit build with little/no precision, and I’m actually astounded that a warrior can reach 55% crit with only an extra 165 precision from gear. It could do with some improvements though! Also, I don’t really like the precision tree, seems to focus on bleeding a bit too much

I’m trying to make a PvE build that uses Valkyrie gear (POWER/vitality/critical damage), and as little precision as possible.

I want to see how far I can get with minimal precision. I’ve settled on the warrior as a good candidate for this. I’m using a 30/0/0/10/30 build.

Here is what I have so far:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQRAnX3XjcOJvNPaPMxBAzjiCaI1D7aDuUhwA;TgAKqMUJoySljKJVDCmRA

As for crit chance:
4% base crit
12% rune of the ranger + banner of discipline
10% sigil of accuracy
9% heightened focus
20% perma-fury
= 55% crit chance.

Crit damage should be well over +100% in full exotics.

Thoughts?

IMO, PvE builds and sPvP builds are often two sides of the build-spectrum.

haviz.1340:

kKagari.6804:

Meh, I think what the devs said about reducing the difficulty after removing the waypoint rushing is more of an issue.

How is the difficulty an issue? Unless you mean dungeons are already too easy.

I don’t think I could have worded that any clearer. “Devs reducing difficulty” + “more of an issue” = Yes dungeons are quite easy for the time being. And boring.

Here I was thinking thieves have it easy removing conditions. Shadow’s Embrace is so kitten good. Maybe less so in sPvP, but I don’t suppose thieves need to hold points like a bunker much.

Mystogan.4157:

Ive been lookin for a healing build =]

=) I think it won’t disappoint. I’ll put in some solid numbers of what this build can do when I get the time.

Disclaimer:
I try to keep all my toons unique, by having no two toons use the same stat combination armor. My thief is my 3rd level 80 character so I’ve been playing with weird stat combinations for her armor. Berserker, Knight, Soldier, has all been taken by other toons. This build might also be very crap in your opinion, and I’m ok with anyone who thinks this.

I present to you the Cleric Thief (HEALING/power/toughness). This is a dungeon build, but with minor adjustments, I can often do my monthly 50 scalps in WvW with it and rarely die . This thief is tough, very supportive, and easy to play.

The Traits:
The Cleric Thief is actually a venom build. As such the trait allocation is 30/0/30/10/0. The last 10 can actually be placed anywhere, but personally I think Acrobatics has better adept traits compared to Trickery and Critical Strikes.

For Deadly Arts, we’ll be using Venomous Strength, Quick Venoms, and Residual venoms. These traits are pretty much no brainers.

Similarly for Shadow Arts, we’ll be using Shadow’s Embrace, Leeching Venoms, and Venomous Aura. Shadow’s Embrace can be swapped out for Shadow Protector in dungeons where conditions aren’t much of a problem, or Master of Deception for running/mob skipping sequences. You also have access to Shadow’s Rejuvenation, which is great for large area fights where your team is too spread out to make use of Venomous Auras, i.e. Lupi.

Acrobatics is incredibly versatile. Usually I use Vigorous Recovery most of the time, but you can easily find uses for Descent of Shadows, Power of Inertia and even Fleet Shadow.

The Skills:
This build uses S/D and Shorbow. I like to prioritize AoE auto-attacks in PvE so dagger or pistol mainhand is a definite no from me. This is especially important because hitting 3 enemies with a sword attack, or a trick shot will only use up 1 venom. The rest of the skills are: Hide in Shadows, Spider Venom, Skale Venom, Shadowstep, Basilisk Venom. S/D covers many areas; the Auto Attack is AoE, Infiltrator’s Strike and Cloak and Dagger can remove conditions/heal (depends on your adept Shadow Arts trait). Flanking Strike is a boon remover. Great utility right there.

Shadowstep can be swapped out for anything you see fit really.

Finally, I use 6 runes of the Monk for my armor. You get +25% boon duration which pushes 1 more tick of regeneration from Hide in Shadows. Aegis on elite is amazing – Basilisk venom can utilize this more than any other elite in the game. I’m still working out which sigils are best for this build.

What is this build capable of?
Excellent survivability, thanks to high toughness and Leeching Venoms. With over 1300 Healing Power, each hit will leech just under 600hp (this applies for your allies too). The damage is decent and you can easily maintain poison and weakness on your enemies. This build also promotes smarter play – use every second of your stealth to lose conditions and buy time for recharging venoms, turn off auto attack for the shortbow when using basilisk venom on bosses to keep them petrified for longer, always be in infiltration mode for bosses like Lupi to easily escape bubble traps and AoE spams.

WvW
I took this build for a spin in WvW. Changed up Spider and Skale Venoms for Ice Drake, and I take Scorpion Wire. The end effect is simple: Apply any venom, snag an enemy with Trick Shot, pull them in and watch them get destroyed by you and your allies (who also have your venoms). Rarely can anyone escape. This build clearly is not a solo roaming build however.

Lokheit.7943:

The op user account is gone if you try to click it. I hope he didn’t erase it or something because of how I unveiled his build, I wasn’t trying to be mean to him, I was just trying to show him sharing knowledge is nice for other users and how there aren’t secret builds at the end, so there was no reason to not share it as it was easy to discover anyway. If I offended him and that’s why the account is gone I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention.

But that said, it would’ve been a bit childish to overeact and delete an account just for that. I guess he might have had a problem with his account or something, if that’s the case I hope he recovers it quickly and he doesn’t have any problem with that.

I am quite sure he didn’t delete his account. He may have made a post somewhere which garnered an infraction point. This causes what you described; you clicked his name and cannot access the regular user interface. It’ll be back later I believe.

War Mourner.5168:

Nice build, I also run a glass cannon, although it’s fairly different. People seem to forget that we have 40k+ health overall, which lends itself to glass cannon builds quite nicely, giving us way more survivability then other class’s glass builds.

Not sure why you’re using sigil of frailty, as kkagri pointed out, like sigil of strength, are simply outclassed by the plain old sigil of force or sigil of air.

You can also try to squeeze every last bit out of it, having another focus with sigil of accuracy for when you have a full stack of accuracy, maintenance oil for some more, skale venom for more vulnerability etc, although most people can’t be bothered.

I don’t see how you can say he has to much crit though, at 40% crit chance and 109 cirt damage he’s doing x1.64 his regular damage overall, at 55% that becomes x1.88. The only time you have to much crit is over 80% really.

Ah, you’re right about the precision, I was thinking about my own build with perma-fury. I’ve recently reduced my 47% base crit chance to 40% for some added toughness.

haviz.1340:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

haviz.1340:

Good to know they weren’t so many!

About AoE nerf, anyone with logical capabilites knows that they won’t just nerf the damage because every melee weapon except daggers on thief is AoE.

I kind of interpret the AoE nerf as only affecting ground target and/or proper AoE spells. Cleave skills whilst AoE, aren’t necessarily in the same bracket as skills such as lava font, chaos storm etc etc.

It’s kind of a difficult concept to explain, you’ll either understand or not. Could end up being wrong, but classes with swords/greatswords would all end up with nerfed auto attacks, which would seem kind of weird.

BASICALLY; I’m agreeing with your point that a nerf to all damage that isn’t pure single target isn’t an ideal approach to toning down AoE.

I understand that, but take a look at all those panicking ele on their subforum. Their argument is that 18 out of 20 skills are AoE (which obviously is true only if you count cleave skills, gap glosers and cone skills).

Meh, I think what the devs said about reducing the difficulty after removing the waypoint rushing is more of an issue.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Thanks for the headsup on this. I’ll be sure to let our items folks know about the rune being soul bound. That seems odd to me!

So hows this coming along btw?

If blackgate loses this time will they drop to tier 2?

is spelling ridiculous incorrectly a new meme now? Everyone spells it as REDiculous

Where exactly is this jump that requires minion bodyguards? The Iron Marches JP? Uncategorized Fractal? Tbh, you don’t really want to be in combat if you are jumping, it reduces your jump distance.

I like your hybrid build better. I think there are some pressing issues with this build.

Pros: Great synergy with the Well of Suffering and Spectral Wall downtime trading. I also like the Life Blast auto attack replacement.

Cons: There is a lack of condition removal. While this is certainly OK in world PvE, you’re going to run into problems in Dungeons or WvW. If this build is only designed for world PvE then I think the scope is a bit small, and that other glass cannon builds can do more.

Secondly I think you have too much precision. At a certain point precision won’t seem to matter as much anymore since you crit like crazy anyways. Some of the precision in the armor could have been traded in for vitality via Valkyrie gear, or toughness via Crusader gear, using Ruric and Adelbern’s rings.

Lastly, I know how lucrative vulnerability stacking can be but the real issue is that its not great to go out of your way for. Your 3 utilities are dedicated to vulnerability stacking (the grasp is for the wall pretty much). Vulnerability is worthless on champion and legendary mobs. I guess it can be useful in WvW, but players are likely to walk out of your Well and bypass the Wall. Sigil of Fraility isn’t actually that useful. If we are to believe that it has a 2 second internal cooldown (as tested by some people), the Sigil can only contribute 4 stacks of vulnerability by itself. Possibly 5 with your condition duration+ from traits. And that’s if you crit every single time it is off cooldown.

Sigil of Force gives 5% damage+, all the time.

You certainly have no issues with open world combat, but not many builds do either. It does look very fun to play though.

haviz.1340:

kKagari.6804:

You know guys, I think my video reference was just slightly off. Hero is a great movie and all, but you know what a dungeon should feel like?

Kill Bill, Volume 1, Crazy 88 onwards. Multiplied by 5.

Seeing as anet said something about nerfing AoE, do you still want to fight 440 mobs at once?

This is an interesting question, I shall answer it in several perspectives.

Direct: The crazy 88 actually didn’t have 88 people (apparently), nor do they actually appear all at the same time. GW1 Bonus mission pack actually had a solo dungeon that paid homage to this scene. So, yeah, I wouldn’t mind really.

In light of AoE nerf: My hunch is that the AoE nerf might actually be just an improvement on enemy AI; a similar change like this happened in GW1, where the AI would learn to walk out of persistent AoE. A part of me still thinks this won’t be the case because the devs explicitly mentioned damage.

HOWEVER: The AoE nerf doesn’t actually bother me too much. GW2’s borderline menial gameplay has caused me to become lazy, often I make builds in PvE that put significance on autoattack rather than ‘rotations’, simply because I can 111111 my way through everything. Typically I like to pick weapons that ‘cleave’ (hits enemies to the sides of your target). I don’t think these AoE cleaves will be adjusted much since the AoE component of the attack is instrumental to the auto attack. So what does that mean? I think the idea of waving my thief’s sword auto attack through a huge group of enemies with them dying in a few hits is highly entertaining. I’d also like the encounter to be difficult though.

TLDR: Yes.

Well, its a good thing I only invite players into the guild after a nice Lupi exam. No-one in my guild will be bothered by this.

The Minstrel. I have yet to see him so far.

silkysoft.6749:

Pants off friday

You know guys, I think my video reference was just slightly off. Hero is a great movie and all, but you know what a dungeon should feel like?

Kill Bill, Volume 1, Crazy 88 onwards. Multiplied by 5.

has this actually been fixed or did it get swept under the rug? The jolting makes some areas of the game unplayable, particularly the JPs

Whoofe.7643:

skipping pretty much is required in SE path 1 (i think?) at the beginning. the inquests keep spawning, you gotta kill the golem boss and get the heck outta there ASAP.

Well, what I mean is, running segments could be a fun. But I see what you mean.

Well here’s something relevant from GW1:

Blessing. You earn 6 Lightbringer points for each servant of Menzies you slay. When you slay a servant of Menzies boss, you gain 6 additional Lightbringer points (maximum 150) for each servant of Menzies slain while under the effects of this bounty.

Aha! Gotcha! Before you scream baby felines, hear me out:

So far, in dungeons we seem to have certain areas of our playing ability tested:
- General combat (this is everywhere)
- Survival (think dredge fractal)
- Puzzle/Jumping (almost every dungeon)

But actual running/skipping seems like a biproduct of trash mob design. Running mobs can actually be kind of fun. Think GW1 with people doing Lornar’s Pass. There’s a certain thrill to it. If the game can test your abilities for using the relevant skills in combat (i.e. build making) why shouldn’t it test you to switch up your skills to do some impromptu running.

The closest examples of this is the dolphin event in the underwater fractal, but this event relieves you of your regular skills and seems to pull you out of the experience of running with your own character. The rolling fire boulders in the volcanic fractal doesn’t count: the balls roll in some fixed pattern.

I think P3 Arah, after the Crusher/Hunter boss, that valley that people like to skip, is a good setting for a running event. Of course there are issues where thieves can simply trivialize one of these events by going into stealth, but I’m sure there are ways around that.

Think Lornar’s Pass of GW1! Fun stuff!

Necro’s rock underwater. Their harpoon skillset is pretty much the guardian greatsword skillset; which rocks.

I do really good damage while downed underwater against the bosses in P2 and P3 as a necromancer.

Guys…its not like Gems cost that much in game coin.

Every time I do HotW I attach thumbtacks to my palm so I can use it to zap myself awake when I’m feeling sleepy.

yandere.9176:

A noble spirit tempted and corruted with power, realizing the error of this ways and does this one good thing shortly before he dies.

You see that can be a compelling stoy. I t was tolled many times before and is still tolled today. But you see there is nothing special about it nothing that sets the story apart from standard fantasy 101. The current story we have is definitly not ground braking but to be honest your story is also not ground breaking.

It isn’t an upgrade of the personal story as it is right now, therefor not really worth the time to implement. The story department has bigger fish to fry imo.

Well, its not like they’d implement it anyways, whatever is done now is set in stone. I’m quite sure my story would have more coherence however, as well as some interaction with the players, with the choices they make. Personally I don’t think there is anything wrong with being formulaic; GW2’s story isnt formulaic and look where it got itself. Its quite a mess.

i trio’ed AC story mode at around lvl 50s with a lvl 30 in the party. Let me tell you it was one of the most horrific experiences ever. Particularly the lovers.

Other than that the dungeon is oooooooooooook to underman. You need some pull skills and very crafty exploitation of the trash mob leash distance.

far out, is SoS going to win again?

Lupi is pretty easy, though its a good test of basic skills. My guild uses it as an entrance test.

Thanks for the advice about the talking zhaitan thing. I do think its a bit cheesy now, will rewrite it!

To be honest I think most of the bosses in the game are designed OK, not great, but they meet the minimum requirements so to speak. They are moderately fun but can probably be a bit more challenging. Except the HotW bosses. Nope, they get the Honor of the Worst boss (hotw! gettit?) award. Underwater controls are shoddy at best and their gigantic HP pool and stupid AI (they never seem to attack downed players) makes the whole encounter completely pointless. The butcher is OK.

Its just the rest of the dungeon feels so dreary to get through.

My camera jolts back and forth constantly when I am running up narrow stairs with railings (think halloween mystic forge in LA), even when i run near rows of chairs in the BLTC in LA, or in generaly most of the time in tight spaces.

Anyone have an issue with this? Can anything be done?

Son of Elias.5420:

So, wait, the ending of this scenario both ways emphasizes Zhaitan personally dealing with one necromancer, then talking to you, mocking the death of this one necromancer. Can the Elder Dragons even talk? And why would they talk to us? It’s like squishing an ant that was about to bite you, then talking about it to this other ant next to him.

No clue whether they can talk or not, but I’d imagine either he can do it, or he’ll have some representative to do it for him in game. The thing is, most stories need an antagonist with a face, not in the physical sense, (i know zhaitan has a face) but a representation of what is the opposing force. Talking is merely the way he engages the player.

Rilke Cadmus.6829:

EdwinLi.1284:

Kamahl.3621:

With regards to the several flesh golems – that was because Trahearne is supposedly a sick-nasty necromancer. I feel it was the only time in the game he was able to display his combat capabilities, as every other time he just spins2win.

They may do this in the future but a bit less then the amount Trahearne summons as a new Trait GrandMaster skill.

Don’t forget compared to our character Necros, Trahearne has years of more experience than our character with performing the advance Necro skills. As the storyline progress there will be plenty of openings for Anet to add these kind of features to our characters if they feel like it.

This leaves out the fact that Trahearne is 25 years old, and who knows how old your Necro may be. So, while it may work the way you say, If you decided on a more learned and elderly character (if you like to make your character’s backstory that the game never covers like me) they would have far more experience than the cabbagehead.

I thought the pale tree teaches them a whole bunch of stuff while they are dreaming or what not.

Hrmm thanks for the info! does anyone have any experience in doing similar tasks? :O

Look, I know it has been ‘patched before’ but camera smoothing is still bonkers for me. If i walk near a set of chairs, or a stairwell railing, the camera will jolt back and forth heaps.

This is highly annoying, does it have to do with my resolution? Does everyone get this? i play on 1680 × 1050 btw.

haviz.1340:

kKagari.6804:

Ok, you’re either just trolling now or a master of misinterpreting. Good pacing =! short dungeons. If I’m going to spend the next 2 hrs of my life running a dungeon I want lots of memorable encounters, not 4 30 minute ones. I want set pieces, not another encounter with Risen Mage #500. Silver mobs only exist to lengthen the encounter, not make more difficult. This is especially true when your team outnumbers the enemy. They can’t add more silver mobs because the encounter will drag on forever so in actuality, every silver mob gets their special own mini boss effect. You know that part in some of the TA paths where a bunch of nightmare puppies charge at you? Fun stuff. Sure, they could have just replaced it all with 4 silver nightmare hounds.

Okay, so 100+ dredges is okay for you. People don’t skip in fractals at all because they contain so many memorable encounters.

How is this at all a response to what I was saying? In fact I have no idea what you’re even talking about anymore. This whole topic has people agreeing that more killing and rewards is fun yet you seem to be saying completely different stuff every time.

If I found some way to change the art shown at the load screen, would it be bannable?

Its just that I find the regular LA load screen really ugly, I’d rather put some photoshopped screenshot of it up that I made myself.

i made this idea long ago, that the players actions will influence whether trahearne becomes evil or not:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/story/Rewriting-Trahearne-Caladbolg/first#post967592

use the wiki and search jumping puzzle. alternatively, youtube will also suffice.

Err jumping puzzles constitute as jumping puzzles. The ones where there are chests at the end. You only need to get to the beginning of it though for the achievement.