Guild Wars 2

To solo camps, condition builds(death blossom, caltrops, …) or sword builds(well, it got multihit ability) usually got the edge.
D/P is more pvp and burst oriented.
I don’t say, it’s impossible, it’s just a bit slower than what other builds could achieve.

On the other hand, depending on your gear and spec, just break out your short bow and kill everything

Oh yeah, I forgot, if he is REALLY annoying you, just drop a stealth detection trap.
If he triggers it, he’s dead.

You never played a cond build, did you?

The way, the Ranger skills are arranged, you typically don’t have many thoughts about whether you should save skills for one of their 3-5 uses. The skills are pretty much straightforward and serve a specific purpose.
Playing a ranger is more about utilizing those tools and assembling them to something, which can do well in any situation, than about finding synergies in the side effects of skills to make a build work.
Actually, I love the way, those ranger skills are like a toolbox with a right tool for every situation, where I often times don’t need to think twice, “cause I could use aspect x of the skill later on” It’s a fluent playstyle, which still offers lots of customisation through pets.
The only class, which might come close customisation-wise is engineer, which can be built to be pretty much anything(oh god, I want a level 80 engi so much… Still lev 15 tho and levelling him is tedious) and the only class, which has this kind of straightforward on-demand skillset is the warrior, which offers little customisation and a rather brutish approach to things(my main is a hammer warrior)

Dunno about necro, tho. Death shroud seems to have about the same on-demand-utility as generic ranger skills, put into a second skill bar with some gimmicks and traits attacked to it. Offers loads of options and seems to have good responsiveness, if you don’t try to get a minion build to work in chaotic group fights. Still, never really played engi or necro, so I can’t tell you much here.
Necro still seems to be the closest from the overall skill setup, unless you are a mindless bear+longbow autoattacker.

And about the other guy, who said, grenades might have a similar feel: No. Just no.
Playing ranger doesn’t cause carpal tunnel syndrome.

did I ever say, I solo with my build?
It’s built around groups of 2-5 players, which can cover my kitten . And my dps comes from the control, the shared venoms offer to the group(and a ton of bleed stacks).
Of course, it will die to any serious stunlock/burst build, because venom builds can not carry that many stun breaks either way.

For solo play, you drop venom share for shadow’s rejuvenation simple as that.
And if your highest dps relies on hitting a single huge spike repeatedly, it only works against practice dummies anyway. Hf hitting your backstab on the fly(i.e. no setup) against an opponent who knows, how to dodge/stealth/block/blind.

Jakare.6807:

nahj.2870:

Probably something like this

Popping all of your signets along with Thrill of the Crime puts you at or near 25 stacks of might. Factor in +20% damage from Executioner, +10% from First Strikes, +10% from Exposed Weakness, +10% from Sigil of Night, +5% from Dagger Training and +10% from Scholar runes for a total of 65% extra damage on targets below half health. Throw in 25 bloodlust stacks, the 3 vulnerability stacks from Cloak and Dagger and however many stacks Sundering Strikes might give (5?) and the Sigil of Air proc and you should have a very hard hitting combo.

You could use superior sigil of force on your offhand dagger as it stacks with superior sigil of night, so you’d get 15% extra damage total from weaps alone (at night time). It would give you a more reliable dps increase than relying on sigil of air proccing.

Also executioner is tricky to utilise with a backstab build. If you take the example of opening on someone with cloak and dagger – steal – backstab, then unless you get cloak and dagger to do 50% of the target’s health, or you open on someone that’s already below 50% health, your backstab won’t have the added damage. Hidden killer may be more effective if you’re using backstab for the majority of your damage.

[rant=random]
You are seriously calling what people here are trying to achieve here dps?
dps stands for what? Damage per Spike?
[/rant]
It’s true, there may be a more reliable burst out there, but the max spike relies on luck

Well, personally, I don’t find these backstab builds all that fancy… I rather run around with my venom share cond build.
the 10/30/0/0/30 sounds interesting, tho. Gotta give that a try.

just spam blocks/blinds/dazes and laugh, as he runs out of initiative and has to burn his utility cooldowns to gain distance.
If he engages again, while they are in cooldown, just block/daze/blind through his CnD attempt and kill him. If he doesn’t , simply move along and do something useful. It’s not like he can kill you.
If you got neither blinds/blocks/dazes nor heavy duty hitters(earthquake, earthshaker, big fire fields, whatever), it might be a problem with your build.
Also, a single thief simply can not stomp a guy out of a big group without that group letting him have his way. When he downs someone, just go and rezz the guy. Unless your group is a bunch of morons, there’s no way, he will get the kill.

Mijo.3274:

Wow i love this thread!
My most satisfying skill is for sure the good ol’ Kill Shot, especially in wvw when i find an upleveled guy, he start to run for his life and…
BOOM HEADSHOT!

You mean, he baits out the killshot and reflects it back at your face?
btw, onehitting a zerk warrior with his own killshot gotta be the most satisfying thing ever.
/thread.

Most satisfying skill gotta be Backbreaker for me.
I mean, you hit it and your target just crumbles in front of your superior power.
Backbreaker someone in a Zerg situation and he WILL die.

Guardian’s hammer just diesn’t cut it for me, because apart from the occasional banish, there’s just not much play involved. My guardian rarely sees use outside farming world events these days.

The way of the bunker:

Just go straight for the Lightning hammer. Then it’s as simple as pressing 1 till everything is dead.
Contrary to what people suggest for “standard play”, if you are planning on going for the hammer build, you will have to get some points in defensive traits(starting off with 10 in earth for the toughness bonus, getting stone splinters along the way) and get defensive gear(around 50% power/50% toughness). The lightning hammer is the most damaging tool in the arsenal of elementalists, so your damage won’t take much of a dent from grabbing defensive gear(on the contrary, if you plan on melee with subpar gear, your damage will drop because you’d spend too much time running).
With hammer and signet of fire, you can reach 50%+ crit chances on low lev chars even without fury. Then just 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 and hammer away.

As for useful skills, whenever you encounter a tough opponent with a hammer build, drop some chill on them before going full manmode. Either grab a staff for the field or go dagger/focus. Both work, D/F got more single target control, while staff got more AoE. As for really tough opponents, it might be wise to grab the frost bow instead.

Both of them are more suited to roam builds than to group builds.
As for team utility, besides the fact, that both fall short of it, the ranger offers an overpowered water field, which passively grants regen and cleanses conditions. The main issue with these classes is, that they get utterly destroyed by Retaliation, which, given the abundance of light fields and blast finishers in huge fights, is omnipresent.

Solo play is fine, and as a matter of fact, they are strong in small group play. But anything with more than 20 players involved will demote them to garbage tier.

Also, if you leap through the combo field, there is always the risk of eating a daze/stun/kd and not becoming invisible. 9 initiative wasted.
And if the thief uses the combo to get away from you, that’s 7 initiative not used to harm you. If you got some sort of full zerk instagib build, maybe THAT is your problem. Get some sustain and some interrupts and the thief can only get THAT far.

Inb4, my thief runs full carrion P/D D/D venom share

The dagger stuff and signet stuff is fine, swiftness stacks duration, so it is a nice synergy…

One with Air and Zephyr’s Speed are rubbish tho.

Take Root makes you invulnerable for 3 seconds too. Quite handy on ele/mezz/thief, if you are in a clutch situation and still need a couple seconds for your get out of jail-free-card to come off cooldown.

As for my asura warrior…
Scratch it, Asura Elites suck
Asura got the best racial utility skills(PI, Technobabble, Rad Field) and the worst racial Elites(some say, there is only one elite in the gane which is worse than mortar and that’s the Asura Power Suit)

Best Elite in my opinion is still the Warbanner… Well, my mate often times runs some upleveled guardian(60) alongside my warrior, so the rezz comes in handy.

Just don’t fight him outside the circle.
It’s a pretty good indicator for his aggro range. If you drop aggro, because you are too far off, he will run away.
He might still stand there and fight you, even, when his aggro radius(how far it is exactly I have no idea) is exceeded, but he will most probably lose aggro after a couple seconds of battle.
Just fight him right inside the camp and don’t run away too far and you should be fine.

Torment on mines sounds great both metagame- and flavor-wise.
You blast them with explosives. Chances are, they will have problems walking after that…
In game: You knock them away and they get torment.
Synergy is beautiful, as an Asura would say.

the fattest norn possible is male tho.

Anymras.5729:

I’ve never really been worried about the score – except if it’s a ludicrous difference like 100K points between 1st and 2nd. That tells me that there’s no point participating: If my server’s the one with the 100K advantage, it’s boring. If another server has it, they’ve probably got a stupendous numbers advantage, making it frustrating for me to do anything except roll with a horde (something I dislike doing, due to GW2’s flashy skills causing lag in huge battles, inability to tell what’s actually going on as a result of a combination of the resulting lag, flashy skills obscuring my view and the simple chaos of the situation).

Personally, what I hate about the matchups is that the server I’m on is back against the two servers it was up against for months before the matchup method revamp happened. I actually quit WvW for a while due to said matchup being so absolutely one-sided due to zergs, leading to the above situation of frustration – and it’s still Zerg City, so I’m probably done with it until a match that looks more even comes up, if it ever does.

As for what makes me get discouraged? If I see the Outnumbered ‘buff’ so much as blink on my bar, I turn around and leave. It does nothing to actually help the underdog during a fight against the kind of numbers that cause it to appear at all, just improve the rare victory a bit and remove the monetary sting of the many, inevitable, frustrating deaths to greater numbers. Doesn’t even matter if my team’s trying to hold a fortified position, with any and all siege gear lining the walls, if that apology of a buff pops up – the flesh tide will wear away our fortified beaches, and there’s not a kitten bit of strategy or skill to it, or anything strategy or skill can do against that kind of disadvantage, given the rules of the combat system. What’s the point in playing if you know you can’t win, and not due to lack of skill, even on a personal level?

What do you have against the outmanned buff?
I jump in joy whenever I see the outmanned buff, because that means, I can dive my warrior straight into the next heap of opponents and unleash my earthshaker-combo on them without having to pay the repair fees if my Leeroy Jenkins doesn’t work.

Just make the biggest, fattest norn possible and fill people’s screen with hulkingly big clones/phants.

You gotta realize one thing: Ranger and warrior got the same treatment.

For ranger, there was simply no reason, not to go 5 points in beastmastery for that quickness boost, so it got moved to the top of the traitline(now a 30 point trait).

For Warrior, it was similar, the Bonusdamage and Bonuscrit on full adren was way too strong for being 10 points traits, especially in how these 10 point traits fundamentally changed the way, people used adrenaline(or rather didn’t use it at all). So they both got moved to be 30 point traits now. Warrior was the most needed change. 10 point traits should NEVER change the way, you play your class to such a degree. Impact on playstyle is reserved for the grandmaster traits.

Now there is Mesmer:
Same story as Ranger: A 5 point trait, which is so good, there is no reason, not to get it. Every single build had at least 5 points down the illusion line.

I don’t know whether pushing it up this far was really necessary. Maybe as a 15 point trait, it might have been enough.
On the other hand, this change might actually make some room for an overall cooldown improvement on skills such as decoy, because the corresponding cooldown trait is not omnipresent anymore.

Might be a connection issue, so Doom is on cooldown locally for you, while the server thinks, you didn’t cast it yet.

I’d say, file a bug report with your system spec, a screenshot with combat log and a short description. Maybe they can figure out what’s going on.

Hoelbrak, if you are stacking loads of might(i.e. if you are a bullrush frenzy 100b freekill)

Melandru, if you are part of the 2% who don’t have some weird greatsword fetish and do not stack might from other sources aswell.(My only source of might is warbanner anyway)

Right now, I use neither, tho. Unsure whether I should grab melandru or respec to SoR and grab Lyssa Runes. Because My Hammer build is rather low on might stacks, Hoelbrak Runes are not that good for me.

If you are afraid of getting the wrong skill:
Rampage is a VERY situational skill with little use outside of WvW.
it is just devastating everything with loads of stun and damage but in PvE these stuns are not needed.
So the point, you might think about putting points into rampage is about the time when you are running around lev 80 with full exotics and start suiciding into enemy lines to break sieges in WvW.
Just get anything else and put points into Rampage when you need to kick kitten .

Hounds on the other hand is a hellish strong skill pretty much anywhere where they aren’t blanketed by heavy AoEspam.

Overkillengine.6084:

Give them a high innate toughness, and immunity to bleed and poison.

Metal Plating -> Reactive armor: Turrets have retaliation.

Only thing which could work without breaking turrets.

GO POWER ASURA!

An interesting thing about this is, it makes /D synergize more with the Scepter, as you now get an on-demand chill to lock your opponents in place.

Aristio.2784:

Roll a Guardian. See how much better in almost every aspect of the game they are compared to us.

or

Roll an Elementalist. See how much more versitility they offer at none of the “versitility tax” we pay.

Engineer versatility and Ele versatility are different.
Ele can do everything while specializing to have some aspects of that “everything” stick out more.
Engi can be built to do whatever you like perfectly at the cost of being unable to do other things.
Basically, an Engi can outperform an ele in everything, if he specializes in it, but he loses his ability to do other things.
If you want to put it simply, Ele is the Jack of all Trades, while Engi is the master of specialisation.

Well, you necros got only little problems with this, as you often stack cond duration anyway.
Warriors on the other hand got that amazing shout “fear me”, which gets absolutely butchered by melandru runes and lemongrass. Point blank “fear me” lasted not even half a second on an opponent, I fought yesterday.
Something needs to be done about this and Anet again shows its capabilities to leave things finished halfway.
After taking out sigil of paralyzation, the logical conclusion would be also taking out stun reducing effects from fear duration.

Lighter.5631:

guardian? slow? man love them insane speed when catching running enemies with zerker meditation build.

Well, getting to enemies is pretty easy with guardian, I agree.
But if you gotta make a run for it, there better be some critters around to teleport to, or you are pretty much screwed.
Warriors are shock troops, Jumping in and out of battle, while pinning down opponents and finishing them off, while Guardians are the heavy troops. First in, last out or not out at all.
I prefer a flexible playstyle, hence my obsession with greatsword rangers in pvp and my hammer+sword/shield warrior in wvw.
Get in, dish out the combos, get out.
Rinse, repeat. If someone tries to single you out, there is fear me and shield block to deal with them or short cd savage leap to get away.

I want Rampage skills to have a target limit of 10!
Then it would see use.

Would be fun

Because my Guardian is a big, slow kitten.
Well, technically, she’s a Charr, but it’s still like watching a huge piece of armor roll slowly through the field.
I really LOVE the guardian shouts, but whenever I take her for a spin, I just feel like throwing up when I try to get to places. Even with Staff always being equipped and having retreat in the utility bar, she’s still slow as kitten.
Just taking my little asura warr is so much more satisfying. He can be fast without having to plant a friggin circle in front of his feet every couple seconds and he also got savage leap, which is amazing to get around quickly.
Plus, the hammer on Warrs is so much more fun than the hammer on Guards. It’s a combo weapon, used to jump in and dish out the skill rotations. Guardians got that lame excuse for a control weapon… 1-1-1-2-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-2…

Durzlla.6295:

mjharrison.3209:

i think it’s silly that 19/20 staff skill are aoe. air #1, #2, water #2 should all be looked at. also sceptre fire #2 (DT), IMO the worst-designed skill in the game.

Staff has a skill that’s not an AoE? The whole point of that weapon is to be a mobile Artillery unit…

Am i the only one who wants to see the Staff Air #2 skill to be like it was in Alpha? The longer you hold it down the more damage it does, it always blinds, if you hold it to halfway point it’s kitten daze, if you hold it to full charge it’s a 1s stun? That would suddenly make that skill amazing…. again.

Charging up is so air like!
OMGYESPLZ

winshmo.7896:

Make staggering blow a 2 part skill, 1st press is 2 second channeling parry which activates the usual staggering blow attack on a melee hit or on a 2nd button press. I could even forget about the 1 sec after cast root bug if they would change it to this.

Actually, I love that idea.
My sword/shield+hammer warrior will definitely slot reflect for this.

Ascii.9726:

You didn’t by any chance choose that piece of music just because it says “wonderwall” did you?

He probably chose it to lock out us Germans

And I’m at work, so I wouldda watched it without sound anyway…

well, if you increase the range too much, it will be too good of a skill for zerging.
And the damage increase I was talking about was somewhere between 30% and 50%.

currently experimenting with 0-20-30-10-10, using leg specialist and opportunist for perma-fury, so I can free up the elite for rezz banner.

Running Sword/Shield and Hammer for most of the battles.
Gear is full soldiers with cavalier’s trinkets and ruby jewels, haven’t decided on a decent set of runes yet.
I ran endure pain for some time but dropped it in favor of fear me due to fear me actually giving some breathing room and EP doing nothing against the huge bars of conditions, you typically attract by jumping in headfirst. Might try the new stomp these days tho. Other utilities pretty straightforward Balanced Stance+Signet of Stamina.

This build can dish out quite some cc and utility, but got no source of might stacks, so the damage is not quite where it could be.
Might on weaponswap sigils are a big no-no anyway, because for most of the part, you want to stay with the hammer and grab sw/sh only when it’s time to gtfo.
Anyway, maybe, I will find a decent source of might these days. Still having runes and food to toy with

Leave it the way it is and instead buff the damage and maybe 5% more AoE.
This is a friggin hammer, it ain’t a scalpel, so make it more scary instead of giving it a ton of on-demand precision-cc.

Make this skill a fearsome follow-up to other stuns rather than making it yet another initiate. Hammer got 3 of these already. Make it something, the opponent wants to avoid at all costs instead of yet another skill that pummels them around for a bit, so you can chain – what exactly? autoattack? 100blades?

the #1 is fine, actually.
Staff’s air attunement is more about controlling the flow of battle than dishing out spikes.
The only thing, which realy seems off is the #2.

more interesting question:

Does it work with Mortar?

It’s more of a tool to trigger mantra traits than a serious attack.
2 (3) Minor damage spikes at instant speed.
If you spec heavily into mantras, it can heal allies around you etc.
Don’t ever try to touch it for the damage alone. It’s just not worth it.

bartrentenaar.8674:

I love turrets and especially in spvp. Use a Net turret, and a Rocket Turret and anything in your range is stuck for 5 seconds. I Always get above 200 points playing with my turret engineer.

Who the hell cares about points?
All, the points tell you, is, how much time you waste hugging capturing points kitten players till they are captured and desperately trying to get tags in on opponents before they die.
Really, if my countless hours of playing dota taught me one thing, it is:
You can have as pretty numbers as you want, at the end, it comes down to who wins the war.

Hanzo.9624:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dySzPv3BhXw

Unfortunately, this video is not available in Germany because it may contain music for which GEMA has not granted the respective music rights.

kitten.

skcamow.3527:

To catch the thief on the other side. After crossing, poor mesmer finds that thief had crossed back and traffic was then too heavy to catch him.

should have dropped a portal before crossing.

Rush maybe, but leave whirlwind as it is.
It’s fun when you get more damage ticks because you spin through your opponent in slow motion.

Repro steps:
1)Take a level 80 warrior
2)Equip level 1 weapons
3)?
4)PROFIT!

Really, I just don’t see any other way to reach such clear damage disparities. Greatsword Autoattack is still a beast while also stacking vuln and 100b hits like a truck.
The only way, the bleeds from sword can hurt for so much more is, when either:
-the warrior is geared and traited towards conditions(duration runes and food, full carrion) or
-the baseline physical damage is ridiculously low(aka level 1 weapons) and one tick of bleed already deals about that much damage.

Suply drop is the only one which isn’t downright kittened.
Depending on your race, you might take a peek at the racials, tho.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

This or expand “mobile strikes” to not remove immobilze only, but chill and cripple too.

That would be a decent compromise. Not as good as this but I sure wouldn’t complain if we got it. That, or a trait were it removes it on dodge with a slight internal CD so it’s only every 2 dodges. Having it always remove would probably be a bit too strong.

Cond remove on dodging won’t remove always chill and cripple. Those 2 conditions affecting melee-ranged builds really heavy, because it denies you to actually stay in melee range. Even with gap-closer it’s not enough to compensate the slowing speed. Or give warriors more access to cripple and chill instead of eles.

Just look at the corresponding traits from other professions.

Zietlogik.6208:

Shield Bash: For 5 seconds you block income attacks. If you block a melee attack, you charge to foe (same range as current) and stun them for 1 second.

lol.
Every warrior will run around with mace/shield and missile reflect if this happens…
So broken, really, this could easily rival good ol’ tankcat even without the reflect trait.

Just have an ele drop you a lightning hammer, then see where the damage is at

Heck, I don’t even know, whether one of them was the real one, so how am I supposed to know his reasons?