Guild Wars 2

For warrior, meta didn’t change much, 6/5/0/0/3 ( 30/25/0/0/5, before ) with gs+ axe/ useful offhand, berserker scholar runes, and utilities are usually banner of discipline+ banner of strenght+ signet of fury in group settings. Purple Miku did a great thread covering all your needs on warrior, but I can’t find it at the moment.

Yes, that’s also a common problem. But even when playing with good rangers ( and trust me, I know great rangers), they are still problems with sword aa conflicting with max melee. IT doesn’t make the clkitten useful, but in casual runs ( and in fractals most runs are non records, at least in our guild), playing with a ranger will bring some annoying situations where the dps is surprisingly low because the ranger can’t sword ( yeah that’s a verb ok). But excluding that, rangers are a powerful class right now.

In the case of 6/2/0/0/6 necros, weapons, sigils, runes and traits are not written in stone. It’s just a basic indicator, saying you’ll play a direct damage necro reliant on death shroud. Most pvp meta builds doesn’t include everything as a 100% re usable setup against every situation would be nerfed anyway. Meta specs use a fairly large choice of sigils and runes, especially direct damage ones not reliant on might stacking, wich is the case of necros. I do agree, specs are easy to spot in this game, but I don’t find it bad. I’d go as far as saying it’s a good thing.

The main problem with rangers in fractal is the sword aa pushing mobs and breaking max melee, forcing them to go greatsword. Ranger cleave isn’t that bad, and even if they are not the best class for the fire elemental, they still have reflects, party wide condi removal, and fast attack rate. They aren’t an utility class anyway, they are offensive buffer and good burster, with some good weapon skill utilities. They also have access to a lot of cripple and soft cc in general, wich is a qol improvement for the one tanking archdiviner.

I laughed so hard, thank you.

He asked for the dominants builds, not your own. PvP dagger builds or daggershroud are harder to master, so I didn’t include them.

(quick reminder: condi builds are solo builds only, and shout heal isn’t suited for pve)

LB boosts your damage by quite a lot with burning. Use warhorn out of combat for the mobility.

Rangers weren’t meta because ele were, just saying.

IF you gave mobility, defense and condi removal to P/P, you’d need to nerf its damage by half.

Your point being?

Thieves are obviously the best choice for sneak attacks and deception via stealth ( well, they are thieves). Race has about no influence on your final char except some niche uses of some racial skills. Humans are just so generic (* shameless personal opinion* ). The usual beginner advices would be a) learn the mechanics and your foes’ skills ( both in pve and pvp) and learn to adapt and take right utilities ( pve) change your rotations ( pve and pvp) or even leave a fight ( pvp). For thieves specifics, you can precast any utilities like cloak and dagger of pistol whip and use any shadowstepping skill ( infiltrator signet, shadowstep, steal) to get a hit on less experienced players. As far as build goes, i’d recommend 2/6/0/0/6 for pvp and group www, and 6/6/0/0/2 for pve content. Can’t really answer to everything as the game is still quite complex ( yeah, it’s true, don’t laugh), so if you have any other questions, i’ll be glad to answer.

Things die slower at high level because they are balanced for 80 level character. Come back in those zone after getting a full berserker armor and a real build, and it’ll be good. I know, all my chars end up leveling in level 75 zones with base gear, and it really takes ages.

After some time playing, you won’t miss the “finer details” most of the time. I won’t say always because a smart guy will find that one spec no one uses without any outisde indicator.

I played a p/p deadly arts trapper thief in www zerg, and I felt less useful than a crowd control shout heal warrior, please buff me qq

That burn hurts so much, did you have incendiary powder?

Same, level 22, 21 and 30ish did arah story, and can open explorable.

I’m so used to the guardian subforum, my bad :/

This is entertaining, go on.
/grabs popcorn

If you’re looking for a hard to master class, try elementalist. The new leveling system being garbage, you need to level your char to about 40 to gain access to most of the things, so try out a bit of everything. What are you looking for? Offensive buffer, defensive buffer, utility only class, mostly damage class, classes with evades, invul, blocks? All classes are fun to play, but their gameplay is really different, thieves and rangers are evasive classes with access to a lot of in combat mobility and bonus damage while flanking, warriors are naturally resistant but doesn’t have blocks or vigor, they are highly mobile, guardians are a great addition to a group due to their party wide defensive utilities, eles and engis are aoe heavy classes with a lot of fields and blasts, allowing them to use the combo mechanic without any help, mesmer is an utility class with a lot of situational skills like portal for instance.. etc.

Damage modifiers don’t work with lingering elements, making the trait nearly useless.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first for pve,
for pvp grab all the death shroud and life blast effects. Skills can be switched, i recommend spectral walk, summon flesh wurm, and corrupt boon.

For what content? Necro is a fun class, but it’s the least desirable class in pve dungeons right now, and has been for a while, so it may be better to invest some time in another profession first. Hardest classes are elementalists and engineers, i’d say.

Also, welcome.

oh btw forgot to add this: having difficulties on trash isn’t sad at all, especially at high levels ( 22k heartseeker and my personal best, 50k ring of earth in the molten facility frac), and they are often more challenging than bosses in pugs run, as they won’t use proper support. For trashs, having vigor isn’t that helpful since there’s usually nothing special to dodge, so keep 6/6/2, use icebow+ meteor shower and anything below 30 should just melt instantly.

They did in the past, but they kind of forgot it. Glass rangers still have a 6 sec total immunity to direct damage, and access to good stunbreakers/ cc. I still agree with you Ehecatl; ranged weapons for now doesn’t have access to the kiting superiority they should have. IMO, they should nerf all the ranged spec damage, and add easier time for retraiting off a fight or aoe harassing people on a point while being safe. But it would require a revamp of many things, so yeah. What i suggest is, a full glass gs ranger should do more damage than a lb one, yes. Because one has to eat all the damage in the face, and the other is just going through his rotations off point while someone else prevent the cap. At least that’s how I see things, that doesn’t mean it’s the perfect answer to everything.

If your main problem is trashmob, swap signet of fire for glyph of storm and start the fight in earth attun, use sandstorm and possibly obsidian flesh ( as you will have the earth attun cd anyway), or use lightning hammer, it has a blind on the third auto attack. IF staff, start in earth as well, and use staff 3 for personal reflects, staff 4 to cc the mobs, swap to air, air 5, and then go through your fire dps rotation. If you dislike dagger focus keep playing with staff, but remember it lacks the personal survivability of x/focus.

6/2/0/0/6 is the pvp build, 6/6/0/0/2 is the pve build. First one is ds based, second is dagger based.

It’s not a guess. It’s an analysis of facts leading to an observation. There’s sometimes 2 or 4 unknown traits, but you can tell 100% what a player is using. Gear is harder obviously, but celestial is pretty easy to spot especially in pvp where you can’t mix stats.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first
Stickied up there.

Recording repeatable rotations and then adding all the damage done in a timeframe is a possibility, or there is non so legal dps meters that are pretty reliable. And no, warriors doesn’t have the highest dps in the game, not even close. They are pretty highly ranked underwater though if you were wondering, they are first or second. If only grenades could hit underwater.

Because it’s called art of “war”? Karma boosters does work I believe, so it’s ok.

It synergises really well with eletric discharge, allowing you to rotate through all your burst and doing some extra damage by switching in and out of air attunement. It also ensures you’re not stuck in an undesired attunement after your burst. For instance, if you blow all your fire burst+ air+earth cc, you’ll only have water up, and with fresh air you can rotate in air again for more damage pressure. In pve, using fresh air is a good way to maintain a good rotation as well, as you can use some air damaging abilities/ damage modifier for conjures between your might stacking rotations and still have it for, say, your lightning hammer.

Yeah, and melee is arguably more exciting to watch than ranged skirmish about who is the best LoSer. Eles will just run focus and rangers won’t exist in high level ( at least not sniperqq longbow), but in average/low level pvp it’s a problem. Anyway i’m not here to argue if rangers are op or not, this has been discussed ad nauseam elsewhere.

There’s always clear indications on builds if you know traits well enough. On eles it’s pretty simple, just look at the might stacking, if they have evasive arcana, and if they heal when entering water+ have vigor and regen with cantrips, they are the popular x/x/x/6/6 build, nothing too hard to guess. Then you watch the direct damage and condi damage you’re taking, if the burning is about 400 buffed then it’s not celestial, if it’ up to 500-600 it is. Ele is one of the easiest class to scan builds, but it’s really the same for other classes. For instance, if a guardian procs one stack of might when you break his first aegis and is using shout, it’s definitively a ah shout guard; to confirm it watch if his health bar goes up when he uses boons. Warrior traits are usually harder to see because it’s mostly passive, but they usually get the weapon swap reduction ( just count time spent before weapon swapping) and most have passive endure pain ( 30 in defense). Shout heal and banner regen are obviously easy to spot, as is dogged march and cleansing ire; etc

Good knowledge of game mechanics be it AI behavior, hard counter, positioning, and ennemy skill effects and cooldowns ( for both pve and pvp). Then come practise and reflexes, but i’d say knowledge is more important.

Don’t wanna sound rude but most rangers can’t dodge already.
Solori, this game isn’t about off point 1v1. A ranger can melt people at range without fearing retaliation ( not the actual boon, huh). The buff to rf is fine as far as balance goes, but it breaks anet’s rule of melee> ranged and high risk high reward. All ranged weapons should be kiting weapons with moderate damage to apply pressure, not l33t360noscopetoplel machines.

It’s not about the counter available, it’s about the low risk for such a high reward. Eles have easy access to reflects and proj absorb, but it’s not the case for everyone.

4 points only for a minor boost especially considering you don’t bring that 10% modifier anyway isn’t that great. No evasive arcana/ any points in water from a pvp standpoint is pretty dangerous as well. I’d move those to arcana and water. Anything with focus offhand has an advantage against rangers and nades engi.

The spider queen nerf was a community request, because it was an “exploit” to stack in melee range and not trigger some attacks. The graveling champ in p2 may be a design fix, as the champ wasn’t really a threat and had nothing particular. Anet likes to nerf Ta endbosses.
tl;dr: the difficulty spikes are either required by a lot of people in the community for a long time or just design changes; nerfs are either bug fixes ( alphard, that tree) or actual bugs ( yeah)

Those points in fire magic would be better elsewhere imo. Anyway, it’s really glassy, celestial will still win.

Well every time i tried to single dodge the aoe i got cc’d and died like a scrub so now I play it safely ^^ But yeah, energy sigils are mandatory imo, along with getting rid quick of that weakness. Maybe playing with condi>boon utilities to gain vigor? I believe weakness translates into vigor, so well of whatever it’s called making conditions into boons could be helpful.

We had bunkers at the start of the game; anchor guardians. A lot of people know playing the meta were using a tanky gear at some point when the game started, and then realized they could actually survive in berserker gear and achieve the same amount of support, if not more, while contributing to the group damage ( wich became another form of support).

You see a lot of those guys in your average pug, thinking how great it is to “tank” bosses, because they are misleaded and really think they are useful to their team. Then, they end up realizing that if they really were a tank, their teammates would die last, since he would act as a meatshield against incoming damage. But since aggro isn’t tied to your tankiness and a lot of attacks are aoe, being a ptv ah guard only boosts your own survivability for no real gain for your team. When you realize it, you’ll try to protect them by other ways, aegis, protection, or healing power. Now, you then see how healing power doesn’t scale well, and how most of your direct heal are either a boon everyone can apply, or some specifics skills better used to something else. Soon, you try to get a little more dps, and end up in berserker gear at some point. And you drop your altruistic healing because you don’t need it anymore, and you know how a personal heal doesn’t help your team.

At that point, the extra survivability gained from gear and traits acted as a training wheel, wich is perfectly fine considering not everyone played as much as those zerker elitists. That’s totally understandable. Now, what isn’t understandable, is how a minority of people try to enforce their playstyle, and ask for a total nerf of the fast paced active defense playstyle in favor of their non meta builds. Healing and toughness stacking works if everyone does it, as the extra survivability will ensure the healing to be worth something; in a meta speed clearing group, the healing isn’t helpful, and therefore should be dropped for more dps/ utilities.

Remember that everything is viable in pve as well: Because we ( speedruns guilds, efficiency seeking players) don’t want to play with a unorthodox spec, doesn’t mean you can’t open your own lfg and find like minded people. If a meta player comes into your group and is a total jerk, insult your playstyle and try to force you into his, you’re free to kick him. And we are free to do the same.

This has been explained countless times, and still those topics keep coming and further discourage any cooperation between meta and non meta adepts. I’m myself using meta builds on all my pve characters, but I’m more often than not playing with all type of players, to explain my vision of pve and show them it’s totally possible to survive in a dps setup, because I feel like it’s the way to go.

Hope this helps you guys from " the other side" understanding our pov. Won’t re read myself, so there’s probably english mistakes and whatever, but you get the point.

Because ascended armor only matters in fractal?

I know i struggled to kill the troll for a while and now doing it with inexperienced players, I try to interrupt at least the first one in a group setting ( since they’re not really aware of the defiance mechanics they tend to troll ( no puns) the stacks), and I’ll interrupt about each one in duo, provided i have the cooldown for that. Moving to stairs will block the 2nd part of the jump, the actual shockwaves, so if you’re out of dodges and interrupt you can (nearly) safely move to them, dodge the stomp, and save one dodge. Since you need 2 dodges for the shockwave part, and necros already lack them, interrupting it seems the way to go. Popping plague is also possible, especially if troll does shout+stomp, pop plague, tank it, and consume condition/transfer them. The regen for focus is nice, but i wonder if another interrupt+ condi transfer+ chill is worth it. Tank some auto attacks with ds when your condi transfer/ absorbtion is up, and try to stay in dagger the longest time possible.

Not much. If your plan is to do a general purpose gear, i’d go for zerker.

You’ll unlock explorable but if you ever want to do your story quest, you’ll have to do arah story again after. Others dungeons aren’t necessary.

interrupting each shockwave is key imo, so dagger warhorn+ another cc, staff probably, then transfer weakness after its shout, dual energy sigils, camp ds when staff to maintain a somewhat acceptable dps?

yes, that’s the point. Pve,pvp and www doesn’t need the same support. Since pvp game modes are about unavoidable damage and being the last one standing, most pvp specs are “selfish” from a pve point of view because they need that extra survivability to do their other support role, being in the frontline. But in pve, the goal is to avoid completely that damage, by dpsing the mobs fast enough so that active defenses doesn’t run out. There’s 3 big categories of support: defensive support, the most traditional, being aegis, blinds, heals, proj. reflection, protection, area vigor/weakness, etc; and there’s offensive support, wich people often forget, like might, fury, fire fields, vuln, party wide boosts like banners or spotter, conjures and then supportive utilities, things that makes a run faster by using a profession specific skill to gain time/ counter something, like portals, stealth, area swiftness, mobility conjure ( fgs). Control is usually in the third category for me.
So yes, support exists in this game, in all game modes. If you can’t see it, watch closer.

yeah because self centered condition removal and altruistic healing are sooo supportive.

Don’t quote me on that as I only play them in casual runs so they aren’t min maxed, but thieves and rangers should be better off with berserker instead of assassin. Thieves have a precision signet and a +7% while flanking so it’s sure they won’t get a benefit from ‘sin. Now for rangers, they have spotter, but that’s about all, so I wonder. For www, i’d say zerker is superior for both ( if power based, obviously). Also from a pve point of view since rangers and thieves are good conjures wielders they may get the extra precision from lightning hammer.

Afaik, it’s either weird uses of game terrain ( what we refer to mountain goating in dungeons, but in an exploitive goal) or some game hacks to fly/ be invisible/ etc. Those programs are banned by anet, but most people using them are either unreportable because they wait to be alone, or they have multiples, possibly hacked, accounts.