Guild Wars 2

Here are a few builds i’ve used recently in pvp. You have to play smart and pay attention to stay alive, but the burst is worth it. And tbh I dont feel THAT squishy with all the active defenses and kiting.
Quick draw core:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkQFaYxSWwlFoaxweQt3eAc28An2jQXw9wQUyKSD-TpRSABZfQAo+IAw9FAAkyAAs/QtPAAA

BM core:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQDLWyCusAVLGWEq/1PhVvL3OYE2WIAO6SeQaA-TpRaAB8eBAo9IAAQZgcPEAzu/gwPAAA

Zerk druid, gs/lb:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQDLWyCusAVLWWEM4naW9r2Uu6AjglLXA4oNy0A-TpBXABP/AAS+CAY8hAI4jAAA7P0QZAA

Zerk druid gs/staff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRnUqANsglsA2CCctgl/AD+s2WvrLvuMQA4JN8DOalMtwA-TpBHQB9Y/hAeEAAwhAoJlBY4DAwgXAAA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhNakQFaYxSWwlFoaxweQ1FcPME7tHAnNPwp9IUi0rA-TpRSABAs/AIlBE/IAA6JAg6HAQtHCAA

I like to play around and discover/try new builds, and meta is boring af. I never really liked druid, though its definately strong, so Ive been sticking to the trusty ol’ core ranger.
Ive mosty been playing your standard power surv gs/lb build with a twist, but then i got bored of it and decided to craft a new one. Im probably not the first to run something like this, cause lets face it, every possible build has been run at some point. Never seen it before though.
Since i came up it ive played 6 games, and won all of them, not saying this build hardcarries or something, but the burst potential is crazy. You’ll be squishy, so timing your cc, kite, dodges and pet peels are paramount.
Enjoy melting healthbars!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhNakQFaYxSWwlFoaxweQ1FcPME7tHAnNPwp9IUi0rA-TpRSABAs/AIlBE/IAA6JAg6HAQtHCAA

I like to play around and discover/try new builds, and meta is boring af. I never really liked druid, thought its definately strong, so Ive been sticking to the trusty ol’ core ranger.
Ive mosty been playing your standard power surv gs/lb build with a twist, but then i got bored of it and decided to craft a new one. Im probably not the first to run something like this, cause lets face it, every possible build has been run at some point. Never seen it before though.
Since i came up it ive played 6 games, and won all of them, not saying this build hardcarries or something, but the burst potential is crazy. You’ll be squishy, so timing your cc, kite, dodges and pet peels are paramount.
Enjoy melting healthbars!

EnderzShadow.2506:

zalt.8937:

Damage modifiers, probably running BM and MM; moment of clarity (50% dmg increase on next attack upon interrupt.) and remorseless (25%dmg increase on gaining fury.) along with two-handed training (5% dmg increse and chance to proc fury.) and might stacks. Common combo is maul, hilt bash (resets maul cd.) Maul. The latter maul will hurt.
Highly telegraphed skill tho, easy to avoid. Outside of pulling that combo off, ranger GS is rather lackluster damage wise, good utility and sustain tho.
Bottom line; if you see a giant bear emerging from the ranger, and this is really easy to spot and avoid, dont get hit.

Some of what your saying is true.
The first maul will hit like a truck. And if my tiger hits right after the maul, it’s two shot damage(combined). It might as well be a Full Shatter Mesmer Combo.

However, to get that to happen, I have to use multiple utilities.
Depending on how Im set up, there isn’t much room for me to escape and try it again because it’s such an offensive build—without much escapability.

Well talking about maul damage only, and not maul + tiger f2, the second maul of the combo (maul-hiltbash-maul) will hit harder due to moment of clarity. Tiger f2 really could be used w/e, preferably after a swap to make it unblockable if traited in mm. (If target has access to blocks)

Regarding ability to escape, ofc it depends on how one build, but GS being a bit of a jack of all trades you have a block, a fast no wind-up leap, evade in leap and auto-chain. Combined with smokescale thats stealth, and if druid one could take celestial shadow for stealth and superspeed, which are great for escape or repositioning to turn the tide in your favour.

Yolo zerk p/p and pray to god you dodge spear.

Damage modifiers, probably running BM and MM; moment of clarity (50% dmg increase on next attack upon interrupt.) and remorseless (25%dmg increase on gaining fury.) along with two-handed training (5% dmg increse and chance to proc fury.) and might stacks. Common combo is maul, hilt bash (resets maul cd.) Maul. The latter maul will hurt.
Highly telegraphed skill tho, easy to avoid. Outside of pulling that combo off, ranger GS is rather lackluster damage wise, good utility and sustain tho.
Bottom line; if you see a giant bear emerging from the ranger, and this is really easy to spot and avoid, dont get hit.

I think most people enjoyed gw2 more pre HoT. I know I did.

Caedmon.6798:

I thought this was about suggestions to make hammer great again and not to complain about the current state of warri in general.

My biggest issue with hamm and the main reason im not bothering with it despite what can be changed on the 1 – 5 skills is the frontal coned aoe burst when youre in berserk that gets easily sidestepped.You dont even need to dodge that thing and most of the time you jump behind your target.Its far too easy to avoid or simply miss,not talking about stabi or any other sources of avoiding damage.I think the changes i propose are pretty straight forward.

Turn Ruptering Smash into a full aoe like Earthshaker

Add an 1 sec immob on Hammer shock

Unblockable effect on Staggering blow

Reduce cast time from Backbreaker to ½ or ¾ and add 5 – 10 stack of Vulnerability

Those suggestions are acually great, would vote

Yah I agree regarding the highlevel play, and warrior will see ups again. Anet seems to not know how to balance it properly. You could try core warrior with gs, axe/sh, atleast I find it better than zerker since nerfs. It has a lot more even damage output with strength runes and might stacking and feels more fluent with reduced gs cds. Stacking might gives me some room to invest in toughness along with armored attacks w/o loosing a lot of dmg. Anyways thats just my 2 cents, sorry for going off topic so much!

slimike.1693:

I mean I would hope after 4 years of playing war I could play it smart haha. However against other players who are actually good and know rotations, war is just too easy to counter. You never see it used in high ranked matches anymore or tournys, for a reason, it cant compete. Head butt and shield bash could be evaded by my blind grandma with their cast times. And just about anyone with a brain can kite a war for 4 seconds well both eps burn out. Power war is really just useless as it melts in team fights, and is easy to beat in 1v1s, condi war is some what better but still cant really compete. Anyway this is what I have noticed at least from my gameplay this season. Classes get nerfed/buffed every season, war was op last season, sucks this one, will probly be good again soon.

Regarding your sidenote; idk how you played warrior pre nerf, but not being able to facetank all powerdamage for 8 seconds is a good thing. Now one actually have to play smart. And i feel that we have plenty of sustain trough evades, blocks, adrenal health, kiting and even cc. I use armored attacks with demo amu, swapped endure pain for stab on demand and I dont feel squishy at all. No facetank=good change!
I see too many complaints about warrior being sheit now, while I honestly thunk it was only brought in line with others. Shieldbash nerf was uncalled for tho, and arc divider should’ve been reworked instead.

Id love to see the hammer improved by the way! Making it slighty more mobile or defensive, or even making it have some sort of boonremoval outside of sigils to counterplay stab might be just enough

aerodynamique.5267:

I like how ‘heals’ is listed as a counter to condi, and not to power LMAO. Can’t heal power damage boys

Should really be the other way around, since power dmg does not affect healing capacity, whilst condition does. Poison anyone? Counters healing pretty darn well.

I feel like staff #2 should be able to detonate early, otherwise detonate on impact for atleast ~7k, stack 7 burning (i like the idea of burning scaling with fire). Staff AA needs to range stomp downed in order to compete with scrappers. Oh and while on the subject of scrappers, remove all projectile hate from game. Hate it when i want to pewpew.
Add a new pet that i can mount (ranged attacks would be prefered) that grants perma stab, fury, superspeed and quickness. Restistance would be nice too.
Oh and staff neefs to reveal everyone in a 2k radious for 10 seconds on swap. Also reduce SoS recharge to like 20 sec. (Teefers r too stronk!!!!!)
And please make permanent +33 movementspeed and all condis removed on avatar baseline in order to implement new cooler stuff. Oh and perhaps even make avatar grant teamstealth for its duration?

Kkthx

Crinn.7864:

I run this on my necro.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBHhF6kZTodTscTw8GgeTsgLYxVxuYYE6qFAOARbt81HA-TJRWABH/EAg8UAAw+DdWGAA

I made it to try and merge the corruption spam capabilities of condi necro with the flexibility of power necro. Also Soul Reaping is overrated.

Random videos of matches with it: https://youtu.be/jvdqqvRfkzs?list=PL0HKReIcf_OIk-LDJxXa0_-1G0b9z0-OG
(yes I know I suck at game)

Yes greatsword! Was surprised how well you managed to stay alive w/o soulreaping, and the corruption is real lol. Necro is one of the classes I have least experience with, but this actually looked a lot of fun. Will most likely try!

Aza.2105:

I’ve been theory crafting since GW1, its the only reason why I play the game. Its so much fun.

Fully agree! Was quite refreshing going from wow where you literally had 1 build (2 at times)/class that acrually worked in pvp. Then i bought gw2 when it came out, and it felt like most builds one came up with worked to some extent haha

Zietlogik.6208:

lol the warrior build has been around since launch, in fact it was the meta at launch with how strong eviscerate and HB were, they just used Frenzy+bull’s….literally an ancient build

Im well aware of that, I used to run it along with greatbow back then. Never claimed it was new nor original. Just what i run and prefer due to the fluent playstyle of str over berserker line. Aint meta

Perhaps unrelated, but I actually feel like warrior is more fun since post nerf. It opened up a bit more diversity by nerfing the “must have” and promoted a bit more active game play. However the shield bash nerf was uncalled for, and gs zerk burst should have been reworked. Proper nerf would habe been range, but then it’d be like gs core burst. So total rework wouldve been better.

I went back to core gs, axe/sh str-disc-def build only using berserker stance as stance, and i love it. Was a long time ago since warrior felt so fluent and close to its origins in my opinion

I love to theory craft builds, and pvp is the only gamemode that’s appealing to me (wvw roaming aswell due to its pvp nature.)
Meta builds have always felt rather boring and somewhat cheesy to me, so I like to come up with something else that fits me and is viable to my playstyle.

I’ve only just started to try ranked (been playing on and off since launch, but chose not to play competetive due to how life consuming wow was whilst playing competetive). However i have ~2k games played coupled with a fair amount of hours in wvw, so id like to call myself decent. Nowhere near top tier or pro ofc, but enough to know what works for me and how to perform.

Anyway, enough ranting, show me the build you like to play in pvp content that is not meta!
I myself mostly play the following; (i dont really like elites)

Ranger
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQDLWyCusAVLGWEq/1PhVvL3OYE2WIAO6CWdA-TpRFRAn9HAlBsPAA0hAodEAgXAAA

Warrior
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR3ejMdQZH24BWhAnIGICK8E67RQ/ipfKsAICGAA-TpBHQBdY/BDcEAAwBBIgXAg8VGggPAAA

Thief (i use the meta d/p in ranked, but love the playstyle of this in wvw and unranked)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsY6al0MhCnYvTwyJw/ELwEmXaIO0Gm7gnwWoWCIAsbA-TpBXABAs/QwHBgjfAAaWGI5TAgoHEAA

Tired of meta, and more tired of berserker, decided to try something new. This worked fine in unranked for me and was quite enjoyable to play. A bit of a fresh breeze to the gs/ mace shield zerker. Thought Id share if it might fall in taste with any of you
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAT3cjMdQZHWGCedAnIG+BKMGO8WwWgAoB00o7LDA-TpBHQBE8CAEwHAAAOIAdY/BDcEAyXZAA

Ive also tried with kick and stomp, all good depending on sitation. Rune of lynx was quite nice too to be able to chase down ppl woth LB

I mostly play my ranger, and I only play it with a core build with great success. nerg to stab made it a lot easier to pull cc combos off. I actually prefer the core ranger over druid. Havent had any major issues with it yet other than i might have to get off point to not die. Then i jist pewpew and recap. Cant do the same with e.g my thief tho

I had the same problems as always with it just a few hours ago(

What builds do you run as condi rev? Ive never really lerned the class, but would like to, to better understand it

Ranger is one of the classes with many working builds outside of the meta. Its also one of the classes I enjoy the most. I’ve been playing around with different builds since I starter playing this game, and I’ve always hated the meta. So I thought I’d share a fre builds that I’ve been running in pvp/wvw lately and found useful and/or fun:

Core power LB/GS with great sustain due to toughness, WS and CC: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQDLWyCusAVLGWEq9yDgjuL3OYE+X/EW9Sm2BA-TpBFQBA4BAEwyAIc/BGcEAIwFAoBHCAA

Core melee ranger, also works great with axe in offhand. In that case Id swap to lynx runes to make up for mobility loss and Chang to enlargement: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhFakQFaYxOWwlFoaxwfQx7bYvBd/WD7w+6ZQAUi0nA-TpBFQBC4QAUj9HYwRAIglBIwJAAAPAAA

Staff/GS druid with heavy control. Vs power comp, idé SoS instead, and if its burst comp, scrapper runes are helpful: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWRnUqA9rgVsC2CCctgl/AD+s+WvrPphfwRb51lBCAlI9zA-TpBFQB1Y/BA8AAYwRAIglBIwFAQAHCAA

Power LB/GS druid, demolishers if youre feeling squishy: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQDLWyCusAVLWWEsmyVHYEA/Uzqf1lLXA4oVi0rA-TZBGwAJOEARLDg4IAA4DAQc/BA

SB/Staff condi druid, not exactly the best build out theres for outnumbered fights, but fun to bleed melt foes. Works with seekers aswell, get rid of bleed on crit if chosen, rampager if you wanna trade sustain for damage: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAVWjEqQDLWzCmrAVLWMEM4s6YNtyEAGdNgmOQqrFUyUSD-TZRFwAp2fAwTAowFAIaZAEHCAA

Might post a few more if some comes to mind! I realise others run similar or same, I dont claim to be the first one to ever come up with something like this. Hope this is helpful for someone!

I really like to play ranger when im not in my thief. I foten fool around and try to find new builds, and tbh, i feel like ranger offers the broadest amount of builds that actually work. Lately different melee builds have been my favourites, mainly core ranger Ones!

Hi folks!
I’ve recently seen a lot of threads regarding the classic d/d set, non-condi. So I thought I’d share the one I use.

First off I dont play any high-end pvp, (I use this build for spvp and wvw) im a quite casual player due to not having enough time to play too serious. So when I play its just for pure entertainment and I dont care much for meta-builds.
Im aware that d/p and staff is surperior and so on, i just dont like the play style.

Anyway here’s the build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAoYVn0MBFOhFmCWOB8PhFYCbuDeCbheph4QbQLBEA2NA-TpBFABCcEAA4BAIeZAk2fohDBABnAAA

I sometimes switch BV for IS and sometimes PI for condi removal on dodge, and BD for BP or smokescreen.

Perhaps this might fall in taste amongst any of you.
Cheers!

Great vid balouga, love how you play ranger. Started watching your vids a long time ago, and they got me back to play my ranger!

Since there has been a lot of talk about weapons and non meta in this thread, id thought id share my build of choice. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkQFaYxSWwlFoaxwfQtFRGEA+u/7Bf3v3+OUi0rA-TpBFQBN4IAEwyAC4gAAgHAABuAA1Y/BA

Im using demolisher amu since condi rarely is a problem for me, and sw/wh avtually works very well for me with a blast and leap finisher along with evades. Remorseless gm trait also have real nice synnergy with all the survival utility.
Staying alive really isnt very hard with this build, but should i feel i want more sustain i just swap mm for druid and go with menders amu and heal for days
This is what works well for me and fits my playstyle +meta builds are really boring

If you really want to stick to shouts and axe, i think this could work. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBHhF6kSFohFsXQwWQgrFMkJU+hv4N+XDLwE3JbA8ylcp0A-TVCFABA8AAI4EAAp6PppP4KlgMcIAKa/hGOCAIp8LAACwNbz28mBczbezbezbGA-w
Regen scales like crazy with healing power, and you’ll have perma regen in fights. High toughness to mitigate direct power damage, and good condi cleanse on shouts and passive, whilst still having moderate damage.

I would however definetly run something more like this in wvw for roaming. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkQFaYxSWwlF4axwfQtFRGEA+u/7Bf3v3+OUyKSD-T1CFABFquSN7P0wBB4KlgJp8AgHAASKxE4IAQwFA4QVKST3wmhAgFJgVVCBUeMA-w
Very offensive build with high fury uptime, which also grants you opening strikes for even more damage. Sw/wh is your more defensive weapon set with lots of evades and call of the wild is a blast finisher you can use insmokescales smoke field for stealth. Try to stay at range and snipe enemies down from distance. If you can, get marauder gear instead.

If you have hot just go with druid, vanilla builds are more fun tho!

Hope this was of any help to you!

Here’s a full cc build i used to run a lot, saw some guy running this, or atleast something similar and tried it, with great success. Trick is to land the cc and time it between dodges, stab and other effects that prevents cc. Truely satisfying to get a quick kill trough total kockdown tho!
I prefer mender due to how nicely it scales with regen, and theres lots of regen in this build. Could also go with mara or demolisher. Remove all condis on avatar is also viable if youre up against heavy condi, other than that i like the daze on staff swap.
Hope you like it!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqA1CiVsC+CCctgl/ADet+WvrLvuMQA4JN8DGeDoC-TpBFABR8AA6vMQR7P0whAAgLAQbHBAA

Not really a zerg build, but this is what I use both in wvw and pvp (with menders), quite selfish tho. you could swap out a few traits and/or utilities for more team play, e.g allies aid!
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkQFaYxSWwlF4axCng5E4KcHO4W6Mtn2Ms6bBgSWRaA-T1DFABSpcggHAgKqQAkSkrUCmmugYUfAJlUdaiIDNCNcEAqZ/BUUBZhDCAAXAgNDDAjgAgRGiAA-w

I guess I’d go for something like this if I had the time and motivation haha
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWjEqQDLWyCusAXLW4EsmhVfLA4E4KcHO4W6MtnWyKSD-T1CFQBA4CAUj9H0k6PE4BAMRlUpRHAnUuAsDBQfUCiJNBL4IAEAAB4m3MbezA/8n/8n/8nd0je0je0jGA-w