Guild Wars 2 Class/Builds Discussion Catch All

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I thought I'd break this away from the other Catch All as I think this can be a valuable resource for anyone looking to refine and share.

I'll start here with some links to some builders. If you have anything to add to this post it and I'll add to the OP.

http://gw2skills.net - Russian but seems to be pretty complete. Button for english
http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds - Curse Network builder. Looks good.
http://www.gw2builds.org

I am going to list some straight forward class/weapon builds for the new players in case they are frustrated or would like to try other classes.

Warrior: greatsword, rifle, bow or hammer - slash, shoot, burn and smash respectively; skill spam to your hearts content

Elementalist: any weapon selection with fire attunement - burning things is not difficult to get a grasp off;

Thief: really any combination; the only thing that makes thieves complex is learning the movement

Ranger: longbow; mostly good single target stuff except for 5th skill barrage

Necro: staff; you can pretty much just use autoattack and #2 to heal and damage, pets are fluff except bone minions (exploding) have some use

Mesmer: staff - open with skills 2+3 summon clone helpers and use auto attack, 5th skill is nice during events; greatsword - open with #2 to damage and summon, autoattack, 5th if knockback is needed; sword/torch - ignore clone summon, open with #4, autoattack and #2 as necessary

Guardian: greatsword - hack away and skill spam, #2 + #3 are great; hammer - autoattack + #2, #4 is a hilarious punt

Engineer: rifle or pistol/pistol seems the most straight forward, I think pistol/pistol offers more utility

I've been reading that the Ranger with Axe or Sword/Horn is a deadly combo. I'm working on a build for that here
http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/42...

Health and Vitality could probably be higher. Not entirely sold on it yet. I want to try the horn though. looks fun. Calling a flock of hawks to attack for you, Wee!

Curse is usually on top of their builders. Hopefully they will be fixed up soon.

http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/18...
I'm leaning towards this one now. straight longbow/pet build for max damage. Pretty good crit.

http://gw2skills.net has a button in the top left to switch to English.

That new curse one seems pretty good. I'll play around with that today.

Both of them are missing some of the trait changes that happened during the stress tests after BWE3.

Edit: OK the thing I don't like about the curse one it does not show thee effects of your traits on the actual skill. In the Russian one if I pick a trait that lowers a skill cool down, it will show that new cool down in the tool tip for the skill.

Edit2: Here is the direct link to the russian builder in English
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/

So for Necromancer these are the builds I am looking at. (The traits are off in a couple of these. I left the spots blank for places where traits are not listed correctly in the builder)

Dagger + Warhorn / Scepter + Focus melee and CC: This is for getting around fast and stopping others from moving. Has an Immobilize, 3 chills, 2 AoE cripples, a pet that can cripple, a pull and a teleport. The best part is this build can keep swiftness up 100% of the time for travel.

Axe + Focus / Dagger+Dagger tank and retaliation: This focuses on generating life force as fast as possible and dropping the cool down on death shroud to 5 seconds to be able to dance in and out of death shroud while tanking damage and redirecting it with retaliation. The retaliation traits can easily be switched over to AoE heal traits if I want to go support instead.

Axe + Focus / Staff Expendable minions: This is a minion build using expendable minions for AoE damage. Axe and focus will stack vulnerability which will increase my pets damage. Pets will be sacrificed often for heals and to drop AoE poison fields.

Here's my current Necromancer build (level 24):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQAQ...

It's focused around debuffs and healing. Soloing I mostly rely on Scepter/Focus attacks and Signet of Spite to stack debuffs for extra Feast of Corruption damage, with Epidemic and Staff attacks for added AOE capability. I don't have any pets to help tank but Full of Life, Reaper's Touch, and Mark of Blood give me three different regen buffs I can use before I'm forced to pop my heal, plus there's always Death Shroud if I need to buy a bit more time while my skills are on cooldown. It's also pretty easy to kite mobs around with chill and cripple debuffs.

In group content, Signet of Undeath + Ritual of Life gives me a 3-person rez plus an AOE heal which is pretty amazing for getting people back into the fight. I tend to focus on rezzing and using my heal/regen abilities, plus the usual debuff+Feast routine.

fangblackbone wrote:

Engineer: rifle or pistol/pistol seems the most straight forward, I think pistol/pistol offers more utility

Pistol/pistol mainly focuses on conditions (bleeding/poison/blind etc), but rifle tends to have higher damage output in my experience, and has knockback and immobilizing skills that are super useful. Also, it's really fun watching your character get thrown around by his weapon.

I tried pistol/shield, and it seems to have potential but it also seemed greatly outclassed by the other options.

My Guardian build. Idea is to make eveything burn. I stack condition and damage (power) stats.

I change my 8/9 skills out depending on what i'm doing (pve/pvp/dungeon) In pvp i always have the spirit hammer available for the additional knockdown.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUMQ...

Edit: also i swap out my 2ndary weapon set to a staff when doing dungeons or WvW.

My Charr Warrior build is a pretty straight forward precision set going for lots-o-crits.

Choras Emberclaw

I started with a greatsword and rifle set up, but lucked into some sweet axes and have been rocking that lately. I love being able to move around with whirling axe rather than standing still using the greatsword skill hundred blades. Adrenaline seems to build up really quick with dual axes, and I likes me some eviscerate.

For range I swap out between rifle for single target and longbow for swarms.

At level 30 with some decent weapons, things fall over with just a sideways glance rather than deal with the axes.

FYI, their concurrency is sufficiently high that they've temporarily suspended digital sales through the Guild Wars 2 web site. They're still continuing retail digital and boxed sales. The suspension is apparently only temporary while they expand their infrastructure:

https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2/posts/10151098751069209

This was heralded earlier:

http://techland.time.com/2012/08/29/guild-wars-2-producer-wed-turn-off-sales-to-preserve-the-game-experience/

Cosmic wrote:

My Charr Warrior build is a pretty straight forward precision set going for lots-o-crits.

Choras Emberclaw

I started with a greatsword and rifle set up, but lucked into some sweet axes and have been rocking that lately. I love being able to move around with whirling axe rather than standing still using the greatsword skill hundred blades. Adrenaline seems to build up really quick with dual axes, and I likes me some eviscerate.

For range I swap out between rifle for single target and longbow for swarms.

At level 30 with some decent weapons, things fall over with just a sideways glance rather than deal with the axes.

I'm running something similar to this. The axe main hand, (I have been switching up offhands just for some variety), and a long bow for range. I love the axes for the speedy adrenaline building. I pumped a quick 10 points into the second trait down, and it gives 40 precision for every passive signet. I was running with 3 signets and a shout in my bar last night, (level 21), and it was a crit festival. Really good times. Add in some status effects on crit, and this could really shine as a build.

This is my current solo PvE build for my engineer: http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcQQFAUlspSWnuSiF1NA

In general, in battle, I'll drop the thumper turret (7), move to the side, power up with the Elixer B (8) and start firing the hip shot (1). Then, as the enemy nears, I'll hit him with the net (2), blast him with the blunderbuss (3), then launch him and myself apart with the overcharged shot (4). Once we have some separation, I'll hit him with a grenade barrage (F4), then switch to grenades (9) and just rain down all of the different kinds of grenades.

For you rangers out there, try 15 points in beast mastery. There's no need to take the quickening zephyr utility skill or the Tier 3 trait.

15 Points will do it better and far more often. You get 2 seconds of it whenever you switch pets in combat. It doesn't really matter that it's 2 seconds instead of the utility skill's 4, as long as you start the skill with the cast time in the 2 seconds. The most obvious choice is the Longbow's rapid fire shot.

If I remember correctly, pet switch in combat is 20 sec, so the -20% reduction, you can do this every 16 seconds.

OK after experimenting with the Purging Flames utility spell and changing traits around to reduce cool downs i'm loving the guardian with a 2h sword. The number of combos available are awesome. The fire shield alone is pure awesome but to have that and the other ones with the light field. Absolute juggernaut time.

Cosmic wrote:

My Charr Warrior build is a pretty straight forward precision set going for lots-o-crits.

Choras Emberclaw

I started with a greatsword and rifle set up, but lucked into some sweet axes and have been rocking that lately. I love being able to move around with whirling axe rather than standing still using the greatsword skill hundred blades. Adrenaline seems to build up really quick with dual axes, and I likes me some eviscerate.

For range I swap out between rifle for single target and longbow for swarms.

At level 30 with some decent weapons, things fall over with just a sideways glance rather than deal with the axes.

I started with dual axes, but have been rocking sword main / axe offhand for awhile. I love the sword for the bleed and the "jump to target" power.

I intend to rock the same build at 80 as I do in sPVP for my mesmer - The Glamouring Swordsman

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgMQ...

Stack confusion and blind enemies while helping out allied. Portal is a flex a skill that you can swap out for lots of other options, but one thing I like about this build is that it adds a lot of utility to the portal spell by turning the portals into little confusion mines

mooosicle wrote:

For you rangers out there, try 15 points in beast mastery. There's no need to take the quickening zephyr utility skill or the Tier 3 trait.

15 Points will do it better and far more often. You get 2 seconds of it whenever you switch pets in combat. It doesn't really matter that it's 2 seconds instead of the utility skill's 4, as long as you start the skill with the cast time in the 2 seconds. The most obvious choice is the Longbow's rapid fire shot.

If I remember correctly, pet switch in combat is 20 sec, so the -20% reduction, you can do this every 16 seconds.

Ooh, that's a great tip. Just barely getting started with the game myself (level 16 ranger and a level 15 thief) and on both I sort of just decided to build down the trait line that granted +power since I haven't bothered to do any research. I was definitely interested by that particular bonus, though -- perhaps I'll give it a try when I have 15 points to play with.

I started with dual axes, but have been rocking sword main / axe offhand for awhile. I love the sword for the bleed and the "jump to target" power.

This +1

Though I have to admit that axe/axe is really nice and it does have a jump-to-target power. Unfortunately, it is the adrenaline power so if you are out you have to run or use a utility skill.

As far as my necro I love the staff but I am currently running with scepter/focus. The number 4 skill of the focus is awesome. It is a ranged bounce attack that hits foes and allies and causes vulnerability and regeneration respectively.

Human warrior. I've mostly been using sword+shield / rifle, but also recently mace+shield and greatsword. (I've got all of my weapon skills unlocked now, I think, so I've tried everything at least a bit.) I've been running with Healing Signet, Signet of Might, Signet of Fury, and either For Great Justice or Prayer to Lyssa as the mood takes me. Something I've been doing is working well, since I can kill multiple enemies four levels above me without breaking a sweat. >_> I'm kind of hoping that stops working that way, because it feels too easy. (On the other hand, it's still slow enough to gain XP that I'm having a really hard time trying to keep my level up with the areas I'm playing in.)

I'm playing a Charr Thief and really enjoying sword+dagger for pve (I switch to shortbow when I want to do lots of AOE).

Can anyone suggest a build that will get the most out of those? I've been thinking of going heavy into Shadow Arts.

Also, any suggestions for a strategy for mass pvp for my thief? I love doing mass pvp on my engineer and necromancer because of the AOE and survivability of those classes, but the thief feels so much more fragile in comparison...

KingMob wrote:

Also, any suggestions for a strategy for mass pvp for my thief? I love doing mass pvp on my engineer and necromancer because of the AOE and survivability of those classes, but the thief feels so much more fragile in comparison...

Dagger in the main hand and #2 because when used in a combo field you're given a 3s shield based on the field you jumped into.

helps with survivability.

Khoram wrote:

I started with dual axes, but have been rocking sword main / axe offhand for awhile. I love the sword for the bleed and the "jump to target" power.

I tend to run around with Sword/Warhorn in one set, and either Rifle or Longbow in the other. At first I just used the horn's speed boost and sword's jump attack as general movement powers, but I've found that the sword's bleeds and snares and the horn's mobility make for a very fun DOT-and-run play style. And the bleeds from the sword work well with the bleeds from the rifle... Or at least they both benefit from stacking +condition damage...

I can not for the life of me nail down what warrior traits I want. Everything seems good given different specific situations. It seems hard to limit yourself to one role. I can either make myself really excel at regular pve with lots of +crit, or I can make myself really useful for dungeons or pvp. I wish we had 2 (or 3) trait specs we could load out and switch between easily.

I don't know how it is for other classes, but for a warrior, a lot of the traits are specific to certain weapons. The problem is, I find myself swapping weapons fairly frequently whenever I'm not just running around soloing hearts and doing DEs. That kind of negates the desire to either take weapon specific traits, or to swap weapons. Makes me sad.

Alternatively, I might be happy if warriors were able to swap between 3 weapon loadouts!

Khoram wrote:

I can not for the life of me nail down what warrior traits I want. Everything seems good given different specific situations. It seems hard to limit yourself to one role. I can either make myself really excel at regular pve with lots of +crit, or I can make myself really useful for dungeons or pvp. I wish we had 2 (or 3) trait specs we could load out and switch between easily.

I don't know how it is for other classes, but for a warrior, a lot of the traits are specific to certain weapons. The problem is, I find myself swapping weapons fairly frequently whenever I'm not just running around soloing hearts and doing DEs. That kind of negates the desire to either take weapon specific traits, or to swap weapons. Makes me sad.

Alternatively, I might be happy if warriors were able to swap between 3 weapon loadouts! :)

Considering how many weapons and combos thereof a warrior can use, more loadouts would be nice. My Charr warrior just hit 22. Only adept level training so far. All of my points are in Arms and Discipline. With precision gear. So geared for lots of crits, all the time. But at level 22, I am feeling somewhat squishy in some fights. Not sure if I should start investing in the Defense or Tactics to boost toughness or vitality (respectively).

I can not for the life of me nail down what warrior traits I want. Everything seems good given different specific situations.

Indeed. While I'm sure it will lead to impossible nightmares for the designers responsible for balancing the game, one of the most impressive things to me about the game so far is the insane matrix of skill / trait combinations that every class can choose from, and that so many of them could be genuinely viable choices if played correctly.

On a quasi related note, even though I'm barely over level 20 I started looking around for discussions on thief builds and gameplay, and encountered a reddit post that laid out what sounded like a pretty excellent build for the dual dagger/shortbow play style I had settled on in the late teens. I gave each of the available weapon combinations a decent go, but ultimately the versatility of this combo paired with the super fun dual dagger melee style seemed like a good choice for me. (I am still keeping a pair of pistols in my bags for when I have a long single target fight where getting in melee range just isn't practical, though.)

Anyway, if you are playing a thief and looking for a fun and effective build, check that reddit post out. The core idea is that you jump around like a madman generating insane bleed and poison stacks and triggering every combo field that is laid down near you (including your own short bow poison field), with every defensive move you make also contributing to your offense as well. I was able to successfully solo a veteran and two normal mobs that were a couple levels above me after moving my first 10 trait points down to trickery, so at least so far it is working out pretty well.

(Oh, and here is a build link matching what he describes since the reddit post doesn't include one. Again, since I'm barely over 20 at this point I don't know enough to completely judge some of the higher tier major trait selections, but it definitely sounds like it should work out as described if played right. I definitely see that Scorpion Wire skill choice as the wild card, though -- right now I'm using the Infiltrator's Signet in that slot instead since I don't have some of the passive initiative boosts from the later traits in the build yet, but even when I do I could see myself using Smoke Screen or Shadow Refuge instead to have another defense/escape/control option available.)

zeroKFE wrote:
I can not for the life of me nail down what warrior traits I want. Everything seems good given different specific situations.

Indeed. While I'm sure it will lead to impossible nightmares for the designers responsible for balancing the game, one of the most impressive things to me about the game so far is the insane matrix of skill / trait combinations that every class can choose from, and that so many of them could be genuinely viable choices if played correctly.

On a quasi related note, even though I'm barely over level 20 I started looking around for discussions on thief builds and gameplay, and encountered a reddit post that laid out what sounded like a pretty excellent build for the dual dagger/shortbow play style I had settled on in the late teens. I gave each of the available weapon combinations a decent go, but ultimately the versatility of this combo paired with the super fun dual dagger melee style seemed like a good choice for me. (I am still keeping a pair of pistols in my bags for when I have a long single target fight where getting in melee range just isn't practical, though.)

Anyway, if you are playing a thief and looking for a fun and effective build, check that reddit post out. The core idea is that you jump around like a madman generating insane bleed and poison stacks and triggering every combo field that is laid down near you (including your own short bow poison field), with every defensive move you make also contributing to your offense as well. I was able to successfully solo a veteran and two normal mobs that were a couple levels above me after moving my first 10 trait points down to trickery, so at least so far it is working out pretty well.

(Oh, and here is a build link matching what he describes since the reddit post doesn't include one. Again, since I'm barely over 20 at this point I don't know enough to completely judge some of the higher tier major trait selections, but it definitely sounds like it should work out as described if played right. I definitely see that Scorpion Wire skill choice as the wild card, though -- right now I'm using the Infiltrator's Signet in that slot instead since I don't have some of the passive initiative boosts from the later traits in the build yet, but even when I do I could see myself using Smoke Screen or Shadow Refuge instead to have another defense/escape/control option available.)

I'd suggest anyone playing thief to check out haste utility spell. The amount of extra dps generated from this spell is scary.

I use haste for my thief and I concur!

Does anyone have a good PvP engineer build? I can't seem to be productive with any of the builds that I've tried.

^ engineer

I ran this build in the betas. It was very effective. Extremely mobile and ability to fight a variety of enemies. If you fight something too tough, you have the ablity to flee. Your main pistol attack will do piercing and explosive shots. Clones, minions, mobs will all be hit.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQ...

You're constantly under swiftness and vigor. You drop bomb kit when melee goes close and punish them. Glue bomb first. Second pistol can be switched for shield if that fits. Last 10 traits is your choice, I prefer last 10 points in the Alchemy tree for "immune to conditions under 25", helps you get away and fight bleed.

Pop medkit for swift and fury buffs between fights and while fleeing. Preemptively place down medkits before a battle during point defense

You have two potion escapes, one for condition, one for everything else. The toolbelt skills for those elixirs is also very good.

Drop a supply crate on your enemy when you need the help. It stuns.

Accessories are on the last tab. Rune I left blank, whatever precision or condition damage rune you like the best

mooosicle wrote:

^ engineer

I ran this build in the betas. It was very effective. Extremely mobile and ability to fight a variety of enemies. If you fight something too tough, you have the ablity to flee. Your main pistol attack will do piercing and explosive shots. Clones, minions, mobs will all be hit.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQ...

You're constantly under swiftness and vigor. You drop bomb kit when melee goes close and punish them. Glue bomb first. Second pistol can be switched for shield if that fits. Last 10 traits is your choice, I prefer last 10 points in the Alchemy tree for "immune to conditions under 25", helps you get away and fight bleed.

Pop medkit for swift and fury buffs between fights and while fleeing. Preemptively place down medkits before a battle during point defense

You have two potion escapes, one for condition, one for everything else. The toolbelt skills for those elixirs is also very good.

Drop a supply crate on your enemy when you need the help. It stuns.

Accessories are on the last tab. Rune I left blank, whatever precision or condition damage rune you like the best

Excellent, I'll try it out tonight.

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