Guild Wars 2 Class/Builds Discussion Catch All

Im just getting into the game and of everything, player builds seems the most confusing, but I had a Thief earlier using a Spear underwater. 2 of his 5 attacks made him evasive for a few seconds and it was glorious to watch. Is there a weapon combo on land that does something similar? I think I've tried everything but maybe Im missing something.

Dual daggers has a lovely flip right over the mob, with several AOE cuts along the way. Good for crowds and getting missed by the big hits. Its pretty close but maybe there is something better.

I really don't like Sword/dagger. Those skills dont seem to flow at all for me.

polypusher wrote:

Im just getting into the game and of everything, player builds seems the most confusing, but I had a Thief earlier using a Spear underwater. 2 of his 5 attacks made him evasive for a few seconds and it was glorious to watch. Is there a weapon combo on land that does something similar? I think I've tried everything but maybe Im missing something.

Dual daggers has a lovely flip right over the mob, with several AOE cuts along the way. Good for crowds and getting missed by the big hits. Its pretty close but maybe there is something better.

I really don't like Sword/dagger. Those skills dont seem to flow at all for me.

Dual dagger is probably closest to what you are talking about there for the thief. You might enjoy the ranger one handed sword gameplay though. Where the thief's melee skills are tricksy-acrobatic, the ranger's are athletic-acrobatic.

Pistol/dagger has a lot of back and forth.
Sword/pistol is a lot of fun too.

I find that for a lot of the classes, the water combat skills are much more creative and fun. But like I said in an earlier post, that could be just because of the newness of them.

From the Catch All

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

This is my proposed Thief build.

Dual dagger to get maximum damage while stealthed and flanking.
Added Signet Use to gain extra initiative to allow me to do a couple more special attacks like my Death Blossom.

Thoughts?

This build uses sword/pistol for Pistolwhip, but ads in the traits to maximize speedy death
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fYEQ...

Combo is
7 - Devourer Venom to Immobilize
8 - HAste to speed up your attack speed
F1 - Steal to send you in from distance and do some damage (from trait)
3 - Pistol Whip spam for DEATH

I may try this with my double dagger build using Blossom. Blossom does extended bleed over 10 seconds for 1200+ damage but Pistol Whip does 700+ damage but also stuns.
Toss-up.
Got the idea from here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcw2P...

fangblackbone wrote:

@groan - that video seems like they tweaked pistol whip to the nth degree. In regular usage it isn't that godly but that video gives you an idea of how fun it is. I think there is a trait that adds poison to steal. I can verify that heartseeker is very fun too. The fact that I don't recall death blossom says to me there is something awkward about it or I just wasn't using it right. Or may have even over looked it since I was spamming heartseeker.

I can tell you that Death Blossom does a great job of slicing and dicing.

So I started a guardian and am in love. Wanted to know what the peanut gallery has to say about the following build - it revolves around setting things on fire and boosting spirit weapon attacks:

http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_...

And here's the detailed guide for using it:
http://guildwars2grandmaster.com/bui...

jdzappa wrote:

So I started a guardian and am in love. Wanted to know what the peanut gallery has to say about the following build - it revolves around setting things on fire and boosting spirit weapon attacks:

http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_...

And here's the detailed guide for using it:
http://guildwars2grandmaster.com/bui...

I go for a burn build but for the most part forgo the spirit weapons. I'll use the hammer if i want extra cc, but the casting time on them takes too long.

But the spirit weapons are absolutely viscous when you do get them out. Well at least the hammer is for me. I haven't tried the sword or the bow.

Burnination is very good too.

fangblackbone wrote:

But the spirit weapons are absolutely viscous when you do get them out. Well at least the hammer is for me. I haven't tried the sword or the bow.

Burnination is very good too.

Well i never use them in pve, and in pvp there's many ways to evade/block/hide from the attacks of the spirit weapons or a frenzied warrior for that matter. Yea they do good work when they work, but i've never found them reliable.

ranalin wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

But the spirit weapons are absolutely viscous when you do get them out. Well at least the hammer is for me. I haven't tried the sword or the bow.

Burnination is very good too.

Well i never use them in pve, and in pvp there's many ways to evade/block/hide from the attacks of the spirit weapons or a frenzied warrior for that matter. Yea they do good work when they work, but i've never found them reliable.

Ranalin - what's your recommended burning build without the weapons? I'm having fun with them in PVE but can completely see they'd be hard to play in PVP.

jdzappa wrote:
ranalin wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

But the spirit weapons are absolutely viscous when you do get them out. Well at least the hammer is for me. I haven't tried the sword or the bow.

Burnination is very good too.

Well i never use them in pve, and in pvp there's many ways to evade/block/hide from the attacks of the spirit weapons or a frenzied warrior for that matter. Yea they do good work when they work, but i've never found them reliable.

Ranalin - what's your recommended burning build without the weapons? I'm having fun with them in PVE but can completely see they'd be hard to play in PVP.

I have an older one posted up thread a bit using scepter and torch, but i've not posted my current one after discovering the wonderful world of the greatsword. i'll post it when i get home tonight.

I was talking with rianelle (kestrel) in game this morning about warriors. We never really finished the conversation so I figured we could talk about it here.

With that said, warriors are one of the few classes along with guardians that really shine with all of their weapon combos. (of which there are many) There was talk in a prior post about a precision/crit/bleed build and I have to say that not only is it very effective, but it is effective with just about every weapon combo that I have tried with it.

You might think this crit/bleed build would only work with dual wielding but you would be wrong. The greatsword has a wider swing arc and a couple of multi-hit abilities that do wonders with it. The longbow has a lot of aoe and a triple shot that appears to me to multi-hit large enemies. I don't think I need to tell you that more targets hit more times = more crits and more bleeding. Rifle is single target focused but has a nice multi-hit skill to work with the bleed.

And then there are the one-handed weapons. Axe/axe certainly is very strong but don't overlook sword/axe for its closing skill, its multi-hit skill and its multi-hit adrenaline skill. The mace offhand skill #5 is a nice area knockdown that will be even more devastating with a bleed.

I was loving the guardian and then just all of a sudden, the warrior (now almost 23) took over and left my guardian in the dust at 16.

Any comments on elite skills for engineers? I've just opened up the final tier after getting Elixir X and Supply Drop. I probably just haven't used them enough but so far neither of those skills has really blown me away. Looking at the 2 30 point skills I'm sorely tempted by the mortar but I'm concerned that it would be extremely situational and not really useful for the largely solo PvE I'll be doing. The two dogs skill looks like it would be a fairly regular "I need some more dps" skill but, I dunno, it just doesn't seem to have that "fun" factor that the mortar could.

If it makes any difference, I've found myself mainly using turrets and a rifle. I've played with the idea of trying out an aoe or elixir/boon loadout but I'm just so comfortable with my current skills.

fangblackbone wrote:

You might think this crit/bleed build would only work with dual wielding but you would be wrong. The greatsword has a wider swing arc and a couple of multi-hit abilities that do wonders with it. The longbow has a lot of aoe and a triple shot that appears to me to multi-hit large enemies. I don't think I need to tell you that more targets hit more times = more crits and more bleeding. Rifle is single target focused but has a nice multi-hit skill to work with the bleed.

I've been working on a crit/bleed greatsword + rifle build, and it's definitely a lot of fun. I've been using the trait that gives you a chance to gain swiftness on a crit. It's somewhat sporadic, but it's a nice damage+mobility boost for the greatsword, and it definitely comes in handy when kiting something with the rifle.

I am trying to save up for enough to buy gems for an extra character slot. I don't know how viable that is but I haven't bought the book that lets you train your traits higher than 10.

That means that I am wondering what to do with my post level 20 trait points. So far I have the points into precision that gives me the bleed on crit and the increase precision for every signet traits.

I am tempted to put the points into another tree like the toughness tree or the healing tree. I am not struggling so I don't feel any pressure other than curiosity.

Kehama wrote:

Any comments on elite skills for engineers? I've just opened up the final tier after getting Elixir X and Supply Drop. I probably just haven't used them enough but so far neither of those skills has really blown me away. Looking at the 2 30 point skills I'm sorely tempted by the mortar but I'm concerned that it would be extremely situational and not really useful for the largely solo PvE I'll be doing. The two dogs skill looks like it would be a fairly regular "I need some more dps" skill but, I dunno, it just doesn't seem to have that "fun" factor that the mortar could.

If it makes any difference, I've found myself mainly using turrets and a rifle. I've played with the idea of trying out an aoe or elixir/boon loadout but I'm just so comfortable with my current skills.

I haven't unlocked the mortar yet, so I can't speak to that. But, since I'm an Asura engineer, I use the Summon 7-Series Golem skill all the time. That thing is amazing. It got us out of a couple of jams in a couple of dungeon runs that I did.

The supply drop is really good in group play too...especially when you have to defend a point. Also, it has a stun effect if you drop it on an enemy.

Confused. Why would you use bleeds with warrior weapons that isn't the rifle or one hand sword. You can only obtain bleeds on other weapons through sigil of earth and the chance off the trait tree.

If you're going for condition damage/precision, it's simply way more effective to do it on a weapon...that has more bleeds. I dunno, it's like...trying to use a necro dagger as a bleeding weapon, or a mesmer sword. Swords and rifle main shot have guaranteed bleeds, as well as sigil/trait chance. Sword adrenaline has super stacks of bleed as well, while mace adrenaline doesn't have any particular synergy with bleed. There's no interrupt = condition like mesmers do. I can see it working on longbow, as burning will be helped by the condition damage boost, and greatsword as 100 blades hits so many times, you get many chances to proc, but not on every warrior weapon.

jdzappa wrote:
ranalin wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

But the spirit weapons are absolutely viscous when you do get them out. Well at least the hammer is for me. I haven't tried the sword or the bow.

Burnination is very good too.

Well i never use them in pve, and in pvp there's many ways to evade/block/hide from the attacks of the spirit weapons or a frenzied warrior for that matter. Yea they do good work when they work, but i've never found them reliable.

Ranalin - what's your recommended burning build without the weapons? I'm having fun with them in PVE but can completely see they'd be hard to play in PVP.

This is my current build. It's been very adaptable in pve/dungeons as well as being powerful in pvp.

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

There is a warrior trait that adds a bleed on any crit. There is a warrior trait that increases precision (crit %) by a lot for every signet skill you equip that isn't on cooldown. Ever since level 20 I have had 4 (1 heal, 3 utility) so that means I have +160 precision in addition to the +100 I get from 10 points into arms.

And now that I am looking at the warrior skills again, I think I am going to try out mace/sword as I think it will offer up some really nice defense. You have a daze, a stun, weakness, 2 blocks and a thrown bleed.

I'm really enjoying the mace/torch combination on my level 40 Guardian. The mace takes care of my defense and healing while the torch handles dps duties. My 2nd weapon is the staff for events and long range. The basic staff attack has me hitting 5 enemies at all times without targeting, allowing me to concentrate on trying to help out others with the staff support skills. It also allows me to run fast half the time due to the speed symbol it produces.

Still not sure about the best trait lines though for that weapon combination. I had been rocking a toughness/vitality/virtues build but I felt it was gimping me too much in the dps department.

Just want to say that (as a Necro) I started dropping wells last night rather than using my healing pet and saw a lot of cool things happening.

For one, I saw 'Condition Removal!' messages all over the place. I assume that's one combo with the attacks I was using and a light field.

For another, I saw stacks of extra condition damage appear as a buff for me, it stacked up to six times. Not sure how long each stack lasted, but it was a nice little bonus.

To sum up. If you are playing a Necro, try using wells. You will finally get those combos everybody talks about

ps. I love minions but they don't all seem that effective, and it seems like I'll have to put a lot of traits towards minion buffing if I want to use them down the road. Any thoughts?

KingMob wrote:

Just want to say that (as a Necro) I started dropping wells last night rather than using my healing pet and saw a lot of cool things happening.

For one, I saw 'Condition Removal!' messages all over the place. I assume that's one combo with the attacks I was using and a light field.

For another, I saw stacks of extra condition damage appear as a buff for me, it stacked up to six times. Not sure how long each stack lasted, but it was a nice little bonus.

To sum up. If you are playing a Necro, try using wells. You will finally get those combos everybody talks about

ps. I love minions but they don't all seem that effective, and it seems like I'll have to put a lot of traits towards minion buffing if I want to use them down the road. Any thoughts?

I stopped using pets and started using wells and love the improvement. I've picked up the traits that allow them to give me life steal from them as well as give me protection when i drop one. Lots of fun!

Do the shooting pets combo through the wells?

fangblackbone wrote:

Do the shooting pets combo through the wells?

I think I saw the wurm combo through the well (usually I put him in my well with me )

Oh by the way, the little icon for extra corruption damage was from a sigil, not a combo, sadly.

I swapped out the greatsword for a sword/axe combo on my warrior, and it is a lot of fun. Using the MH sword leap attack into a group of mobs followed by the OH axe AOE is pretty amusing. I often end up dying after that, but usually there's a mob with low enough health that I can kill him and rally.

Wow thieves are squishy! I think in any kind of event I am going to switch to shortbow and pluck from a big distance. The shortbow has a lot of utility and thieves get one hit quite a bit.

You can jump into a pack of say 3 so long as you destroy one of them quickly.

I wonder if Arenanet thinks of one handed thieves as viable. The reason I ask is that the 3rd skill changes depending on what off hand weapon you have or if you have no offhand weapon. No other class is like this. The first three skills are fixed depending on what the main hand weapon is regardless of the offhand.

Dagger main and no offhand has a neat aoe spin attack.

But the real reason I posted here is to say how much I love the shortbow, and dagger/pistol. The shortbow has a lot of conditions and aoe. Dagger/pistol has an awesome closing skill in slot #3. I do like dagger/dagger but I feel offhand dagger skills 4&5 benefit from the pistol mainhand more. Skill 3 in dagger/dagger is great.

Pistol dagger was how I wanted to play for a long time. I have found a good groove with it. I lead with the dagger offhand #4 skill that cripples and bounces. This lets me get a body shot off for vulnerability and usually kill one of a pair before it gets to me. Then the other is around half hp so I fire off the #3 skill that stabs, leaps back and fires. It usually only takes a couple of pistol shots after that to kill it. The problem is that the thief is such a whirlwind of fun up close that this strat is a little monotonous compared to in-your-face blendering or laying down the boom (shortbow).

I am only level 6-7 so I need to go buy/find a sword to unlock its skills. Though I know I already love pistol whip.

Crap forgot to add to that very long winded post (which is why I am posting in a new post) that ranger has become my second highest and second favorite class. And, it is the class I have played the longest in a single stretch and continuously (warrior and guardian traded off quite a bit leveling them up)

I typically run with shortbow and axe/torch. I mainly use the shortbow but switch to axe/torch for big group events and tough elite monsters for the triple stack of burnination. I have the toughness signet, burning trap (I have gone burn and bleed trap and once I hit 20 will go burn/bleed/toughness or maybe regen) and run with vitality gear.

fangblackbone wrote:

Wow thieves are squishy! I think in any kind of event I am going to switch to shortbow and pluck from a big distance. The shortbow has a lot of utility and thieves get one hit quite a bit.

You can jump into a pack of say 3 so long as you destroy one of them quickly.

I wonder if Arenanet thinks of one handed thieves as viable. The reason I ask is that the 3rd skill changes depending on what off hand weapon you have or if you have no offhand weapon. No other class is like this. The first three skills are fixed depending on what the main hand weapon is regardless of the offhand.

Dagger main and no offhand has a neat aoe spin attack.

But the real reason I posted here is to say how much I love the shortbow, and dagger/pistol. The shortbow has a lot of conditions and aoe. Dagger/pistol has an awesome closing skill in slot #3. I do like dagger/dagger but I feel offhand dagger skills 4&5 benefit from the pistol mainhand more. Skill 3 in dagger/dagger is great.

Pistol dagger was how I wanted to play for a long time. I have found a good groove with it. I lead with the dagger offhand #4 skill that cripples and bounces. This lets me get a body shot off for vulnerability and usually kill one of a pair before it gets to me. Then the other is around half hp so I fire off the #3 skill that stabs, leaps back and fires. It usually only takes a couple of pistol shots after that to kill it. The problem is that the thief is such a whirlwind of fun up close that this strat is a little monotonous compared to in-your-face blendering or laying down the boom (shortbow).

I am only level 6-7 so I need to go buy/find a sword to unlock its skills. Though I know I already love pistol whip.

I used to do the same build, but have changed things around as well. I'm now dagger/pistol and pistol/pistol. The #2 ability of dagger is crazy powerful. I like combining it with #5 pistol which turns you invisible allowing another hard hit on your target. My biggest complaint with the shortbow is that it's so slow. The interrupt with #4 and the deadly speed (especially with haste) of the #3 of pistol/pistol makes it more accomodating for me.

There is that trait right, that gives you like a 50% boost to damage from stealth attacks? I think it is even called the typical thief/rogue "sneak attack"...

fangblackbone wrote:

There is that trait right, that gives you like a 50% boost to damage from stealth attacks? I think it is even called the typical thief/rogue "sneak attack"...

there's that and another that gives you ~30%-40% additional when attacking from side/rear. Still if you noticed that when you go invisible your #1 attack changes depending on your weapon. Pistol or dagger it's a significant boost when compared tot he default attack.

I like the movement of Sword, but right now i'm not a fan for the same reason i'm not a fan of the shortbow. Attacks are too slow. In PvE that's probably not a bad thing but in pvp. Speed tends to win due to folks peoples ability to dodge and mitigate.

fangblackbone wrote:

Crap forgot to add to that very long winded post (which is why I am posting in a new post) that ranger has become my second highest and second favorite class. And, it is the class I have played the longest in a single stretch and continuously (warrior and guardian traded off quite a bit leveling them up)

I typically run with shortbow and axe/torch. I mainly use the shortbow but switch to axe/torch for big group events and tough elite monsters for the triple stack of burnination. I have the toughness signet, burning trap (I have gone burn and bleed trap and once I hit 20 will go burn/bleed/toughness or maybe regen) and run with vitality gear.

I LOVE my ranger. He's 72 now, no other class has come close (8 engi and 3 necro I think). Another option rather than the torch is a horn. ability 4 gives you a flock of birds that does a decent amt of damage, 5 is a buff for you and the pet. Another thing I switched recently was instead of pet boosting abilities for 7-0 I've gone with all 3 traps: spike, fire, and ice. I run in, drop all 3, and run out when I'm fighting something tough. My elite ability changes between the super-buff for you and pet and the hounds of Balthazar. They rock and are great damage when fighting a Veteran mob.