Guild Wars 2!

[Hullabaloo]

Also is this community organized in game? Do we have a server that has more activity? Any guilds?

Yes there is a GitPG, just post your in game name, and I'm sure you will get an invite soon. 95% sure they are on Tarnished Coast. Ogremindes is the leader, and a few other board posters are admins that could invite you.

Also, see my sig :)

Hope to see you in game!

[Neftren]

I've been thinking of rolling a Sword/Pistol Mesmer, in light of the difficulty I have encountered thus far in acquiring a decent looking pair of medium armor pants.

Thoughts on Sword/Pistol viability? I was thinking of playing a Duelist build of some sort.

[Astrella]

There's also The Charrdians (which I'm a member of) that has quite a few GitP'ers. We're on Piken Square which is also the unofficial RP server (though our guild isn't a dedicated RP one.).

[Penguinizer]

I've been thinking of rolling a Sword/Pistol Mesmer, in light of the difficulty I have encountered thus far in acquiring a decent looking pair of medium armor pants.

Thoughts on Sword/Pistol viability? I was thinking of playing a Duelist build of some sort.

Sword is good for damage but has the issue of requiring you to stay in melee with enemies that will kill you almost immediately with normal attacks. The #2 skill (Blurred Frenzy) is good as it gives you distortions while doing ok damage.

However, the issue is that sword+pistol has very little in the way of utility. You have a 1-second stun, (with a cripple) immobilize and pure damage. Where as something like Scepter+Focus has: more illusions to kite with, comparable damage, plenty of confusion, aoe shield that reflects projectiles and an aoe speed boost/cripple and pull.

Sword/pistol is fun but the ranged options are much more versatile while still doing decent damage.

[Hullabaloo]

I've been thinking of rolling a Sword/Pistol Mesmer, in light of the difficulty I have encountered thus far in acquiring a decent looking pair of medium armor pants.

Thoughts on Sword/Pistol viability? I was thinking of playing a Duelist build of some sort.

Not a fan of sword/pistol. I think sword/sword or septer/ pistol would be better. One is in your face melee and the other range.

[Neftren]

There's also The Charrdians (which I'm a member of) that has quite a few GitP'ers. We're on Piken Square which is also the unofficial RP server (though our guild isn't a dedicated RP one.).

You should probably mention Piken Square is the Unofficial EU RP Server. Tarnished Coast is the NA RP Server.

Sword is good for damage but has the issue of requiring you to stay in melee with enemies that will kill you almost immediately with normal attacks. The #2 skill (Blurred Frenzy) is good as it gives you distortions while doing ok damage.

However, the issue is that sword+pistol has very little in the way of utility. You have a 1-second stun, (with a cripple) immobilize and pure damage. Where as something like Scepter+Focus has: more illusions to kite with, comparable damage, plenty of confusion, aoe shield that reflects projectiles and an aoe speed boost/cripple and pull.

Sword/pistol is fun but the ranged options are much more versatile while still doing decent damage.

I was thinking of going for a build that just focuses on summoning as many illusions as possible. Is there a hard-cap of three at a time?

[Treayn]

Thoughts on Sword/Pistol viability? I was thinking of playing a Duelist build of some sort.

Very viable, it was one of the weapon sets everyone was using after release.

However, I think a month out, people are finally starting to expand out to the other weapons. Namely, Scepter/Double Sword/Torch.

Double sword's becoming more prevalent in PvP, but in general if you can trait for it, sword 5 will do heavy amounts of damage, moreso than a duelist.

Scepter is a good replacement for Main-hand sword for some dungeons, where going into melee range would be a really bad idea.

Scepter/Torch is even better, constant stacks of confusion.

Scepter/Torch and Staff is better still, because your condition damage traits will boost both weapon sets, whereas Sword/Pistol is all power-based.

I was thinking of going for a build that just focuses on summoning as many illusions as possible. Is there a hard-cap of three at a time?

Hard cap of three, and scepter is good for a clone-spam build. So is double sword.

[Penguinizer]

I prefer Focus to Torch. The aoe shield is fantastic and the pull on the wall is good in pvp. Staff and Greatsword are both fantastic options on your second weapon slot in my opinion.

[Morty]

My Mesmer uses Staff as his primary weapon but switches to Scepter + Pistol frequently. I tried Scepter + Torch, but not for long, and my current combination works well enough.
Speaking of weapon sets, I really can't decide between using a Longbow or a Rifle as the secondary set for my Warrior. The Longbow has nice AoO effects, but the Rifle is great for dropping single targets...

[Treayn]

I prefer Focus to Torch. The aoe shield is fantastic and the pull on the wall is good in pvp. Staff and Greatsword are both fantastic options on your second weapon slot in my opinion.

Issue with Focus 5 is the targeting system on it. It requires an enemy, and it requires an enemy to stand still. If it was AoE-targetable I'd use it in a heartbeat. Focus 4 is really good though, that almost makes up for it.

My Mesmer uses Staff as his primary weapon but switches to Scepter + Pistol frequently. I tried Scepter + Torch, but not for long, and my current combination works well enough.

You need a certain trait to make Scepter/Torch extremely potent. Said trait changes from 'confusion up some of the time' to 'confusion on the enemy all the time'. Can't recall the name of it atm though.

[illyrus]

For a sword/pistol mesmer build I'd certainly grab 15 in chaos and inspiration. iDuelist (pistol 4) procs the regen (and thus protection) twice as fast as other phantasms so with 2 of them out you'll actually be perma regen/protectioned and will stack duration to cap for both. Grab Illusionary Defense and Persisting Images as well and you and your images will actually be pretty damn sturdy.

[Treayn]

It's odd, I don't think we've had mention of any necromancers in the last few pages of the thread.

I've started on it as my second class, but I'm not as familiar with it as mesmer. Any necros care to share traits and builds?

[Emmerask]

Main problems with necros is that they currently are bugged as hell.

I believe the last necro class specific bug list was around 100 bugs, which I think more or less is the amount of bugs of all other classes combined

And it isn´t all minor stuff, there are some pretty huge bugs too, for example the ability that removes all conditions from an ally and gives them to you... it only copies them, so in the end you have all the conditions and your ally has too

[Astrella]

Can anyone enlighten me a bit of Thiefs? I'm itching to make one but would like to hear some thoughts from people who've actually played on first.

[Turalisj]

Imagine a DnD 3.5 rogue. Now imagine sneak attack only applying to a melee target, and throw in that monsters like to attack whoever is squishiest.

[illyrus]

It's odd, I don't think we've had mention of any necromancers in the last few pages of the thread.

I've started on it as my second class, but I'm not as familiar with it as mesmer. Any necros care to share traits and builds?

My necro is level 42. Currently run with curses 20 and death magic 10. I'll normally use plague form and wells for dungeons with Focused Rituals and Ritual of Protection for ground targeting for wells and they give protection. Plague form blind is excellent and all the dark fields you can place out means even more blinds when plague form is down (not to mention the blindness well).

For normal stuff I'll use Staff Mastery, Mastery of Corruption, and Hemophilia with Epidemic and Blood is Power as utilities. I tend to use staff and scepter/dagger. Blood of Power, dagger 4 to redirect the bleeding I just received to the enemy, then epidemic to spread it. For zerg events I'll just stick to staff and fire off epidemic on veterans. Normally I'll run with 1 or 2 pets for non-dungeon stuff as well though I don't depend on them.

Pets are fairly bugged (sometimes staring at flowers instead of fighting), and from what I've seen using the flesh golem causes my other pets to have a higher chance of bugging out. Using their active skills will sometimes cause them to start fighting. If you start your attack when they are in melee range to the target I've noticed that the pets are much more likely to get involved.

I tend to mix condition and toughness gear

A did a test a week ago with downleveled minions to lvl 9 to get an idea of their hp relative to each other:
single bone minion: 189
bone fiend: 279
flesh wurm: 334
shadow fiend: 473
flesh golem: 622

Didn't have the flesh wurm at the time.

Also necro pets are unaffected by your stats.

[mucco]

My main is necro. My build is bleed focused, so I have 30 Curses. I've also traited for wells because they give huge party support, as illyrus said. However, unless I'm in a dungeon group I only use two: the damage+vuln one (lots of damage), and the heal. That's because my two favourite utilities are Epidemic and Shadow Walk. Shadow Walk is 30s swiftness on demand and a one-shot portal to kite better and it looks cool as hell; Epidemic is awesome when you stack bleed on a target, or when five enemies are attacking the wurm in WvW.

Weapons of choice are staff and scepter. Staff is by far the strongest weapon because it's always useful: it has bleeds, regen, poison fields, a finisher, chill, condition transfer, fear, fast life force buildup, and everything AoE on top of that. There's a reason it has slow recharges. For my build, I use Scepter as well, of course. A direct damage build will find dagger and axe alright, however necro straight damage is a bit subpar at the moment. Offhand, for me either dagger or focus as they both give amazing utility.

[Badgerish]

My copy arrives in a few days. Looking forward to exploring a new world and stabbing monsters in the face. With magic.

[MeatShield#236]

Can anyone enlighten me a bit of Thiefs? I'm itching to make one but would like to hear some thoughts from people who've actually played on first.

Thieves are extremely mobile and can get in and out of combat quite easily. Weapon skills run off of an energy system with no cooldowns. While you can run with a sword or dagger, you're not meant for front line combat; get in, do some damage, get out. Show Bows give you some fantastic AoE effects, with poison clouds, explosives, and other goodies. On the other hand, pistols are single-target damage (mostly damage over time) with plenty of conditions. Going Dual pistols gives you a bleed, daze, vulnerability, and a blind combo field.
Dodging is absolutely critical, as there are several traits that give you effects when you dodge. For skills, poisons are good, caltrops are amazing (AoE that gives stacks upon stacks of bleeding while crippling), and if you want to go more support there are several defensive abilities that grant stealth to allies and things like that.

[Luzahn]

My copy arrives in a few days. Looking forward to exploring a new world and stabbing monsters in the face. With magic.

Daggerelementalist. Be a firebender.

[Turalisj]

Daggerele has poor range.


Short-bow thief. Play Haley.

[Astrella]

Water Dagger has decent range, especially if you back it up with Arcane skills.

(Which is actually my current build. 20 % extra damage against vulnerable targets and my arcane skills inflict vulnerability as well? The one auto-crit spells makes water dagger 1 inflict two stacks per hit. )

[Shadow]

Dagger1water pierces, so it hits once on the way out and once on the way back to you. As long as they both hit, any standard attack from dagger1water applies two stacks of vulnerability.
Unless you're saying that it would apply four total from that sequence, in which case I have no idea. I don't use arcane skills on my Ele. He uses cantrips instead.

[Astrella]

Would apply four then (2 on the way in, 2 on the way out), yesh~

[Nanoblack]

If anyone wants to frolic about with some company, I'm on Eredon Terrace.

Nanoblack.6709

[Badgerish]

I'm getting into the game now (and it's sucking up so much of my time!)

The Asura are so cheerfully deranged, I'm laughing out loud at so many of the quests involving them.

Mesmer was my first class, still not sure about them, although they got so much better when I got a staff and greatsword to play with.

Well, time to prep for D&D, then Guild Wars afterwards.

[Draconi Redfir]

Freind gave me this game awhile ago, made up a Charr necromancer. doesn't quite fit as well as i would have hoped, but i'm already level twenty so it's too late to turn back now.


Really not a fan of how i need to spend valuble skill points on skills i don't want just to unlock the next teir of skills that require even more skill points though.

[Turalisj]

By the time you are level 80, you will have unlocked every last skill.

[Neftren]

Freind gave me this game awhile ago, made up a Charr necromancer. doesn't quite fit as well as i would have hoped, but i'm already level twenty so it's too late to turn back now.


Really not a fan of how i need to spend valuble skill points on skills i don't want just to unlock the next teir of skills that require even more skill points though.

Level 20 is still pretty low. Don't be afraid to switch now (better now than later). If you focus on leveling, it only takes about 60 hours to hit level 80, taking it slowly. I would strongly suggest you change to what you want to actually end up playing.

As for skill points, you'll end up with more than you know what to do with them at level 80 (I'm sitting on 108+).

[mucco]

Huh. Just hit L80 here, and I'm out of skill points altogether. Still have to buy skills for 40 skill points (two elites). How the hell are you guys finding them? :P