Guild Wars 2!

[SanguisAevum]

A little late to the party, but as I have both a lvl 80 full exotic geared mesmer, and a lvl 80 full exotic geared guardian, I figured I could offer some more perspective on these two classes builds.

First of, my Mesmer.

Here is the build...

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAs...yWkrIZRLRGiMLB

Soldier (Pow / Vit / Tou) armour (combination of WvW gear and Orr Karma Gear)
Beserker (Pow / Crit / C-Dam) trinkets / weapons
Runes are centaur for the swiftness on heal (gaining swiftness when healing has saved me from many situations, it also means i can have perma run speed when traveling by swaping in focus and using the heal to get swiftenss as well as the curtain)

The gear provides the best balance between offence and just enough defence to keep me out of trouble till the phantasms have done their work. It can put out a surprising amount of burst if things are timed correctly. A Zerker / Duelist / blurred frenzy / shatter combo is enough to instantly drop most glass cannon specced players.

Survivability comes from 2 stealths, a teleport, and the feedback field and clones on dodge, and reduced cooldown on clones i have no trouble keeping most people confused enough to give me breathing room when i need it.

On the subject of pistol vs sword... the main reason use pistol is for the duellists synergy with ethereal combo fields. a single iDuellist puts EIGHT stacks of confusion on a target if it shoots through an ethereal field. Even without investing in +condition damage at all, that is a SIGNIFICANT amount of damage your forcing the opponent to take if he wants to continue attacking (and lets be fair... MOST players will continue to attack regardless of confusion, before they realise whats happening). When timed correctly with the feedback field, it is deadly. I have lost count of the number of rangers that have killed themselves by trying to fire at me through the feedback field, whilst taking hits from a combo fielding iDuelist. And even vs classes not using ranged weapons, if you can get 2 duellists up and then drop the feedback field as they both fire, 16 stacks of confusion will obliterate most melee classes swinging at you. Duelist + feedback is the number one reason i favour pistol over of hand sword.

Here is the first video I made of my solo wvw playing on my mesmer... hope it helps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0zsehE5uQg

[SanguisAevum]

As for guardians.

here is my build....

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJAS...iisF5KSW0CjBGA

At its core it is a Crit / meditation build.

DPS & control come from the hammer / greatsword weapon combo. They provide excellent option vs both single and multiple targets
Stand your ground provides almost mandatory stability for pvp, and is traited to cooldown faster.
JI and Smite Condition provide mobility, condition removal, and extra survivability thanks to monks focus. (smite condition especially, its an extra 1.8k heal every 16sec)
renewed focus when combined with lyssa runes proves more emergency condition removal plus every buff for 5 seconds, as well as resetting virtues... allowing you to turn a bad situation round and put the pressure back on an opponent.

Armour is all PVT gear from Orr or WvW. Weapons are berserker with blood runes (see below) and trinkets are a combination of berserker and Valkyrie to get the balance between crit / vitality / crit damage that i wanted.

when running round wvw i am at

3.2k attack
2.8k defence
18k HP
40% crit chance with about +60% crit damage

i use omnom pie for food as the 60% chance to steal health on crit stacks with the blood sigil to guarentee a 400 health steal every 2 seconds.

i find it very tanky, good survivability and mobility (yes, even with hamer... hammer is EXCELLENT for pvp and NOT too slow... dont let people tell you otherwise) and plenty of damage.

no video as yet, but that's my next project.

[Hullabaloo]

As for guardians.

Our Guardians are almost identical, while our mesmers are the very opposite :)

Confusion is very weak in PvE but hugely powerful in PvP for the reason you note. With AI, even with 8 stacks, they might do 2 skills where they take ticks of dmg before it falls off them. In PvP they might do 5+ ticks before they notice what is going on.

[SanguisAevum]

Our Guardians are almost identical, while our mesmers are the very opposite :)

Confusion is very weak in PvE but hugely powerful in PvP for the reason you note. With AI, even with 8 stacks, they might do 2 skills where they take ticks of dmg before it falls off them. In PvP they might do 5+ ticks before they notice what is going on.

Oh, i dont disagree at all about confusion for PVE. I was talking from a pure WvW perspective.

[Hullabaloo]

One of our goals for 2013 will be evaluating all of the bosses and creatures in the game, from open world to dungeons, to try and make them more exciting and fun to fight against.

In general if anything has a really high health pool, it needs to have unique abilities to make it exciting for the entire time, or actually change abilities/tactics as it goes down in health to ensure it stays fun and exciting to fight against.

We realize there are a number of bosses in the game, from the open world to instances that all can be more fun to fight than they are now. We’ll be tackling that this year in part of our goal to make our core game as strong as possible.

Hey guys,

Just to help provide some clarity on this, we’ll be releasing within the next couple of weeks a high level summary of our big plans for the first half of 2013 to help provide more transparency into our plans with the game going forward. This will include providing more details about our goals for the game, information about the stories and features that you’ll see in the Jan/Feb/March releases.

To set expectations accordingly, the January release will be a relatively small release that sets the table for the stories and features we plan to roll out with the Feb/March releases and beyond. Also, there will be no new race, profession, or new region with these larger Feb/March releases. One of our major goals with these releases is making our existing world as strong as possible, ensuring there are reasons to go to all the locations in the world we’ve already built, and strengthening the core game we’ve provided. In saying this will be an expansions worth of stuff in these releases, we’re talking about the number of new features that will be rolled out across PvE, WvW, and PvP in early 2013, which usually you’d only find in an expansion for a traditional MMORPG.

More details and specifics to come in the next couple of weeks, but I hope that helps provide some more insight into what to expect at a very high level.

ColinJohanson

Game Director

[mucco]

Sigh.

If PvP isn't complete and fun by March, it'll be a lost cause. I am so crossing my fingers for it, but I don't have high hopes.

[Morty]

Which Thief slot skills do you think are good? I'm experimenting with an Asura Thief and I can't decide which ones to buy and equip. All the ones I've tried except for the Assassin's Signet feel lacklustre.

[Turalisj]

Utility? Smoke screen, throw cantrips, and scorpion wire. Depending if you do pvp, pve, or wvw- basilisk venom, racial summon, or thousand daggers for elite.

[Morty]

Hm. Thanks, I'll try those out. I have used some of the poison skills, but they're only good for three hits and have long cooldowns. Also, is Signet of Malice good?

[Turalisj]

Basilisk poison is good because you can reaaally mess up someone's attack chain if you hold them still for a few seconds.

Signets are really only useful at low levels, IMHO.

[Morty]

Really? I was unaware of that but then, I only have one character above level 30. My level 56 Mesmer uses Signet of Illusions, though.

[Hullabaloo]

Large response by Colin Johnson about the near and midterm future of the game, interesting stuff.

As for Signet , I use them on both my lv 80 guys. More for convenience then Min/maxing. The #9 is not easily assessable on my game pad, so I have it for the passive. Condition dmg on my condition mesmer, and either power or dmg reduction on my guardian.

[mucco]

I finally got The Crossing for my necro! It took all my money, heh. Also working toward that capacitor but it will take some time still. FotM is too much fun.

Looking forward to the next updates, it looks like they will be HUUUUUge. I definitely expect some advancement on LA's story and some new stuff into WvW.

[SanguisAevum]

My Second vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLXWAikmwtA

[Hullabaloo]

Been playing my AH guardian alot, and really enjoying him. I went broke building full exotic MF gear, as my original plan was to play in Orr while keeping to my mesmer, but I really like the guardian game play.

So been playing low level fractals and CoF 1 and 2, where MF gear does not hurt anyone to much. Since the MF gear has precision (which is my 'main stat' to grant might and heal on crits) it does not hurt to much.

But Ive been building my bank account back up and Crafted a full exotic Knight set, and just saving up for some runes.

Interesting thing about the guardian game play is I have alot less HP then my Mesmer, but rarely die going toe to toe. Mainly because Knights is Power/Perc/Toughness, so I have high armor levels, but also, with the build 5% of toughness goes to Perc. On each crit I grant Allies Might. For each boon I grant to others (or Myself) I get ~75 health. So each crit grants about 375 health, in addition to each boon I grant (ie virtue or shout). The #4 staff skill basically fills up my whole health.

Its really alot of fun, good dps and great support/tank. Still trying to decide between mace and GS as my main weapon with staff as my second.

In the January update we’ll be making a couple of preliminary changes to WvW.
1. The first of our engine changes will be coming on line to help improve character load times by using fallback models.
2. We’ll be switching over to the culling methodology that we trialed in December.

The engine change we’re making uses fallback models to represent characters until their detailed models are fully loaded. The fallback models are cached so that they can display without any asset load delay and there is a distinct fallback model for each race/gender/armor-class combination. As a result of this change players will be able to see characters represented as fallback models as soon as those characters are reported to the client. Once the specific, detailed model for a given character is completely loaded from disk the fallback model will be replaced with the detailed model. This visual compromise will help to ensure that players see other characters as quickly as possible in WvW. Please note that this change does not eliminate delays due to culling, it only addresses delays due to asset load times. Players on higher spec machines would therefore expect to see fallback models less often than players on lower spec machines. This change also lays the groundwork for more extensive uses of fallback models in future updates.

In December we ran a one matchup trial of an updated culling system. Based on all the feedback we received, both during and after the trial, we will be transitioning to the updated culling system that we used in the trial. This update allows the culling system to handle allies and enemies separately so that being surrounded by a group of allies will not impact the culling of enemies (and vice-versa). The general consensus after the trial is that this system lead to a better player experience in WvW. We further saw that some of the issues people had with the new system were related to asset load times rather than culling issues so making this change in combination with our character loading improvements should lead to an improved overall experience. It is important to note, however, that while we believe this change is an improvement to the WvW experience it does not fully address the issues with culling and we are still working towards our goal of removing culling from WvW completely. This change is intended to give players an improved WvW experience while we continue work on our more comprehensive solution.

While this update only contains a couple of visible changes to WvW it lays a lot of important groundwork for future updates. We have some exciting changes coming and this update is just the beginning!

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...st#post1272774

[AlterForm]

Been playing my AH guardian alot, and really enjoying him. I went broke building full exotic MF gear, as my original plan was to play in Orr while keeping to my mesmer, but I really like the guardian game play.

So been playing low level fractals and CoF 1 and 2, where MF gear does not hurt anyone to much. Since the MF gear has precision (which is my 'main stat' to grant might and heal on crits) it does not hurt to much.

But Ive been building my bank account back up and Crafted a full exotic Knight set, and just saving up for some runes.

Interesting thing about the guardian game play is I have alot less HP then my Mesmer, but rarely die going toe to toe. Mainly because Knights is Power/Perc/Toughness, so I have high armor levels, but also, with the build 5% of toughness goes to Perc. On each crit I grant Allies Might. For each boon I grant to others (or Myself) I get ~75 health. So each crit grants about 375 health, in addition to each boon I grant (ie virtue or shout). The #4 staff skill basically fills up my whole health.

Its really alot of fun, good dps and great support/tank. Still trying to decide between mace and GS as my main weapon with staff as my second.

Give hammer a try if you haven't already. I run a hammer/Staff AH guardian and I can pretty much afk on hammer when solo, and run staff for lolmight in groups. DPS is pretty good on hammer as well.

[Hullabaloo]

Give hammer a try if you haven't already. I run a hammer/Staff AH guardian and I can pretty much afk on hammer when solo, and run staff for lolmight in groups. DPS is pretty good on hammer as well.

Actually, that is what I run with now. It just seems so slow, and really only the #1 and 2 skills seem all that useful most of the time. The number 3-5 skills would be useful if you could use it on all mobs, but on trash they seem very weak, and then don't work on bosses or champs.

Have not messed around with similar GS and Hammers, but it just seems Hammer is weaker.

[Shadow]

Have not messed around with similar GS and Hammers, but it just seems Hammer is weaker.

Hammer has the stronger auto attack chain, but it is a little weaker than the GS overall.
However, it isn't that far behind. It's actually quite close in fact. But the attacks are slower, which is why it feels so much weaker. When you consider how close it actually is in DPS terms, and then consider the amount of CC that comes with it, hammer arguably becomes far superior to GS.

[mucco]

I like mace/shield together with hammer on my war. AH+might on crit+hammer+mace/shield = invincible.

[Hullabaloo]

Hammer has the stronger auto attack chain, but it is a little weaker than the GS overall.
However, it isn't that far behind. It's actually quite close in fact. But the attacks are slower, which is why it feels so much weaker. When you consider how close it actually is in DPS terms, and then consider the amount of CC that comes with it, hammer arguably becomes far superior to GS.

Oh, I'm sure the DPS is close. Hammer#2 is very nice on a short CD, but the thing that i meant makes the GS stronger is FasterAttack=MoreCrits=MoreHealsandMight making me think the GS is more suited for a AH w/Might on Crits.

The CC is nice, but for things that you want to CC they have mostly blanked immunity to CC. Trash is rarely all that dangerous (and when it is the GS#5 has great multi hit range). I think it 6 one way half a dozen the other, but leaning towards the Crit Dmg GS from CoF explorable now

I like mace/shield together with hammer on my war. AH+might on crit+hammer+mace/shield = invincible.

Mace/Shield is crazy in the end part of CoF 2 where you can kite the mobs while Magg plants his bomb.

[AlterForm]

The hammer's chain-3 symbol ticks 3 times beyond the initial hit, so you're actually hitting 6 times in the space of 2.25 seconds (averaged over a few attack chains), better than the greatsword's 6 hits per 3 seconds. The GS does have a more consistent AA chain (which might play better with AH's internal CD), as well as its #2, so if you're purely interested in proccing might and AH as much as possible I think GS would be the way to go.

You're right about it being 6 one way and half a dozen the other, especially since CC is so underwhelming against anything really worth using it on. I guess GS does get a lot of the really WOW skins, so there's that.

[Hullabaloo]

The hammer's chain-3 symbol ticks 3 times beyond the initial hit, so you're actually hitting 6 times in the space of 2.25 seconds (averaged over a few attack chains), better than the greatsword's 6 hits per 3 seconds. The GS does have a more consistent AA chain (which might play better with AH's internal CD), as well as its #2, so if you're purely interested in proccing might and AH as much as possible I think GS would be the way to go.

I think what you said makes since, but just want to confirm/dig more

What is AH's internal cooldown? Ive never noticed it come into play, and assume it must be quite low.

Can you explain the above bolded, not sure I follow. The Hammer#3 ticks dmg it does not show?
Thanks

[AlterForm]

I think what you said makes since, but just want to confirm/dig more

What is AH's internal cooldown? Ive never noticed it come into play, and assume it must be quite low.

AH doesn't have an internal CD; empowering might does. It's only 1sec, though, so usually not noticeable.

I just remembered GS applies might (potentially multiple times) on every third AA, though, so it probably will pull ahead in that department.

Can you explain the above bolded, not sure I follow. The Hammer#3 ticks dmg it does not show?
Thanks

Hammer's #1 attack is a chain skill. First hit, second hit, third hit, and then it drops a symbol that hits 3 additional times.

[SanguisAevum]

I think what you said makes since, but just want to confirm/dig more

What is AH's internal cooldown? Ive never noticed it come into play, and assume it must be quite low.

Can you explain the above bolded, not sure I follow. The Hammer#3 ticks dmg it does not show?
Thanks

AH has no internal cooldown itself, but most buff procs DO have internal cooldowns (and it is these that AH works from)

The crux of most AH builds up until recently was a minor trait that procced one second of vigour on a critical hit. This proc had no cooldown. Most AH builds took advantage of a high crit rate combined with ae attacks to continually trigger this proc, resulting in multiple rapid small heals every time the vigour buff procced. (and almost constant vigur as a by product)

However a recent update changed the mechanic of this proc. It now procs vigour for FIVE seconds on a critical hit, but, has been given an internal cooldown of 5 seconds.

You still end up with near perma-vigour... but you only get the buff applied once every 5 seconds at best... which in turn means you only get the AH heal from this proc once per 5 seconds instead of multiple times a second, without cooldown, as before


RE skills - He is referring to the hammer 1-chain. The third hit procs a symbol of protection that remains in place at the target and ticks for damage on anything stood in it.

It needs to be factored in to DPS, as it is easy to get mobs to stay in the symbols area. Also... Combine this with the short cooldown blast finisher of hammer 2 ( With two handed mastery you can use mighty blow after every auto attack chain wich creates almost permanent area retaliation... and indecently also triggers AH for everyone that recieves the buff from you) and you have comparable if not better multiple target dps / AH healing than greatsword.

My guardian used to use a AH build, but he changes to the vigour proc convinced me to try a meditation based build, and i will never go back. I use Hammer / Greatsword weapon sets, the two weapons synergise so well together, and provide excellent damage and control between them. Hammer is every bit as usable as greatsword, you just have to understand how to use it correctly.

(It should be noted i am almost exclusively pvp based, and still use hammer / GS... the hammer is a top tier guardian weapon... people see the slow swing speeds and just presume its bad without taking the time to understand its nuance)

[SanguisAevum]

Oh, I'm sure the DPS is close. Hammer#2 is very nice on a short CD, but the thing that i meant makes the GS stronger is FasterAttack=MoreCrits=MoreHealsandMight making me think the GS is more suited for a AH w/Might on Crits.

People see the fast attack chain and whirling wrath of GS and just assume thats going to be better than Hammer overall.

But they dont factor in the nuances of guardian hammer.

RAW DPS between the two weapons is practically the same. However when you take into account the intricacies of hammer, you begin to understand why some people class it as better, especially for AH builds.

The symbol of protection proc 3 times, anyone stood in it get 3 ticks of 1sec protection, with AH, each of those ticks for each of the people grants AH healing.

With two handed mastery, the skill 2 blast finisher can be used on every symbol of protection the 1-chain generates. This grants AREA retaliation, further increasing your damage output inderectly, providing almost constant retaliation, and off course, AH healing you for everyone affected by your buff.

Hammer and GS provide pretty much the same results, just in different ways.

Me? I use both :) they synergise perfectly with each other, and allow for a very flexible way to fight, switching between them based on the changing situations.

[Hullabaloo]

This grants AREA retaliation, further increasing your damage output inderectly,

I do love this. But all the benefits of the AA Hammer ward are the same that you get from the GW#4 which also grants AoE retaliation, and you dont have to worry about breaking the chain:).

As someone that ran CoF alot, I really like this comment about dungeon changes. If you missed it, from what I can tell dungeons now have the same death effect as fractals. No just WPing and running back when you die.

I was hoping it would be a surprise, but sure. I rebuilt the “Defend Magg while he plants the bomb” event in CoF (path 2). It now involves a special flame legion assassin who must be killed before he reaches Magg, while dealing with never-ending spawns of (non veteran…) flame legion out to distract the players and add pressure.

I love it. I hated that part of CoF as I think just throwing your body at a problem should not be a solution.

[Togath]

I was thinking of starting up again with guildwars(left due to pandaria, but I've gotten far enough in that that the grind there leaves eough time for guildwars)...have there been any major changes I should know about during the last three months?
I was planning to try a norn warrior again as well, probably bow or sword+shield focused.

[GenericMook]

In the past three months? Aside from the Lost Shores update, and a couple of others, there isn't much. Lost Shores added a level 80 zone and a new dungeon. There's an update that added back items to dungeons and made the champ/legendary bosses in dungeons drop bags that give karma and cash or something.

If you left before Lost Shores came out, there's a new item rarity, but right now, only rings and a few back items have it. It's a small upgrade from Exotics, and kinda sorta annoying to get.

As for warriors, I'm really not a fan of using Shields. I've played my war since Headstart, and I've always felt that the shield's really only worthwhile for select bosses (survivability boost, and whatnot) or PvP/WvW. Axe/Axe are my preferred weapon for leveling/open world PvE, when mobility really isn't a massive concern.

Sword/Warhorn or Sword/Axe are my primary melee set for dungeons. Sword/Warhorn is for fights where I'll need to move about more, while Sword/Axe is better when we're dealing with silver enemies. Sword/Warhorn takes more investment than Sword/Axe, so I'd look into Sword/Axe.

Offhand Sword is an interesting option that I've been toying with lately, and isn't half-bad if you want to stack condition damage like crazy. The block is also really, really handy.

As far as Longbow vs. Rifle, I'd keep both in my backpack. The Longbow is notable because it's your only method of generating a combo field. The Rifle is pretty damn good for direct damage, but the longbow brings conditions and AoE abilities that aren't half bad. I like the Rifle for dungeons, and the Longbow for leveling/open world PvE.

[SanguisAevum]

Some action with my guildies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAqSRuGB3X0

[Turalisj]

Are there any free programs to capture in-game video?