GW2 Random Class Discussion: Shiyo Knows Best edition

[Dragir]

Especially effective against Mesmers and other pet classes due to the AoE.

This is in Lion's Arch; stats are higher in WvWvW with Orbs of Power, but that doesn't matter, I guess. This is 'base.'



(Build)

Random point of interest: the only thing that's been effective against me (as a mesmer) in WvWvW has been a mob of more than 8 people... 8 people who don't suck, anyway. Otherwise, I can get away. Six superior runes of the undead, "exotic" (kinda dislike that term) Knight's armor, "exotic" Knight's accessories. I also do my damnedest to avoid getting hit. By anything. Ever. That's really the most important thing. Playing well. Stats are just a crutch... which is occasionally crucial.

[Celeras]

How the fuck is anything you just said relevant to the fact that the Engineer build I linked will fuck up your clones? Grats on the toughness and escape ability, I guess?

[Eldelphia]

Is it me (it might be) or is support really discriminated against in WvW? I can heal the everliving crap out of people, throw down a bunch of buffs and generally be useful for it but it seems to mean very little. I'm getting more confident with dps and keeping myself up but I tend to crumble as an elementalist the minute I'm targetted. Advice welcome on how to improve my performance or change my approach in WvW. I'm comfortable with dagger/dagger and staff over most things but open to suggestions.

[Corrderio]

I've kinda had the same feeling. I have my guardian built for healing/support and it feels kinda meh when you're getting rained on by arrows, cannon fodder, and whatever the the hell else.

[Prothescar]

New Guardian build that I've been playing with:

Twofister Guardian Hit Squad Condition Purguration MkI


Overview: Provides large amounts of self healing through Altruistic Healing via shouts, constant symbols, and staff skills as well as large amounts of support to your team from copious amount of boons. This also allows you to maintain decent DPS with your hammer as you lay down our most powerful symbol and get lots of bonus boons via combos from Mighty Blow. Main draw of this particular build over other ones I've made, however, is its ability to remove 1~2 conditions (and convert one to a boon) from you and all nearby allies every time you use a shout (2~4 removed conditions every 24 seconds in AoE with this skillset). Renewed Focus provides more trait synergy by allowing you to pop up more boons every 90s for more healing and support.


Gear: I use full Knight's armor with full Cleric's accessories as well as a Knight's hammer and Cleric's staff. For sigils, Superior Sigil of Purity is pretty much a given if you do a lot of PvP, it's absolutely fantastic and gives you three removed conditions every 10s when put together with Signet of Resolve and Purity, plus the extra 2~4 being removed and converted every 24s with shouts. I just stick Superior Sigil of Energy into my staff for the extra dodge roll heals. For runes, there are a few options:

Option one would be six Runes of the Soldier, giving a small HP and Armor boost and bumping your natural 2 conditions removed with shouts every 24s up to 4.

Option two would be six Runes of Water, giving you a sizable healing power boost, 15% extra boon duration, another chance at removing a condition every 30s, and a 1.2k~1.4k AoE heal on yourself and all nearby allies when you use your healing signet.

Option three involves some mixing and matching, and is the most labor intensive rune combination as it requires you to go on quite a few Ascalonian Catacombs runs. The runes consist of two Superior Runes of the Monk, two Superior Runes of Water, and two Major Runes of Water/The Monk. This provides a moderate boost to healing power as well as a staggering 40% increase to boon duration. With Chocolate Omnomnomberry Creams and the small bonus from traits in this build, you're looking at a 65% bonus to boon duration. An alternative blend would be four Superior Runes of the Monk and two Superior Runes of Water, pushing down the boon bonus to 55% while giving you 15 more healing power and a 5% chance to heal for 400~1200HP every 10s when you get hit.

Option four would be some form of DPS or hybrid runes, like Divinity, the Hawk, or the Citadel. I personally don't use DPS runes, but the option is there if you really want them.


Possible Swaps: Save Yourselves can be swapped out for Retreat, giving you another AoE condition removal instead of a big self buff and condition removal. I'd also swap to Tome of Wrath for attacking and defending keeps as it's very good for breaking up large groups of enemy players and attacking them on and from the ramparts.



So far I'm really liking it, it's amazing support while maintaining a respectable amount of DPS, and it more or less shuts down most condition builds. This could turn Necromancer into your worst nightmare, though.

[Dragir]

Especially effective against Mesmers

Clones? You assume all mesmers depend on clones. Or that AOEs hurt me or my clones. Whatevs, all good, enjoy your last word.

[Aevis]

@eldelphia get yourself into a guerilla group (8-10 players) and they'll love the shit out of you. outside of scheduled events, my ls is always sporting guerilla groups and we ignore the karma train, if they're not right in front of us. having a dedicated support role makes it so much more efficent than having everyone doing it a bit, which is mostly the case in randoms. quite often, some randoms/strays see you passing by while you head for a camp. having a supp ele + mesmer pretty much shutting down and holding our back while we full out attack it has become a key factor, especially in upgraded camps. or a guardian + warrior to use the rams to take a regular tower as fast as possible, because some AoE from randoms will always be there and the light/medium classes are better of taking those down.

[Shiyo]

Is it me (it might be) or is support really discriminated against in WvW? I can heal the everliving crap out of people, throw down a bunch of buffs and generally be useful for it but it seems to mean very little. I'm getting more confident with dps and keeping myself up but I tend to crumble as an elementalist the minute I'm targetted. Advice welcome on how to improve my performance or change my approach in WvW. I'm comfortable with dagger/dagger and staff over most things but open to suggestions.

Set armor of earth, lightning flash, mish form, tornado. Gear x/x/vit weapons/armors and x/x/toughness accessories. Don't use staff unless you're attacking a fort/keep or defending a fort/keep and can't melee at all. AOE people off the keep/fort balconies and AOE people off the door from your keep/fort balcony. Tornado people on your gate when efending as well, then mist form out or just run out if you aren't dying that fast.

[Celeras]

Clones? You assume all mesmers depend on clones. Or that AOEs hurt me or my clones. Whatevs, all good, enjoy your last word.

I assumed what? No, all I said AoE was effective against them. And your retort to that was: here's my toughness, and I can run away really good. Such a pro.

[Kachiko]

Ya, I'm with Celaras on this, on the face that it's not an invincible build; no such thing. A good warrior will rip you apart and also, some really good DPS burst thieves. You also have zero condition removal skills, aside from your heal, so ya, you'd better be running away as fast as you can to not get hit.

[Kiarax]

A good warrior

what

[Dragir]

*rolls eyes* This isn't theory any more, guys. I do spectacularly well (offensively and defensively) in WvW with that exact setup... and I never said that all I do is run away, either. I said that when the odds are stacked against me to the tune of 8 or more enemies, I get away every time... and I've stood and eaten spikes from thieves and warriors and didn't get dropped. Eviscerate -> Whirling Axe combos with 4 boons on the warrior, for example, I barely hit 50% HP. 1v1 I don't budge an inch. It's definitely possible that everyone I've come across in WvW so far is just bad. I can count on one hand the ones that I'd say were not.

Regardless of all that, I thought I was just posting a build in a thread about classes to give BG's mesmers something to try out. Didn't think it'd get shit all over. And Celeras's statement that his "Engi" build was good against mesmers was the part of his post I was addressing. And yes, you did assume that mesmers rely on clones. That was your whole point.

[Arcana]

*rolls eyes* This isn't theory any more, guys. I do spectacularly well (offensively and defensively) in WvW with that exact setup... and I never said that all I do is run away, either. I said that when the odds are stacked against me to the tune of 8 or more enemies, I get away every time... and I've stood and eaten spikes from thieves and warriors and didn't get dropped. Eviscerate -> Whirling Axe combos with 4 boons on the warrior, for example, I barely hit 50% HP. 1v1 I don't budge an inch. It's definitely possible that everyone I've come across in WvW so far is just bad. I can count on one hand the ones that I'd say were not.

Regardless of all that, I thought I was just posting a build in a thread about classes to give BG's mesmers something to try out. Didn't think it'd get shit all over. And Celeras's statement that his "Engi" build was good against mesmers was the part of his post I was addressing. And yes, you did assume that mesmers rely on clones. That was your whole point.

Yeah perhaps a level 5 warrior whos rolled into WvW for the exp/karma, but any warrior at 80, will cripple you, knock you down, HB > evisc and walk away with his loot bag.

[Kuya]

These penis fencing competitions are always so confusing, because i never know which cock to suck.

[Dragir]

Knockdowns aren't what they used to be.
And fwiw, you can tell the level 80 warriors from the level 5 warriors. I mostly see Citadel of Flame armor on them. Soooo typical...

These penis fencing competitions are always so confusing, because i never know which cock to suck.

Had no idea I'd have to defend a build "on paper" (this forum) that I've been using for weeks in a game that's already out... stated my intention already. Build's out there, if you play mesmer, give it a go. If you dodge effectively and use Decoy and Blink to escape knockdowns/stun/etc (doesn't seem to work on Fear consistently), it makes WvW pretty fun. I literally just took down 5 Sorrow's Furnace Invaders at once. Mesmer, Warrior, Ranger, not sure what the other two were. Very chaotic. >_>

[Celeras]

This nigga is seriously still trying to talk about what a boss he is because someone said that AoE damage kills pets.. three days ago.

Fucking lol.

[Dragir]

Ain't about that. Never was. Build works.

[Corrderio]

For a supportive build, what would you guys consider the best prefix to be for armor? Cleric (HP, Healing, and Power) or Shaman (Defense, Healing, and Condition Damage)?

[Shiyo]

For a supportive build, what would you guys consider the best prefix to be for armor? Cleric (HP, Healing, and Power) or Shaman (Defense, Healing, and Condition Damage)?

Clerics is toughness/power/healing.

[ClarkSammich]

For a supportive build, what would you guys consider the best prefix to be for armor? Cleric (HP, Healing, and Power) or Shaman (Defense, Healing, and Condition Damage)?

I'm not sure, but I think cleric would be better for guardian since condition damage on guardian is kind of lame (unless I'm mistaken and there's some secret guardian burn build that's amazing).

Also, shaman set doesn't come in exotic form that can be bought, just yellow. Cleric has a craftable exotic version though. You can get an exotic precision/vitality/healing distribution from honor of the waves, the same from twilight arbor and Ascalonian catacombs, and the shaman (vitality/healing/condi) from Caudecus's manor.

Also^2 for example, regeneration is calculated as 5 + (1.562 * Level) + (0.125 * Healing Power)
So if you have +300 healing from traits, +180 from two exotic weapons, +451 from exotic accessories, +315 from exotic gear you would get a regeneration of ~285/sec, vs. 124/sec with no +healing.
I figured I would toss that in so you could determine if you think it's worth the investment or not.