GW2 Random Class Discussion: Shiyo Knows Best edition

[Kiarax]

Shiyo and I both use Knight armour with Valkyrie accessories. Gives a nice mix of offensive and defensive stats. I use Valkyrie Sword/Pistol/Focus and Berserker GS, but she uses Knight melee weapons for more toughness. For traits we both use 10/30/0/0/30. You could drop Duelist to 20 but having Dodge Roll = Clone is an absolute must, so having 30 gives you both the Sword/Pistol CD reductions or if you're using Focus you can swap the Pistol one for something like Phantasms have Fury (Phantasms are still a pretty big chunk of your damage, even though a good portion of the time you'll only let them get off a single attack round before shattering them). You lose 5% crit rate and 10% crit damage doing that, but you could grab something like the 3% damage reduction per illusion out so it's not necessarily a bad trade off. 10 Power could be adjusted too, but +20% Mind Wrack damage is sexy.

And yeah... there's absolutely zero problem dealing with champs with a shatter build. Shiyo and I constantly duo champs/legendaries(Orr temple Gods) other people wouldn't fuck with on Mesmer x2 or Mesmer(her)/Necro.

[Kirbyprime]

Alright... so I gotta ask... If Elementalist has one of the best bunker builds, then lets see a detailed description.

Our bunker build got nerfed last patch. Used to use staff with evasive Arcana to abuse blast aura... Our at least that's what I hear. I don't to pvp so I've never used that build.

[Belragga]

0/0/10/30/30 keeps Ele alive forever. Elementalist has the best self healing by far and can easily obtain 100% protection and regen uptime. Staff or D/D works. Staff has more healing due to OP water fields but personally I prefer d/d for more dps and so I can trait auras for that awesome AoE protection. Traits are self explanatory if you've played ele for more then a day. In PvP you're looking at around 3k armor. 15k hp, 650 healing power and 650 condition damage, which as an ele is more like 1k since we are constantly at 12+ might.
This is the standard ele bunker build and it can definitely compete with guardians now that the block bug is gone.

[Tomino]

I recently started a Thief, level 20 at the moment, but I still have a difficult time figuring out what weapon combinations are better for solo.
Also, I still feel pretty weak (destroyer mobs own me, for example), but I guess Thief is one of those classes that gets stronger later on?

I read a lot of Shortbow praises, but to me it feels like a DE/group choice more than a 1vs1.
Dagger/Dagger is very thievish, and causes a lot of bleeding, but I miss the stuns or blinds from Sword/Pistol or Dagger/Pistol.

I recently started using Pistol/Dagger, and it's good kiting but damage feels pretty low.

[Shiyo]

Sword/pistol, dagger/dagger, pistol/dagger bleed spec and shortbow are the only viable thf weapons. You pick one of the first 3, then always have shortbow as your weapon swap. You will spend 85%+ of the time using a shortbow in dungeons/events, and for solo killing mobs you use one of the first 3 weapon combinations. THF is horrible.

[Katlan]

Pistol/pistol seems good, our thief uses it a lot for pure ranged fights

[Alderaan]

Sword/pistol and shortbow is easy mode for PVE.

Dagger/dagger and shortbow for WvW.

Shortbow is just too good for AOE and blast finishers.

[Shiyo]

Pistol/pistol seems good, our thief uses it a lot for pure ranged fights

Pistol/pistol is COMPLETE garbage and the most boring weapon combination ever. The autoattack is condition damage while it's main attack is power/prec/crit(3 / unload) making it's autoattack have 0 synergy with it's main attack, 2 is vuln and never worth using, while again having NO SYNERGY with it's autoattack or main attack and 4/5 are very situational so you basically never use them except for the very rare chance you need an interrupt, but it's very rarely worth it because using headshot is a gigantic DPS loss. Not to mention this weapon combination has ZERO AOE making it very very weak for anything that isn't a boss, and even then it's very bad DPS on single target compared to pretty much anything else a THF can use besides equally useless weapon combinations like dagger/pistol and sword/dagger. Spamming unload is very mediocre DPS and not good at all yet it's this weapon combinations ONLY form of actual damage, shortbow is the superior ranged weapon in every situation because it has a poison field, a spammable ranged blast finisher, actual AOE that's actually incredibly strong, a bouncing autoattack and 2 survivability + kiting skills all in one. It's a well designed weapon where all 5 of it's skills are good and synergize properly with the weapon, unlike pistol/pistol which has ZERO overall synergy.

Also what is a "pure ranged fight"? I'm not sure that exists besides lupicus(sp).

edit: THF Is by far the worst dungeon class in the game, it offers ZERO group support and very weak DPS, while having negative survivability. Even ranger, the worst class in the universe, is a much better class to bring than THF. Ranger provides a low cooldown pulsing water field + AOE condition removal + AOE heal/regen and a group AOE res, thf provides nothing even close to this. I suggest you tell your thf buddy ro reroll an actual useful class for dungeons, or if he really loves thf, to stop using the worst weapon combination in the world.

[Arelian]

It's really interesting to see the WoW-era elitism trying to worm it's way into GW2 (mostly from Shiyo's posts). I wasn't really going on forums all that often when WoW first began, but I imagine it looked vaguely similar to this.

That said, I do agree that thief is one of the lesser-desirable classes for PvE dungeons. Though it's not like any of them require the ~*perfect*~ setup to complete.

[Alderaan]

I would say it's only less desirable due to most players being glass cannon and dead every pull.

Although, it's really noticeable for Fractals, where warriors and guardians really shine.

[Katlan]

God shiyo is so annoying. You talk like You have played every class and know everything better than anybody else and you word everything like its a fact over an opinion. I find you highly annoying (btw I listen to everyone else's input but yours, I just read what you say because you come Off beyond retarded)

oh yeah.. the thief is in our static and w/him have done every single path of every dungeon (obtain dungeoneer title) and are on fractal level 26. we would be higher but we don't run fractals everyday and have just been farming level 24 for the past week. So clearly, thief is total gabrage that has no place in any party

[Shiyo]

I was THF main before changing to mesmer after realizing how horribly designed THF is. I have every class at 80 except ranger, necro, and warrior. I have done tons of dungeons and PVP on all my classes except guardian. So yeah, I have played pretty much every class. It also IS a fact those weapons are horrible - THF literally only has 4 viable weapon combinations, and one is very weak in PVE(Pistol/dagger).

[Katlan]

screen shot or i dont believe you

[Shiyo]

what? lol

[Kiarax]

Just to dickride her a little more she's also by far the best player I've played with too. Regardless of how she portrays herself on here she knows her shit. By all means take what she says with a grain of salt, because she exaggerates a ton, but if she's giving you advice you can probably guarantee it's good.

[Katlan]

perfect title change then

and Kiarax, do you own your account or does Shiyo post for you now?
because damn, you jump on a chance to kiss her tit every chance you get

[Kiarax]

So salty lol. She's my friend and I know she's absolutely horrible at presenting herself, but that doesn't mean you should disregard what she says because she does have good advice. I've learned a lot from her, even on classes I leveled before her and originally gave her advice on. Feel free to continue ignoring her and abusing your mod powers simply because you don't like her though, it's real cute.

[Katlan]

not really an abuse of power. Shiyo gives advice to everyone in this thread and presents herself like its the only acceptable way to do anything. So the title is perfect. the fact is that even if Shiyo does give good advice, everything she says is subjective and opinion based yet she talks like its a fact and the absolute only way to do anything.

If I am wrong in this then I will remove the title, but until then "Shiyo knows best" is perfect

[The Blackrose]

she's absolutely horrible at presenting herself

Understatement of 2012 right there. Especially when you damn well know she's wrong on something (which is rare).

That being said, the salt levels are off kilter. Get in your corners, people.

[Rhyis.]

Title is funny. What's the issue? I want my own title though, Rhyis knows nothing edition.