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where the red fern gropes posted:a builds section in the OP would be neat with some starter builds like rifle mechanist or power reaper I made some large effort posts for a few classes in the old thread including one for Rifle Mech. Should I just repost them here? That may be helpful for the new people
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Aug 25, 2022 17:22
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Alright I'll start with the Mechanist on my lunch break since it's FOTM and someone specifically requested it. (Edit: This is for an Engineer Elite Specialization that requires the End of Dragons expansion): After bouncing off Engineer for ~3 years, Rifle Mechanist finally made me stick with it. It is amazing and it's so fun to play that I'm worried they're going to nerf it (Edit: It has only gotten stronger lol). I figured I'd make another (smaller) effort post about it.  Open World Pve Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAQRlxycZvsWWMOsLmxdA-zRpYBREKcLKQCihNHEhRQYlRbpQgVgzHAB2D6ASH2YR/zI-e (Note: This is oddly specific gear based on what I had on hand. You can play around with the balance between Marauder/Assassin/Berserker/Dragon based on what you have. The goal is to end up with 60% baseline crit, which with the new Hematic Focus (+15% crit) and PvE Fury (25%) gets you to a 100% crit rate.) Permanent Alacrity, 20-25 Might, Fury, and 100% crit. This will solo anything you throw at it, in record time, with plenty of utility too. It really has everything. The damage is outstanding and you and your mech have a lot of tools for survival. Sanctuary Runes are the bee's knees now that they trigger off of HoT effects, such as your Rectifier Signet and Big Boomer. Heals passively give you Barrier and Barrier gives you Alacrity, so as long as you're in combat you'll have permanent Alacrity with no need to invest in any boon duration beyond what you get from the Runes. Amazing! For Might, you provide 5 Might to yourself and allies thanks to the new Pinpoint Distribution. You generate ~1 Might/second thanks to the Sigil of Strength and a 100% crit rate. You also gain Might whenever you inflict Bleeding, which you have a 33% chance to do whenever you crit. You also gain 5 Might when you use Blunderbuss, with an additional 3 Might from the 3 stacks of Bleed it inflicts. Put it all together and you'll always be at or near 25 Might as long as you're using Blunderbuss on CD. Fury is also generated passively when you hit someone with an explosion, which you'll do just by auto-attacking with the Rifle. For your Mech, Sky Circus is great AoE and also a defiance break where he lands, so he's good for CC/breakbar if you can get him near enemies. You can also use Rifle 3, 4, and Force Signet for defiance breaks so you have fantastic breakbar damage. Your mech will probably take most of the beating so don't be shy about using Rectifier Signet, Barrier Signet, and Crisis zone to keep you and your mech alive. If you need to reposition yourself or your mech (to escape or push CC) use Shift Signet, which will also serve as your condi cleanse along with Crisis Zone. Demo videos on my usual punching bags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzvEgiYwzmU Champion Mayatl the Fierce (killed in under 2 minutes!). Note if you're worried about your mech dying before the mob, hold off on using Overclock Signet so you can resummon him immediately. With permanent Alacrity and all of the survival tools outlined above you'll be able to keep him alive long enough for the cooldown on OC Signet to recharge if you're in some kind of extended slugging match. But most things should be dead well before that's an issue! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1HBU3wKnoU Champion Avatar of Balthazar. Also a super fast kill, Mechanist just clowns on him. Power DPS (Fractal/Raids) Just use the Snow Crows build: https://snowcrows.com/builds/engineer/mechanist/power-mechanist. It's super simple and ends up with an easy 30k+ DPS. I don't even worry about a rotation, just jam everything that does damage off cooldown. Don't forget your mech skills! You can now set them to autofire, but note that Core Reactor Shot and Jade Mortar both have defiance break. So if you're going to need lots of CC it may still be best to use those manually. When you use Blunderbuss, swap into grenades and use Shrapnel Grenade. If you notice Poison or Freeze Grenade are available use them too. If you really hate grenades just use Rocket Turret for a small DPS loss. I don't like kit swapping, but since you're not swapping weapons going into grenades doesn't feel particularly onerous (imo). For CC you can hold off on Rifle 3,4 and your Mech's Jade Mortar/Core Reactor shot depending on how much you need. You can also use Force Signet for CC but save that for last as it will gimp your damage while it's on cooldown. Here's a DPS parse from after the most recent patch. Easy 34k DPS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT76Q0M_tus WvW Roaming/Group/Zerg Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAQRlxycZhsWWKOsT6xdA-zRpYBRFCcLoBxwmDiwIIsyIwKo3Uw5DgAjByG4+GL6fGB-e It took a lot of trial and error but I finally found a build I'm really happy roaming with. If you only care about clearing camps and stuff solo this works well for that too. Rifle can feel kind of squishy, and while it does fantastic damage you also need some staying power. You have great burst, but other classes can generally burst harder and faster at the start of a fight. So I found it best to have some more durability and mobility to withstand an initial burst from your opponent while you and your mech survive and wear them down a bit. Traits like Protection Injection, Hidden Flask, Emergency Elixir, and Transmute help you survive that burst. You'll also have an additional 6% (Alacrity/Fury/Might) damage reduction most of the time from Iron Blooded, which increases with the boons you get from traits and Crisis Zone. Combined with Protection, Resolution, and the Barrier Signet passive you can end up with 50%-55% damage reduction. You can also kite around with Rocket Boots, Shift Signet, and even Jump Shot. While you're surviving and plinking away, abilities like Orbital Strike should be about ready to fire off and you can turn around and put the hurt on your opponents. This set-up does necessitate dropping your crit below 100% (I run about 80% in WvW including Fury), but fortunately Rifle Mech doesn't rely on any one skill crit to make or break your fight. It's almost like a power DOT build in that you wear them down with constant, unrelenting ranged power damage then go for a kill shot. If you can line up some combination of Aim-Assisted Rocket/Orbital Command Strike/Blunderbuss/Jump Shot/Sky Circus the results are devastating:  That was a combination of Blunderbuss (4,300), Sky Circus (3,601), Orbital Command Strike (3,673), and Aim-Assisted Rocket (1,584) all fired off within 1-2 seconds for over 13k damage while they're still being peppered with ~600 damage crits from the rifle auto and ~1k crits from your mech. If I hadn't used Jump Shot while chasing them down I could've followed up with that for another 6-7k crit and Spark Revolver from my Mech too. It's just brutal and catches a lot of people off guard. Sky Circus also knocks back on landing and you can chain it with Rifle 4 to lock people down for a long time if they can't CC break. Here's another example against a Willbender showing some use of the Mortar too. I like using it to initiate at range and then drop the poison, chill, blind, and healing AoEs at my feet for melee. Then just keep splashing them down while you mitigate and kite as much as possible. Swapping in/out of Mortar cleanses conditions thanks to the cleansing sigil so you may want to save your swaps for that too. I kind of felt bad for them because I think my Orbital Strike animation was bugged and never appeared (at least on my screen) so they got popped with a 7,461 damage crit out of nowhere lol. I had to go back and check my log to figure out wtf happened to them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEqppf32SyM This was an absolutely nutso long fight I had against a Harbinger after I failed to burst them down initially. This highlights one of the big weaknesses of the build (losing your golem) but also how ridiculously resilient and mobile it is. I had to use every tool in the build's toolbox to survive and win. Never give up! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJvgXPvwRqo This build is also great for zerging. I'd recommend dismissing your mech in zerg v zerg as he'll just run in and die or you'll have to keep calling him back. He can provide some projectile hate, barrier, stun break, and buffs for your group so it may be worth it to micromanage but I personally like just turning my brain off and pew pewing with my mortar from 1500 to collect bags. He'll still shoot stuff with aerial bombardment thanks to J-drive (lol) and you can just call him back in if you really feel the need. The perma alac lets you drop fields more for area denial, and combined with Orbital Command Strike you can do some great AoE damage on clumped players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd69S8Oaqwg This was a hilarious rout of 12-13 people in an organized guild group by like 5 or 6 of us randoms from Maguuma. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk lol. I love group fights with the Mortar. Fractal-cowboy Charr hopes you enjoy your time with Mechanist! 
Hakarne fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Aug 25, 2022 |
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Aug 25, 2022 19:35
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drat Dirty Ape posted:Thanks for this. I take it you need the expansions to get a lot of these abilities? Yeah sorry and thanks for asking that, actually. I'll clarify in that and the other posts I copy over that these require End of Dragons. The good news is if you take the leap and buy the expansions you can unlock enough hero points to use an elite spec in just a few hours. Just look for a squad advertising a "HP train" in the group finder under "Heart of Thorns" (particularly Verdant Brink) or "Path of Fire". There are people that do it quite frequently, and they'll take you around to all the juicy hero points you'd have trouble with soloing so you can unlock your elite spec of choice with ease.
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Aug 25, 2022 23:45
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Here's my old effort post about Specter. This is for a Thief Elite Specialization that requires the End of Dragons expansion. Alright have another wall o' text about Specter. Back by popular demand! I'll cover the specs I use for: Fractals/Open World (Condition Damage), Group Alacrity, Open World (Max Sustain/Support), and WvW (Roaming).  Fractals/Open World (Condition Damage) http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAsiVlFwOYUME2IO2WXxLA-zRZYVBB+FknZ0xFUGRWBdkCePNgYaD-e This is based off of the Snow Crows build linked a few posts back but with Shortbow for utility. I've run this through all CMs and T4s and it's really good. Note that I have a Celestial backpiece because I keep my rare infusions in there for pretty-pretty princess so you can swap that to Viper/Sinister or whatever. The rotation is really simple once you get the hang of it. The truly simplified version is: Utilities/Thieves Guild off CD > Scepter 3 x1 > Steal (for initiative) > Scepter 3 until initiative is empty > Enter Shroud > 2,5,4 then 2 until initiative is full > Exit Shroud > Repeat. That gives you 30k+ DPS on a raid benchmark golem without accounting for utility venom share and Rot Wallow venom. Shortbow is for trash, AoE, and utility. Now buried in that rotation is a lot of neat stuff. Entering Shroud procs weapon swap traits and sigils (Quick Pockets and Doom). Exiting Shroud dumps your remaining Shadow Force on your team in the form of healing and Barrier which can help a lot with group sustain. If you know there's going to be some big hits coming up you can hold off entering or exiting Shroud for a second or two to really help your group. Putting Barrier on people also applies Rot Wallow venom to them which ups your damage even more. So your damage will scale up considerably with venom/Rot Wallow sharing and you're helping your group sustain while you do it. Also if you have time you can just auto-attack a party member ahead of a fight to get 10-15 stacks of Torment for free since you're giving them Barrier/Rot Wallow. It's pretty neat. For CC you're constantly applying Chill with Scepter 3. You apply Slow with Steal. Thousand Needles will Immobilize when you trigger it. Shroud 3 will Fear your target and Shroud 5 is a stun when it goes off. If you know you have CC requirements coming up you can hold off on some or all of these skills depending on your group situation. If that's not enough you can also swap Thieves Guild for Basilisk Venom but that should be a last resort as it will hurt your DPS. You also bring boonstrip with your steal so you may want to synch that as needed for fractal modifiers like NPNG. For AoE/trash you won't be doing top tier damage but you can make up for it in utility. I mostly like to use Sb 4 to spam AoE stun and leave Poison fields. You can also use Shroud for the Barrier or even single target heal if needed. Otherwise the spec is great for single target dps, but one weakness I've found is in fights that have junk adds that can get between you and your target. There's no pierce on Sc/D 3 so if mobs go all Secret Service for a boss and start taking hits meant for them your damage can tank. It's especially prone to it due to the delay on the projectile so try to make sure you're as close as possible and that there isn't a lot of crap between you and your target in those situations. While this is a DPS spec I've found it's also fantastic for open world. Shroud gives you a ton of sustain, Sb is great for tagging, and if your kink is topping DPS meters in open world content you can be competitive and not be a glass cannon. This also lets you practice your rotation as you go about your business. The single target support is also great if you want to support random pubbies who get in over their head. You can solo most things you come across. But if you want to literally never die and take down really nasty Champs and group content refer to my dedicated open world build further down. You may also want to slot a stunbreak because CC can get old real fast. Here's a video of the DPS rotation with the Snow Crows Golem set up. Note mine is simplified from Snow Crows as I don't swap weapons since I'm carrying a Shortbow offhand. 31k DPS is good enough for me! Remember this goes even higher with a group thanks to venomshare - SC pegs it at 40k with allies which sounds about right, I've easily seen that on certain bosses in Fractals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIoFd4aLocY Group Alacrity http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAsiVlhyOYssUWLO2W3xPA-zxIY1ojvQ6qACPCSPFcfaAx0G-e First off I'll point out that this Celestial armor with Aristocracy runes is unusual, but it was designed as a one-size-fits-all set for my max sustain Open World build, WvW build, and this Group Alacrity build. If you're only using this Celestial gear for group Alacrity there are better runes you can use - just shoot for ~50% boon duration to maintain permanent Alacrity with whatever you do. But Aristocracy runes do help keep you and your group topped off with Might, which you generate for your group with Steal and Well of Bounty (assuming your group has all boons up already which they generally should). The rotation is identical to the Fractal DPS build, but instead you're going to be prioritizing using your wells as soon as they're off CD to maintain Alacrity. They have a cast time so this means you'll probably have better initiative management and not have to enter Shroud as often. Note that all your wells heal your group thanks to the Traversing Dusk trait. So your DPS won't be as high as an Alacren but you're adding a lot of healing, especially with Celestial gear. You can also use Shroud more strategically to dump large heals and barrier on your group if needed, or just work your rotation and keep your group's health padded with Barrier. I've had a few HBs comment that they're bored because the group just doesn't take significant damage when I run this build. IMO this makes it fantastic for pugs where competence is not guaranteed. You're also pretty resilient with Celestial gear and Shroud so this is a forgiving build if you want to learn Fractals. Just make sure your wells are always on CD and you land on your group to keep their Alacrity up and they'll be happy. CC isn't as great as Alacren but you can switch to Sb and spam 4 for AoE daze if you really need CC. Otherwise you'll want to rely on the fear/stun in shroud and chill/slow. If you want to get cute Shadowfall can be used to clump mobs and also counts as CC for breakbars. Open World (Max Sustain/Support) http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaABsqhjlhy2YrsUWLO2WXxPA-zxIY1onvU6qAyNBCPCSPEcfaAx0G-e This is ~my signature build~ that I have been tweaking since the beta. I literally wrote the guide for it that's up on Metabattle (upvote if you like it!) so I'll refer you to that for a lot more tips and tricks: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Specter_-_Condi_Celestial This is also where you'll see the Aristocracy runes really shine and not look like a dumb/crazy choice. Scepter 2 grants you 5 Might and inflicts Weakness, which thanks to the Aristocracy runes gives you an additional 5 Might. So that's 10 Might every time you press Scepter 2, taking Specter from a spec with poor personal Might generation to one that runs around with permanent 20-25 Might. Your normal rotation is Scepter 3>Scepter 2>Scepter 3>repeat and Steal as needed. You're essentially weaving Shadow Sap between Measured Shot and Endless Night. You can jump into Shroud like you would in your DPS rotation or just kite and auto attack if you want to save it during a really hard fight. Your sustain is nuts because Measured Shot and all your wells heal you, you get tons of Alacrity, and you're constantly porting all over for kiting. You'll also debuff and CC the hell out of whatever you're attacking with Immobilize, Slow, and Weakness as part of your rotation. Note that Endless Night cleaves up to 3 targets (the ally Quickness is single target only) and it will pierce enemies as well. D/D is for groups and tough mobs that can't be kited. Use Shadowfall to clump and use Death Blossom to evade and damage them. Well of Silence can be a large AoE heal thanks to Sigil of Draining (heal on interrupt). Oh and they'll also be weakened and in turn give you Might as well! That's just the basics. I put some other neat tactics and synergies in the linked Metabattle build so you can check that out for more. Here are a few video demos of the build in action against tough enemies: Mayatl the Fierce solo (this fight is a great stress-test for builds imo as there are checks against single target and AoE damage, defiance bars, incoming CC, and condi cleanse): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTbznU3HxI0 Champion Avatar of Balthazar solo (Shows the tankiness with D/D since he isn't good for kiting): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqk239zQqDw WvW (Roaming) http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAsiVlNw2YisU2IeWXnxSA-zxIY1ojvQ6qAiMFCPCcfaAx0G-e I've tweaked this a lot since the beta. I originally started with Sc/P and that can definitely be swapped in with Traversing Dusk if you prefer. I think Sc/P is better for actually clearing camp guards due to the kiting, cleave, and extra sustain. It also demolishes most melee as they just can't keep up with all your shadowsteps (that heal you) and Immobilizes. You could also run Sc/P offhand and lose Sb as that's mostly for clearing camps, escaping/chasing, or AoE when I occasionally zerg surf. However, I have come to prefer Sc/D for roaming for a few reasons. It's more bursty and doesn't require long channels so it's good for weaving between Stealth and dodges. It gives your target a steady stream of Chill to slow their movement speed and cooldowns, the latter of which is absolutely critical for taking down tankier builds. It's also far more effective against ranged enemies where you want to be up in their face pressuring them; shadowstepping away usually helps them a lot more than you since they can probably outrange you. It actually plays a bit like the Open World build and makes good use of the Aristocracy runes. You want to alternate Scepter 3>Scepter 2 to stack conditions on your enemy and might on yourself. Use Steal for your initial stealth access and then hit them with a stealth attack. This gives you a large amount of barrier and healing thanks to Panaku's Ambition, Leeching Venoms, and Shadow Siphoning. This sequence constantly pressures your target with Torment, Poison, Chill, and Weakness while constantly healing you and providing barrier. Try to save Shadowstep for disengaging or chasing, and Blinding powder is your "Oh poo poo" button. Well of Bounty can be considered a free slot but I like it for the mobility, low cooldown, and buffs. If you stand in it for just two ticks after stealing you'll get Protection and Regeneration from it which is very helpful. When you get low on initiative or need a break and can't Stealth enter shroud. The big scary circle from 5 will make people run away or get stunned and give you a rare stack of Stability. Use 3 to drop AoE Fear which also gives you barrier, while 4 will also cause Weakness and give you Might. Thieves Guild should be used carefully to burst down a weakened foe or as a defensive distraction if you're taking too much heat. Try to cast it while in Stealth as it can be really helpful to confuse people in PvP and mess with their targeting, allowing you some free shots or to slip away. Speaking of Shroud, you may notice a lack of Condition cleanse outside of Shadowstep. This build loves Conditions, it literally eats them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The Specter GM trait Hungering Darkness cleanses Conditions while you're in Shroud and heals you for ~500 HP once a second. And remember this is happening while you aren't taking damage to your health bar thanks to Shroud so it's very solid healing. Hit them with a Fear when you enter Shroud and the Barrier will eat up a lot of incidental damage from the conditions while you om nom nom them for heals and your target is fleeing. You're also not dumping all your Shadow Force when you leave shroud (Consume Shadows is nerfed to hell in WvW) so you can use it more tactically in combat. Also your healing isn't half bad thanks to Celestial gear and Second Opinion (in lieu of Consume Shadows). So if you're running with anyone else you can also play single-target support as Anet originally intended. Here are some video demos of the build in action: 1v2 vs a Renegade and Spellbreaker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6RRNnqwK8s 1v1 vs Soulbeast (one of my most hated classes on thief, long but shows the excellent sustain on this build) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmypH407tbI 1v1 vs Weaver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElIb1lxegXA Enjoy! 
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Aug 26, 2022 01:27
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Cutedge posted:Hakame that engineer rifle build is so fun to use, thanks for posting that I'm glad you like it! And I agree, having played ESO this game has the best community feel (and I say this as someone who loves playing MMOs solo). No matter where you are or at what time, if something pops up you can shout on the map or in guild and people will swarm to assist. If someone's downed it feels mandatory to try to res them. The game does a great job of fostering community and cooperation I think because it never makes you group up or do anything extra to cooperate. It just happens, and having more people show up is only a good thing. iGestalt posted:I was contemplating Guardian. I don't typically go for 'Paladin' types but it looks like it could be a little more engaging than a Warrior would be. Ideally something that can use two-handed weapons (GS / Hammer are good fun on Warrior) is a plus. I definitely think you should try Vindicator (Revenant). And it just so happens the last effort-post I'm copying from the old thread is a Vindicator write-up. If you want to do BIG DAMAGE with a GS then it's right up your alley.
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Aug 26, 2022 19:42
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This is my Vindicator post. This is for a Revenant Elite Specialization that requires the End of Dragons expansion. Ok here's a big post about Vindicator. There's at least one interested party so you're all getting a blast of info!  I hated Vindicator in the beta. One dodge felt terrible in a game built around dodging, and as I previously mentioned the one-dodge nerf to Mirage made me stop playing that spec entirely. But after spending some time with it I've really come around to the playstyle. They didn't just take away a dodge, they replaced your second dodge with a lot of utility options and burst damage. Also you get a lot more evasion time off of that single dodge so imo it can actually be more forgiving for mitigation since you don't need to time everything perfectly. You can also use it proactively for defense and offense instead of just sitting on energy waiting to dodge. I'll start with the three dodge variants from the GM traits and what they're good for: Forerunner of Death: The BIG DAMAGE jump and (imo) a siren's song for people who want to try Vindicator. Unless you're making a max DPS build for raids or fractals I think this is a trap and the worst of the three dodges. Sure the damage/15% damage buff is nice, but that's all you get along with a smaller dodge AoE. If you're using this against actual people they will run out of it 9.5/10 times since it's so telegraphed with a smaller radius. Try the others unless you really know what you're doing with it. Saint of zu Heltzer: This one is solid and is popular in the seemingly small number of people that run a Vindicator in WvW. I don’t see it too much in Open World though, but I also don’t see a lot of Vindicators out either! AoE barrier and healing on your single dodge really enhances it, and abusing energy sigils gets you a lot of extra sustain out of this, although they did nerf this outside of PvE. It's good but not my favorite... Vassals of the Empire: This is my favorite and I feel like most people sleep on it because the others are more straightforward and flashy. It adds a ton of utility, survivability, and damage. If you take this your dodge will grant you and your allies Protection, 10 Stacks of Might (8 in WvW), extend the duration of all boons already on you by 2 seconds, and AoE chill/damage your enemies. You can do some pretty crazy things if you build around this and it really enhances boon generation for you and allies. I swear by this talent for both Open World and WvW, and you'll see a lot of synergy come out in the builds that use it. Open World For my pure Open World/Story Vindicator I use Celestial Armor: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAEZlZSHMU6hlSNsTyhpSfsSKgp+1esF-zRhYBRBUFRchbB5ZGBThkZIUbC0bEURBwi+nRA-e Edit: I made up an alternate starter version of this build for people that boost to 80 and have the Celestial starting set: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAEZlZSHMU6hlSNsTyhpSfsSKgp81e0F-zxYUhoAZUjIOwdQZlRPJQgFgJDA-e It probably costs ~20 Gold to buy what you need off the TP in addition to your free exotic Celestial Armor. You'll need a Berserker's Greatsword, Superior Sigil of Strength (may be overkill for stacking up to 25 Might) and Stamina, 6x Superior Rune of the Eagle, Assassin's Amulet and Earrings ("Opal Orichalcum"), and Berserker Rings ("Ruby Orichalcum"). You'll take the "Rapid Flow" trait for the Swiftness and "Amnesty of Shing Jea" to help make up for the lost Might generation from not having Incensed Response. These two choices will also give you more sustain. So why the hell do I use Celestial armor on a Vindicator!? Add it all up and that is fantastic damage and mitigation. It’s also the only way I know of to get permanent Protection on Vindicator, and the mitigation from that is worth more than the healing from zu Heltzer imo. Your heals are only on a 10 second cooldown in Alliance Stance, and you have two of them if you use Alliance Tactics. The short cooldown on your heals also makes the trait Battle Scarred (which gives you stacks of Battle Scars when you use a heal) more valuable for sustain, even with the nerf to Battle Scars. So enough theory, how does it play? It’s pretty straightforward. You can ignore swapping to Viktor in all but the toughest situations. Greatsword and the Alliance legend aren’t very energy intensive so you can just hang out in that for most things. Spam GS5 for fun explosions and GS2 for damage/Vulnerability (which gives you Battle Scars). Also spam Scavenger Burst for permanent Quickness, Fury, and Might (7 stacks thanks to Incensed Response and Notoriety) and to apply Burning to your target. See, those condition damage stats on your celestial armor aren’t a total waste! You can also use Spear of Archemorus off cooldown too for a nice damage boost. Dodge soon after it comes off cooldown, although you can hold it a bit if you think you’ll need it as there’s a good amount of padding on your core boons. Everything else you can save for situational usage. If you’re only rotating between those 3 or 4 skills you should have plenty of energy for whatever you need, whether it be healing, extra damage, chasing/disengaging, etc. If you need extra healing, mitigation, or CC switch to Jalis and you have all the survivability and a good CC in Forced Engagement. If it really hits the fan you can swap to your staff too for the best CC in the game, more blocks, condi cleanse, heal, and an energy refill thanks to your sigil. You can use Energy Meld proactively to pad your Protection/boon duration, or save it if you think you’ll really need a second dodge. Here are some videos of it in action on my two favorite test subjects, Mayatl the Fierce and the Champion Avatar of Balthazar. I intentionally didn’t use Staff/Viktor so you could see how tanky it is with just the simplified playstyle. You can do some pretty crazy stuff if you get fancy with weapon swapping and Alliance Tactics but it’s not necessary for all but the hardest content. Vindicator vs Mayatl the Fierce https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roPJSqDpNd8 Vindicator vs Champion Avatar of Balthazar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=203XTJQYGwY So yeah, the damage and sustain on this is awesome with all of the synergies you have going. You will absolutely tear through open world content and you’re pretty resilient while you do it. It’s not quite as survivable as Celestial Renegade since you have to be in melee, but it’s close and it destroys things even faster in PvE. Fractal DPS/Utility This is where you go with Forerunner of Death as all you really bring is damage, damage, and more damage: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAExzlZSHMU6hlSNsTyhpSfsSKgJ9lasD-zRZYBRN3XVQgmRwUG1mCVUB2eQEjFAkEgZR/zI-e Edit: Thanks to Mr. Neutron, I tested Shiro/Jalis instead of Alliance/Jalis and it's straight-up superior damage with a simpler rotation. Just dodge when you have full endurance, run Impossible Odds when you're on Shiro, run Vengeful Hammers on Jalis, and spam GS5, GS3, and GS2 on cooldown. Doing that got me an easy 32k+ DPS (updated for current patch). I'll leave the Alliance info below in case you really want to use that instead but Shiro/Jalis is just better and easier. Here's the 32.3k benchmark video so you can see how easy it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJkqxgPQyQ Note this is on a huge hitbox and you’ll get lower DPS on smaller targets. So this build excels on larger targets or when you need lots of burst and/or AOE. I used the Snow Crows build (https://snowcrows.com/builds/revenant/vindicator/power-vindicator) as a baseline but tweaked it so you can provide some utility and have a little bit of sustain in pug fractals. As the Crows mention, most of your DPS comes from Greatsword so you don’t lose a ton of damage by not weapon swapping. I also used Jalis so I have the option for sustain, stability, and CC. Try to avoid switching to staff as it’s a massive DPS loss, but if you really need huge CC, blocks, condi cleanse, etc, it’s there. Snow Crows benchmarks Power Vindicator at 36.9k, but I usually pull 30-32k with my tradeoffs which is fine for me and you’ll be competitive on DPS meters if that’s your thing. Here’s a video so you can see the rotation: https://youtu.be/xSB8Q5fdK-k Alternative Suggestions for Open World/DPS WvW Roaming I tried a whole bunch of different set ups and I keep coming back to this for having the best balance between damage and sustain. It’s all about constant, unrelenting pressure combined with lots of evade frames and healing while you keep up the pressure. Oh, and disgusting amounts of burst damage thanks to a 100% crit rate and lots of Might. Once again you’ll want Celestial Armor with Firework Runes and Assassin's Greatsword/Accessories/Backpack. This is the same gear that’s found in the Open World build, but you’ll need Cleansing/Energy Sigils in your weapons: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAExzldQMsHyj1QcMHqj9RksAigl+UfsF-zRZYVhtF1YzIYOjMlC9qCU8BIkVAW0/MC-e (I have a full set of Precise WvW infusions so I actually use a Celestial backpack and 1 Berserker earring, but it’s a really minor stat difference) This once again makes good use of Vassals of the Empire for damage and sustain, so you’ll see a lot of the same synergies described in the Open World build. You will generate tons of Might, Vigor, Protection, Stability, and Fury which is what gives you the edge. On the flip side, boonstrip can slow this build down a lot. However you generate boons pretty rapidly so you can recover quickly and won’t completely stall out if your flow gets interrupted. You’ll want to synch your weapon and legend swaps – pair Greatsword with Jalis and Sword/Sword with Shiro. Start out in GS/Jalis and drop Inspiring Reinforcement on your approach. Hit them if you can but the main thing is the Stability so you’re not CC’d during your opener. When you’re in range hit them with Forced Engagement for Taunt and Weakness, then gap close with GS3. Next hit them with GS5 followed by GS2. If you’re lucky and they didn’t break out of the taunt they’re gonna be hurting really bad. If they did break out they probably just burned through their dodges which is what you really want out of this. Now you dodge, and while you’re in the air swap to Sword/Shiro. If at all possible, try to line up your weapon swaps with a dodge so you don’t waste the energy gained from your sigil. By doing this you’ll also extend the duration of the Regeneration granted by the Balance in Discord minor trait. When you land you’ll get 10 more Might, Protection, Vigor, and you should still have some stability from Inspiring Reinforcement that will get an extra 2 seconds added on. Now use Sw3 and turn on Impossible Odds. When you stop attacking from that immediately hit Sw2. This combo is an absolutely devastating amount of damage and is very hard to avoid since Sw3 sticks you right on your target. If they’re not dead you can try to finish them off with Deathstrike and/or Shackling Wave. By this point you’re low on energy, but the Vindicator dodge helps here! You should be able to dodge again if they’re still alive and starting to counter pressure, or preferably they’re trying to heal up and you can hold your dodge a few more seconds to line up with your weapon/legend swap. If they’re still alive you’ll have to adapt, but always use Inspiring Reinforcements ASAP so you don’t get CC’d. You’ll probably need to get more defensive as they’re unloading on you so turn on Vengeful Hammers and/or use GS4 to block. You’ll probably need to dodge as soon as it’s off cooldown to stay alive, and make sure to weapon/legend swap ASAP since the energy management on this is pretty rough. Edit: It should also be mentioned here that the dodge can be... very wonky. Swapping weapons or trying to use any skill at the very end of the jump seems to occasionally mess it up and stop you from getting the boons from your dodge. If you're swapping immediately or soon after you enter the dodge you should be ok. You may notice in the videos below that my initial burst rotation doesn't have an issue with the dodge or boon applications. It's as the fight goes on and CDs get slightly out of synch so I swap late. And don't mash buttons as you're coming down. I think in at least one of the videos I'm jamming on my heal and it ended up canceling my dodge boons. Another "fun" bug is crossing over a CC field, like necro fear, will pull you out of the air mid dodge and stop you from getting any boons out of it. It desperately needs a bug fix. But despite all that it's still really strong and fun. Just be aware you may have a few deaths or stall out in a fight if your dodge shits the bed on you. Here are a few example videos showing it in action. An example of a nearly perfect burst opener…twice in a row: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENUjIS5gX5k A little bit longer of a fight against a Willbender, followed by a lengthy chase from a Chronomancer... then killing the Chronomancer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcDAxWSAf9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSR5KxQbg0Y A fun 2vX attempted camp gank where I instead got to do lots of stomping: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbgWA6jinlU Finally, a 1v2 against a FB and another Vindicator. This really shows the sustain on this build, and I was still able to break through all the healing the FB was crapping out. Then two players from the other faction showed up and I was still able to fight them to a standstill and make my escape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFvtuHYwUQ0 That’s all for now. Vindicator’s a lot of fun once you get used to it and I hope this makes people want to give it another shot! Hakarne fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Aug 26, 2022 |
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Aug 26, 2022 20:05
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Last night, I was playing with the makeover kits I had lying around and discovered there are some  exclusive hairstyles/colors available for Charr. Fractal hair-metal pirate Charr is the character theme I didn't know I needed.This may be my most favorite character screenshot yet. Hasta La Vista, Baby:  And a more "normal" pose: 
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Aug 31, 2022 20:47
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I didn't realize they had fixed it so you can dismount your skyscale in the air. My new favorite method of travel is flying as high as I can with the skyscale, dismounting, using the jade bot glide boost for more height, then mounting the griffon and zooming across the map. It's pretty great and now my griffon gets more attention after years of neglect following the skyscale!
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Sep 1, 2022 19:50
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Xerol posted:This isn't what I'm doing though, I'm just pressing the regular mount/dismount key and able to hop off whenever. Gravity immediately takes over unless I hit the glider. bagrada posted:Oh - this says you can only dismount while in the air if you have either midair rescue mastery unlocked, griffon or skyscale: So it used to be you couldn't use the regular mount/dismount key in the air to get off the skyscale (and I think Griffon?) Which made the skyscale slightly annoying to fly down to ground level with since it was so slow. Apparently they fixed that a few months ago and you can now use the dismount key in the air. The special ability is its own separate thing. It looks like the wiki hasn't updated to account for being able to dismount in the air, hence the confusion.
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Sep 2, 2022 18:59
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Kris xK posted:He gets more tolerable around the end of Hot. At least thats my experience, I'm not far into LS3 yet. Love him or hate him, his best contribution to the story is at the end of HoT
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Sep 5, 2022 04:14
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Mover posted:next expansion could pick up where the last gw1 xpac was set to go, with the chronomancers and stuff. That's... actually a really cool idea. Dragon cultists/Elona nationalists travel back in time to kill Joko when he's still a budding necromancer, figuring they can erase his rule and ensure Aurene is killed by Kralk and the elder dragons aren't exterminated in one fell swoop. The commander has to go back in time and mentally come to grips with the paradox, wondering if Joko would have ever really amounted to anything without his intervention. You could really dig into this too, maybe with a few missions hinting that Joko would have been content practicing necromancy in some obscure corner of the desert without the commander poking and prodding him to larger ambitions. But you have to make sure he conquers Elona in order to preserve the future, at the expense of thousands/millions of people being subjugated and awakened for hundreds of years. It's so good you made me write GW2 fanfic so thanks for that. I now have the sudden urge to create a deviant art account and play some Sonic games
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Sep 6, 2022 18:32
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Mr. Neutron posted:Whatver they do please don't let it be time travel. I used to think like this before the 2009 Star Trek reboot. Good time travel plots are possible!
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Sep 6, 2022 20:06
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Honestly I don't see how they nerf it to the point it's unplayably bad so I wouldn't worry about it.* Like they could just do a flat -10% damage to every single mech damage ability and it'd still be good DPS. Where it really shines is all the utility it has access to and the way everything just works so well together. So unless they go truly apeshit and dismantle key parts of the class and how it plays it will still be strong and synergistic. *Glances nervously at 1-dodge Mirage neutering
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Sep 7, 2022 19:31
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Mr. Neutron posted:Vindicator is getting second dodge back. Not sure how I feel about that. If (big if) they don't adjust any of the traits but give us a second dodge I think it will be extremely good. Vassals of the Empire especially, it will effectively pump out twice as many boons now and give a ton more duration lol
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Sep 16, 2022 21:43
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Inzombiac posted:Well lucky for you, rifle Scrapper is also good!!!! Do you have any good builds for that? I'd wanted to try it but I'm not good at coming up with things for scrapper and all I see is hammer.
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Sep 18, 2022 19:36
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I couldn't play things like mortar/grenades without Instant cast for ground targeted skills. It sucks not having the range indicator but after a while you get a feel for where stuff will land. And being able to just hold down 1 to carpet bomb an area makes up for it and saves my hand/wrists a lot of pain! Edit: Also use the setting that makes skills shoot as far as they can reach if you target past their range. Then you can just aim in the general direction while you run and Hakarne fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Sep 22, 2022 |
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Sep 22, 2022 18:38
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Ok I keep seeing crying/celebration on the official forums about Mechanist getting nerfed. But I don't see anything that impacts mechs. Where is this nerf info coming from? Edit: Bad page snipe here have fractal hair-metal pirate Charr again
Hakarne fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Sep 25, 2022 |
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Sep 25, 2022 03:18
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Lol that sounds like a perfectly reasonable change. Maybe Mechanist will go from fantastic dps to just great dps.
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Sep 25, 2022 03:51
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where the red fern gropes posted:your typical group zerg, under an organised commander, wants a bunch of support roles filled to keep everyone alive. these commanders will then 'deathball' (cluster everybody close together to maintain boons and healing on as many people as possible) and try to roll over other groups Holy poo poo that perfectly explains the video I included with the Mech effort post about a solo roaming build in a group fight. Hakarne posted:
We were outnumbered like 2-1, not in any type of group, and absolutely curb stomped them. That makes sense about the "cloud" as we were hitting them from all directions and everyone was built to to be able to take care of themselves (I'd seen many of those people roaming before). We kind of instinctively just knew what to do with 0 communication. The mag people in front of the ball did a fighting retreat to higher ground and a few of us on the side pressured the flank then closed in behind to cut off any avenue of escape. I'm guessing once their dedicated support went down that caused their spectacular collapse. I didn't realize Mag was known for that lol
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Oct 4, 2022 16:41
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Mr. Neutron posted:Yep. It's not in the patch notes, but did they change the leap traits with the new dodge? Or can I now use Vassals of the Empire to effectively increase boons by 4 seconds and double stack Might/Protection lol Edit: "Sigils that trigger when swapping weapons will now trigger when swapping legends" Thank God! That was a dumb nerf that killed a lot of fun I had on Herald. Hakarne fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 18:33
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Lol so they halved all the Vindicator GM dodge traits... but I still think it amounts to a massive power boost as other dodge/boon traits don't account for it. For WvW, not needing full endurance to dodge lets you dodge way more often, which makes Vassals of the Empire even more nutso. Song of Arboreum alone is easy permanent Vigor on its own now, and traits like Resolute Evasion (Resolution on dodge) are much more desirable as you can apply the boon twice as often along with the boon increase from Vassals. So you can have nearly perma Resolution (which gives another 10% strike damage reduction traited) along with Protection! If you decide to go Salvation, the dodge for condition removal is actually useful now, it's easy to max out the barrier from Resilient Spirit, and your dodge heals which triggers Unyielding Devotion... so you can have an extra 15% incoming damage reduction along with the Protection from your dodge and pulsing barrier. It's back to the drawing board, but in a good way
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Oct 5, 2022 07:09
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Oh man those Mechanist nerfs really hurt. I'm only able to pull 35.2k DPS on the golem now. My highest before the patch was 34.3k Edit: Magres posted:I heard the ferocity trait nerf got inverted and turned into a buff instead Well that would explain it lol Hakarne fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Oct 5, 2022 |
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Oct 5, 2022 19:00
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FYI quote is not edit Edit: For content, I also tried out Vindicator after the dodge change. Not sure if I'm doing ~optimum dodging~ now or w/e but I was able to pull over 32k DPS on a huge hitbox and over 31k on an average hitbox. I consider anything over 30k to be perfectly fine for stuff like CM fractals so it works for me! It's also a lot nicer being able to choose when to dodge to keep your damage buffs up. Before you had to make sure to dodge the second you could so that you didn't lose the damage from the Leviathan Strength trait. Hakarne fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Oct 5, 2022 |
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Oct 5, 2022 19:14
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Does anyone know what these heavy boots are? I tried finding them in the wardrobe but couldn't identify them. They look pretty neato: Edit: vvv Thanks! Hakarne fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Oct 13, 2022 |
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Oct 13, 2022 00:55
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So I haven't tried the raids since they put in easy mode or whatever. Are they reasonably doable with inexperienced PUGs now? I raided with SFD once or twice and the thought of pugging them seems terrifying. But I really want the white mantle portal device, it's super handy in fractals.
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Oct 15, 2022 19:17
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Mr. Neutron posted:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/123508-guild-wars-2-balance-philosophy/ The only thing I don't really like with their new design philosophy is how they're handling skill splits. Having a skill give Quickness in one game mode but Fury/Might in another (like they just did with Engineer) is terrible and makes things feel disjointed. It hasn't impacted any of my personal builds yet but I don't like that they think this is a good idea to expand on. If I want to play a quickness scrapper it'd be nice if I could play it in PvE, WvW, or PvP even if the duration/uptime is tweaked for balance. "This fun build doesn't exist in this game mode because we don't want to balance it" is pretty lovely imo
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Oct 28, 2022 21:22
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If anyone's looking for a fun, http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAorlFw2YiMQGJe0W3NdA-z1IY1okvMysAKNEcfWqSaDA-w How to play: 1. Press pistol 5. 2. Dodge in the smoke field from pistol 5 for stealth. 3. Press 1 to sneak attack. 4. Rinse and repeat, using utility skills/weapon swap for sigil procs as needed. Doing this gives you as much stealth uptime as possible, permanent protection, massive sustain from sneak attack/venoms, and lots of might thanks to Daredevil's Weakening Strikes minor trait and Aristocracy runes. If you can't kill it, you can get away from it! Demo video against another Thief and then some 1vX harassment and disengage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywr2aXhP8cg Someone said it makes you feel like a raid boss and I can't disagree. Although be warned since this is fun, easy, powerful, and involves stealth it's probably going to get nerfed. Anet seems to hate Thieves having fun, doubly so if you're using stealth Edit: This also makes you nearly immortal in PvE if you want to use it there too, although there are probably better specs overall for open world stuff. Hakarne fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Nov 6, 2022 |
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Nov 6, 2022 01:06
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Actuarial Fables posted:There's still mesmers trying to gank people in the Obsidian Sanctum though so watch out for that (or murder them because they're not actually that good) Oh man one of the achievements involves Obsidian Sanctum? That's where I'd hang out at launch for small fights but its felt really dead for a while now. I had learned the JP pretty well and got good at counter-ganking, I actually really enjoyed it. So you say there are gankers in there again...  On a related note, always have stability/block/dodge when running up that small staircase after jumping out of the broken dome near the end. Gankers loved camping there with knockbacks and pushing people to their death.
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Nov 10, 2022 22:48
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Yeah those own and I kind of want to do something with one of my Norn characters now. Thanks for sharing!
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Nov 13, 2022 06:50
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It’s time for another build post that no one asked for. I've been playing around with the new Shadow Arts and I found a really fun, powerful, and low-intensity build for Specter! I'll also include the easy and strong WvW roaming build that uses the same armor for no extra charge! Open World Low-Intensity Specter Build http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAsiVlFwQYZMNWLOuObxKA-zRRYVREvZ0AlScJQuFQvhQ4Rg7TDIm2AA-e The adapt trait for Specter can be whatever you prefer. Ascended gear/Aristocracy runes are recommended but not required for the build to function. Exotic celestial with whatever runes you like can be used instead. This build has really good damage and sustain while being drat-near invincible via facetanking and stealth spam. All you have to do is hit 5 to stealth with dagger and then stealth attack. Rinse and repeat. Everything will die and you won't. How tanky is this? Lets check in with my old buddy Balth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXUmCkqHq6k (Beat him so hard he bugged out of his AoE room fire lol) Notice how I didn't do anything fancy like "dodge" (besides on my initial approach) or "use a heal skill". Just facetank with 5 and let 'er rip with 1 for all the damage and healing you need. I did some fancy button-pushing to pop his breakbar quicker and increase damage but that's just bonus stuff if you feel like using your brain. So how does it work? Despite the simplicity there's a lot going on under the hood. Stealth gives you barrier thanks to Specter's Panaku's Ambition and more barrier when you hit with a stealth attack. You also get Protection for entering and exiting stealth and stacks of spider venom that heal you. Your stealth attack itself also siphons health and gives you 5 might, plus another 5 bonus might thanks to the weakness you're applying with the Hidden Thief trait and Aristocracy runes; that's 10 Might whenever you hit with a stealth attack! The Scepter stealth attack hits 8 times and applies poison on each hit, and you'll also get 6 stacks of spider venom when you enter/exit stealth for even more poison. I use torment and earth sigils to make sure I always have bleed and torment on my target, which makes you do more damage to them (Exposed Weakness trait) and take less damage from them as well (Strength of Shadows trait)! For CC you have Shadowfall, Steal, and your Shroud abilities. Infiltrator Signet is your stunbreak and will get you next to your target to stealth with dagger. The passive also gives you just enough initiative regen to stealth with dagger 5 and have no downtime. Signet of Shadows gives you your runspeed boost, but if you're facetanking you can pop it for extra vulnerability and weakness (which also gives you Might if you're using the recommended Aristocracy runes). I use Skale venom for more vulnerability/torment and it can also double-up with your free spider venom from stealth so you don’t have to worry about perfectly timing when to use it. Your heal cleanses damaging conditions, but if you get immobilized, chilled etc you can weapon swap to clear those conditions with the cleansing sigil. Shortbow is always great but your alternate weapon can be whatever you desire. Here's another video on the Champ Vampire Broodmother in Verdant Brink, mainly to highlight the excellent CC available if you want to push a few more buttons. I like this build because while at its core it's low intensity, you can do a lot more to really make it shine if you so desire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hagEN-igNmY For AoE: Shortbow and shroud. Usually I'll do Shadowfall to clump, Sb4 to poison, detonate a cluster bomb, then auto-attack and Sb4 since your initiative pool is small to keep the poison and bleed rolling. It works really well for tagging and large groups, then when the weak stuff is gone you can weapon swap and finish off the stronger enemies. If you need more oomph or have a lot of vets/elites in your pull you can jump into shroud since that's all cleave/AoE too. Alternatively, with the way the stealth attack works (8 separate hits) I've found myself just doing the normal dagger 5 and auto-attack spam unless it's a large amount of trash or I'm tagging in a group. Basically what I did to handle the hounds in the Balth video. Yeah it may keep landing on different enemies but it's not like DE where you need to hit your marked target. Just keep auto attacking and stuff dies faster than you'd think.Also you can just auto attack friendly dudes with Scepter to get credit through Rot Wallow venom! AoE demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUzJIMMYtkI WvW Dual Pistol Daredevil Roaming Build  This isn’t an original build but I wanted to highlight it because it’s really simple, fun, and powerful. From my earlier post updated with a few changes: Hakarne posted:If anyone's looking for a fun, Great for taking down those annoying Harbingers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4E4IFUqwbI Also very good for 1vX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo8r1mNe-m8 Hakarne fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Nov 22, 2022 |
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Nov 19, 2022 23:31
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whydirt posted:This looks super fun for taking down heavy single targets, but what do you use for cleaving down trash/multiple veterans/etc? Shortbow and shroud. Usually I'll do Shadowfall to clump, Sb4 to poison, detonate a cluster bomb, then auto-attack and Sb4 since your initiative pool is small to keep the poison and bleed rolling. It works really well for tagging and large groups, then when the weak stuff is gone you can weapon swap and finish off the stronger enemies. If you need more oomph or have a lot of vets/elites in your pull you can jump into shroud since that's all cleave/AoE too. Honestly with the way the stealth attack works (8 separate hits) I've found myself just doing the normal dagger 5 and auto-attack spam unless it's a large amount of trash or I'm tagging in a group. Basically what I did to handle the hounds in the Balth video. Yeah it may keep landing on different enemies but it's not like DE where you need to hit your marked target. Just keep auto attacking and stuff dies faster than you'd think. Edit: Assuming you meant me and not Ort in the quote, unless they made a Specter post I missed. Also you can just auto attack friendly dudes with Scepter to get credit through Rot Wallow venom lol Edit 2: Added an AoE section/demo to the Specter post. Hakarne fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Nov 22, 2022 |
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Nov 20, 2022 01:29
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Mr. Neutron posted:And that's why I can't play specter - it does not work with action cam because allies are legal targets for the autoattack You know I hadn't actually tried action cam so this inspired me to give it a whirl. I didn't care for it on my Specter or Vindicator but it makes rifle Mechanist way more fun, almost like a 3rd person shooter. ... Then I also discovered the setting to enable first person camera and set it at character height. And lol, lmao it's not a half-bad FPS and if I could see my rifle it'd be even better. Is this Doom?  (That last Blunderbuss shot at the end was extremely satisfying) I can't even  I'll probably stick with 3rd person action cam on my rifle Mech but I had a good laugh playing GW2 - 90's FPS edition. So yeah thanks for bringing up action cam lol
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Nov 20, 2022 10:52
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Guys I have this great financial product if you choose to invest your gold with me. See I put it in rock-solid assets like Ectos, rear end, and
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Nov 22, 2022 09:03
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whydirt posted:I misquoted and meant you, yeah! Thanks! I went back and added an AoE section/demo to the post too. I'm glad you brought it up, it's good to go over how a spec handles lots of enemies as well! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUzJIMMYtkI
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Nov 22, 2022 22:21
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CODChimera posted:just quoting this so I can easily find it one day, thanks! Lonk posted:Also just tossing it out there I tried the very recent Specter build post and I am enjoying it in PvE so far despite not having fully finished my sigils and my celestial trinkets. I enjoy it a good deal for PvE for sure. Perpetual Notion posted:Honestly, thanks for this man. The builds pretty interesting and I love me some unkillable rear end in a top hat setups, even more than I like big numbers dps. I'm glad people like it, thanks for the feedback. I also made a Demon Hunter-themed P/P build for Open World (to go with my crossbows you see) that uses the same armor. If there's interest I can make a post for that too. It's basically the WvW build crossed with the Specter build to give it decent PvE damage and sustain.
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Nov 26, 2022 09:18
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For the newer folks, if this is your jam then I highly recommend trying engineer with the Mortar elite. 1500 range, indirect fire for hitting over walls, AoE fields for area denial, and you hold 1 button to rain a stream of explosives on large groups. Lots of numbers, lots of bags, and as low risk as you can get. It's a good way to dip your toe into WvW zerging.
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Dec 10, 2022 22:50
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Inzombiac posted:I still have a couple transmutation crystals but you need 3 to make a charge and they are account bound Lmao this is me. I have two which are functionally useless but I can't bring myself to get rid of them. They're irreplaceable
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Dec 20, 2022 09:33
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big cummers ONLY posted:I'm having fun logging on and aimlessly wandering around doing hearts. Is there anything I should do early that unlocks something neat? For instance I got the mailbag item for signing up for their newsletter. Any other cool items I can pick up for a small investment of time like that? Bags, mounts, pets...? Tbh I'd just relax and enjoy the ride like you're doing. The mount and glider are the biggest QoL things before 80 and you should have those now. The great thing about this game is there's no falling behind a power curve like WoW. Have fun wandering, buy a set of exotics at 80, then if you want a goal you can do everything (except high fractals) at your pace and discretion without FOMO.
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Dec 24, 2022 23:11
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I mean you have access to all of the GW2 base game for free. You do have to purchase the expansions to get access to stuff added by said expansions. There were no mounts in the base game and the map was designed without them in mind so they're just letting you try before you buy. The big selling point for the expansions are the new elite specializations so yeah. That being said there are plenty of viable builds that utilize core specializations so you can play with those just fine. Hell, for WvW some classes' core builds are as good or better than elite specializations. Check https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki and look for core builds to get started. For stuff like high-end fractals you may need elite specializations to be top tier but I do believe there are viable core builds if you're really determined to not pay a dime. This has probably the best F2P model I've encountered and their cash shop is 100% cosmetic or utility. It's pretty generous and chill imo Edit: vvv That's another good way to look at it in totality with the expansions. But if you're good without mounts, elite specs, or expansion zones (all things that are great and worth buying) there is a full game's worth of content! Hakarne fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Dec 30, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2022 20:21
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 15:59 |
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Mailer posted:I wasn't trying to convey that it's exploitative - just odd. It's not like the game has a sub fee or anything and I've been following hearts/waypoints/green swirls for hours without issue. Ah yeah, the living world (LW) stuff can be confusing. It's basically what bridges the story together between expansions. Certain maps will require you have the necessary living world episode unlocked before you can access it. If you don't care at all about the story or the dragon mount they're not strictly necessary. But I do think they're worth picking up overall as they add a lot of neat zones that also give you different ways to obtain ascended (max) gear, along with the dragon mount that is really excellent for getting around. The good news is as long as you're playing when new living world episodes come out you'll get them for free. And there are no LW zones for the most recent expansion yet so if you buy the current expansion you're not locked out of any "current" content.
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Dec 30, 2022 22:03
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