Hello all,

I've been around since the beginning and GW2's PvP scene has for sure had its ups and downs, but whatalways keeps me playing and coming back is the awesome unique play styles that are available for eachclass.

This is the first time since the Feb balance patch that I don't have a 'go-to' build, or have inspirationto make a new build. So I figured I'd make a post highlighting the past builds I've made and what madethem fun as well as adding a side note about the class and meta in general around that time period.

With the new expansion not too far off from the future, it makes me wonder if we'll experience insaneOP builds from the new elite spec's as they haven't been watered down yet, or will they come watereddown and feel bland.

I struggle being able to recommend this game to friends even though its the only game I play atm andone I've spent about 8k hours on. Its soul crushing to have a build/play style be removed completely.I know for a fact would drive my friends away, as it already has. Not everyone multi-classes so whenyou finally get good at something, then bam, traits deleted, nerfed, ect, you end up being left with nothing.

I guess I just miss the feeling of a class being able to dominate its intended role in spectacularly fun ways,IE Engi doing crazy shenanigans to win fights (Moa then rampage, pure gold), Necros corrupting or blowingup their targets spreading death, warriors being beef cakes that cut you down if not careful, mesmers beingannoying, ect ect.

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Necromancer

========================================================Pre-HoF condition necro:

This was a fearmancer with massive corrupt options. I LOVED this build, it was at a time when the metawas sustain heavy and everyone was running around with 5+ boons at any given time with long duration.

The build felt rooted in the pure essence of the necromancer design philosophy. Corrupting, fearing, andand watching your opponents wither away. I'll admit I took advantage of the sustain meta and ran viperamulet as I didn't fear being bursted, but it would have been more balanced in terms of damage outputhad I ran a more tanky amulet.

Heres a video of the build in action: (note, these videos are old and also terrible, but better than nothing)

What was nerfed/taken away:

Condi application was cut from abilities, DS passive drain increased, DS fear 3/4 second cast up from instant,DS fear duration flatlined instead of based on how close target is, corrupt boon's nerfed from across the boardfrom almost every ability/trait and even removed from scepter auto attack, expertise cut from PvP stats, sigilsremoved.

What I feel like we were left with was an empty shell of a beautifully designed class. The outline is there, butno substance.

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Pre-HoF Tank Reaper.

I wont go into too much detail on this build as it was short lived, I made it right before PoF which it then couldntkeep up with the meta shift, it also got nerfed to the ground. On paper this build was bad and very weak to range, buti ended up top 25 playing it exclusively just because it was fun. I'll admit this build was a fluke that just happenedto crush the current meta it was playing in, and had a lot of shortfalls that 'would' make it a bad build. But being atank and hitting like a zerker was insanely fun.

Very bad video of the build that doesn't do it justice, but its better than no video lol.

What was nerfed/taken away:DS passive drain increased significantly, damage nerfed across the board, wells no longer syphon life, vampiric presensetrait nerfed, warhorn #5 nerfed significantly.

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Engineer

========================================================25 might scrapper.

Engi to this day is still my most played class with 3,900 spvp games, and this build was a good amount of them.

What was nerfed/taken away:

HGH trait no longer removed condis, might application/duration nerfed, amulet used removed, as a scapper/holo you lose theF5 ability which in this case was an AoE moa.

Losing this build I haven't played engi since. I just cant get behind the meta holo/scrapper builds and I cant really findany other viable 'fun' builds. Not only was this build powerful in team fights and 1v1s, but also insanely fun to roam WvWwith.

(Fun Fact, I gave this build to my friend AK who made the then popular P/P Cele version of this setup)

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Honorable mentions:

DH LB #3: I miss using you to interrupt heals or other important abilities before your cast time superseded reaction time.Core necro DS#3: Same as above, instant fear was a good trade off if u had to use DS to use itEngi's Grandmaster trait that triggered no cooldown for your F1-4 cooldowns when u dodgedDH Dragon trap doing damage. RIP, you were fun in WvW.Soul beast massive damage burst that Eura played. Its what got my friend into GW2 as it was skill based and comboing oriented (then it was nerfed and he quit after investing all of that time into learning it)

S/d Condi teef was super fun to play for me. Its main trick was panic strike applying poison on immob and then dodging on the stuck target with Trickery caltrops on dodge and condi DD dodge. It was ruined after a Panic Strike, Uncatchable, and Lotus Training were all severly overnerfed to the point of becoming immediately irrelevant.

A LONG time ago, Retribution Herald was a thing because of Unwavering Avoidance combined with Enhanced Bulwark for extra stab, and Eye for an Eye. Once Unwavering Avoidance was nerfed, Retribution fell completely off the table, and the Herald rework removal of Enhanced Bulwark was just kicking a dead horse.

D/D Deadly Arts Daredevil way back in the day. This build lost super mega hard to d/p thief, Dragonhunter and Scrappers, but the sheer damage it could do of you landed the steal combo with 2 stacks of basi venom was insane. Well, D/D teef is a suicide set that doesn't have any real defense, Mug and Pulm being nerfed made steal much less valuable for bursting. Back then the damage could justify the extremely risky nature of the build, not anymore.

GhostTrapper. This build was absolute cancer and needed to go, but I had fun with it.

A build that I loved... I'd have to go back to the first version of engineer trait lines.

I miss 15s ride the lightning and being able to use ether renewal with mist form. 2012 ele was the most fun version of ele. Any version of ele before they gave up the mage archetype for them to be a jack of all trades is the best

god, so many!but the one i'm most salty about is my Hammer mace/shield warrior with a full bar of physical skills,i ran it with a full zerker and i'd be critting people for 3/4k while chain CCing them,

never even saw another warrior using hammer in pvp because it was considered bad,but out of nowhere hammer was pretty much removed from the game with a ridiculous and unwarranted nerf.if there were any hammer changes i'd have expected some small buffs, because it was so underused.

Dd cele ele

D/D ele

Can't say I ever loved this game as much as GW1 but...d/d ele is possibly the closest thing I can think of, with few other builds after

@FrownyClown.8402 said:I miss 15s ride the lightning and being able to use ether renewal with mist form. 2012 ele was the most fun version of ele. Any version of ele before they gave up the mage archetype for them to be a jack of all trades is the best

Was so magnificent to roam in WvW with d/d ele in 2012/13...it's shame MMOs these days have become what they are....

Core sd, dp and staff thief are all immensely under performing atm

https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Build:W/any_PvP_Devastating_Hammer

-Cleric / mercy thief: this build used to guarantee a res back to 85-92% hp but with both amulet and rune removed along with aoe reveals introduced in the game I've yet to find a direct alternative.-Shadow trapper thief: for the longest I used shadow trap for home defense in conquest enabling me to take down anyone who popped it in seconds along with countering permastealth thieves.-Marksman Engineer: I used to run a mobile rifle build using synaptic overload, rifle turret, slick shoes, and mines. I had to redesign the build after the removal of synaptic overload since I no longer had quickness right after stunbreaking from a overcharged shot but eventually folded when all rifle specific traits was removed and the global weapons nerf.-Infiltration Warrior: I used to run a gs/rifle build using the infiltration rune to clutch from stealth but they got rid of the stealth.-Hybrid Spellbreaker: Before the removal of confusion from merciless hammer and cc damage nerf I was able to fully exploit the trait using m/sh, hammer, full counter, megabane tether, and physical skills

Pretty much every other Warrior build besides Healbreaker.

Believe it or not, when you play an alpha high-damage melee class for nearly 7 years and suddenly you're forced to play as a healer, it's very jarring.

Hoo boy do I have a list

Burst Kalla: Before the shortbow 'buff' to renegade that made my whole build fall apart since it needed fast play but since 3 is a channel it slowly did it away, I used to play Shiro/Kalla sb that had insane anti-group damage using the 3 skill as a finisher/instant healing (when used with Kalla elite)/getting the thief away from me

Bonus Stats: I used to meme with Malyx with the 15% increase to all stats with cele and Divinity runes since it was funny on paper. It failed 90% of the time but it was still fun having what looked to be all good stats all around and being tanky-damagey-condiy-healer?-

"Boon" eye: Remember how the bottom traits pre-rework deadeye used to focus on spreading out a boon and condi to all targets? I found it was actually pretty good support since it would last awhile (Note: Acrobatics had a minor trait that gave 240+ concertation. .. for some reason) and I had max boon duration + 3/5 cantrips + the leadership runes, which would lead to some fun S/D interactions where I could support and plus one as a thief in general and actually convinced a guild zerg commander in wvw to let me run it instead of playing fb for getting some res off of hammer revs. Worked 50/50, slow, but it was still fun

Regen teef: I tried to actually make a build for pvp that focused on stealthing allies and giving them regen because this is pvp and no one ever uses stealth aside from rushing B mid and it slightly worked as a good meme until that was removed and replaced with a more on demand healing focus.

Warrior: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAEx7lZwSYVMLGKO2KuLXA-zZILlGDhMLgSjgeTAlGAThis build became pretty difficult to use once HoT came out but was completely destroyed when they changed blademaster to no longer grant 20% crit chance while wielding sword. Also spellbreaker with might makes right was just the same as this build but better and way easier. It was an insult to all the work I put in to learn it and how to counter every class.

Ele: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAYlNwQYKMPGKO+SWLXA-z5IeGZqA6VC4xBThis build was so fun because it relied on combo fields. This build was destroyed when CC became so commonplace that you could no longer reliably cast or blast in a water field to heal. The other half of it's death came when they changed Persisting Flames to no longer grant fury on blasting in fire fields.

Here is a list of build that are fun but are terrible for the game and I don't bemoan their loss as they were a product of their time (also I got enough vids of their use :P):1-shot druid1-shot soulbeast1-shot piledriver weaver

Core Stance WarriorAxe/ShieldGS with hydromancyStr/Discipline/DefHeal SiggieEndure PainBalanced StanceZerker Stance

Anything with Berserker Spec that wasnt a memeAnything with RRAnything with Heal SiggieAnything with CC damage

Thanks Anet

There's a decent balance to Str Spellbreaker atm. Inb4 it gets nerfed to unplayability the patch before next xpac.

Zerker radiant guard from 2013 before most people knew it was a thing. Anyone back then thought a guard not running pvt was useless, when in reality it had a 26-30k aoe burst that could drop 5 guys instantly, and no one knew how to counterplay it. It didn't show up on metabattle until 2015 or so.

@Nothing.8564 said:

With the new expansion not too far off from the future, it makes me wonder if we'll experience insaneOP builds from the new elite spec's as they haven't been watered down yet, or will they come watereddown and feel bland.

Well you know what they say, being OP is hard.

My favorite will forever be 3+ kit engi of any real variety.

Radiant sword/ hammer guard, simbol brand, burn brand, power dh, core menders simbol heal. Basically every guardian build in existence thats not a meme like burn dh.Power core necro, d/d thief.

I played a disgusting mesmer phantasm build before the trait rework in 2015 (which was a few months before HoT). At this time phantasms still stick around, attacking over and over until they are killed. They also take up one of your 3 illusion slots. This is where 3 inconspicuous little traits come into play:

1. Crippling Dissipation: Clones cripple nearby foes when they are killed.
2. Confusing Combatants: Your illusions cause confusion to foes around them when they are killed.
3. Debilitating Dissipation: Clones apply a random condition to nearby foes when they are killed. (bleeding, vulnerability or weakness).

The thing is. When you have 2 phantasms and 1 clone and you create a new clone, it always replaces the clone and keeps your 2 phantasms while triggering all 3 traits.

Rest of the build: rampager stats (power, precision, condi damage), blink, mirror images and decoy to stay alive and generate clones. I forgot most of the other traits but I did use deceptive evasion to create a clone on dodge. Staff and sword/pistol. Pistol gives a really good hybrid damage phantasm when traited to bleed on crit and the staff phantasm deals more damage for each unique condition (which is a lot). Staff and sword are great kiting weapons.

It may not seem like much, but imagine playing a core build against this mesmer. They don't need line of sight to attack you, they can hide and kite while phantasms do the work. If you do get close (especially as melee), you will automatically cleave clones and get cripple, confusion, bleeding, vulnerability and weakness. Both f1 and f2 shatters deal a lot of damage with rampager stats and can be used when phantasms are off cooldown or just to finish the fight. It's a very strong build for going far and winning 1v1's and kiting 1v2's for a long time.

@Tycura.1982 said:Core Stance WarriorAxe/ShieldGS with hydromancyStr/Discipline/DefHeal SiggieEndure PainBalanced StanceZerker Stance

Anything with Berserker Spec that wasnt a memeAnything with RRAnything with Heal SiggieAnything with CC damage

Thanks Anet

There's a decent balance to Str Spellbreaker atm. Inb4 it gets nerfed to unplayability the patch before next xpac.

Berserker when we had the option to use normal burst or primal.

In metabattle, it was Meditrapper DH, but I tweaked it to my liking. However, even with tweaks, it went out to be unusable these days.

I cannot pinpoint exactly why, but I tried it again recently and it just feel extremely weak and useless.

AlsoAll warrior builds prior to the new weird healing ones are unviable for pvp, exceptions may apply, but they don't work to me.

Dodge spam warrior for the first 4 months of Might Makes Right's existence, when landing magebane tether meant you could literally just spam the dodge button as long as it was active. 40 endurance per second. And of course the dodges did good damage too. It was so hilariously broken. Most egregious oversight I've seen.

True one-shot thief was also great fun, when you could teleport with steal mid-vault and do 20k in a single hit, downing someone instantly and bypassing any of the automatic damage immunity passive traits.

Magi amulet scourge was also hilarious. A lot of people would just blindly focus the scourge since that's generally been the go to plan of attack for a long time, so it was amusing seeing people rage at their teammates for not being able to kill the necro and apparently not noticing that all the condi spam was doing zero damage and that it was the other guys killing them.

Disruptor's Sustainment, it was my favourite mesmer trait. Everytime you interrupted an ennemy you got +1000 healing power for 5 sec. I played that trait with mantra of distraction and Ether feast. If you had 3 clones and could do that combo, it was possible to heal 13k at once and I loved it.