Viable Dual Wield Classes & Starting Crafting Professions

Hello Guys,I am a returning player who used to play Warrior back when the Guild Wars 2 first launched. I never got into the end game at that time but now I have returned and I bought both the expansions as some gem cards to invest into it. I feel like it is a whole other game now, but one feeling stayed the same: Guild Wars 2 feels a lot different than any other game out there and the community is by far the best I have meet in the looooooooong run of my MMO career as player...So, first things first I wanted to ask your suggestions about a class which, letting the learning curve out of of this discussion, to be able to

• Dual Wield either Swords, Daggers or Pistols
• Be competitive in the end game scenarios (PvE and PvP).
• What crafting professions do you think will be the better combinations with your suggestions above?
• Are there extremely viable crafting professions that need to be leveled no matter the class I play?

Thanks in advance.

Warrior dual-wielding any combination of Axe, Dagger and/or Mace is pretty damn potent these days, be it PvE or PvP.

As for crafting, Chef and Jeweler are the most universally useful, but sadly the latter is in a very bad spot because you cannot use it to craft Ascended stuff and really you can just buy buff food rather than cook it.

Weapon/Armour crafting is sorta all or nothing: you either don’t bother with it, or you go the whole hog and max it in order to craft Legendaries. Don’t plan on using it to craft gear as you level: it is a waste as the game throws gear at you already.

axe/axe, axe/shield, dagger/shield, axe/mace, axe/dagger, mace/axe , these all work to varying degrees depending on game mode.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Spellbreaker_-_Power_DPS

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Spellbreaker_-_Daggerbreaker_Roamer

for warrior the best crafting skills are weaponsmithing, armorsmithing and cooking. However, as Oglaf touched upon, unless you want to go to the end and craft ascended armor, for fractals, you'd be just as well off investing your gold and resources into buying a set of gear from the trading post or having a friend craft you exotic items.

Thanks a lot guys for your answers.

Between a Warrior and a Revenant, which one do you think have the most viable DPS in current game?About recipes in Guild Wars 2, do I have to farm them in specific locations or do I buy them?

Thanks again for your replies.

Thief can duel weild daggers and pistols, and often does, as these are staple weapons for different situations. Elementalist CAN duel wield daggers, but it's a little too... suicidal, for lack of a better term.

As for recipies in GW2, I would suggest checking out GW2crafts.net for a shopping list of what to buy and instructions on what to craft. From what I remember, you can get 400 weaponsmithing for less than 20g. Take the guides with a grain of salt; they aren't exact and there are some typo's.

Like any weapon combination, dual-wielding is very much function over form as your weapons determine your available skills. Every profession has dual-wielding options with main- and off-hand weapons, and changing them up changes your play style a bit. It all depends on what you want to do with them. As for the requested combinations, specifically:

Warrior, Mesmer, and Revenant can wield a Sword/Sword set.Warrior's Sword skills tend to blend Bleeding and cleave attacks.Mesmers' Swords prefer Power for mobility and dueling.Revenants' Swords are about battlefield control and relentless mobility.

Thief and Engineer can wield Pistol/Pistol.Thief Pistols, like Warriors' Swords, combine Power damage with controlling conditions and some Bleeding.The Engineer's Pistols tend to apply lots of Condition Damage and zone control.

Thief, Necromancer, and Elementalist can Dagger/Dagger natively. Post-80, Warriors and Rangers can as well, using their Spellbreaker and Soulbeast specs, respectively.Thief daggers combine conditions and evasion with some good damage.Necromancers' Daggers focus primarily on Condition Damage and life steal.Elementalists' Daggers trade long-range sustained damage for shorter-range burst damage.Spellbreakers' Daggers focus primarily on disruption and boon stripping.Soulbeasts's Daggers apply lots of Condition Damage and some movement control. (Note: Core Rangers can wield Daggers, but only in the off-hand.)

In terms of Crafting:Crafting is not necessary in any capacity, but can come in handy. It is a solid source of XP if you'd rather not go adventuring for a while, and all disciplines can generate useful items. You will gain a good amount of gear as you play and level, and dropped gear will quickly outpace crafting tiers if you don't keep up with it. However, crafting gear gives you guaranteed weapon types with specific stats, and can give you higher-level gear sooner if you focus on crafting early.

Weapon Crafting (Weaponsmith, Huntsman, Artificer) is generally less useful, unless you want guaranteed stat combinations and weapons at the right times. If you do take one of these, you should prioritize the one(s) that make(s) items that character can use.

Armor Crafting (Armorsmith, Leatherworker, Clothier) has the same problems, gear-wise, but also has recipes for Bags which expand your inventory space, so they're slightly more useful in general. Again, probably want to prioritize a discipline that character can utilize, as well as making boxes/pouches/bags.

Item Crafting (Cooking, Jeweler, Artificer):Jeweler lets you make you trinkets, which are significantly rarer than armor and weapons, and Cooking makes consumables for various stat and XP boosts. Artificer is under this category as well, because Artificers can craft Potions, which usually aid in battling specific enemies. Though useful, I wouldn't recommend taking Artificer just for potions. I recommend taking it if that character can also use magical ranged weapons (Staff, Scepter, Focus, Trident), just to squeeze a little extra use out of it.

Remember, each character can take any two Crafting disciplines at a time (up to four with Gem Store purchases), and can you can pay the vendors to switch them with no XP loss (cost varies per crafting level per discipline). You will need multiple high-level Crafting disciplines to create Legendary Weapons.

In regards to P/P thief, it's "viable" to some degree for most of the content but it's definitely not competitive for any kind of "end game scenarios" other than "OW farming".

Thank you all SO much for your help, but I have to thank especially @Trise.2865 for the detail answer and for the time to write all these useful information.From all those combination can I select someone with the most powerful burst damage?

@"Thandor.5748" said:Thanks a lot guys for your answers.

Between a Warrior and a Revenant, which one do you think have the most viable DPS in current game?About recipes in Guild Wars 2, do I have to farm them in specific locations or do I buy them?

Thanks again for your replies.

In terms of pve dps, check out snowcrows website

https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

For recipies, they're either discovered or bought from the profession npc/trading post

@Oglaf.1074 said:Warrior dual-wielding any combination of Axe, Dagger and/or Mace is pretty kitten potent these days, be it PvE or PvP.

As for crafting, Chef and Jeweler are the most universally useful, but sadly the latter is in a very bad spot because you cannot use it to craft Ascended stuff and really you can just buy buff food rather than cook it.

Weapon/Armour crafting is sorta all or nothing: you either don’t bother with it, or you go the whole hog and max it in order to craft Legendaries. Don’t plan on using it to craft gear as you level: it is a waste as the game throws gear at you already.

Jeweler is totally useless once you reach 80 if you ask me. But you didn't so I won't say it...oh no, too late.

@Trise.2865 said:

Very good info all around!

Like any weapon combination, dual-wielding is very much function over form as your weapons determine your available skills.This, in particular! Always remember that weapon choice is a much bigger functional choice here than in many games!

Revenants' Swords apply lots of Condition Damage and positioning.

This however was wrong. Rev swords deal no damaging conditions, but a couple non-damaging ones - Vulnerability, Immobilise and Chill.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Trise.2865 said:Revenants' Swords apply lots of Condition Damage and positioning.

This however was wrong. Rev swords deal no damaging conditions, but a couple non-damaging ones - Vulnerability, Immobilise and Chill.

Torment is a damaging condition, and Rev Sword excels in it. I know, it's the cornerstone of my build.

@Trise.2865 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Trise.2865 said:Revenants' Swords apply lots of Condition Damage and positioning.

This however was wrong. Rev swords deal no damaging conditions, but a couple non-damaging ones - Vulnerability, Immobilise and Chill.

Rev Mace/Axe deals tons of torment. Rev sword is a Power option. My rev (admittedly not my main) goes Sw/Sw.

Edit: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/SwordNo damaging conditions mentioned on Revenant. I double-checked each skill before posting ;)

@Thandor.5748 said:Thank you all SO much for your help, but I have to thank especially @Trise.2865 for the detail answer and for the time to write all these useful information.From all those combination can I select someone with the most powerful burst damage?

I don’t know about the most powerful burst, however, power rev can burst pretty hard with swords and shiro (assassin) stance.

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Trise.2865 said:

@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:

@Trise.2865 said:Revenants' Swords apply lots of Condition Damage and positioning.

This however was wrong. Rev swords deal no damaging conditions, but a couple non-damaging ones - Vulnerability, Immobilise and Chill.

So it is! I don't often think about Traits, so I forgot about the rest of my build... See, Rev Sword DOES excel at Chilling. To that, I add in the Corruption trait line, especially Abyssal Chill and Venom Enhancement, which gives it a potent Condi combination stacking Chill, Torment, and Poison (plus the other Torment buffs from Corruption's minors).

By itself, the Revenant's Sword is about battlefield control and mobility, focused on Power damage. I will edit my original assessment.

Thief (DE) is good with P/P and D/D in PvE but not so much in PvP. I dont PvP often so I wont offer suggestions here. For the other weapon types: warrior Axe/Axe for PvE, chrono S/S and SB/SB soulbeast.

You dont have to craft to get exotic weapons/armour if you run power builds. If you want to run a condition build you might be forced into crafting earlier though because BiS viper stats can only be crafted. The trick when using TP to get cheap exotics weapons/armour is finding the "named" version, for instance: zhed's/nika's/ Devona's rather than typing in "berserkers" for example in search. Heres more: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Named_armor. You also can use crafts to make useful runes/sigils cheaper than you can buy on the TP. Crafting becomes really useful when you want ascended gear but you need lvl 500 crafting. So it doesnt hurt to start levelling your crafting early when you have the funds.

Like someone else mentioned jeweller and chief are useful crafts because they are cheap to level up and offer a lot of XP. I always level those 2 up on any char I want to get to lvl 80. Gold cost is minimal and you can make it back easily with the time saved. Also having at least 1 char with chief can lower the cost of food buffs so its worth it.

I recommend you level up the crafts your main is able to use first rather than another craft for auxiliary benefits. But Artificer is used to craft even number agony infusions and certain weapon crafts make the util items such as sharpening stones/tuning crystals/maintenance oils. I also find tailor a great craft because you can then craft scholar runes which are BiS power runes in game.

Guys thank you ALL so much for the replies and your thoughts.

After reading some builds and watching some gameplay Videos, I am leaning more to

• Either Revenant with Dual Wield Swords and Armorsmith + Weaponsmith as crafting disciplines
• Or Engineer with Dual Pistols as Leatherworker + Huntsman

After I will max out those 2 crafting disciplines I will then learn Jeweler and Cooking.I know it comes down to personal preference but is anyone of these 2 professions more "lovable" when it comes to PvE and PvP groups?