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Looking for prof+build for slow old reflexes


Oyjord.2508

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Hi all,

I’m a slow old man, and my reflexes aren’t what they used to be. Now I love GW2, but the combat is a bit...twitchy for me.

I’m primarily an open world PvE’r looking for prof+build suggestions that require the least amount of movement/dodging. Yes, I know the game is built around mobility, and that’s fine, but surely there is a scale of most- to least-mobility necessary for normal PvE fun.

TIA for your suggestions.

PS: I’ve played all the classes to 60-80 save the Rev (need another character slot, heh, I’ll buy one soon), and I throughly enjoy them all, so preference isn’t an issue.

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I'm not an old man, but I do have carpal tunnel, tremors, and spotty/scarred vision, so I have some perspective on the matter. When it comes to low maintenance and high durability, there are three builds that stand out that I've played:

Power HeraldPower Holosmith (Scrapper works, too)Power Reaper

And I would recommend them in that order. To get more specific, all three builds would use the same gear:

Stats: Full BerserkerRunes: x6 Rune of the ScholarSigils: Superior Sigil of Force, Superior Sigil of Air/ImpactFood: Tropical Peppermint Cake

Yes, the Glass Cannon gear seems counter-intuitive at first, but the game was designed so that they work well everywhere. Death is the ultimate debuff, and the faster you kill an enemy the faster you'll stop taking damage. The food is also highly underrated. It's dirt cheap at 13 copper, and the regen it gives will significantly prolong your life.

For the stuff specific to each build:


Power Herald:Weapons: Sword + Sword, Hammer or StaffUtilities: Legendary Dragon Stance, Legendary Dwarf StanceTraits:Devastation: Vicious Lacerations, Notoriety (when solo) / Assassin's Presence (with a group), Swift Termination.Invocation: Rising Tide, Incensed Response, Rolling Mist.Herald: Elder's Respite, Shared Empowerment, Forceful Persistence

You can solo face tank certain champions with this build and win. The biggest one I've done this to is the Clockheart. It buffs itself up easily, it does pretty high damage with low maintenance, and it has a lot of self healing.


Power Holosmith:Weapons: Sword + ShieldUtilities: Healing Turret, Grenade Kit, Filler, Filler, Elite FillerTraits:Explosives: Glass Cannon, Big Boomer, Orbital Command.Firearms: High Calibuer, No Scope, Modified AmmunitionHolosmith: Solar Focusing Lens, Crystal Configuration: Eclipse, Photonic Blasting Module

As with all engineer builds, the remaining utilities need to be chosen based on the situation. Personally I sit on Elixir U and Laser Disk, but other good options are holographic arena, rifle turret, bomb kit, elixir S, rocket boots, battering ram, and flamethrower for tagging. This build is pretty durable for all of the damage it can output. The blind fields on bomb kit and mortar kit mean anything without a break bar can be face-tanked, and the high damage means that everything dies very quickly.

There's a warning about this build, though: it blows itself up. It gains heat therapy to eventually heal the self-inflicted damage, but that health drop can occasionally get you killed. You can change the last trait if you don't want to blow up.


Power Reaper:Weapons: Greatsword, Axe + Warhorn/FocusUtilities: Blood Fiend, Well of Suffering, "Rise!", Bone Fiend, Flesh GolemTraits:Spite: Spiteful Talisman, Awaken the Pain, Close to Death.Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast, Soul Barbs, Death Perception.Reaper: Chilling Nova, Decimate Defenses, Reaper's Onslaught.

The traits are sort of "meh", so feel free to shuffle them around based on what you need. This build just plain has a whole lot of HP, with Reaper's Shroud acting as a fast-regenerating second health bar. Alternating between Shroud and not gives you a surprising amount of durability. I recommend this one last, though, because it generally has a lack of impact: It is slow moving, low damage, has a weird toolbox, and somewhat poor CC.

There's also a well-o-mancer version that uses Blood Magic instead of Soul Reaping to get more health regeneration. It has lower damage than Soul Reaping, though.

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And then there's just playing a necro with all minions. For just general play, it is by far the profession that allows the player to be most passive. You COULD let the minions do most of the fighting and just use scepter/staff to stay at range and add dps. It's not so easy to be un-fun but requires the least amount of dodging etc.Another option is to make a reaper, and select (as I have on one of my toons) all of the chill-related skills/traits. This allows you to generally slow the pace of combat because you're constantly aoe-ing mobs with effects that slow them. I use this for any kind of 'zerg' situation, where it's more important to tag a lot of mobs than to do massive dps.

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This is the build my husband uses. This build enables him to enjoy the game again. Before this, he was frustrated and ready to quit. Very easy gameplay with real results. He struggles with reaction speed and can get overwhelmed with all the visual noise. He's usually the one still standing when we fight HoT champs lol. I'm more agrresive player trying out didn't weapons/builds so I end up killing myself more often lol.

He recently swapped to Toment runes and loves it. The bonus is all the other abilities the Mesmer has - ports being flexible and fun, he loves that the Mesmer does not "roll" but stands in place and thats a plus for him because rolling all over the place and off cliffs irritated him the most lol

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@"Oyjord.2508" said:Hi all,

I’m a slow old man, and my reflexes aren’t what they used to be. Now I love GW2, but the combat is a bit...twitchy for me.

I’m primarily an open world PvE’r looking for prof+build suggestions that require the least amount of movement/dodging. Yes, I know the game is built around mobility, and that’s fine, but surely there is a scale of most- to least-mobility necessary for normal PvE fun.

TIA for your suggestions.

PS: I’ve played all the classes to 60-80 save the Rev (need another character slot, heh, I’ll buy one soon), and I throughly enjoy them all, so preference isn’t an issue.

Read my response to the bottom of this post, it will help allot if you get one of these foot pads I think I will soon myself as I have some carpel tunnel. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/67613/going-to-rage-quit-soon-help#latest

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Loving the helpful replies to my OP. Very kind of you all, ty.

I’m having just a blast testing out the suggestions. So far I’m enjoying the Reaper and Mirage builds.

Holosmoth is next to test, but it seems to be a bit more complicated. I’m still going to try it though.

I then plan on testing a Herald build (but I don’t have a 9th character slot yet). I’m looking forward to this perhaps the most. I like the Rev’s style heh.

I also have an 80 Guardian sitting on the bench, but sadly it doesn’t appear to be all that popular amongst the suggestions in this thread heh.

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I have delved with making tanky characters with most classes (with PvE in mind), so perhaps I can offer some more insight. If you want to move less, then you must focus on ranged builds.

Elementalist: I would say to not even try, but I believe you could use glyphs so you almost always have a companion, those earth elementals tank really well, and would let you to attack from a distance with staff, sceptre or what have you. However the class is still way too squishy and it's hard to change that without going for the earth trait line and camping earth, which will likely kill all DPS.

Mesmer: I like tanking on Chaos trait with Chronomancer and staff / dual swords. Leaping into ethereal fields (your wells) gives you 100% chaos armor uptime, which also means permanent protection. However, the game play is very active as you need to constantly leap your fields and trigger your shatters off cooldown to keep the alacrity going, so probably not usable for your case. however, it's the only class with which I've been able to melee fight the legendary bandit executioner and not melt. :D

Necromancer: minion master reaper is known as the PvE overlord, it gives great survival even when running full berserker set. I used to run blood magic + death magic and I was immortal, but that was overkill, now I run spite instead of blood magic to deal damage and I still feel very hard to kill (just without the excessive healing I had). Running a mix of Knight and cavalier stats with a toughness sigil, I shrug off those sand vortex attacks of doom those awakened from Istan toss around. I don't even have to use my axe's safety distance and I mostly facetank everything.

ranger: have a tanky pet or switch between them and you are set. however, for a while a run a soulbeast condition build that has great survival ability. Use nature magic and wilderness survival, and focus on poison (dual daggers), healing and defense. you'll get great healing over time as well as like 60% damage reduction (from earth spirit + dolyak stance). using tanky stats and your pet will let you survive most encounters. Unfortunately it requires using daggers as short bows aren't that good at stacking poison on the enemy, but the ranger's defense stats in this build make it so you won't need to dodge that much.

Thief: squishy by nature, I think the only way to improve your survival is to go permanent stealth deadeye with rifle, the distance will keep you safe but this won't work unless there are others around to handle the aggro.

engineer: condition scrapper with flamethrower. Firearms (for Juggernaut) and inventions allows for a very tanky build which cleanses a good amount of conditions when you use a shield. Changing to an offhand pistol and alchemy instead allows for a more aggressive approach (while remaining quite tanky).

Warrior: works as a tank if you invest in toughness and the healing options you have (defense or tactics, or both). I used to run with banners, though a shout-healing build would work as well. However, warrior, maybe more than any other class, is usually played in melee range, meaning you are going to need your reflexes to dodge things. So I guess it won't work for OP.

guardian: hammer. A hammer firebrand will give tons of healing, cleansing, and permanent protection uptime. I just find it very slow to kill things (I got bored of it and then changed to dragon hunter). Valor + honor + firebrand and focusing on improving your symbols is what I used to run. even though it is melee, the permanent protection and constant healing makes it suitable for slower reflexes.

Revenant: probably my second best tank after mesmer, but doesn't require as much reflexes to play well. A power based renegade (with retribution and invocation) using jalis and kalla has a simple rotation and actually requires you to not dodge to keep your critical rate up. It is very tanky since while on kalla you will have protection from the summons (just cast the elite and another one based on situation), while on jalis the hammers take on that role.

I used to run a condition herald before, and after the changes (some patches ago) it seems it would be possible to make a tanky herald as well, running mallyx + glint and using invocation and corruption with those new torment runes. I don't think changing glint for kalla would work as well since the latter doesn't has any chill / torment applications. However, this build has no ranged condition weapon, so the second set would be staff for utility, and is more riskier to run.

In general, it's easier to have better survival when you focus on condition damage, since you can use a very tanky condition set and you'll be fine (if not trailblazer, then dire will do). Also, consider getting a rune set that gives you a companion (either ogre, lich or golemancer), it'll make your life easier when you are alone (and makes the solo cloak deadeye viable for your needs).

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I use this Reaper build in solo overland play with fewer summons and actually using Scholar runes but keeping up might can be more helpful when your only concern is overland pve.

Off the top of my head, a very tanky build would look like this.

Now, this second build is extremely, uselessly tanky most probably. From Tanky to Too Tanky: "Death Magic instead of Soul Reaping" -> "replacing Spite with Blood Magic" -> "replacing Strength Runes with Vampirisim Runes" -> Replacing Berserker stats with Marauder stats" you can find your own sweet spot. If you have no interest in investing in possible future group content, you can go with Marauder stats from the get go but it is, in my opinion, overkill and faster kills are a survival trait anyway.

These are not be all end all, I'm a slow person as well, just sharing my "easy to solo almost anything" build and I urge you to start with more DPS-ey first build and play around first.

Cheers!

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a multibutton mouse will be helpful. this will confine your righthand in a small number pad and all you just do is to move your thumb and some click and there. and for your left hand, just assign the basic movements and the dodge or swap weapons.

with this, you won't need to click your skills. clicking skills will require spatial movement of your mouse in the mousepad, which could be hectic (especially since we cannot miniaturize the skill bar U.I. yet).

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