[Thief, rev, or holo for learning fractals?]

When you're starting out in Fractals, I'd recommend 1) playing something that's not especially squishy and 2) playing something you're already experienced on. To that end, I think you should stick with your holo. There are definitely builds out there to keep your dps high enough, you just may need to adapt to the heat changes. Check out snowcrows.com for raid style builds that can easily be adjusted to work for fractals.

[Queen's gauntled help/strategies (talk thread for everyone)]

I've done everything except Ossa and 8 orb Liadri with a soulbeast. Condi works well if you're having trouble with mechanics since your opening rotation will continue to do damage as you dodge and move around. For the more interesting achievements like denying Chomper any food or 5 gambits on a T3, you need power and you need to be really on top of things. I dropped Chomper in the first few seconds with a full raid rotation on power soulbeast. For the 5 gambit achievement, I ran Exhausted, Frailty, Hamstrung, On Fire, and Squeamish. I chose these to avoid the pain of another opponent or the major disadvantage of Descension. I chose Deadeye Dunwell since that fight is one of the more straightforward ones of T3 and just CC'ed him into oblivion. Ranger's many movement/evasion skills on most weapons definitely helped make Exhausted and Hamstrung not be a big deal.

[Ranger longbow should be reworked]

Longbow remains a solid pick for open world survivability and pvp utility. With Tuesday's nerfs to Sic 'Em and Unstoppable Union, it's not as powerful a pvp burst weapon but it certainly has its uses. Really between all different game modes and builds a ranger can get plenty of use out of every single weapon we get (with the exception of offhand dagger).

[Unranked Map Selection]

@slawrence.1530 said:still stuck....this blows!!

I had this happen right after the patch last night, but I thought it got fixed as after an hour or so it finally went away. Maybe PvP is just broken for now and we need to wait for a real patch?

[What are the new busted builds?]

@sinsrock.1702 said:play Trap DH its pretty bursty and people dont see it enough to learn how deal with it hahaha, check out some of my vids you'll see what i mean, Tryfox95 is my youtube channel.

It's a nice little bit of nostalgia to see DH trappers back in PvP. It's still quite a lazy build and a piece of cake to take them apart if you know what to look for, but it's a fine way to drop people that aren't paying attention.

[Upcoming Balance Notes]

Killing soulbeasts' unblockable abilities removes one of the last holdouts that could deal with some of this ridiculous bunker meta. And thus we're ushered into the era of sitting on points in pvp and just watching numbers creep up to get rewards and leave.

[Mist Stranger Outfit....Speechless]

Oh yeah, I was thoroughly impressed when I saw the effects on this outfit. Whether I end up using the axe and shield or not, I bought the whole package because it's just too cool! Well done Anet on this beautiful piece of art!

[What do you do with your extra Black Lion Salvage Kits?]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:If you have 20+, it's definitely not a waste to use them on rares.I strongly encourage you to keep no more than 5+ for your account in total. Even that's overkill.

I wouldn't use them on rares since you can easily get 20+ rares in an hour of play. I use them on all exotics. With raiding a couple times a week and how often we get free black lion kits from login rewards, that's got me about at an equilibrium.

[Which accomplishments of yours make you proud?]

Hellfire armor. I stared at that set on the wiki for years before I finally earned the last piece and now I'm never taking it off.

[Puzzling double build updates]

This type of thing repeats frequently for a few days after each major update as they fix bugs. If it continues happening to you frequently when we're between content releases and anyone else you ask hasn't had to patch anything, then you might need to look into potential issues.

[need help mapping a razer orbweaver]

I have an orbweaver and I quickly realized the stick movement wouldn't work so well. I programmed the usual strafe keys to mirror QWES movement (or WASD if you prefer), but mouse movement is the real winner in this game. If you combine strafing and mouse movement, you get some awesome control.

Here's how mine is configured for reference, but keep in mind I have all 10 skill bar skills as well as targeting, jackal, and rollerbeetle on my mouse.

                          ESC                                      |        Hero Panel        |         Map              |         Inventory            |                F (interact)     Alt/Ctrl for name highlights                |                 Q                |            W               |                 E                   |                  R to run             Mount movement 2                     |                 A                 |            S                 |                 D                 |     Special action skill (like dragonsblood spear, etc)                             F1                                      |                 F2                |           F3               |                F4                 |                         F5                                      <-- For profession skills

Bottom side button: jumpTop side button: dodgeJoystick: griffon, skimmer, springer, raptor

I certainly wouldn't recommend exactly copying my setup, but the goal is to have everything you need within time-sensitive situations at your fingertips on either your orbweaver or your mouse so you don't have to move your hands to your keyboard. All of these things take some getting used to, but you'll find you play at least a little better for having this keypad once you get used to your layout. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Edit: bad formatting

[Leggy Trinket Stacking]

You can only make one of each, so if you spread them out you'll get the base Aurora effect on each character. They are all account bound though, so there won't be anything stopping you from swapping them around and stacking all the auras up if you later decide you want to.

[Aurora + Vision + Coalescence: One More Stack on the Same Aura]

Exactly. Them combining to form new effects instead of just visual clutter is fine. It's them all being the same thing that's really disappointing.

[Aurora + Vision + Coalescence: One More Stack on the Same Aura]

We can see Coalescence crafted then demonstrated here, both alone and with the other trinkets: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/437561307?t=08h31m50s

Honestly I don't think anything could've been more disappointing. People complain about or praise legendaries when they come out all the time, and every one has people that have really enjoyed it. These trinkets are different in that they can't appeal to different people. They have exactly the same effects, and just build on the same aura as you get more of them. Every other legendary in the game is fiercely unique. Whether people like it or not, it's different. There's no options here. There's just these bubbles that you can slightly change the color and texture of with more trinkets. Even if we're going to have this aura with all of them combined, they could at least have different parts of its effects with each individual piece (i.e. the black orb with Coalescence, the original aura with Aurora, and some purple bubbles with Vision). Legendaries are legendary because there's nothing else like them. These feel like we should be getting the three existing trinkets then the next ring and throw all of them into the mystic forge to create the actual legendary; they're not legendary in their own right.

[Skyscales hovering overhead is kind of annoying]

At this point it's just people flexing on others that don't have the skyscale yet. Give it a bit, they'll calm down. (Most of them, anyway)

[GEMSTORE REQUESTS: New Items; Items offered again - [Merged]]

I've got a character with every fiery thing I could find. Hellfire armor, Volcanus, Incinerator/Rodgort, fire quiver backpack, all fiery mount skins, the meteor glider and the destroyer wings dyed orange/black, realm portal spike finisher, and the Hounds of Balthazar mail carrier. I think the only thing missing is a chair! Could we please get a fiery chair, maybe Balthazar themed?

[Please stop with the jumping puzzles]

This a pretty rage-bait kind of post, but I'll bite. If you've actually been playing for over 5 years, you know that jumping puzzles are a very tiny part of the game. They're fun for the people that enjoy them and avoidable for the people that don't. Most of the time if you really need to complete a puzzle you can just get a friendly mesmer to do it for you. This particular raptor jumping puzzle you're referencing was so insignificant I barely remember it. While it was required to do it on your own, it was a handful of jumps that anyone who's used a raptor for more than an hour can nail in a couple minutes.

To address your other gripes, this is one of the least grindy games I've ever played. While there are tons of options for things to grind through, they're just that. Options. If you want a character at max stats with a full build including elite specs, you can have that in a week if you're starting from a base level 80. You can have it in an hour if you've got a bit of gold/materials on your account and you join one of the many hero point trains that run all the time. Anything more grindy than that is for fashion wars or achievement hunting.

It seems to me like you'd rather complain than learn how to get better. Everyone has their own ways of dealing with difficulty, so I wish you luck if you decide to continue playing Guild Wars.