Temper.2190

Hi folks, I haven't played pvp for about a year, but decided I was to jump back in this summer. I'm pretty clueless on correct balance, and an considering one of the following specs for the 2v2 season. For context, I was a gold 3 solo queue player who played mostly renegade, d/p daredevil, and spellbreaker duelist. 1. Condi specter. I've played this a ton in pve lately, and would be interested in seeing the pvp version, where sheriff's use is a bit more tactical. 2. Any rev spec, but I'm really curious if vindicator is ok in 2v2s. I like all flavors of rev a lot. 3. Warrior. Is spellcaster decent after the dagger buffs? Or is the bladesworn sidenoder build ok in 2v2s? Any suggestions on the relative strengths of these would be appreciated.

Pvp trinkets do not let you select ritualists stats. I hope this is an oversight that will be fixed in the future, but for now they don't.

Actually, vitality can be a pretty solid gain in dps if you take the grandmaster trait that converts vitality to condition damage. Ritualist gear gives the two condi stats, with the same precision and expertise of vipers gear, and then vitality which also increases condi dps if you take the trait. There may be a way to min max some mix of vipers/ritualist gear, but ritualists gear seems made to be a great all purpose great set for specter.

Is trailblazers really better than ritualist for solo play? I may not value toughness enough, but naively I would value the concentration from ritualist over the toughness from trailblazers on a solo situation. That said, I'm pretty new to thief, so I may be letting my experience with other classes bleed over.

Anyone have any good ideas for might uptime for Specter? I'm thinking about solo situations (solo open world or wvw roaming), not group where others provide boons. There don't seem to be a lot of options - Scepter #2 gives might, but doesn't seem like it is worth the initiative cost. Well of Bounty can give might, but in a solo situation won't - it will give other boons instead. Would something like sigil of battle be worth it? Or in a solo situation is it better to have a condi sigil? What about aristocracy runes? My guess is that they aren't worth it, but in a solo situation might is very valuable.

With the beta coming next week, I'm looking at trying out Vindicator in the open world again. During the first beta, overall I liked the greatsword reasonably well, and found the alliance stance to be reasonably useful, but in comparison to Herald and Renegade, I just couldn't find a consistent solo might generation engine, which made my damage overall much less than standard herald or renegade builds (power or condi), which have easy might generation baked into their skills and traits. My current plan is to look at sigils of battle (might on weapon swap or legend swap) to augment the might generation from amnesty of Shing Jea (might on offensive alliance skills), but I'm not sure that will be enough. I also didn't try runes of strength last time, so maybe the extra might duration from those will help. And then do the usual power traits in Devastation (with lots of battle scars, which play nice with the vuln from greatsword) and Invocation. Does anyone have a good build they tried last beta for solo play?

Do you tend to keep it up pretty constantly when in Mallyx and under some condition pressure, then? Or wait and turn it on when you see a damaging condition applied? The passive effect is a condi pull from allies (so not always useful) so I tend to just double tap it for the active effect when I need the transfer. How I use it also depends on if it’s a condi class or not that I’m fighting. If it’s power for example I’ll use it to get rid of annoying condis like slow/immob/etc., but if it’s a condi class then I’ll try to wait to have a several damaging stacks on me before transferring it. Combined with pulsating pestilence you can ditch a ton of condis and reapply them to your enemy. I’ve killed so many mirages and other condi heavy classes this way Thanks. This was very helpful.

Do you tend to keep it up pretty constantly when in Mallyx and under some condition pressure, then? Or wait and turn it on when you see a damaging condition applied?

I've been playing herald in ranked solo queue recently, and have some questions for more experienced rev mains. I've mostly been playing meta herald, but I do switch to Shao's condi herald some, especially if I'm up against mesmers or condi thieves. I feel a bit clueless about the herald F2. I double tap it sometimes in Shiro, but otherwise I forget about it. When do you use the f2 while in Glint? In Shiro? What about using the f2 as a condi herald? I tend to ignore it in Mallyx, as I use my energy mostly to channel the elite and cast weapon shills to increase the torment spam. Should I be using it in team fights when the other team has some condi pressure? I tend to play the condi herald as a team fighter, sticking mostly to mid fights, or big engagements. The condi herald build feels fairly solid as a duelist, but it seems to me to be best in team fights. Is this right? As a power Shiro/Glint rev, I struggle a lot with condi mesmers and condi thieves, to the point where I've just started disengaging and trying to out rotate mesmers. Thieves are harder to out rotate. I've realized I'm not utilizing my leadership runes to cleanse enough, but what other tips does anyone have for dealing with condi thieves and mirages? As a power rev, I don't really think about big multi skill combos. The biggest combo I use regularly is Shiro heal - phase traversal - sword 4/5. I don't run brutality, but it seems it could be used to setup some big wombo-combos. Are there any important combos I'm missing? Any other tips? I'm mid-gold right now, so I still have a lot to learn.

Thanks, all. These have been pretty helpful. I had a game today in which I had 23 kills, but we still lost 497-502. I was salty about it for a second, then thought about the two deaths I had. Both came from being greedy- one from not disengaging from a 2v1 after a mesmer and a guardian jumped me while I was capping home. I killed the guardian, but blew most of my kit to do so. I knew I should leave then, but stayed and ended up dead. If I'd been smarter and not died I would have carried that game. I can think of a couple of other misplays as well-I focused the wrong target in the last 15 seconds and didn't get the kill we needed to secure the game. I guess this illustrates what I love about thief. I always feel like I'm in control of when I will die. If I'm smart, I should almost always be able to disengage before being killed. It also illustrates what some of you have said, that at low rating nothing is as important as swinging team fights, and I find I can't stay in a hot mid for long on d/p. As multiple of you have suggested, perhaps I'll start playing more S/D and deadeye, or maybe even staff, to focus more on team fights. .... Or I'll try out some of that symbolbrand stuff going around until I get back to gold 2 ;)

So I'm a gold 2 pvper, and I really like the slippery feel of playing thief. However, I've noticed something. I've had a few seasons where I end up in silver 3 after placements, and can't seem to climb with my thief. If I switch to a solid team fighter, like reaper, I climb back up to gold 2 or 3, and can then switch back to thief, where I can now maintain rating, and stay pretty consistent, with some swings up and down. This happened again this season, with my placements putting me in silver 3, and so far I've been unable to climb much on thief. I think the reason is that at lower ranks people die too fast for plus ones to happen regularly, and the best way to carry games is to swing team fights. So, experienced thieves, how do you carry as a thief? How do you approach team fights? I play mostly d/p (I'm addicted to the mobility and feeling that there is always something I can do to avoid doing or outplay), but am comfortable on s/d and less so on deadeye. In team fights I tend to focus a target that can cause a lot of damage if left to free cast, like a deadeye or soulbeast or necro. Next on my list is a guardian, followed last by duelist specs like warriors. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Reaper all the way. Check out the quickness reaper build on meta battle. Why? Simple role- seek out team fights and blow people up with your burstEasy burst. Go practice on the golems. Build up life force and then go into shroud for the burst.It can teach some great pvp skills if you find you love the game mode. You will learn not to die. You can swing so many team fights as a reaper, but only if you are alive to win them. You will learn rotation. You aren't too mobile, so you have to learn to anticipate how others will move. You will learn about matchups. Ranged snipers will beat you, unless you can kite them or account then. You don't need any of this at the start. Just go blow up team fights. But I found reaper to be very effective and instructive up to around gold 2. The skill floor is low, but there is plenty of room to grow if you want to.You can run almost an identical build in open world pve, so it is easy to build up some muscle memory while farming dragonfall

What builds do you all run for meta events? I've recently been playing my warrior more in PvP, and am wondering how to make it work in meta events. I've seen Nike's open world Phalanx Strength build on youtube, and also Lord Hizen's "one-man-army" build on youtube, and have played around with versions of both. The other two classes I play a lot are reaper and revenant. For both I feel very impactful in meta events. I can solo events in Dragonfall when needed, and do good dps when running with a blob. With warrior I just haven't felt as solid a contributor. This may be just because I don't have a lot of hours on my warrior yet. Any tips for warrior in meta event farming like Dragonfall? Does anyone have a build that they feel does a good job at tagging mobs, doing good dps on bosses, and is reasonably survivable when solo or in a small group? Obviously one could optimize for just one of those situations, but I feel like my rev and reaper do a pretty good job at all three at once. Also...here's a noob question about banners. If I bring banners in the open world, is there any strategy to dropping them? I've just been tossing them down at any event, and haven't given much thought to them at all. I wonder if part of why I don't feel impactful as a warrior is that I'm not using banners well, or that I don't know how to gauge the impact of my banners on others. Thanks in advance.

What is the "renegod" build? I expect it's another meme tier renegade build, but I've heard it mentioned a few times lately.

I feel like it is all reasonable except maybe for the rose quartz. Does anyone have a reliable way to farm rose quartz in 2019? You can't get it from the TP, or from reward tracks. The wiki says it only drops from brandstone, but even with the tool equipped I didn't see any drop today while trying to farm brandstone for the first time since the heyday a year ago. Am I missing something?