Buran.3796

Ok, first of all: don't run a power build in Open Wolrd PvE, specially in a core character, and specially in HoT. So let me explain: you just did reach 80 and you have no gold and no gear. Where to start? * First of all, you have the Wizzard Vault daily and weekly achievements. You can chose to do the achievements in WvW, PvP or PvE, or a mix of them. PvP is the easiest one: you don't need special gear, you don't need to do complicated things, you don't even need to win to get your Astral Acclaim rewards. But whenever in PvP, WvW or PvE get your Astral Acclaim rewards: you can get more than 100 a day. With Astral Acclaim you can get up to 90 gold coins at the cost of 6 AA, so in two days you'll get at least 33.33 gold coins. Even after purchasing the limited gold coin bags you can still purchase new ones at 35 AA x gold coins, so even in worst case scenario is easy to get at least 37 raw gold coins in a single week just doing the weekly achievements. * Even if you don't do daily achievements for the Wizzard Vault, ranked PvP is still quite profitable (and the reward tracks for the glorious armor give you a exotic armor piece with selectable stats after each completion). Another great source of exotic gear (weapons) with selectable stats are the WvW tokens, you can get exotic weapons of level 80 with selectable stats in WvW from the TED-07 golem at the cost of 90 to 100 silver gold coins and 50 to 75 tokens x weapon. That is extra cheap, BUT don't play PvP or WvW if you don't like it. * So you are level 80 with no dime and don't like playing PvP, WvW nor doing the Wizzard Vault dailies, you don't have gear for dungeons, fractals, etc. and you want to get some gold with no effort, what you do? Well, there`s tons of profitable thing to do, but since you have the core game + HoT I would advice you to do something evry simple: to gather. Go to Fireheart Rise, Iron Marches and Mount Maelstrom maps and mine platinum in the 5-6 rich ores. It will take you 6 minutes a day. Platinum is selling ~2.4 silver coins, you'll get 1.2-1.5 gold coins in that five minutes. Do a log farming route in maps as Fireheart Rise, Harati Hinterlands or Timberline Falls. It will take longer, but wood is valuable (gather and sell every crop you see in HoT maps!). Doing that, even in core Tyria maps, you should be able to get at least a couple of gold coins in 30 minutes. Do the same with rich iron nodes, and you'll be over 4 gold coins x day without any need of special gear or mounts or help. So: in less than 5 days, you should have at least 20 gold coins, more than enough to gear your character in full exotics. * Phase two: gearing your toon. You have now well over 20 gold coins, congrats, you're rich! You can now gear yourself to solo any HoT HP. There's more than one way to do this but my advice would be either go full dire stats or full carrion stats. The first focus in condition damage, helath and armor delivering over 1400 condition damage and more than 24k HP and 3k armor. Carrion trades armor for power damage but is more expensive and I would say dire is better until you get celestial, so let's take a look: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAkeZlhQHMJqhFROMI6hBSfMBKgjszaqC-DyIU8o7vUSoAqMByME6MCcYAA-e A level 80 dire daconic armor chest do costs 1.79 gold coins; legs, helm and shoulder pad cost are similar, and gloves and boots trades below 1.60 gold coins. This means that you can have your full exotic level 80 dire armor for ~10.5 gold coins (if purchased instantly). We also need 6 runes of Blathazar which at the moment are below 9 silver coins so with another half gold coin our full armor is complete, below 11 gold coins in total. Connie ring another 72 silvers, Artic ring another 10, level 63 carrion amulet 79 silver coins, Tequatl bones & fang do sum ~85 silver coins, don't bother with the back piece. That's less than 3 gold coins! Weapons: pearled dire axe 89 silver coins, the same but in mace 97 silver coins, the same in staff 73 silver coins. Smoldering sigil 12 silvers, Geomancy 5 silvers, Hydromancy 13 silvers, Energy 91 silvers. Total cost ~3.8 gold coins. Total spending: 11 + 3 + 3.8 = around 18 gold coins. Congrats, in less that 5 days you farmed a full exotic level 80 dire set (except the back piece) and yo're ready to rumble. You can now solo every HoT Hero Point Champion and you can easily earn 6-9 gold coins a day in 30-40 minutes just farming them. Your next step should be getting either a exotiic or ascended gear set and unlocking the specs so you can facerroll the PvE (disclaimer: my quicknes aplication was bad here, now my rotations are quite better):

I think I have ready my gear combo for WvW roaming solo builds (to not run it), with some doubts about traits. Now is time to figure a condi WvW build. That will be harder since there's more stat combos available, and because Rev condi builds ahve two handicaps: movement and range. The bow has range, but oftenly sucks and really only delivers good damage traited as Renegade. Spear with 600 inches range is mostly mele (everything will poke you to death at will). There's gap closers as axe #4, sword #5 or Call to Anguish, but those weapons sacrifice a lot of defensive potential for the questiaonable amount of damage they deal. I guess a hybrid with condi damage with Mallyx and Ventari could work, but there's no longer a stat with condi damage + expertise + healing power. (Apthecary is maybe the closest thing). There's also no support gear with damage (Ritualist lacks healing power, Apothecary lacks expertise). Man, the more I think it, the more apparent becomes that PvP has stronger stat selection of gear despite having only half of the PvE/WvW combos. PvE has so much useless nothingness laying around since the release of the game in 2012...

Cele will now be mostly a power stat combo for frontlines; since lacks condi duration won't be a good choice for condi builds and with no boon duration won't be good for support roles. Some builds that could benefit from cele would maybe Guardians since oftenly rely in power and the burn procs are just added damage which resets over and over, albeit a power WB with marauder/dragon has much higher burst. The thing is that I don't think the overall composition in zergs will change much in roles (would change in specs), in the sense that youn want mostly support (3-4 x squad) with one or two damage dealers.

Very outdated. Ex.: support Vindi has been present/dominating in any weekly/monthly automated tournament for at least the last two months, winning in Conquest, 3 v 3 and this evening even in the Push showcase of Rank 55 Dragons vs French Wurms at Teapot's steraming. Yet, support Vindi is portrayed in Metabattle as "3.7" outside "meta" and even "great".

Yesterday I saw part of the weekly 2 v 2 AT until I lost the internet connection, so I don't known which team won but so far seems that: * Main tactic from most of teams was running one damage dealer and one support. * The most displayed damage dealers were Spellbreaker, Reaper or Willbender. * The most common support were Chronomancer, Vindicator and Tempest. * I saw pure Vindicators running support weapons but also some hybrids wielding the spear. Both had succesful matches. * I don't known how it ended (hopefully Teapot uploads the stream soon) but Vindi seemed succesful/competitive both against Chrono and Tempest. Matches were oftenly very close and the skill level was top notch, with fights reaching the time cap. Once the gas started to spread the teams with Vindi oftenly had the edge. I've been trying support builds in unranked and even some push, but Ventari is not my cup of tea and I do better when I just run Alliance & Jalis. Yet, I'm having more succes just playing a hammer build. So: hammer seems still decent but not the best choice for a dps role; support Vindi is very strong but less useful in pug matches; hybrid spear Vindi in both support and damage variants seems strong. I don't like Push at all and I'm eager to see it going away in ten days...

Scepter is purely strike damage? Doesn't put condi damage at all?

Which is the best bunker/support build at the moment? I've seen at the MAT Vindi with Alliance & Ventari, but also meet very durable Mallyx with Ventari. I've see staff + sword & shield to have any i-frames as possible, but also found builds running scepter and axe to stack interrupts. Jobber is relying in part in dark field combos to blind enemies, but tried that in a couple of matches and I ended empty of energy in short time. Which is the best bunker/support and trhe choices in legends, weapons and traitlines given I'm playing outside a conformed team? I'm tempted to try Heretic with Jalis since energy cost of power builds seems to be way savy and easier to sustain...

My biased opinion is Rev: * I like knights, heavy armor and mele fighters over spell casters in light clothes. * I think that outside Weaver (which is more complex but has more personality) the Ele specs are a bit too samey. * I like the background of Revs and the legends arguing amongst them and with the player. I known that the voices aren't real, but sometimes they have amazing ideas... * Traditionally, Rev have been in a dominant place at the PvP meta. Ele has been strong also, but more inconsistent in time. * Currently Rev has a stronger presence in PvE, although that can easily change due balance patches. * I like the motiv of teleporting through the mist and weapon attacks coming from portals.

Give Guardian 18k HP and shroud? Sure sounds fun...

Yes. And only proves how OP is. Currently baned in PvP and going to be nerfed in WvW. Is like when WRC forbid the Audi quattro traction system from the competition due how much dominated the "meta".

Marauder + Dragon stat WB is much bursty than cele ones; cele made them more survivable, but the people which struggle vs WB will keep having troubles for sure...

The biggest change in the preview is the removal of the extra boon and condition duration of celestial stats in WvW. Would it affect me? No. Because since the alliance revamp I've entirely stopped playing that game mode. I don't even do the weekly rewards. I don't enter there to unlock PvE things with WvW tokens or to deposit/get things from the bank. Previously have been playing roaming cele Vindi for months and months but then ditched it beacuse while curstomped most of non cele builds oftenly was unable to deal with better cele ones (Harbs and some eles), and against others it ended in unending ties (Druids). So I was transitioning to a power build which would be less well rounded but able to properly burst cele bunkers. But the changes came and I just stopped playing it. My marauder + dragon Willbender was in good spot and I think that now will be even better. I guess that traiblazer/dire builds will become the new metas (there's a chance ANet ends nerfing those in WvW, also). But I don't care: I'm not playing that. Now, the proper Rev changes: support WvW buffs; I won't play that, I don't think support Vindi will be in the meta after the nerfs from the last weeks. Buff to Herald won't make it meta at PvP and I don`t play Herald in any game mode. Buffs to Renegade seems weak, I won't move from Vindi, sorry. So nothing changes: cele Vindi for me in PvE, power Vindi at PvP, nothing in WvW for a while. If I do step again in WvW would be either power hammer for roaming or condi build in a zerg, but I think that the current meta of 4 supports from squad won't change AND Rev no longer is meta there.

Revenant We've focused on improving the viability of some underperforming revenant builds in competitive modes with damage improvements to herald and main-hand sword, defensive improvements to Legendary Renegade Stance, and an increase to the outgoing healing bonuses in the Salvation trait line for potential support builds in PvP. Chilling Isolation: Increased the power coefficient from 0.5 to 0.7 in PvP and WvW. Notoriety: Increased the might stacks from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW. Resolute Evasion: Increased the resolution duration from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds. This trait now also grants a small strike damage reduction for 2.5 seconds after dodging. Invoking Harmony: Increased the outgoing healing bonus from 10% to 15% in PvP only. Serene Rejuvenation: Increased the outgoing healing bonus from 15% to 20% in PvP only. Herald Shining Aspects: Increased the healing from 533 to 640. Forceful Persistence: Increased the damage bonus from 13% to 15% in PvP and WvW. Increased the facet damage bonus from 3% to 4% in PvP and WvW. Renegade Breakrazor's Bastion: Increased the base barrier when enhanced from 1,480 to 1,960. Soulcleave's Summit: Increased the healing when using a Legendary Renegade skill from 929 to 1,199. Increased the life siphon healing from 392 to 489 in PvP only.

Yep, this is my point of view: * I oftenly run solo the HoT hero points, I oftenly solo PoF bounties. The first ones for the gold, the second ones just for pleasure (they are not rewarding in terms of gold but are enjoyable in terms of fun). *I've tried those activities with several specs and builds. When I run a power Vindi with cap crit chace, ~210% crit damage and 2600+ power the easy HPs die faster and I can save a few minutes; when I face a tougher boss I can die, and to prevent it I have to retreat or defend to the point that my average damage drops and then overall I'm losing time instead gaining it. I can barely solo 60% of bounties with my power Vindi. * When I run my cele vindi I can't die in HoT unless I afk, I can solo any PoF bounty except two and neither of those two can kill me. So to me cele is more productive, because ensures I meet the goals, in a decent time frame, without any help; the 46% free increase in boon duration helps a lot ensuring near perma regeneration, fury and protection, the free healing power enhances my regen and the extra toughness rises my armor ~3k so I only need to care about avoiding one-shoot mechanics. I found that only Reaper, Untamed, Bladesworn and Virtuoso do significatively benefit from a pure power build in solo OW and the last two of then are hard to play (because when you miss with your skills, you're in a big trouble). For everything elase, I found cele much safer and easier to play (albeit my fav OW Willbender build runs traiblazer and dire, not celestial).

This mornig I spent 333 gold in gems to purchse the 9th gear and template slots in my main Rev, to make use of a PvP build (I haven't yet played the spear in PvP, neither at the beta nort at the release). I'm very skeptic about the chances of having anything viable with the spear. In power I have Vindi with greatsword and hammer, Alliance + Jalis; it provides very good mobility, very good cleanses, decent block and evades uptime, stability, breakstuns, damage mitigation and can be played both and mele and pressure at range. with decent cc game. Condi/hybrid builds with spear... They benefit from the Tyrant amulet, which equals to Demolisher in armor and potential of damage. With power I run Warrior rune; there's not a clear equivalent in condi builds albeit can also be used. For a more condi oriented build I could run Herald with Mallyx + Glint and staff; that would have great cc and damage, but will lack ranged pressure, mobility, stability... Or I could run a more power oriented bild with Vindi and Mallyx + Alliance. But again, lack of the same things. Gs could replace staff, but I can't see how gs + spear coud be better than gs + hammer. Going more towards hybrid damage, there's spear + mace & axe or shield, but again that would mean lower mobility and barely any ranged pressure. I've faced some condi Revs with spears in the last days with my gs + hammer build and I didn't felt myself threatened at all. I guess sometimes Call to Anguis + Chaotic Release + Abyssal Blot into Embrace the Darkness and some Abyssal Blaze burst could sink some unprevented teams, but when doesn't work you end with a slow moving character which doesn't have the mobility/defenses from a power Rev build.