Buran.3796

I should probably add Ranger also. Just because a couple of players can get great performance from it in the MAT doesn't mean that is meta...

I don't think either Guardian or Revenant has currently any meta spec, tbh.

I've been using this (along carrion Firebrand) in the 2 vs 2 season: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAYx7lpQHsLqhhROML6hJSfsCKgl+UVrD-z5gXIZmClWA9GBaMAA Bunker Herald with Glint + Jalis, demolisher stats and rune of divinity. Is nothing special in damage and you only deliver it at mele range (so very mobile foes and pure ranged ones can be annoying sometimes) but has good sustain and is able to endure punish vs most kinds of challengers. Plenty of damage mitigation, cc, blinds, passive heals, blocks, cleanses... Most of those tools do benefit both you and your random partner. IMO Renegade is worse when focused by mele specs (specially outside the more broad asura map). Power Vindicator and the old power Herald just don't work very well in deathmatch, since their re-sustain is low and they just lack damage, and the hardest fight you're facinf in 2 v 2 are builds with more re-sustain or able to cycle through defense rotations which last longer than the ones from Revs.

Mmmm... I've playing Carrion Firebrand in this ranked 2 v 2 season and was able to reach gold I and a 19/11 w/l ratio which is better than I expected for the arguably worst PvP spec.. The main problem is the sustain over time (all heals fall in the range bwrtween terrible and bad), but in terms of damage (specially burst) and tools to deal vs different foes it can wok ok... for a brief time. Can output very solid cc and huge amounts of AoE damage in a short period, but after that your skill bar remains depleted and your mobility and re-sustain is very limited. Despite the subpar performance I think that I'll keep playing it due I enjoy the gameplay.

Oh, is not like is bad at all. But doesn't fit the place I would like it to have given its current limitatios. Yes, you have a skill for every situation (AoE stability, protection, regeneration, aegis, projectile denial and even reflections, cleanses etc. Also, proccing fire damage (the most bursty condition in the game by far) is a passive effect, and if you use symbols or fast paced skills, you'll proc those a lot. Regular mobs melt in seconds, and veterans. In OW PvE I run celestial + fireworks runes, axe + shield (sometimes torch) and greatsword (due I like the gameplay) and is competent. A veteran giant from the Elon Riverlands falls in 15 seconds, doing nothing to you; you can delete a WvW bristleback in 11 seconds (suffering no harm), something which I only achieved with a much more aggressive condi Willbender (and with larger risk). I can burst ~22 burns in the opening, and have no problems soloing most of HoT HPs (a couple of them are a pita, tho). But outside that initial window you're not that fast killing foes with very large HP, and compared to Revenant or Mesmer the self sustain soloing bounties is nowere near. And I like to play tanks. Then is a couple of other things: 10 days ago tried a support FB build in PvP. Was the first time in 45+ years I equiped a staff in a Guardian (was my main until HoT). So I clearly remember the days in which the staff was the WvW "loot stick", when projected a 1200 unit range AoE fan of cleave damage (small amounts, but up to 5 targets). The fan was later reduced to 600 units. Then they nerfed it again changing some staff skills, but at the time it was no longer my main and I never experienced the new staff again. So I did it for first time at the end of April, and oh boy... Is garbage. I don't care how good is Empower for healing builds or sharing power (not like might matters that much now that half of the roster can stack 25 might permanently), I can't endure the #1 staff skills. Afetr a few matches I had to inmediatly delete the build. And it bothers me, since the only buffs FB got in PvP in the last patch were oriented to support builds (which are entirely unable to compete against core Guardian, anyway). So Firebrand is stuck in a "good place" in PvE, but in a diminishing trend, which doesn't seems to stop, even after the segregation of builds for each tome (you no longer get good resuts witout sacrifices), the nerfs in Sword of Justice, the nuking of the mantras (no mater how cool the animations are, the pre-cast is a huge qol step back) and now reducing the burn damage across all builds (not the support condi quickness varaint but all burn builds). In the last 14 months, while playing FB in PvE (solo) I've removed from my skill bar any mantra and SoJ. The PvE FB has been losing appealing while the PvP one remains useless. As I said before, when the rifle Mech stopped being fun, I stopped playing it (by the way, I deleted one of my 3 guardians since this spiral of nerfs started year and half ago). Edit: I agree with stormdemperor. My go to FB build always uses SYG + Purging Flames since SYG is both the Guadian fastest breakstun, a massive (in both duration and stacks) and PF gives damage + cleanses.

Can't talk about instanced content, but in OW PvE playing solo the dowmgrades are tangible. One of the slowest specs soloing HPs, and for the dps you get, the sustain seems low for doing bounties. I guess in instanced content will remain as one of the top choices giving how much as a "swiss knife" is due the versatility of skills, but I would never ride a FB for OW meta events, neither as a dps nor as a support. I still find it very fun to play, but between being garbage at PvP for like the nlast 3 years in a row, arguably weak in WvW roaming and becoming gradually worse in PvE now is getting close to the point in which a single straw could break the camel's back, as happened to rifle Mech (one day is broken OP, a patch later is way weaker but still ok since is decent at low effort then another patch nerfs the qol/damage a bit and suddenly is just nauseating and you need to stop to play it and returning the toon to to the alt parking box). FB feels pretty close to sink under that final straw...

Mark my words: It will be open the spec weapons (and maybe utilities) to the whole class. Is cheap (they already have the animations and skills), is easier to balance (generaly, a long bow won't be as powerful in a core Guardian or a spec with no long bow trait lines) and would add variety and deep to the choices currenty available (a core dps guardian will work better with axe, which has damage and cc, than just using the sword). And I'm fine with it: if they can't make FB work in PvP then let me use the axe with other specs.

Nomad's Advance is based on Guardian's hammer skill Mighty Blow, just with a much larger leap and instead of wielding our current weapon it just fades (but you still can seel the hands gripping the air as if the hammer where there). It remembers me a bit what happened with some of the animations in the basic skills (resource generators) from the Crusader class in Diablo III: whereas in Diablo II whenever you use the basic skill in a Paladin to attack the swings are performed with the weapon you wield (sword, flail, axe, hammer, mace, spear, etc...) in Diablo III when a Crusader uses Smite or Justice your current weapon temporaly dissapears and is replaced by your empty hand and a new visual effect, while Punish uses your shield to hit and Slash is the only basic attack which really uses animations with the weapon you're wielding in your right hand. It doesn't looks right, but most of the animations in EoD specs are borrowed from previous skills in the game, and specially in the Vindicator. The main reason was to save resources: from what I heard ANet used to rent the facilities, stunts and hardware (including motion capture suits and cameras) to do the work in the past and the numbers were in the north of 25k $ x DAY of recording those animations, so sadly for EoD ANet chose to make cuts in that regard. That's why I think that there's low chances of new weapons and skills being added in the expansions and making spec weapons and legends/utilities open to every core/spec already in the game is the most plausible landscape. They already have the animations and skills, and since some of the weapons are weaker without the specific spec traitline balanced the added versatility would be easier (and much cheaper) than meaking entirely new weapons and utilities. Being said that, I love the sound design in both Vindicator and Willbender. You can adjust the sound fx separatedly if you find them loud, albeit would affect all your characters and not some.

@Lily.1935: Nothimg in the press release indicates new skills, utilities or weapons. We known that making animations for new skills was one of the most expensive things to do in the game (renting the facilities for motion capture + stunts + suits, etc. were in the north of 25k $ A DAY) and that's the main reason why all the Vindi skills (weapon, legends... ) were "borrowed" from other professions (as happened with most in EoD. So I don't think they will add any new skills in a release schedule (yearly per pay mini-expansions) designed to save costs and milk the fanbase while last...

Probably just the spec weapons becaming available to core/all specs. Maybe spec skills becoming also available. Making new weapons, traits and skills for the expansion without releasing newer specs makes no sense, and since the game is now mostly in cruise mode/afk and they said 0 about new specs chances are that we won't get new specs at all. Think. for years ANet struggled to blend the developement of periodic content with the making of expansions. They finally achieved a way abandoning the living seasons and replacing raids with strikes based on the boss fights in the story mode... But then seems that even doing mini expansions and seasonal content is too much work, despite they asign almost no work to PvP, WvW and instanced content.

The best place to get ascended back piece, ring, ear ring and underwater respirator is farming winterberries in the Season 3 Bitterfrost Frontier map. There's groups of 2 winterberries placed in roughly a ring along the map, which can lead to gather ~50 winterberries x character x day (and a large amount of unbound magic at the same time). The quaggan vendor in the kodan ship will sell you the ascended items.. Remember that you can also infuse a rang to wear two of the same kind. With a good build and all the mounts (specially the beetle) you can do a gathering run in 4 to 6 minutes. The other exceptional places to get ascended items are: 1) Icebrood Saga map Bjora Marches (requires a pair of achievements to unlock the vendors) to get ascended amulets and ear rings (require 56k karma and a lot of (375) iceshards, which can be gathered from the large chest (~180 from the three, there's other ways to farm iceshards but none as efficient as the chests). Albeit don't require flying mounts, they make it way faster (all three chest under 3 minutes). 2) Sandswept Isles and Dragonfal, Season 4 maps. They provide rings, ear rings and amulet. Currencia¡es aren't as fast to farm as in Bitterfrost & Bjora, but they are decent. I recomend to buy home nodes of those two. 3) Ember's bay and Bloodstione Fen Season 3 map are also very good. Ember provides an earing, and Bloodstone amulet, ring and back piece. Bloodstone Fen has the rere ability to allow you to RESERT stats in its ascended trinkets paying 100 unbound magic. Both maps are currently BAD to farm, so buying a home node can be a good alterantive along the years. Other seasonal maps: not very good alternatives, better to use their currencies consum,ing them for extra unbound or volatile magic. PvP & WvW ascended trinkets: better save them to get the legendary ones (or legendary armors or back pieces):

* Doing daylies (a couple of raw gold coins usually in less than 10 minutes). * Farming high value mining ores and crops (orichalcum, quartz, seaweed, falx...) For optimal results requires specialized unbreakeable tools (with sigils as reaper, volatile, industry...) + shared inventory skills and plenty of characters. This all costs gold, but they end paying for themselves. * High level daily fractals. * Ranked PvP (at least 6+ gold coins x hour with a 50% win/lose ratio). * Farming map events: Palawadan, Drizzlewood South, Dragonfall, Dragon's End, Octovine, Chak Gerent, Drakkar, Aetherblade Asault... Not all are the same: most require keys which need to be farmed previously, whereas other can be obtained at the same time, whereas others as Palwadan requiere no keys at all... * Alt parking in chest and minu¡ing ores (some are limited to 1x day x character, others limited to 1x day x account). * Farming volatile magic to buy trophies/leather. * High level fishing. Edit: examples from a day in which I have no time to play (I have 18 characters): 1- Mining ore with the whole roster, ~5 gold coins of material in under 8 minutes. 2-Doing 3 dailies (2 gold coins in ~10 minutes). Then if I have time: 3- Palawadan> some farming> Chak Gerent> some farming 4-Then Dragonstorm followed by Drakkar OR Octovine OR Dragon's End 5-If I did Dragonstorm + Drakkar then I would follow with Aetherbalde OR Dragon Stand (Dragon's End map meta last ~40 minutes so some events are not compatible in teh same time frame). 6- Some ranked PvP. My priorities are: things that give very good value even if they need grind or things that maybe deliver lower gold but are fun. Things that I can solo over things that require others to bring up the rewards; things that doesn't require keys or extra time ver the ones that demand it. Extra tip: when I farm materials with alts I move all the stuff to the slots in the bank and sell everything in a single time; when I farm a map event my character of choice has at least 90 empty slots in the inventory, and after the event sells everything except if I'm crafting a legendary.

Some Ranger builds (both power and condi) have chances, some bunker/brusier builds (Druids, Weavers, Catalyst) can. Some very high burst builds (Virtuoso) with good defense... But well played, if a Thief has the sense that can't win a fight (or is very risky) ausually can disengage, so theoretically the most you can get is a draw.

Expansions are in general harder than the regular game (specially HoT), although the power creep you get from the specs is huge and that combined with some nerfs to the maps after the release makes the game easier once you known what and how to play. Some key factors: * You need to focus in map exploration and unlocking masteries ASAP, since they hugely improve the navigation and qol. * Equaly, you should unlock mounts ASAP. This happens organically, as the maps provide them in ther order that is needed. * When you reach 80, if you've been exploring the core maps doing Hero Points, you'll probably have enough points to instantly unlock half of a specialization. I'll advice you to then move to PoF to fully unlock the spec to make progression easier. Some specs I'll recomend to play in OW oince you reach 80: Warrior: Marauder Bladesworn or celestial Berserker. Guardian: celestial Firebrand or trailblazer Willbender. Revenant: celestial Vindicator or celestial Herald. Ranger: marauder Soulbeast or trailblazer Untamed. Thief: marauder Deadeye, but this is harder to master. Engineer: marauder or celestial Mechanist. Necromancer: celestial Reaper. Mesmer: celestial Mirage. Elementalist: celestial/traiblazer Weaver or Catalyst. Feel free to ask fior a specific build from the profession you main.

Thanx fior the effort, showcases well how knownledge about the mechanics and skill weights way more than gear and builds in instanced content. The answers have been also very illuminating. I've not entered in a raid in more than 5 years and don't plan to.

In instanced PvE and related to Guardians, Firebrand is the king due the versatility of the skills which came from the tomes and the overall set of utilities a Guardian can chose. Firebrand can also run condition builds (lets see how the patch affects this one), quickness + conditions and heal/support builds. Dragonhunter has a high burst which is conveneint in Fractals, but doesn't outplace FB. Willbender delivers very good damage (specially conditions) but lacks the versatility of FB and having so much mobility linked to your burst skills sometimes puts you in akward places in fights. In instanced PvE Revenant has qHerald, alacrigade and power Vindicator as main builds. QHerald is very versatile, with tons of cc and can provide stability, projectile negation, etc. just changing a legend. Alacrigade can work both with power and condi stats, retain the same versatility and maintaining alacrity requires minimal input and doesn't disrupt your gameplay. There's healing builds but not that popular. Vindicator is an outlier which as happens with Willbender provides good dps but not much else (although can deliver tons of cc, stability and some quickness if needed): For OW PvE solo my list is very clear. In performance celestial Vindicator > celestial Herald > power Vindicator > condi Willbender = celestial Renegade > celestial Firebrand. In terms of gameplay I do enjoy more power Vindicator and condi Willbender than the other builds, but celestial Vindi and Herald run in circles around the others in terms of self sustain while retaining good dps. In PvP Guardian has a strong support core build, a good Willbender options and a serviceable DH build. Firebrand is worst PvP spec in the game, and his position has only worsened along the time. At the moment I would say that Revenant PvP builds are overall weak: it doesn't have a good support build and the +1 options aren't that good.. Power Vindicator, Renebow and Herald are playable but Willbender feels/performs better, and ANet keeps pushing a condi build which no one uses... In WvW zergs Guardian has core and Firebrand; Revenant has Herald, Renegade (less used) and Vindicator. Both porfessions are very unexciting to play in zergs, tho. At roaming, power Willbender is the best Guardian option, followed by DH, but DH has very limited mobility and that alone makes WB superior in any regard. Core is weak and Firebrand, while carried by celestial stats which doesn't exist in PvP is fairly weak: limited sustain, mediocre dps, easy to kite... At roaming Revenant has Vindicator with good sustain and damage but poor cc to set combos, and Renebow with good cc and damage but much lower self sustain. I no longer consider Herald an optioin since is just a worse Willbender build. Both Willbender and Vindicator can struggle vs some ranged builds, and on the reverse, Renebow is weak vs sticky mele builds. The three are serviciable but far from being top dogs. Overall Willbender is in the best place there. In terms of gear, if you don't care about team content and play mostly solo, Revenant benefits from having good builds with celestial stats in any spec; then Marauder is great for Vindicator and Divine and Ritualist are good for qHerald/alacrigade and alacrigade respectively in instanced content. For guardians, celestial is great for Firebrand and core builds; with Willbender trailblazer/viper is the best at PvE but dragon/marauder is better fior WvW. But I run legendaries and my advice to anyone would be to get your legenbdary armor ASAP: is one of the best qol assets in the game. If I had to play instanced content I would chose either qFirebrand, qHerald or alacrigade builds. For OW solo I prefer Vindicator builds or celestial Mirage; I have fun with Willbender, Bladesworn and Reaper also, but don't perform so well. In WvW roaming at the moment is Willbender > Renegade > Vindicator for me. In PvP, since the game mode is dead and I don't care much anymore, I play mostly a bunker Herald build which I enjoy, and aside of that Willbender, Renebow and DH. I never play Vindi in PvP, It sucks for me.

Nvidia's Shadowplay (which is part of the Geforce Experience suite which comes as app/drivers) if you have a Nvidia card: has barely any impact in your framerrate (-5 or -10 at most) beacuse doesn't compress the video, plus gives good options in terms of quality and size of the files you save. Secondary option: OBS. If your have one of the latest AMD cards 7900 XTX and XT their new suite seems to be fairly good. Everything else is OBS; free, powerfull, fantastic for saving files and streaming, is a bit more impacting in framerrate than Shadowplay due compression and is more complex to use, but seems to be the gold standard amongst streamers, is hardware agnostic, free and developed as open source. Plenty of support. Fraps, Windows, etc: garbage. Either very limited or highly impactful in framerrete (-33%+ in FRAPS) or poorly supported or everything at the same time. Dude, Microsoft Movie Maker (from the free suite Essentials) was more powerful and capable than the Video Editor in W10, and the same happens with the image visualizer; I don't known how anyone can trust in Microsoft first party programs taking in consideration their backgrounds, specially having OBS for free.

Yep. Archy + Vicky stack 10 skills but I could easily chose 5 and ditch half of them without missing the other half at all. In terms of lore, they are minor pieces of a larger legend (Shiro), and in terms of gameplay I really don't like a third legend if the swap doesn't provides any energy. In PvP ANet chosed to kill Herald/Renegade pre EoD to make Vindi a p2w spec, but then(as always when they play with critical mechanics as dodges) had to nerf Vindi so many times that now there's not a single Rev spec being part of the meta, and I don't see that changing. So congrats ANet, you have a bland (lore wise) new leged which repeats in humans, which adds nothing new to instanced content (being qHerald and alacrigade the main ticket sellers) and easily in PvP from OP to irrelevant with nothing in between. OW solo Vindicator is dope, tho, in both power and hybrid builds.

^ I think that celestial is the strongest solo OW stat combination for any spec aside of Bladesworn & Spellbreaker (power builds are better there) and maybe Deadeye. In that ragard, is hardly a waste in any profession. Being said that, not all celestail builds are the same in terms of easy of use or fun to play.

Ele is fun to level but squishy, you have very low base HP and a lot of your attacks are short in range or longer in range but slow to cast, so you're more exposed. Definitely I would use one booster in Ele if you fant to free the slot (albeit I'm currently hand leveling a second ele and is fun). Mesmer is imo the easiest core profession to level: staff + greatsword and you and your clones kill everything at range barely exposing yourself. Ranger and Necro are very easy to level, having pets to tank, damage mitigation and plenty of cc (Ranger has more mobility but the extra headache of having to unlock the pets, which at level 80 takes ~40 minutes). Revenant is weird to level up: the power build can move fast but is frail; the condi build is way tankier and much better dealing vs multiple foes at the same time but moves much slower, and core Rev is 100% mele, which is risky (the hammer is awfull outside WvW zergs). I would use the boosters in Ele & Rev.

Last month I've soloed 65% of the bounties in PoF maps with his power Vindicator build, and 95% with his condi Vindicator build (the 5% which I wasn't able to finish was due they have too much cc or are too evassive as the ram and the rabbit in the Desest Highlands, and still I lost for time, not due any of those were a real threat). My skill level is below average, never reached plat 1 in PvP and my w/l ratio is usually around 50-52%. I can't play the same as Hizen with every class (some of his builds are harder to use than others, and some are even boring), but Mirage and Vindicator are almost AFK easy to play and very efficient in PvE. Of course, if you blueprint a dps raid build and go solo OW with no external support, it would require high skill and very narrow tolerances to mistakes to be able to survive in some of those encounters, but with the rigth build solo OW is EZ.

Here's Hizen soloing all legendary bounties with Mirage; has also videos soloing plenty of strikes and fractals with the same spec: Similar thing with Vindicator, it can run power or condi damage (condi is stronger but I enjoy more the power build): Now, competitive game modes are entirely different (PvP, WvW roaming, zergs...). When the meta and sustain is high, bruiser builds dominate (as celestial weaver, bunker druid or power scrapper), when the sustain is a bit lowers stealth & high mobility builds dominate (daredevil, trapper ranger, deadeye...). Some specs are harder to play no matter if they are competitive or not... Is just the nature of the game. In Tekken, if you like Mishimas but you're unable to consistently combo the Electric Wind Godfist then you're screwed, and better just a character with easier combos... If you still want to use Mishimas because you like them then you have to put effort in dealing with their shortcomings and learn their weakness. Neither Mirage or Vindicator are top dogs at PvP or roaming WvW at the game, but good players can absolutely wreck people using them.

Both Vindicator and Mirage can solo pretty much any bounty in the game (including legendaries), and you're having problems with the foes in Silverwastes and HoT? You need to change your builds, the way in which you play or both. Those two specs are not only extremely capable in PvE, but (in straight contrast with, lets say, Bladesworn) also very easy to play.

I though that all your post were serious.

What they did in EoD seems very inconsistent. Mechanist: 1 condi line, 1 power line and 1 support line; Vindicator: 2 power traits, some support traits, a gazillion endurance traits; Bladesworn: 3 power lines; Willbender: 1 condi trait, 3 power trais, 5 support traits... A "pvp line" for Firebrand never gonna work: they butchered its dps, self sustain and team support, so nothing works. Best case scenario: in the next expansion they ditch new specs and instead allow spec weapons to be used by any spec (including core) so you end being able to use axe with core Guardian and Willbender. Firebrand will never be better than core Guardian as support and has 0 future as dps or roamer in PvP.