Advice on Class for Fractals / Raids

[Tankvieh.5796]

Hey Guys,

i am a semi casual / hardcore player, i clocked around 1.9k hours on my account, 1.3k from that on my ele in WVW. (right now i am working and have limited time to put into the game ~ 1 day on the weekend and 2-3 evenings during the week)

Just coming back from a long break and feel like i got my footing again running a trailblazer scourge in wvw now and farmed a couple of viper trinkets from LS3 maps. (i never owned a proper ascended equip on any char, wvw paid very badly...)

Before my break i used to do daily speedruns in dungeons and also did Fractals regularly. Now i was thinking of building my way up in fractals again(~ lvl 20 and only 10 AR right now). But i am undecided which class i should use for it. I would also like to choose something with which i have the option to start doing raids down the line if i ever get to the point where that interests me.

got all professions to 80 and equiped with exotic gear and ascended trinkets.

Here are the chars which i would be interested in to use.

power / condi Chrono (my old fractal prof), full exotic knight or rabid equip with zerker / viper trinketspower/condi renegade, one of my least used chars to get some new experience i would be ready to pick him up and gear him out properly (right now zerker exotics, same trinkets available as chrono)power/condi thief: my newest char, i am running power gear and mostly using him for open world right nowpower / condi engi: same story as renegade, a char i have not used so far but would be interested in picking uppower / condi ranger same as renegad / engi

right now i would be most excitet for renegade/engi

i also got warrior, ele etc but i have played so much on them that i am not really interested in picking them up right now. From my understanding it would make sense for me to just do a "normal" dps role for now as stuff like tank chrono, heal druid etc would require me to know the conted by heart?

I would appreciate any insight i could get from regular runners. I just want to avoid pourin a lot of gear into a proffession just to find out that it is not acceptable down the line.

[Evolute.6239]

The meta of all meta in fractals currently is Power Boonshare Chrono, Viper or Harrier Druid, Condi Warrior, Power Weaver, and ____.

The ____ is usually a weaver or dragonhunter/firebrand, but can be virtually anything, though holo fits in there nicely too.

Picking any of those professions will work well for all fractal tiers, as well as all raid bosses. If you want to pick a power DPS, and don't want the hassle of redoing all of your chrono gear to commanders, I would pick Holo. Top tier power DPS currently thats great in both raids and fractals.

Renegade is good for raids, but not too fantastic for fractals.

[Cyninja.2954]

The main issue right now is, with the last balance patch a lot of changes might happen to the raid meta and a new meta hasn't been set in stone.

The previous meta was 2 chronos, 2 druids, 2 warriors with 4 dps.

The new meta which people are assuming is going to form is: 2 chrono (not 100% sure since 1 chrono can be replaced easily by firebrand+renegade especially if not distorting which many pugs do not do), 1 druid (for might) and 1 warrior (for banners) with 1 healer (tempest, druid or revenant), rest is 5 dps.

Of these classes all 3 (chrono, druid, cPS) are fractal meta still. It would make sense to pick one of those 3. Or these 3, gearing a chrono will likely be the most expensive. While exotic armor is fine for raids, you definately need ascended armor for T4 fractals.

Otherwise make sure you enjoy the class you play (especially its mechanic) since you will be playing it a lot. Going by what you said you have, I'd say the choice boiles down to:

• power chrono (though you will have to gear change to boon duration via commander or minstrel)
• druid (maybe go harrier druid) as support character
• power engi which is currently a very good dps with good cc

[Tankvieh.5796]

thank you for the input guys, for high level fractals i would need ascended anyway from what i understand (agony), so i can choose any stat i want for that right. How much more expensive is the commander gear, i just saw that you can apparently only get it through crafting.

so from what i understand if i pick chrono my to -do list would be as followed

1. look for a good build on metabattle, https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Utility_DPS seems to fit the need

2. Farm commander trinkets from LS3

3. Swap zerker calablog sword to commander

4. Farm another calablog for commander shield

5. would it make sense to go directly for ascended commander armor? where can i get it? i can see that on the wvw heroic notar i can buy commanders insignias, as i do a lot of wvw that would be easy to get. I dont see any ascended insignias though.

two general quesions:

is commander or ministriel more flexible? meaning could i use the ministriel equip for a healing tempest in the future while also using it on the chono.Would i be the general tank in the group as a chrono? if so i guess i would need to be very precise in my rotations and know the encounters very well (which i do not so far)

[Veprovina.4876]

If you want to play chrono, prepare to get a lot of hate if you don't play it perfectly.Also, if you want a shield (you need one for chrono, it's awesome), Horologicus is an ascended one from the collection and you can choose Minstrel stats on it.

Chronos usually take either commander or minstrel or a combination of both, it just depends on how much personal DPS you want to do, not much else really, both have boon duration and that's why you're getting them. If you want more DPS, commander, if you want to heal and be a tank, minstrel. Both are fine in fractals. If you have some other characters that can use minstrel's, go with that, but you won't be doing DPS with minstrel's on a chrono. Your only job will be support and keeping boons and alacrity up.

And yes, you need ascended gear in fractals, don't go doing fractals without sufficient agony resistance, no one likes to see the chrono die before the boss fight starts because the agony check killed him. :wink: Some boss fights, especially later hit you with agony before they even start. So have enough AR, especially if you're playing a support class.

Also, you can craft any ascended and convert it later in the mystic toiled, so craft the one you think it's the easiest.

[Tankvieh.5796]

hm does that not sound too tempting, as i have limited time to play and learn contend... if i would take engi is there a current build i could use? the 2 one on metabattle are both over a year old. One for power, and one for condi.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Engineer_-_Condition_Grenadierhttps://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Scrapper_-_Power_Grenadier

[Sephylon.4938]

some other sites you can look at are https://qtfy.eu/guildwars/builds/ and https://snowcrows.com/raids/.

If you still plan to chrono in raids, some bosses there use toughness to determine their agro, so if you don't want to tank (tanking in this game means moving the boss to the proper location so mechanics don't wipe everyone), you'd want to avoid having the highest toughness in the group. Here are my personal builds since I hate using the concentration sigil: non tank build and tank build. The 100% boon duration without having to weapon swap just makes the rotation of chronos that much easier in my experience.

[Tankvieh.5796]

thank you, especially the second link looks great.

i think i would rather focus on one of the dps slots, its not that i dont want to pull my own weight, but simply that i dont see myself becoming a leader in the parties which chrono seems to be aimed at.

From what i can see i would gain the most flexibility with a set of viper gear, as there are some condi builds for renegade, engineer, mirage, daredevil and soulbeast.so i could farm 1 set of gear and decide which proffession i want to use later, or switch it up easier.

I think ill start out with renegade and try to farm a full viper set of ascended gear. :)

[Veprovina.4876]

Chrono is a support role so naturally everyone is as good as the group's chronomancer. Not really, that's totally false but you better believe everything will be your fault for not execiting your rotation perfectly. Especially in fractals, chronos are hardly reaponsible for abything they just makr things go faster and smoother if they're played well but if someone dies on a boss it's not their fault it's the chronos fault.

Support roles amirite?

If you already have a mesmer, Mirage is a DPS spec so you can use that. Or you can try other less complicated classes.

[Quickbuds.6950]

Since you dont want Chronomancer, i would recommend Druid or Necro. Both classes carry really hard in fractals and are always welcomed into groups. Having said that, i find people respect a chronomancer the most. Like , when in tell ppl to stack on the druid for buffs and heal, they dont always listen. But when im chrono, its like i got my commander tag on, ppl just follow your lead and are very grateful to have u in group.

[Veprovina.4876]

@Quickbuds.6950 said:Since you dont want Chronomancer, i would recommend Druid or Necro. Both classes carry really hard in fractals and are always welcomed into groups. Having said that, i find people respect a chronomancer the most. Like , when in tell ppl to stack on the druid for buffs and heal, they dont always listen. But when im chrono, its like i got my commander tag on, ppl just follow your lead and are very grateful to have u in group.

They like the Chronomancer if the Chrono is good. If he's not, well, that's a different story. I never got the people to listen lol, maybe it's me.But anyway, necro is still a thing? I though no one brings necros to raids anymore, they just roam WvW everywhere now.