What Classes/Specializations are Ping friendly?

[Kuchai.2561]

I'm new to the game and wanted to know what class would you consider able to be played well on high ping (200+) as I live in SEA.

 

I originally rolled a Thief but was told I'd be in for a bad time as it and it's Elite Specializations were very Ping reliant. However I have no idea what my options are or what I should avoid. I was thinking of making an Engineer as Holosmith cool but again I can't find any discussion how well that would work for me.

[Acanthus.8120]

Guardian/Firebrand e-spec or Necromancer/Reaper e-spec.

Firebrand can be run with celestial stats and actually use them all. It's a forgiving generalist that, depending on trait choices, can heal, buff (and give quickness doing so), tank, and/or deal damage. It can do more than one of these at a time, and has great solo potential as well as group utility.

Here's an example generalist build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PW0Ac6ZlRw2YPsO2JW2XbPTA-zxIY1o7/MSQVluU1jPEh4hPpOoZC7WgKA-e

As you can see, Firebrand (and Guardian in general) gets a lot of free sustain and has a lot of tools. This may or may not be what you're looking for, so it's one of two recommendations.

Reaper, opposite to Firebrand does only one thing. It deals damage. It gets utility like quickness, but only for itself. But, unlike Firebrand, it doesn't get a whole lot of active defenses. In fact, it gets none. Just the base 2 dodges. It's just ungodly tanky on its own. Most of the time, you'll just be running a mix of marauders and dragon's gear if you're min/maxing damage, but if you're not min/maxing damage, it's entirely possible to build around crusader gear because you can get 75% crit for free, leaving you to figure out 25% to reach cap. This isn't optimal since you sacrifice some damage for it, but you can easily become nigh-impossible to kill due to toughness and sustain.

My personal Reaper build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PS1EECNsMCmGzjdxKxR7qsZD-zRRYihLfOqXGlRtVVFpqJPEx45PpCohCnWgKA-e

The I don't want to die build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PS1EECNsMCmGzjdxKxR3qs5D-zRJYhR9fZUbVVRqayDJM+rhCbagKA-e

Most of Reaper's sustain comes from the fact that it has 2 health bars that you can cycle. If you know you won't be able to dodge because of ping, then you just take more defenses, more healing power, deal less damage, but increase the strength of recovery. You pick signets because they both cool down faster in shroud and continue to work while on cd if you're in shroud, so you just dump the effects of Vampirism and Spite before you go into shroud and get them back before you leave shroud in 10-15 seconds. Dagger is also your fall back if you can't maintain your cycle while on greatsword, and the warhorn is pretty much just there for swiftness and getting fury/quickness through casting fear to help you permanently have those.

  

4 hours ago, Kuchai.2561 said:

I was thinking of making an Engineer as Holosmith cool but again I can't find any discussion how well that would work for me.

I'm not an Engineer player because it's just not my thing, so I can't really say whether Holo would work on high ping, but if you try it and it doesn't work out, Mechanist is a pretty easy spec to pick up because the bot will do a bunch of things for you, making it good for bad ping.

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Acanthus.8120

[Kuchai.2561]

6 hours ago, Acanthus.8120 said:

Reaper, opposite to Firebrand does only one thing. It deals damage. It gets utility like quickness, but only for itself. But, unlike Firebrand, it doesn't get a whole lot of active defenses. In fact, it gets none. Just the base 2 dodges. It's just ungodly tanky on its own. Most of the time, you'll just be running a mix of marauders and dragon's gear if you're min/maxing damage, but if you're not min/maxing damage, it's entirely possible to build around crusader gear because you can get 75% crit for free, leaving you to figure out 25% to reach cap. This isn't optimal since you sacrifice some damage for it, but you can easily become nigh-impossible to kill due to toughness and sustain.

 

 

Thanks for the advice! I've been actually looking into Necromancer, specifically Reaper. Though it looks fun I'm worried how well it works I'm group content. I still know very little but from what I've been told each class preferably brings something to the team and Reaper doesn't do that? Again I could be talking out my kitten but I'm curious if that's true or not or if it doesn't matter in the scheme of things.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Kuchai.2561

[draxynnic.3719]

I play everything on Australian ping.

In PvE, you can pretty much make do with anything - most of the time it just means you have to dodge a little bit sooner, but most enemies are predictable enough that you can afford that. Biggest threat outside of CMs is probably Pugskinner's fingers. If you really want to be sure, though, aegis makes for a good substitute for trying to time a dodge, block, or evade.

In competitive, I find that the professions that seem to rely the most on fast reflexes are thief, power revenant, and, surprisingly, warrior.

[Acanthus.8120]

12 hours ago, Kuchai.2561 said:

Thanks for the advice! I've been actually looking into Necromancer, specifically Reaper. Though it looks fun I'm worried how well it works I'm group content. I still know very little but from what I've been told each class preferably brings something to the team and Reaper doesn't do that? Again I could be talking out my kitten but I'm curious if that's true or not or if it doesn't matter in the scheme of things.

There are three situations that require a team-oriented build: Raids, Challenge Mode (CM) Strikes, and CM Master Tier Fractals. For everything else, just bring passable skill. By the time you do all the content leading up to these things, you can afford a second set of ascended for a team-oriented build. And by that time, you'll know exactly how much leeway you need to give yourself stat-wise to compensate for your ping.

In general, this is a pretty chill game and most people are friendly. Pick something you'd enjoy and run it until you need your endgame meta build. You should be able to play for weeks or even months if you're doing all the stories, all the masteries, and exploring normally (and lots of people will be doing that with you, aside from story), so there's no pressure to rush that perfect meta e-spec/build.

Edit: I updated the sustain build. It no longer overcaps on precision, does more slightly more damage, has slightly less sustain and toughness, and has more hp so conditions don't wreck it. Bizarrely, you shouldn't see a massive drop in damage against high hp targets like champions compared to the dps build because it has 125 more power than the standard build, but with a loss of 111 ferocity and a 10% strike damage modifier in traits. The 10% hurts, but you get an overwhelmingly large amount of defenses compared to said standard build, so w/e. I hope it helps, but if not, I figured out something fun for soloing legendary mobs. 😄 Btw, don't stress on picking up those specific infusions. There are pure attribute infusions, and only the precision ones to reach crit cap matter. The rest are a bonus.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Acanthus.8120

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Holosmith works fine. I play it for T4 fractals, strike mission, sometime WvW and Open World. The important question is what gamemode you will be playing. For open world PvE as long as you have a stable ping then pretty much any spec will work. Same for things like fractal or strike mission.

 

The issue of latency will comes into play in PvP and WvW but also on some event that will requires you to do like big leaps and so on. 

[Terian.8359]

Mechanist the best choice for You: 2 button build can do 27-28k dps in this patch)

See in youtube "low intensity condition mechanist"