"Best" class\build for Open World stuffs..

[AliamRationem.5172]

11 hours ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

I will counter this reaper with my experimental Berserker build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAkeJlJwwYUsLmJO+O/tfA-DSRYwR39aOE0nR6SrWWBq52ALjKuBA-e

It's yet to be tested by me due to lack of materials (ascended diviner's), but given it's a straight upgrade from core warrior build i use all the time I'm fairly confident it'll perform.
So how does it contest the reaper as OW king?
By not having it's weaknesses.

It won't "Outreaper a Reaper" at what it does best - a fast and brutal cleanup of armies of trash mobs.
But it'll deliver in areas Reapers naturally struggle, such as dealing with strong enemy cc, 1v1 fights with champions and boonshare support.

DEFENSE:
The anti cc is through the roof with this one. Hammer + mace ensure massive Stalwart Strength procs and if that's not enough you got 5 stunbreaks on you (Berserk mode entry + exit, two charges of Shake it Off!, Headbutt).

Your self healing is no joke either. Thanks to Eternal Champion and Dead or Alive traits you basically have 3 casts of a healing skill, two of which are 3 seconds of healing based on damage you do. And your axe 5 along with hammer 2 -> 5 -> 2 combo provide massive damage to heal from.
And then there's the low cd and condi cleansing Mending which is always useful.
All this sprinkled with passives  from Defense line - Adrenal Health, 5s protection from healing skill (because you got massive boon duration) and resolution when you eat a crit.

And there are other avenues of surviving a fight if needed. Might Makes right + Forceful Greatsword for one.
Your might will not only heal you now but also restore some endurance. As do your bursts. As does Eternal Champion trait.
Not only will you get some extra passive healing, but a lot of free dodges along the way if needed.

Anti - condi is pretty solid as well - Mending cleanses 5 condies on 12s cd, which is awesome, and then there's Shake it Off! to deal with any stray conditions in between if needed.
When facing some major condi abuse you can swap Stalwart Strength for Cleansing Ire, if the near perma Stab is not necessary.

SUPPORT:
While not a healer, you do have large impact on allies around you.
By default anyone going near you will be capped on might and fury, because every source of it you use for yourself affects nearby allies as well.
Except maybe the reckless dodge trait, but you'll live that down somehow 😉
If grouped and feeling safe about your odds of surviving, you can easily swap Dead or Alive to Heat the Soul for some quickness share.
And the "Shake It Off!" never left being both aoe condi cleanse and a stunbreak.
With big fat servings of might, fury, quickness and Shake it Off! keeping them on their feet and hitting, your impact is no joke.

ATTACK:

If you're going Defense 3-3-3 (and you are), your hammer will be hitting like a ton of bricks and providing good AoE damage along with it's big cc.
Mace + Axe only push this further.

Needless to say your cc game is strong with this one.
So you can add that to support as well - it'll be easy for you to break enemy bars and give your team opportunities to hit their hardest.
Also once again that Dead or Alive choice comes into play. When in organized group with a healer you can swap it not only for Heat the Soul, but also for Blood Reaction if you want maximum damage. Pair that with Bloody Roar and you can use this build in raids/strikes/fractals etc.

The big play in this build is abusing your Sigil of Severence for some big precision and ferocity boosts.
Imagine you land an interrupt with mace (quite doable) or dagger (real easy). Next 4 seconds you get 11.9% extra crit chance and 16.6% more critical damage.
Now pop that healing skill for 10%  more damage from peak performance, and signet of Fury for 24% more crit damage (and around 8.5% more crit chance compared to passive mode). Then you press axe 5 and enjoy the carnage...
All this is quite doable if you're under effect of quickness which you can get from axe 4, and entering/leaving berserk mode if using Eternal Champion grandmaster.

While this does carry periods of imperfect critical chance and dps loss that follows, it's not a big issue as this is burst-based build.
There are hard hitting skills and combos (Axe 5, hammer 2 -> 5 -> 2) and the rest is mediocre so it's ok the boost the big ones at expense of the rest.

Will it do absolutely best damage? No.
But given how much it brings to the table it won't be an issue.
For example if they're really picky about not running a meta build, you can equip a dagger instead of mace  and go support mode with heat the soul.
DPS that can strip boons, cap his group on might, fury quickness and still bail them with aoe stunbreak should be welcomed by any sane group leader.
 

Interesting.  I always struggle with warrior builds. It seems difficult to fit everything you need into the build between boons, damage boosts, adrenaline, and whatever defensive options you need.  Your build seems like it sacrifices a lot of damage to cover boons and defense, while relying on synergy with disabling effects on weapons that otherwise seem to have low base damage and damage coefficients.  Any idea what the ballpark DPS of this build might be in a moderate length fight (e.g. a 30-60 second champ solo)?  I like the concept.  It would be really cool to use maces and hammer and I am a big fan of relic of the midnight king for disable builds.  But is the damage there?  On paper axe looks like it deals way more damage!

[Joxer.6024]

43 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Interesting.  I always struggle with warrior builds. It seems difficult to fit everything you need into the build between boons, damage boosts, adrenaline, and whatever defensive options you need.  Your build seems like it sacrifices a lot of damage to cover boons and defense, while relying on synergy with disabling effects on weapons that otherwise seem to have low base damage and damage coefficients.  Any idea what the ballpark DPS of this build might be in a moderate length fight (e.g. a 30-60 second champ solo)?  I like the concept.  It would be really cool to use maces and hammer and I am a big fan of relic of the midnight king for disable builds.  But is the damage there?  On paper axe looks like it deals way more damage!

I am the same. Struggle to get Warrior to "work", so this intrigues me for sure. Big dps isnt an issue for me but I too am curious as to what it can do. Thanks for this!!!  😉

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 minutes ago, Joxer.6024 said:

I am the same. Struggle to get Warrior to "work", so this intrigues me for sure. Big dps isnt an issue for me but I too am curious as to what it can do. Thanks for this!!!  😉

 

People say that DPS doesn't matter but...doesn't it?  It would feel bad to play a build that deals half the damage of another build that can cover the bases without sacrificing so much, right?  This is a problem for a lot of power builds.  You pretty much need close to full DPS stats, as many damage boosts as possible, along with good access to fury, might, quickness, and ideally vulnerability just to keep up with condition builds that don't have any of those limitations.

For example, I play condition weaver and power untamed primarily.  Power untamed is one of the most gifted builds in the game for solo play, with easy access to fury, might, quickness, and vulnerability, tons of CC, tons of damage boosters, and even pretty excellent sustain.  My condition weaver has hardly any boons, but can slap on full trailblazer for over 20k health and 3k armor, run sword/focus with its ridiculous array of active defenses and still pull upwards of 25k DPS.  The power untamed in full offensive gear and traits can push quite a bit higher (30k+), but if I need more sustain I end up dropping down to somewhere in the same ballpark as the condition weaver.

What does that mean for power builds that can't generate 30k+ DPS on self-boons and don't have great baseline sustain like power untamed?  How is it going to feel if you're slumming it at 12k DPS because you can't get the boons you need without giving up a ton of damage with your relic/sigils/runes, weapons, traits, and utilities mostly devoted to generating boons and sustain?

That's the problem I run into with warrior builds (except bladesworn, but I just don't like the feel of it).  But maybe I just don't know how to build warrior correctly?  So I'm curious what sort of DPS one could expect from the listed build.   

[StraightPath.3972]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Interesting.  I always struggle with warrior builds. It seems difficult to fit everything you need into the build between boons, damage boosts, adrenaline, and whatever defensive options you need.  Your build seems like it sacrifices a lot of damage to cover boons and defense, while relying on synergy with disabling effects on weapons that otherwise seem to have low base damage and damage coefficients.  Any idea what the ballpark DPS of this build might be in a moderate length fight (e.g. a 30-60 second champ solo)?  I like the concept.  It would be really cool to use maces and hammer and I am a big fan of relic of the midnight king for disable builds.  But is the damage there?  On paper axe looks like it deals way more damage!

Both the damage and adrenaline are there I can assure you.

Merciless Hammer, Headbutt, Signet of Fury - there's the answer to adrenaline gain issues.
You will not have a hard time filling that adrenaline bar when needed.

As for damage - it will be bigger than you think and can be pushed much further without much hassle.
I will elaborate here a bit, but given you're interested in some answers I hope you'll read on.

There is damage you already have but not aware of, and a lot of extra damage you can get easy, because this build is very adaptive.
Starting with first one:

• Hammer - you mistakenly lumped it together with mace thinking it a low damage option. Simply not true.
  Proof of this is 40k Power Spellbreaker build used in Snow Crows benchmarks. It uses Hammer, it does not use discipline. Which means Hammers fends on it's own, without being a "switch to it for combo and get back to the real weapon" pick.
• Sigil of Severence + Signet of Fury - these do not show in the build editor stat screen but used together they provide 40% more crit damage (additive). That's your little secret dps burst for axe 5 or hammer combo.
• CC - do not underestimate value of good crowd control in all types of fights. Hitting for less but vs a stunned/broken enemy may still be the better dps then hitting your hardest against an enemy that constantly forces you do dodge/reposition or plain flee for your life until healing cooldowns come back up.
   

Building extra damage is quite easy as well, here are few good options:

• switch Dead or Alive to Blood Reaction - now your ferocity (with Sigil of Severence and Signet of Fury) can spike to even ~303% crit damage!
• Switch Eternal Champion to Bloody Roar - 15% bonus damage when in Zerk Mode.
• Switch FJG or Shake it Off for Signet of Might - 180 extra power.
• Switch mace for dagger - same story as hammer - it holds it's own very well dps wise.
• Switch relic to a dps one (like fireworks)
• Switch Sigil of Concentration to Sigil of Impact

These changes should be applied with some critical thinking in the process.
If you're going into organized group with a dedicated support, you can easily switch a lot of your sustain for pure damage.
Swapping skills, traits and relics is a no-cost process that can easily be applied and reverted from fight to fight.
Heck you can even make two variants (balanced and RAAWR dps) of this build and save them as templates.

On the other hand, in the wild you should be careful what you pick. As you learn your enemies better you may gradually take less sustain for more damage, or less support for more solo damage.
 

 

Edited May 4 by StraightPath.3972

[Gaiawolf.8261]

11 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Interesting.  I always struggle with warrior builds. It seems difficult to fit everything you need into the build between boons, damage boosts, adrenaline, and whatever defensive options you need.  Your build seems like it sacrifices a lot of damage to cover boons and defense, while relying on synergy with disabling effects on weapons that otherwise seem to have low base damage and damage coefficients.  Any idea what the ballpark DPS of this build might be in a moderate length fight (e.g. a 30-60 second champ solo)?  I like the concept.  It would be really cool to use maces and hammer and I am a big fan of relic of the midnight king for disable builds.  But is the damage there?  On paper axe looks like it deals way more damage!

DPS is good if that what drives you, but it isn't necessary to optimize if you have decent sustain. As far as boons go, those are strictly not necessary for solo OW. They just enhance what else you got going on, but most solo builds are totally viable without them. That said, you can absolutely use boons to flesh out a build that's underperforming in some areas, just not for warriors.. It's just a matter of what approach you want to take.

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

DPS is good if that what drives you, but it isn't necessary to optimize if you have decent sustain. As far as boons go, those are strictly not necessary for solo OW. They just enhance what else you got going on, but most solo builds are totally viable without them. That said, you can absolutely use boons to flesh out a build that's underperforming in some areas, just not for warriors.. It's just a matter of what approach you want to take.

This is a thread discussing the best builds for open world.  Optimization is implicit.  The OP also provided further context, mentioning their favored build is power untamed, which is (afaik) the highest damage build for solo play in the game at this time.  They are wondering if SC or anyone else has anything that might make for a competitive alternative.  

That is why I was asking for more detail regarding the damage output of the suggested warrior build.  As you say, it isn't necessary for a build to optimize damage in open world in order to be viable.  So a lot of the builds people share for open world don't have that in mind as a priority.  As a result, they tend to deal mediocre damage.  SC's new open world builds do prioritize damage in most cases because, as they put it, there are already good resources for extreme sustain builds (e.g. Hizen).  I think they correctly guessed that what many players like myself and the OP are looking for are builds that provide sufficient sustain, but otherwise prioritize damage.

As for SC's execution?  It needs some work, in my opinion.  On both of the classes I play enough to feel comfortable commenting on their builds, I feel like I could produce better damage, sustain, or both, probably by a pretty significant margin.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

This is a thread discussing the best builds for open world.  Optimization is implicit.  The OP also provided further context, mentioning their favored build is power untamed, which is (afaik) the highest damage build for solo play in the game at this time.  They are wondering if SC or anyone else has anything that might make for a competitive alternative.  

That is why I was asking for more detail regarding the damage output of the suggested warrior build.  As you say, it isn't necessary for a build to optimize damage in open world in order to be viable.  So a lot of the builds people share for open world don't have that in mind as a priority.  As a result, they tend to deal mediocre damage.  SC's new open world builds do prioritize damage in most cases because, as they put it, there are already good resources for extreme sustain builds (e.g. Hizen).  I think they correctly guessed that what many players like myself and the OP are looking for are builds that provide sufficient sustain, but otherwise prioritize damage.

As for SC's execution?  It needs some work, in my opinion.  On both of the classes I play enough to feel comfortable commenting on their builds, I feel like I could produce better damage, sustain, or both, probably by a pretty significant margin.

I'm not the biggest fan of sc's builds either, but they do a decent job at least for a starting point. I usually pick something from hardstuck or metabattle and tweak as I need to depending on my goal. There are a few professions where I go way off the grid and build my own thing, mostly for firebrand, mirage, and virtuoso builds.

For warrior and DPS builds in general, I agree with most of what you said, and my post was meant to expand on some of the warrior profession!s issues with solo optimization, and sustain which is also a concern for the op, not just dps.. I wasn't contradicting anything you said, because I agree with it.

Edited May 4 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Habanero.9384]

On 5/1/2024 at 9:47 AM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

As you are asking for class/build, I usually go for this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEE6MsMBGHzh5xKxz7qq5D-DSZYbBxME1Ac4mLjArg0TBVfLITNCqA-e

That is a customized Power Reaper with a few modifications to drastically enhance its sustain. There are two variants. The one I have linked is the one I personally use, because I can solo even fractals with it. The one I usually give to new players uses full berserker's stats, dragonhunter runes and Impact/Force sigils instead. Just using slightly different traits and a different relic compared to the meta. The reason is simple. When they get skilled and want to follow the meta strictly, they do not have to replace almost everything ^^. And in the early stages of the game, even if you dive into endgame content head first, boon-uptime is completely neglected.

Anyway. The one I have linked passively builds up Carapace (+20 toughness, + 10 power, + 10 condition damage per stack) while in combat. You can easily get 25-30 stacks while in Reaper Shroud, as your auto-attack constantly spams Vulnerability on your target. Each stack of Vulnerability on the target adds +2 % critical hit chance. Which means if you fight something with more HP, you automatically end up at ~ 90 % critical hit chance without fury. Reaper does not have Fury, so there is nothing to worry about.

The boon-duration is optimized to help you maintain 100 % quickness & protection uptime. Just follow the Soul Barbs icon, which tells you when it is time to leave Reaper's Shroud. Then use your normal weapons until RS is ready again and switch back.

Your  toughness and the Carapace grant you 1825 toughness under perfect conditions. In combination with the permanent protection uptime, you take very little damage compared to the other players. That should be enough to balance out your weak healing skill. The biggest mistake you can do as a reaper is trying to heal like a normal class. Your skill is way too weak to start healing at 50 % HP or lower. You have to start using it at 80-90 % already, or you will not be able to survive longer encounters. 

This build is technically capable of surviving even the nastiest attacks we have in GW2. The reason for this is the Spectral Armor. If we have any necromancer mains in this thread, they already ponder why the heck I use that piece of junk XD. It has quite a ridiculous synergy. Under normal circumstances it is completely impossible to collect life-force while in Shroud. Spectral Armor converts incoming damage into Life Force. So if you use Spectral Armor right before entering Reaper's Shroud, the effect still works. That means that a portion of incoming damage that lowers your life-force fills it again. This can also be used to maintain longer Reaper Shroud phases, when fighting zergs of enemies. 

You can cleanse conditions with your heal-skill, your 8 skill and your elite skill. Skills 7-9 are stun-breaks, which is very convenient on a Reaper. 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skale_Venom_(consumable)

This works in Open World and a few instances ANet forgot to block it. If you have this buff active, you can easily maintain 25-30 stacks of Carapace both inside and outside of Shroud. You vomit even more Vulnerability on your targets. It is blocked in Fractals, Raids and Strikes. But still works in story-instances. The problem is to re-apply it every 10 minutes, as the duration does not stack. But the effect on this build is unrivaled compared to other utility-food. 

[Edit] Regarding Snowcrows, no. All the builds I use and share, I've created, tested and optimized on my own. I know a lot of people benefit from their guides and builds. Which is nice. I'm just not one of them.

I was looking for a build like that. I have a full set of Celestial and Berserker (exotic). So I tried to mimic the stats of your build by mixing them and using Fireworks runes. This is what I came up with:   http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEE6MsMBGHzh5xKxz7qq5D-DyQYhoGdUDH+ZEoKIdpgifLITNCqA-e
Would that work?
Appreciate your effort, I learned quite a lot from your post. Thank you
--
edit: typo

Edited May 21 by Habanero.9384

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

On 5/1/2024 at 2:47 AM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

 

As you are asking for class/build, I usually go for this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEE6MsMBGHzh5xKxz7qq5D-DSZYbBxME1Ac4mLjArg0TBVfLITNCqA-e

That is a customized Power Reaper with a few modifications to drastically enhance its sustain. There are two variants. The one I have linked is the one I personally use, because I can solo even fractals with it. The one I usually give to new players uses full berserker's stats, dragonhunter runes and Impact/Force sigils instead. Just using slightly different traits and a different relic compared to the meta. The reason is simple. When they get skilled and want to follow the meta strictly, they do not have to replace almost everything ^^. And in the early stages of the game, even if you dive into endgame content head first, boon-uptime is completely neglected.

 

I like that someone else also came up with a high boon duration Reaper. I’ve been using mine for a while now. A bit different execution, but same idea. 
 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAExzlJwUYesGWJO2OvNPA-DSJYwRNfZEWKEYFo2KhYSAIqHu/zSgzAQFA-e

I went for even more sustain and a tiny bit better aoe chill to deal with those scenarios. Blighters boon is funny now as it can keep you in shroud as long as you hit things and aren’t taking too much damage. For Relics, I recommend the new Sorcerer one. 3 vuln per chill/cripple/immobilize equals faster crit cap spikes and easier times maintaining 30 carapace stacks. Reaper and midnight king work nicely too. Sword/sword swap is just for flavor, use whatever power weapons you want.

Edited May 23 by UncreativeGreen.2019