f13.net

I've decided to give it a shot. But I'm still completely clueless on what I want to do.

I'm Xing out Warrior/Ranger. A little too bland. Thief seems like a twitchy/positioning based class, so no on that either. Mesmer seems to have a ton of "this class needs a lot of work" attached to it.

So really, it's Guardian, Necro, Elementalist, or Engineer. Which...decisions, decisions.

Did anybody play any Guardian?

I'm going asura elementalist... this has been locked in ever since BWE1. Great support options, super-long range (a must for wvw) and the squishiness doesn't bother me.

Not too sure about alts yet... asura guardian is probably going to happen at one point (seriously, have you guys seen those animations?!), and maybe a human ranger just to brag/show off my awesome HOM petssee Anet's take on a pet class. Not very keen on melee/close-range classes like warrior/thief/necro due to my Eastern Europe -> US ping (international guild...). Guardian is an exception since they're pretty much the antithesis of twitch.

I enjoyed Thief, Ranger, Warrior and Mesmer during the weekend betas.  Guardians elementalists necros and engineers didn't impress me much.

I really like the jumpiness of the thief animations. Run speed trained is insane. Bow is decent for WvW. The wire pull is hilarious.

But elementalist has a lot more skills. And offers a lot more utility. The multimob skills mean faster leveling.

I am also not a huge fan on every single coat looking like 1960 tuxedos with tails on the medium armor.

I played each class to at least 7. Guardian was a nice melee buffer. The ground based AoE runes for your abilities were a tad confining when you consider all the movement on the battlefield - but that pertains to anyone laying down a field for others to fire through or stand in/around. That is a pain in the ass along with that third strike on the autoattack - takes forever and a day to go off. In order to run ranged, you need a scepter or a staff for spell casting... which just feels silly to me for some reason.

Asura engineer. 

The Norn and Human starting areas were ok, but the Asura zone was way more interesting.  I didn't try the other zones yet.  I also liked the way the Asura looked...my little guy was pretty cool.

Engineer because I'm just attracted to it like I always have been.  The profession in WOW, the class in WAR.  Commandos in old SWG.  I like the ranged weapons and the granade use.  I have a feeling the granades will come in very handy at higher level W3, what with the cc and aoe.  I also tend to gravitate towards the classes that people generally say are weak, because usually I end up find a way to make it work and I enjoy that challenge.  But if I fail I can just tell myself that the class is underpowered  :grin:

I really wanted  make charr thief. But I just have to go with asura :( -the size advantages asura have are too enticing to pass on even though I hate that race. Also there was one problem with char - due to peculiar running animation jumping puzzles with them  are just so much more harder for me

I'd always intended on having an Asura Mesmer for a main as it was one of my favourite professions in the original, but that very much depends on how much work they do on it between now and release. I love the aesthetics of it and really want to like it but just it's not quite there yet for me.

If that doesn't work out then like Zetor probably an Asura Elementalist or Guardian (can't get enough of those animations either :awesome_for_real:) with a Sylvari Necro alt. And then my altaholism will get out of hand and I'll end up with one of everything.

Norn Warrior and Asura Ranger. I had way too much fun with my warrior.

Most likely my human mesmer, and hopefully they get sorted out in good order.

From trying out some PvP late, it seems like pistol/pistol condition builds are quite excellent.

Engineer is anything but weak. in top4 if not top 3 . It is also very fun to play

Sylvari Mesmer
Sylvari Ranger
Sylvari Necro (see a trend yet?)
Asura Warrior
Norn Thief

Charr Ranger
Human Elementalist (probably Human)

I even have names picked out for all but the Elementalist.

You know the only advantage is visibility, hit box is exactly the same.

It's a feeling thing for me. Large looming characters just feel sluggish and slow.

That said, I was hoping Asura would be not so candy coated. I'll probably roll up a human - possibly an engineer.

Do the personal stories link up after the Background / Your Plot Hook first two arcs?

Or if you're a human, are you going to be stuck in human stories forever?

Asuran warrior, elementalist, or ranger.  I'm still not sure.

There is however, a lot to be said for Norn Luchador

Norn Warrior.  The ranged options and gap closers both looked solid so should be good times.  After that it's pretty wide open.  I'll have to play more and see.  If I had to pick now it would be Necro or Eng.

Also, all this Asura love is frightening.

Charr Necromancer. Necro for life.

Human Rifle-woman (Warrior).
Norn Guardian
Asura Necromancer.

I was sure going into the test it was going to be a Sylvari. But the Asura turned out to be more fun and I preferred the art aesthetic.

Thief for me probably.  I wanted to do ranger without all the trap/pet crap (fully realistic in GW1 but not here).   Thief seems to be the only one close to that.  Not sure on race.  The human story started out pretty snorific.

Asura Thief.  Was planning to go Mesmer but they were pretty sucky in BWE3.  They said they are working on them but since trying Thief out I really like the class  my decision is made

I tried an engineer this weekend and they aren't weak at all now. With a Healing turret down they see, very difficult to kill and they get good dps from the pistols now. The reworking seems to have accomplished wonders.

Oh look, isn't that Billy Preston?

Nord Guard.  I actively tried other race/classes, and I'll likely roll a Sylv Ranger to level with the Guard, but Nord Guard.  I really enjoyed the guardian class playstyle.

I've got a smoking live album of him when he was with King Curtis, need to track down the Aretha album that completes it, Curtis's band stayed on to back Aretha, another smoking album.

Anyway. Mesmerizing, indeed.

Yeah and visibility is huge. even  in spvp there is a lot of cases when asura is not visible while everyone else is. You can hide your tiny asura inside huge norn or char etc. In WvW its gonna be even more of a factor -you can hide inside siege engines,  inside other people and tab targeting you among 40 other people wont be realistically possible. While there still name tags and such to click asura do have significant advantage in that department.

Visibility is very important in GW2 as most skills have visual queues and animations and if you know what they are you can time your dodge accordingly. You can't do that vs asura whom you cant even see

Something I'm not quite clear on: with instant lvl80 characters, as long as you've got the slots, you can just create whatever characters for pve,  Asura characters for pvp, and then use the pvp currency to buy stuff for your Asura?

Despite having made one in GW1 and then gotten stuck with "wow this class sucks" I'm going for an elementalist. Asura.

Well, technically, my first character will be whatever the default is because I plan to be spamming the "go to the end" thing at the minute of launch to grab the one word name i want.

If you have that name in GW1 all you have to do is link your account and log into GW1 before launch and it will be reserved for you.  Conversly if someone else in GW1 already has the name they can reserve it by doing the same, so spamming through is most like not necessary.  Although I do just whip through the character design appearnce stuff since I don't really care about it.  Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a random button for appearance so I'll look mostly stock for whatever race I end up playing.

You can only reserve two-word names that way, though (GW1 names need to be two words).

I'll be reusing one of my GW1 names for nostalgia, but otherwise I tend to go with one-word names... so I'll be hammering on the login screen with Numtini at launch/headstart  :awesome_for_real:

e: incidentally, my main in GW1 was/is an elementalist as well. Super-gimped in pve until the recent-ish elementalist patch, but with 7 heroes all you need is 3 pve skills and Assassin's Promise anyway.  :heart:

I'm looking for a one word name. Specifically my name Kathy.

My GW1 names should be reserved, but I was going to log in again today just to make sure it was marked as active and between May and today my entire NC Soft account has been banned. Again. I've already done the phone thing once. I'm not doing it again. I hope GW2 has better security.

Ya, really hope the phone app is done before live.

Not 'stuck' so much as each selection in character creation is its own story.  You may or may not interact with other races, but your story is your own.

That doesn't prevent you from running around other racial starting areas.

Hey man, if you play a Norn named George I'll play an Asura named Kuato.

The instant characters are for battleground pvp only.

Here (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Racial_skill) is the list of racial skills for reference.

I think the cast of Seinfield would be more fun....It would be a party...that does nothing.

Sylvari Mesmer (assuming they get fixed to some degree)
Sylvari Necro

We'll see.

I don't even know what the classes are! Yay!

Will probably be Guardian if I play at release. I commented on it in the impressions thread - I focused on harassment and crowd control rather than buffing and support. Not sure how useful it is but it gave me something to do in PvP other than plink away with a ranged weapon at the closest target all the time. Run in, pin a target, punt it towards your zerg, pop defensive skills while people waste CDs on you, win your team a few inches of ground and maybe a kill.

Asura Elementalist: small package, lots of WvW utility. 

Played a ranger during the first BWE and it was much more fun than I expected and will probably be my second class.  Ranger was my "least likely on release" class, but it surprised me.  I think most of the classes will be like that. 

Elementalist Fern.

Human Thief.

Sylvari Elementaliist.
Sylvari Mesmer

If I get the time I'll have to make a Norn Ranger.  The Norn lore and storyline is just too perfect for a Ranger...and Rangers specced heavily into Spirits appeal to my love of support classes -- they actually feel a lot like playing a WoW Shaman in that build.

Human mesmer (since I've played it the most) and joining a hardcore pvp guild or asura engineer (since I've tried neither asura nor engineer) and playing alot more casually.

Leaning towards the more casual side of things...

Sylvari something. Maybe guardian.

Same boat.

I know nothing about this game except that I enjoyed GW1 and havne't heard anything bad.

Will probably be the first game in a while I go in 'cold' and just pick at selection.

Not sure if this video has been posted anywhere, but after watching it I'm ridiculously pumped for this game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TgAf4lbvTM

Just a small tip that I'd like to pass around.  If you're the type of person that picks small races because you can hide behind stuff, then if you play a Mesmer you should pick a bigger race (Charr/Norn).  Creating clones just adds more stuff in your enemies field of vision thus allowing other players to hide behind or dodge behind etc. 

It's not a big tip, but it's something to think about.

Human's overplayed, Charr and Asura I can't stand aethetically, so I'm looking at Sylvari or Norn.   Class-wise, I Haven't played a beta weekend yet, but have watched videos.  So I'm kind of just guessing here.  The classes that have looked the most fun:  Thief, Necro, Guardian, Elementalist.  Guardian and Elemantalist are being played by my two closest buddies, so I'm torn between thief and necro.  Norn thief is just silly, so either Sylvari Thief or Norn Necromancer. 

Are melee Necros as fun as they look to play?  The videos I've seen of them just look ridiculously badass.

I love the way thief looks to play as well:  Popping in and out of stealth, very mobile.  Not sure if it has any decent utility though.  I also have no idea if there are some classes with better synergies than others.  Considering I'll be playing quite a bit with a Guardian and an Elementalist, is there any synergistic reason to pick Thief or Necro?

Guardians are a snoozefest.  At least at low level.

Really though, a lot of it is dependent upon class and weapon combination.

The only class I didn't like from the most recent beta weekend was the Necro (lvl 10 or so) because I didn't feel any of my spells had any fancy visible feedback / impact compared to the other classes.  It was one of the classes I thought I would like the most so I was surprised it didn't resonate with me.

Warrior and Guardian let me herpderp through pve content with ease, and I prefer Guardian just because I like the look of the spell effects like spitting fire with the torch offhand compared to the relatively tame Warrior animations.  Thief required a lot more planning and I died the most with this class; the double pistol attacks are never got old to watch.  I didn't care for Ranger pets or Engineer turrets so builds without either of those would be nice to explore.

I liked the Norn starting area the most.  I don't know if it was smaller than the other starting areas but I felt like there was much less running and I never had to search for appropriate level content.  I also hate the Norn voiced comments during level up the most, go figure.  I'd take another race to the Norn area but then I would miss the personal story stuff.

edit:  I forgot to mention the Mesmer 2H sword ranged attack makes a "clank clank clank" sound that will drive you, and everyone around you, insane.

I agree with your statement of Necros.  I love the minions, but you have to constantly resummon them which is fucking annoying.  Also your opinion of their skill feedback is spot on.  You get no real visible feel for their attacks.

Guardians are pretty cool, but I'm not sure if I enjoy their playstyle.  Last time I played one, they didn't have a viable ranged spec.  I've heard that they've changed stuff with the sceptre though.

Arenanet has stated that Necros were one of the worst off classes and in the need of the most balancing for diversity.  By other comments made by Jon Peters I assume it's only second to mesmer (which they also stated needs a good balancing and fun factor improvement).

Necros were by far the most tanky class with their multiple health bars.

One problem with Necros is that their Death Shroud abilities suck.

I enjoy hammer guardians. I didn't like the 2h sword feel even if the skills seem strong. Staff is also pretty brutal as shotgun type damage skills go.

I'm hoping to start off with a mesmer, since every BWE I've loved them a bit more.

This.  While I like my Necro, I disliked Death Shroud because I used two abilities of it.  The other two seemed useless.

Well, I just love Elementalists.  They have biggest kit of any class except maybe Engineers which I have no interest in.  Kit being the tools used to deal with a variety of scenarios on the field battle.

I am flirting with having an engineer as my main out of the gates, but looking at that ability/kit list is daunting.

It's only bad if you try and roll with a bunch of kits. I personally used just the flame thrower because it's fucking awesome.

If you don't play an Asura with an afro you are doing it wrong.  Just saying.

The head start starts at midnight pacific time on the 25th.  Although if the BWEs are any indication it might very well start an hour or two earlier.

That seems a bit odd (is that 2 or 3AM on the east coast?) but is great for us EU folks :grin:

There is still a fair bit of confusion about exactly what hour it starts.

That's 3am EST and would suuuuuck.  Would end up being like 5am before sane people could log in.  Fuck PST up its stupid ass.

It's 10am for me which is pretty pretty much ideal start for a whole day of gaming (unless it turns out to be 12+ hours of waiting for the game to be fixed due to some unforeseen problems and then being too tired of waiting to care when it's finally fixed)

oh they also announced a four hour stress test for tomorrow starting at noon pacific.

Their countdown thingy (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/) does not seem to correspond to midnight PST though.

They clarified that on Twitter. The countdown thing is wrong and will be fixed.

The countdown is just lazy coding from someone counting to the noon of 25th in the local time of whoever is browsing

I still can't make up my mind, i enjoyed every single class except guardian.

I'm going to use the stress test tomorrow to try out guardian, but I'm fairly certain that I'll go with a norn warrior when the game goes live.

First character I'll MAKE is ~Orlando Fabuloso~, human mesmer. My first real character is more likely to be Sjofn the Norn Warrior, though.

Every class I try there are a few things that just make you go..."damn this is fun!"

The last stress test clinched it, I will start with a Norn Warrior named Tmon Vru.  I'm going Norn because of the awesome mutton chops.

I have no idea what my eventual permanent character will be. But I'll be starting as <something> Elementalist (which I hear is the thing to do) and <something> Engineer (because the abilities look fun).

Any advice on races? Was thinking Charr Engineer since their racials are all gadget-y, but not sure on Elementalist. I've played Humans and Elves to death but the Asura are a bit too furry-esque cutesy for me. I'd love to research but the most complete info seems to be on the guildwars2 wiki (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Racial_skill) which is loading crazy slow, due to what I would hope is a crush of pre-launch interest rather than improper scaling :-)

edit: pages finally loaded. I loved my Mage Engineer in WoW so heck, am thinking Charr Elementalist. But looking again at the Asura, they're reminding me of the Gnomes with their lore and their even gadget-y ness.

Anyone have an experience absolutely loving Engineer? I've seen lots of love for Elementalist already.

I like the little people - but I browsed there racial weapons and gear and I was sadly disappointed. I get that they are tinkerers and such, but fuck me everything in terms of gear just smacked of Draenei. Norn or Human I go...

I had fun with engineer.   Had a lot of nice tricks for PVP and the damage really wasn't bad either.

A Warrior banner has a 10s swiftness buff on a 15s cooldown.  That's enough to make me go Warrior, although the look of the Guardian's torch attacks may trump being able to zoom around everywhere.

Either way I will be making a Norn, super-sized. I couldn't see anything in melee with smaller races.

The big thing for me with the Asura is their combat animations. Shades of Yoda.

Thieves have a 25% run speed passive signet and can get swiftness on dodging (not to mention regain endurance and leave caltrops behind).  If mobility is key for you thieves are by far the best choice.

Run speed boosts cap at 33%

My guess is that at raw traversal GS/Warhorn Warrior and D/D eles may be faster, but thieves are not far behind.

What racials have the best synergy with a Necro?  I was thinking Asura for the small size as I prefer to PvP/WvW, but am having my doubts.

Depends what you're looking for with them, really.  List of lists (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Racial_skill)

I wouldn't really sweat the racials.  They are disabled in sPVP, and more likely than not, or not as good as your class utility skills.

The Charzooka and Asura battle robot suit sound awesome but they are unlikely to be difference makers.

Yea someone was telling me the same thing today. Ah well. Guess I'll go for pure feel then. Still not sure what will be my first though.

Well then, good-bye guardian and hello thief.  I looked up a random video of a thief in action and this guy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zANoBf1ZgRY) seems to have quickness the entire match, but he has to work for it with dodging shenanigans.  I found the thief to be much less forgiving than a warrior so that will take some getting used to.

Nice build, pretty squishy, but some poor team decisions as far as tactics go such as going for the stomp while two of her teammates are pummeling and the down char still has an evade.  It doesn't take much to screw up a stomp. Nice playing though for the most part.  I like that thief.

(http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/video-game-memes-video-games-mesmer-is-the-best-class-apparently.jpg)

My first toon is still the Asura engineer no doubt.  But this thread and that picture put thief at a close second. 

PSYCHED FOR TONIGHT

Has the closed beta NDA been lifted yet? I'd really like to know if they've made any improvements to the Mesmer since the last BWE. I managed to take one for a brief spin during the stress test last night and the cooldown on the pistol phantasm (Illusionary Duelist?) seemed shorter than I remember but I only managed to unlock Scepter and Pistol skills.

I doubt the closed beta NDA will ever be lifted.  Assuming they do it like GW1, closed beta will continue with the new features and pvp testing

Closed Beta NDA will continue to be in effect.  BWE and release are all we can discuss.

Oh well thanks anyway, guess I'll find out soon enough. Think I'll just play it safe and roll an Ele to start with and give Mesmer a try as one of my alts.

Sylvari Elementalist as my "main", had the most fun with that class the little I played over the stress tests.

I still have no idea what I am going to play.  None of the classes really stand out for me. 

Made the mistake of making a sylvari last stress test... Fucking around with the colors and glow colors really made a bad ass character with another layer of customization. That and the mushroom head topper was icing on the cake - now I am definitely going to be making one... though it might not be my main.

I don't believe I have to stay up to 3am tonight to snag a name and that I have to hammer the servers for 3 hours in case they open early wink wink.

Dude.. it's all about the Asura with huge ears and a 'fro. 

Pretty much this. Make the fro pink for extra points.

Asuras are going to be priority PVP kill target #1 for me at all times. Damn creepy things.

If their racial gear wasn't so appalling - yeah, I'd be all in - just like FFXI with Taru and WoW with gnomes... but the gear is not my tastes.

You should have a lot of targets then, because I expect all the 'serious' PvPers to make Asura to make themselves less visible in the zerg.

Yeah I have to question the choice to have wildly differing sizes due to that, but we'll see what happens.

Not only that but with no casting bars it'll be more difficult to see what we are doing.

Piecing through the norn and the human gear... I like the human side of it so they win out for my investment character.  :awesome_for_real:

Where can i see this gear?

http://www.epicguildwars2.com/forum/m/2793707/viewthread/3706510-salad-screenshots-human-racial-gear

links to the other race's stuff at the bottom.

90 minutes to go ?

90 minutes to 270 minutes, depending on when they feel like opening.

Apparently I am a weirdo, all my lady characters have been way taller than all the other ladies I've jogged by.  :why_so_serious:

Norn Thief here, I can't resist Guild Wars and guns!

I've fallen in love with the Guardian.  Had to dick around with levels 1-10 of Warrior, Engineer, Thief, and Necro before discovering this.  Sword and shield or 2h sword are great for damage, healing and support, and I hope it continues into the high levels.  I don't know if it's an illusion but the abilities really seem to be among the best for solo exploration and general pve survivability. 

Still need to try this toon out in w3.

Sort of wish I had made a guardian, I see them just blow into enemies that I have to carefully prepare, dance around and play my ass off as an engineer to defeat.  However, that opinion seems widespread so now I assume they might get nerfed because they are one of the few classes that don't feel weak.  Maybe they'll buff the rest of us hahaahaaa no that never happens.

My guard to 19 is pretty monstrous. He does tend to just wade into stuff. Make sure to stack vitality and toughness as much as possible. I use greatsword almost exclusively, it's got my required push/pull of a leap and, err, pull ability. Nice aoe but the single target is a bit of a tank wearing things down deal. My main complaint is their ranged weapons aren't great and that does affect doing melee boss encounters.

Been playing my thief (16 now), she's much more fragile but fun in a different way. I've been playing with a condition loadout but I think I'm also going to stick with vitality/toughness for the most part. She's shortbow switched with dagger/dagger; pit trap and caltrops for kiting. Decent aoe and single target, especially finishing with daggers. She's the only character that's died, though (once from combat, once from falling off a vista).

Thief is nice in that she can sit outside melee aoe bosses and far enough away to actually see their ground ae, but she generally medals silver, but then so does the guard (and often bronze) because of the time he spends downed or running away to recover hp. If you want to make a strong boss fighting character, I'd say go for a ranged-based class like elementalist, or something with disposable pets like necro (I find ranger pets downed state annoying)

I hope they don't nerf the guardian.  Compared to the other classes I've played, the damage is lower.  For example, I can run into a group of mobs with a 2h hammer warrior and basically two shot them, with the tradeoff being less healing and defensive abilities.

And yea, thief is fun too.  I guess it's just gonna be a year of levling multiple toons  :grin:

I got my mace/shield tanking loadout with basically all the heal/regen abilities on 7-9 and the invulnerable elite skill. Spike dmg however, still drops the shit outta me - even stacking toughness and vitality. I have been better about timing my block abilities, but still... Once I start getting thumped enough to worry, I roll out of melee range and switch to scepter / torch. It is not at all bad for ranged.

Now that I'm getting close to 80 on my necro, I'm looking to try another class.  Can someone suggest a class that has spike damage potential?  My necro can put tons of damage on a target, but it's all condition based and takes a bit to resolve.  I'd really like to hit someone with a big alpha strike when they're low on hp as a finisher. 

Thanks.

First thing that comes to mind is warrior.

Played a war into the 30's in beta and wasn't impressed with the alpha damage.  Does it get better later?

Warrior or Thief for spike damage out of left field. Mesmer if you don't mind your spike being ruined by people wasting your clones during the setup.

Thief is insane spike damage, but you're pretty fragile.

Wife made a warrior thinking it would be like her DAOC warrior and more tanky; I keep telling her she made a berserker instead, which is ok with her as it was her alt.

I like my Asura warrior. She is not bad going axe/board - just lacks regen. However, she definitely fits the zerker role... dual-wielding axes is insanely fun.

Yeah, I'm still bouncing/vaguely waffling between warrior and thief but I think warrior is winning.  I passed some threshold on him in the mid-20s where I just stopped dying, and I don't know if it was equipment or points in Tactics or just a little extra caution or what - but whatever it was, he became some kind of death machine. 

Using 2 axes mostly as a whirling cuisinart, and if I'm in the middle of a long fight and something is alive and everything is on cooldown (rare), swap to greatsword for More Whirlwind Action.  Ranged weapons, fah!  My ranged weapon is a thrown axe.   :awesome_for_real:

Really the only points the thief have in its favor right now are the +25% move speed signet and the awesome dagger animations.  Those are big points, though... arrrgh!

2 axes + norn bear form and it'll be like the old days.

Raven. RAVEN! I chose raven on my guard.  :grin:

I'm enjoying the thief class a lot right now.  Up to lvl 22 and I'm using mostly duel wield pistols (unload ability has an awesome animation) for 1 or 2 mobs and a short bow for groups.  Crit and power specced atm but I might but some trait points into vitality and toughness because I die quite a bit. :ye_gods:

There's one quest in Blazeridge where the heartlady turns you into a tiny, knee-high raven to go and kill grawls at a crystal.  Think I was going to get beat down, I went in tentatively, but omg, I hit like a brick-shithouse and was an adorable little raven animorph thing.  One warning though: there's no way to escape from that lady's charmform quickly.

I like dagger offhand too much to go full gunslinger. The ricochet effect of the thrown dagger throw a cloud of poison you lay down first is too much fun and hits way too hard... AND spreads poison? Hell yeah.

I have been dicking around with a bunch of classes, and of all things, the elementalist has surprised me by being fun for me. Guardian is still my favorite, and I like the warrior pretty OK too, but I wasn't expecting to like the elementalist at all.

I should probably branch out, race-wise, I have three norns.  :awesome_for_real:

For some reason, despite the size difference, Norns remind me of Dwarfs from other MMOs.

They're both basically vikings.

Yep! Although usually dwarves are vikings with inexplicable Scottish accents.

Don't forget the pool classification.  One is below ground, one above ground.   :grin:

Thief may be squishy, but the kiting capabilities on pistol+dagger are insane. At level 22 I'll engage small groups of +5 melee mobs without thinking twice. Little risk of dying unless I kite them into ranged adds or fail to notice the "veteran" tag (both of which do happen a lot, but dying to +5s doesn't make me feel much less badass somehow).

I don't think anything can beat Warrior for spike damage.  Sword -> Flurry swap to Greatsword -> Hundred Blades and everything within 130 units is dead.  Only kicker is you have to have your Adrenaline built up to unleash the combo.

The other kicker is that your target has to stand still as a stone.

I'm playing Ranger.... Just like everyone and their dog it seems like o.O

Loving it, thought, using longbow and sword/warhorn combo and i'm just tearing through stuff :D
Was using a ranged pet at the beginning, but now i tend to switch ebtween 2 bears, and they just last forever and in cases where they're not quite sufficient, i can easily switch them out to another pet more fitted, or equip some defense skills.

Also, occasionally when i switch pets my Charr says "I choose you!" /snicker

Read the description on Flurry.  Immobilized...Immobilized...Immobilized...

Well after a couple of false starts and a reroll or two I finally decided to stick with my Mesmer and I'm really glad I did. It was a fairly slow start but picks up around level 20 and now in the 40s it's an absolute blast. Running Sword/Focus + Staff and my favourite combo right now is: Illusionary Leap, iWarden, Swap with leap clone, Blurred Frenzy, switch to staff and Phase Retreat followed by a Mind Wrack. Against most single mobs it's dead at that point. Groups of mobs take a bit more effort and I certainly can't mow them down like Warriors/Elementalists but I find the constant running/dodging/managing illusions very engaging and it keeps me from getting bored.

Had an awesome moment last night during an event in Bloodtide. There was one of those thief mobs that uses Dagger Storm clustered up with a load of his friends. I dropped a Feedback on him right as he started it and he was dead by the time he finished and had put a load of confusion stacks on his friends. Had me grinning from ear to ear for a good while afterwards.

No, that would be Guardian.

Heh, i'm actually thinking of creating a Guardian alt.... But i'm sseriously seeing more Rangers than anything else while running around

Yeah, I've run across more rangers, thieves, and warriors than guardians actually.

Is there a reason we do not have class threads in this forum yet?

Tried a few classes so far.  I haven't played too much due to a variety of factors (vacation, client instability, being a dad).  Here's my impressions so far.

Engineer: made it to 15 and got bored.  Don't really enjoy the mechanics of it at all.

Warrior: made it to 20 and I like the class.  It's a bit vanilla but not boring at all.  You got a lot of neat looking damage.  There seem to be a lot of warriors, however.  My favorite so far.

Mesmer: just started one and it's pretty wonky.  Sometimes I feel like my damage is OK, then I feel like I'm just plinking away. Very unique class, but I'm not sure it has enough punch for me.  I think I'll give it a few more nights.

Probably going to try a thief next.  I'm trying to find something that does decent damage, is fun mechanically to play, looks cool and has decent survivability.  From what I hear, thief might fall flat on the last point.

Is the human starting area/personal story any good?  Asura was OK, Norn is OK yet cheesy, and so far plant elves are just plant elves (lame as I would expect, but with a ton of plants v. zombies references). 

Human intro part is -has to be- exploitable. Every villager you tell to get their asses to the Inn is worth 2 karma. You can do that indefinitely... though it gets to be grating after 100+ villagers.

Oh you mean actually playing. Yeah... it is better than the other zones, though I enjoyed the feel of Norn more. YMMV.

Thief is a paper warrior with access to pistols and some cool ass abilities - but holy shit does my thief die way more than my warrior. I took warrior to 32 and then started working on my 18 thief. Same zones, same encounters - way more dying. Fun was about equal, but the warrior is asura and thief is human so asura animations win out.

I'll start a mesmer some time this week and plink around with that for a bit. I want a caster and have no desire for a pet caster or the elementalist.

I've run through just about all of the classes and ended up on a Mesmer last night after doing some reading yesterday instead of, you know, working. Wow is this class fun and engaging. It's like a Thief Illusionist or a standard D&D mage before everyone went all elemental DPS. I'm pretty enamored with it right now and having more fun that I've had yet with a class.



Edited to remark on race areas:

I didn't even know about the karma with the villagers. I didn't even realize you could talk to them and direct them to the inn. Wow... I should pay more attention.

My mesmer is a noble and I really like the story so far. Feels very heroic and more standard fantasy, which I'm cool with. Feels like the start of a D&D adventure where I'm dealing with lowly bandits but leading to bigger things.

I want to believe... but I've just never been able to get my Mezmer to work right.

I know it is boring, but the Warrior is the class that just works the best.  I also like the Ranger purely for exploration, look/feel, and Pet variables...but my warrior's ranged options are [sadly] somewhat better than the Ranger.  Since the game is so "explorey" I'm enjoying the Ranger the most so far.

Thief is definitely more fun, but the way the camera [doesn't] work makes him un-fun for me to play long-term (or until they make the camera snap to his over-shoulder view after all the movement).

My opinion of ranger is a thief with a pet hybrid class and not the typical MMO ranged non-magic DPS. My ranger had a bow for the kiting and plinking into the scrum, but sword/axe worked amazingly well with certain ability combinations. That poison strike followed up with the attack and jump outta range ability, then thrown axe followed by the return jump and finished with the axe tornado of blades ended pretty much any single NPC target I was up against... even etten.

I had pretty much the same start with the Mesmer. It doesn't really get going until around 20ish (utility skills and traits make a huge difference to them) but you're never going to be putting out huge damage numbers. Apart from iWarlock crits on mobs with a ton of conditions on them. If you like a very active class where you constantly have to adapt on the fly and think a couple of steps ahead then I'd say stick with. Personally, once it finally clicked with me it's hands down my favourite class to play in the game. There's a few decent threads on the guru forums that discuss weapons and traits which I found helpful when I was starting out.

I run a glamour mesmer. Greatsword/Staff (can go sword/pistol if you really need single target damage for a fight). The key is understanding that due to how their damage is stuck in the phantasms, you will be weapon switching like a mad man. Open fights with a clone skill (because your first anything out will be burst down to dead, so don't waste a phantasm), then phantasm/switch/phantasm/clone. Wait a few seconds for them to all get a hit in, then shatter with F1 for damage. It's rarely worthwhile to just sit on illusions since killing them is a decent chunk of AE damage. The only reason to sit on them is if you're being lazy killing a champion in a large group (at which point, three phantasms and go find a nearby mining node)

Mesmers are just weird, always have been and always will be. It's like, why they exist.

The best bit about being a mesmer: your #2 when downed teleports you and leaves a clone with a rez icon.

And every friendly for miles will run and rez your clone since they have no way of knowing which is which ><

The clones have a different color name, that's just people being dumb.

Mesmer shatter builds are awesome.  Once you get the GM trait Illusionary Persona, you can start spiking the crap out of things.  That trait essentially gives you 4 shatter effects if you have 3 illusions up.  You can hit up to 10-12k damage on a non-tanky target.

I'm working my way up to a 20 Dom, 20 chaos, 30 Illus build that reduces the CD on my GS and Staff.  +Confusion stats in the illusion line and stack condition/power.  I have no idea if it'll be better than a full blown phantasm build or a full blown power/precision shatter build.  We'll see.

I know people have already mentioned it, but once you start weapon switching the mesmer starts to feel more natural.

So Mesmer isn't all pink butterflies then?

Currently dicking around with an Engineer but have absolutely no idea what I should be doing or how to play it. Flamethrower's fun though.

I think the two dominant PvE options are:

rifle + power + utility skills that help you kite
pistol/pistol + condition damage + flamethrower

turrets are a no.

Just played against a tank mesmer in sPvP and it was annoying as fuck.

Think I might roll a giant fat norn mesmer for the lulz.

Turrets are ass in that they have long fucking cooldowns, do shitty damage, and take aggro and die quickly. Also, have a tendency to stand around attacking world objects instead of hostiles.

Rocket Turret and Flame Turret can be useful in dynamic events where you know what spawns where. Flamethrower still wins in that situation however. My engineer is pretty much pistol/grenade pack spec with elixirs in every other slot. Grenades will cause your 1 finger to die an early death however.

Can't you put your grenades on auto-cast and save your index finger? Or is there reason to not do that, like timing being important over spam while not casting other abilities)?

That's why I like my plant turrets for my elementalist. "Oops you are going to kill me? Here have some flowers to keep you occupied while I heal up."

I don't think you can do that with grenades, since they are ground targeted. You CAN do that with things like flamethrower #1, but for some stupid reason you need to do it every time you equip the kit, it's not automagically set to auto cast.

Grenades are awesome, but you basically have to spam the #1 and use fast ground target for the silly kit to work at all.

Pretty sure you can make any ability auto-fire with the ctrl+ hotkey combo. Hover over the hotkey for the ability and I think it shows that at the bottom of the mouseover tooltip. IIRC.

Yeah with ground targeting I'd rather not have it autocast even if it could, I prefer to have control over things of that nature and not use the auto target

I'll try tonight, but I have no idea how that would remotely function well with a GTAE skill. It would just.. spam fire wherever your cursor is at all times?

I'd assume. But think of the lulz.  :uhrr: :awesome_for_real:

This engineer video brought to you by Micheal Bay?

I don't get that at all. What I get from Norns is "Giant Vikings." I made a Norn warrior and suddenly my human thief is languishing, untouched.

Dwarves are often "short vikings" and shaped a lot like the Norn are, so it's not really that surprising. I guess the norn ladies are hotter than dwarf ladies usually are.

Ingmar totally has a crush on Eir Whatsherface. I am glad to have it reaffirmed he likes giant women.  :why_so_serious:

Doesn't work. Intentionally, as the -> icon is replaced by a lock.

Still liking the mesmer, but was in the mood last night for blowing shit up and burning things down with napalm. Oh ya! This is why I liked my engineer. Lots of knockdowns, knockbacks, roots and explosions. I just wish I could replace his face mask with a cigar.

If you're an engineer without grenades you're doing it wrong!

That doesn't work in PvP unless you charge them first, as no one stands there to take the full Hundred Blades which roots you. Even with charge, if they are good they can dodge away after they stand up and only get half of it, that's why I'd suggest to cripple them before charging in. At the end of hundred blades, quickly switch to double axes and go with the full burst skill (Eviscerate) which jumps to the enemy that should still be in range since he/she is crippled. Top it all with Whirling Axes which is good cause you can move and chanse them while you are at it. They SHOULD be dead at this point, but reality is way harsher than this. They are only going to be dead if they are poor players, or mobs. That's why, as far as I can tell, Greatsword warriors are pretty much seen as nooblets by default (myself included). I am curious to try a hammer spec, for control. Sounds interesting on paper.

If you were a Thief on the other hand... after triggering Quickness, between Pistol Whip and Heartseeker you would have a dead anything in a matter of three seconds, and you would still be in time to warp back to your Shadowstep location and have a tea with your daughter where she tells you about her grades. If a Warrior has something to object to it, shut them up by stealing and teach them how to do a proper Whirling Axes skill that does double their original damage.

Everyone seems to think guardians are op, i don't get why.

I got my thief to 32 last night.  Might see if I can get some runs in on the first dungeon (something Catacombs?) but I'm going to start working on my Norn warrior next who is currently 16.  Those are the 2 classes I've enjoyed the most so far.

Haven't PVPed with mine yet, but he is almost unkillable in PvE. Only time I get in trouble is when I am outleveled and outnumbered. I can take 3 or 4 mylevel+2s without batting an eye.

Yeah, people hate them cause even if they are not unkillable they certainly have a tendency to look like it. On top of that, while chain-knocking back everyone. I don't play a Guardian so I am aware this might be simply a problem of perception, but as I said they look pretty badass on the battlefield and they for sure feel pretty hard to kill. I mean, even their interrupt when downed is powerful. Mass knockback? Whoa.

My level 22 guardian hasn't died yet. Come close a couple times, but that's usually when an strong mob show up by mistake.

My ele doesn't have that problem, in the I'll-never-get-that-monthly Achievement sorta way :wink:

But, I find that there are very few situations I can't get out of no matter what shows up or spawns. I can quickly shift between various types of damage delivered in various DD/cone/AOE ways, and failing all that, usually have some escape mechanism.

Mind you, all this is trial and error. So I get downed a lot and probably die 2-3 times per session.

Which I'm ok with. Because "die" here is no more punitive than an involuntary trip to a waypoint  :awesome_for_real:

Same.  My warrior is 20 and my thief is 13.  Thief is just fun to watch, especially with dual daggers.  Mesmer and eng just didn't click with me, although I may give the mesmer some more attention later.

Thief is mighty squishy, while the warrior has hit a spot where it seems to be a perfect combination of whirling death and survivability.  For the thief I should probably put some points in Acrobatics or Shadow Arts, but Critical Strikes looks so fun.  :awesome_for_real:

The human area has left me feeling permanently underleveled.  Even with crafting a lot, I can't seem to get on level with the group quests I'm on.

Don't forget repairing your broken armor.

Engineer didn't click at all for me 'till I started focusing on kits (apart from elixir B, that is just too great not to take it).
One the of main advantages is they have almost no swap-cooldown (about as much as it takes to fire a single skill) and you can get some decent buffs from kit-swapping if you trait that way.

If I'm in a full-on fight it's almost no auto-attacks, just: skill, skill, swap, skill, swap, skill, skill ...
On it's own my engineer does ok, but it shines in support, sooo many options.

Mostly flamethrower (just too much fun not to use), grenades (for the fields, I don't stay in it 'cause spamming #1 drains my will to live) and elixir gun which isn't that hot on it's own but pretty good for support.
Can get hectic juggling all those skills though; it's a little like being an elementalist on crack, with a shield ... and a flamethrower.

Pistol + shield for main weapons.
I don't get the love dual pistols are getting; shield gives a decent length range-reflect/pushback (also a blast finisher if you release) and a 'captain America' style shield throw/daze (hits twice if you keep the target in it's path for the return); whereas the #4 fire-skill on pistols is pretty pointless if you have a flamethrower and the glue-field is nice, but again I can do almost the same with the elixir gun.

Hehe yea. Question: armor only breaks on death right, not downed state?

Yeah, mob death.  If you fall off a cliff, you don't take a durability hit UNLESS you were in combat when you dove off.

I've really been enjoying my warrior the last couple days. I still want to have 4 more swap spots (for axe/axe and sword/horn) but I've been running with greatsword/bow. Gather mobs with bow 1, then bow 3 aoe, bow 2, swap, greatsword 2, then whatever the flow dictates. I found it easier just to round up enemies because taking them on individually was too laborious.

Power/precision gear, precision trait, signets for them, too. I always forget to activate the non-weapon things, so at lower levels it's just easier for me to leave the signets on.

Greatsword 2 is probably going to get nerfed, with a crafted greatsword at level 11 I was hitting over 2k on a crit (though I can't move for the duration, nor can the mob, so it's a bit limited). CD is like 10s or something, it's nuts. And with greatsword, it's effectively an aoe.

Throw bolas + 100 blades is damn near a kill every time i use it in spvp.  Every beta weekend and stress test i expected it to be nerfed and it hasn't been.  Apparently the fact that it's one of the few abilities you must remain immobile to use and it takes about 5 seconds to do its full damage is balance enough.

The mob can move away, they just don't. Tested in PvP. Hundred Blades is totally ineffective without some crowd control just before it. That's why thieves' Pistol Whip is so annoying and in my opinion stronger. First, it stuns you. Second, like all the other thief's skills it doesn't have a cooldown if I remember correctly (Initiative doesn't really count as a cooldown).

It also does about a third of the damage of hundred blades.

IIRC, the stun is half of a second as well. Pistol Whip is pretty awesome, but it's really easy to get out of most of the damage. It's bola + hundred blades that basically says "is your CC break up? Y/N"

Pistol whip only stuns you for a quarter of a second, so no, not really.

Guardian suits me really well, and who doesn't like 12' tool armored female vikings?

Thieves have cool looking moves and long leather coats.. that's about enough by itself (given I hate pets so the other leather classes are out).

Engineers wear the same armor without pets.

I classify turrets as pets. Though I imagine there are engineer builds without deployables.

... less sexy moves though.

Yesterday I got my first 10pt trait skill with my warrior, that grants 40 precision per signet...and I run with all signets because I'm crappy at remembering those extra skills, so I like the passives. Put me over 100% crit and my already good dps went through the roof (in power/precision gear with a couple vitality pieces and precision mastercraft weapons). At level 20, that's just sick damage, stuff that was challenging for my thief and guardian I just burn through.

A bit flimsier, but feels almost more like a traditional thief than a warrior. One guy I was playing with for a bit saturday thought I was a ranger and offered me some ranger gear for saving his bacon a couple times :) Really enjoying the class a lot, though I still wish there were easier ways to bring forward the variety of weapons.

That will fade as you get higher in levels since it is a static 40.  It means low level warriors crit like crazy but its effect on a level 80 is no where near as large.

I went nuts with making alts and the finesse I use with a ranger or mesmer for multi-mob areas involving a veteran or two go out the window with the warrior who barrels in with banner swiftness, jams 1-5 with any weapon, eats all the food on the campfire and sprints off to the next area.

Yep, that's when I'll respec. Still, it's a lot of awesome levels coming up. Especially when I get the next one that grants might on crit.

I was running pretty close to 100% crit at level 30ish - now at 42 it's down to around 70%. When I completely remove all my signets but one I was down to 40%.

Stegalkin.

You should get an outfit like hers for a little fun on your next anniversary. ;)

I wouldn't even need to dye my hair or nothin'!

I just created a beefy Norn elementalist, and she is HOT. Not crazy about her voice actor though.

The Norn lady voice actress is one slip up away from reading stage directions instead of just her lines.  :why_so_serious:

Almost all of them are like that. It's like Nolan North, the Norn dude, and then the cast of the Fantasticks from your local high school. And the Norn dude is really no great shakes.

The asura chick's voice isn't too horrific. The sylvari lady is extremely terrible. Sylvari dude is tolerable. Norn lady is pretty blah, but I don't think she's actually worse than the Norn dude (some of his line deliveries are hrrbl). Human dude is (obvs) fine. I have already forgotten what the lady human sounds like, which means she was probably adequate.

Lady human is done by a voice actress that does a lot of work for South Park.  She's OK.  Pretty bland.  The writing and plot are all Star Wars 1-3 levels of bad.  No voice acting can save it. 

Draegan , how are you finding your Mesmer at the higher levels? Really stumped for a build to choose considering you can go so many different ways.

Yeah, that's true about the writing, Rasix, most of it is pretty bleh. Although there was a quest I did as my sylvari gentleman where I was disguised as a human that had some funny lines, so that was a nice surprise.

In my experience, the lines of Asura and Charr characters are much better than Norn and Human (which are boringville), even the supporting characters like Pact Asura Dude Who Makes Things Go Boom. Some of the writing amused me (mostly when it was goofing off and not trying to tell the super-serious GW1-style story... again, Asura and Charr to an extent), but yeah, this game is no TSW or TOR. Still better than GW1's story/writing/VO, though.

Damn a damn sight better than lolmetzen.  :why_so_serious:

Warrior Longbow is really fucking good.

I would disagree - I thinkGw2 has the worse story in any MMO I've played, for one reason only.

Destinys Edge.

I do not know why MMO designers are obsessed with shoehorning their pet characters into these games and making THEM the heroes rather than the players themselves. I honestly could not care less about any of them. They are all dull, awful whiney characters and the game makes no attempt at explaining why the hell I should give a toss about them.

It was the same with Morden Rasp in EQ, and Thrall in WoW. No-one wants to play maid to a badly written fan fiction character because the designers have delusions of grandeur. Stop putting the lore in the books and stop forcing these obnoxious designer stand ins to be the stars of the story.

By story dungeon two, I was like, "Shit, all five of these fuckers are AWFUL people. Why do I want to help these whiny assholes?" Compare to Devona, Mhenlo, et al from GW1: they had just enough personality to not be absent and served solely to facilitate you along the way to YOUR glory.

At the least, Destiny's Edge doesn't play a role in most of the storyline stuff (haven't done Arah, so can't comment on that). That's you and Plant Guy Necromancer, who I actually like.

To be fair, I found the novel[la] that shipped with GW1 to be pretty-fucking-awful.

But yea, Destiny's Edge is annoying, and Green Rurik isn't much better. I enjoy the story quests with the minor/supporting cast a lot better (and this is also why the personal story was much less enjoyable for me between the forming of the pact and before the lolwut-style romps started going on in Orr -- aka the level 60s).

I kind of liked the whisper side-kick charr  and the noble human sidekick had some almost funny lines (concerning sensible shoes and swords) but the edge made me wish they'd do an additional dungeon where you could bash each one of them (I'd pay gems for that without a question)

I stopped playing a Mesmer and rolled an Engineer.

In my opinion, Mesmers are really good at one thing: Killing lesser skilled players in sPVP or smaller W3 engagements.  I didn't like how their damage was scaling (low) and I was beginning to tire with their play style which is always moving alway switching weapons.  I felt pretty feable.

I also was beginning to dislike how their traits meshed.  Other problems are that shattering scaled horribly.  DPS was reliant on Phantasms.  Build up time was very slow and AOE damage was pitiful unless you played a shatter build.  At level 56 or so, my shatters were hitting for 300-500? i think a pop.  They were barely denting a mob really.

Anyway if you really like the Mesmer, go for full points in Illusions, 20% Mind Wrack damage.  The rest is up to you.  If you like a Phantasm build, go down the precision line and get bleed on crit and other +better phantasm traits. 

There really isn't any imagination when it comes to Mesmer builds.  They have so few.

--


Playing an Engineers is like night and day.  I'm beginning to love the class.  My engineering post from FOH:

Been playing my engineer, now level 20.  I'm using Flamethrower, Elixer Gun and Rifle.  Here's my favorite combo:

FT #2 (Fireball with explosion at the end)
Swap to Rifle
Rifle #5 (jump to target)
Rifle #3
Rifle #4  (You can do 3 to 4 almost simultaneously, that shit goes off fast, no cast time.)
Swap to FT
FT #2

The blast back distance from Rifle #4 is perfect for the FT#2's explosion distance.  This usually kills anything.

Now the best part about Elixer gun is that you have a regen toolbelt ability.  You also have a #4 blast ability that is similar to Rifle #4.  If you practice getting in and out of these kits, it has a ton of mobility.

This combo is pretty awesome and fun.  Now, I have +10 in Firearms and my crits cause bleeding and vuln.  (I could also choose 20% redux in rifle CD).  Next I will go up explosives and get a chance to burn on crit as well.  This works so well with FT #1 and EG #3.

Posting this build again: Build Editor :: Guild Wars 2 Skills (http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQJAqal0pqbn1SdF1LJxoCkG0DAX37KSR+b8nCsF;TIAAzCuA)

There are few things you can change around, like Speedy Kits instead of Static Discharge.

Outside the retarded giant backpack I have to wear as an engineer and the fact that kits don't have autoattack and sigils, the class is pretty fun so far in PVE.  The little bit of W3 I did last night was entertaining, but I need to train my fingers to use the Utility Skill buttons for weapon swap instead of my actual weapon swap button.

I agree, though I find having greatsword really enhances it a lot. Greatsword 2 is just too awesome not to have in the rotation, using the longbow for f1 and 3, with the occasional 4. Kiting with 5 it pretty nifty, too. Now that I'm running a high crit build, a properly lined up longbow 2 can be decent, it's pretty weak normally imo.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAsaRlwzqqHVzgGa9IBqHY37fnkCVn6SKwduB;TIAAzCuA

That's my usual running around mesmer. The thing to remember is that even though you buffed your phantasms, they should be shattered shortly after they've done their thing once or twice.

The reason I run that specific setup is that it easily converts to:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAsaRlwzqqHVzgGa9IBqHYv6WnkCVj6SKwduB;TIAAzCuA

For WvW.

Anyone have necro advice?  I've tried all sorts of specs and combos and the class seems like it's built more for support than for killing.  Right now I'm playing a scepter/focus build for pvp and it's basically load up target with conditions and blow corruption.  The damage just comes too slowly out of lich form to drop someone before they get team help.  It's a bit frustrating.  I'm still scoring ok in matches.  It just seems like a lot more work than other classes that I've messed with to get the same result.

I enjoy the necro and want to make it work.  Perhaps I should mess with daggers or pet builds again.

Necro needs love.  Lots and lots of love.  I'm trying to get mine up a bit to see if traits help, but to 25 it's been a bit of a slog.  I know Nevermore gave up at 24.

To me it feels like they're too dependent upon the 6-10 buttons.  My Ranger or Mesmer uses those occasionally, but 1-5 and skillful play will win all kinds of difficult encounters.  My pets need to be constantly using their specials to get their worth, and they're barely more survivable than Mesmer clones.  Offensive wells require me to be on top of the mob, don't last long, and both minions and wells have far too long a cooldown.

I gave up on pets due to poor AI and unreliable pathing issues and went more to signet and well builds.  The signet that grants 5% run speed helps with kiting and the signet that places like 8 conditions really helps with your corruption (3 key with scepter) damage.  5 key is my self heal with condition purge and 6 is either pull foe, blindness well, or weakness well.  My elite skill is nearly always lich form as the dps is the only way I can get a good spike damage finisher with some added AE for fighting caps.  

No matter which you choose, necro is about outlasting opponents... which isn't good in pvp where LoS issues and 2 v 1 ar common. 

Never played a necro but the consensus in the guild is.. "If it has pets.. free kill.. if not.. might be a good fight"

I really need to get to 80 already so I can try out some new classes. 

For PvE I Love my necro.  Use staff marks, well of suffering, well of blood.  You set up a combo field and finish it with multiple effects proccing.  Everything dies.  My AOE damage is absolutely insane.

Dagger does pretty decent single target dps too.

For PvP I can't say the same, but I've done very little of it and don't know of what specs are effective.

I'm damned near invincible with my necro. It's pretty insane.

Solo PvE: Running minions/staff. Blow up bone minions as soon as they come up, flesh golem will get you in trouble periodically because it's really weird about randomly charging bad guys but is otherwise nuts. 20% less recharge on staff skills is a must; drop your AE land mines right on top of enemies, repeat. Go with targeted Wells (see more in a minute) for your heal; the heal pet is fragile, attracts aggro, doesn't heal your pets, and generally blows ass.

PvP: Wells, Wells, Wells, Wells, Wells. Massive radius, incredibly powerful ticks. The names are escaping me but I run healing well, damage well, the damage + turns boons into corruptions well, and the AE poison/weakness targeted AE, plus Lich Form.

Do you want to scatter a walls defenders, killing at least a couple? Want to contribute to siege defense? Tired of that Guardian charging up to you? Wells. Wells, use your scepter to drop slows on them and watch them drop. Works in sPvP, too, because most people are too damned confident that a necro can't crank out damage fast enough to solo them.

I can echo this. I rolled a necro for lulz and now I can't stop dinking around PvE with it. Staff AoE easily handles groups along with the wells. Suffering is amazing with huge tick numbers and I usually take well of power to flip any conditions on myself and others to boons. For DEs I will also take the the Undeath Signet to rez players from range when a champ mobs does some wipeout move. Plague signet is fun, but really better suited for PvP (takes all the conditions from other players and puts them on you, then activate signet to transfer all that badness to your opponent). I also run around with axe/focus for when mobs get close and I need something a bit faster than the staff. Also helps that I have a focus that inflicts bleed when switching to it so once mobs get close, I get a free PBAoE bleed going from staff to axe/focus. Also the reaper's touch on the focus is a nice quick regen that bounces around the mobs.

I handle shit way better and have way more control than my warrior or thief or guardian, however I cut through shit quicker on my warrior and hardly get into trouble hp-wise on the guard. YMMV i guess.

Necro advice: Reroll.

I believe every other class has higher damage potential, and many others have higher survival and mobility.  So unless you like the feel and the play of a necro, then I wouldn't bother.

I was wondering if this was the case, but wasn't sure if I just wasn't getting everything out of the class. 

Thanks for helping my sanity.

Yes, this. Fewer necros mean fewer people complaining that they were soloed in WvW or noticing that triple wells dropped on them as they were rezzing their friends killed them in two seconds. I need to keep going.

Yeah I second that.

WvW is VERY different from sPvP. 

I prefer sPvP and the class is pretty much ineffective there (though I still manage to score between 200-300 a match often).  Play your necro in sPvP and then play a ranger, engineer, guardian, warrior... you'll see what I mean immediately. 

Necro requires the most focus deck building. Whats your build pal?

Which one?  I've played about 20.

The one you like the most.

Oh christ so we have to add yet another balance tier to the mix? PvE, WvW, sPvP?

Yes.

PvE and WvW are essentially the same.  sPvP and Tournament PvP require much more thorough build attention and generate many more 1v1, 1v2, and 1v3 opportunities.


I described scepter/focus above.

sceptor focus describes like half your bar. What about the other half?
 
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQAQJArYjMal7pbGbMcA;TIAAzCuA here is one notice the different flavors of dead that work together. though i'd swap out the elite for lich.

Not for me as a guardian, I don't run anywhere near the same build. If I tried to run my PVE build in WvW I'd be awfully ineffective. Different elite, different utilities, different offhand on my weapon swap, etc.

This is my current fav. (http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQAQNArdWjMah6FbKbMcA;TIAAzCuA)

I tend to swap out blindness for other things depending on how the night is going. Ex: If I'm playing Guardians a lot, I'll take the well that turns boons into conditions. Etc.


They feel the same to me.  Beating on doors and the mindless zerg is a lot like farming mobs in the 80 zone.  Then there's the horde of mobs already in the WvW zone... I encourage you to play 5v5 tournaments.  It will let you know pretty quickly how competitive you are on your class/team.

In your build you might want carry your staff first, simple because your ur sceptor/focus is a great finisher but not a damage dealer on its own. You want to hold off with staff till they are a 3/4th of health and spam then down sceptor, than switch back to staff. Be sure you don't switch back to staff until you cast spine shivers.

Solid advice, though I find staff to be of limited value in spvp due to the amount of movement.  Too many ground effects that the better players will avoid. 

Well thats why your support, follow movement, cast ahead. Or take advantage of dropping melee (you do ignore armor) bait an hammer your way and it'll hurt them more than you. See a down target? Switch to staff unless thief or ele, punish the enemy team for rezzing. Your a little like sona when your a staff necro, except all your skills are basically sona's R in scope.

No.  sPVP is all small scale fighting, and a lot more 1v1.  W3 is all large scale stuff.


All professions can insta gib someone who's retarded and standing still.  Especially in W3 where levels matter.  Well builds, if I remember correctly, are all based on utility skills that have 40s cooldowns?

Also condition based builds are almost useless in W3 fighting.  Conditions are over ridden by other players in larger fights.

I've simply not found necros being ass to be true. At all. Or conditions. Take your 33% longer bleeds plus 20% longer scepter skills plus slows plus poisons plus wells they can't get out of and... no, I'm sorry. It's good. I held off six people singlehandedly last night. I'm not some rad player, either.

(Note I'm not pissy because MY CLASS or anything. Vidya games. Just saying I think you're terribly mistaken about how good necromancers are in group pvp)

Ok.

But you're also blowing 2? 3? utility skills on a 1 minute cooldown (I assume you reduce this).  Most of the other professions can do something similar, faster with just normal weapon skills.

I'm not saying Necro's are shit.  I'm saying they are the worst off class (except maybe the Mesmer) in the game.

Necromancer isn't about rolling your face on the keyboard and running in circles. You can lock yourself in a role with your 5-8 skills or reek havoc but you have to actively decide the lesser of whatever evil you wish to commit. You can build a necromancer poorly, a facet of the game that Anet tried its best to remove from the game.

Haven't played necro at all but guild was having a discussion last night about wvwvw and consensus seemed to be that guardian thief and necro were the three most powerful classes.

Interesting. From my perspective it is elementalists, mesmers and rangers on the opposite teams who cause the most headaches. Lots of AE, distracting extra targets, etc.

Mesmers win WvW hands down. Elementalists are next up. I think I fight shit rangers, because those arrows simply don't hurt (which is odd, since when I bring a ranger into the mists, they hit training dummies like a ton of bricks)

But feedback/null field/confuse/blind alone are crazy good in WvW. Add in the targeting oddities of phantasmal berzerker and you basically have bullshit that rivals Healers.

When I take my ranger to wvw, people tend to commit suicide on me, if they jump me one on one.  I'm not sure if they're just terrible or what, but it tends to be a very lopsided fight in my favor.  When I'm with the zerg, I tend to run into the enemy zerg, drop entangle, and run out.  This tends to get a pocket of the enemy players dead by being overrun by my side.  I'm however willing to believe there are tons of really really bad rangers.  The one I personally tend to fear are guardians, who I just flat out can't dent usually.

Smart guardians go into fights with 3 aegis (fully block next attack) things available - the one they start with, one from firing off a virtue, and one from "Retreat!" They can get another one carrying focused meditiation or wtfever its called, which is a 3 second channeled immunity bubble that resets your virtues. "Retreat!" also gives you swiftness so you can... retreat, so unless you really hang yourself out to dry it is pretty easy as a guardian to hang around the fringes of the front line without getting yourself killed.

In wvw, the power of (staff - other weapons are much less viable due to the lack of range) elementalists is proportional to the size of the zerg. They're awesome for keep defense or standoffs where massive AOE damage and area denial is needed, are ok in smaller-group engagements where they can act as support (staff's direct burst damage is laughable against halfway competent players who use dodge / know what aoe circles are), and are really bad at killing other builds 1v1 (yes, the elementalist can switch to scepter/dagger for soloing or something... but such weapon-swapping is not always an option).

Currently retaliation is also a very zerg-friendly buff, since if you have retaliation rolling on a zerg (and I believe guardians with the right spec can keep retal up basically 100% of the time?) any kind of AOE that hits the group is going to HURT the caster - and fast / multi-hit AOE like meteor shower or arrow cart damage is going to basically one-shot them. This also means that you can kill siege weapons by deliberately getting your zerg under the trebuchet's target circle with retaliation up...

I just use the Longbow in Melee too, the 2 button works really well when something is right in front of yea. I use Mace+Shield in the other weapon swap slot. I mostly only bring those out if the enemies I'm fighting are capable of chain stunning or if I'm getting my ass handed to me, weakness + half a dozen stuns goes a long way to staying alive.

If I'm being really clever, I drop the Longbow F1 and then swap to the mace/shield and use the shield stun so I get a fire shield from the combo. I'm usually too lazy to do that for the most part though, just easier to press 2 an extra time  :why_so_serious:

I use a signet build, so I've got stability which I think helps with stuns? I don't know, things get mowed down so quick by greatsword 2 it's hard to tell.

You can do some pretty silly AE damage with a necro (staff, wells, life transfer, explodey dogs).  It's pretty fun.  I don't dislike this class, yet.  Pets don't really seem to be that great, however. Liking this a lot better than mesmer, you still do 0.0 single target DPS, but it doesn't feel as slow.

I have yet to use any pets on mine.  :ye_gods:

The pet mechanics are bad and the AI is a little wonky at times.  Some times they won't assist.  They don't regen their health.  Their re-summon time starts when they die.  And if there's no way to manually kill them, you can't re-summon at all (from what I can tell).   All mobs make it their first priority to kill you pets.  This can save your life at times, but it ends up being a hassle.

I'm finding it very difficult to get into Necro because of the pets, really. I was hoping to have an awesome menagerie of macabre delights following me around but really, the AI is so flimsy, the damage is so ephemeral and the pets themselves are so fragile that I find all I ever seem to be doing is waiting on their resummon timer within seconds of casting them into existence in the first place. So I've been wondering if making a No-pets Necro is a solid and viable idea. I like the solid support of Staff and got into a good rythm of aggroing mobs then running around in wide circles dropping marks till they all died (and this was generally a necessity thanks to how quickly the pets ate dirt), I'm just wondering what the best heal/utility slot skills would be instead of petageddon.

No-pets necro should be perfectly viable.

 

Old school minion mastery used to be boss back in gw1 until a certain segment of the player base had a bitch fest and changed it. There is a trait that gives you a minion every time you kill something, but gw2 was never designed to be a big on the minion mastery due to crap Anet went through in gw1. Unless you use flesh golem to lead everything.

I reiterate, I am almost 40 and have never used a pet outside the first 7 levels. Got my healing well and been sans pets since. I am completely viable for being a horrible player.  :awesome_for_real:

It's all I play.  After about level 40 the mob density in zones has pets pulling everything.  I prefer petless.

You can manually kill your own pets by swapping the skill out for something else.  I don't remember offhand if that still triggers the cooldown or not, since I completely gave up on the pets anyway.

Swapping skills does trigger the cooldown.  I'm moving to petless, anyhow.  I've just been running the damage well and the devourer, but he'll be ditched shortly. 

The only pet I use or have ever used is the elite golem, and that's mostly because I almost never used my elites anyway so I just put it up there for some extra damage without me having to do anything.

And then I kill it promptly when I run anywhere since he aggros everything like a tard.

I detest pets in general, but the pets in GW2 are terrible.

The one thing I LOVE... I totally love about the game....

And this is crazy.. But when my character says, "Thank you." after interacting with a merchant. I think that rocks.

It would be amusing if that was tied to your RP personality score. So that might be dignified and you'd get something else for ferocious (or silence).

I thought the merchants were saying thank you to me.

The only pets that work well are the temporary summons. At least for elementalist, the elementals are pretty great and versatile (depends on element) and from what I hear the hounds of balthazar and the asura golems aren't shabby at all either. The only time I switch my elite to fiery greatsword is during a keep siege/defense.

Dagger Elementalists have some really fun skills, but I'll be damned if I know how to keep them alive.

A good bit of earth specing; quite a good bit.  earth/air/arcane.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2TM9nD2C7Y&feature=plcp (build in the description)

Arcane shield is what I use.  My whole build there is based around arcane though (shield, wave, power), and flipping between attunements pretty rapidly.

I start in air, put shocking aura on if I remember, use ride the lightning to a middlish target, use updraft to knock down everything and back out.
Switch to fire, use burning speed to get back in, pop arcane power, use ring of fire, and immediately pop arcane wave to get a stack of might.
Switch to earth, use earthquake for another stack of might and to knock everything back over.  Start channeling churning earth, and pop arcane shield after you start.
If everything isn't dead by then, cry.

I made a character.  Her name is Signe Zombie.  Thought I'd switch things up a little.  Anyway, I picked the giant race because I'm so tired of being short and not being able to reach the top shelf of cupboards.  So why am I so fucking SHORT???  Everyone, even all the other wimmen are WAY taller than me.  Is it some sort of personal attack on my rl stature?  How do they even know?

Remake with body slider alllll the way to the top?
I purposefully make short Norns for both novelty value and the fact I can deal with the interminable ploddyness of their running animation more as it feels like they're running slightly faster.

I remade my GW Mesmer (a character that has followed me through every fantasy MMO I've played), not expecting much. I certainly wasn't expecting to be able to dual wield swords. Or tote around a fucking great zweihander. Which turns out to be improbably cool, once you get over the whole 'dwahhh?'ness of a clothie flinging a sword that presumably weighs as much as she does around. Fantastic weaponset; massive range, a big-hitting ricochet, a small AE ground target, an awesome phantasm attack, and a 'get the hell away from me!' cone KB. Loving this far more than I expected to.

Aaaah...  there's a slider!

The vast majority of non-Asuras seem to slide that thing alllll the way to the top, too.  I made a human and a norn both slightly-above-average, but next to everyone else in town you'd think I made them midgets.

Max height asura is really the only way to go, you feel less like a brownie and more like a hobbit.

I think that "maxxes their height" thing only applies to the dudes, because my norn chicks have been taller than most of the other ones I've run across, and I only maxxed one of them (I think I maxxed Sjofn, Birna is a little shorter?). On the other hand, I forgot to adjust my human lady's height and she was apparently short. I am shorter than everyone and it is totally weird.

My norn thief is short, as is my norn guardian. My human warrior I made big, just wondering how close to a small norn that would be (a bit smaller).

Most male characters max height, most female un-max it I find. Tall Norn women are actually sorta rare.

I tend to prefer shorter end of the spectrum... i Hate playing races like Asura, Gnomes, etc though :p

I usually min height everything. My human is really small compared to most I've seen.  My Asura's hair is almost taller than he is.

Selma went max height norn chick.

Selma is a fellow amazon, I think maybe tall chicks prefer to play tall chicks. :P

For as dumb as the Pet AI is, I REALLY like how they handle ranger pets and the in combat swapping and reviving. Unless something is going incredibly wrong, you should have a pet ready to go all the time.

When I hit 80 on my asura ele and went to make a guardian alt, I was originally thinking norn or sylvari.

Then I saw someone doing the greatsword whirl on an asura and there was no going back. ALL ABOARD THE ASURACOPTER! In fact, I'm using staff as a secondary weapon (instead of the more logical scepter+focus for defense + range) due to the float-into-the-air-around-the-staff animation of Empower.  :awesome_for_real:

That's not my experience on my Norn. He's about 3/4 the way up and towers over almost all the other Norns I've met. I'm frankly really surprised by how many people choose to be short. Especially the lady Norns.

Non-amazons are intimidated by the thought of being amazons. Duh.

For me, it is psychological. The bigger the character, the slower she/he looks while moving. I hate the lumbering feel of big tall characters. That and the jump puzzles and vistas seem easier to navigate without a huge body in the way of that tiny platform I have to jump on.

Gender stereotypes are gender stereotypes.    The same thing happened in COH which I noticed this weekend again when I reloaded for one last hurrah. I made a lot of my females in the 6'-6" height range and they towered over the other ladies there.   My 1st character I made my height - 5'-11 - and he was really short when standing next to all the other male characters of the same body type. (human).   

In a pvp game, folks usually pick the smallest race and minimize size in all other races.

I made giant Norns so I don't get lost in melee but the size makes jumping puzzles just frustrating enough where I wish I picked the shortest option or went with a less robust race.

Yea I've heard that around. And I saw it with that one jump puzzle in northern Lion's Arch. Friend's Norn just couldn't make the jump to one of the pillars due to ceiling height. Since I keep hearing this, sounds like something that couldn't get fixed once QA identified it because it goes back to world geometry and didn't have a "put rock in place" simple fix.

I have the biggest Norn I can and didn't have any troubles with the jump puzzles in LA. I think the actual collision point on the big Norn is somewhere in their chest.

Yeah, but it still messes with your brain and view perspective.  Selma had a ton of issues with the scaffolding in that south vista in Dredgehaunt.  I piloted her character up after my human and taking the same route, got her stuck in several spots where I didn't. 

Huh. Friend of mine couldn't make it. It looked like it was her head hitting the roof. But it couldn't been her chest, which as tall as the character was, was probably higher than my character's head top :-)

Having this same issue with my big Norn on the one with the pillars in the tunnel. It sure feels like I'm hitting my head, and after a few tries on 3 separate I was too nauseous to carry on so I gave it up. Have yet to try that one with my Asura.

This seems to be a recurring issue in new MMOs... my type 3 body (basically, big and buff) Human Male Trooper in SWtOR often has trouble getting into gaps smaller characters can easily fit in.

Even in D&D, where you can't even SEE my character, I don't make short characters. My shortest human ever is 5'9", and I feel like she's a midget. Even my halflings I make tall (for halflings). :P

I'm 183cm tall IRL and I play gnomes/dwarves/bothans etc whenever possible. It's partially due to the awesome/amusing factor of a 90cm midget cleaving a 2-meter brute's face off with a stupidly huge 2-h sword (ridiculous hairstyle like pink pigtails or afro are a bonus), partially because I've been a fan of gnomes ever since Mountain Nevermind's tinker gnomes in Dragonlance 1st edition AD&D (yes, we played Dragonlance at the highschool RPG club. We were inspired by the SSI Gold Box games. DON'T JUDGE ME)

Tinker gnomes? WELCOME TO MY IGNORE LIST, SIR.

I made an entire MUD zone of Mountain Nevermind, too. The .are file is 700 kilobytes, there are ~300 rooms (lots of e-descs), and at least 20 different (named) minoi NPCs along with a bunch of un-named ones. Does that make things better or worse? (in my defense, this WAS high school...)

Ihaven'tevenintroducedyoutomynewestinvention, haveyouheardabouttheRotokrallerMarkMCMLXVIII?  :why_so_serious:

I can't read what you're saying since I am ignoring you, but the fact that you used the word minoi is not helping your cause.

Damn gnomes.

Gnomes are good for one thing.  Testing how sharp a weapon is.

And seeing how far a cannon can fire.

Fortunately, I see Asura as more akin to carnivorous, floppy eared bunnies than gnomes so it's all good.

I get a real "agile Podlings with big ears" feel from Asura.

I was playing Elementalist, but just started a Thief for a change of pace and my goodness it is so much more fun.

I started off as thief, but after guard and warrior, I go back to thief and cry at how fast I get knocked down. Squishy is an understatement. Yeah yeah... L2P and all that. I'd just assume go play my clothy necro who does not die.  :awesome_for_real:

Managed to narrow it down to thief or mesmer for pve.  I'd ditch both in a heartbeat if engineers had a melee weapon (not the toolkit unlocked later).

Thief is fun after I got used to initiative.  Gap closers, easy aoe, bleeds make damage numbers sprinkle out of everything, the blind on pistol off-hand lets me facetank and the 25% speed sigil is great for exploring.

I'm not sure why I'm finding mesmer fun but I keep coming back to it.  It's a slug for exploring and I don't feel powerful, shattering or not (~lvl 33).  Setting up phantasms around a champion is pretty funny though.

Mesmers seem to require a dickload of trait points to feel awesome. Mine is by far my favorite (to the point that I have trouble leveling alts because I think my mesmer could do this better), but it was a slog until ~60.

All the cooldown reductions on illusions make a huge difference. My main complaint with the class is that a number of the weapons are worthless entirely because their phantasm is shit. But right now I can happily spawn 2-3 illusions, shatter, spawn 2-3 more rapidly, shatter again and walk away from a dead pack of risen.

What I will never do is burst something down in seconds, which kind of sucks for overpopulated DEs. Berzerker is my one contribution farming button and he has a decent chance of dying in a zerg before doing much damage.

I would agree there re Mesmer. I love mine, glad I made it my main, but the class is truly awful in DEs because of the tagging issue.

Entire waves of undead can attack and I'll tag *maybe* one if lucky. Even a double shatter (F1 then F2, with me acting as an illusion) will often not work. Everyone else seems to have some form of spammable or combo of Aes whereas the mesmer only has Chaos Storm (huge cooldown) or Mind Stab (tiny reticule, casting time).

No extra tags for bronzing with Staff #1?

Nope - tagging requires a certain % of damage or a certain number of hits (don't know which). The staff auto attack is so slow you'll get one off if you are lucky before the 10+ undead are melted in the Ae everyone else flings around.

I have no trouble tagging mobs in DEs with my Mesmer. 2HSword, Staff - both have ample AE and chaining opportunities and the spread of phantasms is decent. I want a big cloud of floating numbers, I drop Chaos Storm after unleashing Phantasmal Berserker. I've also gone for traits and signets that increase phantasm HP so they're not so easily gibbed straight away. Mesmer is awesome, I'm really rather surprised it's the least played profession.

I also use staff #5 (Chaos Storm) for DEs and it's consistently productive, which I believe is credit from the ethereal combos everyone creates. I know trying to compete via burst damage is a non-starter. I'm early 40s, though, so untested in Orr.

Generally, good luck to anyone if players are so concentrated that mob stacks are melting in 2 seconds.

Even in the claw of jormag I was missing many mobs on my staff ele shit was dropping so fast, though I was leading with 2 instead of 3 fire.  The dragon also bugged last night at 40%. Some bullshit about him being fixed in the patch notes... right, right.

My only complaint about contrib is that healing and rezzing currently don't seem to count for it enough. I've spent the entire time running around being useful by rezzing people and healing and such and come away with a bronze for my trouble, when I could get gold just by spamming my basic low damage scepter attack on the champion monster instead, despite that being less helpful for actually winning.

The contrib complaint seems to be a design error, and shows up mostly in Orr due to population concentration.

If there's 10-20 people doing a DE, doing 1 point of damage gets credit. If there's 100 people doing a DE, you seem to need to be on the top contributors to the death to get credit (this is why it's worth grouping for Orr DEs by the way: more credit). This has little to do with bronze/silver/gold as much as getting XP/Loot from the kills. I'll get a mess of credit if I drop a berzerker or chaos storm on a spawn instantly. if I show up when they're at 50% health, I'm probably not going to get xp for any of them. It's a bit silly, and it's why you see people playing WAY ahead of the zerg in crowded DEs.

I'm finally trying out different classes.  After a whole lot of Warriorwarrrgharbl AE die die die, some of the other classes feel... distant.  Elementalist is pretty nice so far though.

Man, thank you for posting that. I didn't realize the smoke field continuously kept blind up; my dagger+pistol switch just got way more awesome and I actually make regular use of it now. It's good for saving chumps who jump into swarms of melee mobs, too.

Mesmer is ez gold if the event is a boss fight.  iWarlock x3 will swag to victory.

iWarlock hurts like a truck with DE levels of debuffs up, but I found that Pistol deals a crapload more damage due to attacking far more often. I don't get silly 16k crits anymore in DEs, but I feel like my damage output is far higher with GS and Sword/Pistol.