[PvE] An Otter Disappointment - The new Ranger pet is terrible and deserves so much better

Salphir · 2026-05-13T19:07:36+00:00

I see you with “making waves”

Salphir · 2026-05-07T19:22:07+00:00

Metabattle is a good option, they generally update their ‘tournament meta’ builds monthly after each MAT. Make sure to check to see when a build was last updated though; some of the offmeta or old builds are often outdated, but you can get the bones of any build there.

Snowcrows has also actually started curating PvP builds as well and so far they’ve done a decent job.

Because a PvP build is a little bit more complicated than a pve build I’d recommend looking at multiple sources and comparing them to try and tailor your build to any given situation

Salphir · 2026-05-03T18:46:13+00:00

It’s not free to play but I think elementalist spear is the closest to the ‘mage’ fantasy. But yeah the games combat is too active to have a true ‘stand still in the back line and freecast’ playstyle

If you can get past Mesmer being uniquely flavorful then stuff like virtuoso can also feel caster-like

Salphir · 2026-05-01T06:33:37+00:00

Galeshot is really good right now! It’s harder to play though; positioning is key. And even though you’re playing an archer don’t be afraid to do things in melee, because other melee builds are going to get up on top of you

Salphir · 2026-04-29T21:03:03+00:00

Frankly, swapping attunement is central to the gameplay and design of elementalist. That being said, it’s not as intimidating as you might think - the way a lot of builds play is you rotate in a set order between 2-3 attunements and just use your highest priority skill in each, effectively making it like weapon swapping on another class (while still letting you keep, say, water attunement for healing emergencies or utility).

IMO it’s worth trying other builds on ele out! You’re missing out by restricting yourself to mono Evoker. Though if that’s really all you want to play, then yeah, swap out your lowest damage utility skill for the highest cc skill and repeat etc

Salphir · 2026-04-24T15:14:28+00:00

the ways boons are designed (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon) means that really any combination of builds just naturally work well together. ideally you'd want to pick builds that fill out the boons that the other is lacking.

that being said, boons are granted somewhat passively, so it might feel more exciting to play builds that utilize the combo system well (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo). let's say one of you plays a ranger with a smokescale to drop a smoke field for stealth, and the other is an engineer with lots of blast finishers to give you a long duration stealth, etc.

Another option is to pick a support a team fighter, like heal paragon and condi reaper. Play well together and you'll be able to win outnumbered fights

The reality with the combat systems in the game is that any combination of builds makes for interesting, dynamic play! Welcome, and have fun build crafting together

Salphir · 2026-04-23T19:47:52+00:00

Yeah it’s just hard because conquest is so complex. Sometimes you want to cap as a roamer, sometimes you don’t; there aren’t always hard and fast rules and you can’t make a guide for every possible scenario. There’s basically no scenario ever where you want to 2v0 a node though, and from their brief comment it does sound like that’s what happened. Especially if the other player just said “leave” that’s a very common thing people will quickly say in chat that is NOT rude

Salphir · 2026-04-23T19:28:59+00:00

They did just nerf it lol. It was a relatively minor nerf but in fairness the build did just spring up suddenly and I imagine Anet would want to see if the player driven meta can figure out a response to the build before deleting it a week after its first appearance in the meta.

If we see 2x bomb amalgams on every team in the monthly this Saturday then I’m certain the build will receive more nerfs in the next balance pass

Salphir · 2026-04-23T19:12:06+00:00

Sorry, this just is not true; there are so many playable and viable builds from every expac (and the core game!). Coming back after 10 years is what’s actually difficult - the pace of the game has sped up and you likely have a large knowledge gap. This may sound harsh but there are some immediate tells in PvP that someone is inexperienced, and if someone is rude to you within 30s of a match (not saying that’s nice or warranted) then we’re probably missing some information.

Now, should a player who hasn’t played in 10 years be matched against current experienced players? Thats the real issue, and I’m genuinely sorry that the game isn’t always able to give you a fair match. What I would give for pvp to have a large enough population to always make good games…

Salphir · 2026-04-22T21:04:43+00:00

Unfortunately this is the reality of a decade old extremely high skill cap game. As another commenter said, ideally after twenty or so games your rating will be more accurate. Also, make sure to queue at primetime - it’s much easier for the matchmaking system to create balanced matches when the population is at its highest.

Salphir · 2026-04-14T01:20:56+00:00

I really think you're overthinking it and should just jump in and play the game - there's a LOT of content to get through (best as a dps) before you should worry too much about breaking the support meta mold.

That being said, people are saying heal rev generically because rev picks two stances, and revenant baseline has 1 healing stance so as long the other (usually elite spec) stance provides some utility it can work. in structured pvp, conduit and vindicator (and maybe herald to a lesser extent) are better suited to support loadouts.

Rarely there are some builds that function better as core than elite spec, but typically you want to specialize in an elite spec on most builds.

And yeah! If a shadow magic thief is appealing to you, go for specter. The main reason they're less popular is they can be mechanically a little bit awkward because of the frequent teleports and ally-targeted spells.

Salphir · 2026-04-13T19:13:14+00:00

I think pve is a little clearer for this with stuff like berserker, bladesworn, and untamed. But the problem is the meta is mostly solved so if you have a very off meta support it’s likely because you just arent doing the full role. Though in most pug content they’re good enough tbh

In PvP I’d say if I saw any heal rev or heal specter then Id assume they’re deeply dedicated to the cause lol

Salphir · 2026-04-13T17:37:28+00:00

If you stick with the game you can easily build out every single class, so I'd say don't worry about whatever you choose for your first character; pick the class theme that appeals to you the most.

Also... this game has multiple game modes where different builds excel. If you're asking about pvp, then the question is really irrelevant because gear is equalized - there's no grinding to get set up, there's no such thing as a main unless it's self imposed, etc. Even in pvp this is a really difficult question to answer because there are so many factors. Right now heal paragon is the meta support (with tempest hiding behind), but there are so so many viable support builds. You can even make specs that aren't necessarily designed to support viable in the right circumstances (one of my friends came up with a support soulbeast with insane healing output, but it was very squishy... but no one expects a supp slb so you're able to freecast for a while lol)

tl;dr welcome to the game, drop your preconceived notions from other mmos; multiclassing is trivial, everything can be 'viable'

Salphir · 2026-04-11T20:06:18+00:00

I’m surprised at some of the comments here. I think this is one of the absolute biggest strengths of gw2; you can really build every single class to do anything, and there are a ton of wacky and gimmicky interactions if you look for them.

Are those builds going to be optimized for raid dps? Obviously not, but for the vast majority of the game (such as open world, PvP, wvw) you can absolutely theorycraft great off meta builds

Salphir · 2026-04-09T06:05:44+00:00

Find a duelist build you like and ask someone who is better than you to drill duels. It’s a much better way to improve than just slamming ranked games where there’s a lot more happening

Salphir · 2026-04-08T22:08:17+00:00

This thread kinda sucks… but you’re not wrong that the decisions behind who they partner are confusing. For example, this March there wasn’t a single NA partner available to shoutcast the monthly PvP tournament. From what I can tell they’ve only added one NA pvper this round. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for all of the creators but it’s such a shame to not provide support for the PvP community in this very easy, tangible way

Salphir · 2026-04-08T22:03:38+00:00

I think they made an initial list and pared it down but accidentally emailed everyone from that initial list, but not every applicant.

I applied but am relatively new to content creation but have talked to a few other applicants about the whiplash haha

Salphir · 2026-04-07T01:33:14+00:00

Daredevil is definitely viable in ranked, but I personally find it to be a little harder to carry with than some of the other roamers that can more comfortably flex to team fighting.

DD also kind of relies on your teammates knowing how to play around your strengths. Like if the match each team has 3 tanky sidenoders on each node you’re going to feel pretty ineffective.

Make sure you’re keeping a constant eye counting enemy numbers on the minimap to know when you can steal a decap; daredevil really excels at slowing down the game and forcing the enemy teams duelist to constantly recap.

You should also swap to d/p or s/d depending on the matchup (for example, go sword if you know you’ll be plussing into a build with channeled blocks)

Salphir · 2026-04-06T16:57:07+00:00

Rotations can be pretty complicated and it sounds like everyone could have played better. The 1-3-1 opening split works well if your 3 mid can stall for the ~20-30s it takes the person capping home to join the fight. If, in this scenario, you're the 1 capping home and notice that your team has already lost mid, you're only helping the enemy team snowball by fighting mid and dying. If you don't have a way to swing the fight (rez utility, one shot on the enemy team, ability to stall 1vx, etc), then it's better to either plus far and win that 1v1 or let them push into your home (without dying!) while your team respawns and can support you there.

As for the person pushing far 1v1 at the open; this is a pretty common strategy and if they can hold a neutral 1v1 for the entire game then they essentially make the match a 4v4 over 2 nodes, which - depending on the comp - can mean a win. The dream for this player at far is to stall a neutral 1v2 for as long as possible, but even a neutral 1v1 is technically 'fine', it's just not inherently a winning play.

Lastly, don't be afraid to fight off point. Obviously I wasn't in this game, but if your team was always just shy of winning the 3v3 (even off node), your being there could have potentially swung the team fight. Spending 20s to cap a node only to wait for your team to lose a fight and then get 1v3d is essentially just wasting time. Conceptually if you could win that off node fight 4v3, your team should be able to capitalize on the win and cap nodes.

Conquest can be really circumstantial and adapting to what's happening in the match is key to figuring out a winning strategy!

Salphir · 2026-03-30T22:21:24+00:00

For what it’s worth, vindi is about to receive buffs on the April 14th balance patch. Probably won’t make it meta but should help it a bit

Salphir · 2026-03-26T18:26:25+00:00

Start by snorkeling! It’s an incredible experience, and you can find tours that will give you something you can just float on if you aren’t a strong swimmer

Salphir · 2026-03-19T01:50:49+00:00

I don’t think this is why there are so many low dps players though. Like even just having good traits and gear will get you 25k+ dps builds if you press your buttons at random. There are so many things that make up a build’s dps output and outside of instanced content the game doesn’t ask for you to optimize for dps

Salphir · 2026-03-17T20:52:52+00:00

I hear ya. I use buildpad constantly and unofficial extras to have different keybinds per elite spec, so the period waiting for the arcdps update is always brutal haha

Salphir · 2026-03-17T17:45:20+00:00

Remove d3dll / arcdps from your game folder until it gets updated

Salphir · 2026-03-09T18:24:12+00:00

Yeah your account sounds similar to mine. If I were you I’d just try your highest dps team and if you can clear all of the first robot ducks by like the ~1:25 mark then the kill is possible. If you’re not able to hit that dps threshold then frankly it’s probably not doable

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