Are these viable builds in PvE and PvP? - Guild Wars Forums

Speusippus · Apr 22, 2011, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Monk/Mesmer <--I know from reading around that this is viable in both.

Elementalist/Ranger <--I gather this is considered non-viable by many, but it seems to me that you could focus on air magic and wilderness survival, wielding wands and staves rather than bows, using traps and rituals from the survival attribute. What would be wrong with this for a backline damage-dealer with some support abilities? (I forget what led me to think to focus on air magic with this one.)

Assassin/Warrior <-- I gather this is considered quite viable.

Ritualist/Necromancer <-- My idea here is to focus on minions from both professions. Would this work?

Dervish/Paragon <-- Seems odd since Dervish is supposed to be in the middle of things and Paragon is supposed to be support--but seems like one could focus on anything from Dervish plus Command from paragons, (special focus on shouts) and have a nice frontline combat/support type toon.

Iunno, what do you guys think? (Very new to the game, btw, as I'm sure you can tell.)

pinkeyflower · Apr 22, 2011, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Your information is too generic. A build consists of eight skills not the professions, simply stating the professions is quite meaningless because there are countless possibilities as to which skills you equip. For example, Assassins with a Warrior secondary are common but you could have a terrible bar.

I think the problem though is that you do not have a single focus on what you want your character to do. It is unadvisable to try and make your builds try to do too many things because you end up having to split attribute investment leading you to not do anything particularly well. Again, really this can only be detailed by giving the skills that you are/want to carry and your attribute split.

Another thing is that PvE and PvP are very different. With the introduction of heroes you can bring anything through PvE and you will still win, except on the more challenging content. However, in PvP your build is extremely important as you must fit a role in order to achieve success and be efficient in it. While you have not provided any builds I will say that while minions and traps may be effective in PvE they are worthless in PvP as are nature rituals.

A common trend I see in builds that new players use is that they focus far too much on their secondary profession, remember that your primary profession is primary for a reason although there are exceptions to this (mainly in PvE).

As a player that is new to Guild Wars I suggest you experiment but also take criticism in a somewhat positive manner and are inquisitive on how your build compares to other more accepted ones.

BrettM · Apr 22, 2011, 03:25 PM // 15:25

As far as E/Ra, there are three problems. One is that traps take forever to set and are easily interrupted, and foes will rarely trigger them if your front line is doing its job. Two is that nature rituals are as likely to help the foe as they are to help your team, or to hinder your team as well as hindering the foe. Few of them have any real utility, and then only in special circumstances. Three is that staff/wand damage is very low even in normal mode and they have a low rate of fire.

So, your back line damage dealer is not going to be doing very much damage using spellcasting weapons and traps. Spells are the elementalist's best means of dealing both damage and support, so giving up a slot that could be used for a decent spell in favor of a trap or nature ritual is a bad idea. Standing around wanding foes is also a last resort for an ele, and is something that you should only be doing when you can't cast. Sometimes not even then, because there are times when it is better to stand there doing nothing than to wand something and trigger a knockdown or interrupt that activates on attack.

Speusippus · Apr 22, 2011, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkeyflower

Your information is too generic. A build consists of eight skills not the professions, simply stating the professions is quite meaningless because there are countless possibilities as to which skills you equip.

By re-reading the post, you will see that in the more difficult cases, I talked about specific skill types, not just professions.

As well, it is easy to understand "Is P1/P2 viable?" as "are there viable builds using P1 as primary and P2 as secondary." I have read, for example, that many believe there is no viable Elementalist/Ranger build. One reason for my post was to find out if this is a universal sentiment, and if so, why. One way into the latter question is to look at the particular attribute and skill-type focus which I intimated in my OP and say why it wouldn't work well in the game.

Quote:

I will say that while minions and traps may be effective in PvE they are worthless in PvP as are nature rituals.

Probably something best learned from experience, but can you expand on this? Why are rituals, minions and traps worthless in PvP?

Quote:

A common trend I see in builds that new players use is that they focus far too much on their secondary profession, remember that your primary profession is primary for a reason although there are exceptions to this (mainly in PvE).

Sounds like good advice--I've considered the idea that it might simply be a good idea to take some "random" secondary and then completely ignore it.

Quote:

As a player that is new to Guild Wars I suggest you experiment but also take criticism in a somewhat positive manner and are inquisitive on how your build compares to other more accepted ones.

Exactly the purpose of my OP. I do expect those responding to forum posts to read them somewhat carefully and, when necessary, charitably.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrettM

As far as E/Ra, there are three problems. One is that traps take forever to set and are easily interrupted, and foes will rarely trigger them if your front line is doing its job. Two is that nature rituals are as likely to help the foe as they are to help your team, or to hinder your team as well as hindering the foe. Few of them have any real utility, and then only in special circumstances. Three is that staff/wand damage is very low even in normal mode and they have a low rate of fire.

Makes sense.

I've only just now realized that nature rituals affect everyone on the battlefield equally. That seems odd!

Quote:

So, your back line damage dealer is not going to be doing very much damage using spellcasting weapons and traps. Spells are the elementalist's best means of dealing both damage and support, so giving up a slot that could be used for a decent spell in favor of a trap or nature ritual is a bad idea.

Makes sense.

How about using bows and preparations instead of traps and rituals?

Spiritz · Apr 22, 2011, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Think of gw this way - you have your primary profession which sets you aside from other professions - eg necros and soul reaping , eles with energy storage.
But branching into 2nd profession isnt always as strong , anyone can use fire skills but only an ele can have the power of the attack or due to energy storage keep up the attacks.
Exceptions can be r/rts using spirit spammers - rangers get skill cost cheaper , necros get energy faster etc.
Each profession has its own role - melee frontliner , midliners and backliners , some professions like paragon play a weird role and become more party support than attack.
Usually thats the problem with paragons - the role given to them by anet means they cant always play a different role .
Pve and Pvp are entirely different aspects of play and not every build will work in both - 55 monks work in pve but pvp .. your asking for death and a lot of abuse.
Id hazard a guess but players who do both pve and pvp on same chrs tend to have diff setups and armor setups to compensate.Most tend to have both a pve and pvp chr

Speusippus · Apr 22, 2011, 04:27 PM // 16:27

Thanks Spiritz.

To clarify, I didn't mean to ask whether the five profession combos could each be used for both PvE and PvP, but rather, meant to ask which of them could be used for PvP, which for PvE, and which (if any) for both.

Cuilan · Apr 22, 2011, 04:41 PM // 16:41

The quick answer to your list is no. None of them work.

Now how about you post specific builds with attributes or build codes so you can get real answers. One can say two professions work together, but you can change secondaries later in the game at will and your secondary doesn't mean your build is "viable."

http://www.gwpvx.com/Special:PvXDecode

Speusippus · Apr 22, 2011, 04:55 PM // 16:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

The quick answer to your list is no. None of them work.

Isn't monk/mesmer one of the standard combinations in PvP?

Geez guys.

Think of this OP as as asking, "I'm about to commit to the following combinations for 5 of my characters. Stop me if I'm making a mistake!"

pinkeyflower · Apr 22, 2011, 05:01 PM // 17:01

Nature Rituals are worthless because they take 5 seconds to cast and go down instantly although they have their uses in gimmicks. Minions are terrible because they barely contribute to your team. Traps are bad because humans can just avoid them or use monks to heal.

Skill types are still too generic because I can say that and still put together some awful bar; remember many bars have some degree of synergy in them.

If you are making an Elementalist primary and take a bow why not just make a ranger? Elementalists are made for dealing damage through their elements (although you shouldn't invest in more than two).

As I have stated you can take anything into PvE and it will work. With PvP your build (i.e. you eight skills) is especially important and a simple yes or no cannot be given regarding viability by simply looking at professions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speusippus

Isn't monk/mesmer one of the standard combinations in PvP?

Only in HA and you are way too inexperienced to attempt that.

TheGizzy · Apr 22, 2011, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speusippus

Geez guys.

Think of this OP as as asking, "I'm about to commit to the following combinations for 5 of my characters. Stop me if I'm making a mistake!"

I think some of the responses you're getting are coming from the perspective of knowing you are not stuck with any one secondary profession. You choose your primary when you make your toon... and that toon will always be that primary. You choose a secondary early in the storyline... but with Factions & Nightfall, you're able to change your secondary shortly into the game... and most do. We tend to change our secondaries at will, almost constantly, to be more effective in certain areas or against certain foes or to provide certain backup skills to the rest of our teams, etc.

It's meant to provide a significant degree of flexibility.

As such, I don't think most experienced players think in terms of "what combination is best." They're thinking, "what primary is going to work nicely with all available secondaries... and their respective build potential... for what I want to accomplish?"

Speusippus · Apr 22, 2011, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Okay, I see what you're saying.

I think I'll just have fun with PvE and play around with skills, and also investigate specific skill builds online in preparation for doing PvP later on.

Is it okay, etiquette-wise, for me to enter random arena battles as a weakling noob with not many skills unlocked? Is there matchmaking at all?

Schmerdro · Apr 22, 2011, 05:46 PM // 17:46

You haven't posted any real builds but I'll try to give you some advice anyway.

Mo/Me works if you plan on using the skills from Inspiration Magic in order to manage your energy or to protect yourself. Mo/E is also good if you're interested in using Glyph of Lesser Energy, Glyph of Concentration (defense against interrupts and daze), or Glyph of Swiftness (shorter spell recharge).

E/R is bad, don't use it. Consider E/Me, E/Mo, E/Rt, or even E/A instead.

A/W is ok if you want to use Distracting Blow, Wild Blow, "Save Yourselves!", Whirlwind Attack, or just Axe Mastery skills instead of Dagger skills.

Rt/N is ok if you want to use Death Magic because your minions will have a higher health from Spawning Power (but they will also be of a lower level) and there are various Spawning Power skills that have synergy with various Animate Undead skills. Rt/N is also ok if you want to use various Curses skills that can disable your enemies. But Ritualists have a wide variety of skills on their own and they don't really need to use their secondary profession. Rt/Mo is another safe combination.

D/P -> no point to it, don't use it. D/W would offer the same things that I mentioned in the A/W combination. D/R has Antidote Signet and Apply Poison. D/Mo, D/Me, D/E, and D/Rt all have various defensive and offensive skills. Even D/N can work if you want to spam Order of Pain and Dark Fury. All of those combinations are more useful than D/R.

Of course, these are all just starting points. PvX Wiki is also a good place to look if you need some inspiration. And, lastly, I suggest you try to make a build that focuses on an idea, a specific role that you can play in a party, not on a profession combination.

Edit: By the way, since you're new to the game, I HIGHLY recommend you try doing some PvE to learn the mechanics of the game. Once you feel confident with that, try Fort Aspenwood, Jade Quarry, or Alliance Battles, which are the easiest types of PvP in the game.

Speusippus · Apr 22, 2011, 05:55 PM // 17:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

You haven't posted any real builds but I'll try to give you some advice anyway.

Mo/Me works if you plan on using the skills from Inspiration Magic in order to manage your energy or to protect yourself. Mo/E is also good if you're interested in using Glyph of Lesser Energy, Glyph of Concentration (defense against interrupts and daze), or Glyph of Swiftness (shorter spell recharge).

E/R is bad, don't use it. Consider E/Me, E/Mo, E/Rt, or even E/A instead.

A/W is ok if you want to use Distracting Blow, Wild Blow, "Save Yourselves!", Whirlwind Attack, or just Axe Mastery skills instead of Dagger skills.

Rt/N is ok if you want to use Death Magic because your minions will have a higher health from Spawning Power (but they will also be of a lower level) and there are various Spawning Power skills that have synergy with various Animate Undead skills. Rt/N is also ok if you want to use various Curses skills that can disable your enemies. But Ritualists have a wide variety of skills on their own and they don't really need to use their secondary profession. Rt/Mo is another safe combination.

D/P -> no point to it, don't use it. D/W would offer the same things that I mentioned in the A/W combination. D/R has Antidote Signet and Apply Poison. D/Mo, D/Me, D/E, and D/Rt all have various defensive and offensive skills. Even D/N can work if you want to spam Order of Pain and Dark Fury. All of those combinations are more useful than D/R.

Of course, these are all just starting points. PvX Wiki is also a good place to look if you need some inspiration. And, lastly, I suggest you try to make a build that focuses on an idea, a specific role that you can play in a party, not on a profession combination.

Edit: By the way, since you're new to the game, I HIGHLY recommend you try doing some PvE to learn the mechanics of the game. Once you feel confident with that, try Fort Aspenwood, Jade Quarry, or Alliance Battles, which are the easiest types of PvP in the game.

Thanks for the thorough comments. (As thorough as they could be given the vague nature of my OP).

As I said, I think I'll focus on PvE right now (just as you advise) and I think I'll use the combos I mentioned in the OP in PvE simply because they cover all 10 professions and it will give me experience with all their different skillsets. It'll just be for funsies.

Then I'll look at PvP later, though if it's okay etiquette-wise I may dip my toes in to some non-commitment-heavy easy PvP sooner rather than later.

BTW When does PvE get challenging? I'm near to level 9 a little after the Searing and I've not been in danger of dying yet...

BTW thanks for the link to the PvX wiki. Very nice site!

BrettM · Apr 22, 2011, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speusippus

Sounds like good advice--I've considered the idea that it might simply be a good idea to take some "random" secondary and then completely ignore it.

In fact, this IS a good idea, unless experimenting to learn something about the skills used by other professions that you need to be able to deal with.

The best use of a secondary profession is to provide one or two skills that give you a key capability that compliments a particular build of your main profession. For example, an earth ele with a build based on knockdowns (Unsteady Ground) might want to go E/Rt to take the Earthbind spirit (which increases knockdown duration) as part of the build. For another example, my smiting monk likes to go Mo/Ra to use Serpent's Quickness, which makes all of the smiting skills recharge faster. Combined with a 40/40 wand/focus set, the faster recharge adds tremendously to his damage output.

But many of my ele builds are pure ele from end to end, because everything the build needs to do can be done best with ele skills. Likewise, my ranger, para, and rit almost never use their secondary professions.

There are also farming or other specialized builds that rely very heavily on a secondary profession, but these are usually not workable for general PvE and certainly not in PvP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speusippus

How about using bows and preparations instead of traps and rituals?

To do this, you would first have to invest points in Marksmanship to meet the requirement of the bow or you won't get max damage. Then you will need a big investment in Wilderness Survival for the preparations. Finally, you will need a large investment in Energy Storage to make up for having to pay the full energy cost for each skill, using the large energy pool of an ele in place of the ranger's Expertise attribute. Keep in mind that you cannot use ranger runes on your armor, so you will be limited to a max of 12 in any ranger attribute.

If you want to use any ele skills with this, such as Blinding Flash or Conjure Lightning, you will have to stretch yourself dangerously thin by speccing into a fourth attribute.

When you get done, what you will have is a second-class ranger that does less damage than a real ranger would while wearing lighter armor than a ranger does. This is not what I'd call a recipe for success.

Schmerdro · Apr 22, 2011, 06:33 PM // 18:33

Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry sometimes have players that leave during (or even at the beginning!) of a match, and others that simply click "Enter Battle" and then just go afk (and subsequently get called "leecher"). As long as you don't do any of those things, anything you do is "good etiquette". But if you want to be extra nice, read the articles on Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry before joining them. But don't stress about it, I see lots of newbie players in both of those areas.

In my opinion, RA is pretty unforgiving and you won't get much out of it unless you know what you're doing.

In Tyria, PvE gets a lot more challenging when your party size is 8 (which is the default size for most GW content). For Cantha and Elona, it basically gets harder and harder as you get to the end of the campaign. Although, in both cases, the very last missions will actually be pretty short and somewhat easy because, after you complete it, you will get the chance to craft some exclusive armor and exclusive green weapons.

Once you complete a campaign you will also unlock the ability to either play in Normal Mode (which is what you are doing right now) or in Hard Mode.

If that's not enough for you, you can try The Underworld, The Fissure of Woe, Sorrow's Furnace, Tomb of the Primeval Kings, The War in Kryta, The Deep, Urgoz's Warren, The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx. And all of those can be done in either Normal Mode or Hard Mode as well.

Brian the Gladiator · Apr 22, 2011, 06:33 PM // 18:33

Here's my advice. When creating a build viable for PvP or PvE, you need to think, "What do I want to accomplish with this build?" and "Is there a better attribute line that can accomplish this task than the one I am using?"

What you want to do is maximize efficiency at the specific task. For instance, suppose you want to make a build that makes a bunch of additional AI players that can soak up damage as well as put out pressure. You could use Asuran summons and Ebon vanguard support, Ritualist Spirits, or Necromancer minions to accomplish this. Here we will select minions because in the area we are fighting in (lets say) there are a lot of corpses. Now, what is the best way to get minions that will soak up damage? Well there are many avenues you could take but a very efficient one is to take the elite skill Aura of the Lich, Shambling Horrors, Bone Fiends, and Blood of the Master to heal them. You could take Sig of Lost Souls for energy management and Masochism and Dark Bond for some additional beefiness to the minions and yourself. Obviously, the best profession for this task is a primary necromancer. So now you have a build that can efficiently accomplish the goal you set for yourself. If you aren't a necromancer, you probably should seek to accomplish a different goal and leave the minion mastering to a hero or human teammate for the party you are in. There are many different things that need to be done such as interruption, damage, tanking, debuffing enemies, defending allies, and healing to name a few. Figure out what your primary profession is best at, and utilize its strengths the best way possible.

This is how build creation should work, where you start out with a specific goal, and then brainstorm for the best ways to accomplish that goal. Specialization has proven to be super important in the workplace and Guild Wars is no different.

Haggis of Doom · Apr 22, 2011, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

PvX Wiki

PvX has moved here.

Schmerdro · Apr 22, 2011, 08:59 PM // 20:59

Oh, it's a good thing you told me that. I just used the link that Google gave me since I haven't used PvX in a long time. I'll edit my previous post.

Our Virus · Apr 23, 2011, 01:24 AM // 01:24

If you can make a build that works in both PvP and PvE, then there will be a build that works in both. If you don't feel confidet in your own abilities, keep making threads like this and go to pvx wiki.

sirblack · Apr 23, 2011, 01:36 AM // 01:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speusippus

Very new to the game, btw, as I'm sure you can tell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speusippus

Think of this OP as as asking, "I'm about to commit to the following combinations for 5 of my characters. Stop me if I'm making a mistake!"

So basically it sounds like you're trying to settle on combinations for 5 characters that will cover all 10 classes. That might not get you the hardcore-really-optimized combinations for each one; but that's not really a huge deal, especially not for a new player.

One very important thing you need to know up front though: after a certain point in the game you can change your secondary profession basically at will (and without any loss of skills gained or such). So which secondaries you start out with are not terribly important. You'll get some free skills from various quest rewards for your starting secondaries, but beyond that it won't matter too much. And going between all the various areas of the game, particularly changing between PvE and PvP, you'll sometimes end up switching secondaries back and forth if you want to have the more effective builds for each particular place.

Another important thing for PvP: if you keep once character slot free from having a PvE character, then you can use it to roll a PvP-only character of any class combination that you want. That will have access to all the skills that you've acquired on your PvE characters. And since it's PvP-only, there's no "cost" to it. You could delete and re-roll it over and over with different combinations without losing anything. And this means you could do things like only ever use Monk as a secondary on PvE characters but still be able to roll of primary Monk on that PvP-only character.

With all that in mind, what you should first concentrate on is: what kind of primary classes do you really want to play across the entire game? Each class has particular specialities that often don't work as well when run as a secondary class (other than a few niche builds here and there). If you really want to experience what each class has to offer, you pretty much would need to make a primary of each one.

Once you pick which primaries you most want to play, then you can try to shuffle around the secondaries so they best complement what each primary is doing. Sometimes the secondaries don't really provide much. It could be quite plausible to go through a lot of PvE content barely making use of secondary class skills on a particular character.

Apr 22, 2011, 02:49 PM // 14:49	#1
Speusippus Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Apr 2011	Are these viable builds in PvE and PvP? Monk/Mesmer <--I know from reading around that this is viable in both. Elementalist/Ranger <--I gather this is considered non-viable by many, but it seems to me that you could focus on air magic and wilderness survival, wielding wands and staves rather than bows, using traps and rituals from the survival attribute. What would be wrong with this for a backline damage-dealer with some support abilities? (I forget what led me to think to focus on air magic with this one.) Assassin/Warrior <-- I gather this is considered quite viable. Ritualist/Necromancer <-- My idea here is to focus on minions from both professions. Would this work? Dervish/Paragon <-- Seems odd since Dervish is supposed to be in the middle of things and Paragon is supposed to be support--but seems like one could focus on anything from Dervish plus Command from paragons, (special focus on shouts) and have a nice frontline combat/support type toon. Iunno, what do you guys think? (Very new to the game, btw, as I'm sure you can tell.)

Apr 22, 2011, 05:46 PM // 17:46	#12
Schmerdro Krytan Explorer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Canada Profession: N/	You haven't posted any real builds but I'll try to give you some advice anyway. Mo/Me works if you plan on using the skills from Inspiration Magic in order to manage your energy or to protect yourself. Mo/E is also good if you're interested in using Glyph of Lesser Energy, Glyph of Concentration (defense against interrupts and daze), or Glyph of Swiftness (shorter spell recharge). E/R is bad, don't use it. Consider E/Me, E/Mo, E/Rt, or even E/A instead. A/W is ok if you want to use Distracting Blow, Wild Blow, "Save Yourselves!", Whirlwind Attack, or just Axe Mastery skills instead of Dagger skills. Rt/N is ok if you want to use Death Magic because your minions will have a higher health from Spawning Power (but they will also be of a lower level) and there are various Spawning Power skills that have synergy with various Animate Undead skills. Rt/N is also ok if you want to use various Curses skills that can disable your enemies. But Ritualists have a wide variety of skills on their own and they don't really need to use their secondary profession. Rt/Mo is another safe combination. D/P -> no point to it, don't use it. D/W would offer the same things that I mentioned in the A/W combination. D/R has Antidote Signet and Apply Poison. D/Mo, D/Me, D/E, and D/Rt all have various defensive and offensive skills. Even D/N can work if you want to spam Order of Pain and Dark Fury. All of those combinations are more useful than D/R. Of course, these are all just starting points. PvX Wiki is also a good place to look if you need some inspiration. And, lastly, I suggest you try to make a build that focuses on an idea, a specific role that you can play in a party, not on a profession combination. Edit: By the way, since you're new to the game, I HIGHLY recommend you try doing some PvE to learn the mechanics of the game. Once you feel confident with that, try Fort Aspenwood, Jade Quarry, or Alliance Battles, which are the easiest types of PvP in the game. Last edited by Schmerdro; Apr 22, 2011 at 09:01 PM // 21:01..

Apr 22, 2011, 06:33 PM // 18:33	#15
Schmerdro Krytan Explorer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Canada Profession: N/	Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry sometimes have players that leave during (or even at the beginning!) of a match, and others that simply click "Enter Battle" and then just go afk (and subsequently get called "leecher"). As long as you don't do any of those things, anything you do is "good etiquette". But if you want to be extra nice, read the articles on Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry before joining them. But don't stress about it, I see lots of newbie players in both of those areas. In my opinion, RA is pretty unforgiving and you won't get much out of it unless you know what you're doing. In Tyria, PvE gets a lot more challenging when your party size is 8 (which is the default size for most GW content). For Cantha and Elona, it basically gets harder and harder as you get to the end of the campaign. Although, in both cases, the very last missions will actually be pretty short and somewhat easy because, after you complete it, you will get the chance to craft some exclusive armor and exclusive green weapons. Once you complete a campaign you will also unlock the ability to either play in Normal Mode (which is what you are doing right now) or in Hard Mode. If that's not enough for you, you can try The Underworld, The Fissure of Woe, Sorrow's Furnace, Tomb of the Primeval Kings, The War in Kryta, The Deep, Urgoz's Warren, The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx. And all of those can be done in either Normal Mode or Hard Mode as well. Last edited by Schmerdro; Apr 22, 2011 at 06:38 PM // 18:38..

Apr 22, 2011, 03:19 PM // 15:19	#2
pinkeyflower Krytan Explorer Join Date: Jan 2010	Your information is too generic. A build consists of eight skills not the professions, simply stating the professions is quite meaningless because there are countless possibilities as to which skills you equip. For example, Assassins with a Warrior secondary are common but you could have a terrible bar. I think the problem though is that you do not have a single focus on what you want your character to do. It is unadvisable to try and make your builds try to do too many things because you end up having to split attribute investment leading you to not do anything particularly well. Again, really this can only be detailed by giving the skills that you are/want to carry and your attribute split. Another thing is that PvE and PvP are very different. With the introduction of heroes you can bring anything through PvE and you will still win, except on the more challenging content. However, in PvP your build is extremely important as you must fit a role in order to achieve success and be efficient in it. While you have not provided any builds I will say that while minions and traps may be effective in PvE they are worthless in PvP as are nature rituals. A common trend I see in builds that new players use is that they focus far too much on their secondary profession, remember that your primary profession is primary for a reason although there are exceptions to this (mainly in PvE). As a player that is new to Guild Wars I suggest you experiment but also take criticism in a somewhat positive manner and are inquisitive on how your build compares to other more accepted ones.

Apr 22, 2011, 03:25 PM // 15:25	#3
BrettM Desert Nomad Join Date: Aug 2008 Guild: Fuzzy Physics Institute Profession: E/	As far as E/Ra, there are three problems. One is that traps take forever to set and are easily interrupted, and foes will rarely trigger them if your front line is doing its job. Two is that nature rituals are as likely to help the foe as they are to help your team, or to hinder your team as well as hindering the foe. Few of them have any real utility, and then only in special circumstances. Three is that staff/wand damage is very low even in normal mode and they have a low rate of fire. So, your back line damage dealer is not going to be doing very much damage using spellcasting weapons and traps. Spells are the elementalist's best means of dealing both damage and support, so giving up a slot that could be used for a decent spell in favor of a trap or nature ritual is a bad idea. Standing around wanding foes is also a last resort for an ele, and is something that you should only be doing when you can't cast. Sometimes not even then, because there are times when it is better to stand there doing nothing than to wand something and trigger a knockdown or interrupt that activates on attack.

Apr 22, 2011, 04:14 PM // 16:14	#5
Spiritz Forge Runner Join Date: Apr 2007 Guild: DMFC	Think of gw this way - you have your primary profession which sets you aside from other professions - eg necros and soul reaping , eles with energy storage. But branching into 2nd profession isnt always as strong , anyone can use fire skills but only an ele can have the power of the attack or due to energy storage keep up the attacks. Exceptions can be r/rts using spirit spammers - rangers get skill cost cheaper , necros get energy faster etc. Each profession has its own role - melee frontliner , midliners and backliners , some professions like paragon play a weird role and become more party support than attack. Usually thats the problem with paragons - the role given to them by anet means they cant always play a different role . Pve and Pvp are entirely different aspects of play and not every build will work in both - 55 monks work in pve but pvp .. your asking for death and a lot of abuse. Id hazard a guess but players who do both pve and pvp on same chrs tend to have diff setups and armor setups to compensate.Most tend to have both a pve and pvp chr

Apr 22, 2011, 04:27 PM // 16:27	#6
Speusippus Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Apr 2011	Thanks Spiritz. To clarify, I didn't mean to ask whether the five profession combos could each be used for both PvE and PvP, but rather, meant to ask which of them could be used for PvP, which for PvE, and which (if any) for both.

Apr 22, 2011, 04:41 PM // 16:41	#7
Cuilan Forge Runner Join Date: Mar 2008 Profession: Me/	The quick answer to your list is no. None of them work. Now how about you post specific builds with attributes or build codes so you can get real answers. One can say two professions work together, but you can change secondaries later in the game at will and your secondary doesn't mean your build is "viable." http://www.gwpvx.com/Special:PvXDecode

Apr 22, 2011, 05:33 PM // 17:33	#11
Speusippus Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Apr 2011	Okay, I see what you're saying. I think I'll just have fun with PvE and play around with skills, and also investigate specific skill builds online in preparation for doing PvP later on. Is it okay, etiquette-wise, for me to enter random arena battles as a weakling noob with not many skills unlocked? Is there matchmaking at all?

Apr 22, 2011, 06:33 PM // 18:33	#16
Brian the Gladiator Krytan Explorer Join Date: May 2006 Location: Michigan, USA Guild: Us Are Not [leet] Profession: E/	Here's my advice. When creating a build viable for PvP or PvE, you need to think, "What do I want to accomplish with this build?" and "Is there a better attribute line that can accomplish this task than the one I am using?" What you want to do is maximize efficiency at the specific task. For instance, suppose you want to make a build that makes a bunch of additional AI players that can soak up damage as well as put out pressure. You could use Asuran summons and Ebon vanguard support, Ritualist Spirits, or Necromancer minions to accomplish this. Here we will select minions because in the area we are fighting in (lets say) there are a lot of corpses. Now, what is the best way to get minions that will soak up damage? Well there are many avenues you could take but a very efficient one is to take the elite skill Aura of the Lich, Shambling Horrors, Bone Fiends, and Blood of the Master to heal them. You could take Sig of Lost Souls for energy management and Masochism and Dark Bond for some additional beefiness to the minions and yourself. Obviously, the best profession for this task is a primary necromancer. So now you have a build that can efficiently accomplish the goal you set for yourself. If you aren't a necromancer, you probably should seek to accomplish a different goal and leave the minion mastering to a hero or human teammate for the party you are in. There are many different things that need to be done such as interruption, damage, tanking, debuffing enemies, defending allies, and healing to name a few. Figure out what your primary profession is best at, and utilize its strengths the best way possible. This is how build creation should work, where you start out with a specific goal, and then brainstorm for the best ways to accomplish that goal. Specialization has proven to be super important in the workplace and Guild Wars is no different.

Apr 22, 2011, 08:59 PM // 20:59	#18
Schmerdro Krytan Explorer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Canada Profession: N/	Oh, it's a good thing you told me that. I just used the link that Google gave me since I haven't used PvX in a long time. I'll edit my previous post.

Apr 23, 2011, 01:24 AM // 01:24	#19
Our Virus Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: Jan 2011 Guild: The Capital [Para] Profession: P/	If you can make a build that works in both PvP and PvE, then there will be a build that works in both. If you don't feel confidet in your own abilities, keep making threads like this and go to pvx wiki.