Curse

Creed · Jul 09, 2005, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mhydrian

PVP in guildwars is so heavily salnted in favor of casters that its almost pointles to PVP with anything else. As a ranger, a anti-caster build even, I can barely get on even ground with most casters. Ill make a small list of reasons why casters simply need major changes.

1) Caster damage cannot be avoided. Line of sight? who cares a caster can cast spike damage through solid walls or stack so many DOTs you die in seconds, all by simply tabbing around and picking the next poor sucker. As a ranger a supposed anti catser class I have to play hide and seek with casters as they cast thorugh solid objects.

2) Damage is too reliable. Do you know how many defenses there are in the game to provide 75% or better defense against physical damage? Tons..or you can simply move around alot and my ranger can easily miss a pin shot with a nice big fat cool down. There is no way to defend against magic attacks. Dots hit for full damage everytime, nukes land for huge damage. Oh I know there are hex removers and condition removers...of course mostly from monks. But every class has built in ways to surivive melee damage and yet the only methods to prevent some DOT damage is on skills that are rare amongst classes, usually with hefty cast times and cooldowns to boot.

3) Too much damage done. Necros and the N/me are usually the worst offenders here. Air spikes are just cheesy as hell, seeing as they can shoot through solid objects. But DotS that kill a person in 6 or 7 seconds is retarded. I understand casters are tank killers, but what is a caster killer, or more specifically a Necro killer? More than one person is usually the best and only means. They can stack DOTs, and they have fast, near instant casts on huge damage/drain spells. As a ranger I dont have the hopes of downing a caster in under 10 seconds yet, a caster can do this to anyone else standing behind a wall.

4) Anyone with two legs can negate a war. Melee is just bad, consider that a caster can out damage a war in most cases, with DOTs alone. And thats if the warrior gets free shots in. Take into account blindness, stances, Defesnive spells, the damage done is drastically reduced. Then all a person has to do is turn and run and you have 100% immunity from melee. And yes there sure are ways to cripple someone, but its not very reliable and can be removed avoided alot easier than its actually succesful.

5) Warriors take a HUGE hit, they get 2 bars of regeneration. Why? Im trying to understand why...It's quite obvious that armor means absolutely nothing in this game in PVP. Damage that ignores armor in PVP is abundant....rampant even. DoTs totally negate armor and are one of the worst killers in the game. It must be the warriors awesome offensive skills....prolly not seeing as damage done by melee is easy to reduce or even nullify. So where is this huge advantage that warriors get to justify having such pitiful magic skills?

Its really a shame casters are not my favoire to play. But just seeing all the N/me running around owing everything they meet, with no real weaknesses excpet superior numbers on the opposite team is dumb. Yes there are counters to every build....but some classes are WAY to easily countered while others require a collection of skills on a bunch of classes together to effectively counter.

So too simply say there i a counter to build X is really saying nothing. There arent enough ways to easily remove/reduce dot damage in the game. Mesmers get the BEST melee skill in the game "Illusionary Weapon". A Random class/Secondary warrior is almost always a better PVP class than a Warrior/Random class. Having two monks on one team of 4 should not make them practically impossible to beat. The list goes on, but PVP as it is is simply a joke. Melee and physical damage needs to be improved greatly, and defenses against DOTS, and line of sight requirements for casters put in. As it is yet another game who overpwers casters in PVP. Its been done over and over.....and Guild wars is no better.

Flame away. I dont care, the majority of the player base plays oblivious to these boards anyways. Simply an observation, thats true. And if the developers of the game cared about a enjoyable PVP experience they wouldnt force people to make certain builds.

Just to counter act all the mis-information i'll take each point you made a prove it wrong to the best of my ability.

Quote:

Caster damage cannot be avoided. Line of sight? who cares a caster can cast spike damage through solid walls or stack so many DOTs you die in seconds, all by simply tabbing around and picking the next poor sucker. As a ranger a supposed anti catser class I have to play hide and seek with casters as they cast thorugh solid objects.

Firstly, have you ever tried to parry attacks from an elementalist? Flares the best example, you can simply hold E or Q to completly avoid flare. Fireball and pehonix must have a direct line of sight to hit with the main stay of their damage. So much Lightning javalin, Lightning Orb and more. Of course there will be exclusions such as lightning strike and chain lightning which come from the sky. If you did make all spells 'line of sight' types... then you would give melee classes an advantage. Quite an advantage. Hiding if/when they choose and simply not allowing a caster to hit them unless the run right near them based on angles etc.

Quote:

2) Damage is too reliable. Do you know how many defenses there are in the game to provide 75% or better defense against physical damage? Tons..or you can simply move around alot and my ranger can easily miss a pin shot with a nice big fat cool down. There is no way to defend against magic attacks. Dots hit for full damage everytime, nukes land for huge damage. Oh I know there are hex removers and condition removers...of course mostly from monks. But every class has built in ways to surivive melee damage and yet the only methods to prevent some DOT damage is on skills that are rare amongst classes, usually with hefty cast times and cooldowns to boot.

Actually i think you'll find a warrior or ranger has much more reliable damage than any caster. Energy has toi run out some time and when it does casters lose almost all damage yet warriors and rangers just keep pounding away. DoT damage stoppers? Well of course a monk will have alot of the solutions here but that's not to say Rangers and warriors dont have their own defences. Troll Uguent, +9 health regain... you'll be taking low, if any from any DoTs in reality. Melandrus resiliance. Healing spring. You'll find there is no dot that can out damage healing spring + troll uguent. Antidote signet.. also helps here. You seem to forget, a ranger and a warrior have their own DoTs. Warriors bleed. Rangers bleed / poison. What defence would an elementalist have agains that? You need to look at your secound class, just like they need to.

Quote:

3) Too much damage done. Necros and the N/me are usually the worst offenders here. Air spikes are just cheesy as hell, seeing as they can shoot through solid objects. But DotS that kill a person in 6 or 7 seconds is retarded. I understand casters are tank killers, but what is a caster killer, or more specifically a Necro killer? More than one person is usually the best and only means. They can stack DOTs, and they have fast, near instant casts on huge damage/drain spells. As a ranger I dont have the hopes of downing a caster in under 10 seconds yet, a caster can do this to anyone else standing behind a wall.

Necros can cast multiple hexes and DoTs 1 after another fast and easy right? Have you looked at the ranger skills? Natures renewal. they will only get half as many off within the same amount of time. Quicking zephyr will further destroy a necrmancer. Follow that up with choking gas and a necro wont be doing anything but dying. You could also simply wait for them to use their dreaded life transfer and hit them with a Concussion shot and laugh at them as they simply get destroyed.

Quote:

4) Anyone with two legs can negate a war. Melee is just bad, consider that a caster can out damage a war in most cases, with DOTs alone. And thats if the warrior gets free shots in. Take into account blindness, stances, Defesnive spells, the damage done is drastically reduced. Then all a person has to do is turn and run and you have 100% immunity from melee. And yes there sure are ways to cripple someone, but its not very reliable and can be removed avoided alot easier than its actually succesful

O...k this is where i stop having respect and just laugh. Battle rage. Sprint. Rush. You dont have to slow your enemy if you simply speed yourself up.

After point 4 you simply cover more DoT ground, no point in my going over it again. This is a team game, everyone does their part, a ranger or warrior alone is'nt going to do anything. Neither is a caster. GUILD wars. Not 'Solo melee beat fest'.

knives · Jul 09, 2005, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Just use the premade paladin build. It's better than most W/Mo builds I have seen.

Final Thrust does not suck, when I was messing around with premades, I used that and it practically killed everything. Wait till all the adr. skills are charged, then use sever artery, gash, followed by galrath slash, and then they should be under 50% of HP and final thrust. That either kills them, or endangers them to a sliver of life, and you just stab once more and they are dead. Even the monk doesn't anticipate that much dmg from one attack. They see your foe as fine enough to go on without healing, but once you combo the skills together, they will have about 10life or so left, and the monk will be like WTF when he was too busy healing someone else, and then you stab and they die.

And W/Mo's worship (almost religiously) Mending.

Tellani Artini · Jul 09, 2005, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ednemak

but im still new I guess, if anyone can tell me what a good skill set for a W/Mo is that would grreeatly help

I'll give you a hint: start using axe or hammer.

knives · Jul 09, 2005, 08:38 PM // 20:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Man With No Name

I'll offer a few suggestions for this upcoming Summer Update....

I'd love to see more anti-caster type skills and more importantly items, for example:

- The introducing other types of armour for Warrior types -- The armour suit wouldn't protect against Physical very well but against 1 particular form of elemental damage the Warrior would be extremely protected

I'd like them to introduce more skills, for example:

- Attacks to the arms to slow down casting speed.
- Also make casters have fixed % chance of failing their current spell -- since they're being disrupted by being attacked

Ok, then why doesn't everyone just go Warrior over ranger, since they have high physical resistance AND high elemental resistance? Their energy pools are about the same, and just use a bow and start killing things. Then you can turn the class that is the most leastly played into Ranger.

Goodjob.

Wow, now warriors can be like rangers, AND mesmers too! Since you don't need fast casting anymore, go ahead and become a w/mo so you can run in and kill casters, resist elemental attacks, AND disrupt anything that tries to cast something. Mesmer will be the 2nd least played class now.

If you want ele resistances, go ele nuker (if oyu like doing dmg) or ranger DoT (if you like conditions). If you want to disrupt, become a mesmer. You could even go hammer warrior w/ knockdowns, thats alot of disrupting if you can manage it well. Warriors can't do everything. Though, I like your suggestion about how the attack speeds of warriors could be increased, but they already have the fastest weapon "refire" rates.

Principa Discordia · Jul 09, 2005, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by ICURADik

Already used signet.

Actually, in most cases I've noted it's people not carrying one at all. But let's not go off-topic over something so pointless.

Man With No Name · Jul 09, 2005, 08:58 PM // 20:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by knives

Ok, then why doesn't everyone just go Warrior over ranger, since they have high physical resistance AND high elemental resistance? Their energy pools are about the same, and just use a bow and start killing things. Then you can turn the class that is the most leastly played into Ranger.

Goodjob.

Wow, now warriors can be like rangers, AND mesmers too! Since you don't need fast casting anymore, go ahead and become a w/mo so you can run in and kill casters, resist elemental attacks, AND disrupt anything that tries to cast something. Mesmer will be the 2nd least played class now.

If you want ele resistances, go ele nuker (if oyu like doing dmg) or ranger DoT (if you like conditions). If you want to disrupt, become a mesmer. You could even go hammer warrior w/ knockdowns, thats alot of disrupting if you can manage it well. Warriors can't do everything. Though, I like your suggestion about how the attack speeds of warriors could be increased, but they already have the fastest weapon "refire" rates.

I think you've completely missed the point of the introduction of specific types of armour....

I stated that the armour resists against 1 FORM of elemental damage ( like Fire ) -- this is at the expense of lower Physical resistance -- which is mostly useless for a Warrior in PvP anyway -- the Warrior would still be no less succeptable to other forms of elemental damage ( like Lightning )

i.e. I could create a Warrior for specifically dealing with Fire Elementalists -- His armour would resist Fire Based attacks -- He'd be more succeptable to Physical damage than a "normal" Warrior with Platemail -- and he'd be just as succeptable to other forms of Elemental damage -- like Lightning.... ( hell, they could even make the armour have penalties against other Elemental forms... )

You could even create Warriors that have lesser protection against a greater range of dmg types. Guild Battles wouldn't be stagnant affairs, with 1 particular form of elemental damage being the "flavour of the month" -- Casters would have to change skillset and Warriors would in order to keep up.

Also adding more physical condition dealing skills to a Warrior -- can't be a drawback -- it can only add another level of challenge

If you have a better or different suggestion to create more diversity then please go ahead and share it....

catharsis · Jul 09, 2005, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by knives

Final Thrust does not suck, when I was messing around with premades, I used that and it practically killed everything. Wait till all the adr. skills are charged, then use sever artery, gash, followed by galrath slash, and then they should be under 50% of HP and final thrust.

Actually, I think Final Thrust DOES suck, but that's just because it rips all of your adrenaline away. You have to wait until somebody's in the right health range to use it too - I usually find that if I take Galrath Slash instead of FT, I can use it several times more over the course of combat, and without having to worry about how it affects other skills. Granted, FT is a nice "SURPRISE!"-type spike, and does have its uses... blah, I'll just grab an axe

What I want to know is why so many warriors are married to sever artery + gash. You don't HAVE to use the combo, you know. Bleeding isn't all that wonderful, and to maximize its usefulness, you need to use it at the beginning of the fight. Deep Wounds are groovy, but they're best used at the END of the fight, so that you can take advantage of the lower max health before it runs out. I see the combo as being at odds with itself, unless you space it out - use the bleed early, use the gash late. But I almost NEVER see sword warriors do that.

There are significantly more useful warrior skills that could take the place of those two slots. Hamstring. Pure Strike. Savage Slash. Seeking Blade. Galrath Slash. Most of those are energy skills, so you'll need to be a little more careful not to use it all up, but play around with them. You don't HAVE to use Sever + Gash just because they're handed to you as a pair in PreSear.

knives · Jul 09, 2005, 09:08 PM // 21:08

So do the rangers. They have different armor types that resist against ONE form of elemental damage, in sacrifice to almost no physical resistance. (Frostbound, Drakescale, etc). So you are trying to integrate ranger and warrior armor. Tell me if I am not reading it correctly, and you mean something entirely different.

More conditions, yeah thats fun, but then every warrior would carry victory is mine, and practically live forever. But I do like this idea.

Warriors would have a seperate armor set that, although has less physical resistance, would be able to recover from certain conditions faster than normal. (ie. if a warrior was wearing optometry armor, then he would recover from blindness faster, and we would see alot less w/mo's running around with purge conditions) And thsi could go with any popular condition. This owuld make warriors more effective in battle, and more of a threat, instead of a "Oh, I'll deal with him later, I have to kill the monk first."

The only thing that kills a warrior fast is life degen and conditions. Sure air eles can spike him, but thats practically unavoidable. But that would only happen if you were to be the last one on your team alive, and then I doubt you could still win even if the other team let you rez one more person before dying yourself.

catharsis · Jul 09, 2005, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by knives

(ie. if a warrior was wearing optometry armor

I'm picturing a dude with an axe in a white lab coat and thick glasses.

Man With No Name · Jul 09, 2005, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by knives

So do the rangers. They have different armor types that resist against ONE form of elemental damage, in sacrifice to almost no physical resistance. (Frostbound, Drakescale, etc). So you are trying to integrate ranger and warrior armor. Tell me if I am not reading it correctly, and you mean something entirely different.

More conditions, yeah thats fun, but then every warrior would carry victory is mine, and practically live forever. But I do like this idea.

Warriors would have a seperate armor set that, although has less physical resistance, would be able to recover from certain conditions faster than normal. (ie. if a warrior was wearing optometry armor, then he would recover from blindness faster, and we would see alot less w/mo's running around with purge conditions) And thsi could go with any popular condition. This owuld make warriors more effective in battle, and more of a threat, instead of a "Oh, I'll deal with him later, I have to kill the monk first."

The only thing that kills a warrior fast is life degen and conditions. Sure air eles can spike him, but thats practically unavoidable. But that would only happen if you were to be the last one on your team alive, and then I doubt you could still win even if the other team let you rez one more person before dying yourself.

I guess I am trying to integrate the Warrior and Ranger classes but you have seen the point I'm trying to make, else you wouldn't have wrote this:

Warriors would have a seperate armor set that, although has less physical resistance, would be able to recover from certain conditions faster than normal. (ie. if a warrior was wearing optometry armor, then he would recover from blindness faster, and we would see alot less w/mo's running around with purge conditions) And this could go with any popular condition. This would make warriors more effective in battle, and more of a threat, instead of a "Oh, I'll deal with him later, I have to kill the monk first."

I love this suggestion, just think of all the combinations that can be created now.

Now my armour could consist of:

- Stone Fist Gauntlets ( for the increase knockdown duration )
- 1 Knights Piece
- 1 Optometry Armour Piece ( for faster blinding recovery )

and so on....

Now we're making progress

knives · Jul 09, 2005, 09:14 PM // 21:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by catharsis

Actually, I think Final Thrust DOES suck, but that's just because it rips all of your adrenaline away. You have to wait until somebody's in the right health range to use it too - I usually find that if I take Galrath Slash instead of FT, I can use it several times more over the course of combat, and without having to worry about how it affects other skills. Granted, FT is a nice "SURPRISE!"-type spike, and does have its uses... blah, I'll just grab an axe

Yeah, but if you have seen a SMART warrior out there, then you would actually see this combo being used more sagely.

Make them bleed, yeah your right, its not all that great, but gash requires it, so what are you going to do? Since they have a deep wound (from gash), you then use galrath hurting them for alot, and finish up with final thrust to spike the last bit. 2 warriors using final thrust at the same time = instant death, even if they are at 75% life, because one warrior hurts them for a decent amount, while the others final thrust kills them.

I prefer axe myself, but since final thrust is a swordsmanship skill, its hard to use both. Hmm..You could also take a w/me, take phantom pain, and then BLACKOUT! then galrath and finalthrust to prevent them from doing something useful. Hmm..I should try this idea..:P

catharsis · Jul 09, 2005, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by knives

I prefer axe myself, but since final thrust is a swordsmanship skill, its hard to use both. Hmm..You could also take a w/me, take phantom pain, and then BLACKOUT! then galrath and finalthrust to prevent them from doing something useful. Hmm..I should try this idea..:P

I have seen smart warriors out there, but they're certainly not the majority

Wouldn't blackout lock YOUR galrath and FT also?

knives · Jul 09, 2005, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by catharsis

I'm picturing a dude with an axe in a white lab coat and thick glasses.

LOL

Progress is always good.

I can't really think of more upgrades for a warrior to have that doesn't completely overshadow another class, or have the most useless point in the world. =/ Oh well, back to owning warriors with my mesmer disguised as a necro.

EDIT: Yeah, maybe I did it in the wrong order. =P Phantom pain, galrath, final, blackout. So if they are still living, they can't heal themselves (if this is a monk). If it isn't then use another combo. PP, arcane conundrum (your PP will probably end when you cast this), galrath, final. Owned. kthxgg.

Ednemak · Jul 09, 2005, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Man warriors are a mess

We dont even get invited in the tomb of primeval kings

Everyone is making spike groups with Elementalists and Monks only, sometimes mesmers

Thom · Jul 09, 2005, 10:04 PM // 22:04

There is a ton of irony here. New players often go to a warrior class because of the relative simplicity of play. Advanced players are more likely to go to a more complicated caster build. Advanced leaders find it easier to build around mages considering you find a higher quality player on average. Casters look like gods when they are played by these groups and the game looks unbalanced. Copy cat builders of middling to poor players start using the Flavor of the Month and we have a ton of caster builds running around and the game looks even less balanced.

Here advanced players get bored of fighting "spike air elementalists" or the new FoM and find something that owns the build type (spirit rangers, protection healers) and the process begins from the top. At some point warriors will have their day and you will complain about how they aren't balanced. Here are a few reasons to play a warrior centered build:
Not energy dependent--there are fifty ways to use this.
Less healing reliant--tank abilities.
Sustainable damage--only ones that can keep up with rangers in a long battle.

We will see more warriors if we continue to see ranger builds or if we see more mesmer energy drain builds. Warriors have the ability to perform every necessary function in the game, it just is more skill intensive to do so.

QuixotesGhost · Jul 10, 2005, 12:13 AM // 00:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by knives

Yeah, but if you have seen a SMART warrior out there, then you would actually see this combo being used more sagely.

Make them bleed, yeah your right, its not all that great, but gash requires it, so what are you going to do? Since they have a deep wound (from gash), you then use galrath hurting them for alot, and finish up with final thrust to spike the last bit. 2 warriors using final thrust at the same time = instant death, even if they are at 75% life, because one warrior hurts them for a decent amount, while the others final thrust kills them.

I prefer axe myself, but since final thrust is a swordsmanship skill, its hard to use both. Hmm..You could also take a w/me, take phantom pain, and then BLACKOUT! then galrath and finalthrust to prevent them from doing something useful. Hmm..I should try this idea..:P

Just don't get greedy, There's situations when playing a Blackout War that you should let adrenaline skills build up and situations where you should just Blackout your target immediatley. That 10 adren cost encourages you to go "just a couple more hits, just a couple more hits..... Oh, FFS! Throw Dirt/ Blinding Flash/ Ineptitude/ Midnight Signet/ Enveterating Charge/ ect."

Since I pack hexbreaker my General rule of thumb is: Necros/Monks/Warriors/Mesmers all get adren skills used on em before I Blackout. With Elementalists/Rangers, I don't screw around, Blackout immediatley.

Phades · Jul 10, 2005, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Principa Discordia

Not sure what game you are playing, but I've not seen 1 vs. 1.

Ive seen 1v1 plenty, but it didnt start off that way. It occured more of result of an afterthought, accident or engineered event. Plently of times where ive lead a target out of monk healing range and subsequently destroyed them. Few times ive been trapped away from my team's monk as well, but its quite situational.

Phades · Jul 10, 2005, 12:36 AM // 00:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

Here advanced players get bored of fighting "spike air elementalists" or the new FoM and find something that owns the build type (spirit rangers, protection healers) and the process begins from the top. At some point warriors will have their day and you will complain about how they aren't balanced. Here are a few reasons to play a warrior centered build:
Not energy dependent--there are fifty ways to use this.
Less healing reliant--tank abilities.
Sustainable damage--only ones that can keep up with rangers in a long battle.

We will see more warriors if we continue to see ranger builds or if we see more mesmer energy drain builds. Warriors have the ability to perform every necessary function in the game, it just is more skill intensive to do so.

Not to really nit pick here as i agree with most of what you say, but unless you go specifically for energy based armor, there are plenty of skills that will drain half to more than all of the base warrior energy pool and without sucessful melee attacks have the least time effective way to recover it.

Well you could tank, but that is more of a PvE benefit than a pvp one, just kinda surprised you listed it. The ability to tank isnt warrior exclusive and id say rangers have better coverage againt things that can get mitigated, while monks have the best options for it.

Sustainable damage is very situational, while reliable damage seems to be less sustainable.

Much like how mesmers and necros are skill intensive to have full coverage over one aspect of denial, warriors are littered with one or two skills here and there that would suggest something to strenghten a normal build. This would be opposed to creating a build around the other functions and having no ability to counter the standard warrior counters. As you said they are more skill intesive and most likely too skill intensive, considering the number of lasting counters there are to warriors.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 10, 2005, 01:08 AM // 01:08

I have to slightly agree [very SLIGHTLY] with the opening post, however, it's in my understanding that it is balanced...

Why?

Well, for starters, what class can deal the MOST dmg without using any active skills at all? The WARRIOR, hands down...

What class can keep hitting you with no energy at all and deal UNFAIRLY HUGE amounts of damage? The Warrior.

And finally, what class can jam you into a corner/wall so you can't escape and you die a horrible death? 1 or 2 warriors...

The warrior I believe in this game is THE BEST incarnation of any non-magic type class anywhere. I came from Ragnarok Online. Look at what the Swordsman evolves into from that game and then look at this game's warrior. Wtf?!

The warrior 2ndary class determines what you normally do almost 100% of the time. Quite beautifully, the Necro Hex: Rigor Mortis pretty much guaruntees that every hit you swing will be a 100% hit. Plague touch from Necromancer as well will ensure that any condition on you is on your enemy instead...

What you need to stop whining about is that Warrior's 2nd class can EASILY determine how to get around anti-damage stances and conditions. Hexes are a problem and only a w/mo can deal with those. Thankfully, hexes aren't that common and easy to use...

The majority of people go for all spike types cause the majority is stupid... Yes, people in general are stupid. It's the individuals that determine the greatness of a class with the help of good friends and advisors... All spike group. Puhlease... Machine gun Protective Spirit and Healing seed anyone? ^_^ Does Spell Breaker {E} mean anything anymore?

Warrior's in this game to me are perfect. My $0.02.

Icarium · Jul 10, 2005, 01:53 AM // 01:53

In regards to the OP , honeslty have you been playing very long? i dont want to sound insulting , and im not flaming . .but everytime im having trouble with a paticular class and i want to know how to outright murder it, ill play that class/build as well as i can for a few hours. (or if it turns out to be fun,a few weeks) but enough to see the weeknesses to exploit. Necro's and mesmers eating you alive? make one or two , go to lions arch and see what owns you, and how it owns you. then build from there. The single most enjoyable part of this game (for me) is that game mechanic. spending a few weeks on a build , getting crushed , refining it , getting crushed and working around it. Be creative, there is nothing in this game that 5 or so minutes of fore thought wont get you around