Looking for advices

astral · February 16, 2023 at 6:21 PM

Hello guys,

I’ m an old school player of the game. I pretty much quit when eotn was released, with a lot a new skills that has in my opinion back then, destroyed the game, making quite useless profession skills compared to how much powerful was the azura, norn, etc skills.

I would like to come back to the game, which I have done already, finishing all campaigns and getting some titles.

But the fact is, for now, going deeper into that hunt for titles will means a lot of time investment and since I know myself, I’m pretty sure that I will be in extreme trouble to stick to one character.

I'm not looking for a straight, point blank answer, but more for reasons, detailed if it would be possible to choose one or another char based on the few details below.

First, I think we need now to approach the game thinking more about playin a group (char + 7heros) more than playin a char only.

I did quite understand that mesmerway is working with any char player, but to get back to my trouble sticking to one way of playin, i'm pretty much sure that if I decided to go for any char or any build, if I always build my team around E surge, then I think I'll always feel like bored a little bit.. Wanting something new.

My deman therfore is more about new ways of playin and which char is getting along with the most possibilities ?

As exemple, playin my warrior in a esurge team, whatever the build i'm going for, will always end up to be me running at enemies that are getting destroyed by my mesmers and me finishing them off.

I don't say they that I want something more challenging, but maybe something more about set up to wype out entire packs of enemies at once, combinations between skills or as I have seen somewhere 8 spires rangers with pets running through the game like a pack of badass wolves haha.

I hope you get my point here, otherwise I would have it summurized as : Is there new/different way of playin hidden somewhere out from the wiki ? Some way to play like "spike" team, or mele way etc ?

Thanks to everyone that will take time to answer me.

I did read all the build and profession section, and I have find some interesting builds (thank you for thoses how are sharing) but I don't think I have find what i'm looking for yet.

PS : I don't know where is the best place to post my demand, so I choose the probably most read one. Sorry if I did wrong !

Hairy Knight · February 16, 2023 at 10:25 PM

There are some hidden secret ways of playing. For example, I run up to enemies and show them a picture of myself. They die instantly. I call it Hairy Way.

Of course, this may not work for you.

Marty Silverblade · February 17, 2023 at 12:44 AM

It's important to note that things have fallen out of use due to buffs rather than nerfs. After Anet announced they were moving on to GW2 (probably around when you quit) their profession 'rebalances' just consisted of buffing the hell out of them rather than necessarily addressing the wider issues with them or nerfing the overpowered stuff, presumably because this was easier and wouldn't risk any players getting annoyed and leaving. As such, all the old stuff is still as viable as it was (likely aside from the GW Beyond content which was designed with these updates in mind). If you're interested there are archives for PvX and Guru which might provide some inspiration. Some PvX users also keep off-meta build ideas on their personal pages, though I don't know if there's a good way to search them.

Regarding your specific suggestions:

-An example of a physway/meleeway build is here. There's a lot wrong with it (I'm sure there are better examples elsewhere), but you can see the general structure with the multiple melee's getting buffed with orders, smites, etc.

-I'm also reminded of EFGJack's coordinated ball and spike builds. Unfortunately the images are gone but the videos show off the playstyle sufficiently.

Aside from that, there's nothing stopping you from putting something together yourself. That's the biggest appeal for a lot of people. As mentioned, the game has been made significantly easier than it was, so even if the concept ends up being lackluster it should still be generally capable. Even inherently gimmicky setups such as teams of all the same primary profession can function.

Finally, execution matters. The game wasn't meant to be a case of loading the correct skill bars and then coasting through to success. This tends to be forgotten nowadays with overpowered setups devaluing player competence, but things like pulling, aggroing, flagging heroes, preprotting, etc, used to be what made the difference between success and failure. So even supposedly 'bad' builds (by modern standards) can work if you put in a little effort.

Red Fireball · February 17, 2023 at 7:27 AM

personally I always try to think a bit outside the box for builds and not go for any posted around if I find time and joy. this gets you to know many skills and their cross-effects and some synergies. Also it keeps a fresh vibe to the entire thing. I'd especially recommend to look at the new anniversary elite skills and the PvE (aka title-related skills) they give fresh vibes and are rather versatile.

personally I play war 99% of time, but often ideas come up on other profession builds whilst I am at it. for example recently D/E came up with kinetic armor+dust cloak as a VERY solid baseline against melee. But often the ideas lead to nothing as well so just be prepared not to let yourself down to frustration.

hope you find some ideas you like this way - also forums are great inspiration. and wiki helps a lot if looking at specific mechanics like knockdown based builds or condition based etc.