Tournament of Glory Builds

Opening note: first only post your build over here. (I prefer gw2editor, but you chose what you prefer of course). Once all builds are in here, we delete all but this post and we can start looking into them and trying to make them better if need be(on their own and in the team)

Raven
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAW5elsApVo1CxfH8DRBDRkjNYnFOedxRAA-TJxHAB1eRAQqMgO7PAwTAAA

Zira


Night


Sel


Titus

Do I put mine?

if so, you'll have to wait until the 29th

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQJASDjMdUFaZI0hGoKoQv4BwDouHa8cI1GA-TpBHwAGuAAAeAAd2fYwhAIwRAAZZAA

In the empty slot I take Dolyak Signet against power teams and Signet of Stamina against heavy condition teams.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc00YbfNm3wfbighSyWoDi+ACgzlykIKA-TZRAwAAuAAUOCAe3focZAPPEAA

This is mine. Still not sure if i shouldnt go for lingering curse in Curses GM trait

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc00YbfNm3wfbighSyWoDi+ACgzlykIKA-TZRAwAAuAAUOCAe3focZAPPEAA

still not sure if I should put this here, but still

my close bunker engi.

took forever to make on phone

I was thinking of changing to a far decapper, what do you guys think?

Voilà, this is mine:Zira's awesome, yet standard shatter

Wanna try to practice with Time Warp maybe. But the stealth is so good to instagib squishies.

I started playing hambow (would post but gw2editor is down) and tbh, I like it more than bunker engi

Ofc its faceroll

alvarez wrote:

Voilà, this is mine:Zira's awesome, yet standard shatter

Wanna try to practice with Time Warp maybe. But the stealth is so good to instagib squishies.

Ive checked out ur mesmer pvp build and there are things wrong to it. Like on Domination Adept, you could better take Mental Torment. And even Illusionary Elasticity on is not a part for a shatter build, you could better take Illusionary Invigoration.

Also with ur sigils, i think it would help if you take Intelligence and Energy on both sets.. Energy for the extra dodge on every swap. And the Intelligence for the 3 attacks that are 100% crit.


But hey its all up to you about how you wanna play ur mesmer

Danagir wrote:

alvarez wrote:

Voilà, this is mine:Zira's awesome, yet standard shatter

Wanna try to practice with Time Warp maybe. But the stealth is so good to instagib squishies.

Ive checked out ur mesmer pvp build and there are things wrong to it. Like on Domination Adept, you could better take Mental Torment. And even Illusionary Elasticity on is not a part for a shatter build, you could better take Illusionary Invigoration.

Also with ur sigils, i think it would help if you take Intelligence and Energy on both sets.. Energy for the extra dodge on every swap. And the Intelligence for the 3 attacks that are 100% crit.


But hey its all up to you about how you wanna play ur mesmer

The DPS from Halting Strike when coupled with staff way outweighs the gain from Mental Torment. Invigoration can be nice in emergencies, but imo the extra bounce on greatsword 2 and staffauto is much much better. I'm there to deal damage, after all.
I used to have energy on both weapon sets, but the fire sigil on GS appealed more to me, my GS autos are nuts and if I have to retreat, I switch to staff and get the free dodge anyway. Also 50%+ uptime on vigor is good too. DPS from Intelligence is bad compared to Air or Fire on mesmer, as we don't rely on big single hits like warriors. Doom is way too good against warriors and eles who rule the meta right now.

Very good post from a friend in ReVo:

Given the state of the game: the common and excessive cheesy builds and compositions, the fact that a new feature pack is soon to be released with significant changes, and ArenaNet's apparent favour for the PvP cancer that is turret engineers and condition stealthing mesmers, I think it is a good time to reflect on our current composition and ways we might improve it and our builds.

This will be a long post because I will detail reasoning and thoughts. I don't like to say things like "X class is not as effective as Y, so by playing X we'll never be as good as Z" or implying that someone is replaceable or that someone's build is lacking, because it risks hurting people's feelings and may be things they don't want to hear. Unfortunately in this sort of discussion there's no avoiding it, and it's a necessity if we are serious about being competitive. The best way I can think to proceed is by being as factual as possible and making the reasoning clear. I think it helps to have reasons explained in detail anyway. Keep in mind though, that we don't have to change anything. It's possible to think one composition is superior, but play another because it's more fun for everyone (except when you lose to cheese of course).

We need to consider counters to four main composition types:

Out-bunker. 5 bunkers winning by out-lasting and knocking off points, or the modified 4 bunkers 1 portal mesmer.
Full damage. Damage-heavy compositions winning by high pressure. This includes direct and condition.
Bunker and condition damage/bunker compositions, aka borderline cheese. This is celestial/rabid warriors, elementalists, necromancers, engineers, ect.
Cheese. Turret engineers, multiple minion master necromancers, PU mesmers, anticipated spirit weapon guardians and post-patch PU mesmers.


Support/Bunker
I stand by the common belief that a bunker support guardian is a must have for any serious PvP team. This is because it fills two roles while other classes attempting to bunker do not come close to it's support potential. The bunker guardian is a powerful asset to enabling a team to counter any other composition/tactic. While I favour the concept of and the additional support capabilities of the virtue build, altruistic healing works well. However, reflecting on past losses to these cheesy teams, condition-heavy teams really give us trouble, and it's not always possible to know when to expect the other team to be using a lot of conditions. For this reason I firmly believe the virtue build is worth trying out.

In any event, the upcoming feature patch introduces a nice buff to tomes, which may significantly increase the potential and power of a bunker guardian (power in its role, not the stat). If using the tome elite proves stronger than renewed focus, then the trait to increase the duration and grant stability while using tomes will be a must. This trait will need at least 4 in virtues, and taking it will mean sacrificing either altruistic healing or pure of voice, and I think we can all agree pure of voice is highly important otherwise the team becomes more susceptible to conditions and you start re-thinking rune choices as well. This will result in essentially the virtue build with two changes: the tome trait instead of stability from virtue of courage or virtue of resolve cleansing 3 conditions, and the tome elite instead of renewed focus.

Obviously we can't know how effective it will be until after the patch hits, but either way, I emphasize that I think a virtue build is really worth using.

Team fighter
Compositions tend to have at least one dedicated team fighter, usually two. They also often have another member that is flexible toward team fighting, that can fill the role when needed. Flexibility and dual-roling is highly important when it comes to out-rotating teams.

Team fighter is a rather unclear role, since it's literal meaning is to be able to fight in team fights, which implies having the tankiness to stand and survive on points and deal damage. Different team fighters are able to do different things, while some sources say they should be able to do everything, specifically support and damage with at least some mobility.

In the current meta there are a few builds I would classify as team fighters:

Elementalist - Whether D/D or Staff, the elementalist is foremost in mind when thinking of a team fighter because the elementalist is by design, the jack of all trades. It can provide high protection up-time, regeneration, healing, unrivaled condition cleansing, might stacking, constant AoE damage and lots of burning. It has mobility with burning retreat or ride the lightning and burning speed, and of course safe stomps with armour of earth or mist form. It requires a lot of awareness active healing to attain the level of survivability of warriors who have it passively, but in a 1v1 scenario a D/D elementalist should beat an eviscerate or hambow warrior.
Hambow Warrior - It has the tankiness, crowd control, stability for stomping and reviving, and nice sustained damage and burst potential. It can stack might very well, like a D/D elementalist, but it has no mobility.
Eviscerate Warrior - It has the tankiness, single target burst, stability for stomping and reviving, and nice sustained damage. It can stack might, but not as much as a D/D elementalist or hambow, and lacks mobility.
Turret Engineer - A cheesy build I would love to see nerfed to the ground, but it can work very well in team fights, matching an elementalist in terms of boon and healing support. It has good damage potential, limited condition cleansing and no mobility, but it does counter warriors heavily with reflection fields around the turrets, providing protection against their longbow skills and often preventing their longbow burst and blast finisher skills from landing.
Condition Engineer - I'm not an expert on engineer but I've seen some engineer's survive in team fights, dealing damage and refusing to die even when focused, so I suppose this is an option. Engineers also have some support with elixir gun, water fields and blast finishers, and do have one invulnerability skill for safe stomps, but no stability for withstanding crowd control and remaining on point despite enemy knockbacks.
Spirit Ranger - While mainly utilised as a backpoint defender, spirit rangers can provide strong support in team fights. However, we have countered them in the past with thieves, AoE from elementalists/warriors, and seen them countered by AoE in team fights in tournaments, which is why they remain best suited for defending the backpoint, not team fighting.


Necromancers and thieves simply lack the stability, defensive sustain and on-point survivability. While a necromancer can be incredibly difficult to kill when supported by a guardian or elementalist, it lacks the flexibility of a warrior, engineer and elementalist, unable to dual-role as a team fighter and point holder, lacking mobility and cannot offer support or buffs to the team. Guardians that aim to fulfill the support role lack the damage to be considered a team fighter, and were they to use damage-oriented amulets I think they would be weaker and more limited versions of the celestial elementalist and celestial/soldier warrior.

As we have seen from our matches, we do need AoE to counter cheesy builds, we do need individuals that can 1v1 on point against warriors and elementalists, and especially more condition removal. We've seen the best teams - cheesy and otherwise - using elementalists. Cheese Mode themselves have been seen using two D/D elementalists in tournaments. Warriors of course have been proven to outshine Engineers and Rangers in team fights.

After the feature patch, I can't see the suitability, strengths, or pros and cons of elementalists changing for this role. We initially wanted an elementalist, and are reminded of it each time we get condition bombed in team fights. I think - especially if we want to not lose to cheese and condis - that we need a celestial elementalist.

The warrior however, will be seeing some significant changes to adrenaline. After the patch, missing a burst skill due to an evade, blind or out of range will still consume the adrenaline, and the warrior will not get the benefits of cleansing ire. This is huge because eviscerate and earthshaker are telegraphed and often dodged. Eviscerate more than earthshaker will suffer, because being single target as opposed to an AoE, it is more likely to be avoided. Greatsword will also see changes to its burst skill making it stronger than eviscerate for foes below 50% health, and it will be an AoE damaging ability making it more reliable to land. Furthermore, greatsword has a lot of mobility, which the current meta warrior builds lack. For this reason, I believe eviscerate will fall out of the meta and be replaced with more hambow or greatsword. It may still be viable if it utilises signet of fury for full adrenaline to recover from a miss.

In anticipation, I theory crafted and tested a 'gsbow' build which worked very well, and later refined it with Vindex. I'm far from a good warrior, and I was able to beat hambow warriors, eviscerate warriors, other gs warriors and D/D elementalists in 1v1s while remaining on point. I've used the mobility of the greatsword to reach points before the enemy has capped them or to save someone from being downed or stomped. I've heavily countered spirit rangers, power necros (even almost won 1v1 against a lich, so you could say in a team fight it counters those too), and I've both won and lost 1v1s against turret engineers (only lost so far when they have their reflecting fields). Hundred blades is an amazing cleave for damaging downed or stunned targets, and in the interests of countering cheese, it deals a lot of damage to minions, clones, phantasms, turrets and very importantly I've countered PU mesmers with it. PU currently heavily counters warriors. I've seen Helseth state that an unskilled player could roll and PU mesmer and beat ROM. GS counters them because of its mobility, the whirlwind attack destroys the clones and phantasms while evading thus avoiding the bleeding stacks, and its ability to immobilise/knockdown and burst the mesmer when they come out of stealth on top of the constant AoE pressure from longbow wrecks them. I was also killing Zenvo with it vs his shatter mesmer in a team queue the other day. Having everything that eviscerate has, plus more damage and burst than eviscerate and hambow, and ridiculous mobility that beats a mesmer and rivals a thief on flat ground allows this build to work as a roamer, team fighter and point defender, which is extremely flexible making it potentially a huge asset.

For this role, I would say D/D elementalist and greatsword warrior may be the best choice.

Roamer/Burst
I've put roamer and burst together because ideally the damage dealers will be the ones moving between points to support the node holders and team fighters. As stated above, with its mobility, the team fighting greatsword warrior would also be able to roam with its burst, which is a huge bonus.

Other classes for this role are:

S/D Thief - Strong counter to healing focused team fights with permanent AoE poison application, high mobility for decapping points, flexibility to 1v1 any class (the most skilled S/D thieves can even do this on point thus holding a cap or decap). I've seen sizer hold 2 people at the far point keeping it decapped for a short time in tournament matches allowing his team to outnumber the enemy on another point.
D/P Thief - Strong counter to most backpoint defenders. High mobility, but not as much as S/D, or as much survivability, escapability and pursuit capability vs mesmers and thieves as S/D.
Shatter Mesmer - From a vantage point, they are strong counters to just about anyone sitting on a point. They counter boons which are always important - most of all might stacking which has been in the meta for a long time - and offer high burst to team fights from a safe distance. They only tend to be vulnerable to thieves and sometimes a persistent fresh air elementalist. Most importantly, and the main reason they stand out from thieves and elementalists is the portal providing mobility for the entire team, which is key to countering bunker heavy compositions by zerging a single bunker before his allies can follow to help.
S/D Elementalist - Perhaps the highest burst potential in the game. Blinding ashes is very strong against thieves in 1v1s, and the trait is getting buffed to have its cooldown per target as opposed to global for all targets. However, it is not an ideal counter to use for thieves because they do not have the same level of mobility, and so cannot do well when focused by 2 or more players.
S/F Elementalist - The same as the S/D but with a little more survivability and less mobility. The survivability however serves more as a delaying of the inevitable than making them more viable.
Staff Elementalist - Heavily countered by any high DPS class, whether S/* elementalist, another staff elementalist, thief, mesmer, ranger, necromancer, guardian or warrior.
Meditation Guardian - Not very flexible, can survive pressure like a S/F elementalist - delaying the inevitable. No mobility without a target. It can force a thief off a point, but 8 times out of 10 the thief should win the 1v1.
Power Ranger - Receiving some nice buffs after the patch, but I don't think it will be enough to make it viable. Turret shields will counter it heavily just like it counters warrior longbow, and thieves mesmers and scepter elementalists will be able to pressure them away from the fight or take them down. Greatsword offers some mobility, but not as much as a greatsword warrior, or a mesmer or thief.
Power Necromancer - Lacks mobility, heavily countered by warriors running berserker stance since their survivability is heavily dependent on conditions such as fear and immobilise.
Condition Necromancer - Same weaknesses as the power necromancer, although more survivability due to being able to invest in to toughness.


This part is tricky. A thief counters all the other burst classes, but can be countered by an enemy team composition being bunker heavy, forcing the thief to need a really high skill level to pull weight, while a mesmer would be less affected by such a composition. This was seen in ToL1 with Apex Prime vs. Disney Channel where the thief was Caed, perhaps the best thief on the NA servers for team PvP. However, a team that has a thief will immediately counter a team without it if they aren't playing an out-bunker composition or full of cheese, by destroying the mesmer and working to keep the enemy thief out of play if there is one, or constantly harrassing a team fighter, severely reducing the team's ability to present a damage threat to his team's bunkers and team fighters.

This basically means that if we don't run an out-bunker composition with no mesmer, we'll need a thief. Running an out-bunker composition without a mesmer will mean we would likely be countered by 4 bunker 1 mesmer teams. So it reasons that to have a composition to have a chance at countering all other compositions, you need a thief. It also makes a thief and mesmer together a nice combination, as demonstrated in the past by TCG and 55HP Monks. The downside however, is having two squishy classes that cannot reliably dual-role like the GS warrior, and hold a point as well. I specify 'reliably' because a thief can do it if absolutely necessary, and it has been done in tournaments and by myself on a few occasions although I usually have to die on the point in order to hold it long enough.

That being said, S/D thief will be getting some changes allowing it to use flanking strike more often, which may help when having to point hold and when escaping. Whether it will be a good thing or a bad thing in 1v1s against various classes cannot be known until after the patch, although against other S/D thieves, winning may involve more skill and less luck.

So for this role, a thief is needed, with mesmer as a possible second.

Other
Other roles include far point assaulter and decap. Any roaming class, such as thief, mesmer, or warrior can assault the far point as a secondary role, so for the purposes of flexibility, it's a bad idea to have a build dedicated for far point assaulting. Decapping is best done by a condition necromancer with fear or an engineer with knockbacks. The necromancer is countered by a lot of other classes in 1v1, cannot easily 1v2, and lacks the mobility to quickly return to the far point which is almost always the decapper's target point (sometimes it is mid vs a lone guardian in maps like Temple of the Silent Storm). An engineer has mobility and can certainly handle for a fair duration a 1v2 fight, and is more consistent in its capability to decap a point. However, the way a decapper contributes is by forcing the other team to outnumber itself in order to allow its team to 4v3 across the other two points. This is easily made redundant by having a single enemy keep them at the far point either slowly killing them, knocking them off in turn, or simply managing to keep the engineer from capturing the point, turning the game into a 4v4 over two points. Furthermore, a guardian and as mentioned before, sometimes a thief, can keep a point capped or decapped for a time in a 1v2. I've done it myself in a 1v3 for long enough to allow our guardian to respawn and get back to the point, and I can certainly improve. Furthermore, vindex and I have destroyed decap engineers in seconds when they have taken our close point, and while they were capturing the far point, proving that they can be quickly dealt with by the enemy.

So while a decap engineer can be very useful, and certainly works in some compositions, I don't think it is necessary. The role can be performed if necessary by other classes already in the team.

Conclusions
From simply thinking it through logically, and not thinking of specific rotations and strategies, the ideal classes in my opinion are:

Bunker Support, Virtue Guardian
Celestial D/D Elementalist
Celestial GSBow Warrior
S/D or D/P Thief
-

Again, in my opinion, the ideal last class will either be a shatter mesmer, turret engineer or another warrior. The mesmer brings in the obvious benefits of countering boons, high damage pressure from range, team mobility with portal and thus new strategy options, and more mobility. A warrior would be another GSBow for mobility, on point damage and and point holding, or a hambow for crowd control, damage and point holding. A turret engineer would be purely for the team fights, because alone they can be quickly taken down by two damage dealers or 1v1'd by a greatsword warrior.

This last spot I'm unsure on, but I'm leaning toward saying hambow first, with the exception of khylo where the the portal can be used to utilise the treb to punish bunker-heavy compositions if necessary, and in time after getting faster and better at rotating, swapping the hambow for a shatter mesmer to utilise portal on every map. Turret engineer is probably the least suited to the spot because it would be limited to the team fight, and when the other team is rotating quickly, the engineer's lack of mobility may be a problem.

After the patch, condition mesmer might be an option, but this cannot be known until it can be tested. It will certainly be viable, but whether it will be worth taking over a berserker shatter mesmer or another warrior, I can't yet say.

So what do you guys think? Am I making sense or talking nonsense, can we finally counter this cheese by adjusting the composition to have an elementalist and a possible new warrior meta? If so is everyone up for making it happen or content to continue as we are?

I will test GS after the patch, but hambow just gives shitloads of support in the form of stuns and knockbacks. If we want to add a D/D ele, we need to swap out our necro or engi. Also I'm not sure if we have anyone who is good at D/D ele.

I know Sel, I ain't saying we gotta swap. More like, look guys, this is what we gonna face. So be ready for some though matches!

I know Night has played ele, but he feels way more comfortable on other classes I think. Titus has used his ele in PvE only I think.

I played a lot of D/D Ele, but I'm average at best at it. I've seen what really good Eles are capable of and I'm sadly pretty far from it, albeit partly because of my hardware.

I suck at ele. Even a bunker guard can kill me

I'm meh at bunker ele, don't ask me to play it though ._.

Raafje, I'll make you happy here: Turret Engi's are getting a nerf (accelerant packed turret doesn't knockback for shit anymore).

Tbh, a thief or anything that can deal high single-target damage is (almost) a must-have. Is that ele dealing crapton of damage/buffing allies up, but there's no way you can deal with it? Bam, jumping axes and hidden thief take it down quickly. And I still don't see how s/d has more mobility than d/p (does s/d have heartseeker to jump around? No) although it might be because there are some other things in the build

Shadow steps and evades. Mobility isn't just jumping around. It's jumping around in a useful manner. Like my ranger xD

and it's not just the knockback. But swat. I've killed all I fought last couple days.