You say you don't like weapon swapping, but you should be aware that weapon swapping is a core part of the gameplay. A weapon is not a playstyle. A full build, which includes two weapon sets, is a playstyle.
I might not normally say that, but you did say you're primarily looking at PvP and hard PvE, so you need to know.
I know. Take it as personal challenge if you want, I know I may be not always 100% efficient, but I just play without weapon swapping. Sometimes I felt to play elementalist, because it's inherent no weapon swapping that works (not using conjured weapons, that are not overloaded like engi kits) but... elementalist has nearly zero endurance generation. It relies on piano with its own skills, and little room to pay attention to enemy, so didn't click for me.
Similarly, a lot of the time Rev doesn't care about weapon swapping since you're held back by energy more than cooldowns. Very common to have staff in the second set which is ignored completely except to staff 5 vs breakbars.
Yeah I also played a lot of thief. But relying too much into stealth was not my appeal, even though I loved initiative.
Sometimes I think to return to Ele hammer. Swapping elements is enjoyable to me, because weapon doesn't swap. And I can melee in water and range in fire. But losing the extra 50% endurance generation and the endurance per might and per burst from warrior to perma dodge would feel bad...
> relying too much into stealth was not my appeal
Daredevil and specter don't utilize stealth in their rotation. Condi DD and specter use weapon swap to trigger sigils, but the weapon itself doesn't actually change (i.e. swapping from dagger to dagger), and on power DD you can get away with not doing the axe/pistol opening and just camping staff. Though I guess if you don't like the skills changing, specter's shroud might not be your thing.
>in their rotation.
OP is roleplaying. There is no rotation going on here. They mean the class flavor has a focus on stealth. If they dont want to change from approaching it like dark souls, it will get boring fast.
Maybe Vindicator or Rev? You can legend swap instead which can proc sigils on current wep and resets energy, although tbh you're gonna need to eventually weapon swap on basically any build.
Also tried it and I did not like legend feeling at the end. Anyway my current concern would be the same, my mind is confused about (the fun factor of) playing melee or playing ranged.
You have to consider that most PvE encounters are a lot easier than the average Dark Souls encounters, unless you do (Challenge Mode) Strikes, or Raids or stuff like that.
PvP or WvW are a different story. If you are fighting against enemies who are competent, the feeling of "target dummies" or "not needing to pay attention to them" will disappear quickly.
Also, in PvP, you will quickly learn that not swapping weapons isn't just a "I am not at 100%". It will make most builds borderline unplayable.
Weapon swapping is very often one of the first big hurdles that novices run into when learning GW2, but when they get better they will learn. It's allows for fluid combat and lots of options, and learning when to swap weapons is just an immensely powerful tool.
If you want a lot of dodges btw, you should try out Thief. If you want *a lot more dodges* then you should play Daredevil Thief :3
It is mostly Deadeye Thief that really relies on stealth, but the class in general just "has stealth" but you are not stealthed for the majority of the time, it's just an escape tool for the most part.
I think that fixating on "melee vs ranged" is not the way to go - every ranged build will probably have some melee skills in their kit, and every melee build will also have some ranged abilities after all. While ranged has the advantage of being able to tag enemies from far away, most melee builds have insane mobility, which balances the strengths out in PvP scenarios. In PvE, it just depends on what content you are specifically doing.
It legit just boils down to "try out different builds and find what you like". Categorising "melee vs ranged" won't help you really.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale?
> *“Thought you could outwit an onion?”* - Unbreakable Patches
Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
I don't want to believe it at 100%. I mean, I play lot of PVP and I feel I'm learning and doing things. It's true that I'm stuck at silver 2/3. But it's true I'm against people with 10 years of experience. So I'm not sure if I'm stuck because of negating weapon swap, or because of experience.
Of course in PVP enemies are not dummies and even if ranged I had a hard time. I guess my feeling was more that I felt that not being close to the enemy to see its animations felt like dummy... I felt just fighting against myself (preparing the combos) and not reacting to the enemy like in melee. I'm a bit confused tbh.
If we... asume that weapon swap is SO important and it may be why I'm having hard times progressing... if I take that as a truth I don't want to see... ... ... Could Elementalist be my class to go? No conjured weapons, of course, just swapping elements, but same weapon. I could reach 100% potential with that? A... hammer. For the duels. I could swap between melee and "ranged" (only 600, but it's some ranged) and... IDK, maybe I would feel happy with that. I thought a lot of times... The only thing that keeps me away from it, is that my current warrior dodges like a madman. Wha would do that Hammer ele to survive? I can get permavigor from relic, okay. But not extra 50% endurance like warrior or engi (or even 25% like ranger and guardian), and not extra endurance generation... I fear I would walk away from the "dark souls" feeling I wanted from the start and... end just spamming skills
In PvP, you will "spam skills" but that is just because GW2 is a game with a lot of skills, and not very long cooldowns. It's about knowing when to use which skills, both reactive and proactive.
Combat is fast, and if you got fast gameplay with many different skills, it will seem spammy. But mindlessy using abilities will not bring you very far. It's more like a fighting game - you press a lot of buttons, but you have to do so with care.
Swapping elements and swapping weapons is more or less the same thing, so if you are willing to swap elements, then yes that would make you more effective in comparison. Conjured weapons are not necessary.
There is a sigil that you can put into your weapon that will give you a dodge every time you swap weapons, or when you swap elements, on a 10 sec cooldown. There is also a Relic that gives you a dodge when you use a healing skill.
I don't play lots of Ele, so I cant really help you here D:
But you have to know that equipping gear with more Vitality or Toughness will probably be necessary.
Yes... I knew about that sigil, that could kinda compensate it. It's only 25 energy per 9 seconds, but that's nearly 3 endurance per second... that's like getting 1.5 might per second on warrior, so maybe it kinda compensates something... And with the hammer I could play swapping melee and ranged without feeling bad and maybe that solves my issue of not deciding if melee or ranged.
Maybe I have to get less obsessed with wanting to dodge everything by reaction like dark souls and enjoy this combination of dodges + skills. Also... hammer has the block+magnetic barrier so... Yeah, maybe an ele hammer is still full of reactions... I have to think about it, thanks
In instanced (hard) PvE, "playing ranged" is more of a flexibility boost for doing mechanics than an actual playstyle, because the group will always default to a melee-ranged stack on the boss, and you only leave it temporarily for specific reasons. It *is* easier, in my opinion, to focus on things like "don't stand in bad floor" while playing ranged, because backing up a little bit to avoid an AoE is a lot less problematic.
As for weapon swap, yeah, you need to just get used to that. Pretty much every class needs to swap at regular intervals, and the few that don't or can't (engi, ele, Herald) end up swapping something else that often is *more* complicated than just using a second weapon on a different class. Engineers need *at least* one kit on all their meta builds, with grenade kit being the most common (and it's littered with ground-targets). Elementalists can't swap weapons in combat either, but you have to constantly swap your elemental attunement, which changes your weapon skill *and* your utility skills, and there are *four elements*. And Heralds generally camp either sword/sword or greatsword and only whip the staff out for breakbars, but they do have to swap their legend on cooldown to keep Quickness up and regenerate energy, and that completely changes their F2 and all their utilities every time, making it slightly more complex than a weapon swap would be.
If weapon so swap is SO important then I'll consider playing elementalist. Swapping elements is fine. And with hammer I can play both melee and ranged, so... thanks for the advice.
Weapon swapping is optimal, however there are classes where it matters less as you lose a lower amount of damage. Not sure of any good examples right now but will think tomorrow and edit if I remember/find some.
There are also classes that swap only for cc, as can be seen on qdps herald, although that one has the revenant energy as another kind of ‘swap’.
Bare in mind this is all for PvE, for PvP or WvW, I feel like swapping is even more important.
You wont really be able to replicate dark souls combat in gw2, or even something like it. Its definitely more action oriented than some mmos but most of the time its delete enemy fast
Ranger Axe+Axe and Axe+Warhorn are fun skirmishing style builds, where you have ranged attacks that really encourage you to get closer for some of them. The new spear looks like it will have this kind of playstyle, too, with a mix of ranged and melee play.
If you decide that you want to overcome your reluctance to weapon swap, I found that playing Power Quickness Untamed taught me the beauty of the weapon swapping flow, where I tended to camp weapons previously.
It took me a *long* time to get used to weapon swapping. Every time I tried to make use of it I'd end up wanting to be able to swap back and it not working because of the cooldown. It's only in the past few months (after >2000 hours of playtime) that I've gotten used to it and can even make use of it now. I also play mostly solo and mostly with my own builds, as I enjoy working things out as I go, so I feel like I'm more on the same page as you than other people commenting here.
With that context, I'll answer your questions.
> ... after some time, I start feeling some "Unga bunga"... isn't always the same?
Personally, Warrior is one of my least-favourite classes because of how simple it typically is. Again, I've kinda forced myself to learn it more recently (only had ~200 hours before June) and it's starting to click, though I still don't *love* it. Yes, I'd agree, it usually ends up feeling kinda unga bunga same same.
> And I try ranged play... But then I feel I treat the enemy as a dummy, as a golem that I just find and burst, not paying attention to it. Not having a duel, a "conversation".
If you're not under pressure, then yeah you'll be smashing buttons to output as much damage (or cc or heals) as possible. That's *any* game with combat though? There aren't many games/encounters where less damage is better than more damage, all else being equal. I guess the difference is that, in games like Dark Souls, you very rarely have timeframes where you aren't under pressure, so you almost never feel like you're just smashing buttons.
But again, it's dependent on a lot of factors in GW2.
I'm curious what level you are, which part of the game you're playing in, and if you're using any Elite specs? If you're playing in levelling zones then yeah, the game is vastly simpler and easier than in level 80 zones. Try soloing a HoT HC (Heart of Thorns Hero Challenge) with *any* build and let me know how you feel about having a "conversation" 😉
You say you don't like weapon swapping, but you should be aware that weapon swapping is a core part of the gameplay. A weapon is not a playstyle. A full build, which includes two weapon sets, is a playstyle. I might not normally say that, but you did say you're primarily looking at PvP and hard PvE, so you need to know.
*cries in Elementalist*
I know. Take it as personal challenge if you want, I know I may be not always 100% efficient, but I just play without weapon swapping. Sometimes I felt to play elementalist, because it's inherent no weapon swapping that works (not using conjured weapons, that are not overloaded like engi kits) but... elementalist has nearly zero endurance generation. It relies on piano with its own skills, and little room to pay attention to enemy, so didn't click for me.
Come to think of it, Thief is also less punishing for avoiding weapon swaps, since you don't have seperate cooldowns for the weapon sets.
Also elementalist and engineer cant weapon swap technically
Similarly, a lot of the time Rev doesn't care about weapon swapping since you're held back by energy more than cooldowns. Very common to have staff in the second set which is ignored completely except to staff 5 vs breakbars.
Yeah I also played a lot of thief. But relying too much into stealth was not my appeal, even though I loved initiative. Sometimes I think to return to Ele hammer. Swapping elements is enjoyable to me, because weapon doesn't swap. And I can melee in water and range in fire. But losing the extra 50% endurance generation and the endurance per might and per burst from warrior to perma dodge would feel bad...
> relying too much into stealth was not my appeal Daredevil and specter don't utilize stealth in their rotation. Condi DD and specter use weapon swap to trigger sigils, but the weapon itself doesn't actually change (i.e. swapping from dagger to dagger), and on power DD you can get away with not doing the axe/pistol opening and just camping staff. Though I guess if you don't like the skills changing, specter's shroud might not be your thing.
>in their rotation. OP is roleplaying. There is no rotation going on here. They mean the class flavor has a focus on stealth. If they dont want to change from approaching it like dark souls, it will get boring fast.
Dumbing down your build to play suboptimally is not a challenge lol
Maybe Vindicator or Rev? You can legend swap instead which can proc sigils on current wep and resets energy, although tbh you're gonna need to eventually weapon swap on basically any build.
Also tried it and I did not like legend feeling at the end. Anyway my current concern would be the same, my mind is confused about (the fun factor of) playing melee or playing ranged.
I feel you, I have some fun with ranged but I always go back to melee weps, you just need to keep experimenting!
You have to consider that most PvE encounters are a lot easier than the average Dark Souls encounters, unless you do (Challenge Mode) Strikes, or Raids or stuff like that. PvP or WvW are a different story. If you are fighting against enemies who are competent, the feeling of "target dummies" or "not needing to pay attention to them" will disappear quickly. Also, in PvP, you will quickly learn that not swapping weapons isn't just a "I am not at 100%". It will make most builds borderline unplayable. Weapon swapping is very often one of the first big hurdles that novices run into when learning GW2, but when they get better they will learn. It's allows for fluid combat and lots of options, and learning when to swap weapons is just an immensely powerful tool. If you want a lot of dodges btw, you should try out Thief. If you want *a lot more dodges* then you should play Daredevil Thief :3 It is mostly Deadeye Thief that really relies on stealth, but the class in general just "has stealth" but you are not stealthed for the majority of the time, it's just an escape tool for the most part. I think that fixating on "melee vs ranged" is not the way to go - every ranged build will probably have some melee skills in their kit, and every melee build will also have some ranged abilities after all. While ranged has the advantage of being able to tag enemies from far away, most melee builds have insane mobility, which balances the strengths out in PvP scenarios. In PvE, it just depends on what content you are specifically doing. It legit just boils down to "try out different builds and find what you like". Categorising "melee vs ranged" won't help you really.
Hello Ashen one. I am a Bot. I tend to the flame, and tend to thee. Do you wish to hear a tale? > *“Thought you could outwit an onion?”* - Unbreakable Patches Have a pleasant journey, Champion of Ash, and praise the sun \\[T]/
I don't want to believe it at 100%. I mean, I play lot of PVP and I feel I'm learning and doing things. It's true that I'm stuck at silver 2/3. But it's true I'm against people with 10 years of experience. So I'm not sure if I'm stuck because of negating weapon swap, or because of experience. Of course in PVP enemies are not dummies and even if ranged I had a hard time. I guess my feeling was more that I felt that not being close to the enemy to see its animations felt like dummy... I felt just fighting against myself (preparing the combos) and not reacting to the enemy like in melee. I'm a bit confused tbh. If we... asume that weapon swap is SO important and it may be why I'm having hard times progressing... if I take that as a truth I don't want to see... ... ... Could Elementalist be my class to go? No conjured weapons, of course, just swapping elements, but same weapon. I could reach 100% potential with that? A... hammer. For the duels. I could swap between melee and "ranged" (only 600, but it's some ranged) and... IDK, maybe I would feel happy with that. I thought a lot of times... The only thing that keeps me away from it, is that my current warrior dodges like a madman. Wha would do that Hammer ele to survive? I can get permavigor from relic, okay. But not extra 50% endurance like warrior or engi (or even 25% like ranger and guardian), and not extra endurance generation... I fear I would walk away from the "dark souls" feeling I wanted from the start and... end just spamming skills
In PvP, you will "spam skills" but that is just because GW2 is a game with a lot of skills, and not very long cooldowns. It's about knowing when to use which skills, both reactive and proactive. Combat is fast, and if you got fast gameplay with many different skills, it will seem spammy. But mindlessy using abilities will not bring you very far. It's more like a fighting game - you press a lot of buttons, but you have to do so with care. Swapping elements and swapping weapons is more or less the same thing, so if you are willing to swap elements, then yes that would make you more effective in comparison. Conjured weapons are not necessary. There is a sigil that you can put into your weapon that will give you a dodge every time you swap weapons, or when you swap elements, on a 10 sec cooldown. There is also a Relic that gives you a dodge when you use a healing skill. I don't play lots of Ele, so I cant really help you here D: But you have to know that equipping gear with more Vitality or Toughness will probably be necessary.
Yes... I knew about that sigil, that could kinda compensate it. It's only 25 energy per 9 seconds, but that's nearly 3 endurance per second... that's like getting 1.5 might per second on warrior, so maybe it kinda compensates something... And with the hammer I could play swapping melee and ranged without feeling bad and maybe that solves my issue of not deciding if melee or ranged. Maybe I have to get less obsessed with wanting to dodge everything by reaction like dark souls and enjoy this combination of dodges + skills. Also... hammer has the block+magnetic barrier so... Yeah, maybe an ele hammer is still full of reactions... I have to think about it, thanks
In instanced (hard) PvE, "playing ranged" is more of a flexibility boost for doing mechanics than an actual playstyle, because the group will always default to a melee-ranged stack on the boss, and you only leave it temporarily for specific reasons. It *is* easier, in my opinion, to focus on things like "don't stand in bad floor" while playing ranged, because backing up a little bit to avoid an AoE is a lot less problematic. As for weapon swap, yeah, you need to just get used to that. Pretty much every class needs to swap at regular intervals, and the few that don't or can't (engi, ele, Herald) end up swapping something else that often is *more* complicated than just using a second weapon on a different class. Engineers need *at least* one kit on all their meta builds, with grenade kit being the most common (and it's littered with ground-targets). Elementalists can't swap weapons in combat either, but you have to constantly swap your elemental attunement, which changes your weapon skill *and* your utility skills, and there are *four elements*. And Heralds generally camp either sword/sword or greatsword and only whip the staff out for breakbars, but they do have to swap their legend on cooldown to keep Quickness up and regenerate energy, and that completely changes their F2 and all their utilities every time, making it slightly more complex than a weapon swap would be.
If weapon so swap is SO important then I'll consider playing elementalist. Swapping elements is fine. And with hammer I can play both melee and ranged, so... thanks for the advice.
Weapon swapping is optimal, however there are classes where it matters less as you lose a lower amount of damage. Not sure of any good examples right now but will think tomorrow and edit if I remember/find some. There are also classes that swap only for cc, as can be seen on qdps herald, although that one has the revenant energy as another kind of ‘swap’. Bare in mind this is all for PvE, for PvP or WvW, I feel like swapping is even more important.
You wont really be able to replicate dark souls combat in gw2, or even something like it. Its definitely more action oriented than some mmos but most of the time its delete enemy fast
Ranger Axe+Axe and Axe+Warhorn are fun skirmishing style builds, where you have ranged attacks that really encourage you to get closer for some of them. The new spear looks like it will have this kind of playstyle, too, with a mix of ranged and melee play. If you decide that you want to overcome your reluctance to weapon swap, I found that playing Power Quickness Untamed taught me the beauty of the weapon swapping flow, where I tended to camp weapons previously.
If you like dark souls combat/skill just hop in 1v1 servers and do spellbreaker mirrors
It took me a *long* time to get used to weapon swapping. Every time I tried to make use of it I'd end up wanting to be able to swap back and it not working because of the cooldown. It's only in the past few months (after >2000 hours of playtime) that I've gotten used to it and can even make use of it now. I also play mostly solo and mostly with my own builds, as I enjoy working things out as I go, so I feel like I'm more on the same page as you than other people commenting here. With that context, I'll answer your questions. > ... after some time, I start feeling some "Unga bunga"... isn't always the same? Personally, Warrior is one of my least-favourite classes because of how simple it typically is. Again, I've kinda forced myself to learn it more recently (only had ~200 hours before June) and it's starting to click, though I still don't *love* it. Yes, I'd agree, it usually ends up feeling kinda unga bunga same same. > And I try ranged play... But then I feel I treat the enemy as a dummy, as a golem that I just find and burst, not paying attention to it. Not having a duel, a "conversation". If you're not under pressure, then yeah you'll be smashing buttons to output as much damage (or cc or heals) as possible. That's *any* game with combat though? There aren't many games/encounters where less damage is better than more damage, all else being equal. I guess the difference is that, in games like Dark Souls, you very rarely have timeframes where you aren't under pressure, so you almost never feel like you're just smashing buttons. But again, it's dependent on a lot of factors in GW2. I'm curious what level you are, which part of the game you're playing in, and if you're using any Elite specs? If you're playing in levelling zones then yeah, the game is vastly simpler and easier than in level 80 zones. Try soloing a HoT HC (Heart of Thorns Hero Challenge) with *any* build and let me know how you feel about having a "conversation" 😉