State of the game: Professions and class combinations

A observation on common builds for all the 30 possible primary/secondaries (alphabetical order)
** are rampant

E/Me**, Me/E
-Elementalist/mesmer only uses inspiration for ether feast/energy drain more or less
-Mesmer/Elementalist either uses glyphs, or is just a spammer of elementalist skills

E/Mo**, Mo/E
-Elementalist/Monk usually only uses nukers + healing prayers like resurrect and healing breeze, nothing else
-Monk/Elementalist usually only uses glyphs

E/N, N/E
-Elementalist/Necro... I haven't seen too many of these. The ones I have seen just use energy storage for curses/blood spam when "nukes" are recharging
-Necromancer/Elementalist.. typical fire nuker + Spiteful

E/R, R/E
-The only people I see using this are the premade people. The only reason I see to use ranger is for quickening zephyr, energizing wind, beast mastery (not a good idea with ele.), and serpent's quickness, and maybe edge of extinction
-The o-so-common barrage spammer with conjures

E/W, W/E
-Never seen this in PvE. IN PvP I've seen the inverse of W/E hammer-shockers
-Only used for armor of earth tankers (not so common now) and aftershock hammers

Me/Mo, Mo/Me**
-Fast rezer
-O-so-popular inspiration user/hexbreaker builds

Me/N, N/Me**
-Fast cast shutdown with domination curses is common. Frag has fallen out of favor.
-This is the only build I have seen with variety. I have seen death/curses/blood all used with this combination with domination/inspiration.

Me/R, R/Me**
-I don't recall ever seeing one of these.
-The O-so-popular Trapper/interrupter

Me/W, W/Me
-Illusion weaponry
-Inspiration stance IDS farmers

Mo/N, N/Mo
-Offering of blood/well of blood monks
-Minion master heal area necros

Mo/R, R/Mo
-Melandru's Resilience Monks with Martyr/Draw conditions
-Judge's Insight Rangers with Barrage

Mo/W**, W/Mo**
-O-so-popular 55 builds, not so popular Tactics users
-O-so-popular vigorous spirit, protection, judge's insight/SoH builds

N/R, R/N
-Never seen one used other than for mark of pain.
-Never seen one used.

N/W, W/N
-Seen some with enfeebling blood,weaken armor/curses builds
-Not that common: plague touch, virulence builds

R/W**, W/R**
-"Thumpers" /stance rangers with melee
-IWAY (in PvE believe it or not)


I know these are generalizations. However, it really compels me to "think outside of the box" as to what builds that can be newly innovated, for more fun/unique pvEing.

General Gripes
E-Nukers are overly used since the beginning of the game (i.e. I don't ever seen wardens other than when I am fighting stone summit)
Me-Nobody wants them because they don't understand mesmers (except for backfire/empathy/energy drain/ether feast). Usually casted as replacement healer with fastcasting.
Mo-Everybody wants them, many end up being 55 monks
N-Minionmasters, Curses users, Blood users suddenly fell into demand nowadays, that's okay. They were underappreciated before.
R-People don't see them as anything but trappers/interrupts
W-People only see them as damage/tanks i.e. no really innovative builds

I used to have a roleplay W/E. Got to Ring of Fire and just got bored with it though, plus I really had no plan for it, I just bought water spells & axe skills, lol.

It's also kind of sad that Mesmer gets the most play as a secondary. Makes me glad I have my Me/Mo (and Mo only for Shield of Regeneration). The one character I'll never ever delete.

I actually have an Me/R beastmaster and a R/N barrage hex caster.

The Me/R I have lots of fun with with a Migrane + Disrupting Lunge combo. The illusion degens and a high beastmastery attribute make for some very high DPS output. The R/N I've been using for Barrage + Mark of Pain, or Barrage + Enfeebling Blood, and condition stacking.

R/N Touch Ranger. Max expertise and blood magic, using vamp touch, touch of agony, plague touch, and expertise skills.

for the ranger, like SecUnder said, they have R/N touch build but also the R/X
beastmaster, the R/W thumper. i admit that there s not much creativity in the builds but they re not the most versatile of classes.
mesmers and necros are the most versatile classes even though everyone uses the same already-knowned builds( ss spamming anyone?)
on a side note, i play monk but i didnt turn him into a 55... maybe its because i dont have the money to buy the runes but mostly because running around doing the same thing over and over again just isnt my way of having fun.

I have a W/R mass poisoner (apply poison+cyclone axe), along with a very effective farming build utilizing this, stances and preperations. W/R's lives aren't entirely IWAY. :'(

N/R MMs with favourable winds

There are plenty of people with original or at least unorthodox builds out there. I don't see it as a bad thing that certain builds are common; really, you have to expect that. The vast majority of people don't want to spend time and effort building a character unless that character will be successful, so it stands to reason that people are often times going to play builds that have been proven to work.

Even if everyone designed their own builds without borrowing ideas from others, you can expect that experienced and clever players would often develop similar if not identical builds simply based on the fact that some skills and class combos synergize better than others. When you take inter-player communication into account, the proliferation of certain builds comes as little surprise.

Of course, that's not to say that it's bad or foolish for players to come up with their own unusual builds, but I think it's unfair for people to criticize those who play the more popular ones.

Effigy I concur that it is common for people to create similar builds. The purpose of the thread was not bash the people who use common builds, but to ENCOURAGE those that use builds that WORK, but are ORIGINAL.

Fair enough. I think we'll be seeing a lot of experimentation once Factions comes out. I know I'll be doing some dabbling, for one.

W/E Is REALLY powerful, not that i use it, but a lot of top clans use it. Basically for gale/shock is all I see them use though, perhaps conjure element

Quote:

I was killed by a single Gale War once. It's a beautiful thing to watch, and amazingly effective for KD. Obviously, energy is a problem, but I don't think it's too much of one. The one I saw was in TA before Battle Isle came into being, and he was using a Sword with a Focus item.

My guild leader uses a R/N, and he got a lot of use out of Putrid Explosion. Later on in the game, however, he switched to pure Ranger, as PE was too expensive. The Touch build works, but a Barrager with PE can work, too, just not as well.

Yeah, gale warriors are great but require some good timing and energy management. It's amazing how once you interrupt a rez sig with Gale they'll get right back up and try it again.

I use R/Me for spiking. Echo Dual shot. I love it.

I saw a Melee N/W once... Not sure what skills he was using cause I proceded to kill him.

Obviously, if you're seeing gale as being a work of beauty, you've never been gale trained by Te. =P

Energy management isn't a problem, since in GvG's in the top 100's, ANY kill is good, and everyone wears glad's armor. Gale's 3 second knockdown is overpowered atm, mainly because there is ONLY ONE way to stop knockdown, and it's pretty much useless to form a build around balanced stance. W/E's are pretty much ALWAYS gale axe nowadays just because it's INCREDIBLY powerful. E/Mo Healer's getting fairly popular too. And of course, Mo/N.

Quote:

and I find I use my sword more than the few Elemental skills I have available now. So just what is this gale warrior? sounds interesting! one thing I have noticed is that I have only 20 energy available to me, so if you have tips on how I can buff that up let me know. I read that somebody was using a focus in the off hand, hmmm . . . I found a chakram with +3/+7 energy, +10 armor and +45 health, so would that be a good offhander?
I juststarted plying this about two weeks ago and I am learnig new things daily by trail and error and from reading here at guru.
I am thinking of making my second character a Mo/N or N/Mo, the heal and harm approach, any suggestions?
Justis Guy

Gale was nerfed (ie the skilled was changed) from costing 5 energy to 10e. It was an air spell that caused long range knockdown for 3 seconds. Some of the info here is sort of out of date (original post was in January).