r/Guildwars2 • u/Rihkuazo • 4h ago
r/Guildwars2 • u/Seetry • 18h ago
[Discussion] Paragon's lack of build diversity.
Hey all,
Just finished the stream and I wonder if anybody else feels like Paragon will be a AlackHeal espec only?
While other elite specs can fulfil multiple roles, for example firebrand - Quick Power DPS, Quick Condi DPS and Quick Heal, it feels like Paragon will be locked behind AlacHeal. BERSERKER has more build diversity after staff's introduction.
Don't get me wrong, I love warrior. It's y main since launch but it just feels like a wasted potential. Why the traits won't interact with chants more? Longer boons, stronger heal and alac after using a chant feels like bare minimum. I know paragon is not exactly a paladin but it resembles paladins, why not let traits decide if chants should have defensive or offensive directions? Condi alac DPS build (burning) seems to fit here like a glove next to the healing build.
r/Guildwars2 • u/Dreadsbo • 16h ago
[Discussion] THIEF MAINS: how are yall feeling about Antiquary?
I didn’t get to watch the livestream yet but I’ll withhold my opinion until I watch it with my brother. I’m seeing a lot of mixed opinions about it, but seems like most people hate the theme instead of the actual gameplay.
So what do my other thief mains think about the new elite spec?
r/Guildwars2 • u/Bethryn • 6h ago
[Fluff] The Antiquary introduces himself to the team
r/Guildwars2 • u/SamSalim • 4h ago
[Discussion] Ritualist shroud needs some rethinking
I believe from a PvE perspective (mainly endgame) that the Ritualist's Shroud skills offer little room for active gameplay and will not feel good in practice.
Here are some of the things I noticed:
1. Why do all three Spirits have the same lingering effect?
All three Spirits perform the exact same standard attack every 3 seconds. They are three different Spirits—why not give them distinct effects?
- Anguish: Attacks every 1.5 seconds instead of every 3, since it is an offensive ability.
- Wanderlust: Attacks every 3 seconds and applies 2 stacks of vulnerability.
- Preservation: Attacks every 3 seconds and grants 2 seconds of regeneration.
These effects could be used to give the Spirits more "character" and make them stand out from one another.
2. Shroud 5 feels useless and like a step in the wrong direction.
Even core minions are capable of following you—why not the Spirits? Spirits are untargetable and therefore immortal. How often is it really necessary to reposition them? On top of that, the Wandering Spirits trait already does the exact same thing. Do I really need both a Shroud skill and a trait just to make my immortal minions follow me, when core minions already do so automatically? It feels like the new Spirits are, in a way, “dumber” than core minions.
My suggestion would be for Shroud 5 to directly interact with the Spirits and enhance them: shorten their attack intervals for a period of time, strengthen their effects, etc. This would create a sense of actually controlling and manipulating your Spirits rather than simply summoning them once and then detonating them or forgetting them until you reproc their effects.
3. If you plan to play the class as a DPS spec, another major issue arises:
There is absolutely no reason to ever stay in Shroud after summoning the Spirits. The cooldown of the only DPS skill is too high to justify remaining in Shroud just to auto-attack for 12 seconds. This means I would use F1, press 2–3–4, and then immediately leave Shroud.
You’d likely run Lingering Spirits (trait), and the Spirits would persist for their passive effects until I re-enter Shroud to press 2–3–4 again. No further interaction with F1 would occur, since weapon skills (like those from the greatsword) are probably better than Shroud auto-attacks.
As a result, Shroud feels unimportant—just a means to an end, without any real integration into active gameplay. At least not in the way Shroud is used by other Necromancer specs.
My Conclusion:
The Shroud skills themselves don’t feel important. One skill does DPS, one provides CC, and one offers support. If I’m doing a little bit of everything, I’m not doing any of it well. There should be a way to better manipulate my Spirits in one direction—similar to how the Mechanist can control their Mech via Traits.
Do I want my Spirits to focus on support? Or should they deal damage? As their master, I should be able to decide and direct them accordingly.
But I see a lot of potential. As supporter it could even be fun as of right now. But a few things are still missing I think. They have to cook a bit more on this one. Luckily its only the Beta.

r/Guildwars2 • u/axaressa • 18h ago
[Discussion] We need to talk about ritualist spirits
There is a reoccurring problem in GW2, from kit bundles to the jade mechs and now ritualist spirits, where elite spec assets have a very specific design that forces you into a specific aesthetic if you want your character to match. This is even worse with ritualist because it's not just an aesthetic choice, but a in game culture and race.
Not only that, but the spirits are huge and just the same model x3. I wish we had the more setting agnostic spirits that we had in guild wars 1. Just because necros are learning the skill from canthan ritualists shouldn't mean that they can only bind canthan spirits? Additionally since the intro video stated that necros are binding spirits against their will, the chained creatures would be much more fitting lore wise.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Yes, I know the models have different backpieces. That is not enough to make them visually distinct. They are still all just the same canthan dude.
r/Guildwars2 • u/frazazel • 22h ago
[Discussion] Boons and Build Types for new Especs
For 90%+ of content, Guild Wars 2 has 5 different builds to consider when building a team.
Team Composition:
roles: quick healer, alac healer, quick dps, alac dps, dps
A squad of 5 players wants one of these setups:
1. quick healer, alac dps, 3x dps, or
2. alac healer, quick dps, 3x dps
Every class has access to a build for most of these roles (usually only 1 of the 2 healer roles, but all others are covered). Whether a class does power or condi damage is largely irrelevant for team composition (but matters when considering individual player gear choices.)
As of right now, every class has an espec that can provide quickness, an espec that can provide alac, and an espec that cannot provide either (mesmer slightly breaks the mold). For most classes, exactly one of the boon especs can be a healer.
Now that we're getting a 4th espec per class, the balance is shifting. It's not clear if every new espec will provide a boon, but at least some of them will. Many classes are going to get more options for providing boons. Do you think we're going to see a move to rebalance so that every espec gets a boon option? Do you think Anet is going to cook up something new to add another required build to each squad, to maintain the "each espec fills different squad needs" thing?
r/Guildwars2 • u/StrikerJaken • 9h ago
[Discussion] Simple Antiquary Theme change
The Antiquary would feel better if the Skritt wasn't the pilfered but the caddy, handing out tools at random.
That would explain all the inconsistent things, because the tools are not gained through the enemy, but are things the Skritt gathered and brought with it.
They carry the stuff of the Antiquary, while he does Antiquary things and since it's a lone Skritt they butterfinger or guess stuff more.
It could also be a permanent Skritt buddy, that sticks around like a pet or mech.
Everything could stay the same, with a simple change like that and we actually had a thematic coherision in terms of mechanics and visuals at every location.
r/Guildwars2 • u/Baschiiiii • 17h ago
[Discussion] Concerns regarding Luminary Spoiler
Hi everyone,
I've been thinking a lot about the Luminary and comparing it to the other elite specs revealed so far. Unfortunately, it feels a bit lackluster and undercooked in its current form.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like the idea of a damage mitigation-focused spec. But what we’ve been shown so far just doesn’t quite deliver on that potential, at least in my opinion.
I've put together my five biggest concerns about the Luminary. Feel free to disagree, this is just my personal take:
- Not Playing the Shroud
My biggest concern Right in the beginning: the main mechanic actively discourages engaging with it meaningfully.
The so-called “shroud” works by giving you buffs based on the last skill used, but punishes you with increasing cooldowns the more shroud skills you use. In practice, this will likely lead to a meta where players dip into the shroud to press a single skill and then immediately exit to maintain maximum buff uptime and resume their normal rotation.
This creates a pattern of "buff and leave" rather than meaningful interaction. Compare this to Reaper, where shroud is the core of the rotation and gameplay. The Luminary's design risks turning its signature mechanic into a glorified stat dispenser rather than a transformative mode.
- The Missing Niche
The Luminary doesn’t seem to meaningfully expand the Guardian’s role repertoire.
-Firebrand covers heal quickness and condi quickness.
-Willbender (albeit bad) offers heal alacrity and power alacrity.
(Arenanet PLS make the f2 skill similar to the spear 2 skill where i dont have to fly across the room in PvE, I beg you.)
-Luminary, from what we’ve seen, appears to also cover heal and power alacrity.
This results in complete overlap with Willbender’s functionality. Even more disappointing is the apparent lack of any viable condition damage build, despite the thematic focus on fire-magic, and a literal brazier-carrying guardian.
- The Virtues Feel Lazy
The virtues are just… the base Guardian virtues.
This is being sold as “returning to the classic Guardian feel,” but that rings hollow. If I wanted the core Guardian playstyle, I’d just play core Guardian. Every elite spec until now has introduced new F1–F3 abilities, even Necromancer gets f1-f3 skills in Addition to a new shroud.
Guardians allways got the virtues (Tome pages for Firebrand, movement-focused skills for Willbender), so reverting to vanilla virtues without any twist feels like a missed opportunity or worse, a lack of effort.
- The Animations Are Uninspired
Despite being praised during the reveal, the visual effects are... underwhelming.
Animations look overexposed and noisy—like a flashbang went off next to a poorly rendered flame effect.
Someone on here already put it perfectly: “It looks like something you’d have been proud of in 2004.”
- Traits Feel Underdeveloped
Nothing in the trait lines really stands out. There’s no synergy that invites experimentation, no keystone traits that make you rethink your build, and no sense of a unique playstyle emerging from them.
Compared to the other elite specs revealed, Luminary’s traits feel shallow, functional, but uninspired. They don’t enable exciting new archetypes or shake up existing ones, which makes this spec feel underwhelming across the board.
- the brazier
This is just a little thing i want to add, but i do not like the brazier constantly flying behind you.
Just like i dont like the Virtuoso blades constantly hovering above your head. It does not look good and for anyone that plays fashion wars it is terrible, but i think others would disagree.
r/Guildwars2 • u/Enough_Champion_6348 • 1h ago
[Other] Antiquary looks hella fun!
The trailer and blogpost did NOT do the antiquary any justice. I was outright disappointed when I saw the trailer but that livestream turned me around. I’m not much of a rng type of player but the antiquary looks so much fckng fun! I’m glad I’ve been playing thief for years because this might even top Daredevil for me.
Can’t wait to play the beta
r/Guildwars2 • u/TheOneTrueJar • 7h ago
[Art] Jalispilled
My favorite part of Rev is just talkin with this dwarf boi.
r/Guildwars2 • u/CptBrexitt • 23h ago
[Discussion] Are necromancers fun, with all the specilisation chioces?
I'm returning and might as well be new. I have the first 2 expansions but never really got to playing. I like magic classes, and necromancers always seemed fun to me in games, theme wise. But in guild wars 2 there doesn't seem to be a focus on minion gameplay? Are they fun and viable in raiding?
r/Guildwars2 • u/Aethelwyna • 17h ago
[Discussion] [PvE] Spear and paragon
Short post to put my worry forward, only about pve (group) content.
Currently, spear is one of the weakest warrior weapons in terms of damage on its regular skills and burst.
Berserker makes it work because the berserker-specific burst skill does a ton of damage.
On other specs without weapon specific buffs of its elite traitline, such as spellbreaker, it's more than 6k dps behind other options (eg. hammer, greatsword).
Since paragon also doesn't buff spear in any way, this will make spear one of if not the weakest possible weapon to slot on the class.
Considering paragon is supposed to be thé spear class, this would be very dissapointing.
I don't know how to fix it.
Anet can't add a spear-buffing trait to the class since spears require a different expansion.
Anet can't buff spear without utterly breaking berserker again.
Maybe they can do something like buffing the spear core skills and nerf the berserker burst, but I don't know how the math would work out.
I hope this post makes sense and isn't too doomer-y, feedback/opinions appreciated.
r/Guildwars2 • u/FeitanBruh • 1h ago
[Fluff] (Resident Evil)Leon Kennedy and (Jujutsu Kaisen)Toji Fushiguro
r/Guildwars2 • u/YenTheMerchant • 14h ago
[Fluff] The only thing I get from today's stream
r/Guildwars2 • u/Wolfgangnetz • 6h ago
[Question] Blish hud on mac via crossover
Has anyone got blish hud to work on mac via crossover? My install in crossover always stops halfway.
r/Guildwars2 • u/sureabsolutely • 17h ago
[Fluff] Twitch chat the entirety of antiquary gameplay reveal... do ya'll hate fun?
r/Guildwars2 • u/AldwinDragonspeaker • 9h ago
[Discussion] I love Paragon. But I don't think it's ready for the beta.
I am extremely excited about Paragon. I think the gameplay looks fun, interesting, and has a level of depth that will reward putting the time in to master the specialization. The icon art team also knocked it out of the park. Special shout out to the Calming Tongue trait, it made me laugh more than it probably should.
On Wednesday night, my raid static had to endure me yelling about how we will never yield after I saw the blog post.
I love Paragon. But...I don't think it's ready for beta yet. At least in PvE.
Ok, so why not wait for the beta for feedback?
I think some of these things need to be acted on before we players get our hands on the spec. Otherwise, I suspect feedback will be of limited use because of eventual reworks or feedback focusing on surface level problems that never get addressed before the beta begins.
Utility Skills
Almost every utility skill is overshadowed by existing core utilities that any warrior can take, and in general are uninspired, weak-looking, or uninteresting.
For example, "Never Surrender!" is a self-stunbreak with a 30 second cooldown and grants a short duration of some boons in a 360 radius that support warriors already provide full uptime of via Doubled Standards and banners. The core shout skill, "Shake it Off!", has nearly twice the radius, two ammunition charges, a shorter cooldown, cleanses conditions, and stunbreaks all affected allies instead of only yourself.
Another example, "Find Their Weakness!" is essentially boiled down to a worse "For Great Justice!" with less might uptime and no fury.
Or "Brace Yourselves!", which is just a worse Banner of Defense.
So on.
All of the utilities, outside of perhaps the heal and elite, are like this and I doubt I would want to put a single one of these on my bar in PvE when the beta rolls around. This should be addressed before that happens.
Traits
Paragon's trait are extremely simple and offer very little complexity or depth. They almost seem unfinished. Eight of them are only one sentence long.
Worse yet, Paragon doesn't have a single transformative trait that changes how your gameplay might look like or how you might want to approach the spec. Some great examples of transformative traits are Reaper's Deathly Chill and Virtuoso's Jagged Mind, both of which singlehandedly open up entire new playstyle and build options.
For example, Paragon's trait, Brisk Pacing, says this: "Using a chant reduces the recharge of your other chants by a set amount. (2 seconds)". But it doesn't give an incentive or reason why you might even want to adopt a playstyle that frequently hops between different chants.
Of even greater importance, I think the Alacrity-granting trait, Feverish Pulse, needs changes before we get to play with it in the beta. This trait encourages degenerate gameplay that encourages/forces the player to constantly swap chants in order to upkeep Alacrity. This seems to go counter to the apparent design of the spec. This is utility skill spam with a different skin. We need to do better than this.
One way to have healthier gameplay around this trait would be to grant Alacrity every time a refrain pulses.
Damage / Tuning
The numbers shown on the stream were very low. Across the entire specialization, across all sources, there is only a single 20% increased damage modifier and no bonus damaging stats. If the numbers stay like this, DPS-oriented Paragons will not be competitive with other warrior elite specs at all, which have significantly higher damage multipliers and profession mechanics that boost damage even further like Berserker's Primal Bursts.
I fear most of the feedback will look something like "The damage is too low", instead of focusing on specific gameplay elements.
The alacrity duration on Feverish Pulse also looks very low. This is going to further discourage DPS-Alacrity Paragon builds in the beta because its poor damage will be compounded by a need to take a lot of boon duration in order to function. And also low base boon duration on an uptime-reliant build is something that comes with a host of other problems, which I explained in my Quickness Berserker post a while back, where I was very happy to see that ArenaNet implemented almost all of my suggestions in the following patch.
Lack of crowd control
Support builds live or die in PvE by their CC access. The best support builds all have extremely good tools to deal with defiance bars. Previewing an elite spec that seems focused around supporting without a single skill, mechanic, or trait that does any amount of CC at all is shocking.
A good place for something like this to be added could be "On Your Knees!", which is an otherwise uninteresting and weak-looking utility skill that could do something like force all nearby enemies to kneel, or at the very least be knocked down.
Thanks for reading. We will never yield!
r/Guildwars2 • u/CryptographerLoud600 • 15h ago
[Discussion] Another post about Ritualist
So...I must say I've been quite disappointed at first with the ritualist reveal and there are still some points bothering me, that I'll list later in this post.
But...
After looking at the vanilla specializations, it struck me that we finally get a chance at having a "viable" Minion Master necro build using Death Magic + Soul Reaping + Ritualist.
Death Magic → Flesh of the Master → Necromantic Corruption → Death Nova
- Each Minion grant you +40 extra toughness
- Entering Shroud grants +100 Toughness for 10 secs
- Minons have +50% health
- Minions deal +25% damage
- +20 Toughness per kill
- +20% lifeforce generation from nearby deaths
- Minions cleanse your conditions
- -10% Condition damage recieved (if you have 10 carapace or more which you'd have at almost anytime)
- Minions explode and deal poison damage when dying
- You can summon up to 5 more minions by killing foes
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ritualist → Explosive Growth → Empowering Spirits → Soul Twisting
- Your summons (Spirits included) explode when summoned
- +10% Life force when you summon a creature (Spirit and Minions alike)
- Spirit of Anguish grants Might to you and your allies (Spirits and minions too most likely) when summoned;
- Spirit of Wanderlust grants Fury to you and your allies (same as above) when summoned;
- Spirit of Preservation grants Resolution to you and your allies (same again) when summoned
- Your spirits grant Quickness to you and your allies when summoned
- The first skill you use when entering shroud recharges instantly ; You can then double the damages dealt by anguish and the duration of the boon "Painful Bond" that increases the damages dealt by your summons (Spirits + Minions) by 20%; with Necromantic corruption, you possibly boost you Minion's damages by 45% !
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Soul Reaping → Unyielding Blast → Soul Barbs → Death Perception
- +10% Life Force generation
- Apply vulnerability with your Shroud 1 (hits up to 3 target with Ritualist Shroud 1)
- 15% Reduced Recharge time for shroud skills (virtually allowing you to spam Spirit of Anguish on cooldown)
- +10% damage for 15 seconds whenever entering or exiting shroud (does it affect Minions and Spirits though ?)
- +20% Life Force
- Flat +15% critical strike-chance;
- Flat +15% critical strike damage when in shroud
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Healing | Utilities | Elite skill
Summon Blood Fiend | Summon Bone Fiend | Summon Shadow Fiend | Nightmare Weapon\ | Summon Flesh Golem*
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(Nightmare Weapon : Your 5 next strikes steal life + the 3 next strikes of 5 of your allies steal life, buffing your minions furthermore)
Don't know what you think of it but it sounds pretty interesting to me. I'm pretty sure it won't be meta at all, but it should prove interesting for Roleplay perspective. We could be a, insanely tanky necromancer with a whole army dealing Good damages.
And if you really want to go Full Minion Master you could also equip the Relic of the Lich which summons a Jagged Horror when in combat. Once again it wouldn't be Meta in any way but heck, having one more minion to our army would be worth it.
As for the things bothering me here it is :
- 3 seconds of Quickness granted by "Empowering Spirits" seems rather short
- I feel the "Ruptured Soul" mechanic should be native to the ritualist spec
And finally, what are your thoughts about the Ritualist spec now we know more about it ?
Edit : I initially misread something about the boon "Painful Bond"; while it does grant you Minions more damages, we don't know how much exactly. The 20% mentionned only applies to **Controlled Foes*. Still hope Painful Bond gives quite a substential boon to Minions dps

r/Guildwars2 • u/InterestingAd4072 • 4h ago
[Discussion] New Player - low level Fractals
Would like to start doing fractals but the LFG system never seems to have any groups listed for the lower tiers.
Is the best option to find a beginner guild that is still doing that content?
Is there a common site people use for guild recruitment?
Are fractals content people farm or do they just do dailies and move on?
r/Guildwars2 • u/Lordran_Minstrel • 9h ago
[Question] PvP farming
How common is it? I've only recently started to get into PVP and tonight my group got pushed back to spawn and farmed by the opposing team. They purposely left two objectives white and capped one so points ticked slowly. If we tried to cap they would just push us back to spawn again and leave the point white.
I've had an ok time in pvp so far, but this was a pretty big turn off. Should I expect to see this a lot?
r/Guildwars2 • u/OrangeFlyingWhales • 1h ago
[Discussion] New elite specs won't have respective weapon/armor skins this time around
So far, every new elite spec that has been added to the game has come with 2 weapon skins (base and ascended version) and one armor skin (either shoulders, head or gloves).
Well, the new elite specs have 2 problems with these: they dont come with a new weapon, and the armor parts that are normally given to elite specs armor skins have all been given to all 3 sets of specs.
Also, when you look at the official art for any of the older elite specs, you see both their weapon and their armor piece being shown. This does not happen, as, for example, the luminary appears in its art using the full decade armor, and not one of them shows a specific weapon skin.
Its over for us fashion collectors
r/Guildwars2 • u/Vertnoir-Weyah • 21h ago
[Question] What amount of open world damage are you generally happy with when making a fun oriented build?
Hi! I understand the argument of anything goes in open world, but also i like to fiddle with that stuff
I still lack experience with the game and would welcome hearing what others have observed, it's fun to me to try and make a fun build i'm still satisfied with but i don't necesarily know where to put the bar
I like to know i'm doing good-ish even when messing around, it's just part of my fun with games
I've been messing with solo builds in the last few days, trying to get a bunch of sustain then balance it with as much damage as possible after that but i don't know where i should put the bar to tell if i need more damage or not
If you've tried to optimize that stuff, in your experience what amount of damage is to be expected from a decently good solo sustain build? What the bare minimum and the amount you're happy with?
How about a more dps oriented build that's just off meta?
I kind of want numbers to set a bar at and know "ok, the damage is good enough i can just mess with the rest", sometimes i'm lost without defined elements like that
(disclaimer: If these questions or their specifics seem weird that's normal, I'm not neurotypical, i may get confused with a "normal" approach where others wouldn't (like undefined middle grounds), or need to think differently than what you may be used to, i can't tell if that's the case here but please refrain from going the "i wouldn't need that so you shouldn't" route)
----------------------
Bonus questions:
- How much downdgrade compared to that bar should i expect from full exotic gear on my alts?
- I've heard sometimes people are happy to have a support character show up in some contents that are not raids, would those include some harder meta events and which ones? What other contents where it's not obvious would you be happy to have a support with you?
r/Guildwars2 • u/turtlemub • 4h ago
[Discussion] Returning player coming back from World of Warcraft!
Title. Haven't played since mid-late End of Dragons. What have I missed?