This is just a place for people to post planned character biographies, skill set-ups, attribute specs, and whatever else you think is interesting.

Resources:

GW2 Wiki(any and all info you need on races, professions, crafting skills, etc.)

Luna-Atra Character Biography Tool(gives you a nice graphic listing the choices you make at character creation)

Luna-Atra Skill Tool(note that all skills and traits are subject to change before release)

GW2Tools Skill Tool (this one is more complete and recently updated compared to the Luna-Atra tool)

My list will be flavor-oriented, as I'm still wary about the game's changing mechanics.

Charr Elementalist's Build

Asura Thief's Build

Sylvari Mesmer's Build

Human Warrior's Build

Norn Ranger's Build

Little bit of a nightmare getting the graphics in correctly. Let me know if you need advice (or can grant some).

ED: March, 2012

Now that there's a whole bunch of new info, may as well update my character. At the moment, I'm thinking of making a warrior instead of a guardian - having been all up in the guardian info thus far, that class has lost a lot of it's sheen...

Anyway;

Here's his build

hmm...

Other Builds

For Funzies burning / spirits Guardian Build

Illusions based Mesmer Build

Signet / Direct Damage Thief; Build

Harrier / Interference + MINEZ Engineer Build

In-fighting Signets Elementalist Build

Wells / Conditions Necromancer Build

I think I'm gonna be a Mesmer, but I've not decided on the race yet. I was leaning towards Norn, but I think I'd prefer a Charr Mesmer now.

I don't know, it will depend on how many characters slots you are given first...but I will for sure no questions about it have at least one male human mesmer and one female human mesmer. My current gw account has 12 characters... seven of them are mesmers, one ele which i never use anymore, one monk, one paragon, two rits.

There probably just be four, so I'm gonna go ahead and say two male human mesmers, and two female human mesmers. I don't like all the bazaar races, just humans will do, and mesmer is the only profession i really like playing in both pvp and pve.

@Dark_Lord_Spam said:

@xhavoc86: You're rolling pretty heavy into Mesmers, huh? I can never commit that fully to one race or profession. It blows my mind.

I LOVE Mesmers! It's so fun to interrupt other casters, i remember when i use to play all the time and make people angry and rage quit cause i camp them lol

Hmm .. once I figure out how to paste the image correctly I'll drop a few in.

@xhavoc86: Hah - I like mesmers but multiple character slots of mesmers? Bitch, you be crazy.

Well to be fair, I have 3 character slots running of warriors, one PvE and two PvP. The whole use-template-to-auto-change-class-and-skills thing killed many of my duplicates. The 2nd PvP guy just has too many good memories attached to him for me to delete.

@Subjugation: I got it working really quickly by downloading the image to my desktop instead of using the URL uploader (something just doesn't seem to agree between GB and that french site)

So...

1. Fill out questionnaire
2. On the last page, bottom right, hit the "copy link" button
3. Open it to go straight to the image, then save to your computer
4. Use GB's image uploader - I think mine is set to Large with no cropping and centred.

Takes no time at all this way - not sure if it'll be the same for you guys, but yeah. Eg: I'll prob make this guy at some point.

ED: Hah, Dark beat me to it - but hey, repetition, repetition repetition.

@Dark_Lord_Spam: I guess I just became spoiled with the URL linking for images. Old school saving image and re-uploading was indeed necessary. On topic though, GW2 awwwww cheaaaa!

First character will be a Norn Ranger, probably Human Mesmer as my second

*updates character build in post above*

Human Thief: http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=2c7a0241a1d282fk5auu00878k8o8t96999d

Human Guardian: http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=2amq0191e2t1j1n60u0ua06f6k6l7578797k

I'm having a hard time deciding between these two. Guardian appeals to me for tanking purposes while thief has by far the most interesting play style of any profession. I'd like to play both evenly, but I heard that leveling in this game is a pain (1.5 hours per level).

@UssjTrunks: Well, there's always WvW and Structured PvP. I'll end up doing a whole bunch of experimentation on there.

I personally dont think there's anything to the thief class that is likeable - except maybe playing around with stealing.

After looking through the thief class, I'm kindof coming around to it - seems like quite a spiker. But I'll have to contend with you on the point of most interesting play style. Mixing things up with bamfs, invisibility and illusions as a mesmer is probably the most appealing to me - though I always make a heavy as a first character.

ED: Oh hey, you're like the first person I've seen with no dual pistols on his thief. Interesting. Well, build wars 2 hasn't quite started yet, so I'll leave my nerding out till later.

Do venoms stack for thieves? If I was the playing the game now I'd love to mess around with a build like this which emphasizes conditions, but how awesome would it be if before the fight you could apply all of these venoms at once then unload on a target to add a tonne of debuffs right from the get go. If I had to guess, it'll probably work like a rogue in wow that has one poison at a time. Just looking for some confirmation.

@Benny: I cant find anything on that on the wiki... I'd have to guess that it's like preparations in GW1 - only one at a time, and they cancel the previous if applied.

That said, your build looks interesting if anything. A whole bunch of potential condition damage, which is good for heavier targets + maximum power, so you'll pack a punch with normal hits too. I'd probably consider Thrill of the Crime instead of Uncatchable under trickery if I had to get into the nitty gritty over major traits, though I guess that is up to you. I guess uncatchable is useful in your case as you're going pure ranged thief, so you'll be stealing then dodging out asap.

Goddamn it, I cant help nerding out.

*shrug* - I may play with a thief build...

@selfconfessedcynic: exactly, stacking conditions seems useful in both PvP and PvE whereas from videos i've seen, stealth seems to reset mobs making it annoying in a solo / PvE situation. I like the idea of staying at range but having some maneuverability to shadowstep to your target with steal and evade away while dropping caltrops. Infiltrator's signet will probably be a must and the 'Exposed Weakness' minor trait in deadly arts has the potential to be a huge damage multiplier, though they'll obviously balance it somewhat.

It's pretty fun to just mess around with a build calculator. This game already has its hooks in me.

@Benny: Man, lame, the acrobatics trait line isn't filled out yet.

I hope there's more than one purely offensive trap in the thief's skillset - the instant cast traps trait, Traps Training under Shadow Arts could be really fun if there were a couple more to play with.

I also want to see if I can make a signet thief - I cant wait to play around with the damage potentials of the less obvious builds.

ED: My first stab at a signet thief; Build

oh, and just as a note - all of my builds are pretty much focussed on PvP viability, even the weird ones.

@selfconfessedcynic: Do you lose the passive buff while signets are on cooldown? I'm assuming that's the tradeoff. The signet heavy build seems like a great way to spike damage, basically burn all of your signets then go nuts, kinda cool.

@Benny: Yup, thats how they work - pretty cool mechanic if you ask me.

The general plan is to have two signets I know I can throw away for their active effects rather than their passives - signet of shadows to blind and immobilise, then infiltrators to get me up to him - then spam away as much as I can, hoping for my thief precision + 300 precision from critical strikes to get me a bunch of crits and crit effects.

The bonus damage from the signets could be pretty meaty, and their passives when I'm not spiking are great. Plus, if the scaling is right, yeah, I can be ready to pop off all of my signets and get one hefty spike on every 30ish seconds. Oh, and I can summon mah guild to help out of course - that elite at least sounds cool.

Man, no engineers? Color me disappointed. I'm sort of working on the skill builder for one, but, I'm not going to lie; I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I have no idea what's shooting the class in the foot and what's good stuff. But I'll see where it goes.

@FateOfNever: Lol - even beyond GW2 being an entirely different system, the Engineer is an entirely new class. Trust me when I say, noone here has a goddamn clue what to do when it comes to engineers.

But perhaps I'll give it a shot too?

TO THE BAT MOBILE

Still no mesmer in that class generator thing. Can't have a fancy graphic yet.

I was looking at possible skill combinations yesterday though, and the greatsword laser beam sounds awesome.

I still haven't really decided on my characters. I'm hoping to get into the beta, mainly so I can try them out.

Definitely leaning towards Guardian for my profession, but that seems like it's going to be a very popular one.

(and just to note, the Guardian profession question for this tool are out of date).

@Maystack: Aint that the truth... all of it. Yeah, my mesmer (here) is focussed on illusion based damage with the option of greatswording the bejeebus out of someone : ) I cant wait to try something similar out.

Anyway - @FateOfNever: here's a stab at an engineer, and it actually looks pretty darn fun;

Build

The general idea is to be a ranged harrier / interference that can set up mine fields, with the option of escaping when I can and an option of flamethrowering when I can't : )

@WinterSnowblind: I think all the attributes stuff is out of date too, still good to get an idea of skills that will work together though.

@Benny: I dunno - the trait trees look somewhat close to current. At least it uses the current system and new attibutes.

But it definitely doesn't have the attribute points you gain from levelling up or correct damage numbers.

@selfconfessedcynic: I think I'd decided on something similar to that, except for having a focus in the off hand. No idea if it'll be any good or not, all my builds end up being terribly inefficient

@selfconfessedcynic: Apparently the Engineer build links are broken. As both yours and mine ended up increasing trait points into the 90's and adds points to traits that had no point at all, and removes passive traits. The rundown of what I was working on though was - Turrets. Turrets and explosions. But since that appears to be broken for the moment, I'll see what else I may want to take a stab at other than a plant-man-engineer.

@FateOfNever: Hmm - try out a different browser or restart your current one, I just copy pasted the link into three different ones (chrome, IE and firefox) and it came out ok.

whole link:

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3e9000dpdte1e5hf00ppaa09va1a9aaamb0

@selfconfessedcynic: Tried it again, without even restarting the browser or going to a different one and now it worked. So, no idea.

Really, I probably should drop either the grenades or the bombs in favor of a pistol or rifle, I'm sure, but otherwise, here it is.

The area beneath the skill/character tool always comes up empty for me. I've tried chrome, IE, firefox and safari. No go for me to try out builds. =(

Appreciate that someone made the effort to make something like this instead of Arena Net doing it. Kudos!

@FateOfNever: Ok - I hate breaking people's dreams, but... well, the engineer's equipped items don't actually work that way. It has to do with weapon kits.

How weapon kits work (the grenade kit and the bomb kit you have equipped there) is that they are utility skills that, once activated, replace your weapon set. So, engineers have the option of equipping a combination of rifles, pistols and shields, and THOSE actually form your main skillset. You may then have whatever weapon kits you want to use as utility skills on the right hand side of your bar.

So in your case you would have, say, pistol / shield and rifle as your equipped weapons, then the three turrets and replace rocket boots with either the grenade or bomb kits to have at least one. Or replace one or two of your turrets with a grenade kit and/or a bomb kit if you really want both. (see below)

@supamon:

Hmm - it's flash based, so maybe that's it? My flash player is 11.1.102.62 (from right clicking on the skill app).

It should look something like this;

Probably a healing / support necro and a greatsword + mace / shield warrior.
 
Really need numbers though before deciding on anything, if minions are any good I may try an MM lineup, but im doubting it as it stands.

Made an in-fighting signets ele.

• He can hot swap between his attunements much faster than normal, so he has more options more often.
• He uses a sceptre and a dagger for the interesting combination of mid range offence and general defensive options that gives him.
• He ABUSES Signet Mastery (20% faster signet recharge) and Written in Stone (you don't lose your passive signet effect during recharge) to give him 3 useful, quick recharging utilities, and a quicker recharging heal that also heals him every time he casts a spell.
• He has a permanent passive +25% speed boost, and that goes up to +35% when in air attunement.
• He creates spell effects when he dodges, and has a faster recharging endurance meter.
• He goes into mist form automatically (invulnerable) when he hits 33% health.

Man, I like this guy! He'd be a total prick to fight against!

Build

ED: Though, if I take out the mistform capability, I can give him the Discharge minor trait from air which will damage everyone around me when I switch to air. That'll mean on two of the four attunements, I'll be causing aoe damage when I switch to them for free.

@supamon said:

The area beneath the skill/character tool always comes up empty for me. I've tried chrome, IE, firefox and safari. No go for me to try out builds. =(

Appreciate that someone made the effort to make something like this instead of Arena Net doing it. Kudos!

That happened to me as well. Open up someone else's build and edit it. That's how I got it to work the first time.

@UssjTrunks: It works now! Thanks for telling me that.

I have like... NO idea how to make a decent necro.

This wells and conditions one may work? Maybe? Build

Made an in-fighting signets ele.

• He can hot swap between his attunements much faster than normal, so he has more options more often.
• He uses a sceptre and a dagger for the interesting combination of mid range offence and general defensive options that gives him.
• He ABUSES Signet Mastery (20% faster signet recharge) and Written in Stone (you don't lose your passive signet effect during recharge) to give him 3 useful, quick recharging utilities, and a quicker recharging heal that also heals him every time he casts a spell.
• He has a permanent passive +25% speed boost, and that goes up to +35% when in air attunement.
• He creates spell effects when he dodges, and has a faster recharging endurance meter.
• He goes into mist form automatically (invulnerable) when he hits 33% health.

Man, I like this guy! He'd be a total prick to fight against!

Build

ED: Though, if I take out the mistform capability, I can give him the Discharge minor trait from air which will damage everyone around me when I switch to air. That'll mean on two of the four attunements, I'll be causing aoe damage when I switch to them for free.

@Dark_Lord_Spam: Dude - totally agreed.

I've made a signet build for two classes now, and they both look quite interesting. That ele one takes the cake, though - written in stone is where it's at. Especially when combined with signet of restoration.

Still, all of this goes for naught if the stated buffs that signets give are ultra small (or get nurfed), and other skills turn out to be clearly better.

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=34b8003n2o3p79ia70aaaaue1e3e41r222a2u

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=2ae00192u2s1e2vbjka0fp6f6g6p7m7s7u

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3gb800kll3l0l4l970akaakbvc3c8cecqd1d5

my 3 main's builds

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3810004m4q4p8bln2500ufp5f5h5j5r646b

my alt's build....kind of wired I have 3 mains and one alt :P

For some reason, I've suddenly decided that I'm gonna make a Necromancer as my main instead of a mesmer.

http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3810004m4q4plslnaeu0u0a4q4u505f5i5j67

@Maystack: Heh - hell yeah minions. They seem pretty darn good in this game (after I watched some necro videos), you barely have to maintain them anymore.

Necromancer seems to be a pretty tough class to contend with in terms of options and utility - and they aren't slouches in terms of damage either. Not a bad choice for a first character, though I'm more of a warrior or mesmer fanboy myself.

ED: It comes down to how the game plays, but my guess is you'll end up diversifying into Curses though - the additional condition damage is huge, and the traits in that tree are quite good.

@Bestostero said:

I don't know, it will depend on how many characters slots you are given first...but I will for sure no questions about it have at least one male human mesmer and one female human mesmer. My current gw account has 12 characters... seven of them are mesmers, one ele which i never use anymore, one monk, one paragon, two rits.

There probably just be four, so I'm gonna go ahead and say two male human mesmers, and two female human mesmers. I don't like all the bazaar races, just humans will do, and mesmer is the only profession i really like playing in both pvp and pve.

Serious question - what is the point of that many mesmers? Did you just want different races (never played GW1 so no idea) or was it simply your fascination with them?

@ccampb89: because i have so much fun with mesmers lol i didnt start out with so many mesmers, i had pretty much had at least one of everything and then i just stopped playing other professions then decided to delete and turn them into something i enjoy. and its not that bad since the way i did it i had a mesmer stationed at a specific area... mapping to doa is a pain lol, so i always had one there, always had mesmers at fa and jq.... i didnt have to map around, just switch between characters.... and of course i had my main and i had one as a "mule" and for trading lol

@Bestostero said:

@ccampb89: because i have so much fun with mesmers lol i didnt start out with so many mesmers, i had pretty much had at least one of everything and then i just stopped playing other professions then decided to delete and turn them into something i enjoy. and its not that bad since the way i did it i had a mesmer stationed at a specific area... mapping to doa is a pain lol, so i always had one there, always had mesmers at fa and jq.... i didnt have to map around, just switch between characters.... and of course i had my main and i had one as a "mule" and for trading lol

Hehe, neat. The OCD in me hates having two of one chars, even on different servers. It's resulted in so many char deletes in World of Warcraft because I had 3 paladins across three servers.

The Biography Tool has been completed, so I've just updated my post to be a rainbow of spectacular color.