Wall o' text time! I'm going to list the PVP builds I'm planning to use for my first five characters (I'm an altoholic so all of my initial character slots will be filled pretty much immediately), and if you have any insights, criticisms, or suggestions to post, please do so! Be as brutal as you want in your advice so long as you can explain the logic behind your statements. My only disclaimer is that I haven't actually played the previous two beta weekends so these setups are all just conjecture.
I'll list them alphabetically (Elementalist, Guardian, Mesmer, Ranger, Thief) to make it easier to find a specific class, and skills will all have clickable links in case anyone needs it (the gold colouring really isn't very apparent in my browser by the way).
ELEMENTALIST <--clicky class names for build links Lots of attunement swapping and crits is the name of the game here. Let's say I come across a target who's at range from me, I would start in earth attunement to cast Rock Barrier & Dust Devil to reduce incoming damage (though I'm not sure RB would stay after swapping attunements), then swap to air attunement so I could blast my target with lightning thanks to Electric Discharge and then Ride the Lightning to them before hitting them with a second blind from Blinding Flash to hopefully keep them from knocking me away, then finally go into fire attunement, use my Signet of Earth to root them & follow that up with a Dragon's Tooth > Phoenix > Fire Grab combo. If they somehow lived through that or I just needed to get away from the rest of their now angry team I could go into water attunement for Frost Aura to slow my attackers (again not sure if the boon will last through an attunement swap) and get a bit of quick healing & condition removal via Water Trident & Cleansing Wave plus even popping my Glyph of Elemental Harmony for the regen boon in this attunement. By the time all this has happened my air attunement will be ready or at least will be ready very shortly so I can launch everyone with Updraft and then Ride the Lightning out (seems it can just function as a means of quick travel in any direction & doesn't necessarily have to leap me toward a target). It's also worth noting that every time I swapped attunements I gained a new fury buff, so I should pretty much have a permanent 20% crit bonus. I was gonna go into more combos, but after seeing how long that one was already...well, you get the idea. :p The only other thing I'll say about the build is that the Sigil of Force on my offhand weapon seems the best choice since Arcane Power has a ridiculous 30 second uptime with only a 45 second cooldown so a crit sigil seemed like a waste.
GUARDIAN The idea for this character is to be pack support. She'll run with at least one other person at all times and provide heals, bubbles, interrupts, knockbacks, and whatever utility is needed. The spirit weapons are there for a random extra bubble and an AoE Weaken, as well as the occasional clutch knockdown & continuous knockbacks to interrupt enemies who are trying to finish downed allies or do anything else that requires them to stand still. The mace + shield are for when I need to offer even more support, whereas the hammer is just to be annoying with the immobilize, sending people flying (hopefully off a ledge), and finally Ring of Warding which will either let an ally finish someone off since the enemy can't run out of the ring, or it could even be used defensively to stop someone (or even multiple someones!) from chasing down a teammate who's low on HP. I went with the offensive elite instead of the healing one because I'm already doing so much healing that I thought it would be a good idea to have the ability to add some extra DPS to drive away or kill our opponents. The only real weaknesses I see in this build are low HP and a lack of mobility skills. I'm also not really happy with the amulet/jewel/rune choices, but I'll try different combos in the upcoming BWE to see how they perform.
MESMER Since this class is slated to get the heaviest tweaking, I'll mostly just cover general concepts. Basically I want to mass produce clones and pair that with a couple of invisibility skills to keep other players guessing where I am. Whenever I reach the 3 illusion cap I'll send them running to their deaths via Mind Wrack. The only specific combo I'm hoping they don't change will be Rune of Lyssa + Signet of Inspiration + Time Warp. That will suddenly give me and my allies every buff for 5 seconds while also doubling their attack speed as long as they're in my Time Warp's area, which should easily let us win a team fight.
RANGER (here's a Youtube vid showing this build in action) Multiple burst damage cooldowns have made this build fairly popular already, with the standard version being 30/30/0/0/10. I moved 5 points into Beastmastery because that will let me proc Zephyr's Speed 20% more often and on demand, whereas the standard version relies on hitting 25% HP to get extra zephyr procs. Even when burst cooldowns aren't available, this looks like it should still put out a lot of damage thanks to multiple sources of Fury (not to mention 5% extra crit when fury is up, and 20% longer fury duration) and a decent uptime on the war horn buffs. For pets I'm thinking a Lynx for DPS since it's the only pet to have 4 damaging attacks, and a Krytan Drakehound for its crowd control abilities.
THIEF To understand the intent of this build, you should really watch this guy in action. His mobility is insane, and I think I've improved on that without sacrificing any damage. The shortbow can help me stay mobile, do AoE damage, and apply conditions to single targets or groups. When I'm ready to finish someone off I can swap to dual pistols, immediately have 6 stacks of Might thanks to dual Sigils of Battle, hit Haste, follow it up with Unload, and do 10k damage or more in a very short amount of time. If I need more time to finish off my target I can pop one or more poisons to stun them for 3.4 seconds, immobilize them for approximately 15 seconds, and gimp their healing for almost a full minute. Even without spending initiative, this setup will still be able to dodge away from damage constantly. Withdraw doesn't heal for much, but it removes movement debuffs as well as dodging you quite a distance backwards. There's apparently a keybind that makes you look, or maybe turn, 180 degrees, so even if you want to dodge forward with Withdraw all you have to do is use that keybind to quickly turn the other direction, Withdraw, then hit that keybind again to continue in your original direction. The other great thing about Withdraw is that it's on a 15 second cooldown so you can proc lots of other effects on a regular basis like Rune of the Adventurer's 100% endurance refill, a 10 second vigor buff from Vigorous Recovery, and 4 extra initiative from Hastened Replenishment.
Let me know what you think about any or all of the above.
ELEMENTALIST <--clicky class names for build links Lots of attunement swapping and crits is the name of the game here. Let's say I come across a target who's at range from me, I would start in earth attunement to cast Rock Barrier & Dust Devil to reduce incoming damage (though I'm not sure RB would stay after swapping attunements), then swap to air attunement so I could blast my target with lightning thanks to Electric Discharge and then Ride the Lightning to them before hitting them with a second blind from Blinding Flash to hopefully keep them from knocking me away, then finally go into fire attunement, use my Signet of Earth to root them & follow that up with a Dragon's Tooth > Phoenix > Fire Grab combo. If they somehow lived through that or I just needed to get away from the rest of their now angry team I could go into water attunement for Frost Aura to slow my attackers (again not sure if the boon will last through an attunement swap) and get a bit of quick healing & condition removal via Water Trident & Cleansing Wave plus even popping my Glyph of Elemental Harmony for the regen boon in this attunement. By the time all this has happened my air attunement will be ready or at least will be ready very shortly so I can launch everyone with Updraft and then Ride the Lightning out (seems it can just function as a means of quick travel in any direction & doesn't necessarily have to leap me toward a target). It's also worth noting that every time I swapped attunements I gained a new fury buff, so I should pretty much have a permanent 20% crit bonus. I was gonna go into more combos, but after seeing how long that one was already...well, you get the idea. :p The only other thing I'll say about the build is that the Sigil of Force on my offhand weapon seems the best choice since Arcane Power has a ridiculous 30 second uptime with only a 45 second cooldown so a crit sigil seemed like a waste.
GUARDIAN The idea for this character is to be pack support. She'll run with at least one other person at all times and provide heals, bubbles, interrupts, knockbacks, and whatever utility is needed. The spirit weapons are there for a random extra bubble and an AoE Weaken, as well as the occasional clutch knockdown & continuous knockbacks to interrupt enemies who are trying to finish downed allies or do anything else that requires them to stand still. The mace + shield are for when I need to offer even more support, whereas the hammer is just to be annoying with the immobilize, sending people flying (hopefully off a ledge), and finally Ring of Warding which will either let an ally finish someone off since the enemy can't run out of the ring, or it could even be used defensively to stop someone (or even multiple someones!) from chasing down a teammate who's low on HP. I went with the offensive elite instead of the healing one because I'm already doing so much healing that I thought it would be a good idea to have the ability to add some extra DPS to drive away or kill our opponents. The only real weaknesses I see in this build are low HP and a lack of mobility skills. I'm also not really happy with the amulet/jewel/rune choices, but I'll try different combos in the upcoming BWE to see how they perform.
MESMER Since this class is slated to get the heaviest tweaking, I'll mostly just cover general concepts. Basically I want to mass produce clones and pair that with a couple of invisibility skills to keep other players guessing where I am. Whenever I reach the 3 illusion cap I'll send them running to their deaths via Mind Wrack. The only specific combo I'm hoping they don't change will be Rune of Lyssa + Signet of Inspiration + Time Warp. That will suddenly give me and my allies every buff for 5 seconds while also doubling their attack speed as long as they're in my Time Warp's area, which should easily let us win a team fight.
RANGER (here's a Youtube vid showing this build in action) Multiple burst damage cooldowns have made this build fairly popular already, with the standard version being 30/30/0/0/10. I moved 5 points into Beastmastery because that will let me proc Zephyr's Speed 20% more often and on demand, whereas the standard version relies on hitting 25% HP to get extra zephyr procs. Even when burst cooldowns aren't available, this looks like it should still put out a lot of damage thanks to multiple sources of Fury (not to mention 5% extra crit when fury is up, and 20% longer fury duration) and a decent uptime on the war horn buffs. For pets I'm thinking a Lynx for DPS since it's the only pet to have 4 damaging attacks, and a Krytan Drakehound for its crowd control abilities.
THIEF To understand the intent of this build, you should really watch this guy in action. His mobility is insane, and I think I've improved on that without sacrificing any damage. The shortbow can help me stay mobile, do AoE damage, and apply conditions to single targets or groups. When I'm ready to finish someone off I can swap to dual pistols, immediately have 6 stacks of Might thanks to dual Sigils of Battle, hit Haste, follow it up with Unload, and do 10k damage or more in a very short amount of time. If I need more time to finish off my target I can pop one or more poisons to stun them for 3.4 seconds, immobilize them for approximately 15 seconds, and gimp their healing for almost a full minute. Even without spending initiative, this setup will still be able to dodge away from damage constantly. Withdraw doesn't heal for much, but it removes movement debuffs as well as dodging you quite a distance backwards. There's apparently a keybind that makes you look, or maybe turn, 180 degrees, so even if you want to dodge forward with Withdraw all you have to do is use that keybind to quickly turn the other direction, Withdraw, then hit that keybind again to continue in your original direction. The other great thing about Withdraw is that it's on a 15 second cooldown so you can proc lots of other effects on a regular basis like Rune of the Adventurer's 100% endurance refill, a 10 second vigor buff from Vigorous Recovery, and 4 extra initiative from Hastened Replenishment.
Let me know what you think about any or all of the above.
I've only played Mesmer during the beta so I'll comment there. To produce illusions quickly the best weapon is the scepter so the scepter/torch set you have is perfect. You may want to focus on beefing up confusion damage instead of Mind Wrack as well as focusing on the F2 shatter skill (the name escapes me atm). It seems like the devs are planning on making confusion more effective (see the recent interview with Jon Peters on this site) and skill 3 on the scepter applies confusion as well. So you may get more synergy from that.
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