Guild Wars 2

I play the usual D/D ele in pvp, getting close to top tier, and well I am getting really annoyed by something:

The Tropical Bird’s attacks (rune of the pirate) deal more damage than a Fire Grab on burning targets.

And that is, when Fire Grab connects, which is close to never.

more damage than firegrab? is your character naked?
the bird hits for 1-2k.
if you’re using firegrab and hitting for 1-2k you’re doing something wrong.

In my experience, the bird has about 20k health and hits for like, 1.5k

I normally play on a zerk shatter mes or a zerk theif, so it definitely hurts when the bird is out.

Would be a great runeset if the bird has as much HP as a mesmer clone or phantasm, instead of 20k hp.

The bird has 7k HP, and hits for 1-2k.

And firegrab hits for 900 or 1500 on burning targets.

Again: when it hits!!

Of course you can increase that damage with might and crit, but the base damage is very low especially considering its terribly designed mechanic and outrageously long cooldown.

The quote in the title refers to Meteor Shower and Ice Bow #4, both of which can easily clear a group of mobs in PvE.

ThiBash.5634:

The quote in the title refers to Meteor Shower and Ice Bow #4, both of which can easily clear a group of mobs in PvE.

Which both have shorter cooldown and waaaaaayyyyy more chances to connect than Fire Grab

Darox.8069:

And firegrab hits for 900 or 1500 on burning targets.

Again: when it hits!!

Of course you can increase that damage with might and crit, but the base damage is very low especially considering its terribly designed mechanic and outrageously long cooldown.

wat

If your firegrab is only hitting for 1500 damage, you’ve made some enormous mistakes.

As an aside, you don’t understand how damage works in gw2. Base damage isn’t a concept. Look it up on the wiki.

Darox.8069:

And firegrab hits for 900 or 1500 on burning targets.

Again: when it hits!!

Of course you can increase that damage with might and crit, but the base damage is very low especially considering its terribly designed mechanic and outrageously long cooldown.

Then you need to get a better build, that’s on you not the skill itself.

tfw fire grab does more damage than backstab

total power * (weapon min dmg + weapon max dmg / 2) * skill coefficient / target armor == base damage

Wiki assumes 916 base power and 2600 base armor.

Here are your weapons (exotic):
axe 952.5
dagger 952.5
focus 857.5
greatsword 1047.5
hammer 1048
harpoon 952.5
longbow 1000
mace 952.5
pistol 952.5
rifle 1095.5
scepter 952.5
shield 857.5
shortbow 952.5
spear 952.5
staff 1048
sword 952.5
torch 857.5
trident 952.5
warhorn 857

So for wiki backstab:
916 * 952.5 * 2.4 / 2600 == 805.30. Wiki says 806.

Wiki Firegrab:
916 * 952.5 * 2.8 / 2600 == 939.60. Wiki says 941.

Why they don’t match? Do I have wrong base power? Perhaps coefficients aren’t exactly as they appear on wiki?/shrug…. in the right ballpark though.

a t s e.9614:

The bird has as much HP as a glass thief, it evades attacks and it crit for 3k. It is a massive advantage in 1v1 fight.

Yeah but:

• You should never fight 1v1, the whole game is trying to teach you not to do that. Constantly. Avoid any 1v1 like the plague.
• The thing dies if something sneezes in it’s general direction IMO. Any non-1v1 fight and it does to coincidental AE before hitting anything.

Now, the runes aren’t weak. But they’re hardly strong. Also it hits for about half of what you say (and crits for +50%, not 100%).

Get a clue … I know how damage works I wrote an entire PvE ele guide! Anyway when I say base damage I mean damage without much might nor crit or vuln, but with gear runes and traits. Taking this into account, again, Fire Grab will hit for 900 or 1500 on burning targets.

It’s an extremely poorly designed spell and it needs to be looked at.

Compare Fire Grab to Eviscerate for example, you’ll just end up facepalming yourself to death.

a t s e.9614:

Actually if you are not a roamer in spvp ( thief/mesmer) you always have to fight 1v1 or at least until your team mates help. The bird is a huge advantage and just outright overpowered against squishies.

Ill try to link a screenshot when my birdy hits for 3k ( it might take a while because it can only hit that much on a D/P thief or a shatter mesmer)

You and the rest of humanity appear to have a completely different idea of what “have to” actually means.

Darox.8069:

Get a clue … I know how damage works I wrote an entire PvE ele guide! Anyway when I say base damage I mean damage without much might nor crit or vuln, but with gear runes and traits. Taking this into account, again, Fire Grab will hit for 900 or 1500 on burning targets.

It’s an extremely poorly designed spell and it needs to be looked at.

Compare Fire Grab to Eviscerate for example, you’ll just end up facepalming yourself to death.

And yet you are too lazy to go in game and test it? They deal nearly identical damage, whether you fully trait for it or don’t, there is only a very small difference in full adrenaline Eviscerate or Grab vs burning target.

Base Fire Grab dealt around 2000 with the same base (no trait) setup as a 2300 Eviscerate, Traited Fire Grab dealt 3200 damage with full traiting, as did Eviscerate. Both were done without any might/vuln and were non-crit, it was just soldier gear, power runes, and 6 in the power tree, and then whatever other traits gave highest damage.

The raw damage is very similar. ~1k base damage, Fire Grab has 2,8 scaling, Eviscerate has 3,0.

Eviscerate is also single target (right?), Fire Grab is a cone but slower to cast (and ofc the slightly worse scaling).

Seems fairly balanced? :P

I usually kill the bird before I do anything else in a 1 vs 1 fight, same way I kill off the golems of necros.

Ele has this issue:
It depends from strong traits but has awful skills.

That means being balanced is really difficult.
You either do awful dps or you do huge dps and die to a bird attack.

That is why even in PvE you see only lightning HAMMER ele and staff eles.
DD shouldn t be a tank weaponset :/

So the parrot’s HP has been reduced by 50%. Could you also do this with Fire Grab cooldown, for equality?

Stealth-nerf? I thought they only fixed the water-bird issue?