Guild Wars 2

I’ve been working on assembling a raid team, but we are having problems due to the buff limit…

In order to optimize our group we are ending up with:

2 PS warriors
2 Staff ele’s
2 Chrono’s
2 Herald’s
2 Guardian’s

Just to give us maximum DPS… this leaves us… 0 raid spots for any other classes. I can’t find any way to justify bringing a thief, a reaper, a ranger, or an engineer into the raid.

Is there a way around the buff limit? Will it be raised to 10 in squad groups? I hate to tell all the other classes they need to just flat out reroll or wait until farm status, but I’m not seeing a way around it right now.

How u came up with this composition without knowing the boss mechanics?

My opinions

Your setup assumes:

• 100% group melee up time during burn and close to 100% during the whole encounter.
• Breaking defiance bar is minimally necessary.
• All attacks are blockable or semi-blockable or reflect-able (unlike burning dart, poison dart, oil, tar puddles, etc.)
• No second mechanisms that discourage immobile stacking (broken floor, canon spread, etc).
• Rez-ing is easy.
• Boss has low HP, medium toughness, no reflect or likewise doesn’t cleanse conditions.
• Boss is stationary most of the time (unlike a certain jumpy Mordrem Tegariff).
• Boss can be kited with chill, crippled, immobilization, slow, etc.
• Boss doesn’t have evade built-in skill sets (unlike a certain Revenant-mimicking pet).
• Boss has no invuln phases (unlike a certain ugly tree).
• Boss has limited numbers of CC (unlike perma daze, stun, meat-grinding lockdown)
• Boss has no quickness (holy guacamole!)

Umm… I’m probably gonna wait until farm status :>

RSLongK.8961:

How u came up with this composition without knowing the boss mechanics?

I think it’s a pretty safe “generalized” base composition that gives the highest likelihood of succeeding without any other information. I’m sure they’ll tailor it based on specific mechanics as needed, if that is needed at all.

EDIT: I actually think this is a pretty solid composition as the Revenants can carry CC weapons in their swap for breakbars, they pack numerous sources of protection and such, and a warrior can also stack a lot of might with PS if they’re forced to use a Longbow and Warhorn in fire fields. I also think the composition is fairly bulky and can sustain solid damage if the need arises, especially factoring in the mass protection from a Glint Revenant or the Guardians.

RSLongK.8961:

How u came up with this composition without knowing the boss mechanics?

Are you saying bosses won’t need blocks, heals, quickness, might, prot, vuln, dodges, and faster skill recharges?

Unless the bosses turn us all into turtles with a pre-set skill bar then this is how you get maximum buff uptime, skill recharge, defense, healing, and damage.

It really just depends how much defense you need and if there is a certain amount of time you have to kill the boss. If there isn’t a time limit you have a 10 chrono comp that can perma evade. If there is unavoidable attacks you can just grab some defense from say guardian perma protection, scale venom etc plus maybe druid. So I really expect there to be a time limit or something of the sort. If that’s the case then we just have to wait to see what balance of defense and offense we need to determine a comp.

EDIT: and even if it’s just a DPS dummy you will probably want either a engi or a ranger for vuln because eles won’t be able to cut it ( presuming the boss lasts decently long ). Ultimately I see a condi engi as a almost guaranteed for raids.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

RSLongK.8961:

How u came up with this composition without knowing the boss mechanics?

Are you saying bosses won’t need blocks, heals, quickness, might, prot, vuln, dodges, and faster skill recharges?

Unless the bosses turn us all into turtles with a pre-set skill bar then this is how you get maximum buff uptime, skill recharge, defense, healing, and damage.

I would its pretty solid if raids end up being just Dungeons/Fractals sized to 10. but, assuming the mechanics change, eg: extended fights + fast casts, how not to say, a reaper perma chill wont be needed?
edit: Frechfry gave a better example.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

RSLongK.8961:

How u came up with this composition without knowing the boss mechanics?

Are you saying bosses won’t need blocks, heals, quickness, might, prot, vuln, dodges, and faster skill recharges?

Unless the bosses turn us all into turtles with a pre-set skill bar then this is how you get maximum buff uptime, skill recharge, defense, healing, and damage.

This is the sad state of raids with 5 man buffs.

5 classes provide absolutely everything that is desirable, the other 4 only provide things that are only nice-to-have but not nice enough to actually compete with what the other 5 bring.

With 10 man buffs, you could have one each of Herald, Chrono, Warrior, Ele, and Guardian who would be able to invidivually cover everyone—-Which would make room for Spotter/Frost Spirit and Vampiric Aura which would then also be 10 man and extremely desirable.

But there’s no chance in hell that Spotter/Frost Spirit will ever compete with E.A.+Banners and there’s sure as kitten no way that Vampiric Aura will ever be able to compete with anything else.

Buuuut if a single Warrior were capable of providing E.A. and Banners to everyone in the raid, then running a second warrior would be redundant, and bringing a Ranger for Spotter/Frost spirit would be optimal.

But, as it stands, Herald, Chronomancer, Warrior, Guardian, and Elementalist provide bloody everything you’ll ever need (C.C.s, heals, cleanses, supports, buffs, etc) but to only 5 people, so you’d better double up on em for that maximum effectiveness!

Such a shame that anyone actually believes that 10 man buffs would “create a situation where people won’t start unless they absolutely have that one mandatory class”…. When, in reality, it is 5 man buffs that are considerably more likely to create that situation.

Believe 5 – cap is going to demote class diversity in raids so we get two near identical groups.

Iris Ng.9845:

My opinions

Your setup assumes:

• 100% group melee up time during burn and close to 100% during the whole encounter.
• Breaking defiance bar is minimally necessary.
• All attacks are blockable or semi-blockable or reflect-able (unlike burning dart, poison dart, oil, tar puddles, etc.)
• No second mechanisms that discourage immobile stacking (broken floor, canon spread, etc).
• Rez-ing is easy.
• Boss has low HP, medium toughness, no reflect or likewise doesn’t cleanse conditions.
• Boss is stationary most of the time (unlike a certain jumpy Mordrem Tegariff).
• Boss can be kited with chill, crippled, immobilization, slow, etc.
• Boss doesn’t have evade built-in skill sets (unlike a certain Revenant-mimicking pet).
• Boss has no invuln phases (unlike a certain ugly tree).
• Boss has limited numbers of CC (unlike perma daze, stun, meat-grinding lockdown)
• Boss has no quickness (holy guacamole!)

Umm… I’m probably gonna wait until farm status :>

OK lets look at some of these:

If boss moves or has invuln phases then we will need to do even more dps during burn phases to beat it before enrage timer. Comp stays the same, locks out lower dps classes even more than before

Listed comp can break a break bar exactly the same as any comp including the other classes can. Break bar even easier with listed comp due to 4 IB’s giving almost 20s of break bar reduction.

If I can’t block attacks then prot uptime and healing becomes even more important. This may let me swap out a single guard for a druid, but that is just trading prot uptime for healing, no net gain unless for specific gimmicks.

Can stack boons on the move, none of these builds require everyone to stay in a single spot for more than a few seconds.

You can’t hard rez in raids so you will only be soft rezzing. Reinforces the need for 2 warriors and sticking close for buffs/healing.

High toughness boss is the one thing that could change team comp significantly here. I would swap out an ele for a sinister engineer, and a guard for a reaper maybe if this was the case. Might be able to take a venom share condition thief as well.

Moving or stationary doesn’t change much comp wise.

Bosses can’t be kited with those things in any game mode now or ever so not sure what you are implying here

If a boss can evade it can evade all classes, no effect on team comp, favors high dps comp due to enrage timer

This team comp has high condition cleanse and high stability, making it ideal for high CC bosses. Other classes like reaper have very little stability making them even worse for these encounters

If boss has quickness we have 2 chronos who can quickly strip it off. Good thing I took this team comp and not a bad one.

So yes, thank you for reinforcing why we need to exclude those other classes.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’ve been working on assembling a raid team, but we are having problems due to the buff limit…

In order to optimize our group we are ending up with:

2 PS warriors
2 Staff ele’s
2 Chrono’s
2 Herald’s
2 Guardian’s

Just to give us maximum DPS… this leaves us… 0 raid spots for any other classes. I can’t find any way to justify bringing a thief, a reaper, a ranger, or an engineer into the raid.

Is there a way around the buff limit? Will it be raised to 10 in squad groups? I hate to tell all the other classes they need to just flat out reroll or wait until farm status, but I’m not seeing a way around it right now.

I swap out the 2 guards for 2 rangers. Frost Spirit and Spotter and Sun Spirit are a considerable group boost in raids that simply isn’t necessary in dungeons because most things melt in under a minute whereas the 7% damage boost, precision, and combined group burning procs translate into a lot more extra damage in fights with a longer duration.

Chronos cover all reflects guardians do, have more quickness, and with inspiring distortion and blurred inscriptions can achieve the same thing as aegis.

RSLongK.8961:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

RSLongK.8961:

How u came up with this composition without knowing the boss mechanics?

Are you saying bosses won’t need blocks, heals, quickness, might, prot, vuln, dodges, and faster skill recharges?

Unless the bosses turn us all into turtles with a pre-set skill bar then this is how you get maximum buff uptime, skill recharge, defense, healing, and damage.

I would its pretty solid if raids end up being just Dungeons/Fractals sized to 10. but, assuming the mechanics change, eg: extended fights + fast casts, how not to say, a reaper perma chill wont be needed?
edit: Frechfry gave a better example.

Just one thing to note, I thought chill doesn’t effect bosses with breakbars. I am not 100% sure on that but I think it doesn’t.

And yeah guys we have to see the raid to really determine a comp.

Kitty.1502:

Believe 5 – cap is going to demote class diversity in raids so we get two near identical groups.

I think 10 would do the same thing. 1 of everything with a double of something. That’s not variety. What if 3 people want to play Engi? What if 2 people want to play warrior and 2 people wan to play Ele?

Either way, Iris is completely correct in her post, we’re making a lot of assumptions right now.

Can someone explain the idea that 10-cap would promote more diversity?

This wold only make passive/group buffs like Empower Allies, Banners, Vampiric Presence, Soothing Detonation & Medical Dispersion, Strength In Numbers, Venomous Aura, Bountiful Disillusionment… I could keep going… nearly twice as strong catapulting them into completely necessary status.

Suddenly, it becomes extremely hard to bring more than 1 of any class due to sacrificing a huge amount of group power to duplicate up, with two Warriors remaining to cover all banners, as even Banner of Tactics becomes necessary giving boon duration to 10 people.

No matter how you slice it there will be an optimal way to do things, but at least in the current system it’s mostly a DPS and/or group utility issue rather than “if we don’t bring a guardian we are missing out on 2000 toughness across the raid as well as boonspam” or “if we don’t bring a Necro we can’t gather up all the dead players to a safe rez and revive at once, 700+ HP/S for the raid before wells, 10 player condition removal….”

It’s more strict, not less.

Iris Ng.9845:

My opinions

Your setup assumes:

• All attacks are blockable or semi-blockable or reflect-able (unlike burning dart,

Well staff Eles can block those attacks with Earth ele so there should be no need for a facetank nomads player

ZudetGambeous.9573:

OK lets look at some of these:

If boss moves or has invuln phases then we will need to do even more dps during burn phases to beat it before enrage timer. Comp stays the same, locks out lower dps classes even more than before

Listed comp can break a break bar exactly the same as any comp including the other classes can. Break bar even easier with listed comp due to 4 IB’s giving almost 20s of break bar reduction.

If I can’t block attacks then prot uptime and healing becomes even more important. This may let me swap out a single guard for a druid, but that is just trading prot uptime for healing, no net gain unless for specific gimmicks.

Can stack boons on the move, none of these builds require everyone to stay in a single spot for more than a few seconds.

You can’t hard rez in raids so you will only be soft rezzing. Reinforces the need for 2 warriors and sticking close for buffs/healing.

High toughness boss is the one thing that could change team comp significantly here. I would swap out an ele for a sinister engineer, and a guard for a reaper maybe if this was the case. Might be able to take a venom share condition thief as well.

Moving or stationary doesn’t change much comp wise.

Bosses can’t be kited with those things in any game mode now or ever so not sure what you are implying here

If a boss can evade it can evade all classes, no effect on team comp, favors high dps comp due to enrage timer

This team comp has high condition cleanse and high stability, making it ideal for high CC bosses. Other classes like reaper have very little stability making them even worse for these encounters

If boss has quickness we have 2 chronos who can quickly strip it off. Good thing I took this team comp and not a bad one.

So yes, thank you for reinforcing why we need to exclude those other classes.

In according response:

• You look out for highest burst classes, not highest DPS classes if burning window is too short in comparison to the whole length of the encounter. Does alacrity become necessary when your burst already comes off CD for the next burning phase?

• Breakbar has its own staying duration. 5 sec, 10 sec, 20 sec? No one knows. Will your team be in the right position to coordinate Deep Freeze in a small windows? Don’t forget the cast time and the arrow’s velocity.

• Protection uptime (guardian) depends on melee up time.

• Moving means that a lot of classes which are rooted by their burst cannot complete their DPS rotation all the time. Boss moving out of your AoE burst also has the same effect. Imagine if your ele had to DPS during the cannon phase of Mai Trin, or during the Poison Rain attack of Bloomhunger without that attach being blockable.

• Remember the centaur boss with Dodgy crowd?

• When I say boss cannot be kited, I imply boss directly teleport to you or pull you, forcing dodge or defense, stopping DPS. A certain Tegariff comes to mind…

• Evade doesn’t avoid condi damage…

• Stability is now stacked or pulsing, so it’s not a fool proofed against highly frequent CC up time. Shocking Aura or Foreman’s spinning attack comes to mind. Reaper has little stability but while they are CC’d like everyone else, their passive/well damage still do half the work.

• Cool, you have two chrono for boon strip. Then how do you build for damage, team support, block, reflect, defiant stripping, condi cleanse all at the same time?

• Did I mention boss can block or reflect attacks?

Jerus.4350:

Kitty.1502:

Believe 5 – cap is going to demote class diversity in raids so we get two near identical groups.

I think 10 would do the same thing. 1 of everything with a double of something. That’s not variety. What if 3 people want to play Engi? What if 2 people want to play warrior and 2 people wan to play Ele?

Either way, Iris is completely correct in her post, we’re making a lot of assumptions right now.

Each group you are going to want a guardian, warrior, and druid for their buffs and heals. Ele for dps and a random. verses 1 guard/warrior/druid for buffs just opened up 3 spots.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Iris Ng.9845:

My opinions

Your setup assumes:

• All attacks are blockable or semi-blockable or reflect-able (unlike burning dart,

Well staff Eles can block those attacks with Earth ele so there should be no need for a facetank nomads player

Try summon your earth ele against Sparki or Alphard during those phases and then report the result. No, you don’t need a nomad to face tank. It’s a simple mechanic to pressure you to break combat. Whatever strategy you come up with to fill up that down time is up to you though.

Similarly, no one stares at the Clockheart blankly doing nothing when he goes to invuln either. You either kite him to the Holographic or pull the Holographic to him to break his invuln state. Guess which way is faster? who does the better pull job? Who can guarantee that those side puzzles aren’t present in raids?

I have a question….. What if the bosses strip profession buffs? Banners, spirits, and empower like traits?

Pukc.6328:

I have a question….. What if the bosses strip profession buffs? Banners, spirits, and empower like traits?

“Well, then we die or we bow down to our new overlords.”

- Interdisciplinary Accessium

Laggo.8973:

Can someone explain the idea that 10-cap would promote more diversity?

An optimal group will take the 10 best classes + builds for an encounter(s). Either the optimal is 5-6 classes with a bunch of doubles, or all 8 with 2 classes doubled. Either way we’re restricted, but instead of every class participating to some degree, just the best ones are taken.

The multiplicative effect of the buffs means a buff that is weak on 5 players, isn’t weak on 10 allowing other class choices to be made.

The group comp would be just as strict either way, you have more total classes being played though.

Pukc.6328:

I have a question….. What if the bosses strip profession buffs? Banners, spirits, and empower like traits?

Then you take the classes which have the best dps not including those buffs, or you calculate the uptime for those buffs and see if they’re worth taking.

SlyDevil.3952:

The group comp would be just as strict either way, you have more total classes being played though.

You’re exactly right, and that is exactly why people want it.

I believe that the encounters will be well desinged enough that all classes will have something to do and this “optimal setup” wont get off the ground.

for all we know there will be instances needing high self sufficiency ( some classes are far more self sufficent that others while maintaining dps ), sustained or burst healing (need for ventari or druid ), lots of fast attacks or unavoidable damage, etc etc, encounters where range is key.

We also know " zerk meta wont cut it" and some classes are far better at multi rolling and make better use of more stats than others. Wait till tomorrow.

Rising Dusk.2408:

SlyDevil.3952:

The group comp would be just as strict either way, you have more total classes being played though.

You’re exactly right, and that is exactly why people want it.

Mhm, it’s just that people should say that, not claim it’s ruining diversity/variety. I’m certainly for the cap being raised to 10, or more for the cap on profession specific traits/effects to be raised. Might and boons I think should stay as is, and I honestly think PS war will get hit pretty hard if the raids are well made, we’ll be moving a lot and melee likely won’t be as much a focus.

Jerus.4350:

Mhm, it’s just that people should say that, not claim it’s ruining diversity/variety.

See, but there are two kinds of diversity and variety. There is intragroup diversity and variety, which is damaged by the 5-player buff limit, and then there is intergroup diversity which is going to be largely unchanged by 5- or 10-player buff limits because everyone will opt to run whatever is optimal. The former is what a lot of people for the change to 10-player buff sharing mean, whereas a lot of people who then argue against them are actually arguing from the perspective of the latter. It’s important to sort those out to really see what people mean when they talk about this topic!

I do have a few comments. First, on the composition as a whole:

#1: Why guardian? The guardian looks redundant in this spec: Fury comes from the herald/ele, a ton of group quickness comes from the chronomancer + herald, chrono brings reflects… what is there after that? If the guardian is just a condi cleanser, then that role can easily be fulfilled by a Scrapper or a Reaper, who will bring blind fields and either condition or direct damage respectively. Thieves/Daredevils can bring stealth, blind spam, and group vigor + endurance regen. Rangers/Druids provide more unique damage buffs and burst healing + cleanse.

#2: PS warrior might not be necessary. The warrior banners are good, but the might stacking capabilities of the chrono + herald are already sufficient to cap. Staff ele makes it easier, too.

Those points aside, I do share Iris Ng’s concerns. I am fairly certain that the two teams are going to have to split to different objectives. While the comp you listed is good for melee stacking a boss, if something strange were to happen, such as limitless elites spawning from particular areas, then you might need two different types of teams. A DPS team and an alternate objective team.

Warrior has 170 to all stats, plus another 150 power to allies, on top of the only reliable and best group rez tool, War Banner (which might be worth a kitten in actually challenging content). It’s going to be brought.

I said above I’d replace the guardian with 2 spirit/spotter rangers, but the reason you would bring Guard is Communal Defenses aegis spam.

A lot of the aegis is already going out to all of the party members, you’re going to overwrite your own aegis with the extra, can just pick up stalwart defender for 4secs off your shield 4 and give the aegis to all your party members anyways.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

RSLongK.8961:

How u came up with this composition without knowing the boss mechanics?

Are you saying bosses won’t need blocks, heals, quickness, might, prot, vuln, dodges, and faster skill recharges?

Unless the bosses turn us all into turtles with a pre-set skill bar then this is how you get maximum buff uptime, skill recharge, defense, healing, and damage.

yes, but probably something else is vital to actual have a chance to kill a boss. They specifically said current tactic won’t work, yet you are prepping for a standard vanilla boss fight. who knows, maybe it will work on first boss but i don’t think so

Zenith.7301:

Warrior has 170 to all stats, plus another 150 power to allies, on top of the only reliable and best group rez tool, War Banner (which might be worth a kitten in actually challenging content). It’s going to be brought.

I said above I’d replace the guardian with 2 spirit/spotter rangers, but the reason you would bring Guard is Communal Defenses aegis spam.

I mean phalanx strength specifically. With might taken care of, Axe/X will see more use.

the core problem with this assumption is that the two five man groups are going to be doing the same thing.

in the one raid revealed so far, that’s not the case.

Iris Ng.9845:

• Evade doesn’t avoid condi damage…

This is a fairly common misconception. Evades avoid condition damage exactly how they avoid direct damage. direct damage is applied immediately, condition damage is applied over time, but dodging a direct attack is the same as dodging a condition application, they both stop the same amount of damage from being applied.

Unfortunately, in addition to all the normal counterplay, conditions can also be cleansed before they deal their damage, leading to overall lower dps for condition specs in almost all cases.

Hopefully in raids bosses have higher base toughness so that condition specs can at least be competitive.

Hum.. no… I cant count the times I’ve died of bleeding while Pistol Whipping…

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Hum.. no… I cant count the times I’ve died of bleeding while Pistol Whipping…

Yes, because you didn’t evade the initial application. That’s the point he was making.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Zenith.7301:

Warrior has 170 to all stats, plus another 150 power to allies, on top of the only reliable and best group rez tool, War Banner (which might be worth a kitten in actually challenging content). It’s going to be brought.

I said above I’d replace the guardian with 2 spirit/spotter rangers, but the reason you would bring Guard is Communal Defenses aegis spam.

I mean phalanx strength specifically. With might taken care of, Axe/X will see more use.

And if Berzerker’s fixes are any good, Sinister condi warrior might also be a thing.

I’m gonna play ranger anyway, suck it up.
And I’d love to have a good reaper in party to control adds, give sustain while being tanky, and deal good damage on top of boon/condi control.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’ve been working on assembling a raid team, but we are having problems due to the buff limit…

In order to optimize our group we are ending up with:

2 PS warriors
2 Staff ele’s
2 Chrono’s
2 Herald’s
2 Guardian’s

Just to give us maximum DPS… this leaves us… 0 raid spots for any other classes. I can’t find any way to justify bringing a thief, a reaper, a ranger, or an engineer into the raid.

Is there a way around the buff limit? Will it be raised to 10 in squad groups? I hate to tell all the other classes they need to just flat out reroll or wait until farm status, but I’m not seeing a way around it right now.

Easy there Warlock. Too soon to tell anything.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Iris Ng.9845:

• Evade doesn’t avoid condi damage…

This is a fairly common misconception. Evades avoid condition damage exactly how they avoid direct damage. direct damage is applied immediately, condition damage is applied over time, but dodging a direct attack is the same as dodging a condition application, they both stop the same amount of damage from being applied.

Unfortunately, in addition to all the normal counterplay, conditions can also be cleansed before they deal their damage, leading to overall lower dps for condition specs in almost all cases.

Hopefully in raids bosses have higher base toughness so that condition specs can at least be competitive.

Let’s say some boss has a multiple evade frame skill (like, revenant) and activates it during your burn. He will evade all the direct damage during that time but the condition damage already applied to him still tick. Is that rewording fair enough?

deSade.9437:

I’m gonna play ranger anyway, suck it up.
And I’d love to have a good reaper in party to control adds, give sustain while being tanky, and deal good damage on top of boon/condi control.

Did you hire Spoj yet? :^)

He doesn’t like us enough to join.. but good for him because we’re not gonna down the boss, dw

Iris Ng.9845:

Let’s say some boss has a multiple evade frame skill (like, revenant) and activates it during your burn. He will evade all the direct damage during that time but the condition damage already applied to him still tick. Is that rewording fair enough?

While that’s true, any new condition damage applying skills you use while the boss is evading will still miss just like power damage. They’re really equal conceptually, tbh. The only difference is that condition damage applied before the evade happens over time whereas when the power damage applied before the evade did all of its damage up front.

If you manage to unload Confusion and Torment? Yum!

Something like 100 blades doesn’t have damage up front

Iris Ng.9845:

If you manage to unload Confusion and Torment? Yum!

Something like 100 blades doesn’t have damage up front

You’re right, of course, but things like Bonfire or Entangle apply conditions over time as well. I guess I just don’t see such a stark difference between condition and power damage; they function basically the same, they just do their damage at different intervals.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Iris Ng.9845:

If you manage to unload Confusion and Torment? Yum!

Something like 100 blades doesn’t have damage up front

You’re right, of course, but things like Bonfire or Entangle apply conditions over time as well. I guess I just don’t see such a stark difference between condition and power damage; they function basically the same, they just do their damage at different intervals.

The only benefit is that if you’re close to killing or even phasing the stacked up conditions could push it there for you while it’s evading. Not really a huge benefit but it’s there. Likewise there’s a negative in that a lot of your damage is wasted when bosses do die as anything left ticking wasn’t put to use.

Which is a big flaw with condi damage.

In other games, DoT’s have larger damage to account for their backloaded nature. If you can have a class that will deal its damage in burst and all of it frontloaded as opposed to a class that deals the same damage but over a longer period of time, why would you ever take the latter?

Burst is not only superior to DoT based if they both do equal damage, but in any case where adds are a mechanic and they need to be eliminated quickly, or damage switches happen (target change), the burst spec is significantly advantaged.

It doesn’t mean DoT damage should have a large DPS advantage, but in general their sustained damage should have an edge over the conveniences of direct, burst damage.

Direct damage scales negatively with toughness, while condi doesn’t. Anet doesn’t take advantage of this too often, but it is possible to see enemies who have 5k+ armor in raids.

Zenith.7301:

Which is a big flaw with condi damage.

In other games, DoT’s have larger damage to account for their backloaded nature. If you can have a class that will deal its damage in burst and all of it frontloaded as opposed to a class that deals the same damage but over a longer period of time, why would you ever take the latter?

Burst is not only superior to DoT based if they both do equal damage, but in any case where adds are a mechanic and they need to be eliminated quickly, or damage switches happen (target change), the burst spec is significantly advantaged.

It doesn’t mean DoT damage should have a large DPS advantage, but in general their sustained damage should have an edge over the conveniences of direct, burst damage.

Other games DoTs typically don’t ramp up as quickly as they do here. I look back to my EQ necro, on a fight under 3 mins direct damage just way outshined it, it took 3 minutes to win out. It’d max out around 30s but remain fairly consistent while direct damage maxed out instantly and just slowly dropped as buffs and what not did.

What you’re describing basically sounds like Engi/Ranger right now, we’re not far off of good condition balance. IMO they need to nerf burning a tad (maybe 10% off coefficient and a bit off the base) and buff up bleeding (like 15% on the coefficient). Then give guards a buff on their increased damage trait in PVE (yes split em!). This would help professions like Necro/warrior gain strength as they’re far more bleed based (though berserker looks interesting, haven’t tried it though).

Anyways, ramp up on condi for engi/ranger isn’t bad, they just don’t have the level of burst that the power builds do, but it’s a higher level of consistent damage. Power builds are spikier while condi remains more level with a higher average. It’s just a matter of waiting for the burst to level out on power for condi to become better on Engi/Ranger.

This 5 player buff/boon cap needs to go away in raids. It was fine as long as the maximum group size was 5 players….or a huge zerg, but this is just too restrictive and brings nothing but negatives into a 10 player raid. I can’t help but agree with Zudet and Rising about this. I was looking at this as a problem as soon as they started talking about 10 player groups. All this 5 player cap can do is cause more people to get left out of any group that even attempts to optimize. At least with expanding the cap to 10 players, you can squeeze in a few more professions by not having to double up on every profession.

I see people coming up with all of these one off scenarios trying to invalidate the OP, but none of them really seem to accomplish that. There’s really not a scenario that the OP’s (subjectively optimal) group is not able to handle and handle well. All of those professions can range or melee. Boon application can be done on the move or stationary…the herald is exceptional at that with glint. Burst is always going to be necessary, and this group brings great sustained dps as well…even condi capability. This group pretty much covers everything. I do think some of the components can be swapped, but that is really the point of the OP….if you open up the buff/boon cap….then it becomes less rigid as far as limiting the number of different professions likely to be brought into an optimal composition.

I don’t see a single negative for expanding the buff/boon cap to 10 in raids…unless the complaint is coming from players wanting to be that doubled up profession? If that’s the case…that’s just selfish. Start/join a second raid in that case…you are already one of the preferred professions anyway.

My point is, there should be a mix of both types of damage in a well designed encounter. That’s why I listed “Boss with evades” in one of the assumptions