Guild Wars 2

Gyler.8150:

dutchiez.7502:

hendo.1940:

You’d want at least two eles, one warrior and a thief for path 2. The last spot is basically free to fill up, should usually contain an elementalist or a guardian. All depending on tactics, of course. I imagine a third elementalist could come ahead of a guardian, at the cost of quite some safety, though. As for rangers, mesmers and engis, though, they have absolutely no spot.
Just to give you a raw idea what a possible team composition for said path could look like.

Idk, I don’t think taking an ele over guardian is worth it, especially for lupi & alphard where reflects are king. 2 ele/thief/war/guard is what I’d say.

I think that is a pretty staple group composition right there, guard for reflects + aegis + decent dps, eles for damage and might stacks and blinds, war for dps + banners (if no eles then he could PS). Basically the thief is the only thing the engi could sort of replace for the 17 seconds of stealth (smoke bomb + toss elixir S if i recall which goes over the 12 second stealth cap, warning have not personally tested).

With that said i guess to really merit the ranger in a party, we have to measure how much damage increase spotter + frost spirit would equate to in terms of dps increase since the ranger + pets dps fully buffed is so low. Then again, if the ranger is just going to use say the LH from the ele or FGS, then he should be dealing respectable damage. For that reason I would prefer to have either 1 ranger or 1 mesmer in my dream comp, but not both at the same time.

So in closing, a ranger could be good if he uses the eles LH a good % of the time. Especially for burst fights with the signet of wild (25% extra damage)

Engi stealth can get to 17 seconds by my experience. Smoke bomb blasts get to 12, then as you said, elixir s for 5 more. That said, engi stealth is trickier than thief because if the blasts hit any enemies you get revealed. It’s a major disadvantage.

Gyler.8150:

dutchiez.7502:

hendo.1940:

You’d want at least two eles, one warrior and a thief for path 2. The last spot is basically free to fill up, should usually contain an elementalist or a guardian. All depending on tactics, of course. I imagine a third elementalist could come ahead of a guardian, at the cost of quite some safety, though. As for rangers, mesmers and engis, though, they have absolutely no spot.
Just to give you a raw idea what a possible team composition for said path could look like.

Idk, I don’t think taking an ele over guardian is worth it, especially for lupi & alphard where reflects are king. 2 ele/thief/war/guard is what I’d say.

I think that is a pretty staple group composition right there, guard for reflects + aegis + decent dps, eles for damage and might stacks and blinds, war for dps + banners (if no eles then he could PS). Basically the thief is the only thing the engi could sort of replace for the 17 seconds of stealth (smoke bomb + toss elixir S if i recall which goes over the 12 second stealth cap, warning have not personally tested).

With that said i guess to really merit the ranger in a party, we have to measure how much damage increase spotter + frost spirit would equate to in terms of dps increase since the ranger + pets dps fully buffed is so low. Then again, if the ranger is just going to use say the LH from the ele or FGS, then he should be dealing respectable damage. For that reason I would prefer to have either 1 ranger or 1 mesmer in my dream comp, but not both at the same time.

So in closing, a ranger could be good if he uses the eles LH a good % of the time. Especially for burst fights with the signet of wild (25% extra damage)

We are talking record run composition here, if you could use the eles to reflect lupi p2, then I guess you can replace guard with ranger, although I think adding just a third ele will be a bigger DPS boost (not really a number guy, so don’t hold me to that ^^). Engi for stealth is just too unpractical, thief gives way more stealth and does more damage with conjures so it’s miles ahead.

The only thing engi brings in a speedrun is unreliable stealth and lower dps than thief. Doesnt make sense to ever use one. Ranger could be used in some situations but usually an extra ele instead of ranger will be better. Ranger is not an option in arah p2 simply because of alphard. Pets and spirits dont dodge and often the pet will stand inside alphards hitbox and cause a bomb even while reflects are up

spoj.9672:

The only thing engi brings in a speedrun is unreliable stealth and lower dps than thief. Doesnt make sense to ever use one. Ranger could be used in some situations but usually an extra ele instead of ranger will be better. Ranger is not an option in arah p2 simply because of alphard. Pets and spirits dont dodge and often the pet will stand inside alphards hitbox and cause a bomb even while reflects are up

What about Guang’s claim of might stacking and vulnerability?

Yea for record runs ele’s will always be best for sure unless they are nerfed into “class not found” status; for good, decent or great runs though, I think what I said will be more than viable. I think record runs really just showcase more burst dps classes + skip abilities + clever mesmer portal usage rather than sustained dps or the matter.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

spoj.9672:

The only thing engi brings in a speedrun is unreliable stealth and lower dps than thief. Doesnt make sense to ever use one. Ranger could be used in some situations but usually an extra ele instead of ranger will be better. Ranger is not an option in arah p2 simply because of alphard. Pets and spirits dont dodge and often the pet will stand inside alphards hitbox and cause a bomb even while reflects are up

What about Guang’s claim of might stacking and vulnerability?

The eles would cover the might stacking while bringing great dps, the sinergy between LH and lava font is just too good to pass up. Vuln will not be top unless you are FGSing, in which case one ele with 5 in air will have 25 stacks.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

spoj.9672:

The only thing engi brings in a speedrun is unreliable stealth and lower dps than thief. Doesnt make sense to ever use one. Ranger could be used in some situations but usually an extra ele instead of ranger will be better. Ranger is not an option in arah p2 simply because of alphard. Pets and spirits dont dodge and often the pet will stand inside alphards hitbox and cause a bomb even while reflects are up

What about Guang’s claim of might stacking and vulnerability?

You already have ele’s for might stacking which can easily reach 25, thief and ele’s and warrior will do 25 vuln with fgs, so that adds nothing.

Also I think you can burst alphard down with fgs fast enough like dub said so she won’t use the pull.

Gyler.8150:

Yea for record runs ele’s will always be best for sure unless they are nerfed into “class not found” status; for good, decent or great runs though, I think what I said will be more than viable. I think record runs really just showcase more burst dps classes + skip abilities + clever mesmer portal usage rather than sustained dps or the matter.

Weren’t we discussing Guang’s claim that we dont use engi or ranger in record runs because we are too bad?

Edit:

Correction: They don’t take YOUR engi or staff ele into speedruns because YOU suck.

So, as others have pointed out, Guang, why don’t you make your own team compositions to prove your claims?

True that, gotta watch out for those nouns, record =/= speed run.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I’d also be interested to see if ranger spirits increase Lupi shots and if a traited Whirling Defense works to reflect his barrage.

It does, it does… Sadly I really can’t compare mes and ranger, everytime I try the rng of reflects screw it up. I feel like I’m more rng dependant but I do more damage if the rng is on my side. Who knows.

I guess hendo’s scared, I put up the build and now he’s saying he won’t run it.

So there’s that. Anyone else wants to take a shot at it, feel free.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I guess hendo’s scared, I put up the build and now he’s saying he won’t run it.

So there’s that. Anyone else wants to take a shot at it, feel free.

I would be scared, too. The only thing you forgot was suggesting to fill any remaining slots with necros.

Is it a fair assumption to say that spotter + frost spirit is around a 15% damage increase to the party?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I guess hendo’s scared, I put up the build and now he’s saying he won’t run it.

So there’s that. Anyone else wants to take a shot at it, feel free.

I respect you for not backing down.

That said, I still want to ask why you haven’t gotten a group together to prove all these naysayers wrong.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I guess hendo’s scared, I put up the build and now he’s saying he won’t run it.

So there’s that. Anyone else wants to take a shot at it, feel free.

I respect you for not backing down.

That said, I still want to ask why you haven’t gotten a group together to prove all these naysayers wrong.

That’s because he hardly plays the game. Pretty much everything he does is based on paper. And then as you look closely there are always myriads of mistakes. I am not being sarcastic.

rT plays to be on top of http://gwscr.com/guild-leaderboard, if we were to hear about a way to beat more records we would use it, trust me.

All this is really making my head go in circles. Guang, do you calculate DPS over time and actions that you may do, consistent with attack rotations, or are you averaging and using static chains in doing so? It’s just… Ugh, weird to see engi be useful like that when you have CD’s and all to manage. For example, in terms of mobility engies have, if I remember right, a single leap-gap closer, and using it puts you in 20s CD for a slot, as compared to other classes that have leaps and gap closers on their weapon slot, which they can probably swap out. Dungeons aren’t all combat – a large portion of it is running from point A to point B. Sure, you may have maxed DPS, but you’ll lose the time you gained when you’re traveling.

I would believe it if the rotations aren’t static, and have some leeway for dodging, blocking, reflecting, and stuff. But the claims are rather extraordinary, given the fact that any class with vuln-on-crit will become vuln stackers with FGS on, and even without most classes have a fast attack rate that can stack vuln still. Not to mention that static rotations with engineer don’t take into account the network delay between players – thus, your calcs may be good, but players with bad latency will just have their DPS drop off a lot.

Just my 2c. All this theorycrafting with pure numbers and full rotations without combat frame timings is rather confusing when you just output the numbers and not the actual data for times, number of attacks done to enable that DPS, restrictions when you attack (like some damage boosts drop off when endurance is full, or boons drop off, etc.), and any other secondary factors that might blow up your calculations.

No one actually said they would run anything you came up with, so nobody is backing out.

And yeah, a record run isn’t all about DPS, you have to consider skips between bosses, CD management, encounter-specific strategies etc.

Nova, I’ve been saying that since about a year, guess if anyone ever listened.

As for the ranger, frost spirit and spotter would equal around a 10% damage increase. It’s still not worth to use the ranger for speedruns, simply because other professions just add more to the party and are way more reliable. Rangers still easily screw up, their personal dps is kitten, even with LH and the 10% damage increase isn’t really useful anyway. With 3 eles, basically all bosses die in a timeframe of a few seconds. Saving or losing 10% there is not of importance.

And for the engineer, even if it might have a spot in a maximum dps setup on an asura sized boss in the open (which I doubt), lots of fight use conjures, especially fgs. If those are used, the engi vuln is totally useless, aswell as the kittenty damage the engineer does himself.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I guess hendo’s scared, I put up the build and now he’s saying he won’t run it.

So there’s that. Anyone else wants to take a shot at it, feel free.

I would be scared, too. The only thing you forgot was suggesting to fill any remaining slots with necros.

Asura necros, you mean. Need dem battlesuits.

Ele’s are currently the best only because their conjured weapons are unbalanced and do stupidly high amounts of damage, inc nerf.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Ele’s are currently the best only because their conjured weapons are unbalanced and do stupidly high amounts of damage, inc nerf.

Doesn’t change the fact that engi’s are pretty useless. And they’ve been OP for a loooong time now, don’t see a nerf coming anytime soon.

So what’s the best class for both Fotm and dungeons? Engi?

Miku Lawrence.6329:

So what’s the best class for both Fotm and dungeons? Engi?

the one you are comfortable playing.

the one that 4 other people can rely on and you can rely on them to be comfortable in their chosen profession. and be capable of doing what they are capable of doing.

Advent Leader.1083:

All this is really making my head go in circles. Guang, do you calculate DPS over time and actions that you may do, consistent with attack rotations, or are you averaging and using static chains in doing so?

Guang uses a dps calculator to come up with his madness. Last time I checked it I found an incredible amount of mistakes in both the maths and the data. But the worse is: he makes statements based solely on the results of his calculator. He does not consider combat situations. This is a huge overlook.

For example, guang would tell you that engis can cap vuln for the group so no one else needs to take care of that, therefore the others can focus more on dps.
While this is true in a long term fight, a speedrun is nothing about long term.
In fact, by the time an engi can bring a boss to 25 vuln the boss wil likely be dead. So the actual contribution of the engi is far lower than expected.

And I could come up with many more example about the way he considers mesmers, staff eles, etc. The list is endless.

They actually dont even cap vuln on bosses. Its like 15 sustained vuln. The rest has to be done by the rest of the group. Although this is assuming dps runes and sigils. Because it makes even less sense to sacrifice even more of the engis dmg just for a few extra wasted vuln which your teammates can help with.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I guess hendo’s scared, I put up the build and now he’s saying he won’t run it.

So there’s that. Anyone else wants to take a shot at it, feel free.

Why dont you come up with a composition that actually makes sense first. How about TA Forward? That should be easier to work out. Or TA Up. Take your pick.

Heres a few reasons why your path 2 comp doesnt make sense. Theres no place to use a portal so mesmer is a complete deadweight. Guardian would make more sense. Engi doesnt have enough stealth for the skips, people would be put in combat half way through a lot of the time, resulting in getting slowed down. You have a single ele with staff (staff ele is always the second ele, scepter LH takes priority if you can only have 1). Your might stacking is going to be slow simply because most of your blasts will be from the engi. The mesmer has no real mobility and with only one ele you dont have many fgs’s to give out for mobility. Ranger could work, but an extra ele could do just about the same. Ranger has the potential to screw up a run a lot more due to rng.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Ele’s are currently the best only because their conjured weapons are unbalanced and do stupidly high amounts of damage, inc nerf.

Not at all. They are the best because of all the Damage Modifier you can get from Adept trait (so you can get almost all of them) compare to others profession that have fewer Damage modifier and they are usually in higher tier of trait, which make impossible to get more than 2 or 3.

If the Ele were the best because of they unbalanced conjured weapons, then why the best personnal DPS from an Ele come from a Staff? Anyway, only the FGS on a wall is kind of unbalance. LH and Icebow are just right, while the two other conjure weapons are pretty much useless.

I wonder wut y’all going to say when they nerf fgs.
“Ele sucks, X class super gud super efficient, the others are bad! And I’ve been saying this all the time, AND I WAS FIRST!!!!”
Then I’m pretty sure someone will come up with the revolutionary idea rangers or random x class will be worth taking, and then maybe someone will actually bother to l2p said class.
This fgs mania is really starting to look ridiculous. I shiver if I think that those kitten playhowiwants may have a point when they say it’s borderline exploitish. It’s lame, it’s become a stupid thing to behold because it’s completely out of line with other skills -damage-wise.
/avoids kitten flying around
No, no, don’t fling that stuff at me. I know you’re awesome and all, we’re all just poor peasants in front of your awesomeness.
Still, it looks stupid. I tried some dungeons superl33t style with 2-3 ellys and it felt so kittened… I don’t really know how you can endure the boredom of playing the superl33t comp, seriously. I guess you don’t play for… wait for it, wait for it…
Nah, nevermind <3 Lav you.

For fun?

Darox.8069:

For fun?

Can someone have… What’s the name again… Fun trying to beat a dungeon record?

I just get more gold per hour with speed runs, which in turn gives me more pretty skins per hour.

spoj.9672:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I guess hendo’s scared, I put up the build and now he’s saying he won’t run it.

So there’s that. Anyone else wants to take a shot at it, feel free.

Why dont you come up with a composition that actually makes sense first. How about TA Forward? That should be easier to work out. Or TA Up. Take your pick.

Heres a few reasons why your path 2 comp doesnt make sense. Theres no place to use a portal so mesmer is a complete deadweight. Guardian would make more sense. Engi doesnt have enough stealth for the skips, people would be put in combat half way through a lot of the time, resulting in getting slowed down. You have a single ele with staff (staff ele is always the second ele, scepter LH takes priority if you can only have 1). Your might stacking is going to be slow simply because most of your blasts will be from the engi. The mesmer has no real mobility and with only one ele you dont have many fgs’s to give out for mobility. Ranger could work, but an extra ele could do just about the same. Ranger has the potential to screw up a run a lot more due to rng.

the problem is guang still believes mesmer deal the highest dps in the game and are better than guardians.

@Guanglai Kangyi.4318: i think you should play more gw2 instead of excel wars 2.

deSade.9437:

I wonder wut y’all going to say when they nerf fgs.
“Ele sucks, X class super gud super efficient, the others are bad! And I’ve been saying this all the time, AND I WAS FIRST!!!!”
Then I’m pretty sure someone will come up with the revolutionary idea rangers or random x class will be worth taking, and then maybe someone will actually bother to l2p said class.
This fgs mania is really starting to look ridiculous. I shiver if I think that those kitten playhowiwants may have a point when they say it’s borderline exploitish. It’s lame, it’s become a stupid thing to behold because it’s completely out of line with other skills -damage-wise.
/avoids kitten flying around
No, no, don’t fling that stuff at me. I know you’re awesome and all, we’re all just poor peasants in front of your awesomeness.
Still, it looks stupid. I tried some dungeons superl33t style with 2-3 ellys and it felt so kittened… I don’t really know how you can endure the boredom of playing the superl33t comp, seriously. I guess you don’t play for… wait for it, wait for it…
Nah, nevermind <3 Lav you.

FGS spamming is the whole reason I avoid doing organised dungeon runs like the plague. How can someone demonstrate their skill when half the fights boil down to press 4 before it kills us? Doing dungeons solo, low man or pugging allows you to test your ability to react, adapt and how consistent you are with your damage mitigation since fights take longer. I dunno. I’m not going to say I play for fun and FGSers play for $$$ since there are people who enjoy melting hp bars like that, but while I found it cool at first it got boring for me after a while. This is probably the most carebearish thing ive wrote in months and almost sounds PHYW. meh.

Thats why I enjoyed doing TA Fw records. There was only 1 fight we used fgs on. Anyway even without fgs we would still stack eles. Engi only does vuln at the cost of dps. That vuln can be incorporated into a more high dps composition without an engi. Ranger definately has a place but only in paths where there isnt much fgs action and there isnt a lot of other utility needed.

I would of considered ranger for our ta runs if it werent for spotter being wasted on the tree and icebow and other ele aoe being so key to killing the tree and wurm fast. It would definately be possible to get a similar time with a ranger. But we felt the extra icebows would help more than frost spirit.

Oh and another reason why guangs comp doesnt make sense. Hes essentially got 3 supportive group buffing classes, which dont have as much individual dps (warrior, engi and ranger). One utility class which doesnt even get to use its utility in that path(mesmer) and only one pure dps role (ele). Thats almost like running 1 dps, 1 tank and 3 healers.

So,
recommended professions to have are: ele, warrior, guardian… and maybe thief?

Ryn.6459:

So,
recommended professions to have are: ele, warrior, guardian… and maybe thief?

All professions are fine except necro. Engi is fine too. Not as amazing as eles. But no one can beat the perfection of an elementalist.

i miss the days where people actually liked having mesmer

That’s actually my concern… I have a mesmer…and I am not really in the mood to level a guardian in order to substitute him.

And taking into account my play time I can’t afford to have several ascended weapons (kitten dragonite).

maha.7902:

snip

Same here. I agree 100%.

Meh. I get the ascended thing. I like having mesmers. They let me be more lazy.

mesploits in fractals > guard

Ryn.6459:

So,
recommended professions to have are: ele, warrior, guardian… and maybe thief?

That totally depends on the path. Every class has its uses in some dungeon path or other (well… maybe not necro) but for record runs you want to pick what is best and what will get you the fastest time. Necro and engi will definitely not be on the list because anything they can do, others can do better (especially in a controlled, organized environment). Ranger may have some use somewhere but we haven’t seen it yet (except in that one Arah p3 troll vid).

mesmers strike back!

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I guess hendo’s scared, I put up the build and now he’s saying he won’t run it.

So there’s that. Anyone else wants to take a shot at it, feel free.

I respect you for not backing down.

That said, I still want to ask why you haven’t gotten a group together to prove all these naysayers wrong.

In all seriousness? Because I just don’t care that much. I’m not super into the whole dungeons-and-grinding aspect of this game anymore, I just theorycraft in my down time at work, which I actually have quite a bit of because I’m a bum. I’ve also seen this exact debate at least half a dozen times and I already have a pretty good idea how it’s going to play out with or without my intervention.

In all seriousness, though, let’s look at Arah P2:

Your bosses are:
- Belka: Puts down a bunch of AOEs and does generic crap. This fight is basically just chase her around and DPS and try not to stand in fire.
- Abom: Swings at you slowly while you literally run in circles around him. Again, straight DPS.
- Lupicus: Burst and reflect.
- Alphard: DPS and reflect. Longer uptime reflects are better here because all her attacks are projectiles and she actually does quite a bit of sustained DPS to herself if you reflect everything.
- Brie: What does Brie even do apart from the electric explosions and super slow laser? I don’t think she even attacks outside of the laser. Straight DPS.

The skips are all relatively short so engineer stealth suffices. You don’t even really need stealth in the normal course but it’s a speedrun so stealth makes it go faster in general. Thief-style stealth (can be used anywhere) isn’t necessary here like it is in P3 since there aren’t any points where you need to just stealth mid-run, you can just stealth at the start and run through.

Since so many of the fights here are just straight DPS you want to minmax DPS. You don’t need a guardian for condition removal or Aegis anywhere here and a mesmer will outDPS the guardian for all fights except the Abom. Ranger may have issues with Belka and Abom positioning which is why I was a bit concerned about their viability here, but otherwise it’s pretty apparent that a non-FGS run (which is what I thought we were doing) should consist of:

- 1 EA warrior for banners and EA
- 1 grenade engineer for might, vuln, and stealth

Beyond that the only question is how to maximize DPS, so the questions to be addressed are:
- Do we need a mesmer or guardian? The ele or engie CAN reflect Lupi but he won’t help for Alphard. Mesmer will most likely do more damage than ele against Lupi because his clones increase the raw number of hits, and he provides 100% reflect uptime against Alphard (as opposed to guardian who only blocks after WoR runs out), so I’m of the opinion that mesmer is better overall for this particular path.
- Is ranger worth it? In the normal course FS/Spotter would definitely be a net DPS boost but since the ranger does poorly against Belka/Abom/Brie I’m not so sure.

So here’s the challenge for hendo and his goonsquad:

Tell me the comp you THINK you should be running for Arah P2, and I’ll tell you who you can drop for an engie to make the run faster.

maha.7902:

FGS spamming is the whole reason I avoid doing organised dungeon runs like the plague. How can someone demonstrate their skill when half the fights boil down to press 4 before it kills us? Doing dungeons solo, low man or pugging allows you to test your ability to react, adapt and how consistent you are with your damage mitigation since fights take longer. I dunno. I’m not going to say I play for fun and FGSers play for $$$ since there are people who enjoy melting hp bars like that, but while I found it cool at first it got boring for me after a while. This is probably the most carebearish thing ive wrote in months and almost sounds PHYW. meh.

Yayyyyyyy, I baited my favourite dalish into admitting he’s a playhowiwant carebear deep in his heart, just like me!
/hugs

dutchiez.7502:

Ryn.6459:

So,
recommended professions to have are: ele, warrior, guardian… and maybe thief?

That totally depends on the path.

Sorry, my English is not very good. I meant lvl 80 toons that everyone one should have. Then you use one or other accordint path and party.

Ryn.6459:

dutchiez.7502:

Ryn.6459:

So,
recommended professions to have are: ele, warrior, guardian… and maybe thief?

That totally depends on the path.

Sorry, my English is not very good. I meant lvl 80 toons that everyone one should have. Then you use one or other accordint path and party.

You really should have all 7.

@Guang

Did you actually read any of the reasons why we said your comp was bad. It was nothing to do with dps. Although your group does lack a few pure damage dealers.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Ryn.6459:

dutchiez.7502:

Ryn.6459:

So,
recommended professions to have are: ele, warrior, guardian… and maybe thief?

That totally depends on the path.

Sorry, my English is not very good. I meant lvl 80 toons that everyone one should have. Then you use one or other accordint path and party.

You really should have all 7.

Mean, meanmeanmean.
Gj, you learned from da mastah, HAH!

We never specified no FGS, so that’s a gigantic cop-out.

Not that your post makes any sense either way, but still.