Guild Wars 2

What will be the different modification of the meta less than a day before the incoming Icebow Nerf? With Nemesis and other people claiming that the meta is ALL ABOUT Icebow. I’m almost happy that they nerf Icebow just so they see how wrong they were.

First of all, will Icebow still be useful? With 21.12 damage coefficient and a cast time of around 3 second, the Ice Storm have right now a coefficient per second of 7.04 CPS (just to make it easy in this post). With a 50% nerf, we can assume that it will be around 3.5 CPS after Tuesday. Traited Lava Front by itself have a 4 CPS, excluding auto-attack in-between those laval front. So, it’s obvious that Icebow isn’t worth anything DPS wise.

So what will be the changes?

- Tempest Defense : I’m not sure this trait is worth anything now. We still can burst with a Deep Freeze or something else, but will the coordination be worth it? Maybe, but I don’t think so. My guess will be that the trait Inscription will take the place. The boons isn’t important but the cooldown reduction on Glyph of Storm will be pratical. Especially, in harder content with HoT for more frequent blind or Vulnerability storm.

- Icebow itself will probably be replace by arcane wave.

- Will 2 Elementalist still be the best choice? A lot of testing will be needed at the xpac to know what exactly can bring the elite spec, but for the next month? Maybe 1 ranger could replace 1 elementalist to increase the overall dps of the group.

What do you think, the Icebow nerf will change to the meta?

Wait till tomorrow when the actual balance changes hit then we can see what actually was changed since they didn’t tell all of the changes in the preview.

But most likely eles will still be the class to stack just thanks to staff being stupid easy dps.

what about engis?

Icebow itself is still a huge amount of cleave against elite trash mob. It will still be there to carry DPS against structures and large hit-box foes. It also stacks quite a bit of vuln. It will be useful, just moving from essential to optional.

Iris Ng.9845:

Icebow itself is still a huge amount of cleave against elite trash mob. It will still be there to carry DPS against structures and large hit-box foes. It also stacks quite a bit of vuln. It will be useful, just moving from essential to optional.

Doudt it. Like I said. If they really nerf it by 50% Just using Laval Front on cooldown will be better and Laval front hit 5 targets, not 3 like the Ice Storm will. So I see no situation where Icebow will be usefull except for skill 5. Laval Front will still have better DPS against structure and large hit box foes since the math I did was if all 24 attacks for the Icebow hit.

/inb4 Lightning Hammer becomes the new Ice Bow

I believe ele will drop in popularity ( but takes around 3 month) in favor of engineer.

inc “metazerk 1ps war 1 guard 3 engi gearcheck” lfg’s…

I don’t mind if Icebow got tuned down. But I am so tired of Anet going from one extreme to the other. I don’t want to see Conjured weapons turn into Spirit Weapons 2.0

You don’t love whack a mole balance and how happy the guy was for reducing the amount of decent utilities available? It would be nice if they change how icestorm works or at least let it chill on each, but I suppose effectively removing it from the game is just as good in the balance team’s eyes

Iris Ng.9845:

Icebow itself is still a huge amount of cleave against elite trash mob. It will still be there to carry DPS against structures and large hit-box foes. It also stacks quite a bit of vuln. It will be useful, just moving from essential to optional.

Agreed. Ice Bow can still be used in high quantity mob situations or against large hit-box creatures. Even with the nerf that’s still 24 strikes that individually hit up to 3 targets each over 3-ish seconds.

As it stands right now some bosses are barely worth using ice bow on right now with how spread the attack it. So there will be noticeable damage loss for those who want to ice bow everything and don’t pay attention to how many of those comets hit.

Thaddeus.4891:

Iris Ng.9845:

Icebow itself is still a huge amount of cleave against elite trash mob. It will still be there to carry DPS against structures and large hit-box foes. It also stacks quite a bit of vuln. It will be useful, just moving from essential to optional.

Doudt it. Like I said. If they really nerf it by 50% Just using Laval Front on cooldown will be better and Laval front hit 5 targets, not 3 like the Ice Storm will. So I see no situation where Icebow will be usefull except for skill 5. Laval Front will still have better DPS against structure and large hit box foes since the math I did was if all 24 attacks for the Icebow hit.

When I said it carries, it’s for the classes that have minimal cleaves or against target that are moving or too scattered for lava font. Case in point:
1. Wolves in Mossman fractal: mesmer and thief are generally bad at cleaving them down.
2. Lava elementals in Grawl Shaman fractal: thief/war are not stellar at cleaving these guys down. Especially against the lava, I always have to use every aoe possible (Meteor Shower + Lightning Storm + Ice bow) if it’s up to me alone to cleave all the adds down asap – think trio, etc.
3. The Molten mob + Smoke Shaman at the end of the tunnel in Molten Facility. Blind is not applied fast and spreads wide enough to neutralize them. As well as Interruption. Or Aegis (lol!). Or Distortion. We’re looking at pulling multiple cleaves in a short instance to nuke them all, or simply pull a couple of them at a time.

Please don’t forget there are two copies of Ice bow and it has 24 impacts, each impact hit 3 targets. Now compare with Lava Font which hits 5 targets and Fire Ball which hits 3 targets per impact. The point of bringing conjures after the balance patch is to compensate the DPS of certain utility classes and nothing more than that.

Oh and if you’re talking about competitive speed run where every seconds matter then disregard everything I said.

Evapor.6849:

You don’t love whack a mole balance and how happy the guy was for reducing the amount of decent utilities available? It would be nice if they change how icestorm works or at least let it chill on each, but I suppose effectively removing it from the game is just as good in the balance team’s eyes

First, Ice Bow is not decent. It’s oppressive to the point that ele is the only class highly favored in PvE. There is very little skill involved in ice bow and people are simply drunk on its high damage. The nerf is fully justified.

Second, because it’s a nerf, there will be people not happy with the solution. There will be technical limits which prohibit more elaborate re-work of the skills. There will be a shortage of personel on the matter at hands. Things like Isaiah’s Balance happen. So get over it. If you’re not happy, make your suggestion loud and clear and hopefully after the expansion launchs and the dev team has properly rested, new better solution will come out.

Third, it’s okay to be unhappy with something, especially you have been investing a decent chunk of your life to it. However, I’m getting tired at people antagonizing the developer team as a whole and making a condescending remark at their production capability. It’s childish. (The dev team) certainly don’t want to make bad skills, or a product that couldn’t sell. They don’t nerf a skill just to be smug and evil.

A moment to appreciate Isaiah’s White Boards.

Iris Ng.9845:

A moment to appreciate Isaiah’s White Boards.

mmmm meteor knockbacks

I wonder if it will even be worth to take water over arcane in fights where there isn’t need for aurashare.
Your main source of DPS comes from fire attunement now, so swapping to water for the damage modifier prevents you from doing optimal damage for 10s
In an average group you will pretty much always have 5 boons for 10% extra damage, so the only damage modifier you lose is 10% while in water, but on the other hand you will gain DPS by not having to swap out of your fire attunement

bladex.9502:

I wonder if it will even be worth to take water over arcane in fights where there isn’t need for aurashare.
Your main source of DPS comes from fire attunement now, so swapping to water for the damage modifier prevents you from doing optimal damage for 10s
In an average group you will pretty much always have 5 boons for 10% extra damage, so the only damage modifier you lose is 10% while in water, but on the other hand you will gain DPS by not having to swap out of your fire attunement

True. Without Icebow, there is not really need for Piercing Shards. It might be come down to Healing (Water) vs Vigor (Arcane) and 10% damage when higher than 90% hp (water) vs 3-6% damage (Arcane).

Water might still be the better choice in optimal situation, but I think i’ll like Arcane more in most situation.

Acting so smug about killing skills is rude.
Also overnerfs are stupid.

Ice bow was overpowered and needed changes but -50% damage is silly.

The good part is they might do the same to d/d cele. “We -50% the duration on all the burns and boons on ele” mikedrop

I’m all for ice bow 4 nerf.

The flaw with conjures like ice bow or fgs is that you pick them up for a single skill and then drop them.

Ideally all of the conjures would have skills that are truly temporary but an upgrade over your normal weapons.

Unfortunately for ice bow they followed the same kittenty design they forced on earth/water attunement.

Basically, earth and water attunement autoattacks are so terrible in damage because they bring “utility”, so you swap to earth and water for a few key skills and want to swap away from them as fast as possible.

Ice bow is the exact same as water attunement autos, and why nobody uses “support” builds.

Because “support” builds like the now upcoming druid sacrifice so much damage potential for redundant fluff healing when a water field being blasted is all you need to get people healed up.

They need to reconsider their approach to “support” weapons and make it so all weapons/attunements do similar sustained DPS but it’s their utility that distinguishes them. Fire for burning/blinds/might stacking, water for chill/cc/healing, air for vulnerability/cc/swiftness, earth for cripple/reflects/prot.

If they get their head out of their kitten , they can equalize autoattack damage from weapons across the board and make them a whole lot more attractive. Of course skills like meteor shower and lava font need to be toned down anyways, a staff that does much more aoe and is ranged should never be outdamaging an ele dagger frontline build.

It depends. What path are you talking about?

There is no such thing as a general all-purpose meta. Each and every path requires specific things to optimise with.

Purple Miku.7032:

It depends. What path are you talking about?

There is no such thing as a general all-purpose meta. Each and every path requires specific things to optimise with.

Pls don’t start that. We all know that there is modification to the meta depending on specific map. But there is always a general purpose meta.

Not really, you’re either playing to optimise or you’re not.

But if you don’t want me to answer then alright, no problem

My necromancer feels so meta when they ask me to switch him in for maw ;(

Zenith.7301:

My necromancer feels so meta when they ask me to switch him in for maw ;(

dw, in a month it will be replaced by revenant

If we are not going to bring icebow, which skill will we bring? If we bring arcane wave and brilliance, is elemental surge better or worse than bountiful power? In pugs, where might often isn’t capped, more frequent blasting could be nice too.

Tempest Defense will be only useful after they add Break Bars for that 5s stun.
If you won’t need a 2nd fgs for mesmer/whatever mobility then 2nd ele will be a waste.
Generally best replacement should be engi.
I don’t see ranger being better due to its long cds.
Enjoy farming sinister gear guys, anets plan all along to break zerk meta!1

thrag.9740:

If we are not going to bring icebow, which skill will we bring? If we bring arcane wave and brilliance, is elemental surge better or worse than bountiful power? In pugs, where might often isn’t capped, more frequent blasting could be nice too.

Bountiful power is always better.
As for Water vs Arcane, can keep above 90%? Use water.
Can’t for whatever reason? Then use Arcane.
No more fancy attunment swaps to water now without Ice Bow so….RIP.

But I like my permavigor from arcane, which they’re about to nerf because of course pvp takes precedence over all things.

bb eles :PPP1111111111111

Meta can change to 3 eles, since thief is not useful for IB burst anymore. And who on earth will want engi in party with its clunky damage rotation? Seriously expecting average player to be able do it properly, nah.

Rednik.3809:

Meta can change to 3 eles, since thief is not useful for IB burst anymore. And who on earth will want engi in party with its clunky damage rotation? Seriously expecting average player to be able do it properly, nah.

Why does everyone think Engi rotation is so hard?
Go try it yourself, once you get what to prioritize and get used to cooldowns its kitten easy.
That takes you 1-4 days.
Also Meta is based around organized groups, pug meta is another story.
So if Engi is best DPS instead of 2nd Ele then that will be meta.

Bountiful Power.

Especially when your group has a guard. Decent and/or random Aegis and Quickness buff makes Arcane really worth it. In a trio with a Guard? Consider Arcane. Arcane today!

Amicable Pugs.4503:

Rednik.3809:

Meta can change to 3 eles, since thief is not useful for IB burst anymore. And who on earth will want engi in party with its clunky damage rotation? Seriously expecting average player to be able do it properly, nah.

Why does everyone think Engi rotation is so hard?
Go try it yourself, once you get what to prioritize and get used to cooldowns its kitten easy.
That takes you 1-4 days.
Also Meta is based around organized groups, pug meta is another story.
So if Engi is best DPS instead of 2nd Ele then that will be meta.

compared with others (thief 1-5-1-5-1-…-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3) its not hard, but a lot more piano style. and some random player seems like still using mouse activation mode;-p

So as long as it’s not a significant dps boots (20+%) you wont see engi “meta”

meta currently is more about doing stuff fast with pug groups, or why else ppl still use guards instead of mesmer?

Condi Engi is ~4k ahead of thief, you really have to kitten up the rotation to fall down to thief level, they’re about 25 % ahead And they can have much better in-fight might upkeep with a 6sec blast finisher and better group heals.

Reaper. And im not joking. Initial look at damage potential of reaper looks very promising. If it turns out to be less than expected then engi or stick with eles for staff.

spoj.9672:

Reaper. And im not joking. Initial look at damage potential of reaper looks very promising. If it turns out to be less than expected then engi or stick with eles for staff.

Seriously? Are we that strong as reapers? I thought our biggest selling point on reaper is the fact we can keep going while others might need to duck out or heal, specially with BB. And now that CpC blocks projectiles.

But no seriously, what’re our numbers in comparison?

Gravedigger spam is broken. Above 50% using lich is marginally behind lava font + fireball. But i didnt add in meteor shower, wells or any other extra forms of damage that would complicate rotations. Obviously against big targets meteor shower would make ele pull ahead above 50%. But Nightfall, locust swarm and wells with lich is some pretty decent burst. Then below 50% gravedigger is broken.

Heres some very rough calcs i did (the stuff along the top).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1flyI2qHv704UUVYqIJeuo6IzY_J0gXAT623eMY38twI/edit?usp=sharing

Necro is using seaweed salad. Ele is using power+feroc food. in that rough calc. And my cps could be wrong. Because i dont know exact aftercasts or anything.

Replacing 1 of the eles with an engi kinda removes the need for a thief in places where it isn’t required to chain stealth.
Replacing that thief with a ranger could be really good, since ranger personal DPS is pretty much as high as thief, especially in short fights, and ranger also offers a lot of group support

Ranger got a few new tricks that are pretty cool with this patch as well.

Storm spirit is a lot better now, it’s active is a 2.4 coefficient damage +3s daze(6s traited so arguably an alternative to deep freeze), and it’s passive generates 50% uptime 15 stacks of vuln which isn’t bad at all. For short fights you can cast and blow up storm spirit for a strong vuln spike and daze, or leave it up to maintain vuln uptime.

You can also potentially get ~15s of quickness with Zephyr’s Speed, Quickening Zephyr and We Heal As One.

All of this is in addition to ranger’s already solid dps and party buffing abilities so I could see Ranger becoming meta. The only thing really holding it back are bosses that negate condis (making the condi build not always reliable) and the somewhat challenging sword autoattack.

Potential party comps could be double engi, ranger, guard/mesmer, warrior. This would give strong dps and should have enough stealth for even the most stealth heavy dungeons. It is weak on fury output as the ranger and guard are the only source of fury with this comp. Replacing an Engi with an Ele would make fury much easier to maintain but loses out on stealth uptime.

bladex.9502:

Replacing 1 of the eles with an engi kinda removes the need for a thief in places where it isn’t required to chain stealth.
Replacing that thief with a ranger could be really good, since ranger personal DPS is pretty much as high as thief, especially in short fights, and ranger also offers a lot of group support

For the record, it’s already been the case that thief (at least, for actual attempts at optimisation) is only purposeful for the unmatched mobility that it has. This includes triggering cutscenes and the likes, it’s actually the most efficient provider of stealth as well but it’s not really something that you ever need to take into consideration much when we’re on the topic of striving for the most efficiency.

It’s not like it doesn’t have any other uses besides that, it’s just that as far as unique contribution to groups is concerned it doesn’t deal highest damage, it’s not the only class that can quickly remove all defiance stacks, it’s not the only class that can immobilise and stealth and whatnot, but yeah hopefully anybody reading this will get my point.

Thief is primarily for its mobility these days. I’m not sure this is going to be necessary for raids.

Mesmer can also provide sufficient group stealth for a lot of things as well that doesn’t require blasting… though I guess PU did just get nerfed from 100% to 50%, so RIP to that.

spoj.9672:

~snip

When I talked to keyz the average between above and below 50% dmg on necro with reaper was putting it almost on par with the other lower dps classes. If the aftercast times can get reduced by fractions on some of the skills it can probably end up in line, but it’s inability to provide strong group buffs and comparable damage may still limit it.

It’s damage increase from VA doesn’t really compare to fury/might/banners/spotter/frost spirit/alacrity/quickness, and the sustain from it on a single target requires more than 3 hits/sec to compare to a warrior picking up discipline for regen.

Was that before or after gravedigger got buffed and changed to 100% cooldown reduction below 50%? Because i would seriously question Keyz math if shes getting reaper on par with lower dps classes at below 50%. I can understand lower than the high end dps classes depending on the assumptions made. But even with a generous aftercast on gravedigger spam its high. Above 50% i have no idea. Because a rotation hasnt been worked out. But Lich form has always been fairly competative. So it can be used at that stage.

That said just getting into the meta on dps alone is very difficult. So Reaper is unlikely to see much use in actual records for a lot of paths. Raids might be different.

I have to imagine Keyz math on this was before the change. After the change you have the potential to spam ~25-27k gravediggers every ~2s. That alone should have them right about middle of the pack when you add in the extras. I do think the aftercasts need some shaving to bring the play into line (still feels a bit clunky) and the damage really shouldn’t be shaved as well as again it’s middle of the pack with no other stand out utility.

Jerus.4350:

After the change you have the potential to spam ~25-27k gravediggers every ~2s. That alone should have them right about middle of the pack when you add in the extras.

Which would put you at 12.5-13.5k dps :P unless the aftercast is reduced on the first auto so you can slip in an extra hit between digging. And then you have the lower damage from the above 50% rotation which reduces the average damage, though her assumption was that half the fight is below half, which overestimates the contribution of the below 50% rotation. As it is necro is kind of clinging to the bottom of the pack rather than sitting next to everyone else, if I decide to purchase before the beta this weekend I can fiddle with her rotation. At most I’d expect it to come out on par with the bottom classes, but less utility(poison cloud was a nice step up from almost nothing).

With 0.25 aftercast gravedigger spam is 2 base coef per second. Thats very high. When you add damage mods, sigils, runes etc it gets to about 4. The damage mod disadvantage isnt so bad anymore since ele lost a few.

SlyDevil.3952:

Jerus.4350:

After the change you have the potential to spam ~25-27k gravediggers every ~2s. That alone should have them right about middle of the pack when you add in the extras.

Which would put you at 12.5-13.5k dps :P unless the aftercast is reduced on the first auto so you can slip in an extra hit between digging. And then you have the lower damage from the above 50% rotation which reduces the average damage, though her assumption was that half the fight is below half, which overestimates the contribution of the below 50% rotation. As it is necro is kind of clinging to the bottom of the pack rather than sitting next to everyone else, if I decide to purchase before the beta this weekend I can fiddle with her rotation. At most I’d expect it to come out on par with the bottom classes, but less utility(poison cloud was a nice step up from almost nothing).

Theres no auto between digging. Its 100% spammable now. No delay. Only thing which slows you is gravediggers own after cast. So spammable gravediggers 1.25s cast. With aftercast its probably about 1.5s. So assuming 26k gravediggers thats 17k dps. If we assume above 50% fight is about 11k dps. That averages at 14k dps. But Lich is better than 11k dps so you can boost it up a bit. And the above 50% rotation will probably be closer to 12k-13k. And staff ele is only 16-19k assuming very good RNG on meteor shower. So yeah. Im optimistic on damage at least.

SlyDevil.3952:

Jerus.4350:

After the change you have the potential to spam ~25-27k gravediggers every ~2s. That alone should have them right about middle of the pack when you add in the extras.

Which would put you at 12.5-13.5k dps :P unless the aftercast is reduced on the first auto so you can slip in an extra hit between digging. And then you have the lower damage from the above 50% rotation which reduces the average damage, though her assumption was that half the fight is below half, which overestimates the contribution of the below 50% rotation. As it is necro is kind of clinging to the bottom of the pack rather than sitting next to everyone else, if I decide to purchase before the beta this weekend I can fiddle with her rotation. At most I’d expect it to come out on par with the bottom classes, but less utility(poison cloud was a nice step up from almost nothing).

Yeah I phrased that terribly, but saying GD spam plus some wells and nightfall, that’d have them around guard/war wouldn’kitten Though I am curious what your ideas are on full rotation. Is RS above just dagger with Dhuum?

spoj.9672:

SlyDevil.3952:

Jerus.4350:

After the change you have the potential to spam ~25-27k gravediggers every ~2s. That alone should have them right about middle of the pack when you add in the extras.

Which would put you at 12.5-13.5k dps :P unless the aftercast is reduced on the first auto so you can slip in an extra hit between digging. And then you have the lower damage from the above 50% rotation which reduces the average damage, though her assumption was that half the fight is below half, which overestimates the contribution of the below 50% rotation. As it is necro is kind of clinging to the bottom of the pack rather than sitting next to everyone else, if I decide to purchase before the beta this weekend I can fiddle with her rotation. At most I’d expect it to come out on par with the bottom classes, but less utility(poison cloud was a nice step up from almost nothing).

Theres no auto between digging. Its 100% spammable now. No delay. Only thing which slows you is gravediggers own after cast. So spammable gravediggers 1.25s cast. With aftercast its probably about 1.5s. So assuming 26k gravediggers thats 17k dps.

Has anyone nailed down the time on it yet? It felt LONG to me, I was guessing more than 1.5 (my guess was 1.8, but that’s just what it felt like to me).

It feels weird because of how the anim looks i think. I wouldnt be surprised if its 1.8 though. They are removing some after casts and smoothing out some of the skills. So next beta it might be better even on gravedigger.

Didn’t think Gravedigger was in the list for adjustments but we can hope. Either way seeing 22-24k every ~2s was super sexy. Looking forward to doing it again this weekend with a more optimized toon (just finished light ascended set, so I’ll get that on a new beta toon).

And hopefully the pvp crybabies won’t see it nerfed to the ground because of the amount of counterplay the reaper slow animations have.

On the first (I believe) BWE, the skill coef and cast times were computed and this was the result.

So yes, long gravedigger after cast…