Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, I wanted to discuss something I have observed during my raiding experiences. And see what the community thought about this.

In raids, Necros filling the DPS role often have a lot more encounter specific tools. For example, epi bouncing is the most commonly talked about tactic. But additionally, there is using the environment (like at matthias) and condi transfer to boost personal dps. Compare this to say, a thief, that sorta uses the same rotation at every boss, every phase, regardless of group composition.

It just got me thinking about how the role of a dps could be more than just using the same rotation everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Anet to change the existing raids, but as the team continues to expand the content, I think they should consider how to make more diverse content, that really feels different.

I would like to see a couple encounters where the dps roles have more to do with encounter specific mechanics. What do you guys think? We already see this a little bit at trio, but unfortunately, I think a lot of people don’t care because trio is so easy. What are some ideas that could work and be fun?

People like to generalize classes into a particular role, and sometimes it is appropriate but oftentimes it is not. Everything that people commonly call a “DPS class” does more than just DPS – they have non-DPS selling points that make them valuable in specific fights. Thief has mobility, strong cc, and a bit more DPS; guardian has protection, cc, aegis; elementalist (staff) has area damage, high range, and emergency heals; etc etc.

Necromancer has two non-DPS functions that are commonly used. The first is the ability to trivialize adds via epidemic. Epi bouncing does increase DPS substantially (and is really the only reason to have more than one necro), but people generally don’t bring epidemic necros in fights unless there are dangerous adds to kill, regardless of the ability to bounce epidemic. For example, necro is much more common against sloth and xera than VG and gorseval because the adds in the latter two fights pose little threat even without epi bouncing. The second necromancer utility is passive condition cleanse for allies, which is invaluable against matthias and somewhat useful against slothasor.

I guess what I’m getting at is that the DPS classes you choose are already dependent on encounter specific mechanics. People always choose ele and thief for sabetha because they have blink skills; people always choose necromancer for sloth because of epi and plague signet; Xera has ele for bloodstone shards and necro for epidemic; and so on.

There are probably some specific issues with individual skills or traits on DPS classes (e.g. there is nothing comparable to lava font for orb/bloodstone shard clear; epidemic can make it a negative for bosses to have adds), but in general the DPS classes are actually decently distinct. Sure there’s a few thousand DPS difference here or there, but in general the DPS classes brought for each fight are there for what they bring in addition to DPS.

I would say that the support classes are much, much more of a problem. Druid/warrior/chrono/rev is in literally every single group, in every encounter. Sure there are some variations in builds but they always revolve around providing their respective support buffs while providing additional utility and DPS. There is no comparable replacement for any of these classes in any fight.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I am not saying I want to see other classes as dps. I am saying that if you look at the majority of the raid mechanics, they are always about surviving, and dps is handled mostly through class abilities etc, and very little damage is attributed to raid mechanics.

I’m saying it could be interesting to have raid mechanics that are for damage rather than surviving. Maybe with a hard enrage timer, so that missing mechanics is still problematic.

thrag.9740:

I think you are misunderstanding me. I am not saying I want to see other classes as dps. I am saying that if you look at the majority of the raid mechanics, they are always about surviving, and dps is handled mostly through class abilities etc, and very little damage is attributed to raid mechanics.

I’m saying it could be interesting to have raid mechanics that are for damage rather than surviving. Maybe with a hard enrage timer, so that missing mechanics is still problematic.

At the same time though, as we stand in the meta right now we have numerous builds for dps roles that work. The only classes that can’t reasonable run a dps role atm are rev & mesmer. Every other class has a dps set up that can do at least 24k dps reliably which is more than enough for all the bosses. Beyond that if you start adding more raid boss based dps aspects you end up hurting the diversity of the raids themselves and honestly having 6 slots basically always filled anyways, we don’t need another constraint added to the fights.
The main thing I fear personally is that anet will kill the pve balance we have the moment in the name of something stupid like nerfing chronomacer, which would kill the comps in raids as they are now. /tangent
-side note: when I say 24k dps that’s before things like dodging toughness and the like.

When it comes to Matthias, i was asked to specifically NOT reaper, so I would have the normal shroud skills and could pull people who downed in pools/toxic-clouds out

My groups pretty much always take a necro for matthias. Not because its dps, but for the support/utility.
Moving /feeding condis back is handy for easing preassure ( assuming necro doesn’t get bombed with 50 stacks of poison).
Also things like transfusion for pulling people out of red rings can be quite useful.

Amaimon.7823:

When it comes to Matthias, i was asked to specifically NOT reaper, so I would have the normal shroud skills and could pull people who downed in pools/toxic-clouds out

I never changed from Reaper but I did that too. Thinking about it I probably would be better off changing from Reaper for that fight. I just am out of touch with what’s popular so I just run the same thing.

thrag.9740:

I think you are misunderstanding me. I am not saying I want to see other classes as dps. I am saying that if you look at the majority of the raid mechanics, they are always about surviving, and dps is handled mostly through class abilities etc, and very little damage is attributed to raid mechanics.

I’m saying it could be interesting to have raid mechanics that are for damage rather than surviving. Maybe with a hard enrage timer, so that missing mechanics is still problematic.

So you’re talking something like instead of green circles preventing wipe potential damage, it works like the faux VG where it boosts damage? Where handling mechanics gives you significant damage boosts to take down the boss under enrage rather than just keeping you alive?

Ehh, we’d still be doing the same thing, so kinda, why? I’m not against the idea, but it just seems in either case it’s just “do X to win,” the only difference I guess is that instead of when you screw up you wipe it’d be that you end up hitting enrage and likely wiping later on. If you didn’t end up wiping later on it’d just in the end be easier and more forgiving which I don’t think raids need.

Now, mechanics that shake up the meta, that I could get behind. Something that might have Thieves going to daggers, Ele’s to Scepters, or something like that. That’d be fun. Not sure how it could be done, but it’d be fun to see some of these ‘not quite meta’ builds getting some use. I know this is a little off topic but it’s what I first thought you were talking about.

thrag.9740:

I think you are misunderstanding me. I am not saying I want to see other classes as dps. I am saying that if you look at the majority of the raid mechanics, they are always about surviving, and dps is handled mostly through class abilities etc, and very little damage is attributed to raid mechanics.

I’m saying it could be interesting to have raid mechanics that are for damage rather than surviving. Maybe with a hard enrage timer, so that missing mechanics is still problematic.

You said “I would like to see a couple encounters where the dps roles have more to do with encounter specific mechanics” and I was addressing that by pointing out that the commonly used DPS roles already are closely related to raid fight mechanics (e.g. taking blink DPS classes on sabetha).

As far as what you’re saying regarding survival mechanics vs powerup (or generally “other”) mechanics, it already exists. Against KC you have to knock the ball into the rifts to make him take more damage for a short period. Gorseval will be stunned for a short time upon breaking his bar, and you can delay breaking to have him stay in the one place even longer. Furthermore, you could argue that almost every mechanic is a damage increasing mechanic because if you don’t do it you will die and obviously deal less damage. Whether you buy that or not there is really little difference between 1.) Unfulfilled mechanic downs/kills you, boss has lower HP; versus 2.) Unfulfilled mechanic denies you offensive buff, boss has higher hp.

I also think there’s a bit of a flavor element to it. It feels silly to go fight a boss on their home turf and their weakness is build into the arena. The KC one isn’t bad because it seems like he was put together by Xera on the fly using power she can’t fully control, but with bandit trio it’s like “oh they keep their weaknesses laying around the camp easily accessible, thanks for that”. It’s like if you went to fight superman at his own house and you killed him using the kryptonite he had in his refrigerator. Why was it there in the first place lol.

Jerus.4350:

Now, mechanics that shake up the meta, that I could get behind. Something that might have Thieves going to daggers, Ele’s to Scepters, or something like that. That’d be fun.

Kinda off topic but scepter fresh air ele is already better than dagger in a couple fights because burning speed loses damage against moving targets and phoenix+dragon’s tooth do not, plus dragon’s tooth can be used every time you switch to fire. Constant blast finishers are a nice bonus. The question is more why you would bring fresh air ele to those fights in the first place.

D/D thief is comparable to Staff in a couple fights as well but it is much more difficult to play.

Dinosaurs.8674:

People like to generalize classes into a particular role, and sometimes it is appropriate but oftentimes it is not. Everything that people commonly call a “DPS class” does more than just DPS – they have non-DPS selling points that make them valuable in specific fights. Thief has mobility, strong cc, and a bit more DPS; guardian has protection, cc, aegis; elementalist (staff) has area damage, high range, and emergency heals; etc etc.

Necromancer has two non-DPS functions that are commonly used. The first is the ability to trivialize adds via epidemic. Epi bouncing does increase DPS substantially (and is really the only reason to have more than one necro), but people generally don’t bring epidemic necros in fights unless there are dangerous adds to kill, regardless of the ability to bounce epidemic. For example, necro is much more common against sloth and xera than VG and gorseval because the adds in the latter two fights pose little threat even without epi bouncing. The second necromancer utility is passive condition cleanse for allies, which is invaluable against matthias and somewhat useful against slothasor.

I guess what I’m getting at is that the DPS classes you choose are already dependent on encounter specific mechanics. People always choose ele and thief for sabetha because they have blink skills; people always choose necromancer for sloth because of epi and plague signet; Xera has ele for bloodstone shards and necro for epidemic; and so on.

There are probably some specific issues with individual skills or traits on DPS classes (e.g. there is nothing comparable to lava font for orb/bloodstone shard clear; epidemic can make it a negative for bosses to have adds), but in general the DPS classes are actually decently distinct. Sure there’s a few thousand DPS difference here or there, but in general the DPS classes brought for each fight are there for what they bring in addition to DPS.

I would say that the support classes are much, much more of a problem. Druid/warrior/chrono/rev is in literally every single group, in every encounter. Sure there are some variations in builds but they always revolve around providing their respective support buffs while providing additional utility and DPS. There is no comparable replacement for any of these classes in any fight.

This is a really good post, actually, and I encourage people interested in this topic to give it a read. I will say that personally I’m very happy right now with PvE raid class and build diversity overall, but it would be nice if more classes had more comparable offensive support specs.

Warcry.1596:

Amaimon.7823:

When it comes to Matthias, i was asked to specifically NOT reaper, so I would have the normal shroud skills and could pull people who downed in pools/toxic-clouds out

I never changed from Reaper but I did that too. Thinking about it I probably would be better off changing from Reaper for that fight. I just am out of touch with what’s popular so I just run the same thing.

Reaper is good for Matthias. I personally prefer curses, blood magic, reaper. Some prefer curses, death magic, blood. Reaper shroud 2 is nice to have for running to/from dropping poison, as well as qT’s reasoning on their site http://qtfy.enjin.com/forum/m/27740239/viewthread/26564851-qt-necromancerreaper-raid-builds : “At Matthias Blood magic really pulls through with the helpful sustain of vampiric aura and the ability to pull downed foes out of nasty situations using transfusion. I choose not to run death magic at Mathias as you can easily transfer using suffer, and the plague sending trait in curses, as well as traited dagger 4 with a lower cooldown.” Basically, you get lots of condi cleanse and mobility.