With the traits switching damage from
Greatsword + Sword/Focus
to
Greatsword + Mace/Focus
with all the Symbols damage trait, since we’re independent from trait stats the new trait spread is most likely
Zeal (Fiery Wrath, Zealous Blade, Symbolic Avenger)
Radiance(Right-Handed Strength, Retribution, Perfect Inscriptions/Amplified Wrath)
Virtues depends on the situation, it’s your utility line.
Time to get new Mace skins and find a good rotation that keeps up symbols and Retaliation.
Even with GS+M/F, the light field is very present.
True but not 100%
I haven’t done the math, it may turn out differently. But, I think 66060 will make a play for a DPS build while Mace/focus + GS will surely be our “meta” build maintaining our support tools in a 66006 build. That’s my current guess, will hammer be able to win out… /shrug, but I think it’ll make a good play for it. Hammer is already top notch damage potential, adding 10% more symbol damage and 20% constant damage basically (where mace/gs will have little gaps), I’m interested to see what the theorycrafters come up with (if they’re still willing to do the work, I know many of the ones who used to do it don’t play as often anymore).
The constant light fields won’t be a problem, as there will be a phalanx warrior in party. I’m going to take a guess 66060 hammer will be top DPS for guardian. The symbols will also heal and give permanent protection, which is pretty great too for scholar bonus.
For very short fights I think you will be using mace/focus + gs 66006.
they could move the +damage on symbols GM trait to the one GM trait they already have on symbols (larger, etc.) so one in zeal is free. And that one could be +10% damage to two handed weapons so spear, hammer, gs, staff would benefit from that.
or the larger symbols are migrated into the zeal symbols gm and the damage is just +5%
Fury + Radiant Power (Randiance Grandmaster Minor) give you 45% critical chance, that’s enough to reach more than 100% with Beserker power. You already waste a lot of precision. Maybe full berserker won’t be the best setup for a guardian depend on how thing are at release. A couple of power/ferocity/x gear should replace some berserker pieces. Ideally Power, Ferocity, Condition if they ever put that setup in the game.
To replace Right-Hand mastery, Healer’s retribution that give more retaliation would be a good choice. AW will always be a better choice over Perfect Inscription. PI will really only give you 36 more power when you use Signet of Bane.
I like what they did with torch. But in my opinion it’s not final, for me Radiant Retaliation messes up the fun of a spot that could hold a very useful GM to help out our 1-handers.
Imagine you get 15% Increased Attack Speed while wielding a torch. Zealot’s flame now also blinds up to 5 targets until the time runs out (3s) or until you throw it (Similar to warriors new DWA). This would go so well with the new Inner Fire trait, Zealos Scepter and above all make Mace hit a little bit faster. This would def put torch as a top off hand in our kitten nal (wow a_r_s_e_n_a_l is censored wooo).
I don’t understand why they keep pushing this Radiant Retal crap, I mean no one likes it, no one uses it plus it’s broken.
Also when they merged some of the weaker traits they forgot to merge Healer’s Retribution with Wrathful Spirit. Those two traits are so weak, they can’t expect players to choose them instead of Fiery Wrath or RHS/Inner Fire. I don’t know either make them base, or merge them to replace Zealot’s Speed or something. They are in no world on the same level with the other Adepts.
I agree that Healer’s Retribution and Wrathful Spirit are too weak. But Healer’s Retribution will probably be the best choice anyway by lack of anything better. In a dungeon setting the elementalist will give perma fury so Inner Fire is useless. With Fury+ Radiant Power + Zerker gear you will already be at 100% critical chance, making right-handed mastery useless too. This only leave Healer’s retribution, which will give a bit more retaliation to activate Retribution.
You can also camp hammer and go 6/0/0/6/6 and roll full zerker to make up for crit loss from radiance
Not sure what the dps difference is gonna be, but the support is going to be quite nice and i would gladdly roll with something like that in my 50 pugs
You can also camp hammer and go 6/0/0/6/6 and roll full zerker to make up for crit loss from radiance
Not sure what the dps difference is gonna be, but the support is going to be quite nice and i would gladdly roll with something like that in my 50 pugs
Nike pointed out int he dungeon forum that 60066 might be meta for the GS/mace build too, with the extended symbols and faster recharge on mace you should have a nearly complete symbol presense as well as making both of those symbols more potent with an extra 2s and larger effect. You’d lose the 25% crit chance, 10% with retal, and 33% burning damage as well as blind spam, but you gain a more consistent use of the 20% in symbols and get your stronger symbols, also getting lots of sustain support, vigor stuffs, and some additional might to help your PS war.
Be interesting to see what happens. I see a few possible builds for guardian right now.
My biggest question is will symbolic avenger be when an enemy is in YOUR symbol, or is it just A symbol. Could be some nice synergy for 2 guard groups.
GS + Mace/focus is looking good. Hammer became a lot stronger and would be good to swap to for some hard bosses and not really lose any dps. The rotations would change quite a bit given gs and mace cooldown traits and working in symbols. Sword is in dumpster either way. Scepter doesn’t really look appealing anymore with the trait changes except for solo.
Might be 6/0/0/6/6 or 6/6/0/0/6 and 6/6/0/6/0 when no support is needed. I’m not sure if radiance or honor would add more dps at this point. I’m guessing honor will. The 10% modifiers being removed kind of sucks especially for radiance which is a big part of why you invest in it.
Dekeyz is still working on her new calculator so it will be a bit longer before I can say with some certainty. Whatever they do with the gear will have an impact as well which is unknown. I’m assuming that the symbols will get nerfed since that just looks op.
I’m hoping Shattered aegis will be adjusted a bit to be competitive with Symbolic avenger because while symbols will work well with a PS Warrior I don’t want to bump shoulders all the time with a class that wants to stack might in fire fields most of the time.
I mean it’s a grandmaster now so we have a license to go crazy with it
Did some basic math. It’s rough and a lot of speculation. I assume that all stats we got from trait will be distribute. This give some freaking high number in Power, Precision, Ferocity. Add that to the additional trait you can get and it’s a huge power creep.
GS + M/F 6/6/0/0/6 : 15 K DPS
GS + M/F 6/0/0/6/6 : 14.4 K DPS
Hammer 6/0/0/6/6 : 15 K DPS
This only include direct damage since we really don’t know what will happen with condition. This take into account full buff without a Ranger. These number make me doubt myself. The additional Power, Precision, Ferocity stats is really higher than I expected. Maybe they will tone it down a bit, or we simply have the wrong idea about what they will do with this exactly.
It seem that Writ of Persistence (Honor) vs Radiant Power + Retribution (Radiance) give around the same DPS boost. But I end up with 91% critical chance with the 6/0/0/6/6 build, while Radiant Power give 25% criti chance. So if we end up with less stats on our armor than we except, then 6/6/0/0/6 could get an advantage. Again, i’m maybe all wrong with my numbers. So much information lacking yet.
How did you do the math on SA? with 66006 build you wouldn’t have 100% uptime I’m quite sure, so you did calculate that right? Between longer symbols and faster mace recharge we should have pretty great coverage with 60066, maybe a small gap in the GS phase though.
How did you do the math on SA? with 66006 build you wouldn’t have 100% uptime I’m quite sure, so you did calculate that right? Between longer symbols and faster mace recharge we should have pretty great coverage with 60066, maybe a small gap in the GS phase though.
I did 6 Coefficient. One with Mace attack, 1 with Mace attack while there is a symbol, 1 with Mace Symbol attack, 1 for GS attack, 1 with GS attack while there is a symbol and 1 with GS symbol attack.
I also made my own rotation to optimize the symbol uptime.
D/D Elementalist takes no skill but is good at everything in the game.
Mesmer is unfun to play against and does everything better than thieves.
Hoping those two get gutted with nerfs
If you use the same rotation yes. But by starting with Mace 2, then GS2, 3, 5, then GS4, etc you can keep a symbol uptime high enough that Hammer isn’t really much better than GS + Mace/Focus. With the small amount of information we have we can’t really say for sure that Hammer or GS + Mace/Focus will be the best dps.
And, we’ll also have longer symbols and faster recharge on mace symbol with honor line. That’s mainly why i was curious Thad, I haven’t sat down and done the math on how you can space them out but I imagine with honor line you’ll probably have a couple seconds at the end of the GS rotation without a symbol, then basically full uptime on mace.
Without the Honor traits we’ll have some downtime on mace and even more on GS.
And, we’ll also have longer symbols and faster recharge on mace symbol with honor line. That’s mainly why i was curious Thad, I haven’t sat down and done the math on how you can space them out but I imagine with honor line you’ll probably have a couple seconds at the end of the GS rotation without a symbol, then basically full uptime on mace.
Without the Honor traits we’ll have some downtime on mace and even more on GS.
If you accounted for that though, cool.
Like I said I didn’t went into super detail. I didn’t account if a symbol end in the middle of an attack for exemple. I also didn’t make a video of the new rotation to make sure the time was exact. But when you use Mace 2, then switch to GS for 2, 3 and 5, then 2-3 GS auto-attack before using GS4 and GS5 again. The end result is that only 1-2 auto-attack from the GS weren’t under a Symbol. But I’ll have to do more testing eventually to see that in detail. For exemple, maybe that the GS5 won’t hit while I still have a symbol up.
The rotation will be super more impotant than now to make sure that your Symbol uptime is as high as you can.
Anyway Jerus, the Rotation that I made was to make sure all the hard hitting skill were done while a symbol is up. So the added symbol uptime from Honor line wasn’t as important as it seem. Most of the attack that I can make while a symbol is up with Honor line are auto-attack and that’s why the difference between 6/6/0/0/6 and 6/0/0/6/6 isn’t that high.
Thanks, yeah just was curious on what end you estimated and all. Sounds like Honor may be a bit better than your rough math shows and radiance slightly worse… In other words, they’re probably kitten close to equal. So the deciding point I think will be what else you can get with them rather than the damage.
Thanks for doing the math, can’t wait to get my hands on this stuff to play with it.
For very short fights I think you will be using mace/focus + gs 66006.
^^ I don’t even think that anyone will even need GS for short fights. The frequency of the symbol on Mace doesn’t compare to what you get with GS and that damage multiplier is not insignificant. I suspect 1H weapon setups will also be very close to 100% crit rate, buffed self, maybe without food even. I don’t even think that trash will live through to the first auto rotation if they are in a symbol. It’s going to be stupid.
I’m not even sure GS will BE in rotation for a PVE build. It’s symbol is just way too long a recharge to be having an impact like Mace and Hammer will be if the symbols give such predominant damage. You can also get the Retal damage boost multiplier blasting hammer with MB more reliably. No contest I think.
For very short fights I think you will be using mace/focus + gs 66006.
^^ I don’t even think that anyone will even need GS for short fights. The frequency of the symbol on Mace doesn’t compare to what you get with GS and that damage multiplier is not insignificant. I suspect 1H weapon setups will also be very close to 100% crit rate, buffed self, maybe without food even. I don’t even think that trash will live through to the first auto rotation if they are in a symbol. It’s going to be stupid.
Just going into radiance gives you a potential 40-45% crit + 50% from gear 1h or 2h doesnt matter unless you are switching your gear from zerker to something tankier.
It’s quick math but I haven’t done it. I think you need RH strength to get close to 100% crit rate in full zerker exotics. I don’t think you can with 2H weapons, even with food. Maybe it’s an academic point … is missing 15% crit rate a big deal? Probably not because you don’t actually want to exceed 100%, but it’s not the crit rate that’s the determining factor here, it’s the huge symbol uptimes you get with Hammer and Mace compared to GS. The comparison is very similar to Unscathed … you don’t need much uptime there to break even when Aegis is down. Here, it’s about symbol uptime.
Simply put, on trash, Mace, because you can load your symbol up front, on Vet’s and higher, Hammer, because you can get permanent symbol uptime. GS doesn’t come close with a 20 second symbol recharge. I can’t even use that reliably in Openworld.
Fury isn’t a reliable buff, but again, my point isn’t crit uptime, it’s symbol uptime. GS just doesn’t have it. Frankly, maintaining that Fury in PVE is a pain in the kitten if selfed.
It’s quick math but I haven’t done it. I think you need RH strength to get close to 100% crit rate in full zerker exotics. I don’t think you can with 2H weapons, even with food. Maybe it’s an academic point … is missing 15% crit rate a big deal? Probably not because you don’t actually want to exceed 100%, but it’s not the crit rate that’s the determining factor here, it’s the huge symbol uptimes you get with Hammer and Mace compared to GS.
Simply put, on trash, Mace, because you can load your symbol up front, on Vet’s and higher, Hammer, because you can get permanent symbol uptime. GS doesn’t come close with a 20 second symbol recharge. I can’t even use that reliably in Openworld.
With zerker you should still be at 50%+ base. Tack on the 25% in radiance tree you’re at 75%, fury, 95%, discipline banner, you’re over 100%
You do not need right hand strength, in fact it’d probably be a wasted trait in meta groups.
GS will be ideal for burst with a mace2-> GS2->GS3->GS5->GS4-> Auto till GS2 rotation
Fury is quite reliable with an Ele in the party (100% uptime on each weapon) and 33% uptime on War, y ou’ll get a PS war for might/fury, then choose the Fury on burning trait and you’ll potentially be at 100% without an ele even in the party.
Fury may not be 100% reliable in some situations, but in PVE, it absolutely is if you look at composition at all.
Fury isn’t a reliable buff, but again, my point isn’t crit uptime, it’s symbol uptime. GS just doesn’t have it. Frankly, maintaining that Fury in PVE is a pain in the kitten if selfed.
You should see Inner fire remake when ever you hit a burning target you get 8 secs fury.
Fair, in engineered, good player groups for dungeons, that’s true. We aren’t all as fortunate or base our assessments of PVE on only those situations; I guess it depends on how critical you are on team composition. I think that with these levels of buffs, the deviation between teamed content PVE builds and not team Builds gets a little wider. Can’t wait to have that argument.
Hopefully what comes SOON after HoT is a build library because I do want the ability to swap out builds using RH STR and not in those kinds of situations.
Still not certain if the GS rotation while Mace Symbol is up is better than camping Mace. Someone will figure that out, it probably is. It is nice GS still has it’s 5% damage boost so that gives it a bias. My bet is in.
Keep in mind Obtena that the meta is build around meta group. All the math is done with full buff because if you get out of that the number of kitten you have to calculate is way too much.
Why would camping mace beat the greatsword when greatsword still has access to a symbol and better damage coefficients on the skills ?
If you’re in a PUG with no fury right hand strength MIGHT make it superior, that’s a maybe, not a certainty unless someone has done the math. RHS + 25% + 50%+ will be 90% without fury. Of course the alternative to RHS is potentially 80% fury so…
Why would camping mace beat the greatsword when greatsword still has access to a symbol and better damage coefficients on the skills ?
If you’re in a PUG with no fury right hand strength MIGHT make it superior, that’s a maybe, not a certainty unless someone has done the math. RHS + 25% + 50%+ will be 90% without fury. Of course the alternative to RHS is potentially 80% fury so…
80% of 20 is 16 % so even without a meta group 2h can give RHS a run for its money
Why would camping mace beat the greatsword when greatsword still has access to a symbol and better damage coefficients on the skills ?
If you’re in a PUG with no fury right hand strength MIGHT make it superior, that’s a maybe, not a certainty unless someone has done the math. RHS + 25% + 50%+ will be 90% without fury. Of course the alternative to RHS is potentially 80% fury so…
80% of 20 is 16 % so even without a meta group 2h can give RHS a run for its money
Aye for sure, but again, it’s “potential” you need to keep burning at 3+ stacks to trigger it.
Why would camping mace beat the greatsword when greatsword still has access to a symbol and better damage coefficients on the skills ?
If you’re in a PUG with no fury right hand strength MIGHT make it superior, that’s a maybe, not a certainty unless someone has done the math. RHS + 25% + 50%+ will be 90% without fury. Of course the alternative to RHS is potentially 80% fury so…
80% of 20 is 16 % so even without a meta group 2h can give RHS a run for its money
Aye for sure, but again, it’s “potential” you need to keep burning at 3+ stacks to trigger it.
Well Im glad that we have traits that we can debate about which one is better by ~1%. Compared to the amount of garbage traits we had before, being able consider more than one choice feels nice. They should still clean up some of the retaliation traits but I say theyve done a good job.
Why would camping mace beat the greatsword when greatsword still has access to a symbol and better damage coefficients on the skills ?
If you’re in a PUG with no fury right hand strength MIGHT make it superior, that’s a maybe, not a certainty unless someone has done the math. RHS + 25% + 50%+ will be 90% without fury. Of course the alternative to RHS is potentially 80% fury so…
This, including higher symbol uptime on Mace. I believe that the 7 second weapon swap is going to limit one’s ability to apply a symbol when you are on the second GS rotation because it’s still on cooldown? If that’s true, your rotation is going to force you to camp mace for two-ish rotations anyways. Mace2 -> GS 2,3,4,5 -> Mace 2, Mace #1 filler, Mace 2 -> GS 2,3,4,5. Some theorycrafter will revel in all this detail.
Why would camping mace beat the greatsword when greatsword still has access to a symbol and better damage coefficients on the skills ?
If you’re in a PUG with no fury right hand strength MIGHT make it superior, that’s a maybe, not a certainty unless someone has done the math. RHS + 25% + 50%+ will be 90% without fury. Of course the alternative to RHS is potentially 80% fury so…
This, including higher symbol uptime on Mace. I believe that the 7 second weapon swap is going to limit one’s ability to apply a symbol when you are on the second GS rotation because it’s still on cooldown? If that’s true, your rotation is going to force you to camp mace for two-ish rotations anyways. Mace2 -> GS 2,3,4,5 -> Mace 2, mace filler, mace 2 again -> GS 2,3,4,5. Some theorycrafter will revel in all this detail.
Sitting on mace longer is not an issue, I know mace has the more reliable symbol, i just interpreted “camping” as in completely ignoring the greatsword.
OK, I understand. I think their might be situations where ignoring GS will be optimal, like where fury is not available reliably. I can appreciate most people doing their theorycrafting in the best possible scenarios but I don’t find that’s realistic for most of the population playing the game, even for activities where the meta is most relevant. Like the name says, it’s theory; it’s not always matching the game experience so people should be aware of when it’s not and how they can adjust to compensate if they want optimal play.
Why would camping mace beat the greatsword when greatsword still has access to a symbol and better damage coefficients on the skills ?
If you’re in a PUG with no fury right hand strength MIGHT make it superior, that’s a maybe, not a certainty unless someone has done the math. RHS + 25% + 50%+ will be 90% without fury. Of course the alternative to RHS is potentially 80% fury so…
This, including higher symbol uptime on Mace. I believe that the 7 second weapon swap is going to limit one’s ability to apply a symbol when you are on the second GS rotation because it’s still on cooldown? If that’s true, your rotation is going to force you to camp mace for two-ish rotations anyways. Mace2 -> GS 2,3,4,5 -> Mace 2, Mace #1 filler, Mace 2 -> GS 2,3,4,5. Some theorycrafter will revel in all this detail.
We won’t really give any detail for the second GS rotation because DPS are done with a 30sec rotation, which is before we run out of symbol with GS. Some specific math will need to be done for longer fight.
In a 30 second rotation, wouldn’t you get at least two chances to swap to each weapon and need to cover what happens in the second GS rotation? The Mace symbol will recharge faster in that 30 seconds time than the GS one will.
Why would camping mace beat the greatsword when greatsword still has access to a symbol and better damage coefficients on the skills ?
If you’re in a PUG with no fury right hand strength MIGHT make it superior, that’s a maybe, not a certainty unless someone has done the math. RHS + 25% + 50%+ will be 90% without fury. Of course the alternative to RHS is potentially 80% fury so…
This, including higher symbol uptime on Mace. I believe that the 7 second weapon swap is going to limit one’s ability to apply a symbol when you are on the second GS rotation because it’s still on cooldown? If that’s true, your rotation is going to force you to camp mace for two-ish rotations anyways. Mace2 -> GS 2,3,4,5 -> Mace 2, Mace #1 filler, Mace 2 -> GS 2,3,4,5. Some theorycrafter will revel in all this detail.
Don’t forget 20% reduction in GS skills with the new Zealous Blade trait.
Rotations will surely change, but until we get the tools going to be tough to test fully
In a 30 second rotation, wouldn’t you get at least two chances to swap to each weapon and need to cover what happens in the second GS rotation? The Mace symbol will recharge faster in that 30 seconds time than the GS one will.
Not really because that’s the rotation (it may change when we optimize it, but roughly)
. So the deciding point I think will be what else you can get with them rather than the damage.