(edited by EnderzShadow.2506)
Rabbid Vs Carrion (argument w/guildy)
Toughness scales the effectiveness of your hitpoints from direct damage while vitality does not. Toughness also increases condition damage when you trait 25 in Chaos (moreso with Undead Runes). For mesmer condi builds that take the Sharper Images trait you want high Precision to trigger more bleeds from your illusions. It also helps you maintain vigor when traited.
http://intothemists.com/
So let’s start with the easy one: Precision.
A massive amount of mesmer condition pressure and sustain is obtained through crits. Your dueling 15 point minor trait causes all of your illusions to bleed on crit. That’s massive. Since illusions take your precision, having high precision is a must for good bleed pressure.
A slightly less direct reason is the interaction with the 5 point minor in dueling, 5 seconds of vigor on crit. Vigor = 100% faster endurance regeneration = twice as many dodges = twice as many dodge clones, which leads to more damage and more damage avoidance.
Next up is toughness.
Toughness actually has a direct benefit too. Your 25 point minor in chaos adds 5% of your toughness to your condition damage. That’s at least 100 more condition damage right there.
Now, both vitality and toughness are defensive stats, but they defend against different things.
- Power damage will eat right through vitality with no toughness, but conditions take much longer with more health, so vitality is condition defense
- Conditions don’t care about toughness, but power damage does. You get strong reductions in power damage with more toughness, so toughness is power damage defense.
In the blackwater build, you have strong condition defense already due to your traited torch, and so more condition defense is a lower priority. Additionally, mesmers already have medium base hp, so you’ve got a good amount of hp. When I run the build, I generally have 20k hp, which is fine, and so every bit of toughness you can get does much more for you.
Additionally, toughness indirectly increases the strength of your heals, while vitality decreases it. The same strength heal heals for a lower % of your hp with a lot of vit, making it indirectly weaker.
Lastly, we can talk about power.
This one really is quite obvious for anyone that’s ever played mesmer, but less obvious for a necromancer, which is why I’m thinking your friend is a necro. Mesmer condition skills don’t use power, generally. Your entire build is designed to do high condition damage, and not power. You have a couple skills that scale well on power, but the thing is that power does not matter at all without crit power. Pure power damage sucks, in order to do any appreciable damage, you absolutely have to have crit power.
Therefor, taking carrion gear would be lowering your condition damage because of vit instead of toughness, vastly decreasing your endurance regeneration, vastly decreasing your bleed pressure, making your heals less effective, and reducing your power damage defense, while providing you with a tiny bit of power.
Rabi-…. Gaddammit Pyro!
Edit: Also, a lot of people seem to think power gives a slight boost to condition damage. Thats not true and smack the face of the next person who tells you it is.
Learn 2 Play Mesmer Here! || Lookit! Gots me a youtube!
Mesmer Personality Quiz! Exclamation Points!
(edited by Chaos Archangel.5071)
Now that was a really great explanation, Pyro! Thank you!
Therefor, taking carrion gear would be lowering your condition damage because of vit instead of toughness, vastly decreasing your endurance regeneration, vastly decreasing your bleed pressure, making your heals less effective, and reducing your power damage defense, while providing you with a tiny bit of power.
And aren’t there any builds that would make better use of carrion? I got carrion set a year ago because of some well-rated build (I don’t remember anymore, heh), but from your explanation it looks like rabid is better on mesmer pretty much all the time. Or did I miss something?
Now that was a really great explanation, Pyro! Thank you!
Therefor, taking carrion gear would be lowering your condition damage because of vit instead of toughness, vastly decreasing your endurance regeneration, vastly decreasing your bleed pressure, making your heals less effective, and reducing your power damage defense, while providing you with a tiny bit of power.
And aren’t there any builds that would make better use of carrion? I got carrion set a year ago because of some well-rated build (I don’t remember anymore, heh), but from your explanation it looks like rabid is better on mesmer pretty much all the time. Or did I miss something?
Yeah, I honestly can’t think of a particularly good use for carrion. Even a hybrid build wouldn’t want it, because you really do need that crit chance for sharper images in hybrids. Someone else might have an idea though.
A friend told me that a “normal” shatterbuild is great using carrion armor and zerker trinkets. I didn’t test it because I do not have a carrion armor but I trust him. His build should look like this
Maybe he also used Cleansing Conflagration instead of Shattered Concentration.
I don’t know he stopped playing gw2 3 month ago so I can’t even ask him
Equinox [EqnX]
Riverside[DE]
Now that was a really great explanation, Pyro! Thank you!
Therefor, taking carrion gear would be lowering your condition damage because of vit instead of toughness, vastly decreasing your endurance regeneration, vastly decreasing your bleed pressure, making your heals less effective, and reducing your power damage defense, while providing you with a tiny bit of power.
And aren’t there any builds that would make better use of carrion? I got carrion set a year ago because of some well-rated build (I don’t remember anymore, heh), but from your explanation it looks like rabid is better on mesmer pretty much all the time. Or did I miss something?
I fell victim to the same build a year ago likely. My carrion set gathers dust in my bank among the plethora of skins and black lion chest loot I’ll never use.
http://intothemists.com/
I’ve used carrion in condition builds, but only as spice, primarily to get more vitality built in. This was before Dire armor was available, which now I would likely go for instead to fill that need.
The consensus is that mesmer condition builds and carrion just aren’t a good match for all the reasons pyro gave. Maybe someone will successfully pull it off someday but it’d be a monumental feat. Some kamikaze carrion/rampagers glass mix would be interesting (and likely futile).
The other difference between toughness and vitality that matters only to mesmers is that illusions inherit your toughness, but NOT your vitality. So adding toughness makes all your images last longer as well.
Carrion may make sense on other classes with a better mix of personal power damage, plenty of crit from traits/etc. (or easier access to fury), and/or non-crit-dependent methods of applying conditions. For mesmers, I don’t really see it; we don’t have regular fury or ‘natural’ crit traits, and condition application without Sharper Images is pretty woeful. The best I can imagine is a Staff/scepter/torch clone-death hybrid build, maybe 10/10/30/20/0 or something.
Regarding the discussion if there are any builds that would prefer carrion: I was browsing some builds and found out that Fay has some builds that is using carrion gear.
http://www.destinysedge.net/fay/mesmer/gaia.html
http://www.destinysedge.net/fay/mesmer/kydoi.html
Additionally, toughness indirectly increases the strength of your heals, while vitality decreases it. The same strength heal heals for a lower % of your hp with a lot of vit, making it indirectly weaker.
Again, just my 2cents on this bit.
There are quite a few direct dmg skills in this game that gain increased dmg based on enemy health threshold (Heartseeker, anyone?).
This means, given a same healing power,
- with a high health pool with low toughness, its harder to heal to full, and your health is likely to stay at a low percentage (below 50% or even 25%) —> makes your enemy attacks stronger.
- on the other hand, a lower healthpool with higher toughness, you take less direct dmg and easier to heal to full, thus your health can be sustained to stay above the dangerous threshold.
(edited by keenlam.4753)
Now that was a really great explanation, Pyro! Thank you!
Therefor, taking carrion gear would be lowering your condition damage because of vit instead of toughness, vastly decreasing your endurance regeneration, vastly decreasing your bleed pressure, making your heals less effective, and reducing your power damage defense, while providing you with a tiny bit of power.
And aren’t there any builds that would make better use of carrion? I got carrion set a year ago because of some well-rated build (I don’t remember anymore, heh), but from your explanation it looks like rabid is better on mesmer pretty much all the time. Or did I miss something?
Yeah, I honestly can’t think of a particularly good use for carrion. Even a hybrid build wouldn’t want it, because you really do need that crit chance for sharper images in hybrids. Someone else might have an idea though.
I’m a no-name theorycrafter, but I’ve toyed around with builds designed around stacking both Confusion on the enemy and Retaliation on myself, using Signet of Inspiration to pass the accumulated Retaliation to nearby allies. Since Retaliation keys off of Power, it’s important to have a strong Power stat as well as Condition Damage.
I make no claims that the strategy is actually more effective than focusing on Sharper Images bleeds, though.
Toughness also benefits illusions as they gain your toughness. Vitality doesn’t scale at all with illusions. In this way toughness helps keep your clones up meaning they can inflict more damage.
Currently using rabid weapons/armor and some hybrid (condi main, toughness/vit minor with a small amount of precision) ascended trinkets for the extra health, simply to help with the condi meta. Rabid is defintly dominant.
On a side note, I know the feeling. Friend asked me to teach them how to play mesmer, scheduled for a couple of hours later and in the meantime someone told them carrion was the best set for mesmer… so they came in full carrion exotics without knowing anything about the class… worse they wanted to learn shatter…
- John Smith
The other difference between toughness and vitality that matters only to mesmers is that illusions inherit your toughness, but NOT your vitality. So adding toughness makes all your images last longer as well.
Carrion may make sense on other classes with a better mix of personal power damage, plenty of crit from traits/etc. (or easier access to fury), and/or non-crit-dependent methods of applying conditions. For mesmers, I don’t really see it; we don’t have regular fury or ‘natural’ crit traits, and condition application without Sharper Images is pretty woeful. The best I can imagine is a Staff/scepter/torch clone-death hybrid build, maybe 10/10/30/20/0 or something.
I tried clone death build. Zergging PvE events with sigil of stamina (refill endurance on kill). Can’t tag. Not worth it.
If they make one of the dissipation traits do some damage or at least consistently applying a damaging condition maybe it works. As it is now? No.
I want it to make sense right away, then another sense later. Murkiness =/= quality "
- CCP Abraxis
The better question would be: Rampager vs Rabbid .
BNF-Bitte nicht füttern-
Smallscale <3 !
On a side note, I know the feeling. Friend asked me to teach them how to play mesmer, scheduled for a couple of hours later and in the meantime someone told them carrion was the best set for mesmer… so they came in full carrion exotics without knowing anything about the class… worse they wanted to learn shatter…
^lol…/facepalm
The other difference between toughness and vitality that matters only to mesmers is that illusions inherit your toughness, but NOT your vitality. So adding toughness makes all your images last longer as well.
Carrion may make sense on other classes with a better mix of personal power damage, plenty of crit from traits/etc. (or easier access to fury), and/or non-crit-dependent methods of applying conditions. For mesmers, I don’t really see it; we don’t have regular fury or ‘natural’ crit traits, and condition application without Sharper Images is pretty woeful. The best I can imagine is a Staff/scepter/torch clone-death hybrid build, maybe 10/10/30/20/0 or something.
I tried clone death build. Zergging PvE events with sigil of stamina (refill endurance on kill). Can’t tag. Not worth it.
If they make one of the dissipation traits do some damage or at least consistently applying a damaging condition maybe it works. As it is now? No.
By zerging pve events, do you mean Champ farming in frostgorge??
I occasionally have problems tagging. I guess it just depends on how much health the npc has. Champions aren’t usually a problem.
Really I would like to see Anet implement dual specs like RIFT or WoW.
One for PvE, one for WvW—all at a push of a button and 5 minute cooldown.
The other difference between toughness and vitality that matters only to mesmers is that illusions inherit your toughness, but NOT your vitality. So adding toughness makes all your images last longer as well.
Carrion may make sense on other classes with a better mix of personal power damage, plenty of crit from traits/etc. (or easier access to fury), and/or non-crit-dependent methods of applying conditions. For mesmers, I don’t really see it; we don’t have regular fury or ‘natural’ crit traits, and condition application without Sharper Images is pretty woeful. The best I can imagine is a Staff/scepter/torch clone-death hybrid build, maybe 10/10/30/20/0 or something.
I tried clone death build. Zergging PvE events with sigil of stamina (refill endurance on kill). Can’t tag. Not worth it.
If they make one of the dissipation traits do some damage or at least consistently applying a damaging condition maybe it works. As it is now? No.
By zerging pve events, do you mean Champ farming in frostgorge??
I occasionally have problems tagging. I guess it just depends on how much health the npc has. Champions aren’t usually a problem.
Really I would like to see Anet implement dual specs like RIFT or WoW.
One for PvE, one for WvW—all at a push of a button and 5 minute cooldown.
No. with champ farms you need to use a single target build (or just autoattack with sword). I’m talking about mass aggro events. If you go on WvW and you want to tag you will also need quick aoe bursts on short cycles. Currently there isn’t a reliable way for mesmer to sustain this.
I want it to make sense right away, then another sense later. Murkiness =/= quality "
- CCP Abraxis
carrion has
%26 more effective power
almost equal effective health pool
less 55 or smth condition damage
i was prefer carrion before conf nerf as this build in wvw raids with another runes.. cuz like more health pool as we regroup and full my hp with blasts.. and conditions as other confusions was make it easier with high ehp and more dps.. however with reflect rabid works better.. check here http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60838-math-damage-reduction-toughness-and-vitality/
its about how u position yourself, your environment and skills, playstyle..
“There Is No Shame In Not Knowing; the Shame Lies In Not Finding Out.”
carrion has
%26 more effective power
almost equal effective health pool
less 55 or smth condition damagei was prefer carrion before conf nerf as this build in wvw raids with another runes.. cuz like more health pool as we regroup and full my hp with blasts.. and conditions as other confusions was make it easier with high ehp and more dps.. however with reflect rabid works better.. check here http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60838-math-damage-reduction-toughness-and-vitality/
its about how u position yourself, your environment and skills, playstyle..
You forgot a few stats there.
Carrion: 13% crit chance, 1886 armor
Rabid: 42% crit chance, 2497 armor
The effective hp on buildcraft is pretty much a useless metric. It doesn’t take into account a lot of factors that really affect a build’s survivability.
Use a mix of both. I use full carrion armor with rabid weapons and jewelry. That gives me 38% crit which I find to be plenty and I have 18k health which is accetable.
I don’t like using full carrion or full rabid because rabid leaves me with 15k health which is very vulnerable to burst and full carrion gives me a huge health pool that is hard to replenish once it’s down.
Mix and match carrion/rabid.
Use a mix of both. I use full carrion armor with rabid weapons and jewelry. That gives me 38% crit which I find to be plenty and I have 18k health which is accetable.
I don’t like using full carrion or full rabid because rabid leaves me with 15k health which is very vulnerable to burst and full carrion gives me a huge health pool that is hard to replenish once it’s down.
Mix and match carrion/rabid.
A better choice woudl be to mix and match rabid and dire though, that way you don’t have the wasted stat of power.
Use a mix of both. I use full carrion armor with rabid weapons and jewelry. That gives me 38% crit which I find to be plenty and I have 18k health which is accetable.
I don’t like using full carrion or full rabid because rabid leaves me with 15k health which is very vulnerable to burst and full carrion gives me a huge health pool that is hard to replenish once it’s down.
Mix and match carrion/rabid.
A better choice woudl be to mix and match rabid and dire though, that way you don’t have the wasted stat of power.
Yeah, I’ve considered doing this but I’m only sitting on 50 laurels and considering I already have full ascended rabid and rampager jewelry it’s really hard to want to buy the dire jewels.
This is a valid suggestion though no doubt.
I don’t feel that power is completely wasted though. Some upfront pressure on shatters is not a bad idea. If you go completely dire you’re going to have completely useless front end shatter damage.
It’s like the nice thing about Rampager is you have the front end shatter crit dmg & the back end confusion damage. Problem with rampager though is your so squishy one good warrior hammer strike can put you half health easily.
(edited by Godmoney.2048)
Torch build here. Like Godmoney I too run a different mix of Carrion armor/weapons and Rabid trinkets (but have Carrion gems in them). Though I’m only using them for the toughness and condition stats, so I may switch them out for Dire trinkets. I’ll try to address the common points, but this is only specific to my build.
Defence
Constant Blinds, Confuse, Stealth, Blinks, and Staff mini-Blinks means I should have just enough defence to slip away from any surprise physical attacks, but do nothing to help mitigate condition damage stacks on me (except for picking up Regen from Stealth). We already have so many tools to slip away from physical attacks. Because of this, I picked up more Carrion pieces than Rabid, and possibly taking away Rabid all together for Dire. Protection/Aegis from Chaos Armor and Prismatic Understanding helps with the lower sub-2.5k defence.
Precision
Like I mentioned I only picked up Rabids for the defence. I have 0 Dueling in my build, meaning no initial Precision/CritDmg. So any Precision picked up from Rabid trinkets are negligible and a waste. Also because of this, I lose Vigor. But like I’ve said, we have so many ways of slipping away that losing Vigor may not be as devastating as, let’s say, a clunking Guardian losing Vigor.
Torch Mage and Staff Warlock Phantasms are the worst with Sharper Images since they only throw out a single bolt vs. a Berserker or a Duelist. Precision has no place in my build.
Health
Additionally, toughness indirectly increases the strength of your heals, while vitality decreases it. The same strength heal heals for a lower % of your hp with a lot of vit, making it indirectly weaker.
-[Incoming life and economics lesson]-
I have $5 off coupon. Would I save more if I buy something that’s $10 or something that’s $10,000? Buy the $10 thing and save 50% or buy the $10,000 thing and save 0.05%? Neither, it’s the same savings because at the end of the day you’re still saving $5.
You don’t want to think in terms on percentages in this situation. Just because you get a higher perceived heal does not mean you heal more. In my particular build (near 20k health with 0 Inspiration trait) I still use the 4k heal Mirror. Sure the perceived heal looks very low, but it’s still going to be 4k even if I have 15k health.
So in the end, there is no real answer. Almost like how everything else is answered, the real answer is…!
It depends on your build and your play style.
-[Incoming life and economics lesson]-
I have $5 off coupon. Would I save more if I buy something that’s $10 or something that’s $10,000? Buy the $10 thing and save 50% or buy the $10,000 thing and save 0.05%? Neither, it’s the same savings because at the end of the day you’re still saving $5.You don’t want to think in terms on percentages in this situation. Just because you get a higher perceived heal does not mean you heal more. In my particular build (near 20k health with 0 Inspiration trait) I still use the 4k heal Mirror. Sure the perceived heal looks very low, but it’s still going to be 4k even if I have 15k health.
So here’s why you’re not quite right.
When you have high toughness, each point of hp represents a higher amount of health, because it takes more raw damage to remove each point. Due to that effect, heals are more effective with high toughness.
With high vit and low toughness, you have 2 interactions. The first is that each point of hp is worth less health than with high toughness, and so your heals are less effective just because of that. However, on top of that you also have the issue of heals healing for a lower % of your health.
Now, while this doesn’t make an immediate difference, it ends up being very impactful in how your build is able to sustain effectively. Even if at 40% Hp you have as much health as a high toughness build at 70% hp, your 40% is worth less. With lower health you are targeted more often, finishing moves (such as heartseeker) do more damage, and so ultimately your sustainability is significantly reduced.
Going full Rabid is just as foolish as full Carrion. While Pyro is correct about healing being increased via Toughness I also would never run full Rabid again considering tons of classes can easily cleave 15k in half.
As I walked my dog tonight I also remembered that Ether Feast is almost too much a heal for a full toughness (rabid) build. I really like to have my health around 18k. 15k health is just far too susceptible to condi’s and burst. I’ll roll a full toughness build If I’m healing, otherwise some carrion is well worth the very minimal loss to efficiency with healing especially considering a full condi spec isn’t a healing spec. Ether feast is such a strong heal that often in full toughness you’ll waste 1000 healing on over healing.
I would never roll full rabid or full carrion after playing thousands of hours as a condi mesmer. Either choice is TOO much in either direction.
On a side note: have theu released Rabid/Dire ascended accessories? So far I’m using carrion neckalce with exotic rings and earrings
I’m usually typing on my phone
On a side note: have theu released Rabid/Dire ascended accessories? So far I’m using carrion neckalce with exotic rings and earrings
There is rabid and dire ascended jewelery now. I really really wish they would add carrion ascended jewels but alas it doesn’t appear they’re going to.
So here’s why you’re not quite right.
When you have high toughness, each point of hp represents a higher amount of health, because it takes more raw damage to remove each point. Due to that effect, heals are more effective with high toughness.
With high vit and low toughness, you have 2 interactions. The first is that each point of hp is worth less health than with high toughness, and so your heals are less effective just because of that. However, on top of that you also have the issue of heals healing for a lower % of your health.
Now, while this doesn’t make an immediate difference, it ends up being very impactful in how your build is able to sustain effectively. Even if at 40% Hp you have as much health as a high toughness build at 70% hp, your 40% is worth less. With lower health you are targeted more often, finishing moves (such as heartseeker) do more damage, and so ultimately your sustainability is significantly reduced.
No argument here, I agree on all points. I only have an issue when you talk about healing percents (or I’m possibly just misunderstanding).
Yes your point is true, the 4k heal is more effective with toughness because it’s harder to chew away at. But strictly in terms of only Healing Power and Vitality, the heals are the same. Healing 4k at 15k health is the same as healing 4k at 90k health. Yes it may not visually rise up much on the health globe, but it doesn’t change the fact that the amount healed is the same. This is an important concept especially for Zerkers who take comfort in their chunky heals. It may seem like a 60% heal, but it’s only like that because of their dangerously low health pool, and many new players don’t realize that.
Yes, with Carrion and Rabid having equivalent health, the Carrion will have a lower hp%, making them more targetable for opportunists or percent-specific skills like Heartseeker. But if a pet with a thousand conditions in your group gets Epidemic-ed, visually having more health won’t matter because now it’s just a numbers game, percents won’t help you. Yes having lower health pool means heals appear more “bursty-er” which destroys enemy moral (can’t count how many times my heart drops when a Guardian pops their Signet of Resolve and goes from 20% to 100%). But those are strategy techniques for another discussion.
Ether feast is such a strong heal that often in full toughness you’ll waste 1000 healing on over healing.
I actually find it rare to see people hitting their heals early, it’s mostly when they’re at half way. When I watch Mesmer videos, the most common mistakes with Ether Feast is casting it after a shatter (why??) or completely ignore their skillbar and not noticing a readied clone/phantasm. At least spit out a couple of illusions, and then heal! Most players just treat Ether Feast as any other healing skill.
Just as an FYI, I run condie builds with that rabid/dire mix trinkets. With those I stay around 20k hp, which is confortable for me.
As far as tPvP is concerned Rabid is just objectively better than Carrion in every possible aspect. PvE/WvW might benefit some from sprinkling in Carrion for more Vit, but power is of no value to a condition Mesmer.
As a Mesmer Rabid provides the following benefits over Carrion:
1) More proc’s from Sharper Images
2) More Condi Damage from the 5% (10% if undead runes) toughness→ Condi Damage
3) Harder to kill illusions
4) Harder to kill Mesmer in most circumstances (the effective HP of the toughness + heal skill is higher for a Rabid than for a Carrion Mesmer) The vitality boost from carrion is only a buffer of a few seconds at the start of a fight. The longer the time in combat the more toughness is better than vitality.
The only objective advantage that Carrion has is slightly more direct damage from phantasms and your attacks, neither of which deal much in the way of direct damage on a condition Mesmer.
In addition to the above the Rabid Mesmer will also be objectively better in most downed state scenarios. He will usually be harder to kill by cleave while rezzing or stomping than his Carrion counter-part would be.
for me.. simply
vitality is good vs burst and cond damages.. making bigger Health pool cuz of thoughness damage reduction effectiveness decrease how much u ve armor.. and it makes role how much u get hp from others.. as Tou>vita phantasms and with heal effectiveness.. but sometimes u can miss heals cuz of u ve already full health.. example on regroups heals with blasts would enough to refill wariors ofc u re not warrior.. so math by yourself how much u can get armor ignore damage (cond retal steal health) and how big heal u can get in periods and how burst or dps u can get.. play and experiance it.. cuz everybody try to answer with their own glasses.. as me..
power > prec with %damage(cuz 21prec means %1 critchance and prec use your power stat as well and your critdamage makes big role there).. Prec>Power with Critchance(mean as traits, sigils, foods, etc..)
and other things as well..
“There Is No Shame In Not Knowing; the Shame Lies In Not Finding Out.”