Most PvE power-ranger builds follow a similar setup: Close to this one
You’ll nearly always take marksmanship for the huge damage modifiers there. Similarly skirmishing has a choice between vicious quarry or quickdraw, which are both amazing overall. The last traitline is a little hit and miss, beastmastery offers the most straight up damage, but druid is a very strong choice for the team buffing.
For weapons, everything revolves around sword/axe either on its own or with a weapon swap of some kind. Sw/Axe, Sw/Axe+WH, Sw/Axe+GS and Sword/Axe+Longbow are all viable in their own right.
Our power utility skills are terrible, you’ll nearly always want signet of the wild, but the other slots are almost pointless. It’s usually best to just bring some spirits for team buffing.
Once Soulbeast launches it looks like Sw/Axe + GS will be the best way to go, and should hopefully be pretty strong!
Soulbeast in 100 words:
Overall the spec feels great and opens up many options for PvE. My criticism is that it lacks a reason to unmerge with the pet, encouraging gameplay where one pet is camped permanently. This is due to a bug affecting our pet conditions (Following swap/merge) and the overall power of the attribute bonus when merged. My suggestions would be to either allow the bonus to linger upon exiting the merged-form, or have it applied temporarily upon entry (Similar to Always Angry ). These changes would facilitate a more dynamic form of gameplay where utilizing the class mechanic actively is encouraged.
I also made a short video detailing my thoughts on the Soulbeast.
I believe double orb aggro is just if one person happens to be closest to two orbs simultaneously. This can happen quite often if you walk directly to the corner of the room (It’s better to stand slightly to one side when they spawn).
For the greens, the first green that appears seems to do absolutely nothing. For the second green, the damage is spread out between all players in the green:
1 player = 80% damage
2 players = 40% damage each
3 players = 26.7% damage each
4 players = 20% damage each
5 players = 16% damage each
The weird thing is that the damage tick happens when the second green is 75% full, and it seems like there is absolutely no point staying in the green after that point. Especially since shared agony deals 10% damage per tick. Doesn’t seem like the damage can be distorted either.
I have a feeling the mechanic is bugged atm, guessing there’s only supposed to be one green with the damage tick occuring at the end, but the animation timings might be out of sync.
Feels like ranger is in a really good spot for all game-modes at the moment, so I’m not expecting any major buffs or nerfs.
Some things i’d really like to see for PvE:
Overall goal would be to increase the viability of power ranger while maintaining condi druid/ranger in their current state.
- Mainhand axe power buffs being applied to PvE too.
- Some offhand dagger buffs to bring it in line with SB.
- Glyph of unity reworked similar to the necro plaguelands treatment.
- 10-man spirits (I’m actually not sure if this will be a good change).
- Further increase the damage of GS Autos + Maul.
- The duration of the “Light on your feet” bonus to be extended to 10 seconds.
- Some buffs to power utilities, it’s still crazy that sharpening stone is probably the best power damage utility when it literally only applies bleeds.
Not ranger specific but would affect us a lot:
- Further nerfs to racial skills (Sylvan hound).
- The active stack of regen now prioritises based on healing power.
Are you applying 25 stacks of vulnerability to the golem? It’s an easy step to miss but makes a huge difference overall (25%!).
The amount of solo content in this game vastly outweighs the content which encourages players to socialise and group up. So I don’t think there’s ever a risk of solo players being left behind, particularly since all major story elements are served through either solo instance style content or open-world meta events.
The only place where grouping up is required would be raids/T4 fractals. But the only thing you might miss by not raiding is the ability to unlock spirit shards via your mastery track. In which case give me a poke and I can easily help you unlock that (EU).
(edited by AnariiUK.7409)
I’m sure the developers have detailed metrics which they can use to evaluate how the playerbase as a whole is responding to the current encounters. I think the most important thing will be getting reliable feedback from a spectrum of players, all at different skill levels. Properly balanced, encounters can be fun for both newer and veteran players (VG is a perfect example in my opinion). Issues start to arise when high DPS makes fights extremely easy (Such as Cairn and Mursaat overseer which are both < 2 minute fights). The difference between high and low DPS is likely only getting bigger, so I feel CM’s are a fantastic method of balancing fights around both extremes.
Personally, I’d love to see more encounters balanced around the difficulty of Matthias, Sabetha, Xera and Deimos but with repeatable CM’s which add mechanical difficulty and balance around a higher base DPS. Just a small incentive like an extra roll on the loot table each week would hopefully encourage more players to go for the CM’s.
Red = 540,705 HP
Green = 722,579 HP
Blue = 540,705 HP
Trailblazers condi-ranger is probably your best bet if you want to be super tanky while still doing high damage. Something like this makes any open world hero point super easy to solo (2172 toughness, 1633 vitality). It will do more damage than the full Berserker ranger also.
Keep in mind, Trailblazers is expensive to get unless you raid/fractal often though.
I believe there are three main “regen” druid builds, all with their pros and cons. As you say, they all aim to have >10s regen sources to outprioritise the chrono (Traited healing spring is >10s at 66.67% boon duration). I’ll try to detail them below:
Build 1) Zero-toughness with concentration sigil
- Full Magi’s with concentration sigils on either one or both weapons. The idea is that you simply drop your healing spring after proccing the sigil of concentration (Easily visible as an hourglass icon on your buff bar). I’m not sure why you’d need a Minstrel’s backpiece, as your base boon duration is already 35% (+33% from the sigil) = 68%.
- You can run the new magnanimous tuning crystals for an extra ~12% boon duration but it’s not required.
- Optimal when tanking is an issue / you want to avoid toughness, basically only really Xera/Deimos where this could be an issue. High vitality isn’t fantastic when faced with % based mechanics though (VG greens, Matthias Hadouken etc).
- You only really need a sigil of concentration on one set (i.e staff), just be mindful which set you’re on when swapping.
Build 2) Zero-toughness with no weapon swapping
- Similar to build #1, just doesn’t require micromanagement of sigil of concentration. You gain water sigils however you give up quite a lot of healing power.
- You could take platinum doubloons instead of water sigils, allowing you to take an ascended Magi’s amulet. Effectively trading a water sigil for some healing power.
- Overall I don’t really recommend this one, it’s not too hard to keep an eye on the sigil procs.
- Note: You MUST use magnanimous tuning crystals for this to work properly.
Build 3) Maximum healing with no regard for toughness
- For maximum healing output where there’s no toughness tank and/or the druid will be tanking.
- Don’t need to worry about weapon swapping.
- In my opinion this unarguably the optimal healing build for Matthias, Cairn, Samarog, Sloth etc where toughness is a non-issue..
- It works fine for tanking VG/Xera/Deimos since you’re basically unkillable, but PUGs probably aren’t too open to the idea of a druid tanking.
- Note: You MUST use magnanimous tuning crystals for this to work properly. Also it assumes full healing power infusions.
With all three of these builds you shouldn’t need the fern hound pet unless you’re kiting far away from the boss (i.e Cairn/Deimos). In which case it can be useful as a regen source (It’s regen scales with both your own and the pet’s boon duration).
Hope that helps!
(edited by AnariiUK.7409)
Sylvan hound is best-in-slot for PvE single-target currently, making it the best choice for most raid bosses. But I don’t expect it to stay that way for very long. Personally I wouldn’t reroll your character just to use it, since they will likely have to do another pass on broken racial skills in the next balance update (Avatar of Melandru is hilariously overpowered for condi thieves currently too).
I’d just treat gearing up as a priority system. If you’re raiding or doing fractals you’ll likely get more ascended boxes than you can possibly use, so just slowly gear up with the rarer sets.
I’d recommend every Druid eventually has the following:
- Magi’s (Should be top priority if raiding)
- Viper’s (Top priority if fractals or open world are your thing)
- Minstrel’s (Super good for experienced raiding)
- Berserker’s (Great for open world, but lacks in other places).
Niche sets:
- Apothecary’s (For low man raids – condihealer setup).
- Commander’s (I believe this is a thing for power based WvW builds).
- Trailblazers (Cheesy but fun for condi based WvW builds).
There are a ton of viable sets, but the top two are really all you need for most PvE content.
Tested this out with Storm spirit (easier to see the vuln stacking). I was definitely applying multiple 3 stacks of vuln on enemies, and the storm spirit effect icon didn’t actually go away. It appeared to be refreshing every 3 seconds, not 10.
So what’s actually going on?
The buff icon which you see on your bar is refreshed every 3 seconds, and lasts for a maximum of 6 seconds. For storm spirit, you can only proc the passive vulnerability effect once for every 10 seconds that you have the buff on your bar, due to the effect recharge ICD.
As for why you’re seeing multiple procs within 10 seconds, I can think of two reasons:
1) Is your pet also attacking the target? The pet will also get the spirit buff, and that carries its own internal cooldown.
2) Is your condition duration higher that 100%? If so then your vuln will last longer than 10 seconds and it might look like you’re getting multiple procs.
1 of each profession, 10 spot is for selling. Perfect balance. Ofc this would also require all 9 professions to be desirable.
Strangely I feel like this would result in one of the safest squad setups for 9-man sell raids:
Team 1: Condi PS, Chronomancer, Herald (Protection + Extra might), Condi/Power Engi, Condi/Power Ele, Condi/Power Thief, Condi Necro, DH.
Team 2: Healer Druid
Team 3: Buyer
Tons of flexibility to switch between a condition focused or power focused squad. With lots of on-demand utility to cheese certain encounters.
Any videos of this benchmark yet?
It can possibly be improved but I’m all out of ideas.
Ok thanks. I thought that’s what it was, but I wanted confirmation. Is that cooldown separate for each ally, or total?
It’s a seperate ICD for everyone who gets the spirit buff.
My Fern hound is simply called “Green”.
Partly because he’s green, but it’s also an anagram of “Regen” which is why I use him.
It’s the internal cooldown on the passive proc of the spirit. For example the sun spirit can apply 2 stacks of burning every 8 seconds that you have the buff on you.
Frost spirit is the only utility spirit which doesn’t have this limitation, which is partly why it’s so good. There was a patch that added it to frost spirit, but thankfully the outcry from the community made Arenanet reverse the change very quickly.
From a raid perspective I’d like to see:
1) Grace of the land nerfed to only boost power damage by 2% per stack
Short term, this would help to equalise the gap between power and condition damage right now. It also opens the door for another class to get the condition-damage equivalent down the line. Druid is a little overtuned from a support perspective so this would at least give us some competition.
2) “Sic ’Em!” reworked to grant a stacking power damage modifier upon successful pet attacks
Our power builds are pitifully weak, and the lack of any power based utilities are partly why. “Sic ’Em!” is currently so bad in PvE that it’s outdamaged by Sharpening stone, on a power build. It could keep its current functionality along with this effect and still not be overpowered. Our other shouts all work fine as defensive tools.
3) Buff Glyph of Unity’s CA and non-CA forms.
The fact that this is an elite skill which is only used for its interaction with verdant etching is embarassing. Personally outside of CA I’d like to see it function similar to DH’s F1 with Big Game Hunter traited, something like +5% damage to enemies which are currently tethered. The CA version could either use a reduction in the ICD (0.5s perhaps) or an increase in the healed amount, to encourage tactical usage.
Also they need to fix the double cast bug for this skill.
4) Make Pink Moa great again!
Well, not back to it’s pre-nerf form. But at least give it the same skill as the black-moa. It’s always annoying to be reminded that the best small-target CC pet is locked behind Guild Wars 1 achievements.
That’s about it for realistic changes. If I’m being wishful then I’d really like to see an elite-trap that’s condi based. Just something slightly better than Sylvan hound so we don’t have to play Sylvari all day.
Lastly they should probably fix SB #2, it’s been bugged since the last patch to hit 10x instead of 5x (But only applies 5 poison stacks strangely enough).
Something like this should be extremely good if you want to get an early taste for condi-ranger. You don’t need leatherworker at 400, and it should last you until you can craft ascended Viper’s.
I wouldn’t recommend crafting exotic Viper’s since it’s so expensive and quickly replaced, you do get some free Viper’s from the HoT story though I believe.
Just buy most of the armour/weapons on the trading post (Normally they are between 50s to 3g). You can get the more expensive bits from the karma merchants in Orr or the dungeon vendors.
Once you get your recipes unlocked and crafting levelled it’s very easy to upgrade piece by piece into full ascended Viper’s. (Can also do fractals or raids for easy ascended boxes).
(edited by AnariiUK.7409)
It depends what you’re using it for. For open world purposes it performs fairly well since you don’t recieve many buffs from other players. It’s also not bad in dungeons and low level fractals.
Most of the DPS benchmarks you see only really apply to raids, where classes scale differently thanks to there being so many buffs available. For raids, power ranger is currently the lowest DPS class in the game, slightly behind power mesmer last time I checked. I would recommend you get a healing set if you want to raid.
So basically, it’s perfectly fine everywhere except raids and maybe high level fractals (Depends on the group). Just take your time gearing up and you’ll have plenty of ascended boxes before long.
Opening up recruitment again now that things have settled down a bit.
Huge apologies to anyone that applied before that we didn’t get around to. If you’re still interested in joining then please send me a mail (AnariiUK.7409) and I can take a look at your old application. Or feel free to submit a fresh one if you’d like!
They could in theory make a boss that hits hard with attacks which are unblockable, undodgeable and undistortable. They could even take it a step further and place a debuff on the tank preventing them from being healed from outside sources.
That said, why encourage passive defences such as toughness, vitality or healing power when active defences such as well timed evasions, blocks or distorts are far more interesting, involved and challenging by comparison?
Realistically I’d like to see a boss which has enough pressure to encourage the use of the defensive stats in addition to the active damage mitigation abilities.
Ranger is currently powerful (Almost overpowered!), versatile and fairly simple to play in all aspects of PvE.
For open world exploring and dungeons, power sets are good to have.
For fractals, raids, world-bosses or just in general; condi is the go-to damage set.
For raids, healing sets are very useful to have and can be acquired very cheaply (Exotic Magi’s from the AC dungeon). Healing is mostly only used in raids, but can be useful during some of the bigger world bosses.
I would make a condi set first, as it’s extremely good at everything. If you want to raid a healing set should be your second priority.
2k dps less isn’t viable…..
Perhaps I worded this quite poorly in my original post; I’m not saying it’s unviable because it can pull 32k DPS. I’m saying it’s unviable because there exists a far more practical and realistic build that already achieves much better results in almost every situation.
This build could in theory work extremely well for PUG Deimos strategy where the DPS group ranges him from the center. However I’m unable to test that out.
Is that game breaking? Would you a be a complete liability now with that spec?
It’s not gamebreaking, and personally I wouldn’t mind someone running this build. But at all current encounters (Perhaps with the exception of PUG Deimos) you would be a liability compared to someone running the alternative axe/torch build. That’s not my opinion, that’s just a fact based on the performance of the build.
I have to say, and please, take this the wrong way because it’s how I mean it, “People like you are the reason ANET was so against DPS meters.”
This has nothing to do with DPS meters. I’m simply comparing the performance of one build in a vacuum against another build in a vacuum. There’s nothing elitist or offensive about objective comparison. By all means, go and test this out against some real raid encounters, I would genuinely be super interested to hear about your results.
32k DPS sounds extremely viable to me?
I think he meant that DPS isn’t viable because you need to be flanking. Which makes it very situational for SB to reach 32k DPS.
This exactly, it’s not unviable in the sense that it does bad damage. More due to the fact that it’s extremely unpractical and almost completely overshadowed by the quick-draw Axe/Torch + Shortbow setup, even if you assume 100% flanking uptime.
That said, I feel there might be some merit to the new trait, but it isn’t likely going to be used for full DPS PvE builds. It’s a shame but I think condi-ranger may drop out of favour in high-end groups now, condi-thief was buffed (Madness I know) and is pulling almost 40k now and Engi still beats us outright.
(edited by AnariiUK.7409)
I did some testing with a similar setup however I opted to use rune of the afflicted to boost bleed/poison duration while ignoring burning altogether. I also opted for Marksmanship as a third traitline, just due to the +25% power damage modifiers. I was also using Sylvan hound as the elite skill. All together, with full infusions I was reaching about 32k DPS on the golem, which is about 2k DPS behind the axe/torch setup.
So unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be very viable, especially since you need 100% flanking uptime to reach the best numbers.
thnx a lot for the replies! yeah.. 17k is a bit low:( but at least i know that as power im not screwing up dps wise by not using a bow.
think ill keep my ranger for fractals and dungeons and use my warrior for raiding. not planning on changing all my zerk gear for healing or vipers (which also costs like triple, and im leather too so… double triple:( )
Anyhow, thanx for all the input guys, really appreciate it!
Unfortunately it doesn’t involve a greatsword, but if you really really want to raid on Druid, a super cheap option is just getting some exotic Magi’s armour from the AC dungeon (Comes with free Monk runes), which you can then use to play a healer.
Nobody really minds if the healer plays using exotics, since healing power matters so little overall compared to just getting enough +10% healing effects.
There is a power druid build that makes use of sword/axe + greatsword to pull about 15-17k DPS (Video here). It’s only slightly behind the sword/axe + longbow or sword/warhorn + sword/axe variants.
Some quick feedback your build in raids:
- You’ll most likely want an axe instead of warhorn, as it brings quite a bit more damage and utility.
- You just want full Berserker’s stats for power Druid, ranger is pretty tanky already so you don’t really need any extra vitality.
- Scholar runes are great for power druid, you can run Monk runes too if you want more healing.
- Just take sigils of force/air on your greatsword for raids, you should be at 100% crit chance anyway so the sigil of intelligence won’t do anything.
- Marksmanship is a far better traitline for power-druid than beastmastery as it has +25% damage in modifiers.
- Ideally you want as many glyphs as possible, so this means taking both the elite and healing glyph. This is to keep GoTL (Grace of the land) stacks high when out of your avatar.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it though, right now it will be extremely difficult to run this build as PUGs generally look for a full healer (w/ Staff), and organised groups will generally only want the condition build. Here’s hoping the next balance patch will bring some much needed buffs for power-druid.
Which game modes do you normally play?
Condi is only really fantastic for instanced PvE right now (Fractals and Raids). Everywhere else a power build based around longbow and sword/dagger should be fairly good.
Don’t those lift you in the air too? Pretty sure I didn’t miss any greens either way as everyone else was still stacking next to me and making no effort to move even during the spike damage. Actually the pattern where he spawns ~6 circles of equal size and immediately charges up felt reasonably slow most of the time.
There is a bug in his second phase (75% -> 50% HP) where his green circle attack is completely unavoidable, could that be what’s damaging you? His explosion during the green circle attack will only lift you into the air if you don’t have stability.
The only way to avoid this bug is to push him quickly to phase 3 with good DPS.
Haven’t heard of or experienced this bug at all. Are you sure you didn’t just accidentally step on a 2+ man field alone?
Fairly certain, it’s the attack where all greens are the same size which tends to bug out. However, looking at a few solos it doesn’t seem to be restricted to only the second phase. We duo’d Cairn yesterday for a bit of fun and repeatedly had the bug on each cycle during the second phase. It seems like it randomly occurs, but if it happens once then it will repeat each time his cycle of attacks repeat.
Basically what happens is: The greens will spawn momentarily while he’s still doing his autos, then they will dissapear. He’ll then start the big explosion channel. Even if you stand where a green was previously, you’ll be hit by the explosion. The greens then reappear shortly after his explosion is finished.
Don’t those lift you in the air too? Pretty sure I didn’t miss any greens either way as everyone else was still stacking next to me and making no effort to move even during the spike damage. Actually the pattern where he spawns ~6 circles of equal size and immediately charges up felt reasonably slow most of the time.
There is a bug in his second phase (75% -> 50% HP) where his green circle attack is completely unavoidable, could that be what’s damaging you? His explosion during the green circle attack will only lift you into the air if you don’t have stability.
The only way to avoid this bug is to push him quickly to phase 3 with good DPS.
Something like this should work pretty well for an open-world staff/staff power build. It works perfectly fine with exotic gear.
You could drop skirmishing for beastmastery when solo, but skirmishing is very nice to have for group events. Same goes for frost spirit, feel free to swap it out for anything if needed.
Power builds generally remain the best for open-world exploring since the mobs have low hp. That said, pretty much everything should work in the end. Since you’re not fully buffed the difference in damage between safer and more-DPS focused builds becomes much less.
If staff is your thing, then I’d really encourage having a look at the power builds. Double staff is actually fairly powerful and should be much better for open world content where enemies tend to die before you’ve had chance to ramp up conditions.
As for the condi build, it should work but your damage wont be spectacular. Double staff condi is about half the damage of the Axe/Torch + Shortbow builds under ideal conditions. For open world you’ll be lacking crit chance, so sharpened edges will be weaker, furthermore ancient seeds doesn’t proc against champion tier mobs so you’ll lose a bit more against enemies where you really need the damage.
To improve the build, I’d strongly recommend getting some vipers gear for condition duration as that will help you out greatly against tougher monsters.
I think you’re taking things a little extreme though, a condi engineer doing 35k with a complex rotation is fine, just as Sc/Wh ele needing excellent positioning and timing by most of its damage being a 3s channel is equally fine.
What isn’t fine is when builds that are much much easier to play pull damage greater than or equal to these especially when they bring as much other stuff. I don’t think easier builds should do as low as 25k unless the rotation is essentially press 1 or 2 buttons but easier rotations like condi war and condi ranger doing 30k give or take I would say hits that nice middle ground.
Then you have choices and trade offs, do you take the solid, super easy damage options which might take longer but you lose less from people sucking or do you up the complexity a little for a bigger reward? Then you have the players who can trully excell on a more difficult rotation and positioning build pulling those higher numbers but at a bigger risk if they fluff up.
Ideally every class would have a super easy DPS build hitting 25k without being taxing followed by an increase in damage based on complexity of the rotation, positioning and skill usage up to a complex build hitting within 1-2k of other classes most complex builds. That’s an ideal world though but there needs to be an appropriate risk reward and right now it’s off on a few classes and builds imo.
Edit: About your quoted paragraph. If, in your example, thief did the same damage as condi engineer but the latter is considerably harder to play then what is the incentive to play or learn engineer? If a more complex rotation has no benefit to it then you get a situation where people don’t play and will instantly kick them as it’s not worth the risk when they can get Joe Hamfist to play the fotm easy play get same damage build and have much less risk.
I fully agree with your overall opinion, but generally speaking I feel like the issue is more with class perception rather than performance. Right now you are rewarded for playing mechanically difficult classes.
Condition engineer already significantly outperforms condition ranger, even using a relatively simple rotation – mainly thanks to the ~3-4k DPS boost from PD. Furthermore it brings far more utility in the form of blinds or CC.
Furthermore, even an average elementalist should have no trouble out DPSing every other class at half of the raid encounters in the game. Again with undocumented DPS gains due to the static charge on overload air. You get a huge pay-off for being good at the class.
It’s no secret that condi-ranger is currently the pug “flavour of the month”. But pugs rarely look past the DPS number which they see on their screen from arc or BGDM, both of which tend to make ranger look extremely appealing since the entirety of its DPS contribution is personal and not group based. It’s an extremely slipperly slope to start knee-jerk balancing based on the these uninformed perceptions of what performs best.
In terms of every class needing a hard and an easy build, I’d argue that condi-druid is the “hard” equivalent of condi-ranger, it’s overall “effective” DPS is also higher as a result.
(edited by AnariiUK.7409)
Wondrouswall did some testing which might help, found here.
Jaguar seems to be the best from the pets tested, but Lynx wasn’t tested with a power set-up. It should be fairly close either way.
I like when people think condi ranger 31k on mursaat overseer is OP but condi thief build getting 38k is no problem. If condi ranger needs a shave then condi thief needs a complete nerf.
How does condi thief gets to 38k from clears the highest iv seen in around 34k do you get so much more from finishers on firr fields? Also if you have any footage pls do link im interested in seeing this.
This (Log) was over a month ago when we were still theorycrafting on optimal comps /builds. Since then I’ve seen it break 40k a couple of times.
Agreed that condi-ranger is fine right now.
Condi-engi is fine too, PD easily covers DPS shortcomings.
Condi-DD seems slightly on the overtuned side but it’s tricky to play at many encounters.
Take root could use a nerf to bring condi-ranger / DD back in line.
I find it difficult to agree that torch is overpowered when condi-ranger is already weaker than many other classes.
Players seems to forget that Engineer provides a passive +150 condition damage buff to the area, which easily accounts for upwards of 4k DPS in a condi-subgroup – meaning you only really need to pull 29k personal DPS to keep up with even very good condi-ranger. I’d also argue that it’s about equally difficult to pull 29k on an engi compared to 33k on a condi-ranger.
Furthermore, condi-daredevil just absolutely destroys condi-ranger DPS at most fights and has a very similar rotation.
And lastly, Elementalist can outpace a condi-ranger extremely well at many encounters (VG/Gorse/Sloth/KC/Samarog etc). I don’t believe that you have to be a skilled Elementalist player to beat condi-rangers at VG/Sloth/KC/Samarog either.
I don’t join many pug raids, but I consistantly see condi-ranger being hamfisted into roles that make no sense just because it’s the flavour of the month right now. For example, joining a Deimos and having condi-rangers sit in the middle, ranging the boss with shortbow.
Basically, easy or not, how can a class be overpowered when it isn’t even best-in-slot for any encounter in the game right now?
I would argue 1 condi ranger is best in slot for VG due to entangle on the seekers. It won’t out DPS tempest due to low armor, but if the speed record on a boss includes the build I would argue that it is best in slot.
That is a very fair point. Right now the fastest VG kill does make use of a condi-ranger.
I do have a gut feeling that it would be slightly more optimal to have the druids running entangle and instead run with 4 Ele’s for DPS. But that might cost some time at the split phase. I’d be really interested to see if 2:30 is possible to beat these days!
I find it difficult to agree that torch is overpowered when condi-ranger is already weaker than many other classes.
Players seems to forget that Engineer provides a passive +150 condition damage buff to the area, which easily accounts for upwards of 4k DPS in a condi-subgroup – meaning you only really need to pull 29k personal DPS to keep up with even very good condi-ranger. I’d also argue that it’s about equally difficult to pull 29k on an engi compared to 33k on a condi-ranger.
Furthermore, condi-daredevil just absolutely destroys condi-ranger DPS at most fights and has a very similar rotation.
And lastly, Elementalist can outpace a condi-ranger extremely well at many encounters (VG/Gorse/Sloth/KC/Samarog etc). I don’t believe that you have to be a skilled Elementalist player to beat condi-rangers at VG/Sloth/KC/Samarog either.
I don’t join many pug raids, but I consistantly see condi-ranger being hamfisted into roles that make no sense just because it’s the flavour of the month right now. For example, joining a Deimos and having condi-rangers sit in the middle, ranging the boss with shortbow.
Basically, easy or not, how can a class be overpowered when it isn’t even best-in-slot for any encounter in the game right now?
We did a few quick (Totally unscientific!) healer tests quite recently.
Test 1) Slothasor Poison
Goal: Keep 5 players alive in the Slothasor poison for as long as possible.
Results:
Minstrels Chrono << Engi < Ventari Rev < Staff Ele (~8,000 HP/S) < Minstrel’s Druid (~10,000 HP/S).
Druid was the strongest healer here, even without being able to use staff autos, in part due to having regular condi-cleanse for the poison.
Test 2) Dry top “Quicksand river”
Goal: Keep 5 players alive in the quicksand river for as long as possible.
Results:
Minstrels Chrono << Engineer = Ventari Rev = Staff Ele (10,000 HP/S) = Minstrel’s Druid (10,000 HP/S).
Nearly all proper healers that we tested peaked out at ~10k HP/S here.
Test 3) Fractal golem challenge
Goal: Keep 5 players alive against 5 champion golems in the fractal lobby for as long as possible.
Results: Everyone failed.
No amount of healing will save you here!
In conclusion, Druid, Ele, Rev and Engi are all very competitive healers and they can all pull higher than 10k HP/S. There aren’t really any realistic scenarios in the game where you’d ever need more that about 5,000 HP/S healing over time, so currently all healers are saturated at about the same potential.
If anything I’d rank the healers as follows:
1. Ventari Rev – Ranged + Bursty heals.
2. Minstrel’s Druid – Ranged + Bursty heals (Restricted by CA).
3. Minstrel’s Staff Ele – Excellent sustained heals, but lacks ranged burst healing.
4. Engineer – Insane healing over time at melee, but no good ranged healing.
5. Minstrel’s Chrono – Overall low healing and bad ranged options.
(edited by AnariiUK.7409)
I don’t really like the idea of being able to stay in avatar indefinitely.
Firstly healing druid is already far too good, it needs nerfing, not buffing.
Secondly, you’d likely still need to exit avatar to drop glyphs (Empowerment for example), so it wouldn’t change much overall.
Warhorn isn’t particularly important for a healing druid (It certainly doesn’t need to be ascended). It’s main function is providing long duration regen through the skill Call of the Wild together with Windborne notes.
The people who care about speed clears are so very few. The average raider is concerned with getting the kills. I don’t argue the meta works well for the top players. I argue it doesn’t for the much larger part of the players who aren’t top.
It works fine for average players:
A mediocre Elementalist will easily beat a very good Ranger at VG/Sloth/KC/Samarog etc.
A mediocre Ranger will easily beat a very good Elementalist at Sabetha/Matthias/MO/Deimos.
If pugs insist on stacking 4x condi ranger at VG then that’s their problem, but please don’t balance the game around that stupidity.
I don’t have statistically significant amounts of data, but every player in my group performs better on a condi ranger than on ele.
Even at encounters that favour elementalist, such as the aforementioned KC, VG, Samarog and Xera (Even Gorse and Sloth to some extent)? If so then I’d seriously start to doubt whether they’ve even looked at the basic Ele rotations, you don’t need double tick wildfires, 12-hit pheonix’s and max-range lightning orbs to top the benchmarks at those encounters. With condi-players picking up your second ice-bow, the rotation becomes almost as simple as the D/Wh one.
Of course we’re in different groups with different players, but my anecdotal evidence is showing much the opposite of yours. Players switching to condi-ranger are really struggling to keep up DPS with some of the other classes (Engi/Condi-DD/Ele mainly), especially without take-root.
I don’t consider myself to play at a particularly high level, just regular guild groups. But for me it genuinely feels like anyone who spends more than a couple of hours learning a class is able to pull very respectable DPS with it, with the exception of Revenant. Things change for each encounter, but overall the balance feels pretty good right now.
I don’t have that feeling. I’ve been ele main since the game launched. And it feels genuinely disheartening to see myself perform on comparable (if not better) level on my condi ranger, despite the fact I have much less experience with it and despite putting a lot more effort when playing my ele. There’s just no reward for all this extra effort, except on KC. I imagine a lot of ele and engi mains feel the same way.
Do you not feel that depends a lot on the encounter though? Not just at KC, but VG, Samarog, Xera and often even Gorse I consistently see Ele’s placing close to or at the top of our logs. I can understand that it’s disheartening that your DPS doesn’t reflect the amount of effort that you’re putting in, but that’s an inherent problem with the game as a whole. I dropped Ele months ago, yet I can still maintain 90% of a good ele’s DPS just using an extremely basic rotation. Engineer and Condi-ranger have very similar problems, you can faceroll the keyboard and get good DPS. But to squeeze out the last 10% or so you need to put in a ton of effort, simply put; that feeling is not exclusive to elementalist.
Condi ranger is overperforming because it’s much more reliable, especially compared to power builds. Eles can still be great in the right hands, but on average they are far behind a condi ranger, even on large hitboxes. Ranger is just way easier to play. Now, condi thief and simplified engi rotations might be close to that, I don’t really have experience with either. But the extra you get from the optimal engi rotation is ridiculously small for the extra effort required.
The problem then is that you’d be balancing around pugs, who simply pick classes with a low-skill floor to get what they want with the least resistance (Condi-ranger in this case). If you nerf condi-ranger then they will just flock to the next easiest thing for DPS, probably condi-DD/Mesmer/Necro/Dh or Ele. From there it’s a slippery slope of nerfs until we’re left with the only difficult to play spec in the game, condi-engi.
I don’t consider myself to play at a particularly high level, just regular guild groups. But for me it genuinely feels like anyone who spends more than a couple of hours learning a class is able to pull very respectable DPS with it, with the exception of Revenant. Things change for each encounter, but overall the balance feels pretty good right now.
My point is that nearly every class has a reasonably high skill-ceiling. Many players just can’t be bothered to reach it.
its overperforming its only natural to have it nerfed and no i dont believe it require the same skill in terms of rotations as engi or ele and tbh… ppl still pick necro only because of epidemic you dont call a class viable simply because it can cheese a few encounters like you dont say rev is viable simply its usefull as kiter on deimos.
Are you saying that because you’ve actually run with Necros in real raids and observed bad numbers or simply because the benchmarks look bad? In our experience, Necros are reasonably competitive in actual raids even without the use of epidemic. Sure they could use some buffs to push them in the right direction, but things aren’t nearly as bad as many people seem to think.
As for condi-ranger overperforming, I’m not sure I agree. Engis can be ~3k behind a condi-ranger and still be worth taking simply for Pinpoint distribution. Furthermore, a condi-Daredevil pulls way ahead of a condi-ranger in a mirror comp. Ele is still fantastic against large hitboxes (Samarog is a good example), and isn’t particularly difficult in the right hands. Overall the only time I’d argue we need condi rangers, is for weird comps like 8-1-1, where you don’t want to risk overwriting venoms.
then nerf its dmg simple enough
I disagree with nerfing builds just because you find them easier to play.
Firstly, the build probably isn’t as easy to min-max as most people think (Druid/Ranger actually require similar amounts of button presses to even the most complex ele builds). Nearly everyone I see that claims condi-ranger is “easy to play” end up 2-5k behind actual ranger mains in real encounters, simply due to swapping too slowly or cancelling skills.
Secondly, to my knowledge. Condi-ranger isn’t even optimal for meta-groups at most bosses, mainly thanks to pinpoint distribution from Engi.
Overall I feel like most classes are extremely well balanced right now. Even Necro is functional at quite a few encounters and pulls decent DPS in real raids, though I wouldn’t be against some buffs. Revenant remains the only class that desperately needs help right now.
I agree that Take Root needs to be changed. A racial skill this strong just forces everyone to that specific race.
The problem is, if you simply nerf Take Root, then Sylvari will still be taken due to their Summon Sylvan Hound skill. If that gets nerfed then everyone will just reroll to Charr to make use of Shrapnel Mine.
A better option might be to disable racial skills altogether in raids, which would be a shame as they do bring some unique identity to each class. Another option is to buff our other options so they aren’t quite as terrible. Glyph of unity in particular is absolutely worthless as a skill right now due to its hidden 1 second ICD, it’s only somewhat functional thanks to the Verdant Etching trait. Or how about a condition focused elite trap, which would fill that awkward gap in our skill set?
The other classes which make use of take root: Mesmer and Necro, have similarly terrible elite skills. Perhaps that’s the main problem.