Guild Wars 2

Feanor.2358:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You don’t need a healer for cm99.

You should nevertheless get one. It makes the run smoother and faster, not just because of the heals but also the considerable group-wide damage boosts.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

However I digress, because the “experience” argument is vacuous and requires no due diligence in order to make, I’ll counter it with my own story. I haven’t been doing nightmare challenge mode for months. I only recently got back into the game. I have far less experience with those mechanics than anyone else here. Likewise, since I form groups accepting newbies, a group of new players always learns nightmare much faster than fractal assault. Each boss usually only requires 2 attempts, maybe 3. But I can loiter at Arkk for 6 hours at a time trying to get newbies through it.

Each attack is simple. There are simply far more in cm100, and more = more difficult.

That you personally didn’t have the experience isn’t that relevant. The thing is, the player base at large does. It is always easier to clear content with one inexperienced player than with 5 ones. Please don’t take this as a personal attack, I’m merely explaining why you can’t disregard the common knowledge and experience accumulated over the months and why your perception of difficulty is skewed.

And again – yes, there are more attacks to deal with in 100 cm but there’s also a new powerful (and quite universal) tool at your disposal. Pretty much everything Arkk throws at you can be countered by Hypernova Launch.

The fact that you need a healer and need an additional skill dodge just to deal with the increase of mechanics proves it is more difficult than fractals where you don’t need these things.

Attuning the rings is cheap, and you don’t get Agonized Essence as a drop. You have to buy them. Likewise you can by the shards and the globs from INFUZ. As for which is cheaper… I just craft them myself. If you have the artisan discipline it is almost always cheaper than buying it from the BLTP.

The forum bug has been locked down.

zealex.9410:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Unless there has been some drastic, hidden changes, then no, Anet will not fix the Mirage. Our fears have come true.

“drastic” care to give an example?

On the general forums Mike O Brian said that the content has been locked down. This means that there are no further updates to the Mirage.

EDIT: Oh, you mean suggested changes? I don’t know. I’m in way too much pain to be constructive atm. All I’ve got is the clone dodge trait and the mirror on shatter trait being innate.

zealex.9410:

The only amount of inavoidable amount of dmg arkk has on cm are the green circles and on 40% the aoe the gladietor does. Everything else and i do mean EVERYTHING can be avoided.

Ok this fractl requires your focus for more than one attack every 7 or so sec. What about it? Is that bad?

At low percentages, Arkk will frequently double up attacks. If he doubles up the pizza slice attacks, the entire field can become covered in damage. Likewise, the platforms dropping out will cluster players together, hitting everyone with social awkwardness.

Artsariiv’s attacks can be avoided. However, it is incredibly hard to do this and maintain DPS. Yeah, I can take no damage if I run around the entire field in a panicked frenzy, and I can take little damage if I stick to ranged attacks maneuvering in the nearby area. But due to the adds’ attacks, Artsariiv’s unnatural fixation with me in particular, the wide array of ground AoEs popping everywhere, avoiding everything while maintaining damage in melee range is nigh impossible.

However I digress: you seem to misunderstand me. I like cm100 where it is. I just disagree that it isn’t harder than nightmare.

Feanor.2358:

Sure, at Artsariiv there are a lot of AOEs around, but if you cleave the adds and stack on the boss they don’t really amount to anything. The druid will easily outheal these.

You don’t need a healer for cm99.

However I digress, because the “experience” argument is vacuous and requires no due diligence in order to make, I’ll counter it with my own story. I haven’t been doing nightmare challenge mode for months. I only recently got back into the game. I have far less experience with those mechanics than anyone else here. Likewise, since I form groups accepting newbies, a group of new players always learns nightmare much faster than fractal assault. Each boss usually only requires 2 attempts, maybe 3. But I can loiter at Arkk for 6 hours at a time trying to get newbies through it.

Each attack is simple. There are simply far more in cm100, and more = more difficult.

Feanor.2358:

Mitch.4781:

100cm is longer and tougher than nightmare by a considerable margin.

No it isn’t.

You’re comparing your experience with a fractal that has been around for almost an year with one that has been around for about a month. Give people time to master it. They already started doing it, by the way. I remember my own first try at Shattered CM, which seemed impossibly hard. Last night the group I was in cleared it in a comparable time to the 99 cm we played just after it. Give it a few more months so more people can learn the mechanics and the gameplay experience in an average group will become much smoother and quicker, just like it did with Nightmare CM.

Going to have to strongly disagree here. CM100 has a lot more going for it than just a lack of familiarity. The amount of ambient damage that Artsariiv puts out is incredible, the amount of unavoidable damage Arkk has is substantial, and the variety of instant death mechanics you have to juggle means a single misstep quickly snowballs into full blown failure. In the Nightmare fractal, there is nothing harder than dodging the massively telegraphed single attacks one at a time.

Viable? Definitely. You can complete most content in the game by donning zerker gear and auto attacking things to death. The other two questions are “Is it better than Herald?” and "Will it be optimal?.

For power builds, stick with Herald. Renegade has nothing to offer them. For Condi builds, the Renegade specialization looks to be a minor buff over Invocation in damage. Not utility, though, but it will do more damage. As for the stance, whether it is better than Jalis is still up in the air. There’s a lot of unknowns right now, such as the survival rate of the summons and exact mechanics of the elite skill. Optimistically it would be, but practically we’ll have to see. As for the weapon… no, basically never.

Optimal? Never. The renegade is a beatstick, through and through. The only team support it gives is Assassin’s Presence. The buffs to condi damage would, at most, only put the Renegade on par with the condi builds of other classes.

Unless there has been some drastic, hidden changes, then no, Anet will not fix the Mirage. Our fears have come true.

Please, for the love of all things colorful and horselike tell me that you did one last balance pass on the elite specs.

I’m a bit nervous for the class myself. I largely PVE, so the three main concerns are damage, damage, and more damage. The Scourge looks like it’ll be fun to play, but I have no grasp on how much deeps it can spew forth.

The scrapper is fine for non-optimized groups. Function Gyro is a life saver, bulwark gyro is an excellent reflect and defensive utility, thunderclap and rocket charge put out a lot of CC, Sneak Gyro is excellent for skips and underground facility, and all the DPS traits are useful when you can’t rely on teammates for buffs. Scrapper also brings vanilla engi’s vast toolkit.

I don’t raid myself, but the only fractal that I wouldn’t bring a scrapper to is cm100. Not because they can’t complete it, but because the way the fractal is designed there is always a better class to carry the group. But aside from that, there are countless times when I am on my guard/ele/chrono meta build all the while wishing I was on my scrapper for that particular run.

The PVP nature of the scrapper specialization is pretty obvious. The way all of the traits are built are meant to capitalize on having a mix of offensive and defensive stats while also emphasizing combat mobility. Take Mass Momentum for an example. The power it gives is meant to offset the DPS loss from defensive stats, and static power buffs are better when you have less power to start with. The might on stability combos well with Perfectly Weighted, and once you have built up enough might Applied Force kicks in and lets you finish the enemy really fast. All of the other traits are about bursts of superspeed and maintaining defense with personal regeneration. Of course, in PVE combat mobility is useless, self might isn’t good with group might stackers, and self quickness isn’t good if you have a support chrono on the team, so the traits themselves are lackluster. But without those things the traits are excellent.

If you’re obsessed with always bringing the best theoretical group comp to a fight, then of course Scrapper isn’t going to be your thing. It will be Chrono, Zerker, Druid, DH, Tempest in that order, always. 4 out of the 9 classes are always going to be excluded from top tier content, simply because teams only allow 5 spots. That isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Ranger. Particularly the druid specialization. It heals well and it also comes with a large series of unique buffs to increase the whole party’s DPS.

Substance E.4852:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Though condis shouldn’t be stronger than power overall, you’re underselling power here. Power damage still has no ramp up time, so it is better at killing anything less than a champion.

You mean those mobs that evaporate instantly against even a mediocre group?

They don’t evaporate against condi parties. Trust me, I’ve been on 5 necro parties before, and completing T4 Urban Battleground in one of those is like pulling teeth.

I just use rocket charge and rocket boots to hop around the map. Don’t need swiftness. With the firearms line I get 20% additional crit chance, as well as a source of self fury, putting me at a respectable 90% crit chance.

Likewise, if it takes forever to kill vets, then you aren’t doing it right. After Thunderclasp, Rocket Charge, Electro Whirl, Big Ole Bomb, and Grenade Barrage, even veteran enemies should be dead. While using hammer in the overworld, I still rarely use the auto attack, because enemies melt before I run out of DPS skills.

Though condis shouldn’t be stronger than power overall, you’re underselling power here. Power damage still has no ramp up time, so it is better at killing anything less than a champion.

CETheLucid.3964:

Anyone “hitting” on you is absolutely kittened and likely lives a very, very sheltered life. Anything they have to say is easily discarded.

Just have fun with it. From my experience, most of the people who hit on female toons aren’t looking for a pixel girlfriend. They’re bored and joking around.

The most “unique” is probably power mesmer. The domination line isn’t so hot in the overworld, so if you run dueling/illusions/chrono, you get a class that is a bit difficult to play but nonetheless is quite fun. Chronomancer has a 25% movement speed buff innate.

Though IMO if you’re just using scepter symbol spam, you’re not doing it right. The guardian is really good at being in the thick of it. Whether you use sword, greatsword, or even hammer, in the overworld you can continuously melee nearly everything. Greatsword has the most elaborate rotations, but it also has the highest burst.

The thief is another class with complicated play. It doesn’t have rotations so much as it has a series of skills you use to dodge hits and maintain aggression.

Finally built it. Got done playtesting it in fractals. The increased damage is a welcome change from healer ele, but I notice that it has a far harder time carrying bad players than other healing builds. The thing with all of these close proximity heals is that they require a certain level of competence from teammates in order for them to work. For the one or two guys who stick with the boss, the alacrity and all the heals are an excellent source of sustain. For the 3 other guys who try to warrior rifle the boss… I swear one guy thought the tablet was an enemy attack, because he ran away from it like it caused cancer.

Normally the usefulness of a healer goes up the more inept your teammates are. The less they dodge, the more you heal, the more you matter. But for Ventari Rev, there’s a drop off where a certain lack of cooperation means you end up not doing much at all. It reached a point where 2/5 teammates were constantly dying because I was always chasing a third with the tablet. Envoy of Exuberance and Renewing Wave can only do so much for the wandering player. Facet of nature is useless for players who can’t self-buff, and that upkeep cost really cuts in to Natural Harmony spam.

I’m certain a lot of my woes will be alleviated as I become more experienced with the spec. Also I’m certain that this morning’s pool of players were particularly inept, and with more competent players I can accomplish more.

I’m trying to get my kids back from my second ex-wife. Who cares if I don’t have a job? Somebody needs to teach my son how to hot-wire a car, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be the yoga instructor.

… Oh wait, you meant in-game goals, didn’t you?

Serious note, I’m getting all the ascended trinkets, weapons, and gear early for the new specializations. I’m mostly done now. Just need to get a few more condi bits for the Mirage, and then let fractal pages take care of the rest.

PistolWhip.2697:

Plus, I must again stress, anyone busy staring at their character’s hind quarters is likely a detriment to their team because they won’t be watching the game.

You’d be amazed what someone can accomplish with peripheral vision alone.

I don’t think I’ve ever received clap-back for playing female toons, either. Most of the time when I get a response, it is for playing a black toon.

I’m no sheep. I’m bring my own, totally unique, patent pending brand of negativity. But aside from that, there are two things you need to consider.

#1: Logic exists. It allows us to extrapolate from information that we have into areas that we don’t have. We can make predictions, and back up those predictions with evidence.

#2: We voice our concerns for a reason. We want PoF to be good. We want the elite specs to be good. But because so many of them currently aren’t good, we complain about it in a public forum with the intent to get them changed to be better.

The short of it is, never trust anyone who tells you not to think.

Any class could be a main raid class if you double the damage of all their attacks. That said, nothing on the renegade lends itself to raiding. The shortbow is impractical and doesn’t do stellar damage, the utilities are overly expensive and unreliable, the function skills have even worse cost to damage ratio, all of the buffs are nearly useless, and the class provides no unique utility for the raid group.

#1: The power spec is really capable of carrying pugs. It spreads good boons easily, has simple rotations, and the amount of blocks and self sustains the rev has lets it take a lot of damage even in glass cannon gear.

#2: The condi build, while not the top of the DPS crowd, is more than serviceable in that role. The main advantage to the condi build is ease of use. It easily hits in AoEs, it has a relatively low ramp up time, it worries very little about enemies leaving damage fields, and it also stacks a lot of might.

#3: Ventari has one of the longest lasting and easiest to use projectile reflects in the game.

#4: The healing spec is the only reliable source of alacrity outside of chronomancer.

Not going to lie, the only three I look forward to are Deadeye, Scourge, and Holosmith. The others…

Firebrand: Moves too slow, attacks too slow, doesn’t provide unique utility.
Soulbeast: Don’t play ranger.
Spellbreaker: Don’t play warrior.
Mirage: Nothing works, horribly flawed concept, counterintuitive mechanics.
Renegade: Wholly impotent and impractical.
Weaver: Might be fine, but not looking forward to putting in countless hours just to reach barely servicable level of familiarity with the spec.

Personally I’d say only buy the minimum spec. The Deluxe and Gold-Platter options are filled with mostly frivolous stuff. Let the whales keep the game afloat.

This post isn’t feedback insomuch as it is an exploration. The question I am attempting to answer is: “Why doesn’t the Firebrand work?”

I managed to spend time on the spec during the stress test yesterday, and I found it in actual practice to be wholly lackluster. The damage was terrible in spite of speccing completely for DPS. It was incredibly clunky to use, with all of the skills having way too long of a cast time. It was incredibly slow moving and immobile. It was largely defenseless. Overall, it just wasn’t pleasant to play.

The strange thing is, unlike most specs, it isn’t the traits that are lackluster. I mean, Stoic Demeanor and Weighty Tomes are fairly weak, but I could still see a use for them in
catching escaping enemies or heavier breakbar damage. The rest of the traits are, daresay, good.

The biggest problem with the Firebrand is that it wants to be two things at once. First, it wants to be a condi melee spec that fights and supports in close range. Second thing it wants to be is a backline support spec. And, by design, it can’t be these two things at the same time.

As a weapon, the Axe is arguably the worst main-hand weapon that guardians have. It gives you no defense. It has no movement skills. The only thing interesting the axe does is have the Firebrand’s worst pull skill. All the axe does is inflict very little condi damage. It is a weapon that is both boring and weak. Guardians _need_things like Symbol of Swords, Protectors Strike, Chains of Light, Leap of Faith, Line of Warding, etc in order to survive. A weapon without these kinds of skills is just going to get the guardian killed.

To call the Tome skills “clunky” would be an understatement. The tomes cannot be used tactically in the heat of battle due to their long activation time, and this activation time is stacked on top of the long activation time of each individual skill in the tome. For example, if I wanted to use Scorched Aftermath, I would have to do the following:

#1: Wait for the aftercast of my previous skill to end (1/4th to 1/2 a second)
#2: Activate the tome (3/4ths to 1 second)
#3: Activate the skill on the tome (1 1/4 to 1 1/2 second)

Put it all together, and Scorched Aftermath is a skill with a 2.5 second activation time, and for that cost it just isn’t worth it. The skill also locks out all of my weapon skills, and puts the other tome skills in the same bar on a 30 second cooldown if I need to swap back. Every single tome skill suffers from this same problem of having a large time investment for relatively little gain, and forced mutual exclusivity within themselves and with the weapons.

What the devs are intending players to do is pre-cast the tome so they have access to them immediately. But, most of the tome skills themselves are going to be needed mid fight. So all the tomes really do is give you a much slower and crappier version of the utilities that core guardian already has. This is done to unlock the Guardian’s utility slots for Mantras. Well, at least we can use the mantras… and they’re not good.

The tomes lend themselves to distanced AoE support skills, but the Mantras do the exact opposite of this. They’re close range conical support skills, but unlike Mesmer Mantras their power is back loaded on the final cast and they have no mid combat casting bonus. So, take all the QoL changes given to Mesmer mantras and throw them out of the window. Purity of Purpose or something. Anyway, having the mantra be back ended means that you don’t get to take advantage of the ammunition mechanic, since the only real way to lay the mantra is to unload it all at once. The traits reflect this.

For their shotgun like nature they’re recharge times are all way too long. Compare Mantra of Pain’s 1 second recharge to Mantra of Flame’s 30 second recharge, and you’ll see the problem. It’s like anet decided that the recharge for every utility in PoF was going to be 30 seconds, and then made minor adjustments from there. The conical support nature also makes them difficult to use for support, since you’ll have to step outside of of the odd melee range to make sure your whole group gets the buff.

The only mantra of any notice is Mantra of Potence, which can barf out 8 seconds of quickness with some might. The other mantras just sort of… exist. Mantra of Truth is just covering condis. Mantra of Lore wants to convert conditions after spending two blasts cleansing them. Mantra of Flame just does some damage. Quite frankly, there’s little reason to take Flame and Lore over Purging Flames + free utility. Mantra of Solace has some tactical use, but that 2.5 second cast time means that in a long engagement you’ll be dead in the water against enemies who can effectively heal twice. Mantra of Liberation will have some PVP use, since the amount of retaliation it can stack is ridiculous, but the PVE usage of this mantra is nill.

Overall, the Firebrand is distinctly unremarkable. It is slow, clunky to use, it’s weapon is terrible, and quite frankly I’m not sure it is better than vanilla burn guard.

Absolutely Dislike the old forum bug.

Zenith.7301:

Not while the agony is up.

Don’t stand in the fire.

This seems like an extremely inane thing to me. The mirage isn’t a staff tempest. It doesn’t have long channels that get interrupted by having to dodge constantly.

Right now I’m torn between Viper and Sinister. With Viper I can get full burn duration with Balthazar Runes and the Radiance line. My food and sigil options are open, and I’m not tied to having to scarf down pizza every 30 minutes. But, I’m not sure if that is the best variant. I could also go with berserker runes, and use the Smoldering Sigil + Bowl of Fire Meat Chili. That’ll give me 97% duration. That’ll probably output more damage, at the cost of 40 silver per hour. There’s also the sinister version with balthazar runes.

Normally I’d do the math on this, but I’m in way too much pain atm. So for now, I’ll build up viper, simply because it improves all conditions and not just burning.

The balance of damage seems to waver back and forth. Condi damage is higher now, to accommodate for cleanses and the fact that so much of their damage is caused by enemies sitting in their fields. Though made for PVP, these changes make it so in PVE a lot of damage can be stacked up.

Personally I still prefer power. For several reasons:

1. No ramp up. Power is damage instant. Against Siaxx I’ve soloed two vets on power Guardian, but can barely kill a single vet on Condi Necro even though I’m supposed to have 32k DPS.
2. Greater Utility. A lot of condi builds basically require every utility to be dedicated to condi damage, but power builds frequently have space to include defensive and utility options.
3. Ease of use. While many enemies will sit in fire fields, many enemies will not. Power builds generally tend to just launch attacks, and aside from the occasional root or field their attacks are adept at chasing running enemies.

For dungeons and fractals, I still find power to be far more useful than condi. The only time condi shines is when I’m fighting an enemy that is going to live a really long time regardless.

A healer takes care of all the damage from social awkwardness.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

It is pretty standard for men to find anything with the general female shape to be attractive. No matter how far away they appear.

Male pixel: .
Female pixel: .

GENERAL FEMALE SHAPE

Those situations are really common. Overworld wandering, solo running, poorly formed zergs, and sub-optimal dungeon + fractal teams, and also PVP + WvW. The only time the hammer auto is irrelevant is if you’re on a team with a PS or cPS warrior.

It makes sense that a self-buffing weapon isn’t going to be as useful if another teammate takes care of the buffs for you. It doesn’t mean the weapon is useless, it just means that it isn’t appropriate to use everywhere. Likewise, the hammer does quite a bit more than just auto attack.

My biggest complaint with the hammer is that Rocket Charge is an inconsistent dodge. Whether an enemy will hit you during the nebulous evade frames or not is a dice roll. The ability to control exactly when that evade happens will make the weapon a lot better for maintaining DPS uptime.

If you find that golden ratio between damage and healing, let me know. My general philosophy for healing builds has been “as much as possible”, since my goal in the group is to minimize the impact from mistakes. A limitless number of mistakes can theoretically produce a limitless amount of damage, and you never want to be caught without enough healing to cover it.

It is pretty standard for men to find anything with the general female shape to be attractive. No matter how far away they appear.

Not for long. I’m prepping a healing rev to handle all that alacrity for you. But hey, look at the bright side, at least you can tank all the raid bosses by distracting them with clones.

Zenith.7301:

It doesn’t hit hard enough to overcome bomb kit’s autoattack, that’s how bad it is.

For a melee weapon with limited aoe, it should be the hardest hitting autoattack the scrapper should have.

And holosmith takes away hammer because anet are brilliant and like to tie down weapons to specs for some reason.

Hammer skills and auto will out DPS Bomb AA + Thunderclap in situations where you don’t have maximum might.

I’m in the camp where I don’t connect with my characters. I mostly write stories in my head following them, and as such I can play as whatever I want with no conscience. 3 male toons, 4 female toons. Though my male toons are “cooler”, I like to stare at the female toons more, so given a limited choice between only male or female, I’d take female any time.

Invocation: [1.50 (Crit damage) x 0.9 (chance to crit under fury) + 0.1 (chance to not crit) ] x 1.07 (Ferocious Aggression) = 1.5515

Devastation: [1.65 × 0.7 + 0.3] x 1.07 (Targeted Destruction) x 1.1 (Swift Termination) x 1.1 (Vicious Lacerations) = 1.8838

Adjust for different trait choices accordingly. Either way, a healing build is going to miss out on a lot of damage no matter what you do. Power builds lose the stats from scholar runes, force and air sigil, and the crit damage from berserker gear. A condi build is going to miss out on all of its duration bonuses from the runes and the sigils, as well as all of its duration from stats.

I am a bit hopeful for the mirage, all things considered. Mostly because Anet has already answered my prayers when they buffed core mesmer. I now do significant damage in the power spec and don’t have to take conflicting traits to do it. Mesmer is now one of my favorite classes to play again, because I am not relegated to the role of wet-noodle buff bot.

The PVE build idea I had for mirage is essentially point blank mirror spam:

1. Jaunt when off Cooldown
2. Mirror Images
3. Crystal Sands (spawns third clone and mirror)
4. Ether Barrage
5. Dodge -> Ether Barrage
6. Illusionary Ambush → Ether Barrage
7. Cry of Frustration (Spawns mirror)
8. Ether Barrage
9. Dodge -> Ether Barrage

And so on. I don’t have anything too solid, but in theory if you could keep mirrors and vigor up you could spend most of the fight just spamming mass clone ambush attacks. If the numbers were buffed significantly, the clone-ambush-shatter spam trifecta could be an interesting way to play. I’m pretty sure that is what they’re aiming for, too, since core mesmer is anchored so heavily to phantasms.

But yes, everything on the mirage is flimsy and ineffectual. The utilities are impotent, half the traits should be innate, the weapon doesn’t work with what the class wants to do, and the ability to change illusion targets should be f5. The only reason people will take this line is because Nomad’s Endurance and Dune Cloak are better than Chaotic Transference for raw damage, and it will never be taken in PVP.

Razorclaw is definitely not a negligible source of damage. If all things go right, it actually puts out quite the DPS. 162.5 base bleed ticks is nothing to sneeze at, and under alacrity the recharge is only 11 seconds. If you hold off legend swap for two seconds, you can use this skill twice then immediately swap back to Mallyx. That’s a total of 325 base bleed ticks in 11 seconds.

Granted, it is extremely situational to have a group of teammates beating on a single target that is stationary within Razorclaw’s field for 21 seconds, but when that situation arises, those 325 base bleeds are substantial. It is enough to make Heartpiercer and Blood Fury worthwhile traits in PVE.

I’m building something similar at the moment.

Stats: All Zealots
Water Runes
Water / Transference Sigils
Sword + Shield, Staff
Ventari + Glint

Devastation: Vicious Lacerations, Assassin’s Presence, Swift Termination
Salvation: Nourishing Roots, Invoked Harmony, Selfless Amplification
Herald: Radiant Revival, Shared Empowerment, Elder’s Focus

Mace is alright for stacking might, but Sword is alright for stacking vulnerability. Also, it does substantially more damage than Mace on a zealot’s build. As a final advantage, the sword’s damage rotation is less energy taxing, giving you more energy for heals and Facet of Nature.

When it comes to Invocation vs. Devastation, Devastation is the winner. Assassin’s Presence from the Devastation Line adds 15% crit damage, or around 6.8% overall damage for zerker builds at 100% crit chance. The other Devastation traits are for vulnerability stacking and personal damage, but Assassin’s Annihilation can make up for the lack of a formal heal skill in long fights.

Invocation gives ferocious aggression and better fury, but overall Devastation doles out more damage. At 150% crit damage, Invocation has a total modifier of 1.55, whereas Devastation has a total modifier of 1.88. Even if you crit less, Devastation just hits harder. Also, invocation gives very little to teammates.

Salvation is necessary, for three reasons. First, it adds a lot of healing. Second, it has good synergy with Herald through the interaction of Shared Empowerment and Nourishing Roots. Third, Serene Rejuvenation is one of the few things that makes healing rev stand out.

Unfortunately, I am relatively new to healing builds. I don’t have much information about condi healing builds. Otherwise, I think you’re trying to stretch yourself too thin. You can’t have everything. Power rev is good at might/fury/protection, healing rev is good at alacrity and regeneration, and the more you try to marry these two the less you’ll end up doing.

Condi rev is solid. Renegade is going to be an upgrade, because of Kalla’s Fervor and also because the renegade utilities do more damage than the hammers if you’re in a group.

If you follow the lore of the legend, the idea behind the class is to use hit and run tactics to build energy, then use the utilities and f skills to unload a lot of damage and control a lot of space. Basically, play like a WvW thief. Unfortunately, the class has no skills that enable hit and run tactics, so the way it actually plays is as slow moving prey.

They’ve added more mechanics because, for awhile, melee was outright overpowered. Or rather, the enemies were underpowered. Walking around in the overworld, I can still beat nearly every regular mob and most veteran mobs simply by facetanking and auto attacking. To make ranged weapons a tactical choice, you need to have places where melee weapons are high risk.

Shirlias.8104:

You want to get tanky with thief?
You Can’t.
You just have dodges and teleport, but no sustain, no protection, no healings, no invul, etc…

Your definition of “tanking” is a bit narrow. A thief’s job is never to take blows to the face, but insofar as distracting an enemy indefinitely, a thief is really good at that. Just ration dodges and skill evades and you can survive for a long time.

All that said, I’m not sure this is really an issue in the game. Soldier’s and Dire gear are still some of the most efficient sets, point for point, because of how toughness and vitality scale geometrically. With a toughness minor you’re taking 67% of the damage you would have normally, which buys you 50% longer survival time in a fight. Just because enemies do more damage doesn’t make this advantage go away.

In theory you balance the summons by making them stronger than the average well. In practice, they didn’t do this. Instead, we get two skills that act like offensive wells, and the other three act as very odd buffs that require teammates to be any good, and each one is generally unfulfilling.

The energy costs definitely hold them back. If you could drop both Icerazor and Darkrazor in an area, you would get solid combination of disables and damage that would make for good point control. Problem is, both skills cost a total of 70 energy to use. You simply can’t layer them up. Of course, Necromancers and Chronomancers don’t have a problem layering their wells. Hell, I’ve been hit by double gravity several times in WvW.

Individually they’re weaker than wells, they have a destructible component on top of their effects, and because of energy costs they’re also mutually exclusive with each other. You can only use the best PVP combo after 4 seconds of combat while using no energy for other skills.

Identity politics are paramount. Nowadays, it doesn’t matter who you are so much as what you are. It isn’t just people virtue signaling; there are people of minorities who legitimately feel ostracized and isolated merely for not seeing their own represented.

The thief has three ways it stays alive in PVE:

#1: Blind Fields. Black Powder, Smoke Screen, blind on stealth, etc. The vast majority of overworld enemies become helpless if you drop blinds on top of them. For a low maintenance way to stay alive, use sword + pistol or dagger + pistol. Every time you fight an enemy, use pistol 5 and then just auto attack them to death. The enemy will flail helplessly while you melt them with the Thief’s powerful auto attacks. This works against up to 5 enemies simultaneously.

#2: Burst damage. A full zerker thief has a lot of offensive power, especially if they’re a daredevil. Little trick: if you use Steal after using Weakening Charge, you’ll spin in place and hit the enemy for all your damage. What I like to do is use this rotation:

Before the fight, use Basilisk Venom and bound for the damage boost
To start the fight, do the mug + weakening charge combo
They’re usually dead by now, but if not use Fist Flurry
They’re usually dead bynow, but if not follow up with double Vault in place.

The amount of stun and damage that is output with this combo is insane. I don’t PVP with Thief, but in WvW I have been burst down instantly with combos like this. Unleash as much damage as possible, and more often than not you’ll win.

#3: Dodges. The thief has a lot of skills that have evade frames, such as Death Blossom, Pistol Whip, Vault, Disabling shot, etc. The more skilled way to play the Thief is to watch the enemy movements, then use an evade skill when the enemy attacks. Most PVE enemies have really obvious animations, and if you use a skill like Death Blossom when they attack, it’ll go right through you without damage. Getting used to skill dodges will let you solo melee champions in zerker gear.