Guild Wars 2

All of this really doesn’t matter, because in terms of Power Builds — both Deadeye and Renegade are deposing us of our main usefulness in terms of PvE, one does the job outright better in -every- respect, and the other does the job with Alacrity and Condition damage. Our current paradigm in PvE is practically over outside of Burnzerker. That’s incredibly sad.

Which is better? Guardian no contest. Warrior’s got very little going for it power wise at the moment. You either got to go supremely selfish on that Axe Train, or supremely supportive by being a Banner Kitten with PS. Neither one is particularly on par.

Closest, but not at all comparable. Expertise is by far the best Condi Stat without contest.

I made a Soulbeast
I put on a greatsword
I crit a skrub for 50,000
Soulbeast is a condi elite

Ragnarox.9601:

Hicci.8761:

Ragnarox.9601:

RabbitUp.8294:

Ragnarox.9601:

Why support cause we have already very good support????

Ahahahahaha

Its not laughable we are best at support, I actually was hoping to get healing spec more.

Best at support? Which support are you talking about? Damage support? Druid has it. Healing support? Druid also has it. Also revenant and ele heal better. Quickness? Chrono has it. Only thing we have is buffs and revenant do that better than we do and even they are not in the meta.

You are mixing healing with support. Healing is healing, support is support.
Look at wvw and pvp, support guardian is always wanted. When a Druid you are instantly kicked out of raids in wvw and you should know why.
Our dps is not meta. And we have no healing spec.
Elite spec gives us another support spec saddly.

If every player didn’t have access to enough healing to be self-reliant if skilled enough, there’s no need for the distinction between Healing and Support. Support is anything that benefits allies other than oneself.

The only reason we’re desired in WvW is our AoE Stability, which no other class can give without restrictions in ways its applied. That’s it. Its not the healing, because that’s done with primarily Water Fields and Finishers because they have a larger effect number than any class is capable of, and since WvW is less about your personal DPS and more about how much Stab, HP, and the number of bodies hitting targets.

Guardian is pretty bottom barrel when it comes to Support in PvE, PvP, or WvW. Heck, Warriors at this point do everything they’d be capable of in WvW (CC, Healing, Condi Removal).

Before today I’d have been on the side of the community that thinks Fast Hands didn’t need to be Baseline.

After today’s Balance Patch, and how its required to make Power Builds work with Berserker specialization and I’m changing my tune. I’ve been in the SFTA all day trying to figure out where I want to go with my builds, and never can I get results that are adequate for myself (just fun) and endgame content (At least 22 stacks of might from PS and about 18k DPS) without Fast Hands, and without Berserker.

I -love- that I can play Core Warrior again, but leaving Berserker behind in Condi (where its not doing that well either) is not a great prospect for the class as a whole.

Without the Weapon Swap from Fast Hands, you can’t throw up enough Primal Bursts to maintain that sweet 21%, or even sometimes the 14% without resulting to Signet of Rage.

My prospects of playing an Axe/Axe Mace/Shield build were dashed this patch as well. With Axe/Axe’s optimal output tied up in three different trees, there’s just not a way that axes can perform well by themselves. In order to satisfy my party needs, I have to forgo all the Breakbar I could bring to the table before in order to take Signet of Rage to have enough adrenaline to maintain the barest amount of DPS AND a decent amount of Might Stacks.

I love that I might not have to worry about being the Might Crutch anymore, but I’m not seeing enough to keep me in the party. Make Fast Hands baseline.

Except that’s not how it works right now. If you’re playing Berzerker, when you use a Primal Burst you get the full 20% damage increase, and that is a 10 adrenaline burst. The same is true for Adrenal Health, 3 stacks for a Primal Burst, and if you Do a 1 Bar burst outside of Berserking, it gets replaced with 1 stack.

It looks like its getting an overall reduction, which isn’t good tidings for Power Warrior in PvE.

Quick question for everyone jumping on the “Ele or GTFO” bandwagon… If they’re doing this to foods, what you makes you think Fresh Air is gonna see the end of the Quarter as it is?

In before the Class Changes that get announced for this Quarter involves Fresh Air getting a 15 second ICD.

Well lets talk about this logically.

A Full set of Viper’s (Armor, Trinkets, and Weapons) Gives you 42.2% Condition Duration. Throw in 4 Runes of Nightmare and 2 Runes of the Trapper and you come out to 67.2% before foods OR Sigils. For a thief, that’s 100% condition duration for Poison. Throw on a Sigil of Malice and we’re at 77%. Furious Crystal gives you around 3% for your gear’s Precision (more if you have access to more via traits or skills). 6% for the Foods, and we’re at ~87% for all of the Conditions, and at well over 100% for our class specific condition.

My main thing, is can we have these economy breaking Patches and Dowels removed from the game?

Guess I’ll see you guys in Twilight Arbir for some Nightmare Runes

Could really use this feature, just shove the same items in we had. It’d help with material promotions. Maybe a Forge All in slot?

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

Scrapper destroyed the Engineer identity. It is literally contrary to everything the Engineer used to be.

You, really don’t know what you’re talking about and it hurts my soul to have to reply to you.

The Identity of the class up to this point has been kits — the kittenty knock-off of Attunements for Elementalists (That’s really what they are), when it should been far more “This class can literally do anything in the right circumstances and with the right RNG.”

Hammer’s a Tanky weapon, which Engineers really lacked outside of Tool Kit (which almost no one freaking ran because all the Engi Purists are so caught up in RNGrenades). I’m loving Hammer, and it was my real introduction to the class.

If 33% Alacrity changes it to 25% from 40% then I agree with the change, but I’d like far more uptime in exchange.

morrolan.9608:

Warhorn is like scepter barely being used where are the changes for it?

Elementalist will not see any improvement until Karl is rotated off it.

I honestly think nothing healthy will happen until Karl is rotated out of Class Design altogether, at least that’s my person opinion.

I disagree on the Auras getting nerfed. Ele’s are Bunkers and taking this away takes away what little meta exists for them outside spamming Air and Fire Overloads, and mind you I’m talking from a PvE perspective here. Auramancer was what Tempest was sold to us AS. Why dig away at that?

What Aura’s are actually the problem anyways? Fire Aura — well you’re giving that to Berserkers now so obviously not that.

Frost Aura — Its pretty strong, 10% damage reduction and Chill, but we only have Three sources of it in D/W, Getting Criticaled (which I don’t think happens all that often in PvE), getting hit after falling below 75% HP (which again, shouldn’t happen a lot), and Overloading Water (Which should happen alot). Must not be that.

Shocking Aura — Stuns aren’t that big a deal unless we’re trying to nuke a break bar — which we shouldn’t be relying on getting hit in the first place to do. A lot of ways to get this with Dagger Warhorn.

Magnetic Aura — Reflections are pretty freaking awesome, not gonna lie. Though the problem is we don’t have very many ways to get it. Sand Squall, Earth Overload, Aftershock, and Rebound being the only major sources I can think of.

So 5 seconds to 4: Its kind of a big deal. Having an Aura up at all times is kinda what Tempest seems to be made with in mind. While having Multiple up at once isn’t what was intended I’m guessing, sharing those Auras with our teammates was.

So what I’m gathering is that its not the Auras that are actually the problem (at least from my perspective), its the Boons that we can pump.

Or was it just not understood how strong the changes to Auras were before tempest came out? I kinda like the idea of bubbling up my party with Auras when Pull Mobs — I know as a Scrapper Tank I LOVE having a Tempest Healer in the party.

Just my two cents.

miriforst.1290:

Arimas.3492:

KayCee.4653:

break bulwark gyro too? Not like I use it for anything.

Scrappers really don’t have many other skills that help survivability. I mean hammer has a block and a reflect, but if you going to do anything to them then beat the living daylights out of druid staff and revenant hammer. Hay, all’s fair in balancing professions like these.

They are probably going to reduce the effectiveness of come traits, like Rapid Regeneration. At the moment with swiftness its a constant 102 base heal per sec, and with superspeed its 500 per sec, I assume they will nerf the superspeed to like 200-300 per sec. Because at the moment the Engi with the right traits can heal for upwards of about 650 health per second not including regen and on top of that the effectiveness of HT makes the Engi very survivable.

I hope they don’t touch the Adaptive Armor trait because its in a good spot.

The correct way to nerf this is to remove the heal on swiftness part. Do not touch the super speed regen. Its an entire staple of the spec with damage mitigation, healing/SS or stability being the pillars. The regeneration caused by swiftness alone in the meta builds is nothing to sneeze at. Super speed on the other hand is handled like its some kind of all mighty cure it all on the scrapper (a finisher through the rarest field in the game, securing a stomp or shiver running a gyro build) which it only becomes with rapid regeneration. The main source of super speed on the meta builds are slick shoes super speed which in itself might use a 5 sec more cooldown given that its a stunbreak and its gadget is very powerful. Final salvo and rapid regeneration is one of the redeeming graces of anything with gyros and to see it go the way of the dodo in favor of even lamer perma swiftness healing (which has even less thought behind it) would be a tragedy.

This at least is the first step.

Do I need to point out that there are classes that have this same Rejuvination effect that have FAR easier conditions to meet to get FAR more healing? Warriors and their 1000 point Rejuvination say hello. Also the main source of Superspeed is Leap and Blast Finishers through Thunderclap actually because of Shocking Speed (you get 6 seconds of it off of 3 alone). Lightning might seem like the rarest but we have access to 2 quite easily (Hammer 5, Shredder Gyro Toolbelt).

The real issue with tankyness — is coming from Bunker Down. You drop Bandages and a Mine (which does strip boons) every 2 seconds if you can land the crits, which is the source of our Permaregen, and 505 healing (this comes out to like 400 HPS where as swiftness rejuvination is only 179).

Kodama.6453:

Father Busho.2796:

Either minimally shave sustain or a bit of damage on hammer. Playing marauder amulet with quite decent dmg and with that good sustain makes it OP imho.
In my opinion the following 2 segments actually need to be looked at:
– armor on crit trait, I think 5sec ICD actually makes it one of the most OP traits in game, I think like 8sec ICD would be OK.
– regen access: sorry, but seeing scrappers with 40+ sec of regeneration is not fine when coupled with amount of blocks, invulnrs and stealth we have.

Just my 2 cents.

I feel sorry to say that, but it seems like you have no idea how engineer/scrapper is working.

Armor on crit? Because you call the 5s ICD I think you are talking about the trait which will give you protection if you get cc’ed. Big difference. And this trait is just so strong because there is hard cc flying around the whole time. There were times hard cc was something you timed right to land a combo,not just spam it so the enemy is basically unable to do anything until you killed him.

And permanent regeneration is not a big deal, many professions are able to keep this boon up permanent. The bigger problem seems to be the new trait Rapid Regeneration, which grants healing while under switness and superspeed. This maybe should be tuned down, but give Final Salvo an additional effect to make up for the loss of usefulness (this grandmaster trait already is underperforming).

I disagree on Rapid Regeneration mainly due to the fact that more than one class has access to better versions of this trait. It’d be far more of a problem if Superspeed was easier to get, but as it stands, there are classes that have access to better forms of Rejuvenation and they’re not considered problematic (Warriors have access two for absolutely nothing, a Maxed Adrenaline bar and a Signet which gets them in the 800 health per second range).

The real thing that I’m betting people have a problem with is Bunker Down. A Bandage Bag and a Mine every 2 seconds if you can get a crit off. That brings Engineers Health regen up to the 600s. Not a whole lot of Health unless they horde these bandages then they can get spikes of 2000-3000 health.

But from what I hear — this is just the Meta across every class at the moment. Bunkers for days.

With the advent of Defiance Break Bars, how are you making use of our Elite Skill Rampage? When was the last time you used it? Do you think its 25% Damage Resistance Buff has made it usable?

Scrapper build not using a Hammer, my brain hurts. Swap out the P/S for Hammertime and this build gets better by virtue of stronk hammer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASlcThqrY5VwLLQ+FLTGF9bX37dY/kMhlYzUABAA-TJRCQBCc/BA8AAs3FAodlBAA

Try this, I think its closer to something you’ll enjoy.

KayCee.4653:

break bulwark gyro too? Not like I use it for anything.

Scrappers really don’t have many other skills that help survivability. I mean hammer has a block and a reflect, but if you going to do anything to them then beat the living daylights out of druid staff and revenant hammer. Hay, all’s fair in balancing professions like these.

It has 4 (3 Dazes and 1 ) Stuns, 3 evade frames, 1 2 second block, 1 1 second Reflect, a Whirl, a Leap, the Ability to stack 25 vulnerability, and does decent damage ;3

It is a hard CCer’s dream.

I’m pretty new to Engineers and what used to turn me away from the class was the use of kits. My main starting out in this game was an Elementalist so the idea that I needed to pack kits to get what my main got for existing was ludicrous to me.

However, when I looked around at Engineers after HoT Dropped, I rolled one, popped a 30 Scroll on it and dumped points into Inventions, where I found the current trait that occupies my favor, Bunker Down. I leveled in PvE with the Tool Kit and a bar full of Elixirs before I graduated to Scrapper.

Right now, I run a really fairly tanky build that can hand out a bashing and I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time with this game. Between Toughness managing aggro, and my ability to decimate break bars on a whim, I finally feel like I have the character I’ve always wanted to play in this game out in the open world and in casual Dungeon/Fractal play. I can even put out decent DPS and I can maintain max-stack vuln on my targets.

So what does this line do for me?

I’m with everyone wondering where Karl is seeing all these Gyros because I don’t even use the one that I thought would be great for me Bulwark Gyro, and the reason for it is because I have to follow the gyro to get the benefits and it dies too quickly when I do that, because it essentially takes twice the damage. The only one I got even slight use out of was Blast Tag Gyro, and I replaced that quickly with Throw Mine.

I know this is not something that’s popular, but Irenio CalmonHuang was my hero in the coverage for the game when he said “Berzerker Meta is not healthy for the game.” Because it simply isn’t healthy, and I for one think that the devs need to rally behind that sentiment instead continuing with this helter-skelter balancing scheme that always seems to come through on our end. It doesn’t seem like you guys have a goal or a unified measure to balance the game around, and that worries me.

Right now, the things that feel like problems for Scrapper aren’kittens survivability, because its all they really have when it comes to PvP. Its utilities feel limited, Kits or Bust; Either things have too long a cooldown or have very little use, and a lot of times its both of these issues. Right now I just hammer on my Elixirs because they give me boons or help me break defiance bars.

I also never see with my Function Gyro, it could stand to have more range or simply get fixed because I never seem to be able to send it to pick people up — which would be wonderful if I could because I could multitask.

Hammer is wonderful right now, if I really had to gripe about something its that Electro-whirl’s Reflection Window is too small to be useful in PvE, especially in zergs, or big fights where latency or server lag can make me miss its use (or even remember it can reflect). Right now, its a Whirl Finisher and my main damage mover at the moment which fine. Hammer is wonderfully tanky, and its damage allows it to be used with either a Defender or a Melee Damager (which needs to be tanky so it can actually do DPS).

My biggest gripe however lies with the Function Gyro. I never get any use out of it because I either miss its range, or I never get the prompt despite targeting a downed player. I’d feel better if it didn’t have the cooldown as well (I don’t even have an indicator on my UI to tell me if its even able to be used which might just be a bug on my part). It feels like something I should be able to micromanage, maybe have more than one function (kill or rez). Like Finish or Pick Up an Ally, or defend an ally of my choosing, or do damage to an enemy of my choosing. I suppose I draw a lot of parallels to Orianna from League of Legends, where the gimmick behind playing her is managing the ‘Ball’.

In Short, Non-Kit Utilities feel worthless, Function Gyro needs more utility or FUNCTION.

If they fixed the bug I think I happened upon, I think Berserker would be the best option, but if they never fix it… then no, not anywhere close.

I was testing it in a dungeon with a modified Meta Build, and I noticed while I was using Berserk, I was dealing significantly less damage — nearly 50% less on Hundred Blades, Axe Bursts, and Whirlwinds.

It felt like Berserker’s Power and a few other flat damage buffs weren’t working in Berserk, which if it is the case needs some serious fixing or Berserker will be dead out of the gate in terms of PvE Meta.

Bump — was still an issue last night.

Tonight while running a dungeon, I noticed that while using Berserk, my damage would be drastically lower than without, around 50% less. I’ll keep testing, get screens and video if I feel up to it.

Anyone else experience this?

I did want rifle, but that’s not what its about. They could have given thieves a Warhorn if it’d been balanced. This ain’t.

You done jumped the Kitten with this Arena Net.

Here’s why.

Daredevil is an evade heavy Elite Specialization, focusing on control and survival through dodge rolling.

You hit the nail on the head, gave us that feeling absolutely, everything is tailored to this playstyle, in fact, this one of the better made Elite Specializations we’ve seen pre-tweaks to this date.

But it is not at all what Thief needed, and you’re further enforcing its already quite narrow Meta.

Now I main four characters right now; Warrior, Elementalist, Mesmer, and Thief before anyone comes on thinking I’m a PvP-QQer getting a crack at this rant before its live. So with my Cred out of the way, lets get down to it (after kitten-danging paragraphs).

Thieves did not need more control in their tool kit. Let alone the ability to carry well over 9 sources without a weapon swap — the vast majority of them being stuns. They also didn’t really need a high damage main hand — half of their weapons already fit that role.

What Thieves sorely lack at this time in the game, is a Ranged Weapon that can do more than just be a tool-box (I’m looking at you Shortbow), or a really weak version of a melee weapon (You can’t hang with Dagger Pistol, stop trying). Rifle, would have filled that role nicely (as would have Longbow, or even a magical staff — Dancing Daggers was a popular build for Assassins for A VERY LONG time in GW1) you even had several suggestions and idea threads for that very concept.

What they also didn’t need — was a faster way to gib players, and Impact Strike isn’t that long a chain to pull off to knock out that Aegis Guardian or that Bunker Ele long enough to wipe your enemy in a team fight.

I’m warning you now ANet, when this goes live, it’ll be a firestorm. It’ll be on any and every team comp for sPvP, and it’ll take over as the sole meta for PvE. Seriously, reconsider making this Elite Spec.

I hate them all equally.

I got mine from the first week Champion Bags were introduced.

It was Venom. It was worth 27g. I cried tears of anguish knowing I’d never get another Precursor that was actually going to be useful, nor the money to purchase one, and quit the game for a year.

Andraus.3874:

The combat system just doesn’t mesh well with the Trinity. Personally I like the Trinity and playing games like final fantasy that have it. But you have to admit it just doesn’t work with current game mechanics. I think we could also agree that there would have to be some major over hauling to get this to work. Such as reducing or limiting dodge as well as current #6 skills across all professions.

I worry if anet goes this route they will struggle to actually implement this correctly. Trying out revenant gives a good idea about how this can go wrong. I can see how revenant had the “Trinity” but it’s very washed out and very ineffective.

It meshes plenty well with the Trinity, its just not a ‘hard’ trinity (the roles are predefined and cross over between them is rare). Guild Wars 1 had a Soft Trinity. Even in the current DPS Meta there still exists a trinity.

You have the Puller. The Puller’s job is to attract the mobs, and gather them up into a ball. The Puller usually doesn’t do much damage because they’re focused on NOT DYING. The Puller is your Tank in this situation.

You have the Support. The Support does several jobs. They boon up the DPS, the Puller, and contribute to the damage dealing (usually to a far less of a degree). In this game, the Support provides boons and debuffs, reflects, Quickness, Area Control, Passive Stat Boosts, and/or healing while they DPS. The Support is your Healer in this situation.

You have the Damager. The Damager… Damages. They kill the mobs A. Fast Enough that the group is not overwhlemed by their mechanics, or B. maintains DPS on the Ball to wipe the packs of mobs quickly. The Damager is your DPS in this situation.

Guild Wars 2 does have a Trinity as much as folks want to deny the fact — because there’s no Group Setup that is viable with out those 3 roles being filled to some extent.

Its a fallacy to believe that it can be escaped because it is literally the core of MMORPG thinking and instinct, and Guild Wars 2 did not break from it.

In fact, you can see in this post ArenaNet backpedalling from their stance before the Launch of the game. When the game was doing the convention circuit back in 2011-2012, it was one of points Mike O’Brien was pushing. Now in 2015 we see Colin telling us Anet is embracing it somewhat.

In order for mechanics to not match up with the Trinity, you have to break RPG formulas (which GW2 didn’t… really), or divorce yourself rather far from RPG gameplay. Mass Effect, Fallout, and Wasteland are examples of Games that lack the Trinity, because they barely qualify as a Traditional RPG. There are plenty of other examples, though the ones that come to mind immediately don’t have a real-time mechanical structure.

Why not shift it more towards how Empathy in Guild Wars 1 worked?

For 5…13…15 seconds, whenever target foe attacks, that foe takes 10…46…55 damage and deals 1…12…15 less damage.

Make it work like a reversed Retribution — whenever the victim deals damage, they deal X damage to themselves. That way, they can increase its damage capacity in PvE, and they can tweak the numbers down in PvP so that its still balanced like it was before this last content pack (Confusion did 50% less damage in sPvP and 33% less in WvW).

However, the thing that really needs to happen for mesmers, is that Confusion needs a rather massive Duration overhaul across the entire class. Currently, a Thief or a Warrior using runes is able to maintain longer, and more stacks of Confusion with ease, especially in PvE where interrupts are soft on Defiant mobs (IE you don’t stop the cast but the game thinks you did and applies the effects).

But I’m also of the belief that most cases of Condi Application in PvE need longer base durations.

I’m now confused as to how .880 is the Quickness attack delay xD

frifox.5283:

Myxam.2790:

No Q > .758
Q > 1.136

Could you explain that for the Mathematically challenged?

Ignore that, I forgot how to math there for a sec… The #’s in paranthesis are Seconds / 1 Attack, not the other way around XD

That still doesn’t explain why Quick Number is bigger ; _ ; I’m so confuzzled.

Also — Quickness comes after the base attack speed, so .88 wouldn’t be right because it has to assume that the Quickness Attack Speed is the base in order to get 1.32. Would it not? (Has to sound pretenious because the Filter can’t distinquish It from mammeries.)

frifox.5283:

You guys are killing me…

Staff Mesmer

• 1.320 sec per 1 attack (1 attack per 0.758 sec)
• 0.880 sec per 1 attack (1 attack per 1.136 sec) with TW

Staff Clone

• 2.440 sec per 1 attack (1 attack per 0.410 sec)
• 1.700 sec per 1 attack (1 attack per 0.589 sec) with TW

If projectile bounces, just 2x the above.

You know the Clone isn’t on your spreadsheet right?

These numbers also don’t make any sense… the delay is smaller without Quickness

No Q > .758
Q > 1.136

Could you explain that for the Mathematically challenged?

So.

The Human player attacks once every <1 second without quickness? The number would a good thing to have. Go and auto attack something for 10 seconds, and count the number for me :x

That will give us the attack delay for Player Staff.

Telekinesis.8312:

Myxam.2790:

Telekinesis.8312:

20% (signet of midnight), 15% (chaotic persistance considering you have 5 boons active), 40% food, 10% utility gets you to 85% burning duration.
considering 100% burning duration, winds of chaos applies 2 seconds of burning.
supposing you have 3 staff clones active in timewarp, it’s 0.93 seconds per attack with quickness. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat
lemme know if i’m wrong on this calculation of timewarp attack speed and ignore everything below if i am.
Your attack speed under timewarp is once every 0.99 seconds.

4 guys using winds of chaos 10 times in 9.9 seconds, lets say all your winds of chaos hits apply burning where each stack of burning lasts for 2 seconds. In a 2 seconds window, you and your illusions hit 3 times at 0, 0.99, 1.98 which gets up to 12 stacks of burning
now lets take the bounces into equation, lets assume the bounces aren’t bouncing between your teammates, but rather bouncing off to the target every single time and applying burning 100% of the time again gets you to 24 stacks of burning in a 2 second window under timewarp.

I’v taken every favourable option that a mesmer has to get the highest stacks of burning possible considering the attack speed calculation under timewarp is right.

Now, burning has a 33% chance on proc both the times, lets make it a 66% chance which gets us to 16 stacks of burning.

Above, someone stated the Staff attack time for the Player is 1.32 without Quickness, wouldn’t that make the attack speed under quickness .76 seconds?

0.66 you mean? i think 0.66 is the old quickness buff with 100% speed, it’s only 50% now.. if by that means.. with the old quickness we’d have no attackspeed on winds of chaos which wasn’t the case.

I’m not sure if the 1.32 AS is correct if that’s the case, I’ll head to the HoM and do a time test on Staff and Stave Clone.

I’ve also got to see if people are measuring it as Attacks per Second or Attack Delay…

If its the former, then Quickness would give 1.98 attacks per second, which equates to essentially 2 attacks.

I haven’t found any recent AS for Stave Clones, but we could assume its .9 Attacks per second for theoretical maffs. Which makes under quickness, Clones attack 1.35 times a second.

33% chance per bounce gives a 43% chance per cast if it bounces to a teammate -once-.

2 Attacks per second can give at most 4 stacks of burning per second, which means 8 with in the window.

For Clones, 1.3 attacks per second equates to at most 6 stacks of burning in the window.

If I have two clones that equates to 20 Stacks maximum within the window (if my math is correct, which its likely not).

Burning Duration is 1.85 seconds from Winds of Chaos.

I think realistically, I could have 14 stacks of Burning with 2 Clones.

Unless, Phantasmal Haste is bugged in what all it effects. If we go with that hypothetical… I’ll have to do that after lunch.

Telekinesis.8312:

20% (signet of midnight), 15% (chaotic persistance considering you have 5 boons active), 40% food, 10% utility gets you to 85% burning duration.
considering 100% burning duration, winds of chaos applies 2 seconds of burning.
supposing you have 3 staff clones active in timewarp, it’s 0.93 seconds per attack with quickness. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat
lemme know if i’m wrong on this calculation of timewarp attack speed and ignore everything below if i am.
Your attack speed under timewarp is once every 0.99 seconds.

4 guys using winds of chaos 10 times in 9.9 seconds, lets say all your winds of chaos hits apply burning where each stack of burning lasts for 2 seconds. In a 2 seconds window, you and your illusions hit 3 times at 0, 0.99, 1.98 which gets up to 12 stacks of burning
now lets take the bounces into equation, lets assume the bounces aren’t bouncing between your teammates, but rather bouncing off to the target every single time and applying burning 100% of the time again gets you to 24 stacks of burning in a 2 second window under timewarp.

I’v taken every favourable option that a mesmer has to get the highest stacks of burning possible considering the attack speed calculation under timewarp is right.

Now, burning has a 33% chance on proc both the times, lets make it a 66% chance which gets us to 16 stacks of burning.

Above, someone stated the Staff attack time for the Player is 1.32 without Quickness, wouldn’t that make the attack speed under quickness .76 seconds?

Fay.2357:

Myxam.2790:

Fay.2357:

My guess as to what happened is you actually had either 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, play on potato resolution, and misread it as 18.

I play at Max Settings and 1080p Resolution thank you very much.

Let me rephrase then. You had 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, weren’t paying close enough attention, and misread it as 18.

Let me phrase it in a way you can understand.

I had 18 stacks of Burning, for a split second. If you keep insulting me, my property, and my ability to pay attention to things I’m staring directly at, I’m going to send a message to the Community Manager just for you.

Fay.2357:

My guess as to what happened is you actually had either 3, 6, or 8 stacks of burning, play on potato resolution, and misread it as 18.

I play at Max Settings and 1080p Resolution thank you very much.

Fay.2357:

Just to do a reality check on the ‘all hits apply burn’ situation.

18 stacks of burn would be from 100% duration on burning and 100% of attacks for 18 hits apply burning.

The chance of any given hit applying burning is .33. This means that the chance of applying all burning on x hits is .33^X.

18 hits. .33^18 = 2.1540258843927e-9

You have a 2.154 × 10^-7% chance of applying 18 stacks of burning.

I hereby call shenanigans.

Isn’t that the likelihood of winning the lottery?

All joking aside — I’m just reporting what I saw. My iDuelist might have faded out and been replaced with another clone, I’m not certain.

Its just what I saw, and I’ll try and recreate it. Tonight, when I get home in 7 hours.

Also — we left out Chaotic Persistance, which gives me 3% Condition and Boon Duration for every Boon I have. With Might, Fury, Swiftness, A random Boon from Sig of Inspire, and Vigor from Crits, which I can give myself at all times, I have an additional 15% Cond duration at all times. With that, I could trade out Krait Runes, for Lich Runes, and take the Toxic Crystal — giving up 50 points of Cond damage for 100% Cond Duration across the board. Or, take Nightmare Runes and the Toxic Crystal for the same results with a few points of Cond Damage lost.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Thieves bleed. Everything bleeds, really :P

Sword Pistol Thieves don’t do so much bleeding

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Staff clones apply an expected .33 stacks of burning per hit. At best, with each staff attack bouncing out to an ally and back to the boss every time, they’ll give .66 stacks of burning per hit.
With you and 2 clones on target, that’s 3*.66=2 stacks of burning on target every attack.
At 1.32 attack speed, that’s 1.52 stacks of burning applied each second.
The base duration of said stacks is 1s. With no condition duration, you can only keep up an expected 1.52 stacks of burning. If you have condition duration, you will keep up a little more, but not much, and it is technically impossible to get more than double that (since condition duration caps at 100%) on average.

Since that’s just playing probabilities, what if you magically hit burning every single time a clone attacked?
You would get 6 stacks of burning every 1.32 seconds, or kitten stacks every second (okay, kitten = Four point Five Five. Wth, Anet?).
At 1s duration, that’s the most stacks you could have at a time.
Suppose then, that you have 100% condition duration.
That’s 2s duration. At most, that would get you 12 stacks of burning at a time. That is the theoretical maximum from 2 staff clones and yourself. You’ll never hit that, of course, because the chance of proccing burning on hit is only 33%, not 100%.

In short, there has to be another source of burning, and Mesmer just doesn’t have it.

You did leave out Quickness, which I did have at the time. At 50% Attack Speed for myself and my clones — that would give a theoretical maximum of 18 stacks of burning. But that would neuter my stacks from bleed and vuln.

The warrior however, if she was using the Axe-Mace meta build, would have Bleeding and Vuln as well when she Critically hit. I don’t know what build the Thieves were running but they have gotten staves from stealing which could have contributed to the stacks.

I also said I hit not that I maintained that 18 stacks, 45 bleeding, and vuln.

frifox.5283:

I’d love to see a screenshot of said “18 stacks of burning”.

I’ll see if I can get it to happen again. I know I had 1 iDuelist up, and 2 Staff Clones all in Time Warp on Fimbal, and he was leaving me alone so I could just sit and spam at range at.

Fay.2357:

Myxam.2790:

along with 18 stacks of Burning

No you didn’t.

If I had to guess, you were in a party, and those were the total stacks on the boss. You didn’t apply all those conditions.

I was in a party with 3 Sword Pistol Thieves and a Triple Chop Warrior. Pretty sure I’m the only one who was carrying burning in the party. I don’t know where all burning came from.

It was a little ludicrous but I’m gonna test the clones tonight, see if their Winds of Chaos are applying Conditions as well.

Was testing around in Dungeons tonight and I was able to hit 45 Stacks of bleed on a boss in Honor of the Waves, along with 18 stacks of Burning, 10 Stacks of Confusion, 16 stacks of Vulnerability, and 15 stacks of Might.

Fay.2357:

You’ll want to use compounding power instead of persistence of memory. You’re really not going to be shattering much. Even on silverwastes mobs, bleeding is going to do far more damage than torment, especially since maim has been so heavily nerfed.

You’ll want to use a normal tuning crystal instead of the duration one. Between krait runes, 40% food, and the signet, you’re at 105% bleed duration (overcapped), so more isn’t efficient.

I’d take CI over BD, particularly for silverwastes. Menders are highly interruptable, and one type of teragriff is also interruptable with cripple, and that’ll get you a lot of might stacks for more damage.

The Signet is completely unnecessary if you carry a Sigil of Agony though, which opens its slot up for Blink.

However,

If Signet is carried, you can take Undead Runes rather than Krait. That’ll leave you at 80% Duration for bleeds, 60% for everything else, and 2000 Condi Damage before Stacking Might or Corruption.

In dungeons though, I think I’ll still take BD for its Stability and Boon Spread.

I’m still hung up on Manipulations though, unless you’re planning to be the last man standing, Blink is the only universally useful one with the current setup.

I think Signets are going to be the better approach. Midnight’s short CD makes it compete with Blink, and its passive is too valuable to a Condition build. Illusions is just wonderful and Inspiration give us movement speed which is just a nice quality to have.

Humility I think does have a place in PVE, especially in boss fights with adds that have to be killed, it’d be extremely useful if its passive included Immobilizes but what can you do.

Of course Tomes of Knowledge are ruining the experience. Too late now.

The price is precisely why I’m not getting Heart of Thorns. Period. In fact, I’ve gone back to Guild Wars 1 because of it.

Factions and Nightfall weren’t $50 bucks back then, they were $30, and EOTN was $25. You guys built a successful game off of the back of that business model, I don’t know why you didn’t stand your ground against NCSoft with this game.

Its not even Rose-tinted Nostalgia Goggles anymore, I quite seriously believe Guild Wars 1 was a better game, even now that its essentially on life support.

It took 3 years to reach this point and now that its here, I don’t want it; paying 50 bucks for less than what I’m about to get for free from BWA is ludicrous, and worse — its EA that’s giving me the bigger bang for my buck, Electronic Arts of all companies.

At this rate, it’ll take 15 years to get through all of the Elder Dragons and get to the content I’m looking forward to, Cantha and Elona. I’ll be 40 by then, I don’t have that kind of time ArenaNet.

That’s even assuming I can stay invested in the game. The Meta is stagnant in my favorite part of the game. “Zerker or Assassin, if you’re neither you can keep on walking.” There’s been 1 new addition to Dungeoning in that time, in the form of the single most elitist and toxic playerbase I’ve seen to this date. Fractals.

The Strategies in PVE currently are even more boring than the Trinity that the game claimed to get away from, but you can’t get away from it. Even Guild Wars 1 had a Tank, Healer, and DPS role (Puller, Damage, Support/Prot/Healer)

I spent $130 this month on one of your products ArenaNet, and it was buying Guild Wars 1 for a friend of mine and how it is currently rather proves that some attention can revive that game — because certainly 3 years of a stagnant sequel has.

Every single person I speak to in Guild Wars 1 is there because they felt it was the superior title. 15 New people have joined the Alliance I’m in this week. While its not massive its indicative of this, and I really don’t enjoy it.

Guild Wars 2 is a slow dying failure, and philandering with the Preorder of its first Xpack isn’t helping it. You know the acceptable price of the Expansion Pack, and its what you should be charging.

Look at what kicking the Hornet’s Nest got me. Actual constructive advice sprinkled in among the insults and aggressiveness.

Its just like every where you go on the internet, show a little stupidity and people can’t post fast enough to tell you how wrong you are and what the real way to do things are.

Feeling good about it? It took the prospect of flexing your kitten to even motivate you to post.

Here, I’ll show you what I had before I sprinkled the dumb on.

I knew that I preferred using the Staff and Scepter over what many of the builds were calling for in the way of Sword and Focus and Greatsword. I used Staff and Scepter to level up, and those two weapons got me through things Sword and GS couldn’t.

I knew that with the 23rd Patch Release, that Conditions were going to be viable in some degree.

I knew from previous play with Conditions that Duration was equally as important as Damage when it came to Intensity Stacking like Bleeding, Torment, and Confusion.

I scoured the forums looking for discussions on this and got squat. Posts asking for help get ignored, posts that posit something incorrect get vehemently assaulted for the mistake before being given the correct information.

You can see above what got you on the hook. ‘Dude things are dying so fast in Silverwastes its gotta be this build and not at all the Zerg.’ That claim should have told you it was a trap.

Alpha you were right, it was a troll — a very sad one indeed.

So, here’s what I’ve learned:

Malicious Sorcery is broken, which makes Scepter only useful for Clone spam.

Chaotic Dampening was at one time a superior choice, a hot-fix nerfed it.

Prismatic Understanding is near worthless without Torch unless a thief is present.

Torment and confuse did perform exceptionally well. On enemies in Silverwastes, who move a great deal, and use skills far more often than the current content. The Dire Gear allowed me and a friend to take down Champions in under a minute without getting downed, and we were able to clear every Veteren on the map with little trouble.

My friend was using a Rampager’s Set on a Scepter/Dagger Necro.

And now my build looks more like this.

Fay.2357:

Myxam.2790:

Fay.2357:

Myxam.2790:

The Meta is very muddled at the moment — you have proponents of Conditions (like myself) and Holdovers of Zerker (Like a few people in this thread). Its not cut and dry at this moment in time because very few people are experimenting with it, and the Holdovers from Zerker are very vocal.

No, let’s be clear. There are 3 types of people.

1. Those who still want to play optimally, run the numbers or listen to those that do, and use zerker/assassin gear because it is still the very clear best choice, with absolutely no question.
2. Those who want to play conditions, aren’t worried about being somewhat less than optimal (at least once DD gets fixed and whatnot), and use an effective PvE condition build to accomplish that.
3. Those that have no idea what they’re doing and think their build/playstyle is fantastic and optimal when it’s actually nonsensical and awful. You and your build that you’ve posted fit into this category unfortunately.

There’s nothing wrong with option 2. It’s not optimal, but it’s also in recognition of that fact and working with it anyway. The problem is option 3, which leads to posting blatant misinformation and awful advice all over the forums, potentially causing folks to make poor decisions.

Blatantly insulting someone is a great way to prove your opinion is the best. Just saying. Lets be clear here, there’s far more than 3 types of people, and you know really quickly which one you fall in, its the kind that gets reported for being needlessly hostile in a public forum.

You also fit into category #3 you listed, because if you’d read my post I offered the following:

1. Experiment and find something you enjoy
2. Seeking Guidance on the Forums on optimizing and improving
3. Create your Ascended Gear

Which is the best possible avenue for the OP to take since they have time to make a decision, rather than posting that Cookie Cutter Build #15 is the most optimum and any variation from that is shame and vulgar threats until you concede.

If you want to be critical of the Build I’ve made, you can do it on the Thread I posted it in.

Your post was actually an odd mix of good and awful advice.

On the one hand, you mentioned relevant information about modifying ascended gear and gave the generally solid advice of coming to the forums for build advice.

On the other hand, you presented an absolutely false equivalence between optimal builds (zerker/assassin) and everything else, along with recommending that they “ignore everything they’ve been told”.

This is because if you read above, a lot of the advice has been dictation without reasoning, as well the patch on the 23rd is still fresh and most people in this game as you’re probably brutally aware aren’t keen on changing until they’re getting left out because of it. The Meta hasn’t had time to adjust to the changes, which is readily apparent in the lack of consensus in this Forum, myself withstanding.

You also failed to read the part of the OP where they state that they don’t want to be using a sub-optimal build.

You misread — he said he doesn’t want to waste materials, which is what I suggested he avoid by testing with Exotics FIRST.

Overall, I felt your post did more harm than good, hence why I took issue with it.

Overall, I felt that the majority of responses in this thread were nonconstructive, nor addressed his issue, he even stated he decided he was going to ‘Wait and See’ later in the thread. Thankfully his Ascended items won’t go to waste regardless of what he picks (unless he decides to go Celestial for whatever reason strikes him).