Showing Posts For Professor Sprout.1560:

Post your Renegades

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

The wonderful http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ has been updated with the new elite specs and some new stats, so I thought it might make us all better prepared for release day if we were to share builds.

I’ll get the ball rolling with one of mine http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNApXlnXMjcNDlNjtND2ND8NjFNlqdBCgI4PILykMtDChSA-jBiAQBA4BAYTlgR7UA8gjEAEV/BkK/A0+DAUfQAgDACo+6rvepAWUvF-e

PvE Viper’s build that uses shortbow and Kalla. Of note is that the Sigil of Perception and 4 precision infusions give exactly 47% base crit chance. This gives the build 100% crit chance when Brutal Momentum and Fury are both active, which should happen pretty often. The other legend will be either Mallyx or Jalis – I’ll probably swap between the two as the situation demands.
If the build used 4 Nightmare 2 Trapper runes + Blood Fury it would hit 100% condition duration for bleed, torment and burn; however if Soulcleave works the same way on release as it does now (no ICD, 1 proc per AoE) then I think the insane burst performance from Mad King runes will be worth the cost. I also like the look of Wrought-Iron Will so I’m glad this build supports using it. Vindication is used primarily for the might, but if Citadel Bombardment has its costs slashed then I might run it even when the party has a might-stacker since extra missiles would synergise well with this build.
I’m hoping that bundle weapons are not lost when the player mounts up as this build is also designed to work with the frost gun for open world bounty farming.

Renegade viable for pve/fractals/dungeons

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Oh, I’m very confident that the Renegade will be viable in the content you’d like to use it for. From a support perspective it will arguably be more viable than the Firebrand – a lot of complaints in the guardian forum are about how hard it is to hit allies with the mantra cones and about the long cooldowns for the tome support skills. By contrast I’m not too worried about hitting allies with the Renegade spirits – 360 radius is bigger than the biggest shade the Scourge can put out and necros seem confident that they can keep allies in that area. The big problem (unless they fix it) is that the spirits are vulnerable to damage/CC, but if you learn the mechanics of each fight you should be able to find windows to safely cast these skills.

Renegade, (Semi)Reasonable Expectations

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

I agree the spec is not completely hopeless. I’d strongly advocate changes in some areas; other changes would be nice but not essential. Breaking it down:

Citadel Orders & Kalla’s Fervour: Good potential. I posted a suggestion after the first playable for these abilities which I still stand by so I won’t rehash that specific suggestion here. Instead I will say if the skills merely had their energy costs removed and cooldowns increased then F3 & F4 would have enough synergy to be praiseworthy.

Utilities: Good potential. Something needs to be done about the vulnerability of these summons to unavoidable damage/CC – I’d KISS and suggest invulnerability, but immunity to damage + a breakbar might also work. Function-wise Razorclaw, Darkrazor and Soulcleave are already where they need to be (I do hope that Anet doesn’t nerf Soulcleave to 1 proc per sec or we’ll be in real trouble). Icerazor’s Ire is fine as a power weapon and Breakrazor as group healing. To make Icerazor a viable condition weapon and to double down on the support aspect of these wells Anet could consider making them all combo fields as follows:

  • Breakrazor – water field (more group healing)
  • Razorclaw – EDITpoison ethereal field (more condition damage, ethereal would have more synergy with Soucleave’s blasts than poison)
  • Icerazor – ice field, projectiles are now 20% combo finishers (condition damage via abyssal chill)
  • Darkrazor – smoke field (blinds and stealth)
  • Soulcleave – no field, pulses a blast finisher every 3 seconds (so as to combo rather than interfere with other spirits).

Weapon: Limited potential. The biggest problems as I see them are that skills 2 and 3 compete with other more interesting skills for the role of mid-long ranged DPS; that skill 1 (although useful) is really boring; and that the weapon as a whole does not offer enough utility or theme to compensate for this. This is just a rough draft, but my current thoughts for an overhaul are as follows:

  • Remove Shattershot (skill 1).
  • Bloodbane Path (skill 2) becomes the new skill 1. Remove cooldown and energy costs accordingly. Hitting with Bloodbane Path does not break stealth. Pierce is now baseline.
  • Sevenshot (skill 3) becomes the new skill 2. Damage is now bleed instead of torment. Each hit reduces the cooldown of Golghein by 1 second. Reduce energy cost to 5, increase cooldown to 7.
  • Scorchrazor (skill 5) becomes the new skill 3. Inflicts knockback instead of knockdown. Each hit reduces the cooldown of Golghein by 2 seconds. Reduce energy cost to 15.
  • Spiritcrush remains skill 4. Pulses poison instead of slow and functions as a guardian-style ward skill once formed. Foes who attempt to move out of the area suffer more poison/burning in addition to the knockback and will reduce the cooldown of Golgheim by 3 seconds. Increase cooldown to 10. Hitting with Spiritcrush does not break stealth.
  • Golghein is the new skill 5. No energy cost, cooldown somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds. 900 range ground target shadowstep that stealths for 3 seconds.
  • Heartpiercer no longer grants piercing to shortbow skills.
  • Sudden Reversal now provides 3 seconds of Stealth when triggered in addition to its other effects.

Basically this overhaul would theme the weapon around ambush play. Golghein is the setup skill for the other abilities, allowing the renegade to get in position or disengage from a target. Once in position Spiritcrush can be used to hold a target in place and makes it easier to land Sevenshot for a DPS payoff. Scorchrazor is now a tool to maintain distance and can bounce foes into the ward from Spiritcrush for more cooldown. Autoattacks can now be used in stealth without giving away your position to further reinforce the theme. The more foes you are up against the faster the cooldown on Golghein – this gives an outnumbered Renegade a better chance to disengage.

Traits: Lives up to their potential, would only need a little tweaking to support any changes to the other areas of the class.

(edited by Professor Sprout.1560)

Frost Gunner Renegade

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@BlazeQ as discussed in the post, the gun was indeed nerfed with reference to what a necromancer can do with it – but my argument is that despite these nerfs the frost gun is still an effective weapon in the hands of a Renegade.

@Fractured it would indeed, shame we got an fire-themed shortbow instead.

And on that topic, has anyone else noticed that the elementalist Frost Bow was buffed recently in a way that really benefits Revenants? The conjure has had extra hits added to Frost Fan and extra duration to Deep Freeze for more Abyssal Chill procs; as well as extra hits to Ice Storm and extra damage to Frost Volley; and the new duration rules favour having a Revenant pick up the second bundle. Skill-for-skill the Frost Bow may be better DPS than our class shortbow, and the longer cast times & cooldowns across its skills are offset by the lack of energy costs. I find this quite amusing ::)

Oh and as an added bonus for Ventari/Kalla builds using this weapon now gives an extra +20% to outgoing healing, on top of the extra healing power and condition duration the weapon already provided. Or to put it another way this weapon is now amazing for every Revenant build and (since I’m not hearing much love in the Weaver forum for the new stances) we should try to persuade any Elementalists we play with to run this skill and let us pick up the dropped weapon.

Frost Gunner Renegade

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Build
Frost Gun (plus any melee weapons)
any & Kalla
1st Corruption: (any, Abyssal Chill, any)
2nd Devastation: (any, any, any)
3rd Renegade: (any, Heartpiercer, Vindication)
Mad King Runes

Background
As some of you who play necromancers may remember, a certain bundle item enjoyed a brief period as an exceptionally powerful tool for necromancer players, only for the bundle to be subsequently and effectively nerfed by the developers to bring what they viewed as an “exploit” under control. The weapon was so powerful because its attacks could hit multiple targets very many times each second, and because each of those hits was capable of triggering the necromancer’s most powerful DPS trait. The weapon was nerfed by adjusting its skill 1 attack so that only 1 in 10 attacks could trigger this trait.

Theory
The reason why I’m bringing this up here and now is that I think the weapon could still be of some use to Renegade players, particularly those who (like me) are not enamoured of the new shortbow weapon. The high rate of fire on this weapon was never nerfed, and the build above has a lot of effects that trigger on (normal/critical) hits with no ICD. Per autoattack chain (assuming 100% crit chance and Soulcleave’s buff is active) you’re looking at:
10 stacks of might
10 Soulcleave hits
10 Focused Siphoning hits
5.33 torment stacks
and 3.33 vulnerability stacks
Most of these effects are per target (Soulcleave’s Summit is the only one that seems to hit just 1 target per AoE), and the weapon can cleave multiple targets in an easy-to-aim stream. Plus you’ll deal extra poison damage if using Venom Enhancement and extra lifedrain if using Assassin’s Annihilation.

What’s more since this is a bundle it has no energy costs, meaning you can actually afford to use skills 2-5. Skills 2, 3 and 5 all give great utility, and skill 4 should do very high damage – 15 bleeding hits to a single large target at range (20% of which will be projectile finishers), buffed for more damage when traiting Heartpiercer. Being at 400 or 1100 range from your target also means that you can keep old Soulcleave away from damage/CC (in the scenario where the devs have not capitulated and spirits will be vulnerable to such things at release).

TLDR
If you’re going to take a Renegade into the new maps grab some Mad King Runes and a Frost Gun. Cast Soulcleave’s Summit within 900 range of your target, stand in the area and use Frost Gun skill 4 followed by skill 1. Encourage your allies to do the same. Then watch everything in Path of Fire freeze to death.

Mistlock Observatory breakout & question

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

First of all, apologies if this is old news and has already been discovered. These forums are not very searchable so it’s hard to see if this topic has already been created. Also, this post contains minor spoilers for the Shattered Observatory fractal.

Anyhow, I wanted to take some screenshots of my engineer for another thread, and decided I wanted take them in the Mistlock Observatory in a position that would provide some good shots for the background. I played around a bit with different locations and discovered that by turning on Cosmic Energy, climbing a tree and using traited Rocket Boots I could reach the cluster of floating rocks shown in the first two screenshots below.

If that was all I wouldn’t have bothered posting, but I then discovered whilst trying to return that if you use your rocket boots to jump away from the observatory (e.g. in the direction of the floating ruined wall) you’ll be out far enough to escape the effect that teleports you back to the main platform if you fall off the edge of the observatory. You’ll then fall all the way down to the water layer at the bottom of the map, free to explore the void and swim up to the various rock spires that reach that layer. None of these rocks have collision detection, except for the one very tall rock shown in the last two screenshots below. Now although I’m not the best at jumping puzzles I’m pretty sure that this rock is cannot be climbed using conventional jumping, but provided it has collision in theory it could be void jumped.

My question therefore is as follows – does anyone know a way to void jump in the fractal lobby? Returning to character select and then reloading will return you to Lion’s Arch so that doesn’t work, but I was wondering if there was some trick or other that could be done using lobby passes or some exotic form of disconnection.

Attachments:

Non-Flashy Character Screenshots

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Just did a little photoshoot of my sylvari engineer. She used to look more engineer-like but she’s gone a bit primal in the mists lately. Bonus points to anyone who knows how to get to the rock where these photos were taken

Dye notation is left-to-right then top-to-bottom
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragonscale_Headdress
Rich Grape, Old Nickel, Umber, Umber
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evergreen_Shoulderguards
Tarnished Steel, Old Nickel, Riverbed
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Carapace_Jerkin
Earthen, Pottery, Midnight Purple
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sneakthief_Gloves
Ebony, Cocoa
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marauder_Pants
Undyed, Undyed, Umber
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leystone_Boots
Pottery, Grapevine
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Universal_Multitool_Pack
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Auric_Rifle
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Basic_Pistol

Attachments:

Rune of the scourge ideas

in Necromancer

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

As mentioned above, the raw numbers on runes 1-5 and the explosion of abilities on rune 6 are far too much. Beyond that I think this isn’t the correct approach for these runes as there are already enough runesets that buff personal condition DPS – I’d rather see something that plays to the unique aspects of the scourge. Since I already have a good idea which runeset I’ll be using I’m probably not the best person to be making suggestions, but a variant on the Monk Runes might be interesting for a support build:

1 +25 healing power
2 +5% condition duration
3 +50 healing power
4 +10% condition duration, 25% chance when struck to grant barrier to nearby allies (cooldown 15 secs)
5 +100 healing power
6 +10% outgoing barrier*

*unless outgoing healing buffs already affect barrier (which they probably should), in which case this should be +15% or maybe +20%

EDIT to the OP I’d recommend checking out the guardian forum with reference to that theory of yours. Over there you’ll find a lot of complaints that the firebrand is underpowered, especially from a support perspective. And remember that these runes would be usable in PvE where there’s no spellbreaker to counter them.

(edited by Professor Sprout.1560)

Scourge Synergy

in Necromancer

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

So on other words, a boon spamming, condition cleaning, healer that does okay damage in its own right.

Was pondering this approach to the scourge today since minmaxing for a single goal isn’t my style of buildcraft. This is as far as I have got.

  • Soul Reaping as one traitline with Vital Persistence and Dhuumfire as trait choices. This multiplies lifeforce gain and gives faster cooldowns on F2-F5, plus burn on every shade skill. Fear/conversion/barrier/burn spam across 20 targets is the unique aptitude of the scourge, and these traits strengthen the foundations of that spam.
  • Axe&Torch, Dagger&Warhorn for weapons. The power weapons provide more lifeforce than sceptre&dagger and more useful non-damaging effects (healing, swiftness, vuln and hard CC rather than just more boon corruption and condition clear).
  • Sand Soul + Flame Legion Runes + Sigil of Malice + Sigil of Smouldering + Fire Meat Chili + Ascended Vigilant Helm/Amulet/Earring =15+30+10+20+15+10=100% burning duration. This is a power build, but dhuumfire is too important for us to refrain from not maxing out our burning duration. Of the various ways that I have checked this seems to be the one that preserves as much power performance as possible, and it gives a nice +25% boon duration as well.
  • Scourge traits are Abrasive Gift, Desert Empowerment and Sand Savant (the top row options). These are the support traits, although Sadistic Searing might replace Desert Empowerment if the punishment skills receive a buff.

This is as far as I am settled upon: beyond here I’m still weighing things up, especially when it comes to utilities.

Minionmancer Scourge

in Necromancer

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@Zefiris @Drarnor Kunoram oh definitely, the bird from Privateer runes doesn’t offer enough in a group setting to make up for the extra damage/boon duration that would come from Aristocracy/Strength runes. I would only run it in solo PvE.

@mazut aye, most of these summon runes and the sigil could do with a complete overhaul. Other than Golemancer for the extra CC and Ogre for the guaranteed +4% damage there’s not a lot of value in these runes at higher levels of play.

It occured to me today that the Blood Fiend might also see some play for scourges, albeit it faces stiffer competition than the other minions mentioned. A scourge who loves to use traited corruptions for DPS and in order to collect boons via Nefarious Favour is going to prefer to use Consume Conditions; and one who has traited punishments or is spamming barrier would use Sand Flare instead. Well builds will continue to use wells and power DPS might use the signet. However that might still leave a small quorum of condition or hybrid builds interested in Blood Fiend, particularly since the healing from the minion will no longer be blocked by shroud.

Minionmancer Scourge

in Necromancer

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Was musing today on various aspects of the Scourge and came to the conclusion that in PvE we might see plenty of minion use with this spec. My reasonings:

  • Ghastly Breach is not a terribly useful skill in PvE given the lack of boons to corrupt, the lack of damage compared with Plaguelands, the long cooldown, the lack of group utility and the small nature of the AoE. Because of this and since the scourge is a little light on CC options I think that the Flesh Golem might become the natural choice for players who are not looking to minmax DPS.
  • The scourge is a spec that hungers for lifeforce and which (outside of one Punishment skill of questionable utility and one trait that doesn’t work in PvE) does not provide new source of lifeforce generation. To a scourge therefore the utility skills which provide lifeforce are more valuable than they would be for a reaper, one of which is the Haunt skill of the Shadow Fiend. Compared with the other utilities that provide lifeforce this one arguably requires the least by way of tradeoffs since it’s instant cast and comes with a damage-dealing/soft CC minion.
  • For various reasons the Blood Magic trait line is a good choice for scourges. This traitline includes the minor trait that buffs minion damage by causing every attack they make to steal life.
  • Perhaps most importantly, the scourge has an exceptional 10-to-20 target cap on all buffs derived from their Shade skills. This includes the condition conversion from F2, the barrier from F3 and traited F1 and the might/condition clear from the Abrasive Gift trait. Not only can scourges buff every member of a party/raid but they can buff every member’s pet as well, giving these pets a modest but appreciable boost to DPS, especially in a 5 scourge fractal team.
  • Lastly, and I’ll admit that not many players other than myself will be interested in this, but the scourge has a good deal of compatibility with the second-best runeset in the game, the Privateer Runes https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Privateer. This is one of only two current runesets that can grant might to nearby allies and it’s arguably the best one for scourges to use, and with all the aforementioned shade buffs I think that the tropical bird from the rune 6 would be a nice DPS boost for a support build that has not invested heavily in its own damage stats.

Any other pet- or minion-related issues that I’ve missed regarding the scourge that would be worth discussing?

Remove Energy cost from Renegade F-Skills

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

That will not help. The skills will be competing on energy with utilities, weapon and heroic.

Nonsense.

You’re thinking like every other profession where you just activate every ability as it comes off cooldown to maximise DPS.

Obviously with energy in the mix, you need to be smart and spend that energy wisely.

I have observed from your comments in this and other threads that you are a big fan of the revenant’s energy mechanic and how it distinguishes this class from the others. That you might be concerned with suggestions that would shift the focus for the class’ skills away from energy and towards cooldowns is a respectable position to take.

However, remember this: the energy mechanic was designed to pool the cooldowns for individual skills into a common pool so that the Revenant has to make choices between different skills as their energy recharges. I would argue that the Revenant’s design philosophy is best served by limiting the skills within the common pool to those that will make these choices as genuine and interesting as possible – and although I would invite you to convince me otherwise I am currently of the opinion that adding the citadel orders to the common pool hurts rather than helps the player’s experience of making these choices.

Renegade is going to be terrible

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

A few notes from my playtesting which on the whole back up the general thrust of your argument:

  • Citadel Bombardment: this skill sprays its missiles out over a fairly large area and with a slight delay, so if you are attempting to hit a single small target on the move (e.g. another player) I found you’ll often hit with few or no projectiles, so you’ll often deal less damage per target than the raw numbers might suggest. In PvE it might be usable against a large boss or to clear swarms of mobs that are spread out over a wide area, but will be squeezed out by more energy-efficient options unless something radical is done about its cost.
  • Breakrazor’s Bastion: obviously its terrible right now since the spirit can be killed or CC’ed, but if that was changed I do want to note that this skill has a wide area and very strong scaling with healing, so it works surprisingly well on a healing build as group aid. If therefore Anet were to bite the bullet and finally give each Revenant legend a choice between 4 utility skills Breakrazor could be adapted quite well as that 4th choice, with a new self-only healing skill being created to fill the gap.
  • Icerazor’s Ire: this spirit can be affected by the other warband DPS buffs, so if you have them all out these attacks can also bleed and steal life. Of course given how energy-expensive these skills are having several out at once will often not be possible, but hopefully that will change. Overall I found this skill to be a decent backup ranged attack, but only after I dumped shortbow from my build and went melee-only.
  • Soulcleave’s Summit: actually during the playtest this skill had no cooldown, and so effects which spammed a lot of attacks (e.g. Mad King Runes) were very powerful with it. It seemed to only apply to one target per AoE however (so e.g. just one of the 3 targets from Mad King runes would take lifedrain).
  • Sevencrush: in addition to the reasons you mentioned this skill has been lambasted for being really buggy, with projectiles failing to appear in all but the most featureless terrain.
  • Wrought-Iron Will: since healing power is a strong stat for Renegades the regeneration provided by this trait should not be discounted.
  • All For One: either the trait or the tooltip was bugged as this gave out significantly more protection in practice than the tooltip displayed. Since as you say the shortbow is weak and outside of shortbow the class has few bleeds I found this to be the most useful trait in quasi-PvE testing.
  • Vindication: Kalla’s Fervour has no ICD, so this gives out a lot of might. Another reason to love Mad King Runes.

Why was Kallas Fervor changed to selfonly?

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Back when I was following the info on https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/ I remember coming across comments from persons with supposed insider info which suggested that the Renegade was initially very strong, but was left in a state which the testers found unsatisfactory after some nerfs. It is very likely that converting Kalla’s Fervour from a group to a personal buff was one of these nerfs. At the risk of being infracted I won’t provide you a direct link, but if you search around for long enough I’m sure you’ll find some leakozorus or other giving these remarks.

As such even if Anet were to admit that the core mechanic of the class is in need of review (and I’m of the opinion that it does https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Citadel-Order-Suggestions/) I suspect that reverting the change and allowing the class to share Fervour is something that they have decided via their playtesting not to do.

The Fractal Overhaul - Concept

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@OP The issue of stat swapping has broad implications so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t comment on it, other than to say that Anet may have already queered their pitch on that one.

As for the instabilities there are (referencing this page https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists) 8 instabilities in the game currently, and I find that I see all of them with reasonable regularity. May I ask who exactly which players you think are the ones who don’t see enough variety in the instabilities?
As for the ones that you have suggested I think there are serious flaws:

  • The two instabilities that limit damage to either power or condition would shut down a lot of builds and as a result I think they would push the players using such builds out of doing fractals.
  • Barrier is (in current balance at least) a very rare ability, particularly amongst core or HoT classes, so an instability that targets that ability specifically will make for a “pointless” instability for many players – a situation your later comments suggest you would like to avoid. It would also lead to the rather unfortunate situation that Scourge players could accidentally or deliberately kill their allies via barrier support, a situation that could lead to bad feelings in a group.
  • An instability that gives out conditions when players gain boons would have similar problems – any build that shares boons around the party is liable to kill everyone in it. And an instability that gives out boons to enemies when they receive conditions would force every party to carry a ton of boon corruption or removal, which could hurt class diversity in fractal play.

In sum whilst I might be interested in seeing new fractal instabilities I would not support seeing these ones specifically. Did you have any other instabilities you wanted to suggest?

(edited by Professor Sprout.1560)

What goes well with Aurene?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Since one of my characters is RP’d as a working class northerner, she’d probably go with dragon kittens in gravy with peas, chips and a Newcastle Brown. Might work for you OP since you could swap the peas for mash.

EDIT: huh, forgot that this was an American site. Hopefully a wikipedia link will get around the censorship so y’all will know what that “kitten” refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/kitten_

Do we really have to call it Minstrel gear?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@OP for the sense in which the company intended the term to be understood, cf
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Minstrel
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Minstrel_Finisher
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maklain_the_Minstrel

I can’t speak for what connotations the term might have in your neck of the woods, but as a chap from the UK the first thing that popped into my head was the chocolate, followed closely by the Mikado (which someone at Anet may be a fan of, since that seems to be the origin of the commander’s “Pooh-bah” title.)

raidgroup setup with new elite specs-changes?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

2 chronos, 2 druids and 6 scourges? I mean I could see 5 scourge fractal runs being thing for permanent barrier and perpetual condition—→boon conversion, maybe it would work for raids as well?

[Feedback]Path of Fire Elite Specialization Preview - August 18-20

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Spent most of my attention on Renegade from PvE perspective.
Expecting Kalla to not be worth it in fractals if summons can be CCed and killed (cf other pets in fractals). Heal skill could also do with some love. Kalla legend otherwise fine.
Regard citadel orders and Kalla’s Fervour as fundamentally flawed, have posted suggestion here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Citadel-Order-Suggestions/.
Traits fine.
Would advise shortbow F2/F3/F4 need a more specialised purpose than just damage given that the class already has Citadel Bombardment and Icerazor.

Citadel Order Suggestions

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@Set You make a good point about out of combat. To some extent this is a situation that the class already has, especially with traited Citadel Bombardment – you lose 5 missiles and a hefty chunk of damage if you don’t have Kalla’s Fervour active when you engage. One option (with or without the changes suggested above) would be to have the buff refresh up when out of combat, either globally or just in PvP/WvW. Another option would be to just balance the class around the idea that the citadel orders won’t be available when engaging and ensure that the other potential engages from Kalla and shortbow are viable and the orders are worth waiting a few seconds for. I’d prefer this second option. As for any future balance patches that might nerf Kalla’s Fervour buildup I think that’s too hypothetical to discuss.

@Caeledh that’s certainly a respectable position to hold. The problem is that these citadel orders are really energy-intensive, so it’s hard to spare the energy to use their on-the-top benefits whilst also doing whatever you’ve switched to your current legend to do. Currently speaking they are basically half a legend that you have on your skillbar at all times, presenting a much higher energy demand than the Herald’s F2 facet ever did.

Certainly (and this is relevant to your comments @Set as well) the balance team could free up some energy by reducing energy costs on other skills across the board, but that’s a delicate balancing act: because these skills draw from the energy pools of core legends and compete with core utilities and core weapon skills any energy cost reductions anywhere are going to have wide-reaching implications. I could not expect such a careful rework to be done effectively for months after release if at all.
By contrast if you isolate the citadel order skills into using a separate cost mechanic then balancing for them becomes a lot simpler, something that could potentially be done before PoF launches.

@Rym thanks for the vote of confidence ::D As for your concerns regarding the loss of buff uptime it’s certainly a tradeoff so you wouldn’t necessarily want to use these skills in the middle of a DPS rotation. However in PvE even a DPS build does not spend every second applying damage so I know that there are a number of situations in PvE where one could spare 5 seconds of no buff for a useful effect, e.g.:

  • When casting a Renegade skill or two, most of which have long cast times.
  • When dealing with a boss mechanic (moving into position, during phasing when the target cannot be attacked or other similar cases).
  • When reviving an ally.
  • When disabled by a control effect.

After all, these are situations when Kalla’s buff would tick down anyway since you won’t be attacking and applying it. The more players learn the PvE content the more I think they will find situations where they know that they can safely switch the buff off.

(edited by Professor Sprout.1560)

Citadel Order Suggestions

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

The details of a possible implementation for this idea are as follows:

General

  • Citadel Orders no longer cost energy to use.
  • Citadel Orders consume any stacks of Kalla’s Fervour you had active at the time of use and apply 1 second of “Fatigue” (a new effect) for each stack consumed.
  • Fatigue blocks you from generating new stacks of Kalla’s Fervour whilst it is active.

Skills

  • F2 Heroic Command: skill now grants you and nearby allies immunity to control effects for 1 second per stack consumed. This isn’t stability – you can’t increase duration via boon duration buffs, it cannot be corrupted and blocking a control effect does not consume stacks of a boon. Increased cooldown e.g. 20 seconds.
  • F3 Citadel Bombardment: Projectile radius increases per stack consumed. Damage from all projectiles includes the bonus from the consumed Kalla’s Fervour stacks. Increased cooldown e.g. 40 seconds.
  • F4 Orders from Above: Pulses once for each stack consumed. Larger radius from trait now made baseline. Increased cooldown e.g. 30 seconds.

Traits:

  • Vindication: might buff unchanged. Citadel Bombardment effect removed. Citadel Orders now break stun.
  • Lasting Legacy: Kalla’s Fervour buff unchanged. Citadel Bombardment pulls more missiles into Tyria (flat +5 bonus instead of 1 per stack) over a larger area.
  • Rightous Rebel: While you have Fatigue, receive reduced incoming damage from conditions. Orders from Above effect removed. Using a Citadel Order now grants might to nearby allies for each stack of Fervour removed.

Citadel Order Suggestions

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

A common suggestion I’m seeing a lot in the feedback for the Revenant are that on the whole the energy costs for the skills are too high – and of those that do feel this way, the most common suggestion is to trim down the cost of the F2/F3/F4 “Citadel Order” skills that come with the class. I’ve also seen the F2 “Heroic Command” skill criticised as underperforming (for which I have a theory – see second post here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Needed-Renegade-changes-buffs/) and some complaints regarding the reliability of the F3 “Citadel Bombardment” skill.

Independent of these specific balance criticisms, I’d like to criticise these three skills and the Kalla’s Fervour buff at a core design level. Kalla’s Fervour is easily generated, and once you hit the cap in battle you don’t need to manage or manipulate it (part of the reason why the F2 skill is weak – you don’t need to refresh in battle). It feels like a vestigial part of the class, something you forget about whilst playing and only remember during buildcraft. To me it should be a class-defining mechanic, and should (like many other class-defining mechanics for core and elite classes) be at the heart of the class mechanic skills – i.e. the Citadel Orders. As such I’d like to propose a rework to the Kalla’s Fervour buff, the Citadel Orders and the associated traits which would address some of these concerns and some other concerns fellow forumgoers have had about the class in a way that should hopefully require as little reworking as possible.

The basic idea would be to remove all energy costs from Citadel Orders and instead have them consume Kalla’s Fervour, with Heroic Command being reworked as a stability skill.

Needed Renegade changes/buffs

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

I have a theory regarding Heroic Command: I suspect that early on in the design of the spec that trait was supposed to copy the stacks of Kalla’s Fervour on the Renegade to the Renegade’s allies, possibly alongside other traits and effects that shared this buff. That’s why Lasting Legacy reads “Kalla’s Fervour you inspire…” and why a leader was chosen as the theme of the spec. Then at some point the balancing devs decided that the spec was unbalanced in that state, and did a dirty fix by converting the skill that copied the unique +30 expertise + 30 ferocity buff into one that copies the generic +30 power + 30 condi buff.

I agree that the skill is useless and that the whole citadel order line is too energy-intensive. More than that I think that the Kalla’s Fervour buff is too vestigial now – it’s just a thing that happens rather than being a class mechanic that you manage. I have an idea how to rework the whole thing, but in order not to derail any further discussion of what you have here I’ll do that in a separate thread.

Is any dev even looking at this subforum?

in Revenant

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Kidel, it’s the weekend right now. One can hardly expect divine intervention over a weekend.

Renegade (beta) will not be good in PvE

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Can’t speak for raids, but I do know that group DPS buffs have high value there, and the Renegade has arguably the strongest group DPS buff in the game. Might see some use there. However for fractals and exploration I can see the following advantages afforded by the new spec:

  • The Renegade gives revenants a suite of ranged attacks it was otherwise lacking. I probably won’t use the shortbow much, but I can see the value in having Citadel Bombardment, Icerazor and Darkrazor available so that I don’t have to close with foes that are too dangerous to touch. All of these effects are AoEs effective at locking down and destroying trash mobs at range.
  • The buffs provided by the Renegade are at least as good and less likely to be redundant than the Herald’s. Soulcleave’s Summit and Razorclaw’s Rage look powerful enough to define the meta for top-tier fractal groups who want to clear content as quickly as possible. On top of that the spec can provide instant-cast alacrity when it’s needed most and (in current balancing) permanent protection to the entire group, as well as splashes of regeneration, retaliation and might.
  • The renegade also provides massive buffs to personal DPS. It’s trivial to maintain maximum stacks of Kalla’s Fervour, and your grandmasters give you a choice between an easy 25 might stacks or an increased Fervour cap. Brutal Momentum also gives a neat +33% crit chance.
  • And lastly, the Renegade provides a second group healing legend for Ventari users. Although Breakrazor is a terrible personal heal it actually has great scaling for group healing, with condition protection added on top. Soulcleave also has great healing scaling, and provides a way for ventari builds that have dumped attack power completely to still provide very respectable DPS.

The above is why I’d prefer to use the Renegade over the Herald in PvE for exploration and fractals. And remember: you don’t have to use the complete package of shortbow+Kalla+traits in a single build. You can just cherry pick what complements the existing class elements that you want to use.

Mad King Soulcleave

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

OH SNAP he actually pipped me to the post here and posted a stream https://www.twitch.tv/videos/168015740

Good work Mr World of Enders!

His video seems to show that the effect does not trigger once on each of the three targets, but instead the lifesteal triggers randomly on only one of the three targets. Unfortunate. Hope this is a bug, as depending on what’s going on at the code level that could cause problems for other multi-target skills.

On the plus side if you use the Vindication trait and have a decent amount of precision (tested using Mender’s rune) then you will hit 25 might stacks. So you can use the elite as an opener to a longer combo if a target survives the initial damage.

Mad King Soulcleave

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

We can but hope that it will survive. What’s particularly interesting is that Soulcleave has negligible power scaling and seems to not be affected by +% damage buffs – this means that the trick will do nearly as much damage on a healing amulet as it will on a DPS one. Given that Renegade looks to be stronger than Herald for a Ventari support build and such a build would want to buff bleeds to power Razorclaw, this might be a strong choice for both such build types.

Mad King Soulcleave

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Someone needs to tell WP & Boots that the mother of all Mad King Rune builds just rolled into town!

Soulcleave’s Summit is an AoE group buff that adds lifedrain to every attack you or your allies make with no ICD, much like the necromancer’s vampiric group buff but much stronger – in the PvP area with Mad King Runes and a Viper’s amulet equipped the combat log states the attack does 756 damage per hit before might. It is also an elite skill, and heals the user of the skill for a similiarly substantial amount of damage (386 per hit when healing power = 0). Mad King runes summon three swarms of birds when you cast an elite skill, each one dealing 16 hits to its chosen target.

If therefore we combine rune and buff a single cast of Soulcleave’s Summit will deal 16*756=12k damage per target, before taking into account the base damage from the birds or any other effects that might proc on the bird attacks (and renegades can have a lot of effects that proc on hit: Ambush Commander to buff damage; Rampant Vex to inflict torment; poison on torment; Mutilate Defences to inflict vulnerability; Focus Siphoning to drain more life; Razorclaw’s Rage for bleed, etc.).

Have tested this against golems, fake players and real players in the PvP lobby and it shreds them all. Dunno how strong Renegade is in PvP, but this might be an option to consider.

Scourge Demo Weekend Feedback

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Did some testing against the lord+soldiers+caster group in the Heart of the Mists. The lack of any stability or stunbreaks, coupled with the long cast time on Sand Swell means that, as many predicted, it’s very hard for a scourge to survive against foes that can chain CC attacks together.

We could really do with a stunbreak and/or some stability on our shade skills.

Sand Swell (Teleport Utility) Notes

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Tested the Sand Swell portal in the Heart of the Mists jumping puzzle. You need a valid path to target. This will make it very hard for the necro portal to pull off the same tricks as the mesmer one. Disappointing.

Scourge Demo Weekend Feedback

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@Flumek That concerned me as well. If the scourge had as much synergy with the staff as the reaper does then maybe that weapon could have been the answer, but now we know the full trait list for scourge I’m not seeing anything there that buffs staff. Maintaining melee range with the scourge to use the dagger might be a death sentence though without stability or shroud.

There is a trait that grants life force when you corrupt a boon, but that’s going to be unreliable at best and has a 3-second ICD. Plus you’d have to give up an important DPS or support trait to take it.

There is also the new Dessicate utility that grants lifeforce, but that is likely to be really awkward and weak to use with its long cast time and tiny radius.

We’ll see soon enough how bad the problem is, but I share your concern that lifeforce problems could cripple the scourge.

Transfusion and Scourge

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Hm. That sounds like rather slow healing on Transfusion, if this is supposed to be the support spec motivated to take healing power. Unless we’re wrong or Scourge transfusion has much higher healing scaling then it’ll be hard to justify taking Blood Magic rather than Curses.

Scourge Demo Weekend Feedback

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

https://youtu.be/ZhBf1Q6gTnY#t=35m

You can see Dhuumfire in action here, first with Demonic Lore active and then with Sand Savant. The extra fire damage seems to apply when you cast a shade using F1, or when you cause a shade to pulse damage using the other shade skills. Having Sand Savant active does not seem to increase the number of burn stacks applied per target per cast, but does increase the number of targets per cast.

With Terrifying Descent, Terror, Vital Persistence, Dhuumfire and either Demonic Lore or Sand Savant a scourge is going to be really, really good at bursting down trash mobs.

Sand Swell (Teleport Utility) Notes

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Latest stream has footage of this skill in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhBf1Q6gTnY#t=37m

  • The skill has a targeting reticule like any AoE skill, and seems to automatically zap the scourge who cast it to the targeted location (since even when slowing the footage I don’t see the “F” prompt appearing when the portals are being cast).
  • The stream talks about the skill having a much shorter range than the mesmer one, and the footage shows it has a very short duration.
  • The barrier applies when the necro starts teleporting (i.e. only after the skill finishes channelling) and applies again when the necro teleports back. It’s not clear from the footage what the cap is for the number of times a necro could warp per Sand Swell cast.
  • Not 100% clear if you need a valid path in order to teleport – there’s one clip of a scourge teleporting from a bridge to an area down below and I don’t know GW pathing systems well enough to know if a shadowstep could do that.
  • The footage seems to confirm a theory regarding barrier decay: that applying new barrier to a target refreshes the amount of time before any preexisting barrier goes into decay. For instance in the first teleport the necro does they arrive at their destination with 1.6k barrier; they then wait until the barrier has around 200 points left before teleporting back; they arrive back at their destination with 1.8k barrier; and they stay at 1.8k barrier for 2 seconds before their barrier goes into decay again.
  • When you cast the skill an icon of hands with then number “10” appears in the necros buff list. Seems to be the max number of times the portal can be used.
  • Not sure why, but this aforementioned icon does not disappear immediately when the portal disappeared in the footage. It seems to be on a timer and disappeared quite a few seconds afterwards. Maybe the portal auto-closes regardless of remaining duration if the necro teleports back? But for some reason this auto-disappear hasn’t been programmed into the HUD buff icon?

Thoughts on the skill? Anyone else able to glean anything from this footage?

Suggestions wanted: fractal currency sinks

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@Illconcieved you’re welcome, I thought it prudent in case the opinions of reddit users differ from those of users here.

For my own suggestion, it’s certainly a problem that can be approached in an number of different ways. I find it difficult in situations like this to think of “end game players” in abstract, and so prefer to look at what I might want, and then ask if that would be of broader interest. I’d also say that there are two possible sink approaches that could be taken here:
1)Create high-cost sinks for one-off purchases and focus on cleaning older accounts that have huge relic stockpiles; or
2) Create low-cost sinks for repeat purchases and focus on slowing the growth of stockpiles in older and newer accounts.

Since my account is new-ish, I have no Old Tom or Ad Infinitum and am currently working towards an Omnipotion, I am naturally more interested in sinks of the 2nd type. Hence what I’d like to propose is a fractal food vendor: an NPC with a basic list of account-bound food and utility consumables that can be bought for fractal relics. This vendor would provide a positive benefit in the following cases:

1) The player is in the fractal lobby, realises they want to activate food & utility consumables but don’t have any in their inventory/bank. Normally in this case they’d have to hold the party up whilst they order some over the trading post (or even worse, leave the observatory to go crafting). With an accessible vendor however they could sink a few relics, quickly buff and then get back to playing.

2) The player is in the business of doing fractals in order to farm gold. Currently almost all level 80 food/utilities cost gold to acquire, and so activating them for a fractal run cuts in to the player’s profits. True there is a certain amount of gameplay to be had in assessing a situation to decide whether it’s worth turning food on, but I would be surprised if fractal farmers would prefer to have that “play” rather than the convenience of always being able to play with food up without impacting their bottom line.

3) You as a player want another cool NPC to chat with in the Mists. Certainly for a lower development cost you could just make this vendor a new golem, but what made me chuckle as I was typing this was the thought of a member of Dessa’s krewe using the player as a guinea pig to see if food from the Mists is edible. Whatever the flavour, with the recent expansion to fractal lobby there’s room to squeeze in one more fun/tragic mistlocked character.

Suggestions wanted: fractal currency sinks

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6tn5oz/fractals_have_evolved_into_awesome_5man_instanced/

“Anet_Ben,
We won’t ever let you convert fractal relics in to gold, at least not at any profitable conversion, but I agree that we need more relic sinks. I’ve been focused heavily on content lately so have been slipping on QoL and systems. We’ll be paying heavy attention to suggestions here and on the forums regarding possible avenues for making relics more valuable.”

You heard the man, let’s have your suggestions!

Necro - Back on the shelf for another year?

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Having mulled the scourge over for a while, I am presently of the opinion that it is something of a mixed bag. Here’s how I’d break it down:

Sand Shade core mechanic: good design and good balance. The four extra shade skills look like strong, thematic, instant-cast skills with very competitive cooldowns, balanced by the need for lifeforce to fuel them.
I could imagine this fuel system supporting healthy build diversity, with some setups making build sacrifices to increase their life force supply and others choosing not to.
What’s more at an aesthetic level I know some people like the idea of trading away death shroud, and this is an inventive way to do it that meshes well with the existing class design.

Torch: Numbers look okay, but I’m not sure how well the meshes with the rest of the class or stands as an interesting weapon in its own right.
The scourge can cast shades out to 900 range, needs plenty of life force and is very good at clearing conditions off of allies – why then do we have a weapon with only 600 range on one skill, no life force generation and which gets stronger when allies are conditioned? If the torch actually did something interesting or unique I’d make some allowances, but since it’s all over the place right now I’m struggling to figure out what was intended.
I’m also not a fan of pidgeon-holing elite specs into either power or condition only. I view that split as being one of damage vs damage, i.e. no split at all.

Traits: Some of these traits looks fine when looked at individually, but I taken as a whole I think the tree looks to be in bad shape, with minors that don’t do enough to support the core build and majors that ask the builder to make the wrong choices.
The Sand Soul and Blood in the Sand minors are along the right lines, giving the player an incentive to get their sand shades out and some basic stat bonuses to help cover the fact that the Scourge is MAD (multi-attribute dependent), needing healing power, vitality, condition duration and boon duration, plus either condition damage or (if it was better supported) power. But I think that giving small buffs to condition duration, boon duration and direct damage reduction was the wrong package to give. Boons (esp. might) are a sideshow in the Scourge, something that players should invest in themselves if they want to focus on that part of the build; and that token direct damage reduction just feels completely out of place. If it were up to me for the minors I’d zero in on just one of the required scourge stats and take it off the table, e.g. by offering +100% condition duration between the two minor traits (perhaps +20% per active shade for trait 1 and +40% when you have a barrier for trait 2) so that we can get some better gearing variety between builds.
As for the major traits I think it was a bad move to make the player choose between DPS or barrier or corruption traits – the elite spec should I feel support all three within a single build, and the traits should instead allow the player to fine tune how each one works. So if I were overhauling majors I’d devote a separate tier to each strand of the class (e.g. have all the barrier traits in the master tier) and give the player a choice of direction for how to improve that strand (e.g. for the barrier tier they could either get more barriers, or bigger barriers or boons when barrier granting). As things stand there are far too many necessary traits that are mutually exclusive, leaving most theoretical builds feeling incomplete.

Punishments: Despite how long I’ve been ragging on the traits, above, these are actually the most unsatisfactory parts of the Scourge. As many on this forum have already pointed out boon corruption was already our thing, so giving us more of it (of an arguably worse flavour) does nothing to create a unique appeal for this skill type; and without day one split balancing these skills are severly underpowered for their cooldowns in PvE as compared with PvP/WvW. Moreover with the exception of the portal skill the non-corruption sides of these skills are an uninspired grab bag of low damage and minor boon effects. The lack of any new minion skill is particularly egregious.

Conclusion: To the OP, I share your concern when it comes to this class. There is definitely enough working here for a solid necromancer spec to come out of this expansion, but I think various parts of the scourge need various levels of tweaking first.

Really Devs, One against 20 in the story mode

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

I too found this story instance very easy first time around, so I decided to go back there and do a test.

First time I went through was with a celestial reaper – a build others (but not me) have trashed on this forum as being one of the worst. That build had a balance of offensive and defensive traits+skills and effortlessly breezed through the content with no deaths or problems. I only fought a handful of enemies at a time.
The second time I went through I used a purely defence/support build: a minstrel guardian (not DH) with shouts and the spirit longbow, virtues/honour/valour traitlines. This time it was significantly harder as I was fighting lots of enemies at once.

The reason for this discrepency was as follows: in the first (helping the lionguard and meeting the herald) and second (protecting the village) encounters of the instance multiple small groups of enemies are fighting multiple small groups of allies. If you have a very slow damage output the small enemy groups will have enough time to kill the allies they are fighting – after doing so they will all gather together and go after you.

Does this mean that I would support nerfing the instance? Not really. I think if we adopted the principle that every build should have an easy time in every instance, even a purely support-based one with no allies to support, then the difficulty threshold would end up being so low as to trivialise the content in most cases.

@OP my advice is to bump up your damage output: if you can kill each small group of enemies quickly you can prevent them from swarming up into a big group.

Healing Power?

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Depends on how you conceptualise it. I would conceptualise barrier as giving you temporary hit points, and so have no problem with it scaling with healing power, the stat for giving out permanent hit points.
We also don’t know for certain if adding vitality to a scourge will give it more life force to spend – it’s possible that the costs may percentage-based rather than absolute.

Rune of the Scourge

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

So the Scourge design that we have seen is to spike large barriers onto allies in order to pre-empt specific threats, but the rune spits out self-only barrier and you have no control over when it pops? Leaving aside the fact that these runes are pretty meh in absolute terms, those runes don’t look like they will help the scourge do any of the things a scourge might want to focus on.

Couldn’t we have the rune 6 do something like “grant barrier to nearby allies when you inflict fear”?

Barrier Info

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Just crunched some numbers for the new Bountiful Maintenance Oil, posting here as relevant to our interests in case Barrier scales with +X% healing power effects.

Using the stats on http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ for Ascended gear and ignoring runes, sigils and infusions, the utility will provide the following bonuses to the two “main” healing power armour sets:

Magi (1381 healing power)
1381*0.006 = 8.286%

Minstrel (1173 healing power, 42.2% boon duration)
1173*0.006+42.2*15*0.008 =12.102%

With monk runes (175*0.006+10 = 11.05%) and a delicious rice ball (100*0.006+10 = +10.6%) you’re looking at a potential healing bonus of up to +33.752%.

If I use the numbers calculated for Sigmoid for Sand Flare and Shade 2 then we have:
Sand Flare 1.33752(2700+1.2*1448)=5935 barrier
Shade 2 1.33752(1700+0.77*1448)=3806 barrier
for our minstrel+monk+rice raid support scourge.

If we can put out barriers of this size every 2 seconds (which as mentioned elsewhere might be how we can prevent barrier going into decay) then I could see a max support scourge hitting max barrier on the party pretty often, maybe to the point that it might be overkill. Bearing in mind these numbers are all estimates of course.

Barrier Info

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

So a tanky necro with 25k hp will get a 20k health bar via Reaper + Soul Reaping, but only a 12.5k hp bar via Scourge? But Scourge can share that barrier health bar with your whole team? Interesting. As WP hinted at in passing on his video, that makes the combo of a front-rank vitality reaper and a back-rank healing power scourge pretty durable. Assuming of course that the Scourge’s barrier effects scale enough with healing power that you can actually maintain barrier levels close to the cap value. That might depend on whether there are runes/sigils/food out there that can spread additional barrier.

WP going through Scourge

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Cheers Sigmoid for copying all this out!

Defensive Sandshroud, really?

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Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

It will be interesting when we get more info or the chance to try it out to find out the answers to the following questions:

1) Does Barrier scale with one of your stats, and if so with which? The necro WP showed had 1.7k vitality and 1.2k healing power – I doubt he would have chosen that amulet if it did not buff barrier somehow, but knowing for sure which stat is involved here would be nice.

2) If it is healing power, do barrier effects benefit from +X% healing effects like rice balls and monk runes? Because if not it may be that the scourge spec will have limited compatability with traditional support rune/sigil/food choices.

3) Can a support scourge do the role of might-stacking as well as a PS warrior? I’m no raider, but if not I’m not seeing anything here that would let a scourge slot easily into the current raid meta comp.

4) Do sand shroud skills inherit the effects of core traits that buff death shroud? On the one had something would have to be done or else a good chunk of all the necro’s best core traits will be useless, but on the other hand the skills from shroud are so different that traits like Transfusion or Dhuumfire would have to be fundamentally reworked for them.

Overall I like the idea of a spec dedicated to giving more support and I’m willing to reserve judgment for now, but I’m a little sceptical right now that people will want the unique thing this class provides – just like how nobody really cares about the superspeed that the scrapper is all about.

Cooking: the next step

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Interesting that 500 cooking was discussed as being on the “to-do-eventually” list as recently as 2 months ago, and that the devs already have an idea what they want to do with it. I would be against power-creeping food via bigger numbers, but I think there are potentially interesting products that could be added to the cooking profession that might justifiably be gated behind cooking levels greater than 400. Chances are what I am about to suggest has already been discussed to death by Ms. Murdock and others, but out of ego and since this is a suggestions thread, here are my thoughts:

1)Feast recipe unlocks: feasts are a cool system and they encourage good play, but I don’t see players engaging with the system much because the barriers to entry are so high – this is due almost entirely to the 50 mystic coins required to learn each recipe via the forge. Tying feast recipe unlocks to crafting levels instead of gold would make the system more accessible, and is also a more intuitive way for the player to progress towards feast crafting.

2) Infinite food. Another obvious suggestion. The whole schtick of food is that it is a use-limited buff, but as the fractal potion overhaul has shown there is some value in offering players an infinite version of a timed buff as a high end convenience item. The way I would handle it is by introducing a generic “Infinity Cloche” item (crafted using a vision crystal and other high-end crafting materials). This can then be irreversably combined with 10 copies of a food item of your choice to create an account-bound infinite-use version of that food item. The advantages of this approach from a business perspective are that it encourages repeat engagement with the crafting system for players who want to have endless copies of multiple foods; and that it provides yet another way for shared inventory slots to prove useful.

3) Infinite feasts. Combine 10 infinite foodstuffs of the same type to create one infinite-use feast. Provides a long-term gold sink and ultimate prestige item for the best of the best chefs.

(edited by Professor Sprout.1560)

Stacking sigils don't work.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

@OP Please correct the title of this thread. As has been pointed out by others here, the sigils do in fact function and apply the correct benefit proportional to the number of stacks the player possesses.

@OP & BunjiKugashira in the grand scheme of things I hardly think that these problems are “big”, nor “ridiculous”, nor “PUNISHMENT” nor requiring of “solutions”. The sigil offers a reward that you have to work for, encourages good play and requires careful behaviour on the part of the user. There should be more sigils like these ones.

To me the only design elements in this field that I would like to see changed are how the Sigil of Demon Summoning works. Right now the demon pet is weak, does not interact with the player’s skills & traits and appears whether the player wants it to or not. To improve matters I would suggest the following:
1) The demon needs a flat buff to all of its stats, particularly hit points. Without some baseline DPS and the ability to survive with support for its whole duration there would be no point building around this potentially interesting sigil choice.
2) The demon should inherit all applicable pet-related traits that the user is running: so that means the minion traits if the user is a necromancer; the turret & gyro traits if the user is an engineer; pet traits if the user is a ranger; illusion traits if the user is a mesmer and so forth. This would turn the demon from being merely a thing that happens to being something that the player can build around, particularly for pet-heavy builds that might be more interested in most to this sigil.
3) The demon should only summon when the sigil is at 25 stacks AND the wielder uses their heal skill. Making the sigil skill-activated would give the player some control over when the pet is summoned, necessary if the player is going to use it intelligently.

Just bought the game, why do I regret it?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Did you use your level 80 boost to instantly upgrade your starting character to max level? If so, consensus here seems to be that you’d be better off leaving that character to one side for now and experience the levelling process normally for your first toon. I know I would be pretty lost if I jumped with my sylvari engineer to level 80 without learning about the class, race, setting, story or world first.

And on the subject of races, I also think that not all of the starting areas are as well-crafted as each other. In particular I’d say that the Charr one does a bad job of showing the game off compared with the Sylvari or Asuran ones, with the Human and Norn ones being average.

One thing that kept me interested in the dry early levels (apart from this being my first MMORPG) was setting a goal for myself, namely to get from my Caledon Forest starting area to the Wayfarer Foothills where my Norn friend had his dude. Perhaps having some goals might let you get your foot in the door.

Necro/reaper PVE, should i bother?

in Necromancer

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

If you like how the class plays, do bother with the necro. Reapers are great for soloing dungeons and strong in a group all the way up to the nightmare 100 fractal. I can’t speak for raids but that mode is sufficiently niche that I wouldn’t use it as the basis on which I might select my main class.

Queen Jennah: Tyrant?

in Living World

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

There is a popular theory going around that Jennah is the human goddess Lyssa. If this is true, and if the theory that not just Balthazar but all the gods have been weakened is also true, then her unusually negative portrayal in Head of the Snake might have been an attempt by the writers to set her up as a possible adversary figure in the expansion.

We will see a new fractal in ep 6! [edit]

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Professor Sprout.1560

Professor Sprout.1560

Waiiitttt….

We don’t know for sure that the LW3E6 announcement picture or what that_shaman found relates to the LW part of the update, making an Orr fractal possible;
The picture shows a verdant version of Orr with lots of water, a suitable habitat for an aquatic race such as the quaggans;
The fractal announcement video had a bunch of flashing lights, such as you might see at some kind of extreme dance party;

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Returning-Player-Fractals-Questions/first#post6545899

LEAK CONFIRMED!

So I guess this fractal tells the story of how Shashoo and the Pact Quaggans overthrew Balthazar and the rest in Orr to become the new gods of the humans? Thereby setting up the plot for the PoF expansion of course. Yes, it must be this. This theory is clearly foolproof. XD