Showing Posts For Raven.1793:
As a build-a-holic who keeps at least 3 sets of gear per character and swaps builds by encounter, I would very much like some quality of life improvements when it comes to controlling this chaos. +1
There seem to be some insistent requests that raids be made easier and more accessible. However, there are also many problems with implementing easy-mode or tiered raids that would still give hardcore raiders the same sense of accomplishment and exclusivity that comes with their efforts. Implementing different raid modes also has the additional drawback of requiring scarce developer attention.
One solution is to implement a raid buff weekend. The basic idea is this: for one weekend every month, give a flat bonus such as 10% outgoing damage bonus or 10% incoming damage reduction in a specific raid wing. The actual buffs and numbers are negotiable. They should be strong enough to make a difference for those who make minor mistakes but not enough to guarantee victory for those who do not know the mechanics. The schedule is also negotiable. Developers can announce and schedule the weekends and/or wings at their own discretion similar to other promotional modifiers.
Implementing raid buff weekends has several benefits. The first is promoting raid content. By concentrating the buff in a limited window, it encourages weekend gamers and non-raiders to try it out, focusing interest into a limited time frame and making it easier to find groups. Another is to give a second chance to those who got stuck on a boss. By placing the buff window at the end of the raid week, it encourages those who struggled with raid content earlier in the week to return for a rematch. Most importantly, it puts an end to any arguments that the devs are not addressing the perceived inaccessibility of raids and makes a clear statement that the raids themselves will not be altered.
This solution has a several advantages over altering the raids themselves. It maintains the prestige of regular raiding by clearly designating raid buffs as limited-time, promotional content. It also keeps things easy for the developers by repurposing existing promotional mechanisms and not requiring new content. By putting control into the hands of the developers, this mechanism also allows them to fine-tune the buffs and promote the content they want promoted.
I’ve been enjoying PvE condi mesmer in the new open world maps. The new mobs are a bit tougher and more dangerous so not as easy to burst down on a power build. Jade constructs and other boss events are especially easy since you can do decent damage with minimal effort. I also keep PU and Harmonious Mantras traited just to make it easier to swap in mantras or stealth as necessary.
Pretty much anything is viable in open world and you can do much worse than condi mesmer. In a group though, you should play chrono for the superior support.
Chronos normally tank on VG but when there is another chronotank and I get assigned to run circles, this is the condi build I use:
Against the golem, this will do 25k with full buffs, 21k with realistic buffs, and 11k with just food and vulnerability – a common scenario for VG circle runners. Note that I’m using Rampager’s gear and over-capping precision. If anyone has tried this using a Viper setup, I’d like to hear how it compares.
Though the build works well for me, some who have tried it tell me they have trouble staying alive. Fortunately, the gear is cheap to obtain.
EDIT: Fixed build link
How about using a scepter condi elementalist in the OP’s initial comp? They stack might pretty well and provide some protection while dealing decent burn and bleed damage. Does anyone know if it is possible to build a burnzerker with PS and EA?
Please don’t. Scepter is only equivalent to dagger under the scenario of perma alacrity.
Scepter has horrendous sustained DPS since the scepter autoattacks are among the worst in the game, so all your DPS comes from overloads and Dragon Tooth/Phoenix with Lightning Strike.
In any scenario scepter would shine over dagger, staff would do even better.
Scepter is a garbage weapon pretty much every class but necro.
Scepter easily stacks and maintains 25 might and perma fury. Dagger and staff do not. S/W condi deals 19k dps fully buffed, 9k with no buffs. D/W power may be capable of 36k fully buffed but only manages 10k unbuffed. In a group without a PS warrior, it is generally a good idea to run S/W might stack over D/W fresh air.
BTW, the S/W numbers were obtained using sinister gear with balthazar runes. This build should perform much better using viper gear with berserker runes.
Who cares about the ele might stacking? PS warrior and people blasting your lava font should keep full might stacks and fury stacks, and if you wanted to be optimizing anyways you would have a revenant in your group to maximize quickness uptime from the chrono, and that herald is providing a passive 12 might stacks and permafury himself.
Core dagger rotation leaves a fire field for might stacking as well.
If you as the ele need to run a kitten 19-22k DPS gimmick spec to give party might, you have greater problems to worry about with your group.
Scepter ele also has garbage sustained cleave compared to dagger or staff.
I don’t see the need to immediately dismiss S/W ele just because meta builds do not work well with it. I know that everyone’s favorite comp is Chrono, PS, Druid, 2 DPS and that it is very powerful. I happily run D/W fresh air anytime I’m in a meta comp. However, the OP is attempting to do something different and from what he reports, condi appears to be promising for high level fractals. I’d like to help him find an alternative to the same old comp. He is trying to build a condi-oriented team and necros do not have enough blast finishers to max might on fire fields. The fact is that condi builds benefit a lot from might stacks and ele happens to have a might stacking condi build. This same build also brings along a good deal of protection, something that should not be overlooked given the title of this thread. Finally, 22k is about what you can expect from a PS warrior. Considering the toughness scaling, it is quite possible that a condi ele can out damage a PS warrior in the same role.
BTW, good job on the research Snapalope. I’m always glad to see people not only proposing different ways to play the game but also doing the legwork to demonstrate either its effectiveness or lack thereof.
How about using a scepter condi elementalist in the OP’s initial comp? They stack might pretty well and provide some protection while dealing decent burn and bleed damage. Does anyone know if it is possible to build a burnzerker with PS and EA?
Please don’t. Scepter is only equivalent to dagger under the scenario of perma alacrity.
Scepter has horrendous sustained DPS since the scepter autoattacks are among the worst in the game, so all your DPS comes from overloads and Dragon Tooth/Phoenix with Lightning Strike.
In any scenario scepter would shine over dagger, staff would do even better.
Scepter is a garbage weapon pretty much every class but necro.
Scepter easily stacks and maintains 25 might and perma fury. Dagger and staff do not. S/W condi deals 19k dps fully buffed, 9k with no buffs. D/W power may be capable of 36k fully buffed but only manages 10k unbuffed. In a group without a PS warrior, it is generally a good idea to run S/W might stack over D/W fresh air.
BTW, the S/W numbers were obtained using sinister gear with balthazar runes. This build should perform much better using viper gear with berserker runes.
Condi S/W might stacking build in exotic sinister gets 19k with full buffs, 9k with no buffs.
For comparison:
Power D/W fresh air in ascended zerker gets 36k with full buffs, 10k with no buffs.
How about using a scepter condi elementalist in the OP’s initial comp? They stack might pretty well and provide some protection while dealing decent burn and bleed damage. Does anyone know if it is possible to build a burnzerker with PS and EA?
I play a lot of D/X in open world. The most important skill you can learn here is to max-melee. At 300, your melee range is longer than other melee classes. Use that and stay moving to avoid taking too many hits.
Also, if you’re really taking a beating and using a fresh air build, remember that you can rotate into earth or water instead of fire after overload air.
Thanks for pointing out the CD, Snowball. I ran the test using Fire/Air/Tempest several more times using the exact same skill sequence in the qT benchmark video and managed to get 49.7-39.4-37.8-40.2 on the best run. It’s still about 15% less than what you are getting. Strangely enough, I get pretty much the same D/W numbers you do even though that is supposed to be a harder rotation. My 75ms ping should not be that terrible but I do notice a bit of delay on some skill activations.
I found the answer for why I wasn’t getting the same Staff dps results as the video. He was running a different build than the one posted in the guide. I replicated the results, getting a maximum of 58k and overall of 44k using Fire/ARCANE/Tempest instead of Fire/Air/Tempest for an extra 22% damage from Bountiful Power. He also drops Overload Air and allows it to run out immediately before engaging the target.
Another thing he did was cast Overload Fire after Meteor Shower and allowing the last meteor to fall before casting Ice Storm. This keeps seaweed and Harmonious Conduit bonuses up during Meteor Shower.
IMO, Bountiful Power is a bit dubious. 100% uptime on 11 boons is more than a bit unrealistic. Precasting Overload Air requires really good timing on the pull but I can see how that can be useful in some places. Separating Meteor Shower and Ice Storm was a useful lesson though.
EDIT: Need to clarify that I’m talking about Staff dps, not D/W.
(edited by Raven.1793)
I noticed something when testing the staff rotation against a golem. Fireball is very low in the rotation priority and rarely gets cast. The 17% buff doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference in the overall dps of that build. I wonder if it was put in to alleviate fire’s relative weakness against small and/or moving targets. If that was the case, then they really should have buffed Chain Lightning instead.
By the way, Fireball + Lava Font already had a higher combined coefficient than Lightning Whip. However, even as D/Wh, AA still only accounts for a small part of our total dps.
I’ve repeated the setup from that reddit thread and can still only get around 38k on the large golem with full buffs. On the other hand, I managed to get 39k from a D/Wh run on the same large golem. In the videos, I noticed Lightning Orb frequently not making all of its attacks on the small golem. On the large golem, you can set it up to hit up to 16 times – same with a moving target.
Am I doing something really wrong with Staff to get such low numbers? They were getting upwards of 50k on some splits in the posted video.
EDIT: Also, I don’t seem to be casting too many Fireballs in my Staff rotation. I’m pretty much always channeling something or casting lava font.
(edited by Raven.1793)
I’ve had some good experiences in VG running circles on condi mes. Mesmers can easily cap bleed duration and iDuelists scale very well with precision so I run full Rampager instead of messing with Viper. The specific build I use has signet regen for sustain, blink to catch circles, distortion to live through the really bad circles, temporal curtain for seeker pulls, magic bullet to help with breakbars, and moa to instantly break red’s bar. In general VG is mostly about the circle team staying alive and condi mes does that job pretty well while still dealing respectable damage. Most VG groups don’t prioritize boons for their circle team so you’ll contribute around 10k dps which is probably a bit better than what an ele would get in the same situation.
I’ve been getting higher dps for D/W than staff even on the large hitbox golem. D/W can get north of 30k while Staff barely scrapes that amount.
IGN: Fiore Martensite
Play: PvE
Server: Ehmry Bay (NA)
Role: Tester
Time: PST weekday evenings
When running without a PS Warrior or Hammer DH, I’ll often use a scepter/warhorn condi build that rotates between fire and earth. The dps is mediocre but it provides might, fury, and protection to the rest of the group. I think a better comparison for this build is to PS Warrior since they fill the same role.
Thanks, Mikkel. I’ll switch it out with Earth permanently then.
Also, am I correct in assuming Bursting Sigil is similarly useless?
(edited by Raven.1793)
My guild lacks engineers capable of handling the carpal-tunnel-inducing rotation so I’ve been recommending a very similar build for additional mesmers in my guild – especially those who lack the gear or training to run quickness/alacrity support.
It will do about 9k against the golem (better than d/w ele) and easily reaches 16k on a boss or champ with only a might stacker (condi ele). The best part is that usage and equipment are easy enough for anyone to pick up.
Note that I’m using Rampager’s gear. It’s actually a dps increase over Sinister or Viper due to the way iDuelists work. You want to cap crit rate so that every hit will proc bleed. I have it over-capped here since I’m not assuming any druid or banner support. But if you have precision buffs, you can replace the Accuracy sigil with Earth and/or Rampager trinkets with Sinister.
I don’t normally run this build in raids since quickness/alacrity is still more important. However, I do use it in DS, against champs, or in bad pugs that don’t deal enough dps or can’t stay together.
EDIT: Fixed the link
(edited by Raven.1793)
Bad PUGs are a fact of life. One thing I’ve learned is that meta builds tend to do very badly in PUGs. Mesmer is a notable exception because our meta builds come with great defenses and we tend to play more of a support role anyways. I see the meta as more of a support stacking meta than an individual max-dps meta. Mesmers earn our spot in raids not by dealing superior dps ourselves but by enabling others to do so.
On the other hand, I usually do better pugging on my full glass zerker ele. They can switch roles very quickly with a few minor trait changes. The only thing is that you need to know the capabilities of your group beforehand. Blindly sticking to a meta rotation in a PUG on ele is a recipe for a quick death.
Xyonon, I’d like to see a screenshot or video of a support chrono (iAvengers) dealing 12k or a pure dps chrono (iSwordsmen) dealing 18k. I’ve never been able to break 5k on a support build. The best I’ve seen has been 16k on a condi build (iDuelists).
Also, I’d like to second that bit about quickness being our primary contribution to a raid. Alacrity doesn’t mean much except maybe to make things easier on the PS warrior and druid. The testing I’ve done on alacrity alone indicates that it’s only about a 15% dps increase on a d/w ele.
This is a great idea and a very GW2 way of doing things. After all, the raids are structured as a series of timed dps and mechanics tests so why don’t we just treat it as another activity? There is a very real need for a damage meter right now for people to get any feedback on their own performance in this event. Providing in-game support for an end-of-match report card will obviate the need to resort to 3rd party tools.
As for additional stats/categories I’d also like to see additional breakdown for:
Average Might Stacks
Percent Quickness Uptime
About Traeharne: everyone I knew in RL who played this game hated Traeharne. All my guildies hated Traeharne. I hated Traeharne. A lot of people who posted on the forums hated Traeharne. We all had different reasons, save that the focus was: “He stole my spotlight.”
Don’t lie to yourself and say that he didn’t steal your spotlight in the PS. At the beginning of the PS, your character says: “This is my story.” And then at the end, it becomes Traeharne’s story.
I really do not believe you at all when you say it’s a “vocal minority” that wanted the spotlight when the story is supposed to be about YOU. Your character. Not an NPC.
For what it’s worth, I quite enjoyed Traeharne’s character. I found the original PS uniquely suited to an MMO where the story is not really about the PC being the hero but about gathering together a group of people who could beat the elder dragon. In that sense, the story is still about the PC and Traeharne was just someone that was found to lead the pact.
I too found Traeharne’s voice somewhat annoying but we can make fun of that. After playing through HoT, I found my character’s voice to be similarly awful and grating. That is unacceptable. I don’t want to order people around again. I’d rather stick to being the mostly-slient action hero that bashes dragon minions and throws out the occasional cheesy one-liner.
The monomyth is overdone and unsuited to the MMO environment. The original PS was a refreshing departure and it was disappointing to see the writers abandon that style of storytelling.
I think the goal of PvE build diversity can be achieved with little more than the changes they are making to condition stacks. If ANet balances it right, this one change can make Sinister, Rampager, Rabid, Carrion, and Dire gear sets viable in group PvE.
As many have mentioned already, tank stats are already viable – you can contribute to a party and complete a dungeon with them. You may even fare better than a group of inexperienced zerkers. Nobody needs to join speed clears and nobody needs to contribute to a zerker group. If you want to PHIW and enjoy the intensity of long boss fights, who are we to judge? As it is, the game already lets you do that.
Thanks for the feedback. It makes sense that might and fury from 100% fire field uptime can be counted as support. Somehow I doubt that non-zerker pugs are thinking of this.
I am definitely not following the meta blindly. I only stated that my own setup is close to meta. I use Lava Tomb because I know I’m likely to go down a few times in a pug. Likewise, I often swap Stone Splinters for Renewing Stamina. I also frequently use either Arcane Shield or Glyph of Storms instead of Ice Bow. My signet is nearly always Air and not Fire because of how often my survival depends on being able to kite. There aren’t many variations if what you want to play is a fresh air ele. You might say that I build to play zerker in a pug.
By the way, my guildmaster mains ele and was on a necro when she complained about my choice of weapons. We have a warrior but I don’t think he’s PS since I almost never have a full might stack despite being in melee most of the time.
Perhaps my problem is that I am trying too hard to accommodate non-zerkers. Some of us like playing glass dps.
I thought D/F is supposed to be a good general-purpose build for all sorts of PvE. I play a full zerk D/F ele that follows the meta spec fairly closely. I have always liked glass cannon characters and do not mind going down a few times as long as I stay up long enough to get my damage in. Though I will switch to other specs when required, D/F is what I usually choose should the situation allow for it. In general, I am quite happy with this build.
One thing I have noticed lately though is that there seem to be a few players – usually encountered in fractals – who play tank/healer/dps and insist that I go staff claiming that I’ll “die less often” and “help the party”. The first person was an outright jerk about it and I eventually quit the group since he would not stop the insults even after I switched to staff. The second person was helpful and sent me a set of exotic cleric gear which I use anywhere dps is unimportant. The third was a bit unexpected, my guild leader apparently does not approve of dagger-wielding eles and is trying to get me to use staff in guild runs. Why is there all this hate and where does this idea come from that staff is better for support? Aren’t the only party support skills in staff water fields and AA? Does this mean they asking me to camp water? Do people really play like this in high-level fractals?