Guild Wars 2

Dahkeus.8243:

DirtyDan.4759:

PS = Phalanx Strength. Deadeye has this trait? No. End of discussion.

You do realize that there were quotes around “PS” for a reason, right?

Anyways, as for the actual discussion itself, I think that the biggest problem with deadeye for a lot of content is that it’s a very single target-based damage spec. Even if you’re not using rifle, the malice mechanic centers around one target. This may be fine for a lot of individual boss fights, but it will probably hamstring the spec a lot in dungeons and other add-based encounters.

However, if the devs do want there to be an alternative might-stacking build for the meta outside of PS, they just need to make sure that PS warriors (or other might stacking builds) don’t deal equivalent DPS to pure DPS classes. This should be fair since it’s the same reason why a Chrono deals low damage.
If they did this, you could still cover banners by bringing a higher damage build of a warrior to the group for something closer to a pure DPS role and just have them drop banners.

Dungeons are so hilariously easy now that I don’t feel it’s worth bringing them up in any discussion anymore. In terms of encounters, more and more even in story there hasn’t been many with lots of adds that require more attention then cleave it out while killing the boss.

I think it will be fine as it is and run D/D but swap Trickery for Deadeye as you get more damage mods out of malice and with so many kinda meh major traits you’ll have no real down side to running might share unless wanting to absolutely maximise personal damage with that GM trait that grants 200 power and precision.

I would be very surprised if CPS didn’t get toned down as it does way too much damage for the support it brings which would lower the bar for other might stackers.

The real question is how be quick or be killed scales with the insane damage boosts of malice and if it’s just flat out better than fire for effect. Even maleficent seven looks like a hefty boost at max stacks.

babazhook.6805:

apharma.3741:

babazhook.6805:

Choppy.4183:

babazhook.6805:

Just some perspective on roaming as it pertains to a thief.

There is a lot of give and take and especially when it comes to those roamers focusing on stealth as defense and that is , if defending or taking a point such as a camp , your single largest defensive asset is now a laibility if facing an enemy player.

“spamming stealth” may help you survive a given encounter, but if your only goal is to survive you might as well stay parked in a tower. “Spamming stealth” will very often see an objective lost to a single enemy player because all that time you were stealthed saw the circle up go his way.

You know as well as everyone else that “spamming stealth” has largely been replaced by the mobility and evades of Daredevil. Stealth is still a powerful defensive option, but the state of thief in regards to capping hasn’t been what you described since HoT dropped.

You do not play thief. First off if you can remove stealth access from a thief, even one that uses dodges, you have removed a good deal of defenses. My post mentioned steath specifically and did not refer to dodges.

Secondly I DO play warrior. If I come into a camp the same time as an opposing thief and can prevent that thief from entering stealth due to the mechanics mentioned , my chances of winning go up exponentially.

Contrary to claims made . thief does not have infinite dodges. Added to that the weapon evades are easily read and there should be no reason a warrior can not time his attacks to hit said thief in their vulnerable frames.

Warrior will always have more attacks then a thief has dodges and the more of those attacks used that force thief into expending a dodge or evade , the more followup attacks that will hit. I know I mentioned it to you before that a warrior using some of those physical skills (kick, stomp bulls charge as example) can much better counter an evade thief then can a warrior that traits endure pain and all defensive utilities.

Currently because of the changes to burst skills on berserker and AH interactions most warriors run baseline. A DP daredevil that’s got similar experience on their class as their opponent vs a core warrior should win nearly every time. Kite out the endure pains, bait out the resistance or save steal for stripping it when they want to get that burst skill to hit and keep them blinded.

I mean core warrior doesn’t even have a decent CC anymore as the shield bash proceeds to announce it will CC you now.

In terms of the topic mobility and stealth nearly every roamer has loads of it but I feel the more balanced ones are warrior and DH. They can have some mobility but have to pay for it with less effective utilities or weapon choices. Condi mes and P offhand thieves have far too much of all of it and need toning down.

My warrior does not use endure pain because endure pain can be kited out. Warrior has physical skills and other skills available that have CC. Too many warriors neglect these in order to take endure pain or other “passive” utilities.

To shield bash and headbutt in particular.

The tell does not really matter if you are using it against thief weapon evades. Once the thief uses vault, or DB (the two major ones) the chances of your headbutt or shield bash landing go up. You do not use these before the thief enters that evade. You use them when he enters that evade timing it for the connect to land near the end of the animation.

To the thief dodges there a reason I prefer physical skills against them over endure pain. That because they tend to force a dodge. If the thief does not dodge something like Bulls charge or kick they can be put into a vulnerable position.

This does not mean a good thief would not have other options. It my suggesting that a warrior has options to tilt the fight more in his favor. If the thief does not have stealth as an option as a defense, it follows they will rely more on dodge and evades. Force those to burn INI and endurance on the thiefs part and the the thief tends to have to withdraw and reset.

Yes the theif can always get away in such a scenario , but I am talking about defending or taking a camp or other such location as a roamer. A warrior can do this job very well. They are not as “bad” at is as is a thief in the heart of a zerg.

Yes, talk about staff thief and death blossom except I said DP daredevil as in what you are most likely to come up against and was talking about core warrior as most players recognise that berserker is now inferior. So I don’t know why you’re bringing up head butt as well you should read first or refrain from making strawman arguments.

In terms of taking a camp the only times it isn’t in the thiefs favour in a warrior vs thief fight is if the DP thief literally gets there just before it’s going to be capped or is trying to take the camp vs guards and a warrior. The former the thief can do very little (mes, druid and scrapper would likewise not fair well) while many classes wouldn’t have got their in the first place in the same time so would have lost the camp anyway. The latter the thief can use its superior mobility to kill dolyaks. If the warrior leaves and escorts the thief can take out the guards and make it an even fight, if the warrior stays he gets little to no value from the camp.

babazhook.6805:

Choppy.4183:

babazhook.6805:

Just some perspective on roaming as it pertains to a thief.

There is a lot of give and take and especially when it comes to those roamers focusing on stealth as defense and that is , if defending or taking a point such as a camp , your single largest defensive asset is now a laibility if facing an enemy player.

“spamming stealth” may help you survive a given encounter, but if your only goal is to survive you might as well stay parked in a tower. “Spamming stealth” will very often see an objective lost to a single enemy player because all that time you were stealthed saw the circle up go his way.

You know as well as everyone else that “spamming stealth” has largely been replaced by the mobility and evades of Daredevil. Stealth is still a powerful defensive option, but the state of thief in regards to capping hasn’t been what you described since HoT dropped.

You do not play thief. First off if you can remove stealth access from a thief, even one that uses dodges, you have removed a good deal of defenses. My post mentioned steath specifically and did not refer to dodges.

Secondly I DO play warrior. If I come into a camp the same time as an opposing thief and can prevent that thief from entering stealth due to the mechanics mentioned , my chances of winning go up exponentially.

Contrary to claims made . thief does not have infinite dodges. Added to that the weapon evades are easily read and there should be no reason a warrior can not time his attacks to hit said thief in their vulnerable frames.

Warrior will always have more attacks then a thief has dodges and the more of those attacks used that force thief into expending a dodge or evade , the more followup attacks that will hit. I know I mentioned it to you before that a warrior using some of those physical skills (kick, stomp bulls charge as example) can much better counter an evade thief then can a warrior that traits endure pain and all defensive utilities.

Currently because of the changes to burst skills on berserker and AH interactions most warriors run baseline. A DP daredevil that’s got similar experience on their class as their opponent vs a core warrior should win nearly every time. Kite out the endure pains, bait out the resistance or save steal for stripping it when they want to get that burst skill to hit and keep them blinded.

I mean core warrior doesn’t even have a decent CC anymore as the shield bash proceeds to announce it will CC you now.

In terms of the topic mobility and stealth nearly every roamer has loads of it but I feel the more balanced ones are warrior and DH. They can have some mobility but have to pay for it with less effective utilities or weapon choices. Condi mes and P offhand thieves have far too much of all of it and need toning down.

Coconut.7082:

When discussing those things you need to make a clear distinction between optimal and viable/good/decent/whatever wording you want to use.
Also you have to look at the big picture, because it doesn’t matter if you can out-DPS a Warrior, rather than: whether you can out-DPS him by a large enough margin.

As of right now, Banners are too good to drop so you will always have at least one Warrior in a squad, so the following is with the assumption that you have Banners, and Might output is the same, so we can ignore the DPS increase from both.

Look at some dummy numbers:

From an optimal standpoint: Each Warrior brings 30k DPS and Empower Allies, which is about 2-4k~ group DPS increase (for the sake of math lets say 2k), so the total DPS of both Warriors, counting personal DPS and EA is 64k.
Now if you want to drop one of them for an alternative Might stacker, that means you lose EA on one sub-group (2k) and about 2k from the first Warrior who has to drop Shattering Blow for an extra Banner. Meaning that the first Warrior will be doing a total of 28k DPS now (counting the lower personal DPS and the 2k DPS loss of the second sub-group for dropping EA), which means the the alternative Might stacker will have to do over 36k (personal + increase from w/e unique buff they may give) to overcome the 64k that 2 Warriors can achieve.
Any class that could pull off something like that would be definitely over tuned.
There is the option that Condi PS will be nerfed with the upcoming expansion, but judging by the looks of Spellbreaker being a non PvE spec, I have a feeling that Condi PS will keep it’s current state, and the the latest buff to it (which seemed unreasonable in the current meta) was only meant to keep Warrior in the game for PvE.
So to sum all the above, it will require a lot to remove the double Warrior setup from the optimal composition unless there are some big overhauls.

From a viable standpoint: Alternate Might stackers were already viable (Condi Tempest, Rev) in the last few patches, for most groups the outcome will be the same, and timers only vary by a couple seconds.
If you look at the typical PuG, where the DPS dealers do 50% of their expected DPS (making EA half as effective) and there’s not enough Alacrity to maintain a full Condi PS Warrior rotation (losing a couple more k’s of DPS), you might actually get better results with an alternate Might stacker.
So if you don’t care about optimal setup, dropping the second PS won’t matter, but don’t expect PuGs to have a similar mindset ^^.

tl;dr: Without a major overhaul you will always keep 1 Warrior in the squad, bringing 2 is the current optimal choice and it will be very hard to change without introducing a new broken spec. Alternative Might stackers are viable, use them at your own risk.

*All the above is from looking at DPS numbers only and not taking into consideration the supreme CC and Cleave from Condi PS, as well as gimmicky situations on some encounters.

Something to bear in mind, you said assuming warrior doesn’t get nerfed but most people are of the belief that blade master will be toned down. Should chop significantly into the current CPS build especially for how much buffing it gives. Think Nike had a decent video on replacing warriors but that was back in May so might be a little outdated but it essentially said a DPS build doing >31k and providing 25 might would be enough to change 2 PS wars to 1 PS war.

Cyninja.2954:

apharma.3741:

From the rumours Ive heard they will be and have toned down the 1st set of elite specs. Look at berserker, most PvP/WvW players have switched to core warrior now as the berserker burst GS cast time got increased and it now only counts as a single bar of adrenaline spent.

I heard there’s a significant rework of reaper on its way with PoF too and that the expansion also serves as a balance patch. The rework is to make it a more direct damage and melee elite spec while scourge would be more condi and support focused. There’s no reason to believe changes like this can’t happen to other elite specs, DH becoming far more selfish, massive damage reduction to tempests and a couple of slight skill reworks.

Whether I have confidence in ANets ability to deliver is another thing but right now I feel a lot of PoF elites are much closer to how elite specs were advertised in the beginning.

I have to disagree. Yes from a spvp and to some extent wvw perspective maybe, but the first generation elites were predominantly pve focused and pve balanced. Generation 2 elites are clearly aimed at competative game modes. My proof, the current quantify benchmark:

https://qtfy.eu/guildwars/benchmarks-august-balance-patch/

- the only none elite spec in that benchmark is Engineer where most people would agree that scrapper is a spvp/wvw elite spec.
- Holosmith looks as though it might be a pve focused elite
- the next core build is condi ranger, where ranger elite was a heal specialised focus which makes sense for it to not show up (same goes for mesmer with chrono being a support elite)
- the first core build to show up is D/D thief at sub 30k, close to 5k below its Daredevil counterpart

I’ll rephrase what I said earlier:

- It’s not impossible for arenanet to rebalance all the elite specs ingame to be onpar with core builds. It is highly unlikely from both an effort and business perspective that they would though. Elite specialisations sell expansions, having them be better than core specs is a financial incentive.

That comment about them being PvE balanced works until you realise that every single elite spec on launch of HoT was straight up stronger than core across every single game mode with the exception of condi engy in PvE. It’s taken nearly 2 years to get to our current point and yet in PvP and WvW you are disadvantaged by not running your HoT elite spec as they bring so much to the table.

I’m basically relaying some of the rumours I’ve heard which is that current elite specs are going to be tuned down so they are strong in a niche or better fit a role. Right now most elite specs are straight up better for the classes at most roles, there’s some exceptions but it is a noticeable trend.

While I will agree there is a financial incentive to make elite lines better than core there isn’t an incentive to make it so pronounced as it was at HoT. HoT destroyed the player base considerably, there’s very little of a PvP scene left, WvW has had to be compressed into half as many servers because so many left and PvE has pretty dead maps from what I’ve seen. A lot of this came from the balance or lack off between HoT and core and how many perceived ANet to have lied to them about elite specs being a side grade of sorts.

I don’t mind the elites being a little better than core lines but the current elites especially chrono is just a straight upgrade to mesmer no matter which way you cut it. The PoF ones seem to be much more tailored to a specific niche and more in line with what was advertised as the idea behind elites.

I think you would just run strength for the 45% duration and 5% mod, it’s a decrease against scholar but it won’t make you fail anything. With 2 cantrips (heal, mercy/shadow gust/elite) you can upkeep 10 stacks permanently on 10 people with some overlap. You could technically run scholar but you’d need precise timing on the cantrip use and stolen skill use.

You also only need to take Fire for effect and one in the chamber, can run every other DPS trait from DA and CS. There will be a PS war in one subgroup because of banners and they may have some spill over. 2 deadeyes in one subgroup to have a power group, a few random blasts of might and the might sharing of the chrono should keep 25 up all the time for the power group especially if there’s a power ele there and going off the preliminary weaver rotations I’ve seen there will be blasting of fire fields from ele for 6-9 might at 20s.

2 firebrand, 2 scourge and either another scourge or optional Utility. Lots of stab, barrier, corrupts and range while also not being easily pushed on.

We can call it the SFU meta, shame there’s no class beginning with a T….

Cyninja.2954:

warherox.7943:

mortrialus.3062:

Skuzz.6580:

and? Where does it say that this Elite spec should out damage a core spec and out evade another?
Elite specs are not meant to be far superior than other core specs, so yes, probably another core spec has more evades, another has more damage, Elite specs are meant to open more options and diversity, not give you an overpowered version of other core specs.

Pro tip: If you like Blurred Frenzy that much, just use it when specced into Mirage??

Elite specs are supposed to be pure upgrades to the core specializations and side grades to each other. They’ve said that multiple times.

Literally all of the generation 1 elite specs are flat upgrades to core specializations with the exception of scrapper, which is still a flat upgrade to engineer in PvP.

It’s absurd to say the Daredevil is not a direct upgrade to the thief’s evasion capabilities. Or that Berserker isn’t a flat upgrade to a warrior’s damage, condition damage, and ability to pump out burst skills. Or that the Chronomancer isn’t a direct upgrade to mesmer’s team support capabilities and defensive capabilities.

Again, the Elite Specs are supposed to be stronger than core specs. They just aren’t meant to stronger than other elite specs.

Elite specs were never meant to be pure upgrades to the core professions and they shouldn’t be. They are upgrades right now and need to be toned down/reworked until they’re on the same level as core professions.

Never going to happen, never designed for, this was clear when generation 1 elite specialisations rolled out.

Forget that notion and get real, elite specialisations are upgrades and should be balanced against each other while augmenting the class for different things with each elite. Asking for anything else or even that arenanet rework and/or tone down generation 1 elites is insanity.

From the rumours Ive heard they will be and have toned down the 1st set of elite specs. Look at berserker, most PvP/WvW players have switched to core warrior now as the berserker burst GS cast time got increased and it now only counts as a single bar of adrenaline spent.

I heard there’s a significant rework of reaper on its way with PoF too and that the expansion also serves as a balance patch. The rework is to make it a more direct damage and melee elite spec while scourge would be more condi and support focused. There’s no reason to believe changes like this can’t happen to other elite specs, DH becoming far more selfish, massive damage reduction to tempests and a couple of slight skill reworks.

Whether I have confidence in ANets ability to deliver is another thing but right now I feel a lot of PoF elites are much closer to how elite specs were advertised in the beginning.

FogLeg.9354:

I would imagine single Wall of Reflection would get whole Deadeye zerg kill themselves.

This isn’t true, the reflected shot would deal what the base damage without mods would do as far as I remember from the old reflect damage calculations.

When you reflect a projectile your precision, ferocity and damage mods are taken into account not the aggressors. Your power also makes 0 impact on the damage of the projectile which I believe is based on the aggressors power level.

Since the crazy high spike damage people have been showcasing in the beta comes from high power but mostly insanely high damage mods (6 malice gives 130% damage not 15×6 =90%) rather than just high base damage. This means when you reflect it, if you’re full zerk it’ll do maybe 5-7k tops and if you’re a zerg guard probably 1-4K.

I do agree that the concept of the OP is rediculous though, you’re more likely to see a group of 5 stealth camping and sniping the pin either just before an engage or after first push if we aren’t in a pirateshit meta.

I was using the sword for the first few mobs of the “please try to crash our servers test” the other day. Then switched to dagger and it was immediately obvious that sword is flat out inferior to dagger for damage on a full zerk ele.

I then switched to tempest for air overload spam and realised tempest is far better in a fresh air build even after all the nerfs than weaver. I tried staff weaver and that looks like it’ll probably see the most use but every other weapon set doesn’t seem to be that good for weaver. Didn’t try sceptre but sword is far too clunky and the auto chain does too little damage with too high a cast time.

Sword does a lot less than main hand dagger, less damage on the auto chain, while the number 2 evades are nice I can’t really say it’ll be better. Neither can I say that weaver offers something I consider worth the trade off for the number 3 skills on dagger, shocking aura, frozen burst, magnetic leap and burning speed are just far more useful.

However if I had to use sword and weaver it would be offhand dagger for mobility and the 2 condition cleanses on offhand water. For a long time people will condi bomb you after you leave water but weaver gives you the ability to get a heal and cleanse, then swap back to water if needed 2-4s later. Fire grab is also pretty much the only damage you will have so if you pick focus what are you going to do? Tickle the enemy? Tell really bad jokes so they die laughing?

Sorry but there’s barely any pressure or damage from a sword focus build, most current HoT builds will either destroy you or get bored and just leave without feeling pressured.

FogLeg.9354:

apharma.3741:

You’re saying people make up rules but I pointed out 2 parts of the code of conduct says you’re not supposed to deliberately sabotage the enemy server. This isn’t Joe Random making up rules, this is ANet rules about how you shouldn’t match manipulate and respect other people’s rights to enjoy the game. If you honestly think deliberately doing this sort of thing is not hurting other people’s enjoyment then you’re probably one of these win at any cost guys who doesn’t care how many people you end up screwing over so long as you get your kicks.

I suggest you look up of the meaning “match manipulation”, or if it helps “match fixing”, how it relates to the gambling and why it is bad in any competitive sport.

Now if you demand bringing up PvP rule for WvW, YOU are the one with your made up rules about how other players MUST behave is the one NOT respecting right of others to play and enjoy the game. YOU are the one harassing someone just because they pulled tactivator. YOU are the one threatening them with posts in the forum, with bans, with false reports. YOU are embarassing them for NOT playing the way YOU want. YOU are causing distress and unwanted attention to other players. YOU are posting insulting, offensive, and abusive comments about players, repeatedly sending unwanted messages and reporting players maliciously.

Since you are breaking Rules of Conduct, obviously, YOU should be removed from the game so others can enjoy it. Right?

I suggest you actually stop running away with the post. I haven’t said they should be harassed or banned or anything only that action be taken against people who deliberately and maliciously activate tactivators to give an opposing server an advantage.

I suggest you look up manipulation as you have a warped idea, here is a link. Fits the description of the people who create an alt account on an enemy server and pull tactivators 5 minutes before an an enemy server rolls up and attacks.

As for taking my rules and making them up, I’m not, I copied and pasted directly from the Code of Conduct you linked. Is WvW not a Player-versus-Player environment? I mean sure I get that you might not fight players much if you run in a Karma train but it doesn’t mean there’s no player-versus-player going on.

@Vova, I thought they’d fixed that, I was wrong. However as you say it is supposed to work that way. A black list for people that do this kind of thing repeatedly where it’s clear they log in, pull tactivators, log out and 5-10 minutes later it’s attacked in force might be a good idea.

I think personally removing tactivators and instead put upgrades in like the WP doesn’t become contested for 30s when an attack event happens giving people time to warp in or change the various banners into a new mob at various locations doing attacks, buffing or debuffing.

Well anything is god teir when you’re against the kind of trash I’ve seen from NA not just in your videos Justine but also on Glads stream. Zerglings in NA don’t dodge, use skills, in fact I’m pretty sure we can say don’t use brain.

Come EU and try it, you might catch the odd person out with it but on the whole focus isn’t amazing, staff and offhand shield are much better in almost every way.

Strider Pj.2193:

Aury.1367:

You know that for other legendaries you use gold on mats above the 300g, which you will then never use because… theyre gone.
And you cry about buying a tag which can be used in wvw even for scouts. Yes, its not just something you buy for 300g and the forge it. No. You still get to use it.
Do people cry about everything these days?

Gift of fortune is used in both which I think is what you might be referencing.

And an earlier poster mentioned icy runestones: it’s only 100 gold.

But heck, crafting the precursors, or buying them, all of which will run you at least 300 gold for anything other than an Underwater one.

So yeah, it’s a freakin legendary.

There’s usually things like gift of wood, metal, energy etc which tend to have costs of 100-500g depending on the resources and TP prices. Gift of lightning on its own has cost 120g just in charged lodestones before and vials of liquid silver are hilariously expensive to make. All of which just gets flushed.

Warbringer you use WvW currencies to make that gift, it’s significantly cheaper even slapping on a commander tag as part of the requirement.

You do realise tactivators become public once there’s no longer people from the guild on the map right? This is to prevent a guild putting all these upgrades on a keep and they become useless once there’s no-one around.

You’re saying people make up rules but I pointed out 2 parts of the code of conduct says you’re not supposed to deliberately sabotage the enemy server. This isn’t Joe Random making up rules, this is ANet rules about how you shouldn’t match manipulate and respect other people’s rights to enjoy the game. If you honestly think deliberately doing this sort of thing is not hurting other people’s enjoyment then you’re probably one of these win at any cost guys who doesn’t care how many people you end up screwing over so long as you get your kicks.

FogLeg.9354:

Nevaahe.6308:

I don’t know about not reportable, it would depend. If someone is using an alt account to pull the tactics right before their zerg on their main account attacks that objective, then it is giving them an unfair advantage over most players. This is against the ToS.

Nop.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/

Please point it out if you can.

You’re not really trying if you couldn’t even spot it at the absolute bottom of the page

22. While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder. This also includes disrupting other people’s game experience by not actively participating in matches in good faith, a.k.a leeching.

Now they don’t specifically state world versus world but I would think it falls under the definition of Player-vs-Player environment. Pulling tactivators on purpose to paper T3 keeps repeatedly during a match up will definitely adversely affect other players enjoyment as well as contribute to match up manipulating.

You could also make a case that such behaviour could be considered to break the first rule below. Where you are not respecting other players rights to enjoy the game.

1. While playing Guild Wars 2, you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the Game. To this end, you may not defraud, harass, threaten, embarrass or cause distress and/or unwanted attention to other players. This includes posting insulting, offensive, or abusive comments about players, repeatedly sending unwanted messages, reporting players maliciously, attacking a player based on race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc. Hate speech is not tolerated.

With Path of Fire on the horizon you might want to wait before you get a 2nd set doubly so if this is only for PvE.

If it’s to WvW then yeah celestial will always be pretty decent on ele but I would grab trinkets, accessories, backpack and amulet first and maybe stave off the armour for the moment.

iKeostuKen.2738:

You would think if something worked well in SPvP it would do ok in WvW as well =/ Used to run full celestial mesmer and my damage was never that bad.

Also that 7k crit was when I was playing on my thief, sorry. I was a little baffled by the damage since LB 5 is a CC skill and was more then I could push out with a single unload burst on a full glass build.

Thanks for the advice though, gotta figure out how to score a set with those stats.

Both thief and mesmer rely on not taking the damage (in the power builds anyway) in the first place. It’s called active defence and why most mesmers run sword and torch in one set so they can use blurred frenzy for an evade, illusionary leap to create distance and prestige for stealthing away.

For thief it’s mainly stealth and teleporting in and out while running away if the fight doesn’t go in your favour and try again in 30s. For daredevil you can take bandits defence for a great block which helps against most classes.

Ultimately if you see a DH don’t fight it, you’ll not win 90% of the time on either class so don’t bother till you’re very confident from duelling friends or others in WvW.

iKeostuKen.2738:

Hi all, Im trying to get a better understanding of this game’s wvw system. Currently damage I take and damage I dish out seem to be very questionable.

I’m currently running full exotic Power/Prec/Condi damage on my non upleveled mesmer and i’m only tickling enemies, stopping at 2.1k power. But I’m taking what seems to be baffling damage from skills across the board.

My thief seems to be the only character in WvW that does any respectable damage but hes literally full glass rare armor, exotic weapons and melts against any and every build.

Throwing in a picture to give an example of whats going on.

Firstly the stats you chose are not good for power damage and not amazing for condi damage either. The traits needed to make condi and power mesmer builds work are often not in the same lines either so you can either be kind of meh at all of it or be decent at condi or power.

I would suggest picking either power and going with berserker or marauder gear or choose condition damage and go with either trailblazer, dire or rabid gear. Don’t mix condi and power builds, it generally doesn’t work.

Second thing is DH counters power shatter mesmer to the point that you should pretty much not take that fight unless you are very experienced on the build.

Finally if you build full glass you will take insane amount of damage. I run full zerk and have been hit for 2-3k auto attacks from range very often, seen non burst skills do 7-8k and burst skills do anything from 10-15k damage. When you run glass you take a huge risk of being exploded in one hit if you aren’t paying attention and if you’re a glass mesmer you have just over 15k health so a lot of builds can 2 hit you if not 1 hit down you. This is why I say run marauder as you can get upto 23k health which provides enough of a health buffer for you to run.

Edit: Also power mesmer has garbage sustained damage and unless you burst from stealth a pretty well telegraphed burst too so isn’t too hard to avoid most of a power mesmers damage.

Hot Boy.7138:

Daishi.6027:

Hot Boy.7138:

I always thought confounding suggestions was blockable until today.

Uhhh it really should be. Unless something triggered your block and you were stunned following it, the evade is only 1/2 second… If it’s a bug might need further testing… that said you might want to double check the evade on offhand sword because that could be bugged too.

Nothing else took the block because it was the start of the match. I grabbed home and he came to take. so just a 1v1 at the beginning. I immediately saw the purple fire and stealth, you know what that means. Some big burst is coming. I wait a bit then use off hand sword block. Off hand’s sword block is relatlively long. 2.5 seconds compared to shield’s 1.5 second. So i’m sure the block was up when I was blown up. I even typed in say chat after saying, “what is block?”. Cause really what is block if it does nothing to mitigate that kind of burst.

I don’t want to dwell on the block though. The point I want to make is that this particular burst combo is broken and shouldn’t even exist even if it is a non meta build. Power shatter gs mesmers can blow up anyone 20k hp and under in 1/2 a second or less from stealth. This build goes under the radar because it’s not used in tournaments that I know of. Nonetheless, burst combos of this scale just shouldn’t be possible.

And I have some pretty crazy burst myself. But it’s through a series of well timed interrupts. And i’m not looking down on players that take this build. The fault is not with them for playing “smart”. The fault is with the people that balance traits, skills, and builds, and classes in general.

Are you sure a thief didn’t share basi venom with the mesmer? You can essentially do your burst combo of mirror blade into mind wrack and mind stab without having to worry about blocks, only invulnerable and evades.

Mesmer as far as I know doesn’t have an unblockable stun or daze, I agree the burst from stealth is cheesy and not fun but then if that fails they’re mostly done for with very few ways to keep up pressure and down a ton of utility if they blinked in.

Also @ the person saying they received a dps buff, they did for PvE but not really in PvP. They got a damage increase at the cost of deceptive evasion but 15% of FA is still FA and still relies on crit chance.

I’d be happy if the burst was toned down and the mesmer given more reliable pressure damage, that would necessitate a redesign of the class at its core to remove phantasms though.

Reaper Alim.4176:

apharma.3741:

sephiroth.4217:

SneakyTouchy.6043:

The only thing that ruins games like this are players who make others toxic, players who refuse to accept responsibility for their emotions, players who run their mouths when they should be running rotations, players who complain too much, and players who repeatedly fail at the simple task of diffusing anger, ignoring chat, and choosing to react apathetically when appropriate.

How can any of you be so insufferably dependent on someone else’s performance while simultaneously thinking any of them care about your time?

You’re playing a game to waste time and you don’t want it wasted? Are you kidding me…

So you support people who afk in PvP?

such a strange thing to say man…. maybe you could tell me why its ok for you to afk at the first mid fight because I’m clearly not understanding why you would bother queuing in the first place with that sort of sportsmanship.

We all play for different reasons, I play to have fun and waste time. Atleast I’m not playing to troll 9 other people in the game, my life isn’t that sad.

Point of thread is that I’m encountering the same people who afk on my team and the enemy team match in and match out. Speaking for myself and a few others I know, we just log off and hit up LoL or TF2 instead which means from 1 game, the PvP lobby queue loses 3-4 players while that 1 guy who keeps afk’ing continues this cycle into the next few games. It’s hurting PvP.

He’s basically saying grow up and own your actions but being a lot more eloquent about it. An adult realises that their situation is their doing and takes responsibility for it.

So it’s our fault that we get AFKers for team mates? Right? Just wanted to confirm this from you. Before talking to you in a different way.

Then again you are right in a twisted way. It’s our fault for queuing up in the first place. Kinda the same thing I been telling people. Just in a different way.

Who’s fault is it if you can’t get a rank higher than them?

Who’s fault is it if you’re getting tilted by them?

Who’s fault is it for not getting them to make an effort even for that one match?

sephiroth.4217:

SneakyTouchy.6043:

The only thing that ruins games like this are players who make others toxic, players who refuse to accept responsibility for their emotions, players who run their mouths when they should be running rotations, players who complain too much, and players who repeatedly fail at the simple task of diffusing anger, ignoring chat, and choosing to react apathetically when appropriate.

How can any of you be so insufferably dependent on someone else’s performance while simultaneously thinking any of them care about your time?

You’re playing a game to waste time and you don’t want it wasted? Are you kidding me…

So you support people who afk in PvP?

such a strange thing to say man…. maybe you could tell me why its ok for you to afk at the first mid fight because I’m clearly not understanding why you would bother queuing in the first place with that sort of sportsmanship.

We all play for different reasons, I play to have fun and waste time. Atleast I’m not playing to troll 9 other people in the game, my life isn’t that sad.

Point of thread is that I’m encountering the same people who afk on my team and the enemy team match in and match out. Speaking for myself and a few others I know, we just log off and hit up LoL or TF2 instead which means from 1 game, the PvP lobby queue loses 3-4 players while that 1 guy who keeps afk’ing continues this cycle into the next few games. It’s hurting PvP.

He’s basically saying grow up and own your actions but being a lot more eloquent about it. An adult realises that their situation is their doing and takes responsibility for it.

terranside.3809:

apharma what are you talking about , getting you out of bronze ? Do you realize you guys were linked with piken square for 2 months last link and you were circulating from t1 – t3.

And we all know who the OP is , not hard to figure it out from that writing
I have no sympathy for band-wagoners /server hoppers like bollen and HOOD for your information they changed few servers already ( AG , RoF , SFR , WSR and I am sure there is more than that but 2 hard to keep the track). If you dont like the current link then please feel free to farm the gold and leave it , simple as that.

Bollen and HOOD have been on WSR for well over a year now….not sure you have your facts straight. If you can’t remember back when we had no linkings and the term bronze referred to the bottom 9 servers then I guess you can’t have been in WvW much. That was a lot longer than 2 months ago.

I know they started on AG, moved around till they settled on WSR but they have been with WSR for a very long time now.

Just so you know PS linking we saw queues on reset night for maybe 2 borders at most, rest of the time PS-WSR didn’t have queues.

Wait so you’re all complaining about having a bunch of easy kills queuing effectively bumping up your rank and ego?

For those that are curious the OP transferred to WSR I believe before linking was a thing back when we were trying to make our way out of bronze.

Back then we had no queues on any border but lots to do, always busy and a small group of 10 could be a major thorn in the side of the enemy server. I fondly remember my friends and I holding air keep on RoF border repelling attack after attack from those on the border before they got 3-4 groups to attack 4 different points at the same time and essentially Zerg it with what looked like 40-50 people. Funny thing is they flipped it but I hid at inner and ported everyone back in to get it back 5 mins later to begin the fun again.

So yeah the OP came to WSR to build up his guild and PPT not to be with some overstacked server ganking people and blobbing.

At least FSP seems to hate red BL, looks like 2 months of roaming on desert BL /cry.

Esplen.3940:

OriOri.8724:

Chill should definitely affect initiative and energy regen as well. Its just downright stupid that some classes are able to just ignore some mechanics in this game because of how their class functions.

The inverse of this is that Alacrity should affect Initiative and Energy Regen.

I dunno, I’m ok with energy being unaffected because revenants don’t have traits and skills to get energy back. They also have fairly short cool downs on a variety of skills to stop them being spammed, like thief really should have from the beginning. Revs also have to spend energy on utility skills so it’s not really fair to be depleting it too.

In contrast thief has no cool down on weapon skills, a multitude of traits and utilities to get initiative back and low cool down utilities most of which are instant cast.

But yes I feel alacrity should affect initiative regen if chill can affect it too.

Swiftwynd.1685:

apharma.3741:

Swiftwynd.1685:

Feanor.2358:

Piercing Shards and Bolt to the Heart at the same time? Yeah right, seems legit.

You do realize you can already do this right? On base elementalist?

Water attuned – use Conjured Lightning hammer with Piercing Shards + Bolt to the Heart is any attunement.

This would expand that to potentially any attunement ability, which certainly is an improvement, but its not like this doesn’t already exist in some form lol.

Yeah he’s a bit mis informed but you are also not thinking entirely of what the OP is asking. If the OP had his way you would get double Piercing Shards for being fully attuned and bolt to the heart for a 73% damage modifier in total. Which is a 29% damage boost, something ele doesn’t need.

I don’t think thats remotely what he was asking, unless i read it wrong.

I think he was asking to receive all of the “effects” of being attuned (minor traits, major traits etc) when you have an attunement on your off-hand as if it was in your main hand.

That is to say, having Air on your off hand would still give the precision but from the mastery, where as currently it will not.

Even then it would be pretty strong as you would go into water/fire to get an extra 10% mod, 150 power and piercing shards for another 20% on top of the various amounts of mods weaver is bringing. It would make weaver way too strong in PvE.

Swiftwynd.1685:

Feanor.2358:

Piercing Shards and Bolt to the Heart at the same time? Yeah right, seems legit.

You do realize you can already do this right? On base elementalist?

Water attuned – use Conjured Lightning hammer with Piercing Shards + Bolt to the Heart is any attunement.

This would expand that to potentially any attunement ability, which certainly is an improvement, but its not like this doesn’t already exist in some form lol.

Yeah he’s a bit mis informed but you are also not thinking entirely of what the OP is asking. If the OP had his way you would get double Piercing Shards for being fully attuned and bolt to the heart for a 73% damage modifier in total. Which is a 29% damage boost, something ele doesn’t need.

Elessaria.9142:

As you have it, Crystal Sands seems extremely strong. It’s basically a 3 evade on demand refresh every 35s with added bonuses. I’d be more inclined to say 20s and 1 charge regardless of how many illusions you have. I also think having the ability to stack up 5s of continuous evades that you can attack through it a little over the top. Make it 2 charges.

With Elusive Mind I’d like to see it trigger on any application of cloak for consistency, but with a 1s ICD on cleanse and ~5-8s ICD on Stun Break.

Leap Ambush for both Sword and Greatsword seems a little dull…

The rest I’d lap up with a Fractal Spoon!

I love it when someone says “for consistency” then proceeds to ask for hidden cool downs for people to count and keep track of. That isn’t consistency as the opponent and yourself can very easily lose track of what has and hasn’t proc’d. The way it is now is very consistent for the user as you know you will stun break and cleanse when you hit that dodge button.

Yes the leap is boring but it’s useful, I’d take boring and useful over original/unique and useless.

Junkpile.7439:

apharma.3741:

DeceiverX.8361:

Junkpile.7439:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Junkpile.7439:

Well you can’t dodge thief first attack. First backstab is instant straight from stealth.

Said thief has already blown most of his action points, or shadow refuge, to pull that off without you seeing it coming.

If you saw a thief suddenly go invisible, you can pretty much assume he’s coming for you, and throw up a block.

Most thieves aren’t carrying around 20 seconds of stealth anymore.

Hell, tbh. Most of the thieves I’ve fought aren’t even wearing zerkers gear anymore. Backstabbing isn’t as stupidly amazing as it used to be.

As for the discussion, everyone runs tanky as hell now-a-days. Why are you trying to make that even worse?

I literally sat in a 15 man group’s bomb yesterday questioning “where is the damage”. I’ll tell you where it was, non-existent. They were just melee training and killing all the scrubs that don’t know how to dodge, and are running PvE gear.

The only class I even remotely fear in this game is a reaper, and that’s only because of all the boon corruption.

I don’t have blocks. So should i use mistform straight after thief go stealth?

As an ele you have the ability to negate almost all power thief damage by just camping Earth with Stone Heart.

If you see them stealth up, you can swap attunements and the backstab will get negated (technically blocked – including unblockable attacks – on any critical strike as it negates procs as well) entirely. Backstab is actually less-bursty than just using dagger AA after Shadow Shot. Strictly speaking, ele is probably the second best power-thief-killer in the game if traited to deal with them, following DH. FA played well hard-counters thief as well because it has mass AoE blinds which negate stealth attack usage and offers a lot of CC and huge burst numbers.

Anticipating the attack from stealth is an acquired skill that is also best learned by just playing a thief for a while.

He doesn’t just play ele though, saw him running around most of the time on scrapper with toolkit for more blocks. He then rage whispered half my guild saying they should play something with risk like Sc/D ele. This is with me playing a core DD ele so not exactly something super easy in the meta so take that how you will.

If he as a roamer hasn’t a counter to thieves oneshotting him that’s his problem because many classes will CC and burst from stealth given half a chance. He could always trait tempests defence and/or use arcane shield or even have auto arcane shield at 50% and not be silly enough to run full zerk.

If you run full zerk Sc/D ele and have only mistform as your defence that is 100% your fault and you deserve to die for running a bad build.

Full glass vanilla s/d ele players are only ones who i don’t send rage whispers. D/D ele is braindead spec and only reason to play it is low skill level.

Yeah unlike the pinnacle of risk/reward that is scrapper with toolkit for more blocks, double elixir S and stealth gyro.

Maybe you should transfer to a medium population server then? If your guild has 100+ players you need to make sure you’re transferring to a server that has room for the people. The only person to blame is whomever made the decision to move to a very high pop non locked server, it wasn’t a smart choice and was probably the age old move up for fights, get rekt by most people and disband that we see happen all the time.

I’m guessing the reluctance to mention which server is because it’s a heavily populated or stacked server anyway.

Also you should always move on a Thursday so you minimise the penalty.

OriOri.8724:

musu.9205:

OriOri.8724:

Power Block really needs to be updated to work on skills that have an initiative cost as well.

unlikely , Power block was causing many problems from pve to pvp .i think anet has trouble to code it work on thief weapon skill and rev skills without kittening up everyones AA and pve mob attacks.

and i agree phant should be changed into utility like shield 4

I said it needs to be updated, not that it would be easy. But I do think they can do it, considering the massive tech they’ve been building to get gliding, mounts and these new elite spec mechanics into the game. But it really should work on thief weapon skills, there’s no good reason why thieves, and thieves alone, should be immune from the increased CD from that trait. None.

You can make it take off 3 ini on interrupt, it’s not exactly something that would take a complete reworking of mechanics. You could also have it remove energy from revenants depending on how it’s all sorted out on the back end. I’ve heard it’s a bit of a mess so how easy and worthwhile it is is anybodies guess, in a well optimised game it would be as simple as adding to the effect of power block -initiative and -energy and have the game run a class check or resource check when the trait activates.

However all I can say is is it worth it? Considering there’s so much on a thieves weapon set that isn’t punishable when you do interrupt it’s effectively punished by the resource being spent but effect not granted. I really don’t think it’s as big an issue as the lack of counter play in all the skills you can’t interrupt or how you can’t deny or they are essentially immune to certain mechanics.

Edit: Power Block did used to work on autos and I think thief skills, obviously it was removed for the auto attack portion and I dare say it’s too much effort to make it work with just thief skills.

I’ve said before that maybe thief would benefit from buffing weapon skills to be more impactful but place small cool downs on them 1-6s so they can no longer be spammed because they have a disproportionate effect on that class/build.

kathy.8291:

Dont care if you think this post is ridiculous or not. this is how i feel and I DONT CARE. I understand making a legendary is costly but when wvw is all you do, you dont make alot of money doing wvw unless your doing something we all dont know about.

Zalavaaris they would enter wvw get to participation 4 (which we have all seen) and would sit at spawn while the maps are que and the actual people who participate in wvw couldnt even get in.

Now if you all excuse me I am allowed to vent so if you dont like this post, move on.

I refer you back to the first 2 words of my last response. You get a plethora of materials from killing people, taking objectives, reward tracks and skirmish chests. I suggest you take it upon yourself to research what sells best and what you might need in materials instead of throwing a tantrum.

Sure you won’t make 30g/hr like the fractal 40 farm but you also won’t want to smash your head through a wall afterwards.

Currently if you have a white mantle portal device in a shared inventory slot it still appears in the magnetite vendor to be sold despite the slot explicitly stating that items in shared inventory slots should not appear to be sold to vendors or the trading post.

I have just had one returned to me after it was sold with other minis I had got from raids. Any chance of a fix for this so we don’t accidentally sell these items?

Grow up, this is a luxury item, luxury items have significant costs to them. The fact this is 100% earnable in WvW is amazing. You conveniently forgot how the fractal back piece has huge gold costs (500 ectos) and that the PvP one requires some pretty boring grinds achievements and is massively time gated. Also how are you spending more money than you’re making in WvW?

The only way that is possible is if you’re a commander springing for superior siege all the time which given the topic we know you are not.

Food is bought with badges, when you need siege in a pinch you can use proofs, a decent sized guild can get tones of upgrades from skirmish chests and you can get more resources that you need for WvW. You get ascended crafting materials as drops and T6 mats from the mist warped bundles and tons of lower tier mats from salvage. It’s almost impossible to lose money in WvW if you’re not a commander.

All legendaries are a gold sink, Warbringer is far easier to get in terms of gifts than the others. I suggest you look at what is needed for the other two legendary back pieces.

This topic has descended into mud throwing and wrestling but with significantly less naked bodies of the gender/apache helicopters you prefer.

DeceiverX.8361:

Junkpile.7439:

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Junkpile.7439:

Well you can’t dodge thief first attack. First backstab is instant straight from stealth.

Said thief has already blown most of his action points, or shadow refuge, to pull that off without you seeing it coming.

If you saw a thief suddenly go invisible, you can pretty much assume he’s coming for you, and throw up a block.

Most thieves aren’t carrying around 20 seconds of stealth anymore.

Hell, tbh. Most of the thieves I’ve fought aren’t even wearing zerkers gear anymore. Backstabbing isn’t as stupidly amazing as it used to be.

As for the discussion, everyone runs tanky as hell now-a-days. Why are you trying to make that even worse?

I literally sat in a 15 man group’s bomb yesterday questioning “where is the damage”. I’ll tell you where it was, non-existent. They were just melee training and killing all the scrubs that don’t know how to dodge, and are running PvE gear.

The only class I even remotely fear in this game is a reaper, and that’s only because of all the boon corruption.

I don’t have blocks. So should i use mistform straight after thief go stealth?

As an ele you have the ability to negate almost all power thief damage by just camping Earth with Stone Heart.

If you see them stealth up, you can swap attunements and the backstab will get negated (technically blocked – including unblockable attacks – on any critical strike as it negates procs as well) entirely. Backstab is actually less-bursty than just using dagger AA after Shadow Shot. Strictly speaking, ele is probably the second best power-thief-killer in the game if traited to deal with them, following DH. FA played well hard-counters thief as well because it has mass AoE blinds which negate stealth attack usage and offers a lot of CC and huge burst numbers.

Anticipating the attack from stealth is an acquired skill that is also best learned by just playing a thief for a while.

He doesn’t just play ele though, saw him running around most of the time on scrapper with toolkit for more blocks. He then rage whispered half my guild saying they should play something with risk like Sc/D ele. This is with me playing a core DD ele so not exactly something super easy in the meta so take that how you will.

If he as a roamer hasn’t a counter to thieves oneshotting him that’s his problem because many classes will CC and burst from stealth given half a chance. He could always trait tempests defence and/or use arcane shield or even have auto arcane shield at 50% and not be silly enough to run full zerk.

If you run full zerk Sc/D ele and have only mistform as your defence that is 100% your fault and you deserve to die for running a bad build.

I dunno, if we die in VR do we die in real life?

musu.9205:

i meant what makes a power shatter mirage work is power shatter itself with its burst damage ,blink and stealth .
if you want sustain, inspiration chrono are all better .

Yes sustain is better from inspiration chrono but that won’t make for a great power build because you lack damage. I’m not saying mirage is better for sustaining I’m saying it’s better for not getting completely destroyed by condi or getting instagibbed because of the traits.

If you want to play sustained mesmer it’s condi all the way atm as you get the sustained damage and sustained health regen and it’s debatable if mirage will be better than chrono in that regard.

musu.9205:

apharma.3741:

Levetty.1279:

No, an elite specilization is supposed to introduce new ways to play a class along with new mechanics.

Mirage is a worse way to play the dueling theme that the core Mesmer was based around.

The traits for mirage are pretty strong for power builds, it gives protection after mirage cloak for reducing damage from a spike after a dodge, stunbreak and cleanse on dodge and – condition damage when you have regen. Jaunt becoming 600 range makes it a great escape and condition cleanse elite.

Basically it gives power builds a little cleansing and damage mitigation as well as enhanced escape with sword all in one line. The utilities are mostly bad but mirage advance with a reduced cast time would be pretty strong for power builds to burst in, return and kite for a bit without having to burn more utilitiy skills on getting out of melee.

i see your point , but at this point , its more like you forced mirage trait line into a power shatter build , its more about burst damage a core mes can do in wvw .

for Mirage Advance , it is not a stunbreak , also range is only 900 with 3/4 s cast time .it can only be used if you are in 900 range . blind is nice tho .

blink is way better .

even we ignore chrono line , any other trait line is better than mirage for a power build

Not really, the current issue with power mesmer in WvW isn’t the damage, we got tons of that if we take domination and duelling, the issue is surviving against the variety of builds you come across.

If you want plenty of condition cleanses you need to take inspiration and/or usually well of eternity and/or a cleanse utility if chrono but then you lack the defences of chaos line for protection, a bit of regen but mainly PU/BD. If you pick both chaos and inspiration you will lack damage.

This is why I say mirage isn’t bad because of the traits, it gives you that extra condition removal and stunbreaks from jaunt and elusive mind. You get that protection for after a dodge which is when good players would try to burst you and renewing oasis is decent at reducing condition damage. You also get enhanced escape via the sword ambush skill and jaunt.

The best way to do damage as a power mesmer is to blink in or use stealth to get close to the enemy to mirrorblade and mindwrack. The problem is you end up in melee range with the GS so it’s usually either a knock back and kite or switch to sword and use defences/stealth to put some distance between you. Mirage advance essentially allows you to get close and do this, same with Jaunt if it became a 600 range without burning too many cool downs to then get away again. You also preserve your blink which is invaluable for power mesmers.

Levetty.1279:

Anet could delete entire trait lines and claim thats an elite spec and people would defend them.

I’m speaking for WvW where you have -20% condition duration food or +40% endurance regen food and energy gives a full dodge so you can run double energy and have 3 dodges in 10s with permanent vigor and food.

Stunbreak on dodge is just troll. I think a lot of the traits are lazy, poorly designed and don’t like them but I’m not going to deny how strong they are if you build right.

Let me buy mystic coins with fractal relics (100) and pristine fractal relics (10).

Levetty.1279:

No, an elite specilization is supposed to introduce new ways to play a class along with new mechanics.

Mirage is a worse way to play the dueling theme that the core Mesmer was based around.

The traits for mirage are pretty strong for power builds, it gives protection after mirage cloak for reducing damage from a spike after a dodge, stunbreak and cleanse on dodge and – condition damage when you have regen. Jaunt becoming 600 range makes it a great escape and condition cleanse elite.

Basically it gives power builds a little cleansing and damage mitigation as well as enhanced escape with sword all in one line. The utilities are mostly bad but mirage advance with a reduced cast time would be pretty strong for power builds to burst in, return and kite for a bit without having to burn more utilitiy skills on getting out of melee.

I do a keyfarm most weeks and do the HoT story upto tangled depths with core staff ele.

Fire: top, top, top
Air: bottom, top, top
Arcane: middle, bottom, top

I find most mobs die insanely quick in full zerk but you need to make sure you don’t aggro too many all the time. I also use glyph of elemental harmony as it’s permenant swiftness and a 16s CD extremely strong heal, glyph of storms for a blind in earth if needed, signet of fire and lightening flash for blinking past mobs I CBA to fight.

I’ve tried using old D/F fresh air and while I didn’t have too many issues I just don’t think it’s as good as staff for kiting and doesn’t really compete in AoE damage but burning speed can hit like a truck.

If you run out of cool downs or have taken a hit and no heal back off, switch to water, dodge to get a cleansing wave, throw up healing rain, ice spike, switch to earth and dodge again in the water field, it’s about a 4.5k heal altogether and cleanses 3 conditions.

Arcane > water.

A few friends have had issues with losing connection the last day or two so could be an issue with an intermediate server losing a packet. 1 lost packet and GW2 just stops entirely due to its protocol. Also had GW2 crash too which I have a feeling is down to all these patches and PoF updates going on atm. I expect the game to have a few issues up until PoF release as they quietly get everything ready in the background for release.

On the plus side if PoF stability is anything like HoT you’ll get few issues when the new expansion is launched. HoT was probably the most stable expansion releases I’ve ever seen outside when you used to buy them on DVD.

Henry.5713:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Druid is not getting replaced because of religious belief “he’s the best” without looking at the bigger picture. If we put emotions aside and focus on numbers the answer might be much less druid friendly then one thinks.

But for now that is a “might” as we have yet to get the finalized specs with known new runesets, gear stat sets and access to all of that in PvE. So for now i’ll hold my horses on further discussion.

Kind of silly to blame this on a religious belief with so many accurate numbers given in this thread. Numbers which make the druid look much better than any alternative.
Interestingly enough, I actually think that it is the other way around. People are getting their hopes up to be able to play their favorite class in a certain role now. While they do not understand all of the reasons and benefits from having a certain META build.
But yes, we can agree to disagree on this one.

The scourge might indeed turn out to be able to DPS like a cberserker and heal like a druid. Unlikely to have both at the same time, but who knows.

To be honest I would just like meta and non meta compositions to be somewhat equatable. Right now druids are hard to replace because of the sheer number of buffs they provide and safety of spirit of nature and healer spec if really needed. Likewise mesmer can bypass certain mechanics in ways no other class can which makes them extremely valuable even if another alternative for quickness/alacrity is introduced.

The only good thing about the raid meta is that most DPS classes are within 5k of each other on small hit box targets. Gets a bit skewed on large but thankfully that’s not a huge number of bosses.

Just to point out about the interrupt aspect and punishment for using skills.

Interrupts are there and mesmer is rewarded (or can potentially be rewarded) for it pretty well, power block is a fantastic skill so was mistrust and chaotic interruption. The 2 big problems with them is they’re all in separate lines so you can’t really go all in on interrupts.

The 2nd issue is that cast times have gone down and down, even more so with HoT so the time to interrupt is now 1/4-1/2s which you need extremely good reaction times to do successfully especially when some interrupts have a 1/4s cast themselves. In GW1 cast times were anything from 1-3s sometimes more giving much more leeway and mesmer had fast casting. Then there’s the classes with everything either being instant cast or unpunishable like thief. There’s a reason many run withdraw and bound in WvW and channel vigor says 3/4 cast but it’s closer to 1/2 as the animation only starts 1/4s in. Most other utilities as instant cast so you can’t really punish it.

As for punishing using skills, that’s what confusion was for but that’s fallen by the wayside.

Jayne.9251:

apharma.3741:

Legit had no clue about what you were talking about till Xikira explained, thought you meant the r word for someone who is a bit slow.

Also, I find the OPs viewpoint and many others here shameful in turning it almost exclusively into a female perspective only, it is not something that only happens to women. Just like domestic abuse is becoming more and more common against men yet is typically portrayed as something that happens to women.

Before someone jumps down my throat, no I don’t condone the behaviours being talked about by any gender and/or those who identify as apache helicopters against any other gender and/or those who identify as apache helicopters.

To be fair, I’d feel this way if any gender took offense. Yes, certainly have resiliency, but if it’s upsetting someone to have a word used, respect their experience and use another word.

Thankfully we are blessed with a sizeable vocabulary.

Yes I think a lot of people use words without having seen the full meaning first hand. Like those that call something in the game cancer. I’ve known and helped treat many with cancer, it isn’t funny and there’s nothing worse for me than having to give out certain prescriptions knowing full well the person isn’t going to be around long and for the loved ones to ask what’s it for.

Having said that the game has a profanity filter which is probably on by default so either the OP disabled it in which case they wanted to see/use other words that others might find offensive most likely. I believe this person doesn’t have a thick skin and that’s a nice way of putting it, I would suggest they put on the profanity filter and live a happy blissful life on GW2.