Guild Wars 2

Sarrs.4831:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

They’re really not.

So you think the system called “specializations” is not a system designed around specializing your character.

It really isn’t. All of the other specializations offer a wider variety of tools that synergize with different build types. The druid doesn’t. The druid is the most uninspired and mono-tone specialization to be released. Repeating the equivocation fallacy of “specialization” over and over again doesn’t change this fact.

I’m sorry, but Nemesis has a point, and in all of everyone’s rantings and ravings I have yet to see it disproved.

Purple Miku.7032:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m not sure ice bow will ever stop being used as long as line casting is still a thing.

Line casting is not a thing…

Jesus christ, Nemesis seriously is a thorn in this community’s side.

I see people doing it. Besides, so long as it is possible it is still an issue. Just because a certain group of people refuse to use it doesn’t mean that it stops existing.

arkealia.2713:

Was probably needed to avoid the “must have 5 eles” on raids.

I think the icebow had the nerf coming for awhile, but this is an important thing. Immediately after being announced, I knew the optimum comp would have 5 elementalists just for their icebows. Thea ability drop 1.28m damage on the boss in 3 seconds forces a difficult balancing decision: make bosses have so much health that you need these icebows, or don’t balance around that strat and make the bosses too easy when you do have icebows.

Ice Storm is still a good skill. But now it is a marginal increase in DPS instead of a whole number scalar multiple.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Shoe.5821:

a balanced game is objectively good

ideally, people should never feel that one choice is objectively better than others.

nerfs are good for you. embrace the nerf. let the nerf into your heart

Yes, balance is a good thing. Nerfing something so badly that it becomes imbalanced on the opposite side of the spectrum is a bad thing.

The thing is, even with its damage cut in half, Ice Storm is still the highest damaging skill in the game. Currently it does 329 × 24 over a 3 second period. That is 7,896 tooltip damage, or 2632 tooltip DPS.

On my unoptimized ele, I would frequently hit anywhere from 4k to 5k per bolt, direct damage. With linecasting I could land nearly every bolt on the target. The bleeds tick for 335 extra per bolt, coming to 8k damage in bleeding alone. That totals to 128k damage in 3 seconds. It was insane! On my thief I could hit over 6k per bolt, coming to 152k damage in 3 seconds. Having 50.67k DPS just simply wasn’t O.K.

Originally I was against an icebow nerf, but the linecasting tactic kind of ruined the balance of the skill. Even if you cut the direct damage in half (68k, 80k) it is still the highest damaging skill in PVE. It also comes with a pretty good stun and chill application.

Even with all that said, I think it is overnerfed. Ice Storm didn’t need a target reduction.

Canakun.8031:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’ve been around the sun a couple dozen times, and I’ve seen this kind of superiority fueled analytic BS before. Every time somebody goes on a stint explaining why other people disagree with their one true way I die a little inside, for my faith in the human race gets knocked another notch. Take this quote and remove the kid gloves, and you get this message:

“Other people (the PHIW) don’t want to play the way the rest of us play because they’re not competent enough to do it right. For whatever reason. I don’t care why.”

Which is ridiculous. It should be self evident that preference in play and competence in play are two unrelated qualities. I shouldn’t have to explain that one doesn’t lead to the other.

Don’t let the passive wording fool you. It is just fancy dressing on top of an elitist diatribe.

I base my opinions off of my experience, and my experience is that the majority of players who don’t want to participate in speed running content is due to (typically) latency, but more often than not age and ability have also been contributing factors.
You can make assumptions about my wording all you want, though, but the only time I ever play PHIW with no skipping is when I’m playing with a younger cousin of mine, or an elder, or a guildie who has trouble differentiating colour, etc.

My point is that this will be even more difficult for them under what I’m perceiving to be the new meta.

You’ve clearly had some bad experiences though, if your immediate reaction is to assume elitism in anything you read.

I’ve never met someone who didn’t justify their prejudices in experience. That’s why bigotry is so pervasive: no bigot thinks they’re a bigot. They just think they’re “right”.

EDIT: Spelling. “they’re” is hard apparently.

I still hate the dredge with pug groups. You’d think that players at 30+ would know that the thief with shadow refuge should interact with the switch to open the door, but apparently that idea never crosses their mind.

Personally the one I dislike the most is the underwater fractal. I hate the dolphin maze and the dark maze. Each time it pops up I have to sigh and be glad I keep repair canisters on my fractal runner.

Sarrs.4831:

This is kinda what specializations are for.

They’re really not. At least some aren’t, and the ones that are shouldn’t be. You may have heard the “offense, defense, mixed” philosophy. It is an idea that the elite specialization should have different kinds of traits/utilities that will synergize with different styles of play. You see it on the reaper, the daredevil, the chronomancer, the herald, the scrapper, the tempest, and somewhat on the guardian and the berserker.

But the druid doesn’kittens all heals and cleanses. I think there was maybe one offensive trait in the whole bunch.

Cyninja.2954:

And all the TC is saying is, that while 1 problem is addressed, a new even bigger one is created. The bottleneck that is tanks and healers is no mythical pony. It’s something that is very real and has been a problem in the past in other games.

Well, the OP says a lot more than that, but everything else you say here is true. My main issue isn’t that the new “tank/heal/3dps” meta will be better. I think it won’t. My issue is that the line “there will always be a meta” is a caricature used to insult and dismiss anyone who disagrees with the zerker meta. There’s a certain point in the OP where I just stopped reading and started skimming, and it was right here:

Canakun.8031:

The reason there are some detractors from this meta (which is fine, the game very clearly allows for Play How I Want groups to clear content) is because not everyone can grasp the pre-buffing, the rotations, the correct time to dodge, etc. Whether this is due to latency, age, ability or otherwise is none of my business.

I’ve been around the sun a couple dozen times, and I’ve seen this kind of superiority fueled analytic BS before. Every time somebody goes on a stint explaining why other people disagree with their one true way I die a little inside, for my faith in the human race gets knocked another notch. Take this quote and remove the kid gloves, and you get this message:

“Other people (the PHIW) don’t want to play the way the rest of us play because they’re not competent enough to do it right. For whatever reason. I don’t care why.”

Which is ridiculous. It should be self evident that preference in play and competence in play are two unrelated qualities. I shouldn’t have to explain that one doesn’t lead to the other.

Don’t let the passive wording fool you. It is just fancy dressing on top of an elitist diatribe.

I’ll have this forum bug wrapped in silk and drained of fluids in a jiffy.

I get the feeling that a lot of people are being overly paranoid. When the devs say “you can’t dodge it all”, I think they just mean the standard dodges that come base on every class.

Thief and Daredevil dodging are on a whole other level.

#1: We have weapon dodges, which is one dodge every 4 seconds going by initiative cost.
#2: We have 50% vigor uptime with either trickery or lolcrabatics.
#3: We have skill dodges in Withdraw and Roll for Initiative
#4: Signet of Agility’s active is 2 more dodges every 30/24 seconds.
#5: We have movement skills that move us out of danger zones.
#6: Now starting with daredevil, we get an additional dodge.
#7: Daredevils have the best endurance regen in the game, especially with brawlers tenacity. All physical skills give 10 endurance, including the 12 second block in bandits defense. That endurance is all worth about 4 seconds of vigor.
#8: Renewed Vigor gives up to 85 endurance every 16 seconds.
#9: Steal gives 50 endurance every 30/20 seconds.
#10: Daredevil dodges aren’t like other dodges. Other classes dodge to avoid damage, and don’t do damage while dodging. But with Bounding Dodge and Lotus Training, our dodge skills maintain damage, costing us relatively little.
#11: If we go defensive, the combination of escapists absolution and Unhindered Combatant menas we can’t be soft CCed into a damage patch.
#12: Staff Mastery can regen 2 endurance per initiative, which while miniscule still contributes.
#13: Our greater dodge bar means we have more endurance capacitance. Any “burn phase” or damage-less downtime has the ability to benefit the daredevil 50% more than any other class.
#14: This isn’t pertinent to dodging, but don’t forget that stealth is the best aggro management tool in the game. Should we ever want to stop focus fire on ourselves, we just blink out of existence.

Thief and daredevil dodging isn’t just “better” than other classes. It is exponentially better than other classes. It also isn’t the only survival tool we have.

I’m not sure ice bow will ever stop being used as long as line casting is still a thing.

I get the 50% damage nerf. I don’t get the 3 target nerf, though.

Enaretos.8079:

Just believe in the LB/Staff ranger to carry you through raids :>

And if he doesn’t, we’ll just yell at the druid for not being enough of a druid.

The biggest problem with the druid is that it is a mono-tool. A tool that exists to do one very specific job, and not much else.

IRL example, the pineapple corer. It does one thing: it cuts out the pineapple from its mostly inedible core. That’s it. Anyone who’s prepped a pineapple the old fashion way know this tool is a piece of junk for exactly two reasons. #1 is that it isn’t hard to cut up a pineapple. You can just use a knife to do it. #2 is that to use the corer you need a sufficient knife in the first place. Why spend money on the corer when you can just use the knife to do what the corer is supposed to do?

Exact same issue with the druid. Why bring the druid when the guardian, elementalist, engineer, and revenant are already good with healing?

The problem isn’t the existence of a meta. The problem is that the current meta has several facets that is undesireable to players. In particular, players want to be both useful while also being tanks and healers. Even if the LFGs change to “LF1M Cleric Druid or Kick”, the advantage is that players who want to heal now can play cleric druid and be welcome to parties.

I will miss the free-for-all active combat nature of the game.

Nemesis.6938:

I am not sure about the druid…i dont think it is “bad” regarding efficiency, i rather think it it is “bad” regarding the whole class focus and mechanics because

1) healing, some more healing, a bit healing on top of that followed by more healing – okay we get it…could have put a few more things in there

2) Since the druid is so heavily focused on healing, this means it is either not necessary and useless in pve or EVERY group will have to have a druid…going away from zerker meta to “you have to have a druid” meta which…

3) brings us to point 3 – making the guardian or other heal classes incredibly pale and useless in comparison – congratz u made a class useful at the cost of another

4) I dont see any synergies with the pet… if this is still a pet class and you want it to have and use a pet and BUILD SYNERGIES IN

5) Moreover, i dont see a lot of synergies with existing traitlines…

This is very similar to my concerns. At first and second glance, the druid looks to be a bit of a heal bot. The new weapon skills and mechanics are for healing. The traits are for healing. The glyphs… not as much. But still, I question the efficiency of the design of the class. I imagine you could take away half of these heals, double the strength of the remaining half, and then add a lot more stuff.

I’m pretty sure F2P has reduced overall community quality. It is simply in the nature of F2P to do this. I’m not sure how much, though, given how limited free accounts are.

Bllade.1029:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Glad to hear all of these changes.

Any word about the Impact Strike chain basically only working once you’ve already won?

Glad you brought this up, I wanted to see how other people felt about this ability. Here are my feelings.

Primary concerns with Impact Strike:

1. The total chain cast time is 2.75 seconds long. That’s a too large of a window for a profession that has no access to stability to be interrupted or countered.

2. What makes this ability an elite in the first place is the instant stomp at the end of a hard control chain. Due to the mechanics of this ability, to gain the full benefit a DD must wait towards the end of a fight when the enemies health is low. Unlike every other elite in the game there is no mechanical requirement when an elite should be used. As Arachnid put it, when the fight was already won.

3. Boons are going to stop this ability in it’s tracks. One aegis, protection or stability boon makes this elite practically useless in it’s current state, and just about every profession now a days has access to these and can reapply them relatively quickly.

Thoughts?

I wrote about this at length earlier, but the gist of of issues is as follows

#1: It doesn’t do more damage than auto attacking, so as far as damage contribution goes it adds nothing.

#2: The stun effects are about as equivalent basilisk venom. The DPS is equivalent to precasting or stealthcasting basilisk venom.

#3: The finishing mechanic isn’t good tech, at least not on the thief. Thieves already stealth-stomp and blind stomp with ease. This skill doesn’t make it easier to kill anyone.

#4: In order to make use of the finisher, you have to have already won the fight. This makes inferior to nearly all other choices that help you to win the fight.

Originally I wasn’t hesitant to make any suggestions on the Impact Strike chain. Partly this was because I wasn’t sure how to go about the instant finishing mechanic. Another part was because Brawlers Tenacity used to give 30 endurance for the whole chain. That’s a lot of endurance, and given the roughly 3 second stun nature of the skill, it was 5 points shy of being a free dodge. But now that has been changed, and there’s no reason to use the skill.

I mean, I guess it synergizes better with impacting disruption than basilisk venom does, but meh. The venom synergizes well with palm strike, which would cancel out that benefit.

I’m not too concerned about stability and aegis stopping this skill. That’s what aegis and stability are supposed to do: stop attacks and stuns. They wouldn’t be very good boons if they didn’t. Having counterplay isn’t the problem. I just want this chain to do 50% more damage, that way when we see an opening it is worthwhile to actually use the skill.

Glad to hear all of these changes.

Any word about the Impact Strike chain basically only working once you’ve already won?

My obsession with dueling doesn’t just come from the grandmasters. It comes from, well, basically every trait at every point.

Critical Infusion: Love me that 50% uptime on vigor
Phantasmal Fury: Self Explanatory
Sharper Images: Fallen from grace but still a minor buff
Fencer’s Finesse: It only adds about 4.6% DPS on my current build, but since I run Sword/Sword often (and I might run Sword/sword + shield, I"ll have to see how it plays out) the trait improves… basically everything’s cooldown, both offensively and defensively.
Master Fencer: Self 75% fury uptime is good.
Deceptive Evasion: Better than it sounds. In my experience, clones overwrite other clones, and the phantasm death rate means I rarely have all 3 up at any one time. Except in rare circumstances, I have a free spot to dodge, ileeap, and Iriposte to my hearts content.

In my forever puglife, I use every single one of these traits, and the sum of these traits means big things regarding my damage and survivability. Domination has a few good traits which contribute more overall to offense, but the line lacks personal defense, which is important when dealing with the pug’s strange capability to be less durable than full GC gear.

The more optimal a group gets, the more valuable domination becomes, but in contrast the more valuable the pure support spec becomes, too. In a half-decently put together group with GC gear, it’ll be better to just run Chaos/Illu/Chrono.

I completely forgot about the shatter CD. That changes a whole lot.

Partly this has been a culminating issue. Originally, the game wasn’t as loaded with bags as it is now.

All of this sounds quite powerful. I have a concern or two, though. Firstly, who is handling reflects in an ele/ele/war/rev/mes group? Does the build swap out calamity for feedback as needed?

Second, is that this build is what will be expected of me when I run the mesmer. That isn’t too big of an issue by itself, since given an optimal or at least competent group and a rev, this build looks like it will melt face in a highly offensive-support based way. It should be quite fun in this regard.

However, my antisocial behaviors, strange schedules, and anything-goes attitude leaves me frequently running groups that aren’t wholly competent. At least, not fully in the know with how dungeons are run and not specced out in full DPS gear, and not having the sense to run up and melee bosses while standing in wells + time warp. One of the reasons why I like the current Inspirations/Dueling/Domination setup is the high amount of defense and control it gives, which lets me carry pugs while also soloing effectively.

The way this build works is highly dependent on competent allies. If I were to assume that I am basically running solo but 5 people decided to tag along, I’m not sure the whole super-offensive support wells is going to be as effective as a more solo-focused phantasm build. So questions:

#1: How does the personal damage of this build compare to the practical damage of a phantasm focused build? I’m thinking of something like Dom/Duel/Chrono, running Alls well that ends Well, Improved Alacrity, and Chronophantasma.

#2: The full specs of this build aren’t listed. I’m assuming Chaos is for BD and Chaotic Persistence, and Illusions is for Celerity and… shattered strength? I’m noticing that in the attempt to build a fully support focused set, that there are a lot of dead traits with minimal impact. I’m think that there might a solo-friendlier version that swaps out Illusions for Dueling (Deceptive Evasion, Fencer’s Finesse, Master Fencer, Critical Infusion. Not sure how useful Phantasmal Fury + Sharper images is here). I’m also considering domination for its shatter traits, but am hesitant since illusion summoning is important here, which means that deceptive evasion and celerity are much needed traits.

After all this, I think I’m going to spend some quality time with my mantra build, since once HoT launches Mantras will just be weaker and more cumbersome versions of wells.

Personally I find that daredevil makes acrobatics even less attractive. I’ve already written at length about how that line is the worst line ever, but now that DD takes up its many niches, there’s no reason to run it at all.

First, it is bad at endurance regeneration. You get more vigor and weapon dodges from Trickery, and maybe even critical strikes if you’re running Signet of Agility with the recharge reduction trait. The difference being that trickery provides useful utility and critical strikes provides a lot of raw damage, whereas acrobatics provides barely anything.

Expeditious Dodger is a vastly inferior version of Unhindered Combatant, so inferior it is nigh useless. Basically combine Don’t Stop and Expeditious Dodger, and you’ll have half of what Unhindered Combatant can do.

Assassin’s Reward is only about as strong as Driven Fortitude, assuming no further additional dodges other than those innate to the Daredevil Specialization. Throw in a single skill based dodge and Assassin’s Reward, a grandmaster, is now inferior to the worst trait in the Daredevil line.

The rest of the acro line is filled with traits that are nearly useless. The worst part is, these traits don’t even compound with daredevil. The _ on evade traits are crap, and the line barely helps you to evade. It doesn’t provide as much as any other trait line in any capacity with which you could possibly evaluate a trait line.

Personally I think this is the best example of what the issue with Stealth Gyro is. For anyone not in the know, that is the Megadoomer from Invader Zim. It has a cloaking device, but the cloaking device doesn’t cloak the pilot inside the robot.

Personally I don’t like the stealth gyro either. I’d rather have something that performs well than something that performs poorly but I can work around its poor play. I.E. I’d rather have a thief stealth a group of people long enough to take them by surprise then have multiple Stealth Gyros to try and play the mind-game version of three card monte. Or coin flip. Depends on how many Engi’s you dedicate tot he cause.

Eidolonemesis.5640:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The whole right click -> open all or use all is a QoL upgrade that benefits everyone. Particularly mice. Games have had these features for years before GW2 was even released, and I can’t find a good excuse to keep it out of the game.

If you don’t mind me asking… Can you cite a source of game that specifically has something equivalent to a ‘Use-all’ option, preferably a video if one does exist?

Thank you. I have never seen it in the ways I have described it.

Runescape. As time has gone it, it added a lot of options to the game. For example, if you go to combine potion ingredients, you get the following on right-click:

Make 1
Make 5
Make X
Make all

Similar QoL features for most production skills in the game. Fletching, Crafting, and Smithing have similar options.

The whole right click → open all or use all is a QoL upgrade that benefits everyone. Particularly mice. Games have had these features for years before GW2 was even released, and I can’t find a good excuse to keep it out of the game.

Ryze Auditore.5927:

Thanks guys for the responses. Though the reason “watching a girls behind” is quite creepy even for a female virtual character.

There’s nothing wrong with being a straight male. I’m not even sure how this thread got on to the topic of gender equality. Why can’t we just want better hairstyles for dudes, and let that be self evident?

I do think that death blossom could use some tuning, now that the starting strength of bleeding has been cut tremendously. Originally when bleeds were 0.05 + 42.5, Death blossom could still wrack up substantial pressure even on a power build. That extra condition damage has been more than cut in half.

And yes, at least 1/2 second evade.

I suppose my only issue is that Driven Fortitude is on the lower end of the average section. Some numbers:

*Endurance Regenerates at 5 per second, and a dodge requires 50 endurance. Thus, you get one dodge every 10 seconds.
*This gives Driven Fortitude a maximum base healing of 45.6 health per second, which isn’t that much.
*Factoring in additional endurance gain uses the following formula: 456 x (endurance gained) / (50 x recharge time). So, factoring in steal giving an additional dodge per second, this comes to 15 additional health per second from dodging.
*You can consider the 3 starting dodges as an additional 1,368 starting health.
*Thus, the baseline effect of Driven Fortitude is 1,368 additional starting health + 60.6 health per second.

That.. .isn’t a lot. Now, these numbers go up and down depending on how efficiently you dodge, the number of skill dodges you use, and how much endurance regeneration your build has. But just looking at the base healing you’ll get, it isn’t that good.

You can tell if this trait contributed to your win if your health drops below the amount of healing you received. Assuming a 15 second fight, you’ll receive a total of 2.2k healing. Unless your health drops below 2.2k, then Driven Fortitude didn’t contribute to your victory. Hence the issue: this trait only meaningfully contributes if you’re barely losing the fight.

I imagine this is what a lot of players intuitively see wrong with the daredevil traits. The daredevil would be leaps and bounds more powerful if we had a different master minor. Take any other trait in this line, swap it with Driven Fortitude, and our class becomes so much more powerful. The community is focused on Escapists Absolution because that is the most needed trait.

I’m hesitant to actually suggest any of these changes, though. For one, I fear what kind of monster we’ll make of we can take Escapists Absolution and Impacting Disruption at the same time. For two, I keep thinking that, with additional balance changes coming to the class, our need for condition cleansing will be reduced. Third, while the base healing of Driven Fortitude is really low for any “average” build, at maximum dodging it can be quite a bit stronger (I.E. spamming skill evades adds 114, trickery steal recharge add 7.8 on steal, vigor adds another 11, withdraw adds 25, totaling for 218 health per second). 218 health per second , by contrast, is quite significant healing, and an evade spamming build will actually love it.

But hey, I don’t PVP, so I can only math so hard in a void.

A thought occurred to me. I think the breakbar is being implemented because Anet has given up on making the movement reduction effects of cripple and chill wortwhile in PVE.

A long time ago in a forum far far away, I listed the reason why it is that cripple and chill are useless in PVE but useful in PVP. In PVP, there are countless situations where you need to either run away, catch someone, or slow someone down to hit them with a ground targeted attack. In PVE, there are no enemies that you need to chase, no enemies that you need to run from, and no enemies who flip around so much that you can’t hit them.

My idea for a solution was simple in essence, but difficult to actually do: put enemies in the game that you need to run from, need to chase, and need to slow down. This was made more difficult by the normalizing of skill movement, since programming a bunch of “make bad guy jump here on attack” is a lot easier then giving them AI which does such a thing.. This was also hard because a quick alteration of tactics can make a “run from” enemy into a “face tank” enemy, and the constantly evolving tactics and classes means nothing can stay the same permanently.

Anet, wanting to take a path of less resistance, decided to unify all soft CC into hard CC. This works if you ignore that whole pesky “class identity” and “combat system depth” thing. And also if you ignore that, by making movement CC do nothing you make those rare situations where you need to run/catch/hit something worse. On the technical side it makes soft CC “work”, but against precise interrupts it just muddies things.

tobascodagama.2961:

Putting the Bulwark Gyro and iDefender into their respective class contexts does NOT make iDefender look any better, and you’re a kitten fool if you think it does.

Engineer context: Extremely good DPS and incredibly strong team support, in the same build.

I stopped there. This isn’t about idefender anymore. It is a generalized complaint that engineers aren’t as good as mesmers. You’re changing the subject.

Ross Biddle.2367:

I mean, it pains me to have to point this out but I’m pretty sure everybody else got it when I typed it out. But seeing as you didn’t, objectively a Mesmer can only equip 3 utilities, which even you know, so why you’d jump to the conclusion that I was proposing a mesmer running 6 utilities at the same time is beyond me. Considering the ridiculous impossibility of that notion, a logical mind would be forced to draw to an alternative conclusion that best made sense of the idea present within the communication. To state it plainly for you:-

“Here’s 6 utilities that’d fill my (and all serious) Mesmers three utility slots (but not at the same time -_-u) over and above iDefender (as it currently stands), because they far outclass it. Furthermore, there are still more utilities than those 6 that’d be taken before iDefender.”

Good try with a response though. Keep at it.

The opportunity cost of any utility is the best thing you have to give up to use it. Thus, in any realistic scenario, you’ll be exchanging any one of three utilities for any particular build. Thus, when you started listing a random assortment of contextless utilities you consider “better” than idefender, you’re just mentally hoarding as many names as possible to make your case look all big and secure in your own head. Two people can play that game. I can list every contextless random utility that is worse than idefender or better than bulwark. But I didn’t. I only picked the 3 kit build specifically to avoid unnecessary fluff to make a more realistic point.

Its not that I don’t “get it”. You’re just wrong to think that way. You’re position is illogical from the outset, and it is more prudent to point it out than humor it.

Zenith.7301:

Stuff

Pay attention now. You’re nitpicking to distract away from the point, which is class synergy and the relative + absolute inferiority of bulwark gyro, toolbelt skill and all.

Going back to daredevil stuff, I’ve thought about it for awhile, and I am now certain that the Impact Strike combo needs a buff. Let me explain:

The ability to instantly finish off an opponent, while unique, isn’t necessarily a good tech. Thieves already blind stomped and stealth stomped, so it isn’t fulfilling any niche role. The problem is, in order for the instant-stomp of Finishing Blow to take effect, you have to already have won the fight. You are up, the enemy is down, so what good is it to stomp someone a second or two early? You aren’t winning a fight because of Impact Strike.

I worked out the damage awhile ago, and the Impact Strike combo has the tooltip DPS of 443. The sword auto attack, for comparison, has a tool-tip auto attack DPS of about 420. So impact strike is only a 5% increase over just normally attacking (with sword). The staff auto is about 393 tooltip DPS, but factor in sustained vulnerability (14 average) and it goes up to 448. The dagger is kitten , with several ancillary effects. So, as far as damage goes, there is little to no difference between using Impact Strike and not using it.

What it does have is stun. A 2 second daze that is followed immediately up with a 2 second knockdown. So it has interrupt potential. I don’t have the exact animation times down, but since the entire skill takes 3 seconds, I’m going to assume that the total overlapping duration of daze + knockdown is 3 seconds. Lets compare this to another skill: Basilisk Venom. Basilisk Venom is 2 × 1 stun with a fancy name, so basically it is 2 seconds worth of stun. It comes with several advantages:

#1: It can be precast to reduce the recharge further
#2: It activates during attack, so precast and stealth cast venom essentially have no activation time
#3: It synergizes with venom traits, so when traited it is shared, grants might, steals health, and recharges in 32 seconds. The recharge here isn’t a super-advantage, since Impact Strike has its own recharge reduction trait.

The ability to simultaneously stun and preform other actions is what is really valuable. With impact strike being only as strong as auto attacking, it is arguably inferior to just pre-casting basilisk venom, then… auto attacking.

Ultimately, this means the Impact Strike Combo isn’t very good. It isn’t more damage than a melee auto attack. It isn’t necessarily a longer or better stun than the competing elite skill Basilisk Venom. And for its unique finisher ability to take effect, you need to have already won the fight anyway, so Finishing Blow doesn’t help you win at anything. This last one is a pretty big problem, because it is quite illogical to equip a utility that doesn’t help you win.

Overall, my suggestion is this:

Increase the damage of Impact Strike, Uppercut, and Finishing Blow by 50% each.

Yes, that seems like a lot. But even with that buff, it is less of a DPS boon than Fists of Fury + Palm Strike. The advantage here being that one isn’t exclusive with the other.

EDIT: The Dagger DPS is 454 + 1, not including poison. It is censored above.

meepeY.2867:

What really sucks is that good Engi’s are saying that they wont even take the Sneak Gyro. They’re happy with the Box Drop or the Elixer. Fair play if you think the Gyro isn’t great.

However, BAD Engi’s who struggle or dislike Thieves will take the Sneak Gyro and now they have the 1-button-press-go-kitten-yourself-anti-Thief ability. Now the bad Engi’s will be able to beat Thieves with another dumb thing that takes out the skill factor and keeps it to a “who’s build is better” orientation.

This is the best analysis of Sneak Gyro so far. I’ve played engi before, and the immediate conclusion I came to is that Sneak Gyro just isn’t worth it. The stealth is nice in theory, until the drone draws aggro and nukes everyone inside of it. Then you have the reveal skill. The first use will be really easy to bait, since newb Engis will pop it as soon as you vanish. The reveal is only dangerous when stealth is being used defensively, since when used for burst it just gives me 6 seconds of +200 power.

But on the practical side, what does the reveal get you? It is an advantage against thieves and mesmers… leaving your elite utility essentially useless against 7/9 classes. Having played both classes, I’d never take Sneak Gyro over the Supply Crate, since Supply Crate still wrecks thieves. It is a point and click area control that creates a lingering death zone, and the still itself is a potent stun. Best part is, Supply Crate is useful against every class.

This is one of the reasons why it is I think that the gyro is going to be meant for new PVE enemies. The drone just isn’t viable anywhere right now.

spoj.9672:

Yeah gravedigger cooldown + nightfall makes it pretty likely that greatsword could pull ahead. The question is whether camping either set or swapping between them is best.

I’m not sure the answer to that question is damage. The main advantage to swapping weapons is the ancillary effects. Primarily, vulnerability and life force. If you sit in greatsword, you’ll get 12 vulnerability alongside of 12% LF on death spiral. After dropping nightfall you can proceed to auto attack for some LF and the chill effects. But, if you swap to dagger, you’ll get reaper’s scythe and spinal shivers if boon removal is needed. Its an additional 15% life force and up to 12 vulnerability. The dagger auto also generates more lifeforce.

This isn’t looking at builds or particular scenarios, so the value of vulnerability and life force changes. Factoring in no other circumstances, I assume swapping will give better performance.

Nike.2631:

I love the dammed if you do dammed if you don’t situation Anet is having to dance through — Dragonhunter is “all over the place” to some Guardian players because it’s not more of the same while other players favoring other professions are complaining Dragonhunter is basically the only Espec that genuinely brings something new to its core profession and why can’t their Espec offer a whole new playstyle like Guards are getting? The grass really is greener over the hill I guess.

From the complaints lately, it isn’t just a grass is greener. Its more like the grass is greener and its coming to get you because the dev gods never loved you. With the release of the Scrapper you’d swear the world is coming to an end.

The complaints are so myopic, envious, emotionally charged, and flat out incorrect that it is baffling. At what point did the median age of the forums become prepubescent? I consider myself a smart person, but darn it other people aren’t supposed to be this dumb.

I’m pretty sure Sneak Gyro is overrated. You can see the stealth function coming from a mile away, so as soon as you spot that gyro just unload AoEs into its area. And if you spot the gyro actually flying, then the toolbelt is easy to bait. As a thief, if I’m using stealth for burst then it isn’t a big concern at all. Its just +200 power for six seconds. If I’m using it defensively, then I just need to de-target then combo-heartseeker + shadowstep away. They’ll blow the reveal on thin air, then I can warp back as needed.

What is more interesting is what you have to give up for it. As a thief I’m more worried about supply crate dropping on my head. That elite is a big pile of point control in a neat little package, and back when I used to play Engi it would wreck thieves. I’m also not too keen on being moa’d or mortared.

Ross Biddle.2367:

I don’t think you understand.

Mesmer’s arent going to give up their much needed decoy, blink, portal, MoD, Mantra Cleanse, Signit, etc for iDefender. It’s simply that Gyro displays how iDefender should be and raises the question of why iDefender is in the game at all when they can obviously get it right all along.

No, you don’t get it. I can tell you don’t get it because you listed 6 utilities, and you can only pick 3 in the first place. You’re padding your own mind, not thinking logically. This isn’t just about iDefender. It is about all the QQ all over the forums where people are whining that Engineers have better utilities. The mesmer is no exception. Keep in mind that in your mythical six utility mesmer, all that is still only equivalent to a single kit from the Engineer.

Not only am I not even sure bulwark is worth a slot, I’m not even sure bulwark is better than idefender. Bulwarks cooldown is up to twice as long. It’ll be cleaved just as easily, even easier if it has lower health (note: Idefender can have up to 21,209 health). You can only daze in PBAoE with the bulwark, whereas Idefender can be shattered in a multitude of ways at range, inflicting confusion, torment, vulnerability, granting boons, cleansing conditions, stripping boons, and healing. Idefender can inflict bleed on crit and can be spawned with retaliation, whereas bulwark doesn’t do additional damage by just existing. The Idefender can also increase your direct and condition damage, and reduce damage overall. You can’t summon bulwark on dodge/block, either.

So what advantages does bulwark have? #1 is that it is instant cast, which makes sense given how little bulwark actually does. Idefender is as much as an offensive skill as a defensive one, so like all phantasms it has a cast time. #2 is that it stays with you after an enemy is dead. This isn’t that useful: once your opponent is dead, you’ve won and don’t need it to hang around. #3 is that it comes with a reflect. Other classes this might be valuable, but a mesmer is bleeding reflects out of their ears, so the advantage is redundant. #4 is that it doesn’t require a target. Thankfully, the enemy you’re fighting is usually a target, and so Idefender can be used when needed. #5 is that when the drone is blown up, it dazes in an AoE without traits. This isn’t something that is lacking from the mesmer, just in a different place.

Think of how the engineer must feel, getting a trait that is arguably inferior to Idefender. That’ll never be worth a kit.

The Gyro certainly does sound nice. To think, all they have to give up for it is Elixir Gun, with its condis and cleanses and stunbreak and movement and blast finisher and damage patch. Or the bomb kit, with its point control, blind fields, fire fields and blast finishers. Or the flame thrower, with its burning pressure and own combo fields/finishers with its awesome traits.

I’m seeing a lot of QQ on the forums from other classes, and other classes simply do not understand the issue. The competition for engineer utilities is incredibly fierce. Kits are hands down the best utilities in the game, and to switch out a kit is essentially losing an instant weapon swap. That is far more than what any other class has to give up when they change utilities.

To compete with kits, a utility needs to do either one of two things. Be unique, or be extremely powerful. So while everyone is complaining about drones being to strong, engineers are skeptical if they are even worth a slot.

Drones will be cleaved to death.

I hate to be that guy, but…

I think this reveal stuff is meant for the new stealthing enemies. Not all of it is aimed at the thief/mesmer.

I don’t think this would be as big of a problem if the acro line wasn’t so horrible.

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that in PVP the self-reveal on thief is 4 seconds. I’m not sure it is necessary anymore.

I’ve been prepping slowly. I figure by the time the rev actually gets released, I’ll have enough tomes to get her to 80. I don’t have any of the gear yet, but I likely will in a month + time.

spoj.9672:

GS might be better even above 50%. Would have to do coeff calcs for gs rotations without gravedigger spam to confirm though.

I did the math awhile ago. During the first BWE I calculated the tooltip damage for dagger and greatsword to be 447 and 357 respectively. In the previous BWE event thread, they said that the GS auto will be (now was) buffed 20%. This would put the GS auto at about 428 tooltip DPS.

This makes the GS auto do 95.7% of the damage as the dagger auto. The real question is, do the utilities from GS make up for that damage loss and off-hand skills. That I have not checked.

Right now I just think phalanx strike is the problem. It renders self-stacking might nearly useless in any group composition.

Quarktastic.1027:

Malachi Draven.2865:

I guarantee you there will never be a situation where a raid wipes and somebody thinks “I bet we died because we brought the Reaper…”.

There will always be someone who thinks this.

While I was beta testing my reaper in Caudecus’s manor I thought this myself.

Every time my group wiped, I thought “If I was playing my guardian right now, that wouldn’t have happened”. Though, to be fair to the reaper, no one is better at carrying bad pugs than a guardian.

This is actually a legitimate concern. Necros, being the “selfish” class, play by themselves next to 4 other players. They have some good debuffs and boon stripping, but they can’t control or manipulate the field like other classes can. I mean, I’ve soloed quite a few champions with the rest of my team lying their dead (in full berzerker gear, btw), but other classes have more support tools to keep teammates alive. My preferred dungeon runner is the thief, precisely because the large defensive utility lets me save people.

Good news is, the reaper helps with that. Chill helps with disengage, nightfall adds a second blindfield, they get a pull for relocating enemies, better vulnerability stacking, a short term reflect, a really solid AoE stun, and a type of boon stripping which always converts to vulnerability. For current dungeons, it is definitely an improvement. Probably not meta, but you won’t see as much “ew, a necro”.

For the new raids… who knows. I imagine that the new group composition for passive breakbar destruction will have a sword/pistol thief and a reaper. Sword/pistol thief provides nigh permanent cripple, weakness, and blind, whereas the reaper will provide more blinds and chill. Throw that on top of the 5 elementalists, 2 warriors, and a mesmer, and we may have a spot.

Condi necro is a bit tricky. By itself I’d say the spec is below average. I’m only getting about 5-7k DPS on any one target.

But, Condi necros have access to Epidemic, which in the right circumstances is a monstrous skill. Those circumstances being against multiple enemies while teamed up with other condi build. So, if you are in those circumstances, or you just need solid ranged damage, condi necro is worth it.

But if you want to scrap at close range and be dependent on no one, then direct damage is for you.

Depends on the group composition and build. Cripple is easily capped because there are a lot of classes that can do it fairly easily. Thief and Ranger in particular. Otherwise it is build specific or tactic specific.

Ice bow isn’t as good at chill as you’d think. Frost Fan resets all chill stacks, so even with 10 frost bows you’ll only end up with 5 seconds of chill or so. Unless you specifically stagger bow usage.