short answer: very viable and a much better all around option than ranger
long answer: thief forums > scroll down > find thread “is thief viable in pve”
With his build he is capable of doing 10k healing from Healing Turret.
P/P is also capable of doing 20k damage before the turret’s cool-down is available, but capable doesn’t always translate to practical. If the engineer drops the turret the very split-second Basilisk Venom is consumed (and it lands), for example, then what happens to the engineer and their turret?
Oh I forgot, his build has an unlimited Vigor and Swiftness.
To remind you, it’s quite simple to switch to Bountiful Theft before fights. Oh look, P/P would get Vigor also (15 secs, every 21~ seconds), and also rip 2 boons from the engineer (also every 21~ seconds). I’ve thought about switching to this trait so often — mainly against guardians (prolonged deaths), but usually, it’s never necessary.
You may want to say you can dodge his attacks and get the equal ground.
Really? Heal-on-crit food would probably out-heal the auto-attacks. I think it’d heal at least 1.5-2x higher than what the engineer even gets from the turret-regen.
This is not really a bunker but more like balanced build.
Balanced builds would be fine for fights that naturally last quite a while, since it can endure pressure briefly while awaiting support. For PvP, I assume that works great. However, remember that those builds neither excel in damage, nor survivability. It’s similar to wearing PTV gear in WvW — you may live longer, but you’re also less useful.
his build is capable of killing you in 10sec if you don’t do anything about his conditions
Probably true, but likewise, P/P could kill the engineer in 5 seconds if they didn’t do anything about the raw damage. A naked, up-leveled warrior could also kill the engineer rather quickly under the same circumstances. See the pattern?
If you can’t kill him under 15sec he will heal back again and again until you whittle down and die.
That’s only true if the engineer can out-heal 100% of the damage every 15 seconds. Considering the engineer was near-dead from that Ele quite often, then you’re greatly mistaken.
I guess you are more like a casual player.
All I can do was just spamming Unload till I died.
I’m a casual player that plays very often, and enjoy it 100%. I love to be front-line or dead-center in small skirmishes, or even better, in massive battles (that don’t lag…). I can spam Unload to my heart’s content and survive until the end. If I die in those situations, it’s usually due to a complete wipe, or from our front-lines collapsing and falling back (I don’t like to run ;P). Then there are times where I get a “yolo” urge, but that’s a personal thing. :-)
If you enjoyed P/P play-style, you would adapt your setup to survive — not just spam Unload until you die…
You sound like you’re a fan of this engineer, and that’s fine. They could very well overwhelm P/P through setup, through “skill”, or both — not denying the possibility. From my experiences in WvW, however, I’ve never noticed any imbalance between P/P vs P/S (Eng), but as they are limited (with P/S Eng), I will, as said earlier, keep an eye out for ‘em. Unfortunately, it’d take many encounters to get a “good feel”, given the obvious factors involved in random encounters.
If you’re not their fan, then you must’ve instead been mauled by condition Engineers quite often. Ouch! Learn to adapt, if that’s the case, instead of giving-up on a weapon-set. Unload animation is too nice to sacrifice. :-)
when an engineer of average or higher skill level sees a p/p thief he thinks 2 things: 1. LOL, 2a. must be a casual, or 2b. this isnt the brightest thief in the guild, and as soon as you drop that first unload your going to have it reflected in your face and s/he will proceed to faceroll you in seconds
1) question doesnt really make sense, vigorous recovery procs vigor when you use a healing skill, SoM doesnt have anything to do with vigor.
2)healing power will scale up how much you heal with SoM. SoM is NOT life leech, its simply a small healing proc every time you strike a foe (or in some cases like caltrops, apply bleeding)
3)use SoM, Assassins reward, and life leech food, perhaps sigil of blood (i think thats the one) if you need more, but prolly dont need the sigil. Most thieves would advise against p/p in general though, its a terribly confused set with no clear purpose, however, if you enjoy it, there are a few guides in the forum i recall seeing
There is a thief trait called “Vigorous Recovery,” which is gaining vigor when using a healing skill. So if SoM is gaining health on hit, am I gaining vigor on every hit?
“No clear Purpose,’ is nice, gives you the freedom to build in any direction, thats how I see it.
it only gives you vigor if you use signet of malice which cancels the heal per hit effect until its recharged making it useless because you shouldnt ever have to use SoM, also no clear purpose means it doesnt perform well under any build and is sub-par to every other weapon set we have
I love s/p — sb in dungeons.
While Im here… how far below dagger is sword for single target dps? Assuming 25/30/0/15/0…
its a good bit weaker, in max damage gear (sigils of slaying/night + slaying potions) my pistol whips hit between 20-30k depending on might/vulnerability, while my c/d + bs can hit easily hit 40k+ and then theres the 2 auto chains inbetween c/d+bs (edit: if your fighting something you cant land a backstab on the mobs actual back/sides its probably better just to run s/p to have the evades from pistol whip because the damage difference is minimal)
edit: @ the guy above who said guardians outdamage thieves… they cant even come close, i tried last night with same max damage % and several builds and my thief fully unbuffed still outdamaged guardian with full bloodlust stacks and might (edit2:) and that was with s/p for cleave damage, d/d would be even further ahead of anything a guardian can do
(edited by Clumsy.6257)
In dungeons and fractals a thief’s purpose is pure damage. We currently out damage all classes except ele
I’m curious where you got this from? i was always under the impression that warriors were top tier damage above thieves. Also another question i had which would be considered the best weaponset for raw damage?
warriors aren’t top tier anymore
1. LH/FGS ele
2. Thief (single target)
3. War, guard, mes, thief (cleave)
4. Ranger, engi
5. Necro
And I run 25/30//0/0/15 for dungeons and 0/30/20/20/0 for fractals. My default weapon sets are d/d and s/p swapping the s/p to s/d for stealing might from certain bosses and short bow or p/p for stuff that has to be ranged
In dungeons and fractals a thief’s purpose is pure damage. We currently out damage all classes except ele (nobody is sure if ele’s huge damage is intended or about to get punched by the nerf fist). The problem is for every good thief in pve there are literally thousands of bad ones (I’ve met less than ten thieves I’d consider running with again in a full year) so theres a huge stigma of pve thieves are bad. I’ve heard some thieves complaining they get kicked from pugs but its never happened to me (more than likely they were just more bad thieves). So while not having much support (besides shadow refuge) we’re still worth taking.
edit: Forgot to mention eventually you’ll probably end up running with basically static guild groups so you’ll rarely have to deal with the idiocy of the average pugstar.
(edited by Clumsy.6257)
I’m aware of that Clumsy. He’s asking how to exploit it.
I could snatch a tip: something like walking on the ceiling.….any clue?
ah skipped over that post and it would probably be easier to just solo it without exploits then spend time trying to figure that out
We’re not going to post telling you how to exploit the path.
you can solo it without using any exploits (or you used to be able to) and as long as you can solo the spider queen its easy from there, the burrows are a small challenge but very easy once you learn how
edit: there a videos showing solos both pre and post ac nerf
(edited by Clumsy.6257)
Exploit? nah.
The bear form has such a long cooldown that using it specifically for that one skill isn’t going to increase your DPS all that much. The FGS is slightly more worrisome, but the skills only work in this fashion when your target in pinned to a wall or packed into a corner.
It’s not always a feasible tactic in PvE to drive your target into a wall and facetank them. And in PvP, this tactic is almost impossible to pull off, as few people are going to stand still and eat an entire rush like that.
actually fiery rush works anywhere for the exact same damage you just have to use that ele blink skill
The stats different is probably not that big. Biggest different is probably from trait.
I’m pretty sure there are enough low level that they can form their own group. Problem is everyone want to group with optimzed group for easier run.
Aka, most of the low level people don’t even want to group with themself. And most people with high level just join 80 only group and switch to alt in the end.
The truth is if I make a post which says non80 new player only, I’m sure many people will try to avoid it even for those people who are non 80 or new. That is how people are.
stats compare in AC story.
level30 dps guardian in blue
level80 support guardian in exotic/ascended
level30 dps guardian with support trait in bluelevel 30(dps) level80 level30(balance)
power 496 406 396
percision 466 411 381
toughness 206 401 306
vitality 206 318 306
condition damage 100 22 0
Boon duration 0 0 0
critical damage 6 12 16
agony resistence 0 6 0
attack 810 745 713
critical chance 56 48% 39%
armor 492 730 592
health 2292 3412 3292
condition duration 10% 0% 0
healing power 0 67 100
virtual recharge rate 0 0 0
magic find 12 12 12
HP 2407 3583 3457
your comparing a guardian with pow/prec gear to some trash stat armor, try comparing full dps spec guardians
Dude it takes like a week to get to 80.
I don´t know if you are an adult goin work, a highschool student or goin to middle school or what ever.
But i can tell you that making 80 levels in one week required either way to specific ways of doin so OR much time investment, which most poeple can not effort due to time constrains or other reasons.further more it was not entirly base. on gain Exp to level, as i stated it helps for exsample newcomers or people who play a new class to get used to that class in circumstances given by doungens.
It also will help the doungen farmers in a long term, because if Low Level learn the doungens NOW they will be MORE doungen farmers at level 80 later on.
I´ve seen enough 80s who had NO idea whats the hell was goin on due to lack of knowledge.
Also this game is based on team work. What team is that if you exclude everyone who has a,lower level then you? specialy in areas where they allready met all requirments nessecary?
My record for 1-80 with no crafting is 21 hours and why would your want to level through dungeons, it slows your leveling by up to 5×.
edit: forgot to mention this was one week, and I work full time…
in pve or spvp? in pve its pathetic, i already have 100% crit chance with a disc banner and fury in full berserkers so why would i give up power to get precision i dont need? i cant comment for spvp.
Read through what I can understand with the next update and didn’t even see the fractal weapons being mentioned. So does this mean that if we want to have an ascended weapon with the fractal skins we would have to spend another round of transmutation crystals?
Was hoping that Ascension entailed ascending items rather than crafting them entirely or from random drops.
you have to transmute fractal weapons onto exotics already, when they drop they have no stats, so yes you will have to transmute them onto ascended weapons
…and im not even sure ive ever seen a ranger using a greatsword, if more of them did maybe most parties wouldnt kick on join
My first 80 was a ranger, I use longbow and greatsword… lb for the area attack and to keep enemies far away and gs for when I get swarmed. In addition to the block ability gs has some good multi-target hits and the autoattack includes an evasion in the rotation. So if you’re swarmed by four of five enemies switch to gs and hit everyone at once, and evade their attacks every three or four beats.
As for kicking rangers, that’s because most people can’t be bothered to think for themselves. They hear “rangers are the kitteny class” and assume every ranger is bad. It’s the second-most popular class so there are a LOT of them out there, and a good choice for solo players because of the backup from a pet. So the law of averages means that a larger number of rangers will be very casual or inexperienced as opposed to more hardcore players. The same with warriors because they are the most common class, but they don’t have the same rep. So any warrior or ranger you see is more likely to be inexperienced, but that doesn’t make the class itself bad.
I’m guessing your talking about open world pve, in which case you could run around naked and still be just as effective, in dungeons if your using wrong bow its auto kick, there is absolutely no excuse to use a ranged weapon in any dungeon (excluding fractals) when melee deals much better damage and every expects you to stack, and as for why most people kick rangers on sight… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a ranger stack on a boss and still try and spam lb/sb
I wouldn’t call GS bad on a Mesmer. #1 does DECENT regular attack damage. #2 ricochets, summons a clone, and grants might to your guys and vulnerability to the enemy. #3 removes a boon in a small AoE. #4 summons a Phantasmal Berserker which hits REALLY hard and is a pretty big source of damage if you’re ranging. #5 will launch any enemy in front of you away.
It’s a good weapon, but I don’t suggest keeping it on all the time. Just use it for the #3 when needed, #4, and the #2 for an extra clone.
or you could just use sword/focus with /pistol or /sword offhand and deal over double the damage while spamming invulnerability, and im not even sure ive ever seen a ranger using a greatsword, if more of them did maybe most parties wouldnt kick on join
while foofad is right about the asura racials, they dont even come close to the usefulness of our utilities so it boils down to which race’s appearance do you like best and the cultural armor
No one should be getting downed at the start of phase 2.
I call total bullkitten on this one. The switch to Phase2 can result in a trainwreck of random things all going wrong at once and the guy who dives on the grubs to prevent multiple stacks is a HERO, not a rookie. A any decent team can even Rez him later on if needs be. The only real mistake in the transition to phase2, which I’ve made a few times I’ll admit, was not saving up a Dodge for it while also not running Endurance Stew…
Of course if you range then you shouldn’t get downed at the start of phase 2.
was that sarcasm? hard to tell and you have a much better chance of living by standing directly under him at the beginning of phase 2
Wow nobody has mentioned this one yet – so I can carry pugs -.-
The thing is for a thief in order to achieve the stats to survive such a hit with 1-2k hp, you are giving up all of your offensive stats, which means pretty much you don’t justify your spot in the group.
There are very few fights where you need to outlast the content and wear it down.
For example let’s look at AC ghostbuster final boss. The difference between downing the boss with 3 or less traps and having to reload the traps several times is huge.
I also don’t recall (please correct me if I am wrong) any encounter where you must have a gear check regarding survival and ability to take that 1 hit which you can’t avoid (ie: scripted attacks which can’t be avoided, blocked, absorbed, interrupted etc).
I would love to have a viable build in pve with more survival as well as having more skill based encounters where different utilities matter and group synergy is more important than stacking X or Y and burning target down asap, but until this changes thief is pretty much limited to D/D for single target where backstab can be used reliable, P/P for ranged only fights, and S/P for any fights involving adds as part of encounter.
I think you are overstating it. With divinity runes and half or full valkyrie gear you give up roughly 100 power and 5-10% crit chance depending on the amount of valkyrie items. In return you get 2-3k health extra, 60 toughness and about 60+ healing. Especially with diminishing returns, isn’t this worth considering?
From what I’ve seen when I test it, the damage is close to the same.
the differences may not be a lot but the fact is that your reducing your offensive stats to take defensive stats when they aren’t needed, so why would you take them at all?
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but the only unavoidable damage in this game is in lava and jade maw’s agony. Now assuming a player is skilled enough to avoid all decent sized damage, that renders defensive stats to be a complete waste. In a thief’s case, with the help of our monstrous arsenal of evades, black powder for trash mobs, signet of malice, and life steal food, surviving any encounter in full berserkers without ever going down is entirely possible and actually fairly easy to do. In fact it actually becomes easier to survive in berserkers when the content becomes progressively harder (fractals) because the mobs hit harder and will more then likely kill you nearly instantly whether your in full sentinels or full berserkers.
Maybe it’s me, but I from what I’ve experienced there are a lot of things (in high level fractals for example, but even some harder boss fights) that will drop you very low with something around 2500 toughness and 15-17k hp while one-shotting you with anything less.
I’ve kept groups standing because I can survive those occasional hits and proceed to fully heal myself with the aid of stealth. Under perfect circumstances with perfect skills, I can see the argument for berserker. But that’s the thing about the more challenging content, it’s not organized, it’s chaotic and you WILL get hit.
Actually the more challenging the content is (typically) the more organized and coordinated a party is because people are less willing to invest time in hard content if they’re unlikely to finish in a timely manner.
edit: I forgot to mention that if you run with pugs, especially on fotm 48, they’re going to run the most optimal classes they can because there isn’t a way to measure a players skill if you don’t know them.
(edited by Clumsy.6257)
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but the only unavoidable damage in this game is in lava and jade maw’s agony. Now assuming a player is skilled enough to avoid all decent sized damage, that renders defensive stats to be a complete waste. In a thief’s case, with the help of our monstrous arsenal of evades, black powder for trash mobs, signet of malice, and life steal food, surviving any encounter in full berserkers without ever going down is entirely possible and actually fairly easy to do. In fact it actually becomes easier to survive in berserkers when the content becomes progressively harder (fractals) because the mobs hit harder and will more then likely kill you nearly instantly whether your in full sentinels or full berserkers.
How do defensive stats help other people in your group, when you don’t always get hit?
Case 1: not taking the hit
Dodging invalidates any defensive stat you have. There’s no damage to mitigate using vit/toughness or damage to heal back with healing power when you don’t get hit. The only way anyone is FULLY utilizing their defensive stats is if they ALWAYS take damage.Case 2: taking the hit
The only case of actually utilizing your defensive stats is when you take a hit (unless you count conversion traits). If that hit 1 shots you with the defensive stats, you may as well be naked (no vit no toughness). If the dps you take is greater than your hps, you will go down. Going defensive comes with the assumption of using those defenses (meaning you won’t be dodging,blocking, going invul as often as possible). No boss dies from not killing you (I haven’t done arah so maybe?). No boss dies because you mitigated x amount of damage. Note this is not about speed clears.So bottom line:
How do defensive stats that you DON’T ALWAYS USE benefit the group equally or more than offensive stats you ALWAYS USE?I’ve been trying to make “defensive” work, but the only thing that “works” with getting hit is retaliation. Ever finished a dungeon using just retal?
Ask ANet, once more, why are those stats available.
this is actually funny, ask anet? really? do you think anet intended gw1 to end up being run by a/x builds? absolutely not but thats what happened regardless of what they wanted because thats what the players wanted
Your target is the shaman. You melee range the shaman so you are all under it. Dome covers you 5 and bubbled shaman. Dome blocks elementals.
Even worse. Shaman moves, you still have to RUN to the target, and grubs will be under the dome as well. That also doesn’t accomplish the goal of pulling/grouping up the grubs. As soon as that’s over you have a choice of dying by boss AOE, or dying by grubs. I got the 500-fractals achieve 6 months ago. I’ve run TONS of 40+ fractals, and I’ve never ONCE seen that tactic used.
The ironic part about this whole thing is that with all the “ONLY ZERKER” arguments you’re all spouting, this tactic (if it would even work 5% of the time) still requires a tank guardian.
this "tactic’ is an example of how a competent team would kill shaman, and shaman does move tahts why everyone gets into melee range and once grubs start attacking mesmer drops feedback, feedback also blocks projectiles inside the dome, if your playing with competent players then the bubble will be down before feedback drops, double dodge roll backwards and 0 damage taken
I get the feeling you watched a video and now you feel like you’re an expert… Experience and theory rarely match up. Great plan on paper…..maybe. It might not result in a wipe about 5% of the time.
except my guild uses the same basic tactic on multiple 48 runs per day (multiple groups not multiple runs per group)
edit: wasnt aware people didnt use a tactic like this, then again never pugged anything above fotm 20
Your target is the shaman. You melee range the shaman so you are all under it. Dome covers you 5 and bubbled shaman. Dome blocks elementals.
Even worse. Shaman moves, you still have to RUN to the target, and grubs will be under the dome as well. That also doesn’t accomplish the goal of pulling/grouping up the grubs. As soon as that’s over you have a choice of dying by boss AOE, or dying by grubs. I got the 500-fractals achieve 6 months ago. I’ve run TONS of 40+ fractals, and I’ve never ONCE seen that tactic used.
The ironic part about this whole thing is that with all the “ONLY ZERKER” arguments you’re all spouting, this tactic (if it would even work 5% of the time) still requires a tank guardian.
this "tactic’ is an example of how a competent team would kill shaman, and shaman does move tahts why everyone gets into melee range and once grubs start attacking mesmer drops feedback, feedback also blocks projectiles inside the dome, if your playing with competent players then the bubble will be down before feedback drops, double dodge roll backwards and 0 damage taken
High level fractals. If you believe zerker is viable in 40+ fractals….you’ve obviously never run them.
Isn’t a fractals group consisted of a defensive guardian and 4 zerkers? Tell me, what’s the point of toughness or vitality, when enemies one hit kill you with or without those stats? The difference between running a zerker and a non-zerker in high level fractals, is the difference between killing faster or killing slower.
They don’t call the “holy trinity of fractals” guardian-guardian-guardian for nothing. 4 zerks and a guardian is worthless in most cases. One guardian can’t maintain enough uptime on blocks/reflect to protect 4 zerkers.
4 zerker fractals are actually quite common, almost standard at 40+ as many people have pointed out. The most popular video guides are of 4 zerker teams…
Again not saying that another makeup cant beat it but because of the way content is made everyone at higher tiers of PvE are 1-3 shot. dealing 400% more damage is just more valuable then because we all have the same survivability anyways.
Zerker doesn’t provide 400% more damage than knights. Not even REMOTELY close.
1 zerker vs 1 knights = ~100% more damage x 4 = 400%, critical damage is amazing isnt it?
That’s a misunderstand of basic math…
If your four players are all dealing 2k DPS, together they’re dealing 8k DPS total. Increase each player by 100% (4k DPS each), and you doubled to 16kDPS. That’s a 100% increase from the original (8k->16k), not 400%. I would also argue that knights would not cause you to cut your damage in half. Maybe by 1/3 or so.
ah my bad your right hasty math, but for knights vs berserkers full berserkers critical damage provides (depending on group comp) around 100% damage bonus (assume 50% base crit chance, disc banner, perma fury = around 75-85% crit chance for ~250% more damage than someone running knights with no crit damage) of course that would vary greatly if the person was using knights with ruby orbs, or getting 30% crit damage from traits
I assumed the player would trait into Power/Prec with Knights. Crit chance on Knights/Berserkers is the same. Crit damage is going to take a hit, along with power, but the overall numbers are not substantially lower. I would personally run a mix of Beryl Jewels instead of Emerald due to the Vit and Crit damage boost.
so pull them together? ex: shaman whips out his ball, all 5 hop in melee distance and start attacking, mesmer drops feedback to bock projectiles, shield goes down, team retreats to behind grubs, grubs are now only on one side, guardian spams sota and wor
You can’t reliably group/pull all the grubs like that. You can TRY and get them congregated, which helps, but the target limit of 5 on pull skills, combined with the amount of time it takes them to self-travel via aggro still leaves a massive time-hole where zerkers are ripped to shreds by the grubs before there’s any reflect up that last more than a couple seconds, or has any relevant amount of coverage.
dont pull them, once shield dies feedback typically goes down about the same time, double dodge roll to one side (your now out of grubs), spam reflects, (shortest would be smoke wall at 8? not sure), then wall of reflection 12 seconds, sota 20 (30 traited) seconds, thats a total of 40(50) seconds of no grub attacks, more than enough time to kill them all
One feedback covers the entire island? News to me….
now your just not reading, why would you be spread out over the island? way more efficient to jump into melee range once he bubbles up as melee attacks are normally much faster, and OMG WTF feedback covers all 5
High level fractals. If you believe zerker is viable in 40+ fractals….you’ve obviously never run them.
Isn’t a fractals group consisted of a defensive guardian and 4 zerkers? Tell me, what’s the point of toughness or vitality, when enemies one hit kill you with or without those stats? The difference between running a zerker and a non-zerker in high level fractals, is the difference between killing faster or killing slower.
They don’t call the “holy trinity of fractals” guardian-guardian-guardian for nothing. 4 zerks and a guardian is worthless in most cases. One guardian can’t maintain enough uptime on blocks/reflect to protect 4 zerkers.
4 zerker fractals are actually quite common, almost standard at 40+ as many people have pointed out. The most popular video guides are of 4 zerker teams…
Again not saying that another makeup cant beat it but because of the way content is made everyone at higher tiers of PvE are 1-3 shot. dealing 400% more damage is just more valuable then because we all have the same survivability anyways.
Zerker doesn’t provide 400% more damage than knights. Not even REMOTELY close.
1 zerker vs 1 knights = ~100% more damage x 4 = 400%, critical damage is amazing isnt it?
That’s a misunderstand of basic math…
If your four players are all dealing 2k DPS, together they’re dealing 8k DPS total. Increase each player by 100% (4k DPS each), and you doubled to 16kDPS. That’s a 100% increase from the original (8k->16k), not 400%. I would also argue that knights would not cause you to cut your damage in half. Maybe by 1/3 or so.
ah my bad your right hasty math, but for knights vs berserkers full berserkers critical damage provides (depending on group comp) around 100% damage bonus (assume 50% base crit chance, disc banner, perma fury = around 75-85% crit chance for ~250% more damage than someone running knights with no crit damage) of course that would vary greatly if the person was using knights with ruby orbs, or getting 30% crit damage from traits
I assumed the player would trait into Power/Prec with Knights. Crit chance on Knights/Berserkers is the same. Crit damage is going to take a hit, along with power, but the overall numbers are not substantially lower. I would personally run a mix of Beryl Jewels instead of Emerald due to the Vit and Crit damage boost.
so pull them together? ex: shaman whips out his ball, all 5 hop in melee distance and start attacking, mesmer drops feedback to bock projectiles, shield goes down, team retreats to behind grubs, grubs are now only on one side, guardian spams sota and wor
You can’t reliably group/pull all the grubs like that. You can TRY and get them congregated, which helps, but the target limit of 5 on pull skills, combined with the amount of time it takes them to self-travel via aggro still leaves a massive time-hole where zerkers are ripped to shreds by the grubs before there’s any reflect up that last more than a couple seconds, or has any relevant amount of coverage.
dont pull them, once shield dies feedback typically goes down about the same time, double dodge roll to one side (your now out of grubs), spam reflects, (shortest would be smoke wall at 8? not sure), then wall of reflection 12 seconds, sota 20 (30 traited) seconds, thats a total of 40(50) seconds of no grub attacks, more than enough time to kill them all
(edited by Clumsy.6257)
High level fractals. If you believe zerker is viable in 40+ fractals….you’ve obviously never run them.
Isn’t a fractals group consisted of a defensive guardian and 4 zerkers? Tell me, what’s the point of toughness or vitality, when enemies one hit kill you with or without those stats? The difference between running a zerker and a non-zerker in high level fractals, is the difference between killing faster or killing slower.
They don’t call the “holy trinity of fractals” guardian-guardian-guardian for nothing. 4 zerks and a guardian is worthless in most cases. One guardian can’t maintain enough uptime on blocks/reflect to protect 4 zerkers.
4 zerker fractals are actually quite common, almost standard at 40+ as many people have pointed out. The most popular video guides are of 4 zerker teams…
Again not saying that another makeup cant beat it but because of the way content is made everyone at higher tiers of PvE are 1-3 shot. dealing 400% more damage is just more valuable then because we all have the same survivability anyways.
Zerker doesn’t provide 400% more damage than knights. Not even REMOTELY close.
1 zerker vs 1 knights = ~100% more damage x 4 = 400%, critical damage is amazing isnt it?
That’s a misunderstand of basic math…
If your four players are all dealing 2k DPS, together they’re dealing 8k DPS total. Increase each player by 100% (4k DPS each), and you doubled to 16kDPS. That’s a 100% increase from the original (8k->16k), not 400%. I would also argue that knights would not cause you to cut your damage in half. Maybe by 1/3 or so.
ah my bad your right hasty math, but for knights vs berserkers full berserkers critical damage provides (depending on group comp) around 100% damage bonus (assume 50% base crit chance, disc banner, perma fury = around 75-85% crit chance for ~250% more damage than someone running knights with no crit damage) of course that would vary greatly if the person was using knights with ruby orbs, or getting 30% crit damage from traits
Grubs spawn in 360 degrees around the players (all over the island). Several dozen of them. They all fire ranged attacks.
(Degrees measure ANGLES….not distance.)
so pull them together? ex: shaman whips out his ball, all 5 hop in melee distance and start attacking, mesmer drops feedback to bock projectiles, shield goes down, team retreats to behind grubs, grubs are now only on one side, guardian spams sota and wor
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You apparently don’t understand the definition of the word “opinion,” because what you’re expressing is PRECISELY an opinion.
No, it’s a logical conclusion.
Then your logic is flawed…. You’re wrong in a myriad of cases.
Convine me, then. Show me a single piece of content in this game’s pve, with the exception of the new patch, where a dps build is not more viable than anything else.
High level fractals. If you believe zerker is viable in 40+ fractals….you’ve obviously never run them.
really? ive never met a team who doesnt require zerker in 48+, especially once get to to the 50s even trash mobs will nearly 1 shot you in full sentinels so why bother using anything except zerker
So when you get killed by 2-3 hits by a grub on the shaman fractal in the 40s….please explain what good you are to the team…..
Even with 4 tank guardians covering a zerker, you wouldn’t avoid being hit 2-3 times and being downed. Zerk is not viable in high level fractals. In high level fractals, they get kicked all the time for dying constantly.
if your getting hit by the grubs your doing something wrong…. i rarely if ever get hit by them
Then you’re running with several guardians, or your lying your face off.
1 guard 1 thief 1 mes, if you cant get 100% projectile absorb/reflect from that you shouldnt even be playing this game its to complex for you
Do the math. You can’t get 100% uptime from those three classes, especially from 360 degrees on the fire shaman.
why would we need 100% uptime? we dodge shamans attacks, its the grubs were using those against, and why the hell is your team spread out over 360 degrees
High level fractals. If you believe zerker is viable in 40+ fractals….you’ve obviously never run them.
Isn’t a fractals group consisted of a defensive guardian and 4 zerkers? Tell me, what’s the point of toughness or vitality, when enemies one hit kill you with or without those stats? The difference between running a zerker and a non-zerker in high level fractals, is the difference between killing faster or killing slower.
They don’t call the “holy trinity of fractals” guardian-guardian-guardian for nothing. 4 zerks and a guardian is worthless in most cases. One guardian can’t maintain enough uptime on blocks/reflect to protect 4 zerkers.
4 zerker fractals are actually quite common, almost standard at 40+ as many people have pointed out. The most popular video guides are of 4 zerker teams…
Again not saying that another makeup cant beat it but because of the way content is made everyone at higher tiers of PvE are 1-3 shot. dealing 400% more damage is just more valuable then because we all have the same survivability anyways.
Zerker doesn’t provide 400% more damage than knights. Not even REMOTELY close.
1 zerker vs 1 knights = ~100% more damage x 4 = 400%, critical damage is amazing isnt it?
You apparently don’t understand the definition of the word “opinion,” because what you’re expressing is PRECISELY an opinion.
No, it’s a logical conclusion.
Then your logic is flawed…. You’re wrong in a myriad of cases.
Convine me, then. Show me a single piece of content in this game’s pve, with the exception of the new patch, where a dps build is not more viable than anything else.
High level fractals. If you believe zerker is viable in 40+ fractals….you’ve obviously never run them.
really? ive never met a team who doesnt require zerker in 48+, especially once get to to the 50s even trash mobs will nearly 1 shot you in full sentinels so why bother using anything except zerker
So when you get killed by 2-3 hits by a grub on the shaman fractal in the 40s….please explain what good you are to the team…..
Even with 4 tank guardians covering a zerker, you wouldn’t avoid being hit 2-3 times and being downed. Zerk is not viable in high level fractals. In high level fractals, they get kicked all the time for dying constantly.
if your getting hit by the grubs your doing something wrong…. i rarely if ever get hit by them
Then you’re running with several guardians, or your lying your face off.
1 guard 1 thief 1 mes, if you cant get 100% projectile absorb/reflect from that you shouldnt even be playing this game its to complex for you
You apparently don’t understand the definition of the word “opinion,” because what you’re expressing is PRECISELY an opinion.
No, it’s a logical conclusion.
Then your logic is flawed…. You’re wrong in a myriad of cases.
Convine me, then. Show me a single piece of content in this game’s pve, with the exception of the new patch, where a dps build is not more viable than anything else.
High level fractals. If you believe zerker is viable in 40+ fractals….you’ve obviously never run them.
really? ive never met a team who doesnt require zerker in 48+, especially once get to to the 50s even trash mobs will nearly 1 shot you in full sentinels so why bother using anything except zerker
So when you get killed by 2-3 hits by a grub on the shaman fractal in the 40s….please explain what good you are to the team…..
Even with 4 tank guardians covering a zerker, you wouldn’t avoid being hit 2-3 times and being downed. Zerk is not viable in high level fractals. In high level fractals, they get kicked all the time for dying constantly.
if your getting hit by the grubs your doing something wrong…. i rarely if ever get hit by them
You apparently don’t understand the definition of the word “opinion,” because what you’re expressing is PRECISELY an opinion.
No, it’s a logical conclusion.
Then your logic is flawed…. You’re wrong in a myriad of cases.
Convine me, then. Show me a single piece of content in this game’s pve, with the exception of the new patch, where a dps build is not more viable than anything else.
High level fractals. If you believe zerker is viable in 40+ fractals….you’ve obviously never run them.
really? ive never met a team who doesnt require zerker in 48+, especially once get to to the 50s even trash mobs will nearly 1 shot you in full sentinels so why bother using anything except zerker
edit: thinking about that not using zerker in fotm 48… how long does that take you on average to finish all 4? my guild teams normally finish it between 45 min – 1 hour
as much as necessary? really? imagine being at work, your boss sees your just doing enough work to get by, then he has somebody that he knows will work harder than you, your instantly fired and hes hired, its as simple as that, people who do more work will always be preferrred over the lazy slackers
Completely irrelevant analogy.
thats about as relevant as anyone could ever hope to come up with, you just cant come up with a reply because you realized i was right
If you are using gear that buffs your own stats without helping the team (toughness and vitality as examples) then you are being selfish. How hard is that to understand?
It’s not my stats that are helping the team. It’s ME in the team.
If a team is not happy with having ME in it, with whatever stats, it’s a selfish team.
Your stats are helping the team because in the case of the zerker it’s increasing their damage output, whereas without any gear, or bad gear you would be doing a lot less damage.
A team wanting you to pull your weight is not selfish, wanting everyone in zerker is actually to make things smoother and faster for everyone involved.
What happens when the zerker dies when they wouldn’t have if they wore something like Knights? You end up with one of these:
1) One less person finishing the content, which lowers the damage output by up to 1/5 or more.
2) Two less people finishing the content because one person is rezzing another. Damage output decreased by 2/5.
3) Everyone dies because of domino effect caused either by rezzing, or inability to handle the content when down by a person.Except in rare cases, I’d rather take an extra 30-60 seconds on the content and not have people die, which may cause the content to not be achieved at all….or at the very least will still make it take longer than normal. Your logic is deeply flawed by assuming that every player is perfectly skilled and incapable of dying.
his logic isnt flawed at all, your is, your assuming that most zerkers will go down, most will rarely ever go down, instead in my extensive dungeon experience, its the people using ptv, sentinels, clerics, and knights that go down the most because they’re used to having a giant handicap, then they decide to do content thats harder than open world pve and all the sudden they keep getting killed in 1 hit because they never learned to dodge
If you are using gear that buffs your own stats without helping the team (toughness and vitality as examples) then you are being selfish. How hard is that to understand?
It’s not my stats that are helping the team. It’s ME in the team.
If a team is not happy with having ME in it, with whatever stats, it’s a selfish team.
except your not helping the team as much as you could be because you sacrificed important stats for stats that would only benefit you
I’m helping the team as much as necessary. I’m not asking ANYONE what build or what stats I should bring.
Not happy with what I have? Feel free to jump off nearest cliff.
as much as necessary? really? imagine being at work, your boss sees your just doing enough work to get by, then he has somebody that he knows will work harder than you, your instantly fired and hes hired, its as simple as that, people who do more work will always be preferrred over the lazy slackers
If you are using gear that buffs your own stats without helping the team (toughness and vitality as examples) then you are being selfish. How hard is that to understand?
It’s not my stats that are helping the team. It’s ME in the team.
If a team is not happy with having ME in it, with whatever stats, it’s a selfish team.
except your not helping the team as much as you could be because you sacrificed important stats for stats that would only benefit you
Anything that goes into downed state is selfish, too. Unfortunately, it’s most often the players in Berserker gear who do go down the most…
Was just thinking that, when you go down thats 2 players “not contributing to DPS and crap”
So i would apply same logic – if you go down in zerk gear -> dump from the group (selfish)
If you are using gear that buffs your own stats without helping the team (toughness and vitality as examples) then you are being selfish. How hard is that to understand?
the problem with this logic is that your assuming players in berserker gear will go down, now I’d 100% agree that people that consider cof p1 to be “elite” will go down a lot once they enter into a dungeon that takes thought, but besides that portion of the community 99% of berserkers will rarely if ever get downed, i’ve personally seen about 25+ fotm 48 groups in full berserker not have a single person go down once (except the occasional maw when not 2 guards and 45 ar)
Really curious if these zerker-elitists think that “speedrunning” CoF P1 in ..9 minutes, 10, is way more profitable than 15.
You’ll get 2 more runs in an hour. 1.5 gold? Eh, maybe worth it..maybe not. Depends who you ask. But I don’t think these elitists are racking in 5+ gold more than the regular group that finishes in 15. So to me, you guys are funny =)
This is obviously pre-todays patch.
Dude you should have seen some of the posts on gw2lfg.com. I mean, I consider myself a bit of an elitist, but I only go so far. Some people are insane. They wanted full zerk armor with ruby orbs or divinity runes, ascended zerk trinkets, axe with 10% vs flame legion and mace with bloodlust, GS with 10% flame legion, must have food and oil, and if you didn’t have everything, you were kicked.
Way over the top… I’ve happy if you just bring a strong dps build, whether it’s full zerk, or part zerk/ part valk, or even carrion. Just don’t be a scrub. I just don’t run with lowbies wearing greens/yellows and kick people who clearly don’t know how to play. Any class comp can clear CoF in less than 15 minutes. It’s the players skill that counts.
Because 3s sigils, 1s oils, 20s orbs and 0s ascended gear are so hard to get. Bloodlust I’ve never really used but my cof p1 farming party could get like 5 1/2min runs consistently without them, so… meh.
bloodlust would actually heavily reduce your damage, sigil of night is a much better option and much cheaper
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Really curious if these zerker-elitists think that “speedrunning” CoF P1 in ..9 minutes, 10, is way more profitable than 15.
You’ll get 2 more runs in an hour. 1.5 gold? Eh, maybe worth it..maybe not. Depends who you ask. But I don’t think these elitists are racking in 5+ gold more than the regular group that finishes in 15. So to me, you guys are funny =)
This is obviously pre-todays patch.
unless your a PUGstar then your runs will be more like 6 – 6.5 minutes, but thats beside the point, cof p1 is so easy that you could run it naked in 15 minutes, its more about running every other dungeon in the game within a reasonable amount of time
So… MF gear is changing? Where is this said? I don’t come to the forums often, so I don’t know where this is said (I did look btw)
On topic, before I stopped playing for a while, no one seemed to care I was in MF gear. I pulled my weight and usually performed better than my peers. I wasn’t being selfish, it’s just I usually spent time farming than I did with groups, and was the best thing I have available to wear (exotics MF). That’s not to say I haven’t been working on an alternate set of armor such as a zerkers set so that I could be of abit more use. I don’t mind having 2 different sets of armor lugging around in my inventory. It’s just taken me longer because I wanted to transmute it onto culture armor.
On that note, only 1 of my alts has MF gear. All the others are geared properly. I don’t see why people can’t do the same, as well as be more understanding of someone wearing MF gear. Being in MF doesn’t make a person “bad”. I think it’s more selfish to kick someone wearing it
However if MF is being removed or changed in some sort of way, this will greatly effect me, as I put a lot of time and effort into my MF gear (it being exotic and appearance transmuted). I don’t see why Anet has the right to change it or remove it just because people have a certain ‘opinion’ about it (again, someone please link me to where this said if you could)
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/
except your wrong… in multiple posts on the forums and in podcasts as early as late 2012 anet said they know MF is selfish
Except you’re wrong. Devs never said anything like that.
they did, on multiple occasions, go find the podcast if you want to, im sure its on twich/youtube somewhere
… why would anyone want to spend 45 mins in a dungeon vs the 10 mins it should actually take, speed run or not, ex: your driving your car to work everyday, should take 15 mins to get to work, why would you intentionally waste time and gas by taking a much longer route
Poor analogy. You’re assuming that taking longer in a dungeon is inherently un-fun. You’re too goal oriented; something the OP and others have pointed out is the problem. Instead, you should be enjoying the ride.
A better analogy would be:
Would you rather take the direct 15min route home, or try that snazzy, windy back-road that will take longer but could be fun and definitely something new? Sometimes it’s about the journey, not the destination. Especially, when we’re all headed to the same place. Make it fun.It’s a pretty well-known “fact” that berserker gear leads to the highest dps. Thankfully, we don’t have dps counters, or we’d also know specifically which builds, traits, even professions were the highest dps-ers, with no gray area. Suddenly, we’d go from zerker-or-bust to warrior-with-this-exact-specific-build-or-bust. Pigeonholing players to only play a certain gear type is selfish, because you’re forcing everyone else to play by your style.
sorry i see your point on the analogy, let me clarify, you have 1 hour (just for analogy purposes), your drive home takes a minimum of 15 minutes, and while scenic the longer route takes 30 mins, once finished your left with either 45 mins or 30 mins of free time, personally I value my time so I would take the shorter route every time, the question is would you rather be in a dungeon for 1 hour or 15 minutes? being in a dungeon 15 minutes means you have 45 minutes more than the slow team to do w/e you want
except your wrong… in multiple posts on the forums and in podcasts as early as late 2012 anet said they know MF is selfish and were thinking about a solution besides chunking MF out a window, as for any other gear except zerker, why would anyone want to spend 45 mins in a dungeon vs the 10 mins it should actually take, speed run or not, ex: your driving your car to work everyday, should take 15 mins to get to work, why would you intentionally waste time and gas by taking a much longer route
edit: not sure of the date of the original podcast about MF gear, i know it was a few months before ac nerf though
edit2: lol @ above post, if anyone bought mf ascended items they deserve to lose them
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Claiming that PVT and MF gear isn’t leeching is just downright ignorant. I have no problem with players using PVT if they are learning the game and need that safety net. But taking it just because they want to be lazy with dodges and have no interest in becoming a better player is purely selfish and far more toxic behaviour than so called “elitists”.
You know you are one of them, that’s why you have a need to defend the attitude.
The irony in your comment is that ignorance begets intolerance, which is precisely what you are doing while accusing others of being “ignorant” for not subscribing to your exclusivist views (Soldier’s has never been “leeching”, and to be honest, MF never was either, contrary to popular opinion.)
ANet, who chose to appease you MF gear haters, ignored that the attitude would spread to any and all other gear stats that aren’t “meta”. The problem was never the gear but playing with the wrong attitude. You very well know it’s not about moral issues (“selfishness”) but about getting done with your speed run as soon as possible. You don’t care about the group or “all for one, one for all”-it’s all about your goals.
imo using anything except berserkers is selfish, but more importantly what you’ve failed to consider is that anet came out and said that using mf gear is intentionally hurting your party for personal gain, in fact theyre removing all MF armors sometime this year, after anets and countless players proving time and time again thakittens pure selfishness to use MF arguing against it is pure stupidity
Well, if you don’t want to differentiate, then definitely zerker. PVT is useless in open world and deserves a kick in dungeons/fractals.
Great attitude! But you can do better. How about adding…
– If you’re not wearing full ascended (where possible) you’re wasting my time.
– If you’re playing using a very specific build and using a certain weapon you’re wasting my time.
– If you’re not playing one of three particular professions you’re wasting my time.
– If you’re wanting to watch the cut scenes you’re wasting my time.So now you serve+ to be kicked from a dungeon/fractal if you’re not a great sword-wielding Warrior, Guardian, or Mesmer in full Berserker’s exotic gear with ascended trinkets and a cookiecuttter build who is willing to skip all cut scenes.
Great attitude, indeed.
most people dont care about your bu. Houd or weapon choice as long as your built to use your classes strengths. Ex: DPS guardian but still bring wor, sota, and PoV, an eexample of a bad choice is a shout heal warrior or longbow ranger
Why do you have the power to decide what’s “bad” for others, though? This is what you fail to see. You are favoring your own biases and preferences, and basically forcing them unto others, otherwise they must be “doing it wrong” and are “unfit” for Dungeons.
If shout heal Warriors are bad, why does ANet permits them as an option? And why shouldn’t a Range. use a Longbow-just because you wouldn’t?
In short, who has the right to tell others they are playing GW2 “inappropriately” by choosing to play in unorthodox ways, and why must we all play the same way? “Speed” ("do not be “selfish” and waste my time!" how ironic, BTW) is hardly an excuse for intolerance and bullying.
apparently you’ve misunderstood everything ive posted in this thread. Not once have i said not to run a certain build, ive said running certain builds in a team setting makes you a giant leech and wastes time. and having played gw1, just like every other person that played gw1 towards the end, yes, speed is the way you play, finishing UW in 5 hours vs finishing it in 8 minutes. Also what’s the point of a shout heal warrior? If you want a support class in the party bring a guardian. Same thing for guardian, if he doesnt bring reflects, blocks, and group condi removal why bring a guardian when that slot would be much better off with a war/thief
Well, if you don’t want to differentiate, then definitely zerker. PVT is useless in open world and deserves a kick in dungeons/fractals.
Great attitude! But you can do better. How about adding…
– If you’re not wearing full ascended (where possible) you’re wasting my time.
– If you’re playing using a very specific build and using a certain weapon you’re wasting my time.
– If you’re not playing one of three particular professions you’re wasting my time.
– If you’re wanting to watch the cut scenes you’re wasting my time.So now you serve+ to be kicked from a dungeon/fractal if you’re not a great sword-wielding Warrior, Guardian, or Mesmer in full Berserker’s exotic gear with ascended trinkets and a cookiecuttter build who is willing to skip all cut scenes.
Great attitude, indeed.
most people dont care about your build or weapon choice as long as your built to use your classes strengths. Ex: DPS guardian but still bring wor, sota, and PoV, an eexample of a bad choice is a shout heal warrior or longbow ranger
Woah there. Nobody deserves a kick for play style. Abuse and harassment, sure. But not play style.
That aside, when gearing with any kind of damage in mind always make sure that you have some kind of crit damage gear in your shoulders, gloves, and boots as well as your accessories. You get the most efficient crit damage per stat points that way. PVT gear is not horrible, damage wise – it has the highest power potential out of any stat combo when used with sharpening stones. If you are going to mix and match, I’ do Berserker amulet, Soldier rings, Berserker accessories with Soldier helm, chest, and legs and Berserker shoulder, gloves and boots. That will yield the most efficient stat point usage. You’ll be able to trait in whatever direction you want, offensively or defensively.
If you’re exclusively doing PvE, pack on as many damage multipliers as you can. Fiery Wrath, Radiant Power, Elusive Power, Force sigils, etc will boost your damage considerably.
kicking for play style is wrong (to an extent) but wasting. Other peoples time warrants a kick every time
But you don’t get to decide if another person is wasting your time based on his/her gear. You simply can’t know just because of that-you are ASSUMING he/she will waste your time, much like people make unfair real-life assumptions based on individual preferences, backgrounds, etc. Someone may very well “waste your time” with the “right” gear (according to you.)
your right they may, thats why when my guilds premades need a pug we look at achievement points as well, double filter keeps the noobs out
Woah there. Nobody deserves a kick for play style. Abuse and harassment, sure. But not play style.
That aside, when gearing with any kind of damage in mind always make sure that you have some kind of crit damage gear in your shoulders, gloves, and boots as well as your accessories. You get the most efficient crit damage per stat points that way. PVT gear is not horrible, damage wise – it has the highest power potential out of any stat combo when used with sharpening stones. If you are going to mix and match, I’ do Berserker amulet, Soldier rings, Berserker accessories with Soldier helm, chest, and legs and Berserker shoulder, gloves and boots. That will yield the most efficient stat point usage. You’ll be able to trait in whatever direction you want, offensively or defensively.
If you’re exclusively doing PvE, pack on as many damage multipliers as you can. Fiery Wrath, Radiant Power, Elusive Power, Force sigils, etc will boost your damage considerably.
kicking for play style is wrong (to an extent) but wasting. Other peoples time warrants a kick every time
So it would be possible to put 3 pistols and a stone and come out with a GS?
Is it possible to use the stones to get a precursor out of the MF?
There’s more than those two stat combos. Players can use more than one stat gear set, as well as mix and matching among the many, anyway.
And no one “deserves” a kick for using the gear that suits their playstyle, whether it is Soldier’s, Berserker’s, or anything else. I am not a fan of Soldier’s gear (which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t like it) but there’s no reason to imply people are “doing it wrong” by choosing whatever gear for this or that content (other than ego-“play my way or you don’t know what you are doing”-or following what everybody else does like mindless herds-“if everybody is doing it, it must be right!” Wrong if it doesn’t suit you.)
My advice would be to forget “metas”, and find your own way. Alternatively, use “metas” as rough guides of what is currently working for many, but still find out whatever works for yourself, which is what matters in the end.
anyone that uses pvt in a dungeon/fractals absolutely deserves a kick, using pvt would slow down the group and waste peoples time, nobody cares if your running around open world in full pvt though