Guild Wars 2

What Painbow says. Besides, two force sigils in the same weapon set don’t stack and shield is useless.

raubvogel.5071:

Yes, from PVE pov. Now what means overpowered? Well it means in relation to the other professions from a damage point
[…]
In this game their is no holy trinity there is the holy one: The warrior.

This whole post is concentrated nonsense. Warrs do excel when they’re either alone or in a pretty bad group without any meaningful synergies. Their big advantage is bringing a lot of offensive support for themselves, without the need for external sources.

However, the situation changes completely as soon as group synergy is considered. In that moment, any warrior beside the first one (who is needed for the banners) equals to lost potential. Might and fury for the group? Get an ele, he’ll be about as effective as four warrs combined. Vuln? An engi brings an order of magnitude more. Other damage support? Maybe get a ranger, spotter and frost spirit are strong and unique. Damage itself? Ele is king, thief is next and even a guardian will beat a warr in a good group.

So no, there is no holy one. Except Wethospu, probably.

I’m pretty sure that all the normal damage multipliers ignore conditions, so this won’t work. That’s another reason why conditions are just rubbish in comparison to direct damage.

Are there any results on this issue?

azizul.8469:

should have been rank 100 to make the weapon worth the legendary status….

And, for consistency, we should add the requirement of a level 50 mossman solo. I mean, if it’s supposed to be legendary …

Well, for my guardian, I’d say no even after the buff. Our long lasting might sources are too rare and the frequent ones have too short duration for might duration to matter. Though for my ele, those runes will be quite interesting in a LH build.

Hunter.4783:

There is more to this game than speed running arah all day. Just like there are other guardian specs and builds which use boon duration

Any dungeon, in fact. But yes, staff can be a great weapon – e.g. for highly demanding tasks like tagging loot bags in PvD …

True, it’ mostly guesswork right now. Maybe a miracle happens and they manage to produce something halfway worthwile – at least the strength runes preview sounded useful.

Rather ruby orbs. Didn’t they announce they’d fix ranger runes in the big balance patch? So I wouldn’t waste my money on something that’s going to be made useless. Either directly scholar or wait till the patch, I guess some new runes might at least become interesting … if they don’t screw up, ofc.

Amazing. Wouldn’t have thought this possible.

10 s * 1.35 [20 % + 15 % boon duration] = 13.5 s

Don’t see anything wrong there. The skill as well as the weapon are virtually useless anyway.

Even when expecting such a terrible group, I’d rather swap the sword for scepter instead of taking the staff for actual fighting.

PrZone.4753:

staff is good for TA only in one part, The might it gives is great… but then again just go full zerker and use the trait that gives might on crits, but still i would go buy a lvl 1 staff just for the use of it in TA

There are some more examples where staff is actually useful, but they’re still the exception. And there is a saying here: the exception confirms the rule. Staff is bad. That doesn’t mean that you should not have one available, but not for actual fighting.

Ropechef.6192:

If we want to increase the desire to have a Necromancer as a Viable “Record run” class. It needs to be a bit more unique.

I think that’s nonsense. Making all classes viable for “record runs” is neither necessary nor possible. For speed runs, I think that this would be a step in the right direction, but probably coupled with some real cleave damage.

Asumita.2174:

But that was the intention for anet to implement this, in hopes that the DPS meta will be more “diversified”.

Well, isn’t it somehow old knowledge that they usually fail at achieving their original goals?

So no, for me nothing changes, except that I’m playing this game less and less, due to the total lack of new content worth that designation.

Both builds are good, though I’m not sure about the three assassin items anymore. I guess it will lose its tiny advantage with the upcoming crit damage nerf and even now it’s not really worth it, so 100% berserker would be the most sensible approach for people who don’t have too much gold.

For leveling, take 15 radiance first, that allows blind spam at trash mobs. Afterwards, it’s basically filling whatever line you like most on the way to the final build.

He asked for a DPS build. Celestial is anything but that … and “staff for dungeons”? Stop giving crap advice.

I think the closest thing to what the OP wants might be some kind of knight/valkyrie/zerker mix with maybe Brazil’s very old 0/30/0/30/10. Halfway acceptable DPS, some survivability and some support. Though there might still be some better all-round possibilities, I’m no fan of “do everything, but badly” builds and hence I never cared for them.

This has been suggested about a million times (conservative estimate, probably a lot more often), but you can see how much the devs care …

Relshdan.6854:

general rule………DO NOT USE KNOCKBACK SKILLS IN PVE LARGE GROUP CONTENT.
so many bad/ignorant longbow rangers and hammer/spear guardians knocking bosses out of AoE and/or trapping them in terrain.

Hammer guardians do exist? That was new to me, I only see ones that use either the GS (but usually with an otherwise useless build) or directly the terribad staff. I thought kittened knockbacks were an exclusive tool for rangers and no-damage-GS mesmers.

The only thing I learned from the marionette is that disturbingly many people are too stupid to understand the simplest boss strategies. That and the permanent overflows make this Unliving Story release even more annoying that most releases before.

zaw.6741:

pve right? for aoe gs, for single target sword (with trait!). but we’re getting 2nd sigil slot for 2h weapons soon, so id do for gs

As far as I understand fade’s DPS table, that one isn’t even true for most builds. GS is stronger for both single and multitarget in many cases if you don’t use the rotation. But the conclusion is right, upgrade the GS.

I don’t see serious reasons to take zealot’s in PvE. It’s basically a zerker with less damage and the same chance to be oneshotted. It might help in some instances where you receive only minor damage which you can outheal, but then knight/valk or even zerker will probably do the job, too.

The changes to the guardian healing skills won’t achieve anything. Healing breeze is broken/useless by design and Litany of Wrath would need to be an instant cast to be taken seriously.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Might as well just nerf any combo of weapons and armor that can kill Lupi quicker than two minutes. So all kills will mimic Kyubi’s groups speedruns.

Sure you aren’t talking about two hours?

The last MMO I played before GW2 may have had lengthy fights (Can’t remember anymore, how long did a Kael’Thas kill take? 20 minutes or so?), but those were better than anything in GW2 by orders of magnitude. Making virtually all GW2 fights significantly longer just means turning them into an eternity of boredom, since most boss fights have terrible (non-)design.

klemen.8439:

[…]

It’s simply a tradeoff between DPS and support. Your build will usually yield a bit more DPS (will be around 2-3 % more, counting the standard 5 boons for PotV), but has significantly reduced supportive capabilities.

maxinion.8396:

FGS OP. Reflects OP. Actually thinking about the mechanics of the game and finding the best strategy instead of complaining about pet builds: OP.

Agreed. As to kyubi, what did Einstein say about the two infinite things?

Anyway, good job, rT!

Guys, you’re crazy. Congratulations!

Build 1, once it’s converted to the meta and the useless rifle is replaced by axe+mace. A ranged weapon is the exception rather than the rule, even in fractals.

Kain Francois.4328:

Oddly enough, a ranged weapon is our top damage weapon as well.

Oh yeah, our top DPS weapon in the 0.1 % of boss fights where all necessary preconditions are met. How amazing …

Charak.9761:

If they reduced the cast by maybe 1/4 or 1/2 it may even be par or above GS overall dps.

And that would be more than just OP, given the hammer’s permanent protection.

Taldren.7523:

Do not nerf Celestial because Berserker is a problem. I didn’t spend 30 days grinding/crafting to make Celestial for myself just to have it made the worst armor in the game because Berserker was a problem in PvE.

Berserker is and never was a problem. However, I quite like the collateral damage done to celestial – it will make more people angry about the ferocity change, increasing the slim chances that it might be actually reversed. Besides, it’s a nice boomerang to some anti-zerker whines.

That’s very well possible. Some months ago, I tested whether the 6th bonus of runes of strength worked. On the first test it did, but I wasn’t able to reproduce it afterwards when someone else pointed me to his failure to reproduce.

But remember: It’s not a bug, it’s a feature …

Sorry, but the only niche for staff builds are the big temple zergs. There, it shines for tagging loot bags. In any other case, builds based on staff are useless due to abysmal DPS and subpar support. You’ll equip it sometimes for skipping trash or blocking mobs by #5, but that’s the exception. The rule is: staff is bad.

Doesn’t battle have an ICD right now, so that the warrior’s swap reduction advantage is almost nullified?

Haven’t seen anything and I can’t really believe they said something. There weren’t so many guardian changes under which it could have got lost. Of course, increasing its range to something like 600 would be a great step (and the one that’s necessary to make it useful).

Lishtenbird.2814:

Arganthium.5638:

I think that the nerf is deserved due to the precedent set by other vigor nerfs; it only makes sense to nerf Mesmer’s vigor as well. The same goes for Guardian.

Let’s be objective here guys- the nerf was deserved.

Yeaaah right. Because objectively, squishy mesmers with light armor and dolyaky regenerating heavy armor guardians rely on dodges to survive in exactly the same way.

Must have missed that guardians can spend 20% of the time completely invulnerable (hi @ blurred frenzy).

Hunter.4783:

Time to reconsider Knights vs Zerker gear in PVE

Why should anyone do that? Defensive stats are still useless.

And then you see how they address the “problem” of the zerker meta …

Reducing active defenses in a game that was supposed to be about skillful and active gameplay somehow seems counterproductive to me.

Casmurro.9046:

Sigil of battle is better than force, at least for warriors and guardians? So the best combinations would be battle+night or battle+force, so the best combination for a warrior would be night+battle for axe/mace and force+night for greatsword. For daytime dungeon you could use a slaying sigil instead of the night sigil.

Only if your group typically doesn’t reach more than 20 stacks of might. So I’d rather take an unconditional sigil than one that is completely useless in a good group.

MrFlump.8725:

Iavra.8510:

Actually, no. They said, they reduce damage by 10%, not critdmg.

They also said that they are still working with the numbers and this isnt final, so calm down it might not be that bad. Or it could be worse

Knowing ANet, it will be worse.

The sigil/rune changes and the replacement of crit damage by ferocity have the potential to be a good thing. The 10% nerf, however, is incredibly (or wait, this is ANet …) stupid.

10% is too much. 0% would be the right amount, since zerker damage never was a problem.

Zero Day.2594:

But that’s the idea of content release… To make you chase that Ascended carrot again…

Dunno. In many cases, I assume it simply makes players chase the uninstall button and have a look at other games. Those might take hundreds of hours like the ascended gear grind, too, but I’m not sure whether it’s really the kind of hundreds of hours ANet prefers.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

kyubi.3620:

Replace critical damage with armor penetration, simple.

Realize there is no problem with the game other than stale end game content so nothing needs to be changed except development priorities and it’s even more simple.

Don’t ask too much of them.

fadeaway.2807:

So what you’re saying is : if you can’t dodge, use cleric/pvt gear and you’ll be fine.
If you can dodge, equip zerker gear – your reward is more dps.

Looks like everything is fine.

No, it isn’t fine. Evil zerker players should be on the same miserable damage level as the good PVT socialists, since it’s outrageous if someone finishes dungeons faster than them.

And who decreed that the world is about you forum communists and dragging everyone down to the same miserable level?

Chain.4087:

As a PvE fix, I think it’s brilliant.

This is not brilliant, this is utterly stupid. As it has been stated already about half a million times by knowledgeable people, this whole affair is not a gear problem, but a content problem. Content that is partially too easy and definitely much too old has allowed even comparably bad players to use high risk/high reward gear (aka zerker) without an appropriate risk, since they had ample opportunity to learn that content.

This … “suggestion” (that word is too nice for what is really is) totally ignores the core problem and, instead, just dumbs down the PvE part even further. This would mean that any halfway competent player loses a massive amount of DpS and gains nothing at all in return. And no, don’t start with boon duration, that one is useless even for boon-heavy classes, too. This means that the same old, stale encounters will simply last the double time. Greeeeeeeeeat idea.

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

Since this thread is still going…

How viable would it be to buff the stat increases from traits, but in turn reduce those stats from (all related) gear?

The idea is to give you the same build numbers for Zerk, at the expense of going 30/30/x/x/x. Or PVT at 20/x/20/20/x (or something like that). This would probably require/force some fixing and tweaking of trait lines – not a bad thing IMO.

The problem is that this would not require just “some” fixing of the trait lines, but a massive overhaul of them, rebuilding quite some classes almost from scratch. Besides, what happens to supportive traits? This would completely screw classes like guardian or mesmer which rely heavily on bringing utility instead of raw DPS.