Guild Wars 2

Hey, I am sure this has been posted but thought I would make a post as I do not see the issue on the known issue tracker.

Anyways, if you are a user of action camera, and choose to hold down the left mouse button you will experience a significant auto attack speed reduction. Enough to cause a 10-15% loss in dps.

Below is an example with ranger short bow where there is a 16% dps loss for simply click holding. This issue is not unique to this weapon or class alone, and is reproducible on many weapon/class combinations.

http://imgur.com/a/xy3v7

Kraljevo.2801:

Eval.2371:

sniperman.1738:

I do suggest up the pop cap for maps to accommodate to the new world linking.

This is exactly what needs to be done. There is a lot people just saying “wait it out the ques and interest will die down and all will be fine” that’s exactly the problem we had before hand and what lead to certain servers being “dead”. Uping the limits will allow more people to have an enjoyable experience and for some they may actually get to play.

Do you really believe that it is this easy? Their engine is old and full of technical limitations.

Never said it would be easy. I know it isn’t. Still that does not mean it does not need to be done if they want to support the WvW community in the long run. The only other alternative I can think of is implementing more WvW maps for players to do things in.

Kraljevo.2801:

If they up the player capacity not only will we have insane lags but also crashes and what not. I don’t think anyone wants that.If they knew how to increase the map cap without issues then they would have already done so.

&

FogLeg.9354:

Map caps are not implemented to make players angry and leave. They are needed to avoid massive lags. Increasing the cap will just make more players lag = less enjoyment for eveyone.

On the current hardware and iteration of the game I agree with both of you it’s more than likely not a viable option to just raise the map caps. Anets servers for wvw are probably about as old as the game is. Hardware has changed a lot since then. The engine is poorly optimized in many ways. It’s time WvW got some real upgrades now that it has a lot of active intrest. The question isnt are the higher caps even possible, the question is, is it feasible in the long run.

Regardless if anet sit on their hands people will lose interest and leave and eventually we will come full circle again. Slowly killing the total population at the expense of fun for a few weeks. Eventually you’ll run out of servers to merge and player to play.

sniperman.1738:

I do suggest up the pop cap for maps to accommodate to the new world linking.

This is exactly what needs to be done. There is a lot people just saying “wait it out the ques and interest will die down and all will be fine” that’s exactly the problem we had before hand and what lead to certain servers being “dead”. Uping the limits will allow more people to have an enjoyable experience and for some they may actually get to play.

People lose interest waiting around to do things and move on. We seen that with HoT maps, we have seen it with bad events arena net have done, we’ve seen it with wvw in the past this time wont be any different. People are leaving because they can’t play. That is how we got to the situation we were in with server pop. What is the point of merging the servers if the populations are going to leave at the expense of fun for a few people?

The merge isn’t a solution to the population problems we had and this may be fun now but in the long run it is a band aid. Some larger caps would be a step in the right direction. Ultimately upgrading the servers to accomedate the growing population and allowing everyone to play is never going to happen, but is realistically the only way everyone wins.

Merging the servers but not uping the amount of people allowed into the servers is dumb. WvW has been up literally for litter 40 seconds and there is already 300 people waiting que. Pic related.

http://imgur.com/TKnhcgS

I like the fact that we can freely use sword, despite its overall damage losses. I feel that the weapon is still lost as a hybrid weapon in some senses. Overall I am happy with the changes.

Additionally, Axe got some really nice buffs, and I am really looking forward to axe off hand on the power build and main hand when I play condi. Still disappointed that quick draw does not work with whirling defense!

Shortbow changes were somewhat of an attempt to make the weapon use-able, however, until something is done with crossfire, it will remain near useless. Additionally, I think that poison volley needs to be reworked as it requires you to be in a dangerous position to use it. I think all the buffs we received are welcome, but none of them fix any of the issues that prevent SB from being an option.

All and all a good attempt at making us balanced with the changes rather than OP. Thanks anet.

Valento.9852:

With all that being said, how would you guys (both veterans, and non-veterans) receive a news that HoT map mobs’ AI/group comps have been changed in order to provide easier encounters?

I’d laugh then cry. Why? because the changes solve none of the problems with HoT content.

Tangled depths getting easier AI doesn’t make navigating it any easier, it also wouldn’t stop me from spending up to countless hours to play on an organized dragon stand, or solve the issue of trying to run a verdant brink map with a bunch of people organizing for raids in the map.

A lot of people don’t raid and avoid it solely because of the hardest part of raids:

Being Social.

Yes, a lot of people struggle to get together and maintain relationships and to get 9 other people together to do a raid is a problem. On top of that you have bad attitudes and finger pointing running rampant. The people interested in raids are often after one of two things, the rewards or the challenge of an encounter. Rewards people are the group most people want to avoid to raid with, as they create a bad environment when things don’t go in the direction they hoped.

The guild I am in does runs, were constantly getting new people and running training runs with arms open and no blaming. All we require is for people to show up with exotic gear and focus on improvement. We have people that to this day never thought they would raid regularly, or even clear the first boss for that matter.

DeceiverX.8361:

I wish it was a matter of skill. That’s the thing. Raids are not at all indicative of skilled play. It’s just optimization and then executing on it. There’s not much intrinsically difficult on the personal level so much as build-dependent and so long as the raid leader knows how to order people around.

I find it pretty hard for you to judge the skill required and mechanics of raids. As a friend I’ve offered to get you in on training runs numerous times and I know for a fact you’ve yet to clear a boss.

While you are right on the snideness of elitists and how their attitude is a waste of breath, I do not agree with what you’ve said about raids not being any kind of indication of skill. People have to think for the them selves and learn individually how to deal with X mechanics that get assigned to them. It takes multiple people completing very simple tasks every phase among the chaos; its mostly just nerves and focus. Overcoming mechanics and nerves is a skill. Despite what you may think, someone can’t hold your hand and tell you what to do every second thought the raid.

Lastly, the builds and compositions are very flexible in raids. In the same note with other people you need to be flexible and bring what the team needs, a lot of people understand this. Unfortunately just as there are elitists who ruining groups because people aren’t running what they think they should be running, there are stubborn people that refuse to change things in their build to help other players in the group. Theres both sides of the coin.

Spartacus.3192:

Good write up but i gotta say in this current Meta where you see quite a lot of Necros and Condi Mesmers, i’m doing much better in soloQ as a Condi Rev than i do as a Power Rev.

Fair enough, it’s good to hear that your doing well as condition rev. My personal feelings is your doing good solely because of the traits and skills that allow you to sustain vs conditions, which are available to a power build.

So I know condition Revenant is not the most optimal. I want to improve it by point out problematic areas that revenant has with dealing condition damage and provide some suggestions.

PS. Sorry in advance, this is a long read as I go over most things related to conditions and rev.

For starters lets look at weapons:

The first thing you’ll notice is that there is a lack of range condi weapon. All we have mace and axe, which are both primarily melee weapons with some elements of aoe. There is no way to really deal damage at range, you always have to be up in things faces and that’s not always possible.

Second both mace and axe have an elevation issue. Searing fissure and Temporal Rift fail to work if there is even a slight in/de-cline between the rev and the target. This makes our damage really unreliable because both skills are bread and butter dps skills and them not applying conditions is a huge loss.

Mace and axe also require you to be in the face of your opponent, and have them to always be moving to do good torment damage. This makes it very hard to stick to opponents and continue to do damage.

We only have two reliable conditions that you apply with this set: burning, and torment. Most classes condition clear remove two conditions basically removing our damage. Combine that with our very low damage during ramp up time and it makes hard to damage certain opponents.

Poison has issues because we only have two methods to apply it, one of which is on torment application with an icd and the other is poison from the end of the aa combo that you will very rarely finish.

The weapon set is very fun and active to use but lacks application, and you will spend a long time building up burning and torment before you reach your true dps.

Now onto legends:

Another issue is the lack of support for conditions via legends. Many of the defensive and support lines are very appealing to a condi buld solely because they help the condition rev get past its 20 second wind up time that they have to spend in the face of what ever they are attacking. I think its great that we have many defensive options but we lack offensive ones for condi. I know what your thinking, “you do you have mallyx!”

Mallyx is good in the sense that it is useful to both the power and condition builds, however it lacks support help ramp up a condition build. I feel that if embrace the darkness did not exist, no one would take the line for condition based builds but solely for boonstrip and resistance. Going over the skills briefly here are my feelings towards them:

• Empowering Misery: Works, however, it does nothing about poison, and there are times where you could heal having 5 conditions up and one of them is poison and in turn you come out with the same or less than the vanilla base heal. This is a problem.
• Pain Absorption: Is arguably the reason why people use this stance. It provides good group support and immunity to condition damage.
• Banish Enchantment: Is useable but disjointed. No where else in the class do we have support or use for the measly mount of confusion applied. It would be much more useful if it applied one of our supported conditions, such as burning, poison or torment.
• Unyielding Anguish: Great for mobility and blinds, the torment element is poor for cost of the skill and the fact that your opponent must stay in it to apply stacks and then move around to get damage which is contradictory. It’s frankly too costly to be used for anything other than mobility.
• Embrace the darkness: Steroid boost ok! torment aura is decent but the skill feels too passive, I would say this and empowering misery are the only reason to pick up this stance.

Mallyx lacks any kind of in your face support other than vs condition damage. It fails to add any kind of burning, or poison application. The stance really only grants selfish buffs. The stance needs either better sustain or application to help out the melee weapon set.

None of the other stances except glint offer any kind of condition support, and glint is only directly though one skill Elemental Blast and passive support via furry and might boons.

Glint and Mallyx are basically the only two viable options for a condi build and frankly they really fall short together, as they only provide damage increases via passive buffs and really lack sustain and application.

Now onto traits:

Current Revenant only has one line that has support for condition damage and that is Corruption. Which has very poor support for condition damage. Only a few trait choices that help the build.

The minors in contrast to many of the choices in the corruption tree look very promising. You have torment duration, torment on crit and boonstrip.

The first tiers traits has some really lack luster traits

• Demonic defiance which allows you to gain resistance on skill use in mallyx arguably the best choice here.
• Venom Enhancement applies poison on torment with a long icd & posion duration seems good, but frankly the class has very little access to poison which makes basically no difference. It’s about the same as giving warrior a torment duration increase.
• Replenishing Despair has very little use, as the damage taken from keeping up condition is way higher than the heal will ever be.

This section does not apply any sustain outside of fighting condi, or applicaiton of applicaiton of condi.

Then in major your choices are:

• Bolstered Anguish: which kinda of works giving you damage for conditions on you.
• Frigid Precision: Useless chill on crit
• Spontaneous Destruction: boon removal.

None of the three of these have any kind of sustain, application or duration effects. They are all useless to a condition based build. Bolstered anguish is the clear winner because it will increase your power based damage.

Lastly in the grandmaster section we have:

• Diabolic Inferno: Applies burning on elite skill use. Clearly the only choice here as its the only reliable and useful trait.
• Maniacal Persistence: Ramping crit chance. Would be useful if our on crit application didnt have an ICD and we only have one trait that does that
• Pulsating Pestilence: Would be useful it was controllable, but its not.

Diabolic inferno feels like a minor trait and is really the only viable option. The rest basically useless.

The entire corruption trait line adds 1 trait choice that has value to a condition build this is a problem. We need better traits that either help us sustain via doing conditions, or help us apply conditions which free us to pick up a sustaining trait line.

Finally lets talk about torment:

Torment is a problem because it does 2/3rds of the damage is done on movement and only 1/3 if the target is standing still. It’s very similar to the problems confusion has. In order to get good damage your opponent has to be moving thus your going to have a hard time continually applying it or they need to be still or allow you to stack absurd amounts of it. Neither is frankly possible. It needs to be normalized to a 50/50 or have a mechanic added to it.

Two examples of mechanics that could be added to torment for rev would be a trait to reverse the the way it standardly works for times when its appropriate, or an active way to consume your opponents torment dealing damage as if they had be moving.

Onto Burning With both the problems of torment and poison brought forward now we can talk about burning. The main source of our reliable damage. The issue with burning is low application. We can’t really stack it, we can’t really apply much of it we only have access to it via 3 different ways:

• Searing fissure(buggy)
• Diabolic inferno
• Elemental Blast

We need better access to skills that apply burning.

In summation condi rev is a mess, it is a fun mess, but it is frankly not reliable. Many traits are useless to a condi build, there is very little support from stances for condition based builds, our conditions ever have low number of skills to apply them or very low and erratic damage. Condi rev needs some love.

yea this is still an issue, axe 5 also behaves the same. It really makes our dps unreliable unless your on a flat arena floor

Supreme.3164:

Reintroducing celestial won’t solve the elementalist core issue which are complete lack of defensive mechanics, all you can ever do is sheer healing power burst to pass through the carnage throwed at you, ele need more evasive skill/block utilities so that you can pick non healing power amulets in all comfort without gimping yourself

Oddly ele has many defensive mechanics, (protection from earth overload, cantrips, combo fields on water, and shock fields, various skills that block or lower damage). The class has tones of these tools. However, it has them just on long cooldowns, and the only way to really sustain long enough to use them are defensive amulets like clerics, cele and the like.

Ele just needs some cooldown reduction on key skills such as arcane shield, armor of earth, mist form, etc and better access to fields that it can combo(again certain skills could use a reduction).

Please make maces great again and make them all flail about!

Obal has a guide , Condi rev kinda struggles in pve due to how torment splits the damage. The only real way to be consistant damage wise is to spec for burning.

Its roughly the same dps as condi ranger (13-15k) depending on movement its by no means anything over the top, but it is somewhat useable.

Weapon swap doesn’t really matter, the majority of the weapon choices and their respective skills suck. The only real exception to this is sword main hand which is overloaded and frankly the only thing that props up rev allowing it to be viable.

I want to thank you for the heads up, and I am sad to see legendary weapons are being delayed(even though they are something I do not wish to pursue). For many they are the only thing left to really do in the game.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Ankdarkwolf, Darkmikau, Ballads, Spira, Caerbannog, Cysgod, you each posted a variant of an accusation I’ve seen many times over the past few months on the forums, something along the lines of, “AN shipped half an expansion with HoT.” I take issue with that. We shipped a new region full of content, a new mastery system, gliding, guild halls, a new profession, nine new elite specializations for existing professions, and more.

I want to be the voice of reason here and say “yea yes you did ship those things”, and frankly you guys did. I understand internally anet has made leaps and bound to deliver what they have, but from the community’s perspective:

Were 6months into HoT and :

*We are glad you guys are still talking with us.
*We are frustrated with lack of content in and before HoT.
*We are sad and frustrated about content that is in poor a quality state(both in base and HoT).
*We are bored of standing around waiting to be able to do HoT content.
*We upset about missing content that was advertised as part of the HoT experience.

Hopefully the changing of resources will aid in fixing some of the problems we have right now. Lastly, at this point in time have absolutely no faith in another expansion due to the quality and time-line the current has been delivered.

Here is something that I use for wvw and general open world content.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XClNgdOA+XCcYiFBALIAUAOACXyLQKwt1K3C-TxBBwAnVCC4BAkXHQO1fCcBAwt/AWlfAA-e

It has plenty of survivability and ok damage for what it is. The only thing you really have to be mindful of is keeping burning on targets. With 15k hp (orrian steak fritters) you have a decent health pool and some armor.

Sir Mad.1092:

Call me stupid but… How do you get more than 18k HP as the screenshots show if you have the max possible damage?

Assuming you use Furious Maintenance Oil, that’s +1k HP, and +10% max from WvW bonuses – that’s still a long way to 18k. I must be missing something.

Guild mate of his chiming in. He runs full valkyrie, yes he does use Furious Maintenance Oil and his hp is around 16.8k. hes being bumped by bonuses from wvw towards the end of the week.

Don’t get me wrong his numbers hit high and his hp is high, but the nature of his build makes him incredibly unreliable when running wvw with him. If he doesnt drop his target instantly and get out his goose is cooked(even when he does enemy often an ally will roast him). His build is pretty much completely countered by ele in earth, or mesmers with the reflect cc trait.

As others have said I am amazed that were a special exception, that we get nerfed start season(when balance changes aren’t even suposed to be happening anymore), but nothing else thats problematic(DH invisible walls, thiefs damage, scrapper) really gets touched.

It’s sad this class has no damage, it has brief burst, but overall output is horrible on all our weapons. The pet is supposed to make up for that. Anet finally makes a pet that upholds that philosophy that doesn’t even make us competitive damage wise, is nerfed into the ground like this.

Tman.6349:

The better players will quickly move out of this ‘pip range’ and so you’re less likely to see them.

yea no. I moved up to emerald in a few matches, wins all the way, now I keep getting paired as a solo with 4 mans teams that are really really bad.

The losing streak mechanics meh, matchmaking is still comical at best. the extra pips are just a bandaid for not being able to climb on a loss (before you could get pips if your score was high enough).

Hey, I am not one to normally complain but, I am amazed that the visuals on dragon hunters longbow 5 and it’s elite trap are still their current state. What I am talking about is how the the skills have a brief animation, a damage componet and then a persisting wall that knocks down that has no visual.

This wouldn’t be so bad if both skills were not a perma cc wall that lock you for the next 5 seconds if you happen to step into or out of one. Often this results in you falling over repeatedly(usually dying). This whole invisible wall mechanic is very unforgiving and unfair.

Something needs to be done either make it visually clear that there is a wall there or remove the repeated knockdown component to the skills.

No OP you are not the only one noticing this. I’ve noticed a decline in logins across all 5 guilds I was in, I left two this week, I still have another two that might have one other person that still logs in. I have one guild thats still kinda big, and even its numbers (out of 400 people only 45 have logged in the last 2 months) are dwindling. My friends list shows a very similar story, I might see one or two people on at once during the day.

At this point, I don’t even really have a group to go around and do stuff with. So I just do daily fractals, roam around in eb or open world for a bit and then log off. A lot of people that are left describe the same situation, and often disappear as well in about a week.

In regards to HoT content it’s self… The maps are great. How the maps function are terrible. Most of the content in HoT is not inherently hard, what makes them hard is finding other people to do the content with or testing your patients on how long you can wait till you can do a particular map.

I can’t blame the people that left though, I spend more time waiting on doing things than anything else.

This is the complete opposite to what needs to be done OP. Spending money is rewarding them. They already got their huge cash surge from HoT and should be plenty to keep them afloat.

I bought HoT, and as much as I enjoy the new areas, I/we still have not received a bunch of already promised content that was suposed to be there launch. We have one Raid Wing, not Three, The majority of PvE difficulty is organizing a group; not the content its self, PvP scene is still a total mess, We know about as much as the WvW relaunch that they started over a year ago as we do now, Still no legendary armor; not even precursors yet, hell you can’t even finish the legendary fractal backpacks still … I could go on for about another 4 paragraphs but i’ll save us all the trouble:

The only thing that is being pushed out the door is cash items skins biweekly. Yet people like you continue to gobble it up and spend more. More money isnt going to fix the problem, eventually anet will over reach kitten enough people off and GW2 will close because of it. They are being greedy and not delivering fixes.

TLDR;Vote with you wallet by saying no, I am not happy. Eventually someone will get message, hopefully anet does before someone else picks up a large majority of their unhappy base.

Gun flame is strong, and really the only issue I have with it is, its got no animation give away aside from the fact they are in berserk. A lot of people have solid advice in here. See a warrior go into berserk put up reflect, or dodge. Majoirty of people using this skill combo, make it so obvious.

As for the insane damage, gunflame isnt the only skill like this tho; there is true shot, vault, CoR, etc I could go on. There are numerous high coefficient low cd skills, these kinds of one shots are pretty much available on every class, if you play glass. Being non glass helps in these situations, many cheese glass builds loose out by attrition. Get some armor, (calv solider, knights) gear watch them blow their load, /laugh and kill them.

anduriell.6280:

Eval.2371:

the thing is staff hits 3 times in one second, so its about 900 dps at 2.2k power which is higher than sb, moving into lb and gs aa territory. It does pretty much the same as a long bow auto, but its way better for proc application.

Here i have to think you were joking or deeply confused.
Staff does damage to 3 enemies, 300 points each. Hit once a second (approximately) Shortbow does 600 damage up to 5 enemies.
Longbow does 1.2K damage up to 5 enemies.
Do not mistake targets with total damage, we have piercing in both bows. If the devs decide to give us a trait to make the staff better damage i agree, but at least to give us that choice. Right now the damage is just too weak if it wouldn’t for the AF nobody would use that weapon.

Nope. We are talking about two different things. I am referring to DPS where as your referring to single hits. Staff hits a single enemy 3 times for one single channel. The point I was trying to make above is explained below:

In two and half seconds sb will only fire 4 times, staff will have hit 6 times. With the same power SB would only do 1280 at 320 per hit, where as staff would have done 300 as well and came too 1800. That makes the dps 220 higher on staff. Staff doesn’t just out shine Sb it out shines gs auto as well. Staff only loses out lb and sword for obvious reasons (their attacks have better coefficients).

The point I am making is solar beam isn’t the weak spot it does decent damage and it also heals. It shines specifically when applying on hit, or on crit effects which was another point I was trying to make. If your using sigils like air, or traits like sharpening edges, staff outshines a lot of our other weapons in application because of the sheer number of hits.

I am not saying it staff or sb do not need an increase in damage or better support, I said that maybe going the direction of introducing more traits that work off of % on hit or crit would be a good avenue for increasing staffs damage trait wise as the auto attack is already pretty solid in that regard and your completely discrediting that tidbit solely because it lacks a high coefficient to display big numbers.

Yes LB and short bow do have the edge on pierce but they have to trait for it. Staff does pierce, but it can hit up to three targets. Most of the time 3 targets is the limit for what you can hit to begin with unless your fighting trash mobs, in which case it doesnt even really matter

+1 agreed with most of the post. Only a few things bug me:

anduriell.6280:

• but at least give me a reason to use cosmic ray, seeds of life or natural convergence , right now the reward/utility does not worth the risk.

Natural convergence actually does decent damage and gives stab. This skill has a lot of uses, its great for break bars, can allow you to stomp, good group cc etc. I personally feel the risk is much worth the reward.

anduriell.6280:

An increase of any kind of damage would be very welcome. Right now does in 2.2K power build the weapon does around 300 damage/hit. That is half the damage the shortbow does, and we all know the power damage from the shortbow is really bad. Please at least bring it to the shortbow level.

the thing is staff hits 3 times in one second, so its about 900 dps at 2.2k power which is higher than sb, moving into lb and gs aa territory. It does pretty much the same as a long bow auto, but its way better for proc application. Sigils that are on hit or crit proc based work amazing with the weapons as does our only condi application trait. I think staff is fine damage wise, we just need more % on hit/crit style traits.

That said the rest of staff is pretty much a joke outside of our wall, which doesnt last to long and ancestral grace.

Matt Stacey.7415:

Looking at my current ranger I feel using the druid spec would be a waste of my 3 trait lines

Druid isnt just healing though, its good condi removal, it brings a lot of group cc and peel that compliments our sb, lb and staff. Staff is an excellent on hit weapon, great for condi application and sigil procs. Then on top of everything mentioned druid has the healing and buffing focused parts.

As Tragic said, druid gave ranger everything that it was missing from ranger, we have traits for damage condi etc, but they are bad. Druid gives us good sustain, cc and team buffing. If they could do something about our weapons low damages, and a lot of our bad/boring traits in core ranger, we’d be a solid class.

Zenith.7301:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zenith.7301:

Core range is terrible, so sadly in raids you are forced into the druid healbot role.

Funny thing is a berzerker Tempest can put out similar healing as a berzerker druid and yet the Tempest does SOOOOOOO much more DPS.

Ever heard of Berserker Healer?
Tempest doesn’t beat this role. It’s an illusion because you see more personal DPS rather than 30% party-wide DPS boost. Tempest is just more comfortable. Not more powerful.

You’re just a buffbot, much like a Chronomancer. On an individual level, solo scenario or roaming PvP this makes no difference.

It’s also 15% more damage (3% for 5 stacks), not 30% DPS boost how the hell do you even get that math?

Glyph of empowerment, frost spirit, spotter, and grace of the land is a 30% damage increase. Its more of a burn phase for the group. When done just before a breakbar it is insane damage for the whole party.

While it may be true that support ele might do 5k more personal dps than us, we may raise an entires parties dps by 8-12k, that combined with our own would be more damage than the ele. It is common for a buffer to sacrifice personal dps, for increased group, its why we have warriors and crono’s in our parties to begin with. Being a buff bot isnt bad it makes us actually useful in the meta because frankly outside of our buffing abilities we suck across the board and are a very inflexible class.

What you can do is mix in either some armor or accessories in that are marauder/valk/solider, I do that for open world and HoT maps. I run this for open world/hot solo and just swap lighting flash for aftershock or glyph of storms depending on what im fighting.

Using your skills to help you dodge and kite is big. Try all the weapon sets, I cannot play dagger main hand to save my life, staff however I find to be easy peasy.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Eval.2371:

Junkpile.7439:

If you play eyes open you don’t need stability at all.

This. I never really seen the need for stability if I could bring stunbreaks and react when needed. On many classes I don’t struggle to find usable stunbreaks, and they often have options to spec them as condi clear making the skills uses twofold.

For me having stability always meant I didn’t need to use one of my stunbreaks skills upfront but I eventually would and would expect too.

I think to many people want this free ignore cc card. Which isnt what stability is supposed to be; it is a small brief grace period via buff, that can be stripped, corrupted, worn down instantly.

Maybe our outlook is a product of poor stability.

Sure you dont need stab if you spend 10 minutes bating ccs, or if youre a backliner and have no idea how crucial stability is, or if you happen to chain cc the enemy first in most encounters. Having a stunbreaker is not a replacement for stability. Im not sure how you could even think that. Dont get me wrong, the old stab was broken and I’m not here to defend it, but the current output (guardian) is pretty kitten poor. If you disagree I would like to here a counter argument. Saying “I’m so good I dont need stab” is not a counter argument, its chest thumping.

I am never said I am too good for stability. FYI Your not supposed to bait out cc with stunbreaks… or stab that for that matter you supposed to avoid it. I’ve played plenty of front and back line. If you have too you would know that stability is a boon which makes it unreliable. It can be stripped, corrupted, or waited out(most stab is only 5 sec). Stunbreaks are an alternative because you can break out when you need to.

Stability is more valuable is when it is coordinated group application and really its only better is in small-medium size fights. If its larger zerg on zerg, your not going to be able to get enough stability to save you if you get caught out but a stunbreak might.

Bottom line is most people don’t have respect for the amount of cc others can put out, and go in hap haphazardly expecting 5 stacks on a 5sec duration to make them a juggernaut of some sort.

Tragic, I get this is your build and your opinion an I respect that… but this build looks terribly disjointed. It is low in damage. All it really has is damage reduction modifiers, stun breaks and regen which frankly I don’t think thats enough with how bursty the current meta is.

I still think that crusader gs/staff, zerker lb/gs and the BM NM druid from last season are superior than this. That said use what ever you feel works for you. I’ll believe it when I see it.

rylark.3418:

If he’s spamming 4 and you keep using abilities the problem is obviously you, just bait it out and let him waste initiative.

I wont say what the build is, but recently a youtuber released a build that allows thiefs to spam 4 and a utility and basically win every fight. It only works because of how a certain trait and new set of sigils work. It is really cheesy.

Honestly after playing staff I a lot cane to the conclusion in wvw:

If you play thief in a burst/picks role. Hands down d/p is way better. It has way more to offer in terms of utility for a squishy build. Being able to stick to targets, interrupt heals and reset while they can’t is pretty much staple for winning fights.

If your playing a front line thief(yes it works) in soldiers, caviler or sentential-exuberance builds I find staff to be much more superior as a front line fighter. The amount of cleave, blind and evasion is way more useful than the stealth d/p provides.

Most Dangerous Game:

Under Health Threshold 75%->
10% increased damage

Under Health Threshold 50%
20% increased damage

Under Health Threshold 25%
0% increased damage

Light On Your Feet

After successfully Dodging gain 5 seconds of quickness. ICD 8 secs
Shortbow attacks apply 1 stack of bleeding.
Condi Duration increase 10%.
(SB perice moved to baseline for weapon)

Lingering Light

Applies buff on being healed. Buff can be consumed two ways. ICD 8 seconds.
If team mate skill hits you, you are healed = 1/2 the damage the total skill would have done to the player. EG a full hundred blades channel would heal a lot.
If enemy attacks hits you, interrupt and apply 10 secs of regen.

Junkpile.7439:

If you play eyes open you don’t need stability at all.

This. I never really seen the need for stability if I could bring stunbreaks and react when needed. On many classes I don’t struggle to find usable stunbreaks, and they often have options to spec them as condi clear making the skills uses twofold.

For me having stability always meant I didn’t need to use one of my stunbreaks skills upfront but I eventually would and would expect too.

I think to many people want this free ignore cc card. Which isnt what stability is supposed to be; it is a small brief grace period via buff, that can be stripped, corrupted, worn down instantly.

Maybe our outlook is a product of poor stability.

Posted over on reddit, here’s a condensed version: It is a nerf not a bug.

Why? Both skills have high damage coefficients, at range, on low cool downs, that hit 5 targets. Both skills are loaded. Many other similar skills such as metor shower are balanced around a long cooldown, and/or having an interruptible cast animation.

Rather than nerfing the cooldowns, the damage or the number of targets they decided the nerf the amount of application allowed in a time frame.

Frankly it would be easier to nerf the damage or cooldowns, and let players hit together like other skills is better route. They could also go other routes like adding a cast time to these powerful skills.

Going to go over a few classes and then all of it as a whole.

Thief: I am really glad that thief now has some viability in pve, and a clear role. Unfortunately it came in one of the most underwhelming ways: auto attack damage. That said we still have an overabundance of bad or underwhelming traits that will never see use.

Ranger: I wanted to give a shout out about shouts. They were done really well and have usable cds. Now when I pick up other classes and I see impactful skills on 60-90+ sec cooldowns I feel a bit sad. Also I thought somewhere I remember hearing mentions of shortbow changes, kinda sad that there was nothing changed.

Warrior got some love rifle wise and I really like it, but the class still struggles to be useful in a pvp or wvw sense. It does not have stick to potential, we either topple, or get kited still.

PvP has never been so interesting; I’ve seen all kinds of builds being tested. I am a bit worried about how necro and the new wanders amulet will play out in the future, but the pace and flow of the game is just right.

WvW I like a lot of the changes, especially the upgrades via dolyak our server was starved of upgrades and supply at one point. People actually had to break off from the bloob and protect objectives. The only problem I have with this, is there is almost nothing to do that is rewarding while protecting objectives.

All and all it was a good patch at shaking things up. Hope to see some things fine tuned and maybe some other changes soon that will help certain problematic builds/roles.

Normally I am against making kneejerk reactions, but as I see it right now necro is way to strong with the amount of Condi application, damage and survivability in its kit along side the amulet. You get the best of all worlds, tank, condi, and power damage, with almost no trade offs.

Sypher.8975:

So, why does brutal shot have a cast time of 0.5s? I don’t think there is any other EVADE in the game which has a cast time. Evades be used reactional and they should be instant!

umm let me list some the skills that do have cast times:

Burning Speed, Hornet Sting, Serpent’s Strike, Disabling Shot, death blossom.

Having delay animations isnt a new thing. It’s pretty standard and instant casts are the rarer ones.

WilnerGW.3275:

Eval.2371:

1. See below. I have many different setups that I enjoy. Some with and without druid.

Nice, I wont discuss about the staff build since you said its more zerg oriented, so ill talk about the others 3.

Just a few questions:
1 – Don’t u like the Beastmastery trait line? It has 2 cool Grandmaster traits(quickness on pet swap OR taunt on pet active skill) that allows great gameplay styles. Plus it have a master trait that buff GS, since looks like you like the weapon. Plus 2: That shout trait is great for perma swiftness/regen.

2 – Don’t you have any duel build with Sword/Dagger or Sword/Warhorn as second weapon set? I know GS does awesome damage, but it has a few problems :
2.1 (Ranger GS #4 can be useless against some skill, like Revenant sword #3
or Thief D/P #3, Mesmer GS #4)
2.2 (GS #5 is very hard to land, due its slow and stuck animation)

I do like the beast mastery line however its not really suited for a lb build. Marksman and skirmisher are much better offensive choices, and wilderness survival offers a lot with condi clear and furry on the defensive side. In pve I perfer to take beast mastery over wilderness survival, but you asked for wvw based builds. Oddly the one build you didnt look at is the only one that is running beast mastery.

2 Unfortunately no. I used to use a sword dagger longbow setup but sword in general is a very problematic weapon when fighting anything that does not have a set pattern because the auto attack chain makes it very hard to dodge. Greatsword has ok damage, but good burst.

2.1 Greatswords block does have niche problems, in the same note it does have niche advantages. Going up again a ranged class? block the entire combo. Enemy running away? throw the dammed thing. The skill has a lot of situational utility value and using it properly requires forethought. The problematic classes/skills you mention are ones you should be dodging not blocking.

2.2 I disagree, hilt bash can be easy to land. It is just as hard to hit as maul. If you can set up maul, you can set up this skill. I use this all the time to set up roots with ancient seeds on targets that would be fleeing.

1. See below. I have many different setups that I enjoy. Some with and without druid.

2. I have builds without still work. Druid is pretty much better to have in every way as you gain access to stunbreak/condi cleanse trait and heals as well as other nice traits.

3. Pretty much either shouts, and/or survival skills. Sometimes signets. Mostly for either boonstack, condi clear, or burst. The two new HoT pets are really useful. Some good alternatives are wolf ,drake hound and your choice of drake.

I’ve run a few different builds with different goals, here are builds I have run for a while:

(current) Balouga kite power ranger – Focused on kite lb damage and lockdown. Works ok in zergs and very good in duels

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnEqAtsglsCmsActglFBD+pmV/qNlrOwIY5yFAOalMtzA-TFSBABA8EAwS5xVKxe4SAQp6PmpE8p9HwTXApAGYoF-w

Staff/Lb – Focused on endless kiting and self healing, lb and staff damage. Zerg focused. Have a variant with clerics/captains mix preforms very similarly.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATWjUqQLL2wCmsAXLWyEsmkVA4A8UDicTM4ZaPdoWizTD-TFCFABppLAgnAwVKBTS5RBXCgCV/pk9HQSJGpAGVoF-w

Cavaliers dueler – More zerg oriented, Can pew pew. Solid in the fray style of build. Could work well with druid.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAtsgNsA+CCctgh/gy39eI47+tG2h91zgAokpdG-T1SBABbcIA44CA0lyP80FgpKFBYBBlqrYmSQz3PAgHAwFHBASBkyQL-w

Valk Dueler – Condi sponge, decent lb dmg, more oriented on landing large mauls. Mainly a dueling build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQLL2wCGsAVLG+Dqufrhdg338dD2iIDCgD0y3B-TVCEABbpE8NNBPcJAaTHADHBAAeAA6s/wiq/0kyPSBQxOL-w

Wow this is sad to watch.

Necro without plague signet
Random dodges
Does not even use staff to transfer condi’s
Misses almost every single skill
Complains about bleeding on necro

DeceiverX.8361:

Ohai a guildmember! :P

Spike Barrage really is excessive, though. It’s an effective 17.0 damage coefficient on a 15s cooldown at 1500 range (projectile physics). .

\o Guildy

This is where your misinformed. I know you have tried working the numbers backwards but somewhere your off, I dont think you’ve accounted for vulnerability or might in your encounters.

The pet only has 1,718 power. The range is only 1200. Spike barrage shots is listed as 15 hits but its actually 20. These are facts.

The base damage worked backwards on a zerk armor mesmer it avg’d 5,7k(5.2-6.4k over 10 tries) I’ve tested it you can feel free to double check your self. That’s only a 3.3 coefficient roughly the same as rapid fire and oddly its exactly what is listed on the wiki.

As Jcbro posted the insane damage is from stacking boons on the pet and vulnerability on the target which is very easy to do with how ranger has changed.

If the pet had a 17.0 damage coefficient it would be doing in excess of 25k damage in one barrage. While boonstacked 35k+ dmg. Which would be a world of kek.

jcbroe.4329:

No idea why ANet, instead of addressing boon spam with more hardcounters and soft punishes, introduced more spam, but it really isn’t any reason to go nerfing something that really may not need to be nerfed, or at least not as heavy-handedly as people are calling for due to other mechanics.

I think upcoming boon corruption changes, might make neco a prime counter to boonstacking on pets and our selves.

I’ve tried and tested this build a little over a month with slight modifications both in pvp and wvw. I’ve found Tides to just be way more useful over muddy/equality and shared anguish is a must as well. In wvw I run a straight zerk and a zerk/calv mix and its also effective. It’s a solid setup for kiting on a burst based ranger.

If any of you complainers actually played a ranger you would understand how dire and needed those two pets are. Yes they do high damage when traited they are supposed to be. Why is it these two pets are such a problem? Well they are are the only pets that can actually hit a moving target. They are the only pets that actually make our low coefficient trade offs worth while for having the pets.

As tragic said, I am well in favor for nerfs to those two pets IF we receive significant coefficient increases on our weapons because frankly right now the only way to burst, or be competitive with the other classes is with these pets.

DeceiverX.8361:

Except it doesn’t. I frequently take 1-2k damage hits per missile in WvW.

You run valk thief
/15 chars

coax.2951:

Substance E.4852:

DeceiverX.8361:

Except it doesn’t. I frequently take 1-2k damage hits per missile in WvW.

Ya that happens when you apparently run base toughness. Shocking as it may be.

God forbid he get’s Rapidfire’d for even more damage on a shorter cooldown. Nerf that one too please, ranger damage is clearly OP.

Lol so we have one skill that has a half decent coefficient and only if we get the full channel same deal with the pet. One skill and a pet. It’s the end of the world. Yet we have classes that have solid skills across their entire kit that are all 2+ coefficients.

After thinking about others posts I think the minor traits for MM would be better off as:

Minor 1: Same as it currently is, but pets also gain it.
Minor 2: Opening strike is refreshed on weapon swap.
Minor 3: Opening does additional damage per stack of vulnerability on target. Capped at 5% for 25 stacks.

Remorseless as is. Thoughts?

Lacks escapes…

We have:

• 6 different stunbreaks
• multiple weapons that have evades
• multiple weapons that have dashes
• 3 different ways to access stealth
• a channeled block
• Signet of stone

Our lack of survivability has less to do with access to escapes or ways to get out of the fray and more has to do with other classes ability to stick to us. Which again, we have plenty of ways to peel as well.

I think your approach is interesting and that the trait does have good value for staff. Unfornately every time I want to make use of this trait, I find it often better to take druidic clarity. Having CAF double as a stunbreak and condi clear is too valuable and frees up a spot where I would have to take SoR or an additional survival skill when using WS line.

This thread again… I swear it is bi monthly…

Yes ele does have the capacity to be a decent support healer as does ventair, mesmer, and druid. The fact that they bring other tools for certain scenarios does not invalidate druid or for that matter ranger. We are not doomed, or useless, as you state in previous posts. Yes the class does have flaws as does every other class and elite.

In regard to the pvp comment above I don’t know what mmr bracket you live in, but the majority of people I see playing druid successfully are in the fray, not safe casting from afar. I see a lot of people including my self that having no problem making an impact or carrying a game as druid.

Please stop making the same thread over and over again we get it you have an opinion; not every else shares it and you refuse to accept that.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Keeping Opening Strikes is still bad. Just change those to something straight-forward and normal with a few tweaks to some traits.

• 1st Minor: You and your pet have a % chance to apply 5s of Vulnerability on hit.
• 2nd Minor: Vulnerability you and your pet apply lasts % longer.
• 3rd Minor: Steady Focus.

• New Master Trait to fill in the slot Steady Focus was.
• Remorseless: Gain an “Attack of Opportunity” when you gain Fury or kill a foe. “Attack of Opportunity” always critically hits.

Then lower the bonus damage from Attack of Opportunity from 50% to 25%.

I was all for this until you made it the attack of opportunity buff. Right now despite how flawed our minor traits are, those those two buffs; remorseless opening strike and attack of opportunity equate to a 87.5% damage increase when stacked on a single hit reducing that to 25% is a huge loss.

In short we’d lose our ability to burst with greatsword, in some cases longbow, pets and a few other weapons. We would need some kind of compensation across the MM for that large of a loss.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Eval.2371:

…

Glyph of empowerment is useful for pve, that is about it. I like the fact that we have a short cooldown active damage boost for the group. Frankly its a little on the light side considering its duration and cool down. The CAF side of things is meh I’d rather be giving the damage boost.

…

It’s mathematical Berserker damage boost is 3,75% for 5 people when traited (less in practice since you are always one of them and your pet is not affected).

And that is practically what I’m talking about. Almost no Glyph besides Glyph of Tides is worth using. And even Glyph of Tides is not worth using. If you are in CAF – you want to heal people stacked and keep enemies out. Not the other way round.

The glyphs them selves I do agree with on not being impactful(with the exception of tides). The seeds they drop if traited are useful as condi clear which is really the only redeeming quality and reason I even slot glyphs.

GoT, left me clarify, the only time I use this in CAF is to setup convergence on a group of people/mobs. The slow and immobilize can be very disruptive in a clumped fight.

GoE is only a 3.75 boost for 5 people. I agree with this, however, its worth more after breakbars. Oddly, I find the rotation to break down bars has the same same cd as GoE coincidence? not likely. I totally agree that this skill needs more beef to it either in intensity or duration.

I really like glyph of tides . Both in and out of CF. It has so many uses in wvw/pvp. You can stop stomps, or interrupt an entire group with this skill.

Glyph of equality is nothing exciting, but it is our lowest cd stunbreak. It works very well for bunkering builds where you can’t afford to be locked down. I really only use this in CAF if I am being locked down, its often to hard to communicate with other people to stunbreak for them.

Glyph of empowerment is useful for pve, that is about it. I like the fact that we have a short cooldown active damage boost for the group. Frankly its a little on the light side considering its duration and cool down. The CAF side of things is meh I’d rather be giving the damage boost.

Glyph of alignment do not like in either form. I find it’s just not an impactful skill at all.