When one has tasted the pre 23/06 patch cele shoutbow, one can only laugh at the miserable attempts to replicate such build in wvw.
This build is obsolete because anet has nerfed his main tools :
- warhorn does not convert condis into boons anymore and the number of affected players was reduced from ten to five.
- healings from shout have been butchered and now only give a measely 1k health on a 20 second cooldown. From what i remember we could do at least heal double that amount.
Honestly the only useful and unique thing a warrior can carry is the banner, which does no scale on healing power nor traits or defensive stats.
From a group-synergy perspective, a guardian will perform far better in any other frontline aspect, be it condi removal (purging flames adding the condi duration reduction to -93% factoring hoelbrack/melandru runes and food – and by providing 2-3 mandory shouts which can be further improved with soldier runes)
On a breakdown, warrior shouts provide :
- FoJ : 3 stacks of might (25 seconds), fury (8 seconds), 1k Health – 20 second CD
- SiO : 1 (2 if soldier runes) cleansed, 1k Health – 20 second CD
Whereas a guardian will provide :
- HtL : protection, 1 condi convert to boon & 1 condi cleansed (if soldier rune) – 28s C
- SyG : stability, 1 condi convert to boon & 1 condi cleansed (if soldier rune) – 24s CD
- FmW : fury, quickness, 1 condi convert to boon & 1 condi cleansed (if soldier rune) – 24s CD
Guardians can provide might through Honor via Empowering might and staff, which in conjunction with Hoelbrack runes gives long lasting boons.
So far, all i can say is that a guardian not using its virtues is a far better support, and tank (because of AH given you do not FFA and have allies to catch your boons) than the warrior will ever be. Add in its profession skills and we now understand why the melee train is and should account for at least 60% guardians.
BUT.
That is not to say a warrior has no place in zergs. Even though we have a pirate-ship shifting meta by the ever-growing necro spam-well warrior still stands out by its superior stats distribution : it is the only class that can stand in a zerg with full glass cannon setups (for experiences players though).
I believe warriors should go dps and leave the support to their fellow guardian. I’d rather have a staggering hammer-bombing and rez-ban backup than some half-kitten 1k heal every 10 second.
Is what i generaly use in zerg fights, but tweaks can be make for people wanting a more offensive version (hoelbrack instead of melandru for instance). This also takes in account that most condi removal is kept in check by guardians shouts, althout the -73% condi duration reduction does help limiting the DoTs…
There’s a thread that links back to an API that can calculate your actual win rate on all classes.
I have been asking around many friends and most of them seem to have an average of 50-60% win rate on all classes.
My guess is that matchmaking is set for you to win and lose (often in streaks) in order to keep this ratio.
See previous post.
If you are serious about fractals and want to roll different classes, you don’t need to craft multiple sets of armor.
Agony resistance on armor amounts to 30.
If you do not wish to invest in ascended armor you can still infuse your trinkets and make craftable AR essences.
I believe +10 to be a good threesold, on backpiece and rings, factoring amulet and other accessories you can amount to 60 (note that this is account bound). For the remaing, crafting ascended weapons is recommended, as it has a higher stats difference than armor to get to 70.
Please note that i am all for easing experienced players in fractals to use other classes. But not giving access to high level fractals for unprepared players.
How bout making particle effects transparent, or at least reduce their opacity to 60-70% ?
Hi !
As a former pve player i have enjoyed pvp since the new daily rewards for various reasons.
PVP encourages an experimentation environment which requires in-depth understanding of classes you play and play against. While I do not consider myself to be top-notched (still learning mesmer and engi mechanics) i believed i have grasped a good understanding of the pvp system (rank 59 with little to no rank-farm ; only dailies on classes i don’t use).
I cannot but help to think Guild Wars 2 was built around the idea of pvp in mind, which could explain the great imbalance of class utilities in pve. It is also true (to a lesser extent) that pvp suffers from some imbalance (d/d cele eles having huge advantages for little to no drawbacks) wich i believe to be a consequence of limited resources allocated by anet to this aspect of the game. (Compared to other heavy pvp based games)
The strange thing is, anet seems to want to grow an emphasize on spvp and competitive play…
So far, i have noticed a few problems with the actual spvp (throughly repeated) :
- lesser frequent balancing patches, encouraging long-time abuses of bugs or unbalanced mechanics (engi grenade double damage, high burn damage, warrior rampage).
- low gold-income for pvp players
- no ladder ranking / progress other than rank 80
- small pvp population, even smaller community with (from my perspective) no reliable way to build social bonds and encourage premade / organized pvp.
I believe all if not most of these issues come down to two causes : anet’s investment in pvp and the player based interest in pvp.
- Anet allocates limited resources to pvp because the playerbase it catters to is small and considered unprofitable.
- Player’s are driven off pvp because it feels left out and poorly maintained. Also because it is unprofitable on their side in terms of gold, results in frustrating experiences due to unbalanced pvp matchmaking and so on.
The focus on this topic is to mainly find possible solutions to such problems.
As for myself, i have a few suggestions that might be worth looking into :
- having a possible interface for browsing and spectating ranked/unraked games. It could be a nice feature while queuing for a match.
- betting. Put at stake gold on participating teams to create a reason to actually follows matches, both teams would get a percentage of the gold at stake to resolve issues regarding gold-income all the while avoiding farming.
- PvP guilds specialized in spvp, as i see it, it would be far easier to speculate on organized teams with history backtrack than random hotjoins. They could then decide when such match could take place and have an audience waiting for them. Then again, having gold at stake would help increasing the said audience. It will also encourage people to get involved wich each other, which i a good and a bad thing. But hey, a pvp without cries & screams is a dead one, right ?
- in terms of rewards ; new PvP titles and achievements to gain (cost effective) to acknowledge pvp guilds contributing to the spvp activity. Also skins pvp-exclusives skins (like the glorious reward track) to give pvp players an edge. I am not against having them accessible in a cash shop for non-pvp players, also profitable for anet.
Lastly, I would gladly add a ladder with divisions and such, but imo there a still too few pvp players to build up a real ranking system.
TL;DR : my guess is that anet wants to emphasize on competitive pvp, while it has the potential to be what it wishes it cannot be done without catering to its playerbase.
You are free to comment & criticize down below i am curious to how other pvp players feel about HOTM.
Many thanks for reading me !
Warriors should use arcing slice (gs F1) at max adrenaline is to activate the berserkers power at max potential (+20 % damage) for 10 seconds.
Freely quoted from Nike (which i approve of) the general idea is to :
- garantee berseker’s strengh 100% uptime ; that is why you bring the healing shout and the precision signet, so that you fill it up before using the burst skill.
- never have your adrenaline full (stick’n move is +10% damage) ; you should double dodge when engaging combat then dodge in your rotation to get back to your target (gs 3 will most likely draw you away).
- roll your face on keyboard intelligently ; any skill has a higher dps than the auto, and if you are concerned about vulnerability not capping just mock the elem/engi. You should spamm skills on cooldown, but remember to aim gs 3 and dodges accordingly to stick to your target. IMO, it is a much better active play than leaving signet of fury & healing chillin (pre 23/06).
- make sure hundred blades has all those factors in mind, and tap that 50k damage !
Considering this rotation, there is no need for a second weapon set.
BUT.
I believe that in situations were you lack knowledge of the boss partern (such as lvl 50 fract archdiviner) one can substitute hundred blades by swaping to longbow for a significant dps loss but safer gameplay. The rotation would then follow the same logic :
1. dodge roll
2. F1
3. combustive shot
4. fire fan
5. auto
5. ( 4/5 depending on situation )
6. switch back to gs
And why not WvW Claim Tickets ?
I mean, since the fractal skins are becoming purchasable in a reasonable time frame, having access to hero’s misforged skins could give a nice boost in wvw activity.
I agree that in pve the sustain may be low, but consume conditions remains the best heal in game for soaking damage from multiple sources pvp wise. The extra defenses provided by death magic only helps to accentuate that fact (condition damage resistance, condi removal etc…)
Nonetheless, death magic provides a high potential of life fore generation, wouldn’t that count as a form of sustain ?
@Anchoku – Why would you build tanky if you don’t want aggro? Just go full zerk in that case. The whole point of a high armor necro is to tank damage for the team so they don’t have to take as much damage. I play a build with 3k armor and I survive easily even in FotM 50, and I camp dagger/horn most of the time.
Do you realize how pointless toughness would be if you couldn’t get aggro with a high toughness build?
While it is true that high armor makes tanking possible, i still believe the necromancer’s passive defenses to be inferior to a guardian’s blocks or a thief’s blinds.
More precisely in the context of pve, i wouldn’t dare try to tank dozens of mobs from the molten fractal. I’d rather take thief to blindspam and spin combo or just sandstorm (but that’s unfun)…
Besides it is not really a problem for the necro to draw aggro, its always this more given to eles and thieves.
Please note that what I would like to emphasize is wether a cavalier gear setup provides more dps than the classic zerk meta build.
First Edit : i’ve done a little check over the ferocity that looked a little to high. After review it looks like this build is still underperforming the zerk build… What a disappointment.
Second Edit : what an idiot. The cavalier build was under performing because it’s EP was calculated without the might stacks.
Now the cavalier build (8934) seems slightly coming over the zerk build (8361) with a marginal difference of 6%.
Let us resume the testings….
(edited by Exos.3472)
Hey guys, i have been messing around lately with the build simulators based on the build a friend gave me. So far i’ve been testing out a new dps build for necromancers that potentially could overthrow the glasscannon setup.
The general idea is to not forgo full zerk since anything over 33% precision is overkill
-> fury + death perception is an increase by 70% precision
-> fury + lich form is an increase by 67% precision
Hence the extra stats in precision should be invested elsewhere to increase our overall damage.
People tend to get valkyrie gear to increase the already high base healthpool mostly because the stat major is power. In my opinion, it not a dps increase since power and ferocity gain remain the same and the hp increase does not help in patching necromancers weaknesses (low armor or mobility, and high hp lessens the effectiveness of heals).
All in all, the damage potential is roughly the same but for no real gain.
Here is the classic zerk glasscanon build i will use for reference, feel free to provide me with a better version.
Please note that this is a wvw oriented discussion, as pvp stats does not allow my build to work as i would like. And minor changes could make this build pve friendly (scholar runes, dagger main hand for LF generation and axe camping for life blast with unyielding blast and unholy fervor)
Raw Stats
power : 2656
precision : 2086
crit. chance : 55.71% base, 75.71% with fury, 125.71% with fury under deathshroud
ferocity : 961
crit. damage : 214%
Assuming 100% crit chance and no might stacks…
Overall effective power is 5686.
Situation 1 – 25 stacks of bloodlust and 5 stacks of Applied Strentgh
power : 3156
Overall effective power is 8361
The main use of this build resides in the CD reduction of wells (-20%) and its protection towards frontliners (3.25 seconds each).
What i find sad about this build is that the other trait in the Blood Line if not usseless, are negligible at best. (Life from death : ~747 heal on a 19k hp character, great…)
Not to mention necromancers are expected to be effective and survivable without stability, breakstuns or even defensive stats (as a novice necromancer i find that quite challenging). All these reasons led me to being quite unhappy with the current meta build for necromancers.
Necromancers excels at long range AoE damage bombing while remaining durable. I believe boon support should remain to classes design for such tasks (elementalists & guardians) since it can hamper our damage potential.
Now, back to the point.
Here is the build i am currently testing : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW3djc0QvN2SD20AHOOwFKZPEDhNVb8swBIAaBA-TFCEABEcQASU9nuUCawVAQKlf5s/Qb6OA4BBQKgB2aB-w
The idea i got from my guildmate was to stack toughness and convert it to power from the trait Deathly Strength.
Death Strenght
converts 7% of toughness into power, 14% when in deathshroud
What i added was the consumable Furious Sharpening stones which converts 10% of toughness into ferocity.
Raw Stats – normal
power : 2330
toughness : 1692
armor : 2659
HP : 19212
precision : 1620
crit. chance : 33.52%
ferocity : 961
crit. damage : 214%
Raw Stats – normal and furious sharpening stones
power : 2455
toughness : 1792
armor : 2795
HP : 19212
precision : 1620
crit. chance : 33.52%
ferocity : 1140
crit. damage : 226%
Situation 1 – in deathshroud with fury
toughness : 1972
power : 2606
crit. chance : 103.52%
ferocity : 1158
crit. damage : -to be completed IG-
other stats are the same
Situation 2 – in deathshroud with fury AND 10 stacks of corrupter’s fervor (+300 toughness and -20% condition damage)
toughness : 2272
power : 2648
ferocity : 1188
crit. damage : -to be completed IG-
Overall effective power is 6069
Situation 3 – in deathshroud with fury,10 stacks of corrupter’s fervor AND 25 stacks of bloodlust & 5 stacks of Applied Strentgh
power : 3148
Overall effective power is 7215
Situation 4 – add 25 stacks of might
Overall effective power is 8934
As i recall in terms of EP, ferocity starts evening power around 3000-3500 power. Since the power level is roughly inside the 3000-3500 i believe the ferocity gain to be an EP increase. And the more power i gain (from might stacking) the more valuable ferocity becomes.
Another thing i enjoy about this build is that every trait from the Death Magic line has its use, be it a dps increase or just QoL (auto condi removal, higher LF generation…).
It may now allow necromancers to go melee, but the armor increase can’t be wrong (i once managed to keep 3 thieves from killing me under 5 seconds, enough to get my party around and making them flee).
Now feel free to comment on this build, test it and apply modifications ! I am aware it is very incomplete but i am in no way a veteran of theory crafting so if someone would ‘format’ this he would be most welcome.
Your turn.
(edited by Exos.3472)
4 stances – with possible access to double immunity in damage synergized well with Rampage.
Strange thing is, the problem i thought was the damage and not really all else. (I was expecting a nerf in peak performance)
I don’t mind a nerf in rampage, but could we at least have viable alternatives ? SoR is 25 sec on 1 min cooldown (unless you trait in arms which is condi) and the cooldown on standard just… no.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted (i knew it would be short).
The issue isn’t so much that Rampage is a press2win button, but its really the only way to leave an impact in pvp. In a game where shatter mesmers and blind thiefs exists, we are simply ignored when not transformed.
Time to learn how to mes.
Rampage is only effective 1v1 against people who are clueless to the class (and necros, but thats due to the poorly designed class with ridiculous stability uptime or active defense).
But i’ll admit, in team fights rampage is just being lazy and braindead.
I think they will nerf it soon, since right it does too much damage AND cc. Its just like the previous gs/hammer build that used to shine a year ago, they didn’t want warriors to have both.
Nerfed it, then became unviable.
So yeah, warriors are living their last times as viable, sadly.
So yeah. Necros shouldn’t be allowed in content were they can screw us up.
Your party wiped on lupi and the necro finished it off for you thus screwing up the run?
Why don’t rest of you be less bad? With the necro there you steal health on hit and don’t bleed out. You get 150-450 bonus healing power which should go a long way on all your zerk builds. For content that you could solo, that is a huge buff.
And you say all this while bringing a thief who only brings stealth for runs. A job better done by a mesmer. At least necros can stack vulnerability.
This is an interesting point.
Which is worse ? A high-risk, high-return dps class that cannot stand his ground but still manages to put a dent on the ennemy. Or a safe, three wheeled survivable class that stays along dealing laughable amount of damage ?
While you may think the first one is bad, the latter is selfish and asking to be carried with no intention towards progress. The necro was not better than us, he just had more health to soak the attacks.
So yes, the necro screwed up badly by wasting everyone’s time. If we had all wiped, wp then engaged Lupi we would have finished him in the same amount of time, or even less. The only reason we wiped was because he claimed his wells could block projectiles (a stupid thing i know, but people running arah are scarce and we had already 4 manned the dungeon till lupi… and we were curious).
The only valuable thing he may bring is the protection from wells and the vampiric aura. Neither are actually noticible since a guardian will offer same the same and more diversed buffs while retaining better dps. Vulnerability ? In a group of eles and a warrior this is not needed. You have missed my point. In the current setting dps was not the issue, but the defensive support. And necro having nothing consistent just killed the eles.
And if i’m not mistaken, a mesmer run requires him to stealth through the content solo and then use a portal for his party. I cannot expect such things in a pug environement, wich is relevant to the problem at hand (you should not be kicked from a guild party, else you should strongly consider another one).
While a bad warrior or guardian may be a disapointament in terms of dps, bad rangers and necromancers endanger parties during fights.
A warrior can AA on greatsword and dish out acceptable damage, something few classes can achieve, and mind me i have had my share of LB knockbacks ranger or necros wearing nightmare runes. Should i choose, an extra warrior is far more of a safe choice than those classes, even bad because he will not draw us back.
Last time i had a necro in my party was in arah, who forced his way into our group while we specifically asked for a guardian (we didn’t have a mes or any reflects – did have a thief but i dont know what was doing). Having 12k AP we let him off the hook and proceeded. Yep, having a high AP will help you in groups not too rigid.
During Lupi, when entering phase 2 the aoe spread downed everyone safe for me and the necro (who just went full DS and soaked the damage) and then proceeded to range him using a staff and AA DS, leaving me the aggro.
I eventually fall and he finishes the boss 5 minutes later before glorifying himself as carrying us.
While i have reflected on my deeds (i am still practicing to solo lupi) such as bringing a shield for key moments, memorizing the kick animation and much more, this made me understand why they are hated.
They are essentially a selfish class, we hate necros because their group utility in non-existant (the vampiric aura being a joke) but also because their survivability means that while not supporting us should we fail the necro is still able to continue dishing out its mediocre dps. (if i recall, the AA of DS is around 7-8k damage in best scenarios, in solos i should say the dps is halved because of dodging and positioning)
In their own right, they are as bad as pvt players. Even worse, since at least some pvt classes have valuable utility skills (I remember a video of a nomad thief running a dugeon extremely fast by providing adequate support and i second this, the utility support is important). But then again necro has neither.
And it is rather annoying to see a necro soloing a boss. Because it is slow and unimpressive given the extended survivability of the class. He is wasting our time at our expense, hence why i do not accept necros unless i am certain i do not need to count on him by doing easy content where his impact is minimal.
I have played necro myself, and in dungeons i just hated the fact that my comrades could fall and not be able to do anything while as a warrior i would just toss the rez ban or boon spam, reflect and rez as a guardian. (it was in a SE path 1, we steamrolled everything so hard we decided to do Tazza on spawn, and while i’m a mediocre necro, being full zerk i was still full health while my party members were long dead. Really, taking this class is just a big PHIW finger to your comrades)
So yeah. Necros shouldn’t be allowed in content were they can screw us up.
(edited by Exos.3472)
One could argue if he isn’t doing content that requires him substantial dps he could take both rifle and longbow.
Hmmm.
Has any necro successfully downed a Warrior in rampage under stances ?
Thought so.
How bout implementing a duel interface in towns ?
It should require your own PvE equippement, you choose the environment (the gladiator pit in Black Citadel would finally have some use) and even get to have some audience.
Maybe even get some special rank or progression from it. I dunno.
Ah. I didn’t factor the Robust stacks, that’s why (i’m not in game right now) which makes the build go up to 23.99k
Seems legit, i’ll give it a try although i’d be more confident with a few more stances. (balance is on a 40 sec CD, and i rarely need 10 stacks in roaming context)
Please correct if i’m wrong :
21k Health (maybe a bit more with guard staks)
2591 Armor
Might generation from Heal Skill, SoR and weapon swap
Healing Signet, Berserker stance, brawler recovery for condi management
no condi reduction
Active defense : 1 endure pain
Hmmm.
Although the damage can be quite high, it isnt maximised (no forceful greatsword) so your might generation is low. And you active defense consists of Berserker Stance and one Endure Pain.
Basically, you can survive one burst but not two.
I don’t see this build winning against any d/p thief who would just stealth when the stance procs, reset the fight while your 1 min CD are off and just kill you. Same for medi guard who’d block or go invul and burst again.
Now i know this is suppose to be a kill or be killed, but i just don’t see how you could react in those situations…
#YOLO WARRIOR
So far i’ve noticed that zerg bombing is so hardcore passive defense just won’t cut. (i’m crying right now with my AH guard using the elite shout) Hence my 6 stance warrior’s best defense is offense :
A hammerstun on bombing place is a rough 4500 power combo chain (25 power stacks, 20% from BersPow, 20% MercHam & 10% Impact) with 62% precision and 31% crit damage.
Then you pull out the great sword and either slain ppl with HB, or WW to chase or disengage if your bombing failed. Plus there should be chill, criple and immo all around, so rush might actually have its use.
Its pretty much a no brainer.
If you want to support your party, be it by boons, condi removal or anything, please just roll guard with soldier runes. The only support you’re getting from me is the rez banner, and even so i’m looking at rampage with envy.
The title might be misleading (i apoligize in any case) since i have two questions :
- in what cases should one bring a stance war over a shout war ?
- do we have any recent up to date builds for a stance damaging war ?
I have been looking for quite some time for something else than a shout war, since i often see people (trolls ?) assert such builds are pug friendly and next to useless. The only alternative being stance war (i believe more selfish) yet i didn’t find anything to back it up.
On the other hand, i’m quite curious as to what should be expected from a frontliner warrior, as i’m prone to build my character in respects to contribute to the zerg as much as possible.
Many thanks.
How i picture things, i believe the shout necromancer could really shine in melee trains if it gets enough sustain to resist the usual bombing (at least as well as guardians and warriors). Since they have a large healthpool and lifeforce mechanics, i’d say we’re halfway there, but not quite. We still lack an invulnerable ability whatsoever and dodge enhancement.
BUT. Seeing the new traits for deathshroud gives me hope (protection out of shroud, regeneration of LF or HP…) and I believe it would be greatly beneficial for the WvW experience to expand its diversity by having not just two melee classes, but four (fantasizing on the new GWER = Guardian, Warrior, Necromancer and Revenant).
As for PvE, we all know speedrunning is about utility (offensive and defensive) more than dps. I doubt the Necromancer will in any way go that direction (they did take out the weakness rotation after all). And in PvP, i’m wondering how a chillbunker would fair against usuall 2vs1 or 3vs1, since its the only i can imagine where no mobility isnt an issue.
The Necro Reaper should not “replace” the Warrior, and will probably never do, but it might just fill in new roles. And I believe it was build with such mindset.