What he listed are all unique things. Ranger is the only provider of the +150 prec with spotter, ~7.5% damage from Frost Spirit, 3.75% damage from Glyph of Empowerment, and Sun Spirit ain’t bad. Warrior is the only one to give the +150 power aura, then +170 to all damage stats from the Banners. Rev for boon duration and +ferocity aura. Mesmer and Alacrity. These are things that are unique to specific professions. Though Might and quickness aren’t unique we know warrior and Mesmer outshine the rest in those categories.
There’s a reason the backbone of a raid group is Mesmer, PS War, Druid, and Rev, from there it’s just fill in the blank. You can of course do without these, but that’s a lot of damage modifiers being left out then. For the damage spots though Engi really isn’t a bad option if played well.
The cue here, of course being “if played well”… I consider myself a good engineer, I can hit 26-29k depending on situation. I also consider myself a mediocre tempest, and post-patch I can still hit 30-35k with it.
In other words, what incentive (or better yet, excuse) do I have to choose playing a tempest unless it’s required that I play an engineer?
30-35k with staff on an immobile large hitbox target? The fact that not all targets are like that is a good incentive
. From where I’m sitting we’re a very viable option for everything that doesn’t fall into the more stationary Large hitbox target category. Once things are moving a little bit or small hitbox then Ele goes over to D/W and we become competative (right there with thief>Ele>Engi as I understand though all very close). And, that’s in reference to our easy mode SD Power build. For condi we can do a little more but yes then the well played comes into play a lot. But… main reason to play an engi? It’s kittening fun! Ele lost it’s fun with this nerf more than it lost it’s damage, and while the SD engi build is much more simplistic than we’re used to, it’s still a hell of a lot more fun than Thief auto attacking.
First of all, my dps was with D/W fresh air ele, on a moving target without alacrity. It’s still basically the same as pre-patch. I agree that ele lost a lot of it’s charm (read: simplicity) in this patch, but it’s still top notch.
The engineer on the other hand, while fun (but in the long term, repetitive), is still below everyone else in terms of dps, despite being so much higher in skill-cap.
Cross posting some numbers:
Staff Ele, large hitbox: 28.0k / 33.6k with Alacrity (-9.5% dmg after patch)
DW Ele, small hitbox: 23.6k / 26.0k with Alacrity (-10.1% dmg after patch)
Condi Engi: 25.5k / 28.4k with Alacrity (+2.9% dmg after patch)
Power Engi: 25.8k / 27.2k with Alacrity (a bit more than +0% dmg after patch)
Power Thief: 26.2k / 26.4k with Alacrity
There were some additional notes, most important ~800 extra damage from buffing on the D/W Ele.
Anyways those are with realistic buffs. A little different from what I’m seeing from the main Ele’s (26k+ and 29k+w/alacrity as per: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTwBSuKxNJY)
These numbers leave out D/D Thief though which I think will take the prize on the mobile/small hitbox DPS.
I find it funny that people are calling Arah accessible content. From what I remember Pre-HoT there weren’t many doing it, and the general sense I got from people new to the zone was just dread, and a broken back for me
Overall difficulty doesn’t seem much different other than the fact that one good player could solo Arah for you where you can easily kill your raid if you don’t know what you’re doing.
PS I miss doing Lupi normally, and especially the hardmode that is a group full of new players trying to range Lupi in phase 2/3.
You touched on the main difference. The raid mechanics aren’t difficult individually, the difficult part is getting everyone to learn them, which unfortunately, some people aren’t able to do. This inherently excludes people that don’t want to upset others, where they could just learn to do them on their own (Speaking of which, some of the more boring dungeon bosses were a ton of fun to play solo).
Yup, but that means that it’s not that These raids are inaccessible, it’s that raiding in general is inaccessible to those players. In one of my old games we called raid leading “herding cats” as the hardest part is getting everyone together and on the same page, seems that hasn’t changed with less numbers and a different game.
I find it funny that people are calling Arah accessible content. From what I remember Pre-HoT there weren’t many doing it, and the general sense I got from people new to the zone was just dread, and a broken back for me.
Overall difficulty doesn’t seem much different other than the fact that one good player could solo Arah for you where you can easily kill your raid if you don’t know what you’re doing.
PS I miss doing Lupi normally, and especially the hardmode that is a group full of new players trying to range Lupi in phase 2/3.
What he listed are all unique things. Ranger is the only provider of the +150 prec with spotter, ~7.5% damage from Frost Spirit, 3.75% damage from Glyph of Empowerment, and Sun Spirit ain’t bad. Warrior is the only one to give the +150 power aura, then +170 to all damage stats from the Banners. Rev for boon duration and +ferocity aura. Mesmer and Alacrity. These are things that are unique to specific professions. Though Might and quickness aren’t unique we know warrior and Mesmer outshine the rest in those categories.
There’s a reason the backbone of a raid group is Mesmer, PS War, Druid, and Rev, from there it’s just fill in the blank. You can of course do without these, but that’s a lot of damage modifiers being left out then. For the damage spots though Engi really isn’t a bad option if played well.
The cue here, of course being “if played well”… I consider myself a good engineer, I can hit 26-29k depending on situation. I also consider myself a mediocre tempest, and post-patch I can still hit 30-35k with it.
In other words, what incentive (or better yet, excuse) do I have to choose playing a tempest unless it’s required that I play an engineer?
30-35k with staff on an immobile large hitbox target? The fact that not all targets are like that is a good incentive. From where I’m sitting we’re a very viable option for everything that doesn’t fall into the more stationary Large hitbox target category. Once things are moving a little bit or small hitbox then Ele goes over to D/W and we become competative (right there with thief>Ele>Engi as I understand though all very close). And, that’s in reference to our easy mode SD Power build. For condi we can do a little more but yes then the well played comes into play a lot. But… main reason to play an engi? It’s kittening fun! Ele lost it’s fun with this nerf more than it lost it’s damage, and while the SD engi build is much more simplistic than we’re used to, it’s still a hell of a lot more fun than Thief auto attacking.
(edited by Jerus.4350)
I think the most recent trailer for S3 dispels any notion that raids were not a significant part of the next story arc (the introduction, in fact).
Hold that judgment until you play the episode.
Spoilers ahead
I waited. I played the new storyline completely through – and I think that is obvious that the raid was indeed the first part of this story arc – even moreso that actually expected. This is illustrated even further by the reuse of assets on the new map.
The story is very well done – as is the content itself – but it doesn’t change the fact that the kickoff for the story was given to a small subset of the population.
To add, if the raid had been designed to offer accessibility to a greater percentage, it would have essentially solved this – and it would have made the content drought much less pronounced.
You really need to reconsider this approach – and, if you absolutely refuse to make the raid more accessible, please do not tie them back to the story of the White Mantle or the next dragon. Honestly, I do not see how you can raids as part of the story telling process if they remain as they currently are.
And it would have completely failed to do what raids were designed to do, give this game an end game it could be proud of.
I’m fine with a different storyline though, some kind of re-emergence of Abaddon or some follower of his could be entertaining (plus the lore people would lose their kitten
I’m not sure a secondary storyline would work either – especially one that the average player would love to see, like the Abaddon storyline.
If they are going to use raids as a storytelling tool, then raids needs to be more appealing – and accessible – to a larger percentage of the playerbase.
So it can’t be part of the main story, and it can’t be a different story…
I think the most recent trailer for S3 dispels any notion that raids were not a significant part of the next story arc (the introduction, in fact).
Hold that judgment until you play the episode.
Spoilers ahead
I waited. I played the new storyline completely through – and I think that is obvious that the raid was indeed the first part of this story arc – even moreso that actually expected. This is illustrated even further by the reuse of assets on the new map.
The story is very well done – as is the content itself – but it doesn’t change the fact that the kickoff for the story was given to a small subset of the population.
To add, if the raid had been designed to offer accessibility to a greater percentage, it would have essentially solved this – and it would have made the content drought much less pronounced.
You really need to reconsider this approach – and, if you absolutely refuse to make the raid more accessible, please do not tie them back to the story of the White Mantle or the next dragon. Honestly, I do not see how you can raids as part of the story telling process if they remain as they currently are.
And it would have completely failed to do what raids were designed to do, give this game an end game it could be proud of.
I’m fine with a different storyline though, some kind of re-emergence of Abaddon or some follower of his could be entertaining (plus the lore people would lose their kitten )
These are probably some of the best changes the guardian has ever gotten; ANet really surprised me. Setting my hopes to the lowest certainly made this patch all the more delicious~
Don’t worry it’ll get nerfed by the end of the week to bring Guardians back into a good place.
I kid of course, when I came back to the game I looked at my Guard and went “… kitten this” but now I actually wish I didn’t spread all his gear out to other characters, now I gotta rebuild it >.<
The one benefit of this patch from what I see is the Ele nerfs… whether they are enough to make us an option or not, we can at least lie and tell people they were for a couple weeks until people find out (I joke, but realistically we will be closer, but even a 10k nerf to staff’s potential damage will still have it a good 5k above us).
My pets remember their names? I can queue outside of the sPvP lobby? I am no longer pressured to only play staff DPS elementalist in PvE? Mesmer has support outside of alacrity? I no longer have to listen to 100 hour necromancers bragging about how easy PvE is for them? Tornado isn’t a self-inflicted moa bird anymore?
Overall great job
Quite sure staff DPS will still win out, if you didn’t see Air overcharge was nerfed so both DPS options on Ele took a hit, doubt D/W makes up much of a difference, that said there were always benefits to Dagger builds in cases of small hitbox, mobile enemy, or need of different utiliity.
Necro’s still going to be easy mode in most PVE, just not quite as much.
Heya…
I had high hopes for this patch to grant us something – anything that would make us strong enough to be a solid pick in raids. But what did we get? Nerfs … only nerfs instead. Most of them are because okittening PvP, like Shock shield and Medic Gyro and as always we have to bleed in all game modes. The only thing I look up to is the fire bomb buff. But that’s about it.
I’m going to say what all of us think: We are the hardest profession to play when it comes to the dps rota. We are forced to pick the best skills we have, keep them on cd, no time in our rota to rest, and what do we get in return?! Nothing but mediocre dps!
All I wanted for this patch was some sort of aura, or a small buff / debuff that would help us get at least one of us into each party without getting asked “uhh why do we have an Engi at ~not VG~” … We deserve better for what we are forced to do. This patch was a huge fail and as far as I read this:
We’re still continuing to evaluate the engineer and its scrapper specialization.
They don’t even know what they want to do with us. We just exist.
I woke up with great joy today – but what the patch brought us was nothing but pain.
No “Wahoo” this time guys …
Ziggy out ~
Don’t forget Poison Dart Volley buff! (where’s my rolling eyes emoji?).
For pvp is just bad and for pve is not so bad but still bad imo cause like i said u can take WAY BETTER, u dont need the might in pve cause the group is always stack with 25 stacks in raids and pve organize groups.
There is a raid forum and fractal forum and a www, if u need better understanding in such areas.
Lets just leave it at that.
Take blood is power and enjoy man if u like it good for u ,i just hope u dont get in my team in pvp
There’s a PVP area too…
And, just because some of us use it in raids where it will yield about 8 stacks of bleed and 2 of torment, doesn’t mean we’ll be dumb and bring it into the PVP realm where it’s simply not suited. Also the might is not bad for when you run 5X Condi Nec in fractals.
There’s so many neat and interesting enemies that get no love. Hoping we get some more of the historically themed fractals in the future featuring Largos, the Branded, the Steam creatures and Fleshreavers etc.
I’m guessing they’ll tie new fractals to the LS at least in some sense. I’m guessing this one will be tied to Rata Novus and why it’s themed the way it is.
I’m excited though, if we have to fight a boss on that death panel platform, ohh fun stuff, especially if the boss has a knockback of some sort
I’m also Na although I’m from new zealand, so the timezones make it hard. Not all is in vain though! During my next day off I’m sure I can help out.
Sign me up