Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
1) There was simply no reason for Level 500 Food and Jewelry. It was the presumption of the players that these crafts would go to 500.
“We’ll expand all crafting professions to allow them to reach a new milestone: 500 points!” (2013)
There’s also the Xunlai Ingot
From the same article:
“As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems.”
Changing your mind on doing something isn’t quite the same as not finishing it. For example we were going to put a shed in our back yard, but we decided on a gazebo instead.
They probably did some tests, and figured the time, energy and expense to level it wouldn’t be worth it, so they changed their minds about doing it.
When someone says “We are raising crafts to 500 but as we iterate they are subject to change” the reasonable assumption is that said systems already exist and are being modified and iterated upon, not that they are completely gutted (if there was anything to gut in the first place) and removed from the game.
Since we are comparing stuff.
Customer commissioned me to make a four legged table and I deliver them table with only two legs and I also brought bunch of books to be put in place of missing legs. Naturally customer is kittened. But then another guy who also bought it starts defending me and my two legged table telling my latest customer how he/she should be grateful for having any legs at all and that books are perfectly good substitute.
This is what’s happening right now.Interpreting such vague statements in a way you’re doing is a basically a blank check for never finishing anything and freedom from responsibility for not delivering listed stuff. The future posts like “Looking ahead” should, by that logic, probably contain only one sentence:
“Do not expect anything.”Sorry but saying that I’m going to deliver something that later changes to the game make not useful isn’t the same thing as what you’re saying.
They simply didn’t see how adding jewelry would improve the game in my opinion. I don’t think it would improve my game.
The ascended armor and weapons were mat sinks. There’s just no reason to believe most people would be interested in upping their jewelry crafting.
In Anet’s blog post about iteration they did say they sometimes scrap entire systems if they don’t end up being what they want to be.
And it’s not like tons of people love ascended crafting anyway.
They didn’t add the entire system and then remove it.
What value you place on the ascended crafting has nothing to do with this discussion.
They said they were going to do something and they didn’t do it. There is a special phrase to communicate that. It’s called breaking a promise.
Taking another sentence out of context in the same article doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility they put on themselves by their own words.
Here is what balanced expectations look like.
“We are looking into expanding all the crafting professions to 500, but a final decision has not been made yet. We may choose to drop some professions based on testing and user feedback.”
That is not this:
“We are going to expand all crafting professions to 500!”
That is always:
“We are going to expand all crafting professions to 500!”
It doesn’t matter if they said in another section that things are subject to change via testing. If that was contextually relevant to the above statement, then they should not have said…
“We are going to expand all crafting professions to 500!”
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
People like you need to stop going on about LW S1, you missed it, deal with it. Go read about it on wiki.
There was too much going on in open world that its simply too hard to even put it as a story, and after all, if they drop only 6 people who were working on legendaries, why in the world would they put 10-15 people to work on something that passed 2 years ago, it wouldnt bring any money and it would slow future content.
You cant just get in a game after few years and DEMAND you get what you missed.
Because it’s content that didn’t have to be removed in the first in a game with the fractal system that lets us relive events in the past, content is what this game badly needs and this already finished content hasn’t been played by a lot of the current player base?
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
TL;DR Based on the math they use, single target damage will almost always be Air > Fire > Blood except in extreme edge cases like two bunkers with low power, high armor, no multipliers hitting each other in the face with wet noodles
Blood doesn’t show up in the combat logs. It ignores armor, but it doesn’t benefit from passive damage multipliers. Blood is one of the few lifesteals that scales with power, but it’s only 7.5%. The heal is independent of the damage and scales to healing power like a normal heal. Not sure if it crits; I assuming no if the passive multipliers don’t influence it.
Flameblast uses the normal damage calculation, but it can’t crit. It also has a smaller coefficient of than the weapon skill version.
So with your power level, both do the following damage…
(Base 451 dmg at 80 + (Power * 0.075))
Blood : 642.625 dmg with the base 453 heal
(Weapon damage roll * Power * 0.565 / Armor)
Fire: 611.449 dmg (Average role on ascended staff against an opponent with 2597 armor)
That’s just simply theory crafting based off an average and doesn’t apply any post damage passive multipliers.
If you have enough multipliers (and thieves have a lot in their traits), Fire will do more damage, both AoE and single target and most likely even out if you are fighting players with high armor pushing 3300ish. Even just a single 15% multiplier pushes the above damage up to 703.166.
Sigil of Air will almost always do higher single target damage than both, because even though it uses the same damage calculations as Sigil of Fire and can’t crit, it’s coefficient is 1.1 (which is pretty insane). That’s why people run double air runes, Major and Superior, because even though Major has a shorter CD, the coefficient is the same and so high that it doesn’t really matter.
There is other things to consider with lifesteal like if you have low power to begin with, the healing element, the armor element, but the fact that it doesn’t benefit from passive damage multipliers is a pretty big deal.
(Note: The algorithm for calculating lifesteal damage isn’t published, so there could be some variable I am missing, but based on all the information I have, it should be correct or close to correct. It can’t just use the standard damage calculation with an armor of 0, because it would hit for 80k)
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
The problem I have with the build is that it’s just flat out annoying to play outside of 25+ fractals and raids and events like Triple Trouble.
The issue is it has very little spike damage, but out shines a power build in a prolonged fight, particularly against any champion, leg or boss with increased toughness. This is do to the ramp up time to build up the high condi stacks.
So like, my power build can just one shot trash on a critical with Vault, but it takes three times as long to kill trash with the condi build, because of the ramp up time needed to build stacks. In reverse, the condi build does better against champs, legs or bosses, because it has a large enough health pool for initiative, energy and cooldown times to start influencing your ability to sustain DPS with staff while providing ample time for the condi build to ramp up.
I think it also has more practical sustained DPS, beyond the theorycrafting calculations, because evasion is built directly into the two offensive tools it uses, so you aren’t taking a DPS loss when you have to evade defensively.
I like it. Whenever I do log into GW2, I usually play my thief and spend my crafting materials on working towards a Viper set.
But you still end up with this desire for a seperate power set for farming and open world.
If the build had some way to spike, it would be ideal for both.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
1) There was simply no reason for Level 500 Food and Jewelry. It was the presumption of the players that these crafts would go to 500.
“We’ll expand all crafting professions to allow them to reach a new milestone: 500 points!” (2013)
There’s also the Xunlai Ingot
From the same article:
“As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems.”
Changing your mind on doing something isn’t quite the same as not finishing it. For example we were going to put a shed in our back yard, but we decided on a gazebo instead.
They probably did some tests, and figured the time, energy and expense to level it wouldn’t be worth it, so they changed their minds about doing it.
You should sit down and have a one on one with your marketing team if the same article states “We are going to do this very exact thing!” and “We might not do that very exact thing if we test and decide it’s not a good idea to do it”
In my profession, I just usually wait until after I do the testing part before doing the telling part.
But, hey, why bother with that when you have a squadron of fanboy posters ready to prove, via their own unique interpretation of marketing material, that Anet has never promised nor failed to deliver anything ever, even the things they promised and never delivered?
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Being able to craft a Legendary consumable that has endless charges would be pretty cool.
It would wreck the lucrative consumable market that we all use to make mone….oh wait….
(For realism, it would have to be Legendary SPAM or Legendary Blue Cheese, since that kitten never goes bad)
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Though setting one up before a gate is breached in WvW is worth some giggles.
The giggles quickly end when you realize you put an utility slot on a 30 sec CD for really nothing.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
One thing I find wrong with this currently is that Thieves get 1 skill per weapon set that is available in stealth, not a whole new set of skills, and currently the best skill in stealth BA is weaker than the Thieves AA so there is almost no point in using it with the effort needed to set it up, through positioning. Granted if they fixed the issues with thief stealth and provided a reliable access to it say like your suggestion an f3 that requires ini use then yes it would be fine but as of currently it’s counterproductive to enter stealth as a thief in combat to use it offensively since most time you will inflict self reveal while attempting to enter stealth.
I think it’s a seperate issue and one related to power creep. It’s DPS loss also has to do with the time associating entering stealth to use it in the first place in PvE and it’s a sustained damage issue.
But as far as setting up a burst combo which is a mixture of high spike damage and cc abilities, Backstab still has its usages.
Like with a no initiative stealth ability that doesnt take up an utility slot, I could reasonably do…
Assassin’s Signet + Impairing Daggers + Start Auto Attack Chain + Steal into their backside, enabling Stealth (Backstab lands, daggers lands, target is immobilized) + Fists of Flurry + Palm Strike for stun + Full bar of initiative into heartseeker spam with 25% health bonus + New Stealth ability to retreat into stealth to recover initiative and begin using Heartseeker + Black Powder combo to stay in stealth while my abilities cycle.
Is that enough spike to kill everyone in the game? Probably not. Is that straight up power creep? Yes. Why? Because you can invest all your resources into going full burst, because the new stealth ability always leaves you with an out. You don’t neccessarily have to trade an utility slot into Blinding Powder or Shadow Refuge to give you an out or save your initative for a Heartseeker + Black Powder so you have an exit stragety.
That’s my only point. It’s just more power creep and we shouldn’t the broken state of the game as justification for adding more.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
The problem is that thieves have to waste a lot more resources than any other class to get into stealth, which will majority of the time not even work.
That’s kind of the point though and why I think an initiative cost would be needed on a stealth ability that was part of the class mechanics.
To enter stealth without spending initative, you have to invest in Shadow Arts to get stealth on steal or choose specific utility slots.
Entering stealth on demand with D/P consumes initiative and means you have less of an initative pool to use in a burst unless you are willing to wait to replenish the lost initiative.
So with that in mind, with the new ability and Shadow Arts for steal, you can use steal to enter stealth, have a full bar of initiative and all utility slots to devote to executing a burst combo, then use the new ability to retreat back into stealth defensively.
It would make D/P even stronger, because it still has on demand stealth access a thief can use to stealth abuse while waiting for steal and the new ability to cycle. Of course, they can use this same currently with cycling steal and blinding powder, but the key difference is you have to take blinding powder over a signet or physical skill that would increase the damage of your burst.
A stealth class mechanic that costs initative would just make the other weapon sets stronger, because it would be giving access to the biggest tactical advantage that D/P has.
But it’s ok for another class to have access to on demand stealth that provides damage as well as a shorter Cd than the closest equivalent Thief skill Blinding powder?
That class being one that is limited to cooldowns, doesn’t pool a resource it can use to do heavy burst and doesn’t have an alternative set of abilities that is enabled by entering stealth?
Then, yeah.
Not saying that mesmers don’t have balance issues or there isn’t some degree of offensive cheese associated with their stealth like building up clones without breaking stealth, but it’s primarily a defensive tool for them, not an offensive one like it is for us.
You can’t just say “Well, they have X, so therefore, it’s totally fine for us to have X, because we’re thieves and we should have it based on this idea of what thieves should or should not have”
Giving us an additional ability, seperate from weapon skills, utilities and traits that gave on demand stealth with no initative cost has a lot of impact on us.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Does anyone know if the upcoming patch is going to address the ascended weapon gear grind at all, months to make an item slightly better than an exotic i can buy to keep consistent with the latest content is pretty poor design?
Any idea if this is going to be addressed soon or ever?
If not is it smarter to just move on again?
Well, if it makes you feel better, due to how damage is calculated and weapon damage serving as the base number for exponential increase, the difference between an exotic and ascended weapon is actually pretty big with the damage difference being I think between 20-30%.
(But the armor still kind of sucks)
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…{W}ith that in mind ..It …is …the biggest tactical advantage…
Can I help you with something?
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
The problem is that thieves have to waste a lot more resources than any other class to get into stealth, which will majority of the time not even work.
That’s kind of the point though and why I think an initiative cost would be needed on a stealth ability that was part of the class mechanics.
To enter stealth without spending initative, you have to invest in Shadow Arts to get stealth on steal or choose specific utility slots.
Entering stealth on demand with D/P consumes initiative and means you have less of an initative pool to use in a burst unless you are willing to wait to replenish the lost initiative.
So with that in mind, with the new ability and Shadow Arts for steal, you can use steal to enter stealth, have a full bar of initiative and all utility slots to devote to executing a burst combo, then use the new ability to retreat back into stealth defensively.
It would make D/P even stronger, because it still has on demand stealth access a thief can use to stealth abuse while waiting for steal and the new ability to cycle. Of course, they can use this same currently with cycling steal and blinding powder, but the key difference is you have to take blinding powder over a signet or physical skill that would increase the damage of your burst.
A stealth class mechanic that costs initative would just make the other weapon sets stronger, because it would be giving access to the biggest tactical advantage that D/P has.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Thanks, guys. All of that is really interesting. I’m genuinely curious here, because I don’t really know and I thought the wiki sounded a little out of date and unsure of itself.
I only have one character, my elementalist, that runs a gear setup with toughness, so I don’t have much experience with it’s influence on aggro.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Yes, initial aggro is based on a combination of proximity, armor, and player-output damage as a means of splitting aggro. It’s why the taunt condition is frivolous (especially with break bars). I don’t recall a period where this wasn’t the case.
I ask and I leave it out, because the wiki for Aggro doesn’t include armor as part of the aggro calculation in the “Gaining and losing aggro” section.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro
It addresses the armor issue with this statement
“Some players have suggested the following factors might influence certain enemies, but this is not confirmed by any official source (and seems to be based on assumptions from other MMOs that go against the principles stated by Guild Wars 2 developers):
1. Top damage dealers [citation needed]
2. Who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor [citation needed]"
I wasn’t sure if this was current or just misinformed due to a lack of citations in the article.
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After the cancellation of legendary weapons, I would hold legendary armor and the fractal backpack in suspect until they come out.
It’s worth if you want to do high level fractals or WvW.
But for me, it’s more of question of what else am I going to spend all these crafting materials on?
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Is purely based on toughness or have you all noticed any difference in agro from different base armor values?
It makes me question the merits of running my soldiers setup now in instances with my elementalist
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In addition, a party member bringing a party-wide toughness buff (i.E Banner of Defense) will increase the aggro generated due to the fact that mobs are programmed to prioritize players with high toughness. So with the additional toughness plus the amount of damage you’re doing, it can pull aggro really fast and it will be harder to drop. There was a time when Warriors do a massive amount of DPS with GS while having the highest toughness — they were the ultimate tank because you can never pull aggro off of them. So yeah, toughness is bad for Thief in group scenario.
Just curious. Has this been established being true now outside of raids?
I know this is how it is in raids, but it’s been debated a lot how much this is the case in open world and dungeons.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Reikken’s numbers are correct by the way. They are close to what I got doing the math on paper yesterday with mine probably being more inaccurate do to the rounding I did.
I think the main difference is that both him and I give higher value to a gear setup that favors higher crit chance, because of it’s synergy with Invigorating Precision and the implications it has with No Quarter in maintaining self Fury and the DPS consequences that provides that arent in basic theorycrafting calculations.
Jana and Astrad don’t value that as high, because they get enough crit chance from external sources in their group setup to make that a non issue.
Both are valid. Like I said, I advocate my gear setup, because I solo a lot and I pug a lot with pretty much any group composition where group fury isnt always available.
The 4k HP also has a lot more value in HoT open world, because of how overtuned the mobs are. If I am fighting a Champion Arrowhead and I mess up and eat his cone attack, I survive that with a few hundred HP in my Maruader’s setup. I die instantly in a full glass setup. Their cone attack takes some practice to be able to dodge successfully everytime; you will eat some hits while you are learning.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
I think you should either play pre-HoT necromancer or be forced to wear all pink if you play a faceroll reaper.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Yes, but – I’ve been thief for too long to really say how I survive. Disengage engage is nice but the best for that is still stealth – and I’m mostly a stealth thief (OP isn’t). So, is it that easy to say “engage disengage” if the OP says he can’t get rid of aggro? Which implies that he’s already trying to disengage but for some reason can’t.
In most cases exotic is just as good as ascended – at least to test it. in fact I had 2 exotic gears when I was a noob – soldier’s for wvw and valk for pve. At some point I was comfortable enough to swap to my PvE gear for everything.
I think you got my point – this discussion is really nice but if I were the OP it wouldn’t help me at all.
I think its a bit more situational than what general advice can really handle and has to be learned by experience. Yeah, I went off topic, but I felt I provided a good bit of general advice. The rest is more specific to what issues he is having.
Like, let’s consider disengaging. Outside of raids, typically agro is a combination of proximity, recent damage done, rng and scripted overrides (ex. mobs seems to prioritize players reviving other players over others). The internal workings of all this aren’t published to my knowledge, so it ends up being learned based on trial and error
If you disengage in a direction that pulls the mob away from your teammates instead of walking him thru your teammates in the other direction, you are lessening their damage and their proximity to the mob, thus making it more likely for the mob to follow you.
If you open up really heavy and jump ahead on the damage table, changing distance isn’t always enough to immediately shake aggro, because even after you disengage, your teammates still have to catch up on the table for the proximity element to take priority. (This is how it SEEMS to work. Just how much top damage influences agro hasn’t been confirmed)
The proximity issue on pure ranged mobs seems to be different than melee. You have to disengage fully out of their range and not just outside of melee range to get them to reliably switch.
Stealth doesn’t seem to immediately break agro; instead, it seems to temporarily remove you from the table, shifting the focus of the target to other players, allowing them to climb higher in the threat tables so the target doesn’t switch back to you when revealed. If you stealth within melee range and immediately break with a backstab, the mob can immediately revert back to fighting you.
Beyond that, I don’t know. Other common mistakes I see players make that aren’t specific to a certain boss
- Attempting to use blind to avoid a flurry based attack.
- Burning a dodge on boss mechanics with enough telegraphing to be avoided by just repositioning or a low initiative movement skill.
- Burning too many dodges to evade normal attacks instead of blinding them, leading them to not have enough energy to escape a heavier AoE mechanic.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Nah I’d say give Theives an F3 stealth skill. It’s ridiculous how the masters of stealth don’t even have this as a profession skill. It’s like having an Ele only being able to use fire attunement and having to slot air, water and earth for their utility skills. Same with engi, imagine if all those F# skills were utility skills? Say goodbye to super speed and elixirs. It’s pathetic how I have to waste a utility slot for a 3s stealth on a 40s CD while DH gets an F1 pull/cc skill and an F2 healing skill like wtf? Heck, even Mesmers!!!! Imagine if shatters weren’t on F# keys and had to be slotted into a utility slot!!!! This game is a joke.
Edit: lol guess I went on a little rant
I would be all right with that if using it consumes initiative. It would make staff a lot better, since stealth access to use the knockdown followed by burst is one of it’s biggest weakness.
But if it didn’t cost initiative, I could see it having a number of implications that won’t be good.
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Players are NOT the peers of the dev team.
Well stop the press we have breaking news!
On other topics;
Water… wet.
Lawrence Fishburne? Is that you? You play GW2?!
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None of them if you are backline. Not even Ice Bow, because you can’t move during Ice Storm animation and you can’t break it early like Meteor Shower.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
What else would they temporarily release to soothe things over after a controversial decision to stop development on an anticipated feature?
They would need to make SAB 2.0 with Quaggans.
Actually, that would make for a good addition to it next year. A way to pay a few baubles to get transformed inside of the SAB. They can’t allow tonics, too many of them wouldn’t work right for SAB stuff, but they could do this to allow a few that would or have been fixed to work.
As for it being a yearly festival, I would love to say that they’ve laid it out in black and white, and that I trust them to hold to that. But… yeah. That trust needs to be re-earned. I’m, at best, hopeful.
I am still waiting on that yearly fractal release
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What else would they temporarily release to soothe things over after a controversial decision to stop development on an anticipated feature?
They would need to make SAB 2.0 with Quaggans.
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It’s rough in the mushroom jumping puzzle in TD as well. I got locked in a cycle of engaging my glider during a long jump to a mushroom cap, which than soared me over the mushroom before my disengage command took hold.
It’s not fun looking like an idiot as you deploy your glider, soar two feet over the same mushroom cap and drop to the floor 5 times in a row before you get the long press pressure right to make the jump without engaging the glider.
The struggle was real.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
I’m not following the statement of diminishing returns on power. It has effective exponential scaling with critical damage and stacked modifiers; quite the opposite of diminishing returns. Ferocity is the first stat to start experiencing DR if it makes sacrifices to power and toughness reaches certain thresholds.
The great debate over zerk/marauder is fairly context-sensitive and depends heavily on group composition and on a per-encounter basis. Fights with forced dodge roll tempo (think Subject Alpha in CoE) will always favor berserker getups, as the Marauder counterpart still dies if not making the DPS sacrifice of dodging, however ones which enable the player to take more sustained hits offset by a healer will favor marauder (and potentially a valkyrie/zerk mix even) to full berserker.
It’s a mistake and I will edit it out. I was really tired when I wrote that and it really doesn’t have anything to do with anything we are talking about. The DR issue only comes into play when making decisions on whether or not you take more power at the expense of post damage calculation increases, which isn’t a subject we have touched on at all.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Actually I just realised:
Ascended berserker helmet: 63p, 45pr, 45f
Base power + 6.3%
Crit chance + 2.1%
Crit damage + 3%
Ascended marauder helmet: 54p, 30v, 54pc, 30f
Base power + 5.4%
Crit chance + 2.6%
Crit damage + 2%
Exotic berserker helmet: 60p, 43pr, 43f
Base power + 6%
Crit chance + 2.1%
Crit damage + 2,9%
(Taken from gw2skills.net)
(Let me know if I did a fatal error in the calculation, that happened before)So theoretically marauder deals less damage than exotic zerker. Still dont say its effectively worse, but I have to reverse my statement that the damage loss wont be noticeable.
It’s not wrong. Bersekers does more on paper. Following my previous post, full zerkers nets you a 2450 damage fireball on average over my setup which is 2100.
But in the context of thief, the theorycrafting doesn’t factor in the chance to drop fury if self maintained due to less than max critical strike (Not an issue in groups).
It also doesn’t factor into practical DPS, because the additional vitality will net you longer sustained damage before you are forced to disengage due to HP loss, thus bringing them to be about equal.
Once again, I am not trying to contend that my setup does more on paper than Zerkers; it doesn’t. I’m saying that in practice, in a group, they both will even out. Going solo, mine is better, because you can’t exploit AI to shift agro to another mob and the vitality ties directly to how much damage you can keep up before you have to disengage and kite to cycle CDs.
Why I think Marauder’s is awesome is that it gives higher total stats that you can min max to get a substantial HP increase for a marginal damage loss. And if Anet keeps up the same design philosophy in HoT of realeasing overtuned mobs to “increase difficulty”, then that extra 4k means not getting one shotted.
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(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
I wouldnt say you need no quarter for fury uptime tho. You can have ~80% uptime with thrill of the crime and that one CS minor trait. one more source and you are good.
But if marauder can spare IP which I need on zerker, it might work better.
But keep in mind with this, you have to drop Deadly Arts to get Thrill of the Crime in Trickey, leading you to a CS/Trick/DD setup instead of CS/DA/DD.
This has implications in terms of your damage, because Trickery provides mostly utility traits and only one damage multiplier that’s dynamic to your initative amount. Deadly Arts provides two, both which are higher than the average damage bonus from the Trickery multiplier.
This is important, because they stack multiplicatively, so here is the math for the total multiplier used post critical in both setups under different conditions.
DA/CS/DD
1.81 (Full health, Target Above 50% after Bounding Dodger usage)
1.97 (Full health, Target Below 50% after Bounding Dodger usage)
Trick/CS/DD
1.76 (Full health, Target Above 50% after Bounding Dodger usage with half initiative (7))
1.60 (Full health, Target Below 50% after Bounding Dodger usage with half initiative (7))
You lose 5% average extra damage when attacking above 50% using Trick and 37% extra damage when attacking below 50% (CS dmg multiplier is lost and no damage multipler in DA to take it’s place)
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
The problem with Marauder is that it has too much wasted stats allocated to Prec, when crit chance is so easy to get from somewhere else. If you want Vitality without sacrificing too much DPS, you’re better of with a Valkyrie than with a Marauder.
I agree. In a perfect world where you somehow acquired all Ascended Marauders weapons, armor and trinkets (don’t think that’s possible at the moment), you would exceed the 75% soft limit for a basic CS build.
However, if you min max using Valkyries, the con is that the stat total is less (168 total stats on a Marauder’s helm vs 153 total stats on a Valkyrie helm). You ultimately lose out on some value, though somewhat marginal.
The other issue is that a full set of Berzerkers with Assassin’s signet and Maintenance oil falls short of that soft limit by 7%, so trading out Valkyries penalizes your critical strike for more vitality.
So with all that in consideration, if you theorycraft a setup that supplements Valkyries for Berserkers to get the same HP increase that the setup of Assassin’s, Berserkers and Marauders, I advocate, you end up with the exact same average damage.
Like the numbers for a Fireball (I only have elementalist’s coefficents memorized) is 2099 with the Valkyries and my set is 2100. (I will explain the math for that if you want).
The difference, however, is the Valkyries set has 25% less critical strike, which implications when keeping up Fury by yourself using No Quarter, which is the whole reason I use my setup over Valkyries, because the basic theorycrafting calculations don’t take that into account.
Now, if you are in a group and have fury from external sources, none of this matters.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
sigil (facepalm) my bad. Signet of agility. ^^
Oh okay. But keep in mind, that 75% I talk about shooting for from gear assumes you are taking signet of agility and maintenance oil as staple; that bonus is factored in as part of the 75%.
The TL;DR here is that I am not suggesting Marauders is the end all be all of gearing now, but if you used correctly, it can net certain valuable advantages.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
You have to be realistic here: You can maintain a 100% critchance with full zerker due to the fact, that a min-maxed party composition gives you a banner of discipline.
And sigil of accuracy, since in a perfect world you dont need that utility slot for anything else.
So again: The actual damage is almost the same, it should not matter at all, even for raids. And with imperfect boons marauder might even be better.
But In the end zerker deals higher damage (not saying its better, but if you want true maximization, you have to go with zerker)
The 4000 health are undoubtly helpful, but you can do without it.
I guess in the end its mostly a matter of personal taste, but somehow zerker feels…right on a thief.
In my mind thieves should still be the ultimate glass cannons.
Well, you lose a lot for sigil of accuracy. Thats an increase to a chance for a single multiplier where as sigil of force is a seperate multiplier that applies on top of all the other multipliers from the passive trait line or sigil of air which is an additional attack that acquires all the bonuses from your crit multiplier and passive multipiers.
But, yes, if you have a dedicated group that can consistently provide fury uptime and those additional party bonuses, then I would say you are correct.
But if you are pugging, I still advocate for gearing for 75% as your goal (5% from the minor trait, 20% from fury).
In a scenario where you have to provide fury for yourself, the Critical Strike trait line is like an engine that you have to keep feeding crits. To maintain 100% Fury uptime independent of any external help, you have to score a crit within a 2 second window that appears every 2 seconds.
With this in mind, losing crit chance below a 100% isn’t just a loss of a chance to score a crit, but a increase in a chance to lose an additional 20% crit chance in addition to what you already lose. That kind of penalty is difficult to theorycraft.
So, look, when you get to min maxing on this kind of level, you start to deal with margins and differences that require you to make judgement calls. Full berserkers vs the setup I have has pros and cons that shouldn’t be dismissed.
But from the perspective of maintaining consistently high DPS, regardless of external influence and help, I believe the setup I have achieves that while providing more survivability.
You need to weight that in terms of how you play and who you play with regularly, as that may not be valuable to you.
I do a lot of soloing of elite and greater bosses, so this setup has a lot of value to me.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Didnt doubt that. But ive had discussions with people who said they had more damage with marauder…
Im fine running with zerker, but I can perfectly understand those who are not.
No, I would say realistically they are on par, but only if you min max the crit chance with a mixture of Assassin’s and Zerkers and only if you run it with a CS build where you are getting bonus ferocity from your precision investment.
Using a mixture of Marauders, Assassins and Zerkers is objectively better, because it nets you 4000 extra HP, max crit chance and equal DPS in practice, not on paper. If you were to try and min max your crit chance with just Zerkers and Assassins, you end up with mostly Assassins due to the greater discrepancy between the amount of precision each item gives you.
Now, if you didn’t use Marauders to min max and just ran a full suit, you would get different results that are less desirable.
Zerkers is also a cheaper investment. That’s worth noting.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
Thanks for the reply, MadRabbit. Always informative stuff. And yeah, I’ve been pretty much using weakening strikes only and save vault to disengage or engage in high level fractals. I’m gonna try p/p instead of SB just when I have no choice but to range. Right now I’m all slots ascended with marauders armor and rest zerker. Went with marauders just to get used to Daredevil and then will eventually switch.
Nah. Marauders is awesome. It gives higher stat total than Zerkers and more precision. If you min max correctly, it’s better than a full set of Zerkers.
Like if you do Power and Ferocity food, Maintenance Oil , Assassin Weapons, Maruaders Armor, Marauders Amulet and the remaining trinkets as Zerkers, the difference between that and full ascended Berserkers is roughly like…
-100 power
+12% more crit
+4% more crit damage
+4000 HP
In a Critical Strike build, that puts you at 76% crit chance from food and gear, 5% from the 90%+ HP trait bonus and 20% from fury, maxing you out at 101%.
The power loss is marginal due to diminishing returns, so you get a trade off in your favor and 4k extra HP on top of that.
And only reason to run Shortbow with Staff is for the Blast Finisher for stealth stacking. Just keep it in your bag and use Vault for mobility. The damage off Unload in P/P isn’t as good as Staff, but it trivializes a lot of fights like Mai Trin due to the high bleed stacks she builds in melee range, being blind immune and the other condis she applies getting priority in condi removal.
You also need it for stuff like Tentacles in Jade Boss Fractal, Ice Elemental in Molten Furnance and when Molten Berserker moves into the shockwaves during phase 2 of Molten Boss. Other stuff like Mossman is easier for ranged, but not neccessary if you are good with the blinds and watching his telegraphs.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
For the most part, in a DD/CS/DA builds in groups, you can use Channeled Vigor and be fine.
AI isn’t that smart; disengaging is often enough to get them to switch targets. If they stick to me, I usually switch to P/P and spam unload while kiting to keep damage up until they switch.
If you have a Revenant in your party or another class providing high group fury time, then yeah, take Invigorating Precision. The main reason for No Quarter is the 100% Fury uptime; the additional ferocity it adds is an additive bonus, so it’s the least impactful trait to drop.
If you run staff, use Dust Strike on stuff on non-bosses. Your auto attacks are strong enough to keep high damage up while relying on this skill to avoid damage. On bosses, you can rely heavily on your auto attacks as well and save Vaults as extra evades.
Most Daredevils I see who down more than me (and that’s usually only 1 or 2 a run if any) just spam Vault too much instead of using it more defensively or spam Weakening Strikes. Weakening Strikes is a DPS increase over the auto attacks, but not enough that you still can’t contribute with auto attacks while pooling your initiative to use defensively. A number of boss mechanics have high telegraphing and can be just avoided by using a Weakening Strikes to reposition to his backside.
Using both my endurance pool and initiative bar defensively with staff is where most of my survival is with a glass build. With that in mind, I prefer Unhindered Combatant over Bounding Dodger. It’s a much more responsive and fluid dodge and the swiftness uptime makes disengaging easier.
Beyond that, you can alter your build to take more survivability, but you basically trade off damage multipliers to gain that and since they stack multiplicatively post crit, it amounts to a large damage loss. I am more willing to do that in higher fractals, to some extent.
If you are going solo and going after big game like elites/champions/bosses, you can’t use a pure damage based build. There is no other people in the fight to use to exploit the AI and the health pool is too high to burst down before they kill you. There is no second place award for dying with the mob at 25% over 75%, so that’s why I run and advocate CS/Acro/DD.
Run that until you get better if you need to. It will net your group more value in damage if you are downing a lot with a glass build.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
Just not a reason to take it in PvE, even if you are soloing Champions, particularly when it comes out to trading out Trickery for Critical Strikes, since if you gear correctly, you can maintain 100% crit chance solo with the fury uptime it provides.
Most champions and elites can be defeated with a combination of dodges and blinds from staff with just all the endurance regen built into Acro and DD to begin with. It’s only on very specific ones like Champion Bladedancers and Shadowleapers, because they have unshakeable which reduces their blind chance and they are capable of putting out more constant, damage pressure than any other standard champ in HoT.
Like Channeled Vigor is a hell of a heal and with Bandit’s Tenacity, it’s worth two extra dodges, all on a 16 second cd. You run Trickery to get a CD reduction on Withdrawal, which is a weaker heal and one extra dodge on a 14.5 CD. The projectile reflect on Dagger Storm is situationally useful to a small percentage of PvE champions; in all other situations, it pales in comparison to Impact Strike that shatters 2/3s of an unscaled champions break bar for half the CD. Same with Smoke Screen and the blind on it is overkill with having them build into the staff.
So what do you get out on Trickery, really? Big DPS loss for CD reduction on skill choices that are subpar in PvE, more initative, some irrelevant buffs on steal and a daze on steal that barely puts a dent in a break bar.
You also built the whole thing around evades and didn’t take Escapist Absolution for condi removal on evade with a 1 sec ICD, which is incredible in just the Acro/DD/CS build I run as a staple for soling.
(I am going to probably start running your food choice though in my Acro build. I forgot that exists and the +40% endurance rate is more valuable to me than the power based food I am using that suffers heavily from diminishing returns at my current power level)
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
I think more than 40% of the overall utility skills should matter
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Just fix WvW, add more fractals and bring back Living World and I’ll play the game again.
All the same kitten that’s been in this game forever…
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
If valuable loot were to drop more frequently for you, it would in all likelihood have to drop more frequently in general. Such drops would then stop being quite so valuable.
We should remove loot all together, because it’ll eventually lose value.
0.o.
It’s a pretty lame criticism, because other more loot RPGs manage to achieve a higher balance between making the character feel rewarded from loot drops with the inevitability of characters grinding out the system.
But, that balance doesn’t even come close to existing in GW2. They have had the right item at some points with the introduction of standalone armor and weapons.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_named_weapons
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_standalone_armor
But the items on this list are mostly acquired via…
- Gem Store (biggest culprit of them all)
- Previous Living World Seasons (N/A)
- Festival Events (N/A)
- Material Intense Crafting Recipes
- Mystic Forge Recipes (Either Material Intensive or Mystic Coin Intensive)
The remainder that do actually drop are isolated to specific areas and with a very, very very low drop chance. They aren’t part of the universal loot tables.
Just because the game has horizontal progression doesn’t mean that it can’t have rewarding loot. Unique named items and armor with an unique skin can be perceived as valuable for applying an unique look to your character. The cosmetic aspect of the game has always been cited as GW2’s reward system.
However, the aspect that they base their rewards on is also the aspect that they make money on, which is why the ratio of cosmetic skins being produced for the gem store exceeds what is produced in the game.
And loot is in a current state where it’s a bunch of garbage that piles up in your bags to salvage for crafting materials. Crafting materials, mind you, that now lack a lot of value, since they are no longer supporting legendary weapons.
The sad thing is they don’t have to make a ton of new skins if they wanted to overhaul the loot system. They already have a ton of available options in the lists in the two links I have provided that players just don’t get, because of how they have to be acquired.
If you took all the current named weapons and all the old unique armor items from the old Living Season rewards, repurposed them to drop universally, made them account bound so the skins cant be acquired off the trading post and altered their drop rates so it was probable for a player with average magic find to get one once every 3-4 days, you would add an element of looting of “Ahh, that’s cool” that wouldn’t be exhausted quickly just due to the volume of items that already exist.
So many cool weapon skins on that list that either have incredibly low drop rates and are targeted to very specific chests or bags or cost something like 50 mystic coins and 250 of a T6 material to make (which they aren’t that cool to spend that amount on).
Wasted potential.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
Thief is a selfish class, so saying they’re selfish running staff over SB isn’t saying much. And not everyone wants to decap all match and wants something with more offensive potential, so they may choose staff. If they’re not on the ground and are contributing, then who are you to say that they would do better with SB or not? They may be able to get a crucial down because they had the better damage from staff, etc. If if works, it works, and I would rather not force SB any more than some people would d/p.
^ this.
Even without SB a thief still has a few unique assets (however few they may be) that a very good thief can exploit, such as steal and mobility. Vault still allows for decent mobility. D/P allows for single target pressure and chase, picking off easy targets or stragglers. The way it plays can allow for a valuable asset, granted the thief is good enough. Then you have impact strike, which combo’d with acro and staff can actually make you a formidable teamfighter (cant count how many times my team has won mid by me having acro proc and using impact strike, whether that be just on the single downed or interrupting two rezzers then stomping the downed).
I’m confused did you mean you are playing with Acrobatics? And if so what proc in Acrobatics turns the tide in a XvX fight at mid? I’m not a thief so I’m very confused if you are meaning something else because the only thing I can think of is Instant Reflexes.
Thanks
Yes, Instant Reflexes. Getting the evade stomp can really sway a team fight.
As for a thief being auto 4v5, I would say that’s a bit harsh. Maybe a bad thief. The difference with thief to other classes is that a bad player on another class, like rev, can still carry teamfights. Thief has to be really good to get results, but when you do very well on thief, it’s really outstanding to see.
Thief isn’t in the best spot right now, but it’s doable. You just have to get good thieves on your team, but sadly most aren’t. If you can, find a thief in a good pvp guild. The rest of the decent thieves are all dueling heroes and don’t usually queue, so that’s why it’s hard to find good thieves in Q’s.
Uhh so what do you use for condi clear……b/c 2 secs of evasion every 40 secs isn’t that great
Escapist’s Absolution. Trickery only works if you run a lot of tricks and Shadow Art’s interval is limiting. I think Escapist’s Absolution has the highest potential out of all of them to remove the most condis, because of it’s 1 second ICD. It can trigger twice during the evasion proc and Acro + DD gives you an abundance of energy to use for dodges. It also triggers off the evades built into Vault.
But it’s still a trade off, because you can’t manually trigger it like the other options. You have to successfully evade.
And you still have Shadowstep as a manual condi clear option.
I absolutely love Acrobatics, but I don’t play much pvp, so its difficult for me to make a solid case for it. But, at minimum, I think people underrate it’s value more than it should be.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
It was actually the most amazing April Fools day prank ever.
First communication from Anet in a year that actually communicated they aren’t out of touch with the problems of their game.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
In PvE, if you are fighting a boss mob with a large hit box that isnt moving or focusing you for damage, than weakening strikes is higher DPS than vault or AA without quickness, since you can reliably hit all three hits.
On the other hand, in an AoE situation, Weakening Strikes only does more damage if the mobs are lined up, which is very situational, thus making Vault more reliable against groups.
Beyond that, it’s situational. In PvE, my usage of the skills changes based on what type of mob I am fighting, how quickly I can burst them down and how much I can rely on dodges or standard movement to avoid their damage.
Like, let’s look at frogs and take an elite Crusher, for example. They have big, slow attacks that can be avoided by just doing a Weakening Strikes into them, so you end up on their backside. The telegraphing on their swings is that high. So for those fights, I mostly just AA and then save initiative to Weakening Strikes right before they swing. Easiest fight in HoT for a Daredevil with staff; you don’t have to even dodge to win.
Now, an elite Shadowleaper, that’s a different story, because they are arguably the most overtuned mobs in the game next to Bladedancers. They have too much HP to burst down by dumping your initiative and they have too much constant, high damage pressure to outlast on just endurance alone. To win, you have to use a combination of Dust Strike and dodges to avoid their standard attacks (which with an elite will knock you down to 25% HP with Marauders gear) and keep either one Vault or one dodge in the tank for their backflip attack. Backflip attack is a flurry of shots, so blind only works on the first shot and it will down you if you don’t evade most of the shots.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
as for acrobatics, i dunno why people even use it, its like the new SA “training wheels” with that passive evade and anti stun, much better going either CS or DA since the whole point of thief is burst and or mobilty.
Because it’s pretty awesome and synergies a lot better with DD than DA synergies with staff.
You get value from DA in terms of Executioner and Exposed Weakness for more damage, but the other traits are awkward. Revealed Power, for example, doesn’t do much for you in staff, because you can’t enter stealth consistently like you can with D/P or D/D.
However, the synergy between DD and Acro is really strong. Instant Reflexes, Feline Grace, Upper Hand, Escapist’s Absolution and Driven Fortitude all synerize really well. This leaves you free to take CS for pure offensive ability. Expeditous Dodger is nice, too, because it increases your swiftness uptime to 14 secs per dodge with Unhindered Combatant. Your endurance generation is also very high due to vigor from Acro in addition to endurance on steal, endurance on initative if you want to lose the condi removal for Staff Master and endurance on physical skill usage if you take Brawler’s Tenacity.
Calling it training wheels is a bit of a harsh judgement, since you have to successfully evade attacks to cure condis, get vigor and regen, restore initative and heal.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
Vault gives you the same distance in mobility for less initiative, but the animation is a hell of a lot more clunky.
Given that, it’s hard to take SB for your utility weapon over P/P or D/P.
D/P gives you constant access to stealth which you don’t have with staff. You can also combo the smoke field with Vault or Bound. You also get two cheap gap closers and a ranged hard CC; staff doesn’t have any hard CC unless you are in stealth.
P/P isn’t as useful for PvP, but in PvE, it gives you strong ranged single target burst which you are badly lacking with a staff build.
I keep a shortbow in my bag for the blast finisher, but with staff, I just don’t see much value in pairing it with SB.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
After the 3300th ranger with a bearbow pointlessly knocking back a target, you stop being so cordial.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
How is this even a question?
Our daily lvl 2 swamp fractals runs are most IMPORTANT AND SERIOUS THING IN THE ENTIRE GAME! I mean, it’s really impossible to actually fail one of these as long as you can dodge out of some orange circles and autoattack, but I’ve done the math and the existence of your upleveled character in our group with the stat loss from your non-ascended armor adds exactly 4.37 extra seconds to run.
That’s COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE! That’s 4.37 extra seconds you are keeping me away from obtaining the purely cosmetic item that hasn’t even been released yet and will one day clearly demonstrate how superior I am, because of my ability to do lvl 2 swamp runs over and over again with 4.37 seconds better efficiency!
It’s like you are STEALING from me! Why would you STEAL from me? WHY WOULD YOU DARE TO JOIN MY GROUP AND STEAL FROM ME? DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME YOU PLAY FOR FUN IN A TOTALLY CASUAL ENVIRONMENT WITH NO CHALLENGE THAT REQUIRES ME TO USE SOME ARBITRARY METRIC LIKE TIME PER RUN TO ESTABLISH HOW MUCH BETTER I AM THAN YOU?
I wish public PKing was a thing in this game so I can punch every upleveled noob DEAD IN THE GODkitten FACE WHEN THEY TRY TO STEAL FROM ME!
1/10 tried too hard.
0/10 didn’t try at all.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
How is this even a question?
Our daily lvl 2 swamp fractals runs are most IMPORTANT AND SERIOUS THING IN THE ENTIRE GAME! I mean, it’s really impossible to actually fail one of these as long as you can dodge out of some orange circles and autoattack, but I’ve done the math and the existence of your upleveled character in our group with the stat loss from your non-ascended armor adds exactly 4.37 extra seconds to run.
That’s COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE! That’s 4.37 extra seconds you are keeping me away from obtaining the purely cosmetic item that hasn’t even been released yet and will one day clearly demonstrate how superior I am, because of my ability to do lvl 2 swamp runs over and over again with 4.37 seconds better efficiency!
It’s like you are STEALING from me! Why would you STEAL from me? WHY WOULD YOU DARE TO JOIN MY GROUP AND STEAL FROM ME? DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME YOU PLAY FOR FUN IN A TOTALLY CASUAL ENVIRONMENT WITH NO CHALLENGE THAT REQUIRES ME TO USE SOME ARBITRARY METRIC LIKE TIME PER RUN TO ESTABLISH HOW MUCH BETTER I AM THAN YOU?
I wish public PKing was a thing in this game so I can punch every upleveled noob DEAD IN THE GODkitten FACE WHEN THEY TRY TO STEAL FROM ME!
Doubtful it’s that low. Do you have the math that you can share?
No, I’m being satirical and don’t feel the need to share math anymore than you, who posted reasoning largely based on perception of uplevels.
There is clear downsides, but I could really care less if uplevels are in a casual fractal run, because as long as they high enough to have masterwork quality gear and some rares, it’s not a huge deal in the outcome.
The upscaling issue stopped being as bad as it was when stat points stopped being built into your trait choices. It still has very clear downsides, but they are just mostly due to the issue of gear. Leveling characters don’t have much besides masterwork and a few rares, which doesn’t upscale to be adequate to a level 80.
That issue makes this issue very variable with extreme ends of a large spectrum. You can make a reference to a lvl 10 and say upleveling is bad, but we’re talking about a character who most likely has purely blue items with one or two stat bonuses per item and sigil and rune choices not relevant to their build. There is nothing there to scale up.
That’s very different to a lvl 40-60 character who has masterwork and rare items with three stat bonuses and hopefully invested into a few silver into major rune and sigil choices relevant to their build. The quality of your weapon is probably the biggest influence and having a rare one makes a big difference, because it determines what weapon damage range you will get scaled up to at 80. That’s the base number all multipliers and the armor divisor are applied to, so an uplevel with a blue is at much, much bigger disadvantage.
Another issue is traits and utility skills, which do influence a character’s effectiveness, but that’s a class and build issue. At 45-60 range, you are maxxing out your second specialization line and since most classes only have two heavily damage focused specializations to begin, it’s much less of an issue than a level 10.
Utility skills are also class specific as well. Like my current end game daredevil build, mostly uses utility skills for survival and breaking bars; all the dps comes from weapon attacks and the Critical Strike trait line, all of which I would have available to me at the level 40ish area.
So like…when it comes to running casual fractals, I don’t give a kitten very much about up levels. It doesn’t influence the success of the event and I notice really marginal change in the completion of the fractals, because let’s be honest: if you are pugging casual level fractals, more times than not you are carrying a level 80 with a kittenty build or who is too busy chatting with his friends to be more effective than uplevel.
Now, fractals where AR starts to matter or a very low level character who doesn’t have the gear for the system to scale up…that’s different. But I tend to handle that more one on one privately before removing someone.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
(edited by MadRabbit.3179)
How is this even a question?
Our daily lvl 2 swamp fractals runs are most IMPORTANT AND SERIOUS THING IN THE ENTIRE GAME! I mean, it’s really impossible to actually fail one of these as long as you can dodge out of some orange circles and autoattack, but I’ve done the math and the existence of your upleveled character in our group with the stat loss from your non-ascended armor adds exactly 4.37 extra seconds to run.
That’s COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE! That’s 4.37 extra seconds you are keeping me away from obtaining the purely cosmetic item that hasn’t even been released yet and will one day clearly demonstrate how superior I am, because of my ability to do lvl 2 swamp runs over and over again with 4.37 seconds better efficiency!
It’s like you are STEALING from me! Why would you STEAL from me? WHY WOULD YOU DARE TO JOIN MY GROUP AND STEAL FROM ME? DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME YOU PLAY FOR FUN IN A TOTALLY CASUAL ENVIRONMENT WITH NO CHALLENGE THAT REQUIRES ME TO USE SOME ARBITRARY METRIC LIKE TIME PER RUN TO ESTABLISH HOW MUCH BETTER I AM THAN YOU?
I wish public PKing was a thing in this game so I can punch every upleveled noob DEAD IN THE GODkitten FACE WHEN THEY TRY TO STEAL FROM ME!
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.
1. Do something to bring back some sense of world identity outside of WvW. Megaserver killed all that.
2. Actual rewards that are comparable to other game modes. Playing WvW is a net loss to your income. You don’t generate enough rewards to replenish consumables or work on ascended gear (which has the value in WvW due to the downleveling issues with it in the PvE world)
3. Some way to actually progress the guild upgrades in WvW and not PvE.
4. Reduced map size of borderlands which killed a lot of it for me.
5. Some actual support for GvG in WvW, so it’s not isolated and private to the arenas in guild halls. The introduction of the arenas and the enjoyment loss from the new maps turned my old WvW guild into a GvG guild. I didn’t have any interest in just fighting over guilds in a private arena for no rewards, so I left.
Rehabilitated Elementalist. Now, trolling the Thief forums with my math.