Guild Wars 2

If you’re solo-queuing, being a support is often a liability because you can’t rely on your teammates to do x or y. More self-reliant specs that can complete objectives on their own better are often a tactical advantage.

I thought they were going to turn off matchmaking for an hour when the patch hit to allow for a grace period. But now ranked play has been turned off for a week. What gives? When are we getting it back? Dragging out my Year of the Ascension even more

spoj.9672:

They nerfed scorched earth. But condi warrior overall is still strong.

I’m not an expert but I believe the alacrity nerf also adversely affects their DPS (as in, they were more dependent on the alacrity than some other classes) But yes, they should still be viable.

Aktium.9506:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Now to just find raids allowing viper necro.

Shouldn’t be a problem. As long as there’s at least one Chrono and a Druid in the raid group you can get Jagged Horrors to carry you to solid 30k bleed ticks

I love this but hate that it bugs Sabetha’s flak shot when there are too many minions

The lowered ICD on chilling darkness I saw requested often, actually. 5 seconds was a little pointless, considering the small handful of blinds we have are often pulsing.

Salamander.2504:

Dead.5829:

Salamander.2504:

So whats the point of spiteful spirit now if weakening shroud does it all better?

Dagger 5 is now a ground-targeted boon corrupt…whats the point of axe 3 now?

Different traitline, different mainhand, doubling up on entering-shroud effects. Plus, Spiteful was buffed with this.

Wasn’t just the ICD removed?

Yes, that’s a big buff. It played terribly with shroud before, you could not rely on it.

Regarding Dark Pact, I think there’s plenty of room for hybrid builds to run dagger and scepter or staff, especially with the new amulets.

As mentioned, it will be curious to see how prevalent boons are without rune of durability in the mix, but I think it’s going to be a fun time, I think we will finally have tools to be very hardcore boon and condi manipulation. (yes it’s been a strong theme of the class, but this is a massive increase in our boon corruption)

Yes, I tried to take some on crit traits/sigils to make the best out of the options I had for amulets, but as a result my 2v2 and 2v1 is pretty abysmal, however 1v1 and 1v2’s are quite good as well as larger teamfights by being able to chain CC targets into oblivion.

Now that it looks like the entire pvp landscape is changing I might need to rethink the whole thing since bunker’s will probably be much less prevalent and player will hurt a lot more.

He’s referring to boon corruption causing those effects (i.e. corrupting stability = fear), though his numbers are only somewhat true if boons corrupted by scepter benefit from the +50% condition duration trait.

I think bunker’s will still have a place and still be very potent, but we won’t have people slapping each other pointlessly for 3/4s of a match, essentially making it a 4v4 with only 2 points. But too many bunks will definitely be a liability as it should be.

Rune of Durability being removed excites me a lot, the amount of free boons it gave out was excessive, and provided a lot of “cover” for other boons when talking about removal.

As a necro main, I’m excited for boon removal becoming more potent as a class theme, and making them more about consistent boon removal is a good reflection on the state of the game, how many classes have procs for more boons now.

I think Mercenary’s amulet is going to be very scary, offering a great proportion of damage and survivability.

I’m noticing more folks returning to dungeons a bit, there’s still some money to be made. I want to see more token based recipes, that would do a lot for them.

The rune of durability being removed from PvP should make boons more manageable and offers less boon protection from stripping by reducing the number of boons available at all times.

Necromantic Corruption
Shrouded Removal
Sigil of Generosity come to mind as things that could handle self-conditions on a 10 sec cd. Not saying any of these are meta but to say “not a single transfer skill” is incorrect. I guess shrouded removal is just negation, not transfer, though.

What’s the scepter change? I see another thread says boon corrupt but when in the chain?

I’ve been tweaking the build more and added a new favorite variant at the top of the post:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBdZhlcBuoCsehlKjK86KmuScZCgwjutj77G-TJBJABddBAGuMAAPAAu3fAA

It evolved in a couple of ways, I was curious with the med kit, tried it out, and loved my extra sustain. Upon further testing, I noticed that no “on healing” trait procced anytime with the medkit (despite wiki saying otherwise), and “on healing skills” are common throughout my build, so I tried out Tools. Tool belt skills are mostly very strong, so decreasing their cooldowns dramatically can have some pretty profound impacts in battle. Unfortunately this does restrict your aoe healing in pretty serious ways, but more aware pvp teammates will be picking up the loads of med kits you’re laying down. Double dropping a set of med packs or a double bandage heal after dodging an attack are massive.

The backpack regen, shorter tool kit CDs and constant stream of healing from med kit give you some crazy sustain, manages to pack a little more damage if you choose to, with no loss to cc. The tool belt skills are all pretty solid and enhancements to those go a long way.

What’s next?
I’ve been using Runes of Melandru since condi pressure and CC are some of the weaknesses to this build, and this counters both reasonably well. I might go back to durability now or consider something else.

I might try some sigils now that I am much more reliant on kits, and have some reliable weapon swaps. However the decent crit-rate still means that on crit stuff is reasonably effective, but I’ll mull over what else I might want. Any suggestions on either are appreciated.

Gliding is really wonky on sabetha and I don’t know why. When being launched on the way over, do NOT open your glider or you will often get stunned in mid-air, and float slowly to your death. Well, at least the fix here is easy- don’t open it while being launched to the platform.

Unfortunately I run into different issues on the way back. Often I’ll press and hold glide and it just won’t open for a second, causing me to fall to my death. I’ve seen this in a few parts of the game and it’s unlikely my net as it’s usually around 100ms. Does anyone know what could be causing my glider to not open?

It’s awkward because of how chill operates differently from other damaging conditions. I would have preferred something like applies a few poison or torment stacks when a target gets chilled, to make it play nice with other damage condis, and provide some potential interesting synergy.

Yeah, opening this up to more transfers exacerbates the problem of dead maps, as was noted. I was kind of upset they fixed the opening of hero point chests in other maps awarded you that maps currency, but I think it’s fair, and serves the point that Anet wants people to play the maps themselves. The converter seems mostly fair. If you’re diligent about converting you can amass a fair amount of currency easily. Though the 25 → 10 conversion rate is pretty icky, given the daily limitation.

I’m excited for some improvements to death shroud. That could go a long way towards build diversity because currently in PvP the RS3 is just too good to pass up. I think a buff to DS2 or giving DS3 some additional interesting effects could go a long way.

Ulion.5476:

Not sure if they will change diamond skin to give us resistance. That would be interesting but it would be like the current diamond skin. Only more effective since you can easily get back upto 90% hp for another pulse of resistance. The change to diamond skin is more of a counter to the current bunker meta. Reduce the effect of some of the bunker meta builds. The change will make diamond skin more effect for none bunker builds.

I mean, it would be a lot different since as soon as you dipped under 90% you would start ticking a ton of damage, or be very debilitated by conditions like chill or immob, and is also more easily countered by boon removal. Either way, I just think it’s weird to put more condi removal when you have 1 line so dedicated to it anyway. But I guess other classes have condi removal spread throughout multiple lines, like necro.

I thought it would have been a more interesting change to have it pulse resistance while above 90% health, extra condi removal is fine I guess but just seems a little more bland, especially since it’s already such a big point for water already. Doesn’t really fit with earth.

In my experience, condi is what’s more desirable. Ranged DPS often has a role, and epidemic is very powerful and unique utility. For melee power builds, it’s job can usually be better fulfilled by other classes that provide some more utility like heralds.

That said, blood magic provides a lot of unique raid utility no matter what build you are.

Celestial has more than 30% more stats overall in pvp and pve (https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3ayha0/new_celestial_stat_ratios/ ) than normal 3 stat items, so if you can make moderate use of all of them, which is pretty easy in PvP for a lot of classes, you just get more stuff. In PvE however you get less offensive stats than the berserkers/viper’s alternatives, where typically damage output is a #1 priority, unlike PvP where surviving is also relevant.

I imagine celestial is pretty good in WvW too, but I don’t WvW really, so I’m not an authority by any extent.

Some others in my guild have said that it definitely is the necro minions causing issues, so you’re right, probably. That said, NPCs shouldn’t even be considered in this instance, but I guess it’s complicated by the cannons being out of flak shot range (say if all 10 went up to a platform). Still, in that case she should just cancel/fire the ability wherever.

Been getting some fun footage as this build solo ranked pvp- but I’m still emerald.

Rapid mid decap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PhVKr9_JAM

2v3 turns into a near full enemy team wipe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVd29bxzrSY

Yes, for the most part. Outside of raids through I would probably add dagger/warhorn into my offset, for some on demand cleaves. (Force/Geomancy Sigils) Viper’s is still pretty good power armor, so your dagger autos aren’t too shabby, and will certainly do more damage to a mob that’s about to die than applying some more 30 second bleeds. It’s good for fractals. You might also consider spite instead of blood magic for something like HOT areas, since you won’t have as reliable sources for might or vuln solo.

Additionally, I’ve finally been getting some quality footage of condi in action:
Vale Guardian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO47XbyCWLA
Gorseval (low quality recording): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5dSoO4wT1U
Sabetha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DVM_v5KYGM

Far from perfect across the board, but I think a reasonable showcase of what condi is capable of in the current encounters.

This is the build I use, and it’s excellent: http://sickestguild.com/forum/m/31644179/viewthread/25151391-spirit-vale-condition-reaper-guide

I make a couple tweaks, I drop the focus entirely, and instead put my scepter in one weapon set, and dagger offhand in the other. That way whenever I “swap” weapons I proc my sigil(s). I use the blood magic variant with sigil of energy instead of geomancy, though that is a strong choice as well. I also take consume conditions in case something gets messed up with my combo and as a reliable short CD heal. Though I should probably use blood fiend for more damage and healing over time.

I run with Lich Form for the entire raid, as well.

Usually spectral grasp for VG (pretty flexible though, based on group needs) , then epidemic for Gors and Sabetha.

What do you mean? Like the mine cart? Those have been there as long as I can remember, and don’t do a heck of a whole lot vs sustained launches.

I was trying Magi’s Decap Scrapper last night and it was actually surprisingly effective with some practice. The boon stripping provided by Throw Mine and it’s Tool Belt actually gives you some moderate boon stripping capabilities, and super speed + rifle 5 make you an excellent roamer.

Here’s my build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBdZhdeBuoCsehlKji+tj77WcZCgwL86KmuC-TJBGABA8AAS7CA8cZA03fAA

I basically just modified marauder scrapper pvp, slapped magi’s on it, since I’m taking the stim pack trait, I figured i may as well use all the precision + fury and took on crit sigils for extra survivability since I’m basically always AAing with rifle.

Basically I knock people around and snare in mid fights, or if there’s too many bunkers mid just shoot over to far to quickly decap and pressure. In solo queue, I’ve needed to go mid instead of making any risky far gambits since I’m still able to be dropped by 2 people who are persistent enough.

The amount of healing you put out via healing turret and med packs from traits and supply crate actually mean you are a fairly potent force for healing in teamfights, and constantly disabling people in AOE isn’t too shabby either.

The boon strip from mines is great stuff. Moderate condi pressure isn’t a huge deal, lots of procs to remove condis, but definitely an issue at heavy pressure.

Throughout GW decap engi has always been somewhat mediocre, but after facerolling a bunch of matches with bunker ele/mes, I’m trying to find the best ways to beat them, and a decap engi seems like a promising thought. It seems like there is a lack of stability in these bunker builds and that vulnerability to CC is a shortcoming of the popular bunker builds. Since they rely on being able to contest points endlessly, perhaps reliably knocking them off could be a key while still being tanky enough to take some punishment.

I might try some builds tonight, but I don’t expect much success. Any ideas or thoughts on if you think this would work or not, I would love to hear. Decap engi was one of the first builds I tried in PvP and so it holds a special place for me.

Build updated 1/15:
Med Kit/Tools variant:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBdZhlcBuoCsehlKjK86KmuScZCgwjutj77G-TJBJABddBAGuMAAPAAu3fAA

Healing Turret/Inventions variant:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBdZhlcBuoCsehlKjK86KmuScZCgwjutj77G-TJBJABddBAGuMAAPAAu3fAA

Clips:
Rapid mid decap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PhVKr9_JAM

2v3 turns into a near full enemy team wipe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVd29bxzrSY

Knocking a guy around a bunch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZBZc_MnFXA

I’m trying to work on a bunker buster build to try and have a chance in the meta. All the things you need to properly counter ele and mesmers leave you spread pretty thin, but with the help of someone else moderately offensive I think it could work, with enough boon stripping and cc (condi pressure for mesmers is probably required too). Poison application would be good, but it’s really hard to make that stick in any meaningful way vs an ele. that hems in a lot of the build already.

Otherwise I’ve been wondering if maybe decap engi can find a spot in bunker meta these days. Don’t need to bust the bunkers as much as just move them off the point.

Rednik.3809:

NiisanSora.6289:

Hello! As someone who has played fractals for a very long time, I’m not a big fan of groups solely doing Swamp to get the daily runs, as it detracts from running others fractals, save for the Molten Boss fractal. While I don’t have a problem with people who only do the recommended fractals followed by swamp runs, it makes it harder for those of us that want to play more diverse fractals from getting groups. My recommendation would be that the daily fractals change to completing three different types of fractals within the particular level (1-20, 21-50 etc.). That way it would encourage people not to repeat fractals for dailies (as the dailies currently guard against) and to do different fractals. Sure, I understand people will still want to do the three easiest fractals, but it’s still more diverse than doing swamp repeatedly. Thanks for reading!

P.S. Some smaller changes I would champion for would be for a separate 50-75,76-100 daily, fractals counting towards daily completion (as wvw and pvp do), and a title for completing the Master fractals achievement (completing every fractal from 75-100).

Universal rule of game development #21: “Pls force them to play how I want them to play!” never works.

Players, especially in MMOs will go towards the path of least resistance. That doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable for them or well designed, either.

Your rule #21 is too broad to make sense. Anet “forces” players not to exploit because it’s damaging to the game. I know what you’re trying to say but I don’t think it’s reasonably to apply here. They have 20 some dungeons and there’s even less variety played than before FOTM updates, which I think their goal was to stop people rolling for specific fractals. They need to look at it again.

I think the 1-20, 21-50, and 51-100 should be a selection of ~5 fractals to choose from, that you need to complete 3 of to pass the daily. That way it’s not too rigid if you get a BS instability + fractal combo, but actually presents different challenges daily, like it seems like fractals were meant to be.

There are several easy ways to prevent people from playing the same exact fractal difficulties every time. Dailies should instead of being for example, 21-50, a semi-random sampling of maybe 5 from that range, and you need to complete 3 of them to get credit.

Also I hope you guys rethink your instabilities again, seems like they were kind of downgraded with the upodate.

Recorded a pretty good example tonight, in the 75-50% phase it was hitting all melee and seemingly random targets, it worked normally by the time she comes back in 50% (this isn’t always the case).

Fight starts 1:00 in, Flak Shot gets messed up around 3:20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBf128dE14U

Also in a separate bug you can see how if you try to glide from the launch, it sometimes freezes you in place at the end of the video.

I went in with our Oceanic raid group last night/morning and it started off well, but connection and lag issues were constantly plaguing them, I felt so bad for them

But there are no Oceanic servers, they’re just SOL. What are those people supposed to do, Pope? Anet doesn’t support their region.

I have a recording from sunday night (not my POV):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRpSBSumTeM

You can see me standing on the edge for most of the final phase, yet not a single flak shot goes my way, instead messing up our melee pretty badly. During the rest of the fight the source of bad flak usually comes from players returning from cannon duty, it seems there is a little delay between her picking a target for flak and actually firing it, but that’s fine. In the last phase she just seems to pick whoever.

I just assumed it was a fight mechanic to add chaos to the final phase. Akin to VG’s blue AoEs that it puts on targets further away in the 33-0% phase.

Thanks for the responses guys! I’ll probably still gear both reasonably (as I’m nearly done) but I think I’ll just do Druid in the short run just so people don’t complain when we need heals about my choice of class. Once I get some practice healing I’d probably try tempest and compare with a better frame of reference.

I’m sitting on a set of zealots insignias and monk runes that I haven’t committed to anyone yet. Both look interesting, and I think they will both have encounters where they’re needed. I’d probably argue that Ele is a strong choice for sabetha, though I haven’t seen it.

Vampiric Aura is also a DPS increase, as well as sustain!

We had the same thing happening below 50% sunday. No idea why. 25-0% was particularly bad, I was on napalm duty and standing right about on the edge of the metal/wood, and she was ignoring me with basically all of the napalm. Earlier in the fight it was working fine. I was running blood magic, not death.

Also worth noting that I was getting the majority of our green bombs as well, it was very consistent.

I’d like to think I’m the same way. I show up and do my thing. Being a reliable ranged dps means you’re flexible and can fill in gaps in comp (Lightning, CC a spirit, cannon/napalm duty). Melee dps is a liability in any MMO raid, and GW2 is no exception.

I’ve seen some decent video footage of Tempest heals on VG, but I’m wondering what your guys experience has been healing as tempest, as I’m curious about what kind of healer to gear up. It seems like everyone wants druid, and it’s a lot of fun, but ele seems far more reliable at keeping people topped off pretty effortlessly. However it seems like druids are able to offer more than tempests can in regards to group support. The auras are nice, but only in preventing damage and might stacking. What else does ele bring to the table as a dedicated healer, more DPS? What builds do you recommend, and what has your experience been as a healer?

Staff on VG:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ozwUAZDLeA

Auramancer on VG:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2xJZHT8NGY

Can’t find any footage on Sabetha/Gorseval, link if anyone has, please!
Thanks!

I understand they wanted to reduce incoming gold into the game, but idk why they wanted to actually de-incentivize players from going into dungeons. The new content itself should have its own set of rewards, why scrap the old ones? Why waste reasonably entertaining content?

What they should do to make dungeons worth doing (and why not?) is:
1)Increase tokens from dungeons
2) More importantly, add some more unique recipes or uses for the Offerings. Perhaps used in some new recipes that combine old mats with new. I think dungeons are fine even if they never get updated again, I don’t see why you guys would actively TRY to get people to stop playing content. It just makes it awkward.

best part is if they actually did implement recipes that used dungeon tokens, people would kitten about them going back and how impossible it is to get the item because no one runs dungeons.

I think it’s fine and even cool to have niche items in different pieces of content in the game. Monk’s runes fall into this category, currently.

I posted this in general HOT since I don’t plan on using the rune with a scrapper, but figured you guys might be well versed in how it works:

Has anyone done much testing on what is and isn’t affected by rune of the scrapper? First I assume it’s only direct damage, which is fair. But my question is how the effect works, I assume that any source of direct damage, provided that the unit responsible for that damage is within 600 range, will be reduced by 7%?
For example, A guy casts a ground aoe at 900 range that deals 1k a second, and approaches you as it ticks. When he gets within 600 range, does it drop to 930 a second?
Additionally, I’m particularly interested in its applications for raids. Has anyone used these runes on Vale Guardian and confirm if things like the ground AOE in the later phases are reduced by 7%? Or is that a separate source of damage (not VG) so it doesn’t count? Or is my assumptions of how the rune works off entirely?

Has anyone done much testing on what is and isn’t affected by rune of the scrapper? First I assume it’s only direct damage, which is fair. But my question is how the effect works, I assume that any source of direct damage, provided that the unit responsible for that damage is within 600 range, will be reduced by 7%?

For example, A guy casts a ground aoe at 900 range that deals 1k a second, and approaches you as it ticks. When he gets within 600 range, does it drop to 930 a second?

Additionally, I’m particularly interested in its applications for raids. Has anyone used these runes on Vale Guardian and confirm if things like the ground AOE in the later phases are reduced by 7%? Or is that a separate source of damage (not VG) so it doesn’t count?

deSade.9437:

Sabetha begs to diffeeeer…

Oh, I got one last night and it didn’t have viper’s, I didn’t know it came in multiple varieties, shows me for not checking out the vendor!

AFAIK, an ascended viper’s back doesn’t exist in the game, but Trailblazer’s does. You lose a fair bit of power/prec on it but I’m pretty sure as condi necro that’s a fairly small % (but not insignificant, by any stretch) of your overall DPS.

It’s interesting seeing how people respond to raids. I’ve been in raids with less experienced people who are so quick to turn on each other after just 30 minutes of wiping, with a bunch of sighs and raising of voices. I guess if you’re used to steamrolling everything in 1-2 attempts, it’s not too surprising you’ll get antsy after 6+, but still, doesn’t help anything.

Another interesting facet is people aren’t used to dedicated healers, so it’s still kind of a surprise to get heals, instead of the expectation.

If you’re tanking on VG, I always remember that usually its because no one else wants to do it. If they think its so easy, maybe they should do it

I just upped my chronotank’s HP like 10k and threw scrapper runes on him for damage reduction, because I was tired of not being able to stand in ground AOE, which is basically necessary for at least a few seconds (yes you can evade the aoe but they have limitations like rooting your in place or moderate CDs). All my “damage” comes from quickness/alacrity dealt to allies, anyway.

Well, the entire expansion was designed with gliding, not full flight in mind, so no. Also it would likely open the maps up to a lot of areas to break or cause unintended consequences.

Plus, Gliding is what I think all masteries should aspire to be, instead of just arbitrary keys. Gliding is one of the few masteries that gives you enhancements on a way to interact wiht the world overtime, and takes not only the mastery, but skill of using that mastery to succeed. As opposed to other lines where its just “oh you can stand in poison, or talk to this vendor now” that are definitely just XP gates.

harold.3526:

Revenant, PS Berserker for POWER

Engineer for CONDITION

Are other classes viable? yes! exactly as power Ranger was viable before the new trait system, viable but you will be discriminated on LFG.

Harold, a post like this contributes to that kind of discrimination, though I don’t think that’s what you meant.

For vale guard, condi necro is pretty handy as a lightning group candidate. Very little lost DPS, above average tankiness (and can even heal/save lightning group with Transfusion), moderate seeker CC (RS3/RS5, epidemic can spread cc to seekers, or spectral grasp to take seekers off groups).

Certainly a reasonable choice, IMO.

Only 20% to bleeds and chills, really. The scepter one is added to BASE duration, not towards the standard 100% cap (which is actually crazy good).

To get 80% more is a little more difficult. 30% via consumables, and 50% via gear/runes/sigils.

It should be worth noting that duration isn’t necessarily better if the mobs die quickly. It may well be possible that sinisters can still trump vipers in something like fractals trash. But yes, for most PvE calculations you can treat a 10% increase to duration as a 10% increase to condition DPS, since it will almost certainly tick its full duration over an 8 minute fight. :P

It also is worth noting that condi duration improves non-damaging condis, and to remember in PvP that duration may not be helpful if it gets cleansed before it comes into play. Just some considerations when gearing.

Thanks for some official information, glad to get a response. I assumed heals were “smart” in that it would prioritize lower HP targets, but apparently not the case. Seems fairly easy to test, though!

Any confirmation on if range from the center of the cast would be nice too (or if it somehwat randomly selects targets)