Guild Wars 2

I hope this doesn’t come off as any offense to people, but people who have killed gorseval after videos and guides were released for it won’t experience the same satisfaction as people who killed it during progression with no shared strats or builds. I think most of the big raiding guilds would agree that their first Gorseval kill was the most hype they felt during the raid.

You don’t need to overfocus on your own self-heals. You have a healer to keep you topped off and with that tankiness on my build you won’t take a ton of damage in the first place.

The only reason to take a warrior tank instead of a guardian or chrono or engie is because the damage potential of condi tank is absolutely insanely better than the others. So if you’re wearing clerics and roleplaying as an unkillable tank thats great but what are you actually doing for your team?

Oxygen.5918:

NikeEU.7690:

My biggest influence was Gorseval. <3

What build do you run on other bosses?

We use condi warrior on Vale Guard as well. Sabetha there are better options in our opinion.

My biggest influence was Gorseval. <3

The best possible tank warrior is condi berserker.

Swapping from Vipers gear to Trailblazers gear costs you like 2-5% DPS. Other tank builds have better support, but no raid tank build will have this much DPS.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAT8fnMdA9ki9dAefA0hgFoA7oJEASZKHhbwQ4t1Wb3tA-TBSFQB7T9HA8EAc3+DLUZgvuIAORp360NkFlgkCAilVA-e

Enjoy!

softblackcarbon.1537:

Condi engi is considered the better class for VG because it is much better at running green circles than the other condi builds.

I consider condi warrior to be light-years better than condi engie at all aspects of VG, especially green circle duty. Unfortunately, you’re right, “common knowledge” does consider condi engie to be better there which is pretty unfortunate for the sake of the community improving.

softblackcarbon.1537:

Condi engi is definitely better for VG though the fight is so easy, it pretty much doesn’t matter.

My experience is condi engie is actually fairly bad in that fight since you spend a lot of time sitting in a green circle where you cant use blow torch or fire bomb on cool down which kills your DPS. Necro’s skills are all ranged and you lose 0 of your potential DPS while you’re far from the boss. I don’t have a DPS meter parse for necro vs engie in that fight but I definitely don’t agree that engie is a blow out winner.

Vale guard especially has a lax enough enrage timer than you can really overload on defense and succeed easily so long as your team can deal with the mechanics.

These sorta discussions come down to reliable and easy vs yolo and fast. If you want to kill these bosses with as much time left on the timer as possible, you’re going to have to run certain type of comp and probably wipe until you get the results to line up. If your goal is smooth runs, you can easily tune for that too.

Last night for example, we tried a comp for sabetha with 5 light armors, no source of Protection and with the plan to keep one cannon up the whole fight. It was pretty yolo and we wiped like 12 times because the margin for error was minimal. After one person had to go to work and we had DC issues we just wanted to get it done for the night, so we went to a safer comp and killed her on the next pull.

So yeah, your comp should reflect the goal of your team. Trying to copy Snow Crows Gorseval no-fly comp for your weekly farm run or god help you your initial progression is going to lead to tons and tons of wipes. A lot like how in old dungeon record runs there were plenty of strats and comps that people used to set records that made zero sense to use in practical daily farms.

Azure.8670:

Warlord.9074:

Oxygen.5918:

NikeEU.7690:

Unfortunately, there are basically 0 encounters in the game where condi engie is better dps in practice than condi warrior. A supremely skilled condi engie is at best equal to an average condi warrior who understands the build. I say this as a main warrior, but its sad that the balance is so off that one of the hardest builds to play well in the game has a lower dps ceiling than one of the easiest, but thats been a GW2 issue since the start really.

That’s so far off your initial assessment of the condi warrior. I wonder what happened.

What? NIKE always said condi warrior was at least equal and stronger on gorse. His calculations were based on engi doing perfect rotations. Perfect rotations on engi ia hard. Good rotations on warrior is easy.

Oxygen had a post over a month ago about how powerful condi warrior is and he was laughed out of the building. Not sure if NIKE or not posted in it as I havent followed the thread recently, but I believe this is what hes referring too

No one laughed him out of the building, at least I didn’t. Basically, he posted an unoptimized build and said “this is good.” People said, “is it?” And he didn’t provide any proof of the build working in practice. That’s basically it: people asked for proof and he gave his usual lazy egotistical response saying no, do it yourself. if you want people to take your theorycraft seriously you have to do something with it.

Luckily for Oxy, I test things and I tested tested condi warrior at Gorseval and it worked really well, above expectations. So I optimized the build more and made a guide and taught the community about it by demonstrating it working insanely well in an organized raid team. Should Oxy have done these things? Probably. especially so if he wants a pat on the back and e-credit for the idea.

As far as me changing my opinion, my opinion originally was: this build is capable of decent damage but its a fairly niche build. against a moving boss with a small hit box its less DPS than a berserker selfish DPS power build. against big hit boxes or stationary bosses, it’s pretty amazing. Also, it only works in team comps where you can afford to bring selfish DPS. Someone else has to contribute might fury etc. So again, very niche. When Oxy originally posted the thread raids weren’t even out and the big niche (gorseval) didn’t exist so my position was that the build has potential but is too niche for most content we had at the time like dungeons or fractals.

When content was created that made the condi-berserker’s niche more mainstream, ofcourse you re-evaluate these things and update your position. As far as some sort of moronic accusation that I “changed my position, what gives?” I hope I adequately explained that. also, when rational people are given new information they change their conclusions. Only an idiot would ignore new data and defend old positions that fly in the face of facts.

tl;dr: as Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

1. Quickness
2. Alacrity
3. Banners
4. Grace of the Land and Frost Spirit and Spotter
5. Assassins Presence

Azure.8670:

NikeEU.7690:

Unfortunately, there are basically 0 encounters in the game where condi engie is better dps in practice than condi warrior. A supremely skilled condi engie is at best equal to an average condi warrior who understands the build. I say this as a main warrior, but its sad that the balance is so off that one of the hardest builds to play well in the game has a lower dps ceiling than one of the easiest, but thats been a GW2 issue since the start really.

I dont fancy myself a master of math, but are you SURE (like 100%) that condi engi isnt stronger?

I can’t account for every possible encounter, but in real world game play condi warrior is stronger for all three raid bosses at least by a big margin.

Junkpile.7439:

NikeEU.7690:

I cannot immediately log in and play in the ESL PvP Pro League. Therefore, I will not be participating in PvP until this flaw is resolved.

ESL pro league and some raids that below average players can complete are almost same thing.

So he has even less to complain about then, doesn’t he?

I cannot immediately log in and play in the ESL PvP Pro League. Therefore, I will not be participating in PvP until this flaw is resolved.

Unfortunately, there are basically 0 encounters in the game where condi engie is better dps in practice than condi warrior. A supremely skilled condi engie is at best equal to an average condi warrior who understands the build. I say this as a main warrior, but its sad that the balance is so off that one of the hardest builds to play well in the game has a lower dps ceiling than one of the easiest, but thats been a GW2 issue since the start really.

I second Terra on this. There is no reason to lose your scholar buff in raids for an extended period of time unless you aren’t paying attention. Hopefully the goal is to pay attention better, position yourself better, and maintain the buff better and DPS harder. Looking for half-measures in gear to cover a weakness is a lot worse than just fixing the weakness IMO.

Lendruil.9061:

Maybe i missunderstood your comment then, but i thought you meant that as a chrono-tank you have to play with shield phantasms.

What I am saying is, if you are not using shield phantasm (huge personal sacrifice) then there is no point in being a chrono tank (another personal sacrifice) and you shouldn’t be playing the role of tank at all.

The reason chrono tank as a concept works is because with 3x Avengers up your DPS is worthless anyway, so you aren’ t losing much of anything by going commanders/knights etc. Once you start mixing back in DPS phantasms your losses by speccing tanky become a very real consideration and it becomes much smarter to give the tanking role to someone else would surrenders less DPS to do so.

Lendruil.9061:

NikeEU.7690:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Today’s existential question : Chrono with Commander’s or Scrapper tank (Vale/Gorseval)?

Scrapper tank comes down to how much you need/want slick shoes. For Gorseval I think the benefits of slick shoes is pretty great, for Vale Guard not at all.

Chrono tank is an interesting concept. The idea being that since you’re (probably) using shield phantasms your DPS sucks anyway so you might as well build tanky and be the aggro holder. It’s a fair point, however my criticism of the chrono tank concept is that it depends on your team comp and squad sub group comp. A group with an engie and 2 warriors? alacrity away! A group with 3 heralds and a power Thief? Those Illusionary Avengers aren’t getting you anything. I think people just assume Alacrity = always good and don’t take into consideration that Alacrity does more for some professions than others. You eventually can reach a point where Avengers aren’t worth it and you’re better off with Swordsmen and in that case you’re not better off being tanky. So TL;dr the party comp determines the value ceiling / floor of a chrono tank.

The shieldphantasm only gets created, when you fully cast your shieldblock. If you just interrupt your shieldblock after you successfully blocked the attack you wanted to block, then the avenger won’t get created and your dps phantasms (swordsmen) don’t get overwritten.

Was that in response to something I typed? I was commenting on the fact that Shield phantasms range from awesome to useless depending on your party comp and if they are in fact useless for your team then bringing a chrono tank is wasteful because you aren’t getting value out of that slot. Essentially you’re sacrificing DPS for a utility you might not need. But in the right party comp its a huge gain because alacrity can be OP. And the point about Swordsmen is that if you are using a tanky build and pumping out swordsmen why are you tanky at all?

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Today’s existential question : Chrono with Commander’s or Scrapper tank (Vale/Gorseval)?

Scrapper tank comes down to how much you need/want slick shoes. For Gorseval I think the benefits of slick shoes is pretty great, for Vale Guard not at all.

Chrono tank is an interesting concept. The idea being that since you’re (probably) using shield phantasms your DPS sucks anyway so you might as well build tanky and be the aggro holder. It’s a fair point, however my criticism of the chrono tank concept is that it depends on your team comp and squad sub group comp. A group with an engie and 2 warriors? alacrity away! A group with 3 heralds and a power Thief? Those Illusionary Avengers aren’t getting you anything. I think people just assume Alacrity = always good and don’t take into consideration that Alacrity does more for some professions than others. You eventually can reach a point where Avengers aren’t worth it and you’re better off with Swordsmen and in that case you’re not better off being tanky. So TL;dr the party comp determines the value ceiling / floor of a chrono tank.

Usually, the guy who gets knocked back by every stomp attack, and who “accidentally lags” walks into orb AOE every pull is also using crappy dps rotations and otherwise failing.

Rule of thumb, if a person is failing all the mechanics you can see they are also failing the things you can’t easily see.

Second rule of thumb, the enrage timer for Gorseval isn’t that tight. If you are running into the enrage timer as a genuine problem it has less to do with one or two people having bad DPS rotations and more to do with your party comp having poor buff distribution and also generally poor tactics.

I think condi warrior on vale guard should be using Banner of strength since I heard multiplicative buffs to the rest of your team is better than an extra CC you don’t need.

Purple Miku.7032:

In this case, the raid testers are really only there to help make sure everything works properly. As far as the actual mechanics of the fights are concerned, the testers wouldn’t even have anything to test yet if the content to be tested wasn’t already prepared in its final stages of last minute prep before release on the live version of the game.

That said, your post has good intentions it’s just I felt the need to shed some light on this for you :S

This isn’t actually true. I wouldn’t be allowed to cite specifics but you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that the devs take feedback extremely seriously, even about the basic fight mechanics that are already in place.

Lilith.2541:

NikeEU.7690:

Jellytot.9816:

I can bet there are many skilled pvers that cannot get into raids simply cause of the stats of their gear

Name two. 15 characters.

I was having so much fun with me viper warrior, I can do lvl 100 fractal but no one wants a viper warrior in raid so I changed to zerker :<

Oh I dunno about that. If you go to my youtube and watch our Gorseval kill I think the community is going to come around to Viper Warrior pretty quickly. =)

https://youtu.be/QdthSNbkaJU

Sentinel.5731:

The next Raid might include a huge AOE dps field that you must be able to facetank for a set period of time while doing mechanics instead of direct damage… at which point zerker is completely useless. That is easy enough to design, I have faith in Anet

Is that a fun mechanic? Is it skill testing? Is it good? I’m not convinced whatsoever on any of those points. However, I do agree with you that it is indeed easy enough to design.

Jellytot.9816:

I can bet there are many skilled pvers that cannot get into raids simply cause of the stats of their gear

Name two. 15 characters.

A lot of complaining about the trivial Vale Guardian enrage timer. Once you guy to Gorseval you’ll really have something to complain about.

Eirdyne.9843:

- Enrage mechanic presupposes everyone is not just already in Ascended Gear

I think once you play with a good group and you guys learn the fight better you’ll find that its more than possible to kill the boss in full exotics with minutes left on the enrage timer.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Easier said than done, if we focus to much on the enraged spirits when they spawn, the rage timer will tick down to 0 making him unbeatable.

The same issue keeps coming up. I could do X to help beat Y, but we lose the DPS/condi we need.

It is definitely easier said than done, which is why the fight is absolutely brutal and beautiful.

The push – pull of having to give up DPS to deal with mechanics and not having enough dps to beat the enrage is what makes raids compelling content. Keep doing pulls and you’ll get better and better.

There is an achievement for killing him without any enraged spirit stacks. That should be your goal every pull.

Gorseval is really really challenging and in my opinion will remain unpuggable until the game gets significantly more power creep. But people should refrain from complaining about the tuning until they understand the fight.

Why can’t you still run dungeons? If you just do the fast, efficient paths the gold per hour is still very respectable.

Thief got a pretty nice boost to overall DPS regardless of which weapon you use. Unfortunately, almost every other class got a boost that was almost twice as much as what the Thief got.

Mallis.4295:

If you say you’re doing math please present the math because it’s pretty obvious that it’s being done wrong.

If you have an example, please share it.

JPUlisses.8756:

I think problem is not who would play thief.

But what raid group that wants to win, would let you play thief.

Or rather, what group would not be only Guardian/Ele/Mesmer + “Tanks” + “Healers” which are in those 3 as well.

If raids are all about synergy why would you take any other class other than those 3? Maybe warrior for tank and ranger for heal, but very specific jobs for specific fights, the core will always be those 3, mostly guardian/ele, mesmer is just there for the niche.

You’re absolutely right. Nobody will bring warriors or revenants to raids.

News flash: DPS checks are also defense checks. If you have to go full glass to beat an enrage timer what do you suppose that means for your defenses and support? They will be a lot less. it will then be a lot harder to survive and do the DPS. You’ll wipe more. You won’t kill the boss until you get good.

By making the DPS requirement for a boss higher, they can indirectly make the SUPPORT and DEFENSE requirement for a boss harder too.

edit: spoj beat me to it.

SirMoogie.9263:

EcoRI.9273:

Engie is like the iPhone 6s and Thief is like the iPhone 5. When both cost the same, which would you choose?

People aren’t products.

You wouldn’t last a minute at the Republican debate with that kind of anti-business attitude.

Chrono does low DPS? What?

If you’re going into raids looking for it to be your primary gold farm you should just get rid of that thought now before you set yourself up for disappointment. The reasons to raid are…

1. Fun/challenge
2. Prestige unique items
3. progression
.
.
.
9378. Gold farm

Seriously, if you cry about the raw gold rewards go farm silverwastes.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Have the Guild Testing Raid teams already managed to force some changes to encounters already based on their feedback? Or nothing was changed so far?

I believe the question is ambiguous enough not to break the NDA.

Basically the question is: was the testers feedback already had changes in the content? Im not even asking which, since that is impossible to say.

The problem isnt that the question isnt vague enough, the problem is that guild testers aren’t allowed to identify themselves as such to answer it.

My god. You mean they are introducing bosses that require you to…

1. Play good builds.
2. Know the mechanics.
3. Coordinate with your teammates.

???

SAY IT AINT SO THE GAME IS RUINED!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL “what if we have a DC”

The answer to that question is: you wipe.

A herald camping glint to make might and using strength runes makes less dps than a greatsword warrior. Which raises the question why not just use two warriors if that is your plan?

Weird I ran dungeons last night.

Pugs won’t be able to kill even the first boss for a very, very long time. I wouldn’t concerned about it.

Wow the forum ate my huge long post. I’m not retyping that. Anyway, I’ll do the TLDR version.

In PVE warrior is not a low skill cap class anymore. Thats an outdated stereotype. To achieve great DPS a warrior needs to manage berserk, stick and move, and berserkers power while simultaneously having a good DPS rotation and not dying. The gap between a guy who just installed the game 3 weeks ago and copied the meta build and a pro warrior who manages all the conditional buffs is greater than 50%. A good warrior in an organized group with full buffs using the meta build could make 15k dps easily. A bad warrior who doesn’t manage his buffs properly will struggle to make 10k. I’d say that’s a good indication that there is a raised skill cap and there is a big reward for getting there, which is very good for the class.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

How many people will really enjoy the attempt, wipe, repeat cycle on content they have already completed successfully ?

My comment above about raiding more to help a guildie is true. However, its a two way street. Spending an extra evening helping 3 guildies get their reward is awesome and should be done. Spending an extra evening wiping over and over again because one guy just isn’t getting the job done isn’t fair to everyone either. If the guy understands the mistakes he is making and improves with each pull, then it’s working and you ought to stick with him. If he makes no progress and makes excuse after excuse, wipe after wipe he isn’t trying to learn and you shouldn’t be under an obligation to carry him.

Even if people get their weekly rewards, they can always raid a second night on an alt to get more practice in a different role. Anyone so selfish that they won’t raid a second night per week to help guildies get it done is probably not worth raiding with in the first place.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I suspect you’re either grossly overestimating elementalist DPS, underestimating Revenant DPS, or you’ve found some secret Tempest build that I don’t know about that deals like twice as much as the old staff ele build.

Tempest is a lot better than the old staff ele.

assassin.7895:

Has anyone calculated the DPS of staff thief?

Staff thief and D/D are so close in terms of DPS that its within the margin of player error.

Breakbars and skills do not function with these % numbers you guys are applying. Break bars are made of up units and each skill removes a certain amount of units. Some boss (due to design or due to scaling) have breakbars with more or less units. A particular skill will not remove a %, it will just remove a fixed amount of breakbar units which can either be a huge chunk or a small amount depending how many units make up the breakbar. that said, the balance of how many units each skill removes isn’t very good or intuitive though launches and knockbacks seem to remove the most.