Guild Wars 2

Does Anet implement passive effects because they are listening to players that don’t want it? I’m doubtful. Seems pretty certain to me.

One thing to remember is that vipers is also going to extend the duration of your non-damage conditions as well; something necro has quite a few of whether they are good or not.

Probably because what a few players think isn’t relevant to Anet.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Rising Dusk.2408:

This thread is incredible.

ANet said nothing about wanting to remove Berserker’s as a viable gear stat combination. What they wanted to inhibit was having your entire team be Berserker’s and outright ignore mechanics because content was too easy. They wanted to change the paradigm from “finishing content as fast as possible” to “struggle to finish content at all”. Thus, what they did was create content that was hard enough and damaging enough to force a couple players in a group to think about things from a different angle, and thus you get healers. Cleric’s Healers. The very fact that people are arguing about how necessary healers are indicates that ANet succeeded at doing exactly what they wanted to do: diversify the builds and roles that people are using. Ten days ago no one in their right mind brought Healing Power to instanced PvE content.

Yes, introducing the holy trinity into a game heavily sold on the specific lack thereof is definitely a good thing that should be celebrated…/sarcasm

Actually, most of this game is STILL not needing holy trinity and the part that does need it is not for the average player anyways and still requires a huge DPS approach to beat it. You’re sarcasm is fail.

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

There’s no reason whatsoever to tie map meta progression to the real-life clock. There is in fact every reason not to do so.

Tying it to the clock: automatically and irrevocably lose quite a few players. Not tying it to the clock, like Silverwastes: don’t automatically lose players. Because no one will insist it should run by the clock, except perhaps some OCD people.

Tying it to the real life clock is very convenient actually, as it allows me to plan my limited GW2 time around the events that I want to do. I think thats one of the reasons Anet made it that way. It also ensures that maps fill up and enough people are aware when to do the meta, so that we get enough people on the map to actually do it succesfully.

I think it would be a lot more convenient if I could find a map in any and every state of progress I’d want regardless of at what time I log on. Heck, I’d actually play.

It might be, but that’s not how it works so your point is not relevant. That wouldn’t work for meta’s that have long periodicity anyways.

I believe that someone has done the analysis to show that Viper > Sinister for any situation, UNLESS you are already capping your condition duration OR the mobs you fight die before your non-viper duration buffed setup conditions wear out.

For example … Vipers is garbage for something like a Risen Chicken, because you don’t benefit from the extra duration.

Actually, there is some merit to his statement because I don’t get to play alot but I’m very successful in HoT … being casual is not the problem in HoT … being a casual that thinks they are good is though.

See, many of you people think you are good players. For example, you might have adopted meta, blast through dungeons with ice bows in vanilla and facerolled OW content. That doesn’t make you good, it makes you THINK you are good.

Now you don’t have someone telling you how to play the game anymore and you realize you don’t know much about the class you play, beyond some rotation you’ve learned that gives you the highest DPS.

I don’t get the complaining … ANet told us it was a significant increase in challenge … you read that right? GW2 is still an MMO … bring friends. If you want to solo EVERYTHING, then accept the fact you won’t get EVERYTHING done. The claims that you can’t get anything done because of ‘no one around’ are exaggerated.

The real problem is that vanilla GW2 is a little TOO easy. You can scrub through it with whatever crap build autoattack spam you want.

Raziel.4216:

Qugi.2653:

Mo Mo.1947:

If you have a problem with the Mac client, complain to Apple, not to ANet or any other developers, for not being willing to play nicely with everyone else.

Anet say HoT work with Mac client. Sell game to Mac customer and say work, But many say do not and client worse than ever.. Anet should not advertise it work when do not. Bold letter here to make point like you.

Even Anet admit Mac clint is bad.

And for many it works.
Do you have an objective and verifiable source to claim that it doesn’t work for most mac users?

Exactly. So what is the difference between the people who’s Mac works and those who don’t? It’s not the game …

Manasa Devi.7958:

Surely you are just trolling at this point?

No more so than you are; you even admitted to continually complaining about it.

I’m just trying to figure out how thin that knife’s edge is that you separate HoT content implementation from any other scheduled content in the game. Obviously the hairs you like to split are small enough to have convinced yourself that HoT is somehow different AND gamebreaking to you than everything else in this game, though it’s based on the same principles as most other content. Well, I can only say you’re missing out on some fun because of some really thin hairs.

It worth noting … there aren’t alot of farming nodes in HoT. It’s also worth noting that Sprockets have been hovering around 3s plus/minus 25c for a LONG time now … so there isn’t some huge jump in price.

Swift.1930:

Obtena.7952:

Small guilds do small guild things. From the perspective of the game, I don’t really see it making much sense to have a guild hall if you have a 3 person guild in the first place. based on the requirements, I don’t think Anet does either, though I don’t believe anything stops you from trying, which is really the point. You aren’t blocked from getting the mats needed for whatever upgrades you’re after.

I disagree; even a small guild likes to have some place to call theirs. It would be good if Anet added little guild halls for little guilds (and less/smaller services as upgrades). A little, say… guild of thieves could have a smuggler’s den. I’d be content with a nice little hobbit hole. Or a little old-Ascalonian keep, perhaps.

Guild Wars 1 had guild halls of various sizes. I don’t see why Guild Wars 2 shouldn’t!

I’m not sure that the OP is complaining he can’t get a hall. I think he’s complaining about the price to upgrade once he does get it. Furthermore GW1 != GW2.

Small guilds do small guild things. From the perspective of the game, I don’t really see it making much sense to have a guild hall if you have a 3 person guild in the first place. based on the requirements, I don’t think Anet does either, though I don’t believe anything stops you from trying, which is really the point. You aren’t blocked from getting the mats needed for whatever upgrades you’re after.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Obtena.7952:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Obtena.7952:

Oh, and of course, it’s complete, unadulterated nonsense that events and raids are on timers … at least that’s what I’ve been told. l stand corrected.

Nonsense indeed. The last map they released before HoT, Silverwastes, uses a great alternative way to run its meta cycle. I can’t get my head around why they didn’t do the HoT maps in a similar way.

You can’t get your head around it because it’s not different >< … Silverwastes is still on a scheduled timer and so is HoT. If you want to do something specific in SW, like say .. running the Nightmare maze … you STILL need to be in the right place at the right time, JUST like you need to be in the right place at the right time to run ANY other specific events in HoT.

You’re complaint applies the SAME in SW, Dry Top and even the main or chain events in Tyria main as it does in HoT. But of course, somehow to you, it makes sense to QQ about it for HoT only, because then you wouldn’t have anything to ragepost about instead of learning when the events you want to participate in take place.

Seriously? I ask you again: do you even play this game?

Silverwastes is not on the clock. It advances based on the efforts of participating players. That’s why you can “breach hop”. You don’t have to log on at a specific time, you just have to find the right map. In HoT, if you don’t log on at the right time, map hopping won’t help you, you’ll need to wait for the meta-cycle to restart.

Silverwastes is nothing like the HoT mess. Nothing.

You still can’t ‘choose’ to do whatever events you want whenever you want in Silverwastes like you’re QQing you can’t do in HoT so nothing I’ve said changes. Just because you ‘outplayed’ the system to be able to do it doesn’t make that a ‘feature’ of the intended SW game design.

And speaking of which … maphoping … coming from the guy who’s trying to convince everyone he’s not into ‘planning and managing his RL time to a game schedule’. You’re doing EXACTLY that when you’re wasting time jumping between maps to optimizing your map choice to do specific content.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Obtena.7952:

Oh, and of course, it’s complete, unadulterated nonsense that events and raids are on timers … at least that’s what I’ve been told. l stand corrected.

Nonsense indeed. The last map they released before HoT, Silverwastes, uses a great alternative way to run its meta cycle. I can’t get my head around why they didn’t do the HoT maps in a similar way.

You can’t get your head around it because it’s not different >< … Silverwastes is on a scheduled timer just like HoT; the events occur in a sequence. Therefore, you’re complaint about scheduling your life applies the SAME in SW, Dry Top and even the main or chain events in Tyria main as it does in HoT. But of course, somehow to you, it makes sense to QQ about it for HoT only, because then you wouldn’t have anything to ragepost about instead of learning when the events you want to participate in take place. /hardbeingcasual

Just going to sit here and wait for you to explain how scheduled events in HoT is gamebreaking for you but for some reason, it’s the bomb in all the rest of GW2.

Qugi.2653:

Obtena.7952:

Sicarius.4639:

Love some of the comments blaming the user for his broken product.

See, here is a problem … do ALL Mac users have a product that’s broken?

Do not know if all but on forum many Mac player say big problem with Mac client and get worse.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Can-we-please-get-a-working-Mac-Client-Merged/

Yes so … my point is that if it’s not working for a fraction of Mac users (just like only a fraction of PC users were crashing until 64 bit release), then is it really the product that’s broken or the platform it’s being used on? Is the blame REALLY with Anet here? Obviously they want it to work on all machines, so it’s a little ridiculous to blame Anet.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Obtena.7952:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Obtena.7952:

the whole game is structured around raids/events that are on a schedule.

Nonsense. Pure, unadulterated nonsense. Do you even play? I can’t imagine you do after stating such nonsense.

Of course it’s nonsense … all the examples and evidence you have provided in your terse response prove it! I mean, I must be crazy … I must have meant there are no scheduled raids or events. yeah, that’s it … it’s a complete free for all. The timers running on Dulfy for world bosses and all the completely periodic and predictably timed events that happen ingame are just figments of my imagination. /sarcasm

To be fair, the world bosses are only a fraction of the content in core Tyria. The vast majority of content can be done without an eye to any schedule and most map events happen often enough that scheduling is simply not necessary.

And to me fair to me:

1. I’m not going to list all the content that is scheduled; the fact remains that almost every event in the game IS.
2. Most of the map events happen often enough that scheduling is not necessary … in HoT also.

The fact is that Anet makes the scheduled events EXACTLY for the reason that Masani is complaining about … for the benefit of casual players. The fact that he feels he should not need to inform himself of when these things occur or states he can’t do them because of his RL schedule, is disingenuous.

The events are on a 1 hour-ish timer in HoT, and each event lasts, 5 minutes let’s say … so when someone says “OMG, I can NEVER do this HoT content”, they are saying that never in their experience playing HoT, will I be online at that EXACT moment to do that content that i’m specifically targetting to get done. OK … Bull. You don’t even need to schedule, unless of course your playing duration is on the order of the timescale of the events we are talking about. This whole conversation is rather dumb.

Oh, and of course, it’s complete, unadulterated nonsense that events and raids are on timers … at least that’s what I’ve been told. l stand corrected.

Brutaly.6257:

Timston.1976:

It needs minor tweaks not large ones.

True!

1. Make each hit with the hammer chain pulse x second(s) of protection and do aoe damage. That would improve its user friendliness in both pve and pvp. It would also make hammer valid choice for burn builds due to permeathing wrath.
2. Increase range on skill 2, damage is fine. In a perfect world it should be 900 range and ground targeted. The animation is already in the game on the revenant hammer. This would add more mobility.
3. Increase damage on skill 3 so it fits into a damage rotation
4. Increase damage on skill 4 so it fits into a damage rotation and/or make it aoe, hitting three opponents in a cone.
5. Make it possible to move while casting skill 5 and make it a fire field. Warriors use the exact same animation on their hammer so its already in the game. Why not make wards be affected by symbol traits as well.

6. Move glacial heart. This is the most important one in pvp/wvw.

All set to go. No need to overhaul something that in essence is good but suffer from long cd, long casting times and low damage which makes the weapon dull in pve and clunky in pvp/wvw.

Heh, I guess what is minor or major is a pretty subjective thing. Still, many of these suggestions make sense. Hammer users are only punished because most the awesome happens on 3rd chain of auto attack.

Sicarius.4639:

Love some of the comments blaming the user for his broken product.

See, here is a problem … do ALL Mac users have a product that’s broken?

Manasa Devi.7958:

Obtena.7952:

the whole game is structured around raids/events that are on a schedule.

Nonsense. Pure, unadulterated nonsense. Do you even play? I can’t imagine you do after stating such nonsense.

Of course it’s nonsense … all the examples and evidence you have provided in your terse response prove it! I mean, I must be crazy … I must have meant there are no scheduled raids or events. yeah, that’s it … it’s a complete free for all. The timers running on Dulfy for world bosses and all the completely periodic and predictably timed events that happen ingame are just figments of my imagination. /sarcasm

Manasa Devi.7958:

That’s not managing the times I play. That’s just something I do when I log on, whenever that happens to be. When I’m online, I make decisions of course, duh. What I won’t do, ever, is decide to log on at a specific time in order to be able to meet certain content. No game is worth managing my time around it.

You complain about a non-issue all you want; the whole game is structured around raids/events that are on a schedule. Yet it’s only HoT you can’t play because of ‘schedule’… whatever. If anything, having schedules on things you might want to do is exceptionally helpful to a casual player.

The fact is that this game is about as casual as you can get. The few exceptions where it is not does not take away from that.

Manasa Devi.7958:

No, I don’t. Just must be imagining things.

That’s what I was thinking when you said you didn’t manage your time, yet your busy taking the time to find populated maps, etc…

If you’re not planning the time you spend ingame, then finding maps and similar things wouldn’t be something you care about, nor would being at the right place at th eright time to do the things you claim you can’t. Obviously you plan and care enough about your time ingame that you’ve convinced yourself these are things you need to do to play it.

You’re complaint is actually a little nonsensical to me; you can’t do the things in HoT because they are scheduled and take time to complete?I don’t see the problem; there are LOTS of things in vanilla in the game that are on timers as well that are scheduled and take time to complete, yet none of those things you are interested in either or for some reason, THOSE timers don’t bother you, but timers in HoT do? Ok, well, have fun deluding yourself that the timers are preventing your HoT enjoyment.

Silverkey.2078:

Obtena.7952:

Silverkey.2078:

I think they basically look at how many times the build is used in tournaments. Many use the reaper: meta.

I hope that’s not true … success in PVP is not equivalent to PVE success.

Here it was clearly discussion about the PvP meta. The PvE meta has its own section, and is mostly defined by what DnT says as far as I understand…

Clearly? You mean ‘not at all’? I see nothing indicating it’s a PVP-only discussion up the point where you made your post. I still don’t.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I don’t plan the time I spend playing games. I’m not a freak.

Actually, based on the things you mention you do in your previous post, you do plan your gametime.

The first two bugs have prevented me from being able to complete this 3 times now. I hope they get addressed soon. What is worse … there is no way to exit the storymode, not that I have found at least.

Silverkey.2078:

I think they basically look at how many times the build is used in tournaments. Many use the reaper: meta.

I hope that’s not true … success in PVP is not equivalent to PVE success.

Blaine Tog.8304:

Obtena.7952:

I guess it depends what question you’re trying to answer. I won’t deny you can get more condi damage adding another condition and using traits to support it. My big issue is that the build is rather forced into service instead of something that feels more natural. I’ve looked at the ‘reaper condi’ question myself; I concluded something similar to what you’ve demonstrated and speak of. For me, there is too much ‘stuff’ dedicated to a too small part of your damage. Min/maxing, you’re right on the money; squeeze every little bit from whatever you can.

But it’s just the little bit extra that we need — and the cost isn’t very high, either.

For Condi, you really only have a choice between 4 lines: Curses, Spite, Soul Reaping, and Reaper. Blood doesn’t have very much synergy and Death is all defensive. The Scepter has pretty terrible LF generation, so Soul Reaping is kinda necessary to bolster it (plus Soul Reaping is just a good traitline overall and comes with Dhuumfire to boot). Curses is the condi traitline so, tuning issues aside, let’s say it’s a shoe-in for your build.

This leaves you choosing between Spite and Reaper. Spite does give Reaper a run for it’s money: the Might and Vuln are really helpful, plus there’s some spare boon corruption tucked in here and there, but ultimately, I still think Reaper wins out. You still get some Might, but you also get more Life Force as well as the extra damage condition. All in all, I’d eyeball the two as pretty similar in efficacy here.

What really puts Reaper over the top, IMO, are the changes to Death Shroud. 1 cleaves naturally and has a much faster attack speed, making Dhuumfire much easier to apply en masse. 2 gives us the engage/disengage we really need, but the Blind can also proc chill (giving you extra damage). 3 is obviously notable for being our best source of Stability, but it also turns into an AoE double-nuke thanks to the free Chill on Fear. 4 smokes Death Shroud’s 4 for condi builds by a very wide margin, and 5 again helps apply that nice Chill damage.

Also, Chill to the Bone is a really good ult. I don’t find myself using Shouts very much as a Condi Reaper, but Chill to the Bone is a lot of damage, perfect when I don’t need the Flesh Golem to distract people.

Have you actually tried out Condi Reaper?

I’m still figuring out what I would change from my vanilla Necro build to do it. While the damage increase was noticeable for condi reaper (i’ve played almost exactly the build you are in your sig), so was the amount of attention I got from the mobs that I was attacking. For vanilla GW2, not a big deal. For HoT … a very big deal.

My condi necro uses minions, who tend to always take aggro, so Death and Blood worked well together. With Curses, it completes the build.

I guess it depends what question you’re trying to answer. I won’t deny you can get more condi damage adding another condition and using traits to support it. My big issue is that the build is rather forced into service instead of something that feels more natural. I’ve looked at the ‘reaper condi’ question myself; I concluded something similar to what you’ve demonstrated and speak of. For me, there is too much ‘stuff’ dedicated to a too small part of your damage. Min/maxing, you’re right on the money; squeeze every little bit from whatever you can.

AdmiralSnackbar.4859:

Obtena.7952:

Maybe I’m missing something but even if you can chill bomb and get Chill trait DoT … the damage from it is pretty crap. You get more damage from Bleed on Crit. Is chill a serious condi damage build with Reaper? I don’t see it. What are the traits that make this build happen? Reaper all mid and ??

How do you know that exactly? I see damage ticks on chill for somewhere around 800-1200 per second depending on condition damage / buffs. Barbed precision is only 1 stack of 3 seconds of bleed which is quite marginal and there are probably better sigils you can put in a weapon set then sigil of earth.

What part of the reaper traits is giving 800-1200 DPS? You need 2000 Condi damage to achieve 800 DPS with deathly Chill; that’s almost the top of realistically gotten Condi damage. I don’t really know what you need to do to get another 400 damage from Dealthy chill but that’s moot anyways … that damage is pretty sad compared to the level of bleeding a dedicated bleed build can give AND it costs you a whole traitline to get it. In addition, if your not using GS, you’re loading your other traits and skills just to get access to chill.

I’m probably outvoiced here but … for the investment you need, chill damage sucks … but that of course isn’t the point of how chill works in a Reaper build anyways. Reaper is no doubt, better as a power build. As condi build, at best, it’s a mediocre one.

Swift.1930:

Obtena.7952:

Swift.1930:

ezd.6359:

Why do you need to grind xp? You need to finish something exactly at particular date? One week later is not good enough, right? You have other things to do? If they are so important, finish them then return to gw2 and play without grind.

Masteries is just another type of experience. Why nobody complains about leveling in MMO? Why don’t you complain about WvW xp and WvW abilities?

If they will remove masteries and add 80 regular levels instead, you will be more happy?

Most GW2 players/fans came straight from GW1, which was designed around a system that capped leveling at 20. Was very quick to the top. The rest of the game revolved around customizing skills, collecting new skills, and figuring out combinations and strategies to take out foes.

Even though GW2 started with a different focus, it still retained elements of that. But the updates directly preceding and during and after the HoT expansion tore GW2’s customization into shreds (especially for new characters, with the skill circle update).

If you’re not sure why people are complaining about GW2’s development direction, you seriously need to look into GW1 and its playerbase. They are invested in the game’s legacy, setting, and world. We’re not just playing an MMO. We’re playing Guild Wars.

I think people from GW1 need to get a perspective that GW2 isn’t supposed to be GW1 Part 2. It’s just boring on lore; that’s where the comparison should end.

Well, sure, you can have your opinion on whether something is boring or not. But you wouldn’t have GW2 without GW1 preceding it. You could just as easily go play ES:O if you aren’t invested in the Guild Wars series, world, and lore.

Also, there was every indication that GW2 was to be GW1’s sequel; players were given vaults to fill up with GW1 achievements while GW2 was being developed, story was set up with the entire EotN expansion when relations between the Charr, Asura, Norn, humans, etc were established, the destroyers were introduced but not completely defeated, etc, etc. Not exactly sure where you got your information…

I got my information from the fact that GW2 is a stand alone game. It’s not a sequel at all … you don’t need to know or do anything from GW1 to ‘get into’ GW2. People need to get away from the idea that because there are thematic relations between GW1 and 2, that this somehow means that there are also mechanical ones. The comparison end at the lore.

Swift.1930:

ezd.6359:

Why do you need to grind xp? You need to finish something exactly at particular date? One week later is not good enough, right? You have other things to do? If they are so important, finish them then return to gw2 and play without grind.

Masteries is just another type of experience. Why nobody complains about leveling in MMO? Why don’t you complain about WvW xp and WvW abilities?

If they will remove masteries and add 80 regular levels instead, you will be more happy?

Most GW2 players/fans came straight from GW1, which was designed around a system that capped leveling at 20. Was very quick to the top. The rest of the game revolved around customizing skills, collecting new skills, and figuring out combinations and strategies to take out foes.

Even though GW2 started with a different focus, it still retained elements of that. But the updates directly preceding and during and after the HoT expansion tore GW2’s customization into shreds (especially for new characters, with the skill circle update).

If you’re not sure why people are complaining about GW2’s development direction, you seriously need to look into GW1 and its playerbase. They are invested in the game’s legacy, setting, and world. We’re not just playing an MMO. We’re playing Guild Wars.

I think people from GW1 need to get a perspective that GW2 isn’t supposed to be GW1 Part 2. It’s just boring on lore; that’s where the comparison should end.

Piel De Osa.7209:

Well, Obtena, I never said that doing dungeons was the only way to make gold. So your response is just dumb. That wasn’t the only thing they nerfed. Drop rates have gotten worse for SW and DT, as well. Plus, coin drops from monsters has been diminished. TY, Exciton, I will give it a try. But I haven’t had much luck in drops in that area. Everything I have gotten that was good, has been account bound. I’m just looking for a new way to farm. Especially with the way that everything costs more to make.

It’s not dumb at all … your whole post assumes the only way to make gold was from all the things that were nerfed … when most of the things you mention here aren’t even the BEST ways to make gold. See, the problem here is that you only know how to farm gold when some of the best way to make gold is to take the stuff you farm and figure out when to sell it. Have you even looked at TP prices for any of the mats needed for making a guild hall for instance, or any mat for that matter?

Not surprised: The ability of the DH is a wide gap between scrub and pro. It wrecks scrubs, but pros can deal or ignore it. It’s no different than vanilla Guard … if you know what you’re doing, you can avoid telegraphed moves and symbols; our best features. If you don’t, they destroy you. We don’t have a ‘nibble and sustain’ build.

This isn’t something that can really be fixed without a major revisit to the class concept. I’m doubtful as they are starting to build upon that foundation with an elite class and probably a second elite class in conceptual stage.

Here is a new idea … need to fix the bugs that ‘gate’ my ability to finish the part of the story where you fight the dragon.

My big problem with SWTOR is that F2P version cripples you, quite a bit IMO too. IN GW2, you’re simply limited, not crippled.

SWTOR was good and still is, though I do dislike the gear gating needed endgame and how I have been crippled as a F2P. The storyline compared to GW2 … is superior. It’s more mature and interesting so it’s still got that going for it. GW2 is just simple … you can predict exactly where it goes everytime and of course, everything makes you the ultimate hero.

If you had done something OTHER than farming dungeons, you would know the answer to this. Don’t blame the game, blame yourself for thinking that farming dungeon gold was going to last forever and that any other way wasn’t worth the effort.

Short answer: Gold is laying on the ground almost everywhere you go in this game, you just need to pick it up.

Maybe I’m missing something but even if you can chill bomb and get Chill trait DoT … the damage from it is pretty crap. You get more damage from Bleed on Crit. Is chill a serious condi damage build with Reaper? I don’t see it. What are the traits that make this build happen? Reaper all mid and ??

You’re bored already ? I mean … you rushed through the content so fast, how could that even be possible you played enough to get bored in the first place.

I’ve never got an Empyreal shard from a dungeon and I have 2 full sets of Ascended gear.

Knox.8962:

The reason people don’t answer questions like that is because the answer to these sorts of things is almost always “it depends”. …. I don’t do math to push an agenda or force other people to play something that they don’t want.

Yes, I agree with all that. The calculations, which are not accurate because they are dependent on game mechanics are still used to advertise the meta for all PVE content. Maybe that’s not you, but it is other prominent people.

The main question is what value a DPS model has that:

1) gives only the ceiling damage value in non-relevant game situations
2) doesn’t scale downwards correctly to enable profession or build comparisons
3) is HIGHLY dependent on game mechanics not included in the model

Answer: Almost none. A model is used to predict and needs to be validated. The models that are promoting these meta builds don’t do any of that. It’s garbage science.

Knox.8962:

TLDR: Any decent DPS calculator will be able to handle multiple scenarios, but since there are zillions of possible scenarios and you can’t make a video showing off all of them, it is usually most practical to present results for patchwerk style benchmark numbers.

Maybe that’s true but that’s a diversion argument; no one is asking people to show ALL the possible scenarios. If would be nice if people would present even just ONE more RELEVANT scenario though.

For example, there is a dodging impact on melee more significant than on ranged play. Of course, we haven’t seen anyone analyze this because … not meta. Theorycrafters only going to show people the builds they want people to use.

Knox.8962:

Would you also conclude that we can no longer assume that rabbits are smaller than horses? I think most people would be comfortable drawing on overwhelming data for this, but that is a pretty huge rabbit….

Don’t divert away from the game. It’s a simple discussion here. Do the calculations scale to allow people to extrapolate the DPS calc results into achievable DPS ranges to compare between classes. No it doesn’t, because the calculations don’t take into account ANY game mechanics.

That doesn’t change the fact that the calculations don’t scale correctly to allow players to make comparisons between classes.

Knox.8962:

Citronvand.2837:

But that was actually wrong. In one example Revenant had 25k theoretical DPS and Necro had 14k. But when you actually tested it in-game it showed that Revenant’s real DPS was 10k while the Necro’s was 12k.

This is an anecdote. That’s like saying, “My 6 year old is left handed, and he’s 4 feet tall. I’m right handed and I’m just under 6 feet tall. Therefore left handed people must be short”

It’s not an ancedote … it’s an example where the calculations don’t even scale in a way that allow a person to make comparisons of damage BETWEEN classes in the ranges of damage that are actually attainable ingame.; their are lots of others. If the theorycrafters don’t incorporate a way to model more game mechanics, the calculations don’t really do anything other than give you some completely unrealistic damage ceiling for a very specific scenario.

Falanu.4289:

Obtena.7952:

The bottom line is: if you have any capacity to think for yourself, do so and come to your own conclusions; this isn’t rocket science. The math on a spreadsheet only takes you so far. Don’t be a sheep.

This, but the biggie is openly hidden in the if-clause. As long as people think that a 50% chance means that every second try is going to succeed and base their calculations on this mistake, don’t expect too much.

Quote Mark Twain: [i]“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

I would love to see anet make these approaches impossible by making the mobs much more flexible, eg. by changing their classes, making them chase you forever. This would eliminate a huge amount of problems from this game and make achievements desirable again.

Of course, this also means that the crafting system had to be overdone in more than one way.

This is how I see it: based on how inaccurate the current calculations are, leading to bad conclusions, how can the average person do any worse?

Point is that OP’s opinion wasn’t relevant 2 months ago.

I’m not attacking the builds people are proposing; I’m attacking the idea that those builds are advertised by most people pushing meta as the optimal builds for everything when they aren’t. Nike’s fault or the fault of theorycrafters before him? I don’t care to pick fights with people; we know people will just run with whatever they want to believe though. My beef with these calcs are that they are so far from what actually happens ingame they have almost no value in talking about them.

Am I to believe that even in the most ideal speed run, optimized situation, Engi does 17K DPS (or whatever it is now) as I’ve been told in Nike’s vid? OK, show me. I hear Revenant can do 25K DPS? Shouldn’t be that hard to demonstrate that even 80% of that can be achieved or say where it’s relevant .. or are the numbers actually HIGHLY dependent on the situation … so much so that they are rendered absurd or irrelevant for most gameplay? Almost no mechanics of any fight are considered. How can any comparisons of builds or absolute DPS values from any of the calculations where these mechanics aren’t considered be taken seriously?

How much sense does it make for ANYONE choose (or discriminate against) a class for an encounter based on these ridiculous calculations when they are not reflective to what happens in the game? THIS is what happens and it’s just stupid. Stop pushing these general meta builds when they don’t consider the mechanics of the game.

Tiggers.3890:

Enter nemesis’ argument, every fight is different there are different builds that are better at different fights, don’t make overarching comments like “this is better because this does blaaaah damage” when in reality this just isnt true… I dont see what’s there to even argue here… what am I missing? I’m honestly trying to understand the debate

The only thing you’re missing is that some people have an agenda; a group of people want you to play the meta, so they advertise it’s the best way to play, PERIOD. Even if they know it’s not ideal for EVERY situation, they don’t want you to stray from using it, fearing you’re going to learn something they haven’t told you. Sounds Conspiracy theory right? Ask yourself WHY someone who doesn’t know you or shouldn’t care about how you play the game WANTS you to play meta … doesn’t make sense until you realize there is an agenda here.

It’s not FINALLY good, it’s always been that good. People too obsessed with meta to see what it has to offer. If anything can be said for HoT, it’s got people THINKING instead of FOLLOWING.

Tzeh Pesh.9508:

Only having really played Guild Wars, how are damage meters handled in other MMOs?

Can imagine it would open up a whole new can of worms in this discussions depending on if or how damage gained from shared modifiers like boons or debuffs applied by other group members are calculated and who they’re credited to.

I haven’t played the most popular MMO’s with DPS meters but in those games, the thinking tends to be different around DPS because most of those games have trinity (Healer, Tank, DPS) so the expectations to deliver damage are different for classes specific to each role.

Since we don’t have that here, I believe it’s the common expectation that everyone can reach (reasonably) similar levels of DPS. Problem I believe is that though the DPS calculations are not relevant to actual game situation, they are correct by coincidence that SOME professions fall short on DPS, at best only in specific situations, at worst, consistently all the time.

While there is a case for arguing that classes that fall behind in raw DPS bring other things (buffs, debuffs, etc..) and some even buff themselves so their damage increases. Unfortunately, even these ‘non-DPS’ tools aren’t regarded equally; some are self, some are teamwide.

Ultimately, the lack of trinity and intrinsic defenses only lends to exaggerate this because now you get 1) a system where players expect all classes to not only have relatively equal damage, and 2) where more ambitious players are concerned, a situation where players have no reason to not play optimally, i.e., no reason to NOT play the meta, other than exercising their own personal preference.